64. Tackling Digital Clutter and Leaving a Legacy For Your Kids with Nichole Healy

Does digital clutter drive you bananas? Nicole's company, Mae, has you covered! If curating your photos and keeping them organized is a pain point for you, you're going to want to hear this episode and start cleaning up your digital legacy for your kids. Let's dive in!

Learn more about Mae HERE.

Follow along on Instagram @maememorymanager

Key Takeaways for Families:

• Digital clutter is overwhelming: Many families struggle with managing the sheer volume of digital photos, leading to stress and difficulty accessing cherished memories.
• Centralization is key: Gathering all family photos from various sources (phones, computers, etc.) into one central location is the first step to effective organization.
• Organization ensures accessibility, protection, and preservation: Organized photos are easier to find, share, and protect from loss, allowing families to connect through shared experiences.
• Curating photos creates a lasting digital legacy: Intentionally selecting the best photos helps preserve family stories and values for future generations.
• Physical and digital formats complement each other: Combining curated digital collections with physical products like photo books creates a more meaningful and tangible experience.
• Mae simplifies photo management: Mae uses AI to analyze photos, identify the best ones based on criteria like faces, clarity, and composition, and help users curate collections effortlessly.
• Quality over quantity: Focusing on curating the best photos rather than keeping every single one reduces overwhelm and creates a more impactful collection.
• Start small and take it in chunks: Don't feel pressured to organize everything at once. Start with a specific year or event and gradually work through your collection.

Start your KindSchooling journey today. Head to www.teamkindhumans.com or follow me on Instagram @teamkindhumans!

Transcript

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Katie: Hey friends, welcome back to the Raising Kind Humans podcast. I'm your host Katie Doughty, and if you're anything like me, digital clutter drives you bananas. I don't know if you are similar and have a ton of photos on your phone and then you try to create photo books but then you put it off because it's a lot of work and so then when you actually do it, it takes hours and hours and hours to curate the photos that you want to put in the book.

Guess what? The guest today is going to Change your world. And I'm very excited for you to hear from Nicole Healy. She is a professional photo organizer, and she has an amazing new company invention product that is going to change the way you view your photos. Um, [00:01:00] and she's here to help us in our journey of curating pictures to leave to our children, because sometimes I think about the.

Absolute mess that the digital files hold for my kids to inherit. And, uh, this conversation cannot be missed. You will thank me later. Um, Nicole has a lot of really good information to share on steps that you can take right now and learn about this amazing technology that is here to help you on your journey of, um, curating the best photos so that you're not overwhelmed.

I know for me, sometimes it just feels like that, um, big old box of photos that's underneath your parent's bed that you're like, what am I supposed to do with this? I don't want to leave that to my kids. And so being able to curate photos into meaningful albums and then actually do something with those photos is really important to me and I think it's really important to a lot of people.

So. I know that you're going to love this conversation. Um, I [00:02:00] also wanted to remind you to come check out the TeamKind Collective because we are having a ton of fun getting to know the theme of space this month. And I just got to interview author Suzanne Slade. She wrote the book, A Computer Called Catherine, which is our featured book and our featured kind human this month.

Um, on the super kind kids podcast. So your kids can tune in and hear directly from her and learn about Catherine Johnson and how she, how she helped put a man on the moon using math, which is incredible. And then we are also, um, working on some community service projects and learning more about space. Uh, the collective is just five bucks a month, uh, less than a cup of coffee.

I will send you the entire Kind Schooling Guide and every month we will start a new project. And I promise This is not adding more to your plate. It's taking the things that you're already doing with your kids and just squeezing in a little kindness, inserting a little community [00:03:00] service that feels natural and not forced.

Um, and your kids will love it. So come join us, check it out at teamkindhumans. com. I'd love to have you on board. Anyways, I'm so thrilled that you get to hear this conversation. So without further ado, please welcome Nicole.

Hello, Nicole. Welcome to the Raising Kind Humans podcast. I'm so excited to dive into photo management with you. So 

Nichole: welcome. Thank you so much for having me, Katie. I'm really happy to be here. I'm excited to have this conversation with you. It'll be fun. 

Katie: Yeah, you have a unique job and it's a job I didn't really know existed.

So can you give us a background on exactly what does it mean to be A professional photo organizer, and how did you get there? 

Nichole: Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, you're not alone. Most people don't know that, you know, photo managers or certified professional photo organizers [00:04:00] even exist. So, um, yeah, you're not alone. Don't worry.

Most people are like, oh, wait. That is a thing. And I'm like, yes, it is a thing. Um, so this, it really started because I was super frustrated and overwhelmed by all of our photos. Um, my kids at the time were, you know, like around like three and five, I think. And my five year old was asking to see photos of himself when he was a baby.

And I, you know, I had to like scroll, you know, I had to like find it. And then, you know, at this point in time, they were somewhere else. They weren't exactly on my phone. And then I had to go find them. And then I got really nervous and I'm like, Oh no, did I lose them? Where are they? You know, it's just like this super frustrating, overwhelming.

Um, time where I was like, okay, I got to get this together. Um, and I had good intentions. Like I was the type of person, um, you know, [00:05:00] growing up I would, you know, I'm going to date myself a little bit here, but you know, we would print the photos and then I would put them into scrapbooks and I would save movie tickets.

And, you know, I was very sentimental, just. young person. Um, and then, you know, as time went on, we, photos became more digital or became digital and I kind of, um, lost that habit and it just wasn't happening anymore. And so when I had kids, I definitely had intentions of, you know, creating baby books and like doing all the things.

But as we all know, we get really, really busy and these things go to the bottom of our massive to do list and it just doesn't happen. And it's not like We don't want to prioritize them. It's just, um, it's just difficult to do it. And because now photos are digital, we're taking more and more and more and [00:06:00] they become more and more and more overwhelming.

So I said to myself, um, you know, I'm going to get a handle on on all of this. And I started doing some research and I started talking to, um, my friends, my mom friends, and they were feeling the same pain point and they're like, why is this so hard? And I'm like, I don't know, but I'm going to find out. And so I just dove in and I came across the photo managers, which is a professional organization that supports individuals and businesses and managing their, um, their own or their clients photos collections.

And, you know, they provide training and tools and resources for certified photo managers like me. And, um, I just found out, you know, like, okay, how do I become certified? What does this look like? And I started just taking in all of the information. And I also [00:07:00] thought to myself, there's just got to be a better way.

There has got to be a better way. So I just took a deep dive. And so I started working with clients one on one, um, specifically families, a lot of moms, right? I do have some dad clients, but mainly this job seems to fall to the mom in the family. Um, but not all the time. And what I would specifically do is, you know, take their digital collections and help them organize it and then get them into high end photo books is what I 

Katie: did.

Amazing. And that was through the photo managers, which is an actual company. Correct. It's a, 

Nichole: it's a professional organization. That's right. Yeah. 

Katie: I bet that has to feel so good because I feel like digital clutter sticks in my brain. And it feels like, honestly, it feels like that big tub of photos that's under your [00:08:00] parents bed.

Like you pull it out and you're like, I can't find what I'm looking for. Why do I have seven duplicates of the same photo? Do I need to keep all these? And then you have the guilt of like deleting photos. So how do you walk a client through that process? Like, what does that look like? If I come to you and I'm like, help, what do you do for me?

Nichole: Well, I mean, the very first thing that we do is we centralize. We centralize all of your photos and we really look at the fan. I like to look at the family unit because one thing that was very. frustrating for me is that I had photos and my husband had photos, right? And so none of it was together. And so you can't really like curate or, um, manage the entire collection if everything is not together.

Right. So I would, um, you know, help you first making sure that, um, you know, we have all of your sources centralized, like that story [00:09:00] that I just told about. The baby photos were somewhere else, and all the other photos of the current time were in another location. We gotta get everything together, and then we gotta come up with a system to, um, to manage all of that so that going forward, that is just automatically happening.

Katie: Yeah. 

Nichole: Yeah. How long does that take? Um, it depends on the person, um, and the, the photo collection. Um, it's wildly different. There are some people who have, you know, hundreds of thousands of photos. Um, there are some people that have tens of thousands and there's some people that have like Hundreds, but that's very rare.

It's more in that mid range of tens of thousands. It's usually a lot of people when they're describing the number of photos that they have, it's, I have 50, 000 photos, which is, you know, pretty much right. 

Katie: And so overwhelming. [00:10:00] Very 

Nichole: overwhelming. 

Katie: So how do you then help? Okay, they're all in the same place.

They're all, you can find all the photos that you need. What do you tell your clients from there? 

Nichole: Yeah, so what we're gonna do is we're going to um, you know, organize. We're gonna have a, um, your own see, best practices say that you need to have, um, your own copy and then you need to um, back up that copy to the cloud, right?

Okay. So what I would do is I would, um, you know, we have software tools that we use, and we would basically get rid of all the duplicates if they're there, um, make sure that, um, all of the metadata is intact, because when you remove photos from different locations, um, you don't want to remove the metadata, it's very, very important to hang on to it, um, because that's how you're gonna organize it, right?

Um, and then we'll organize by year and month, and, um, and then any I like to, look, [00:11:00] organizers are different, right? Some have things that they like to do. What I like to do is like for big events. So if you go on a vacation or, um, usually it's a vacation or a trip or a wedding or something like that, that will have its own folder.

Right. And then, um, everything else like your everyday life is, you know, organized and by year and by month. 

Katie: Yeah. Okay, so why is this important to do? Why should we keep our photos organized and not just leave them in the bin under the bed, so to speak? 

Nichole: Well, organize, organization is truly essential because it ensures that our memories are easily accessible, protected, and preserved, right?

It's three very, very important things. So without it, it can all become super overwhelming. There's that word again, overwhelming. It [00:12:00] just simply is. Um, They are memories can become scattered. That's that, you know, centralizing problem that we're talking about, um, or even lost. Um, that's that panic moment that I had when I was like, Oh, where are the baby photos?

I thought they were here, but maybe they're here, right? Um, Organization provides clarity. It simplifies your family's storytelling, and it allows families to connect through shared experiences. If you're not, um, you know, if your photos aren't accessible, easily accessible, you're less likely to sit down with your kids and you know, reminisce and have those conversations and, you know, talk about those memories.

And, and I, I think that's what my son, when he was asking to see photos of himself as a baby, like he wants to understand, like, where did I come from? What did I look like? [00:13:00] Like where, where, you know, all of that. And those are really important questions and. Um, and I think also it's important to think about creating a lasting digital legacy or leaving behind a digital footprint that future generations will really thank you for.

Katie: Yes, absolutely. That is definitely something on my mind as I, you know, create and cultivate these memories or preserve these memories of my kids. And, and now like when we were kids. Again, dating myself, the camera would come out for like a birthday party or, you know, a wedding or whatever. And now we just have thousands of pictures of our kids everyday lives, which is overwhelming in itself, but also really cool that we get to document that.

Yeah. But now we're on this whole other path of what do I do with all of this? And also, what are my kids going to do with all this? Because they're the ones that are going to inherit it in the future. [00:14:00] And so, okay, say I've got all my photos organized. I've kind of curated them into months and years, and they're all digitally.

Done. What do you recommend from there? Do you recommend printing them? Do you recommend just photo booking them? Like what's your recommendation for that? 

Nichole: Well, you know, first I just want to talk about the point that you just made about, you know, when we were young, the camera would come out for special occasions, right?

And there was this, there were parameters around your film role, right? You would have 24 or 36, right? And that's all you had. So you knew you had to make that photo count. But to your point, it is really cool that we are basically documenting our lives and our children's lives in ways that we've never have done before, right?

But by [00:15:00] doing that, we also create another problem. So I get really lit up about this. subject because I truly believe that we have an opportunity to pass down stories and values and traditions to future generations in ways never done before. Um, and I mean, we're, like I said, we're basically documenting our entire lives and.

But that creates a massive amount of content. That's super awesome. But if we don't take the time and we're, we're not careful about cultivating that massive amount of content over time, what happens? It gets lost to a sea of digital clutter, or it's simply not appreciated by future generations, right?

Because I mean, if you think about it, like, if someone left you a cluttered mess of things, like that, like that box [00:16:00] of photos underneath your parents bed, right, we're less likely to appreciate it because in that state, it's just a hassle, right? So, in contrast, a well curated photo collection full of meaning and you know, intention becomes something that is cherished.

And it's like a visual narrative of a family or of, you know, an individual's history. And it's super, super cool, right? And I think, so your question was, You know, what is your recommendation? We have all of this. What is your recommendation to, um, you know, pass it down? Is it photo booking? Is it, you know, what, what, what is it?

My recommendation or what I like to think about and the way I'm building my business is I think it's [00:17:00] both. I think it's an intentional digital curation or collection, right? And physical it's Being able to pass along something physical, but one can't happen without the other. You can't have your photo books or your, you know, the, your printed memories or whatever you hang up on the wall or whatever.

Right. Without first curating all of that, those digital photos that you have created. Right. So I think one informs the other, and then together that creates the meaning, right, that creates that digital legacy that you're passing down. But then also you have this physical aspect that you've really put some time and energy into.

And I think, you know. I think we're all craving that. I think we're all craving those physical things in our [00:18:00] lives. And I think our kids and their kids and even, you know, future generations, even beyond that, we'll really appreciate that too. So yeah, that's, that's my recommendation and the things that I, I think 

Katie: through, I think you said that beautifully and there's something so, um, Real and heartfelt about holding the photo in your hand or holding the book in your hand and turning the pages as opposed to scrolling on your phone or on a digital screen.

And yeah, I started photo booking, um, through Shutterfly when I first got married. And thankfully. I did because I kept up with it, so now I have books for each year of our, for our family. Um, and one of the greatest gifts is seeing my kids pull them out and go through and relive the memories that we shared or their baby books or, you know, this trip that we took as opposed to them being like, can you show me that picture?

And I'd be like, ah. No. Maybe. Give me [00:19:00] 20 minutes. I'll see if I can find it. Yes. But I'm so grateful for those handheld memories and the way that they cherish those books and they take care of those books and the ones that they choose, you know, which ones are they interested in looking at today? And also they encourage me to keep making them.

Because they can be a pain. So, tell me, okay, tell me, this leads perfectly into May. Because you have another endeavor that you are undertaking in this program called May. And I'm so curious about it. I've dabbled just a little bit, but not enough to really speak on it. So, tell us what May is and how is that going to help with the overwhelm?

Nichole: Yes, yes, absolutely. So may is a memory management companion that transforms the way you experience your digital memories. So right now may exists as a mobile app. Um, and she, I call her, she, she's literally an [00:20:00] AI, but whatever may curates your most meaningful photos into intentional collections. and helps you keep up with it.

So, of course, it's going to save time. It eliminates that digital clutter we've been talking about. Um, it makes it effortless to share your best memories online, enjoy them offline, because that's that digital curation, physical product connection, right? And we'll help you preserve them for generations to come, right?

Because it's your clean, intentional, curated collection. Um, as a companion, you can make requests from May. Like, you know, May, create a photo book of my family's beach trip last summer. Um, find the best photos from my son's party last week, birthday party last week. Um, find, uh, the top 10 moments from fall 2024.

[00:21:00] Right. Um, then you give may those dates, so you tell her the date of the, your son's birthday party, let's say, and we only upload the photos in the timeframe that you request up to 500 photos for the free. Version, right? Um, the tech assigns a memorableness score to each photo, and that enables, um, May to narrow down, um, from this massive amount of photos to only the very, very best photos.

Um, we then deliver only a fraction of what was uploaded. So normally that ends up being between 10 to 20 percent of what was sent. And, um, and then we're next week releasing this new feature, which is. Pretty fun. You can then edit that curation. So what may is going to show you is everything that she found that she thought were the best, right?

And then she'll show you the rest. So anything that didn't make the cut. And then you can edit that. [00:22:00] You can decide. Oh, no, I really wanted that because, you know, It's technology, so it may not know what's memorable to you. So you need to have a little bit of input and collaboration there. And then, um, once you do that, you approve your curation, and then we remove the rest, what you don't want in your best.

We remove it from our servers altogether, because we're not interested in everything. We're only interested in the very best. So it's about quality over quantity, right? Yeah, 

Katie: that's how May works. This is fascinating to me and such a new idea that I think, wow, this could really be a game changer. I'm so curious though, and I'm sure other people are asking the same question.

How does it score the photos? What entails High Keeper, like a good one? 

Nichole: Yeah, yeah. So what we're looking for is, um, faces, making [00:23:00] faces. We're looking for smiling faces. We're looking for no blurry photos. We are looking for, um, like if it's a group photo, we want, we're looking for, um, everybody is facing the camera as best as possible.

Um, and that everybody has a pleasant. smile or look on their face, right? We're looking for, uh, photos that are framed well. So, um, you know, it might be a selfie, but maybe you took, cause as parents, that's what we do. Maybe we take five selfies. And, but the background changes in the selfie, so we're looking for what is the best background in that, you know, series of photos.

You know, and that's the other thing, we call it, we call it same same but different photos. Okay, yeah. But it's those photos that we take, it's sort of like, um. You know, when you you're taking photos of your kids and they're [00:24:00] wiggly and they're things are happening and you're just trying to capture the moment.

So you maybe take 10, not just one, you take 10, which again, adds to that overwhelming, you know, number of photos that we have. And so what may does also is it can identify, oh, this is all of the same moment, which one is the best. And narrow that 10 to 1, right? So, those are the things that we're looking for.

Katie: This is mind blowing. It's incredible. And it's like having a personal assistant and just saying, Hey, pick out the best pictures here, so that I don't have to sit down and go through every single one and analyze all of the faces and the details and the duplicates. And that is just a gift to a mom. 

Nichole: Yeah.

Well, a lot of people say, when I talk to people that are using May, [00:25:00] they say it's such a relief that I didn't have to make the decision because they're my memories and I'm attached to everything and may gives me that, um, that permission to say, no, this one is actually the best. And that's really all I need to tell my story in this instance, like whatever, whatever the requests might be.

Katie: Okay. I have another question for you personally, then if you're using May and it curates this beautiful list from this event, do you delete the old ones off your phone or do you save them somewhere else? That 

Nichole: is up to you. Um, I personally think that our phones and our clouds. are becoming our personal search engines.

And I think they still need to exist. And I think we're already in this habit [00:26:00] of, you know, taking it and forgetting it. Right. But at one point or another, we're going to be like, Oh, wait, I, I remember that thing, or I want to find that one thing when I was wearing that green shirt or like whatever it might be right or of my kid.

And you may want to go back and search for it but it may not necessarily be something that you want as part of your like. Curate a digital legacy. Do you know what I'm saying? It's just something that you need in the moment. So, I, as a professional photo organizer, I leave it alone, pretty much. Um, now I do kinda edit here and there.

I maybe take some time and like, you know, do some quick curating or whatever. Or if I screenshot something. I might delete it or something like that. But overall, I leave my phone's [00:27:00] photo library alone because I know that I have my curated collection with me. Yeah. And I, to me, that's what I do. Now everybody's different.

Everybody may want their May to match their, their photo library. It depends on how you feel about it. Um, does that photo library or that cloud cause you, you know, anxiety or cause you to feel overwhelmed? Then yeah, do it. Yeah. You know, like. You can actually, with May, save your, um, your curated collection into an album on your phone, um, if you want.

So you can have your own copy, because we're, I'm very much like, we need to have ownership of these things, right? Um, so you can do that, um, it will not create duplicates in your photo [00:28:00] library or anything like that, so. Um, yeah, it just really depends on the person. 

Katie: Okay, so many choices here, I feel. You could take many different paths, which is great, because the thought of deleting a photo of my kid, no, I don't think so, but I have permission to if I want to because I've curated the other ones, 

Katie (2): and I also 

Katie: think too, like even just as you were talking about like maybe deleting a screenshot or something.

But what we've really created is like you said, a search engine. And even that screenshot might tell a story of what were you looking up or what did you share with a friend that you thought was funny that our kids might actually want to see that we were interested in at the time. 

Nichole: Maybe, yeah, they might, they might.

I tend to think, um, they're going to want the more meaningful, memorable collection rather than the screenshots. That's what I think. Um, right. But yeah, you're 

Katie: [00:29:00] right. They could want that as well, . But I'm, I'm talking about like keeping the ones you didn't curate, like as a, as a reason to keep them in that, in that collection that you're like, is our search engine, while we still have the curated things for our kids over here, I was just thinking of like, why would I keep a screenshot?

I guess that would be a reason would be like, oh, that kind of tells a story. If you wanna scroll through all this kind of. Non essential ones. Here are the ones that you really need to keep and pass on. But here's a fun pile of stuff. That 

Nichole: you might be interested in. If you want to take a deeper dive into my life, here are all my 

Katie: screenshots.

Yeah, exactly. So, okay, if May saves them, you could potentially save them to your phone. Is there another option? Of something to do with those curated photos. What's the next step? 

Nichole: Yeah, there's so many things that you can do with a curated collection that I just think are so important. Um, so you can share more easily digitally.

So like posting to [00:30:00] social media, you know that there's a curation process. It's ready to go for you. You can share to a digital frame. Um, I know I've said. Photos over to grandparents because each set of grandparents has a digital frame can send it over to them. It's ready to go, right? Um, you can create photo products like we were talking about, photo books, prints, calendars.

I mean, possibilities are endless. In fact, this is something that we offer at May. We create products curations. And so it's a completely hands off process because we already know. Um, this was curated. You're ready to go. We just plop it into a book for you and we create it for you. So, um, very fun. Um, and then, you know, what else?

Oh, what we've been talking about. The long term key benefit we've been talking about today, legacy, digital legacy, right? Um, [00:31:00] you're able to pass down that to your kids and you're doing it over time. So may helps you keep up with it over time so that You don't really need to think about it. It's just sort of a, um, a byproduct of curating your photos to enjoy them now, you know, like you're enjoying them in the here and now.

I think that is so important. That's the way it should be. Um, but then you're also keeping up with that and then you're creating this digital asset as well. 

Katie: Yes. And it seems like it takes time. Way less time, because I do go through, uh, when I do a photo book for the year, I have to go month by month and pick the best photos, and honestly, that's the worst part of the project, is picking the pictures to put in, like, how do I determine, okay, this one is the most important one that needs to go in there.

And it's so time consuming that I put it off and I put it off and I put it off and now I have [00:32:00] an entire year of photos to go through and I don't want to do it. And I think May is the perfect thing to come in and be like, Oh, let me help you with that. I'll take care of that for you. Let me pick the best ones.

And then I can just plop them in to either your digital service or whatever, you know, photo book that I make or I could print them and make my own photo books. And that's really enticing. 

Nichole: Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, imagine, at the end of 2025, you already have it ready to go, and it's just, you know, a press of a button.

Katie: Yeah. 

Nichole: Oh, it's 

Katie: getting simpler and simpler. Yes. Okay, I have a question for you, and this is probably not covered yet, because you're, you've got all this amazing thing, amazing things going on, but what about videos? Do you do anything with videos? 

Nichole: Not yet, but we will. 

Katie: Yeah. 

Nichole: Yes, videos, I, you know, they tell their own story, right?

And, um, yes, we will be [00:33:00] adding videos down the road. Um, right now we're just concentrating on photos, but yeah. Um, videos down the road as part of your your digital legacy. The whole thing. Um, there are a couple really fun things that you can do with video, um, inside of your physical products as well. You can create, um, a QR code that sends you to your videos for For that particular photo book.

Like let's say you have a bunch of videos of your vacation, you create a photo book of your vacation, and then at the end you have a QR code, you can scan it and go to your, to your videos and watch the videos of that vacation. Um, 

Katie: Yeah, that's so cool. That is so cool because usually the videos are really the ones that get lost because you don't tend to pull them up and look at them in order.

You might be like, Oh, I think I have something on that. But then when you're looking at the photo book, you're like, Oh, we took a video of this or something to be able to pop it up on your phone right there. Oh, [00:34:00] game changer. 

Nichole: Yes, total game changer. And you know, we have it. Plans for the future. Like I envision a world in which, you know, we take those vacation videos and we curate them down just like we do your photos and then we can create sort of, um, you know, sort of like a fun, um, highlight video, like, so they're all edited together and it's one video instead of several different videos.

Katie: Yes. So 

Nichole: things like, I can't wait. 

Katie: All of your things sound so great. Me either. I can't wait either. Oh, this is definitely a need that is, will be appreciated for sure. I hope 

Nichole: so. I hope so. I'm really passionate about it and, you know, just, yeah. I just think all of this is super important, but we're also very busy.

We're busy families and, you know, [00:35:00] while all of this, is important to prioritize. We're just busy. Like we don't have time and it's, it's becoming more and more and more daunting. And so we need some tools. We need some tools to help us out. 

Katie: Yes. And speaking of that being busy aspect, what advice do you have for parents right now that are listening to this and they're thinking, okay, that would have been amazing if I had done that so long ago, but I have way too much.

I'm overwhelmed. Like what's one thing they could do to set them up for success? 

Nichole: Well, I think, you know, just one simple thing is, you know, I think you want to take it in chunks. You want to, you want to realize that, you know, you don't have to do this all at once. You can take it just a piece by time or one piece at a time.

And like, let's say, you know, um. [00:36:00] You want to go back to your kid's birth, right? Like that's kind of like when it all, like all the crazy started, right? When all the photos, like we started accumulating so much because we're, again, documenting our, our child's life, right? Um, you could go back to that year and just start there and, um, you could just simply set aside some time and, you know, declutter.

And that means you just go through those photos, delete duplicates, blurry shots if they're there, um, you know, or if you're really feeling spicy. You can delete photos that just don't hold any meaning. Um, you know, it's the curation process or you can let May do it for you. You know, um, that's something that we're, that we're working on is, you know, how do [00:37:00] we keep up like from the point of, you know, you know, you, you go to check out May today, how do we keep up month to month going forward, but also how do we go back in time and take care of that problem?

Um, but it's, you know, it's a process. And even when I'm thinking about it for this technology, you don't like, it can become too overwhelming. Like if you do have the 50, 000 photos. You don't just want to send them all up at one time. You want to be methodical and, you know, think about the story that you're wanting to tell, where it, and where it might begin.

Katie: Oh, that's a good, yeah, I like that. Thinking about where do I want to start. And usually, I feel like for us parents, it's when our first kid was born, because that's where we have the most, um, that's where our heart is. For sure. What do you okay? So what about if I'm using May and you know, my kid [00:38:00] is almost 12.

So I don't have birth photos on my phone anymore. Do you is may able to access other photo services to get those photos? 

Nichole: Not yet, but we're working. So it's great that you mentioned that. So that is, um, a problem of multiple sources or working on that. Um, the reason why we started with a mobile app is because the majority is on our phone, right?

And we want to really create, um, a companion that helps you keep up with it over time, like going forward in time so that we. We don't keep accumulating and not doing anything, right? And so that's mostly going to come from our phones, right? What you're speaking about, I hear you, and we're going to have that available too, where you'll be able to, you know, we'll have a web application.

You'll be able to go in and upload all of those photos from wherever your birth photos are located right now. 

Katie: Amazing. 

Nichole: [00:39:00] Yeah, 

Katie: you're thinking of everything. 

Nichole: Oh, well, thank you. I try. I don't know. Sometimes I'm like, well, I didn't think of that, you know, but you know, this just comes with, uh, over time and my work as a Photo organizer too.

Katie (2): Yeah. 

Nichole: But you know, with anything that you're building, you have to start somewhere and you just take it one step at a time and you build into it. Um, and if there's anything I've learned from building technology. It is that. Like, you take, you, you zone in on the big problem and you take it one baby step at a time.

Katie: Yes, absolutely. Because what you're doing now, sir, is everyone, because we all have photos on our phone. That is something we all have. My problem of having given birth 12 years ago is not everybody's problem, right? So the main focus has to be what do we have right now that can best serve everybody and then grow [00:40:00] from there?

And I think that's amazing that you're doing that and not only that it's happening now But like you just you'll just keep adding you'll keep adding to the services. So Where can people find you and your work and sign up for may if they want to use it? Where can we find all that? 

Nichole: Yeah. So, um, to sign up for may it's this invite only right now.

Um, but if you go to our website, which is meet dash may. com, um, you can request an invite there. And, uh, we're also on Instagram at may memory manager. Um, and so you can find all the information there. There's a link in our bio, all of that good stuff and, you know, follow along what we're, what we're trying to put together and build 

Katie: amazing.

And I want to make sure people know it's M a E for May and then. Where did that name come from? 

Nichole: Oh, well, May is actually an acronym and it means Memory Assistant [00:41:00] Experience. Yes, but it also is my grandmother's middle name. It's meant to be. It was meant to be. It came up because we were, we were searching for the perfect name for our memory companion and It came up and I said, Oh, well, funny enough, really love that name.

It's my grandmother's middle name. Um, I didn't end up having a girl, but if I did, I had two boys. Um, I wanted to, I wanted her middle name to be May. So just funny. It's funny how things work. 

Katie: Well, Mae is a part of your family in a different way. 

Katie (2): She's still here. Mae is a part of my family, yes. 

Katie: Oh my gosh.

Nicole, okay, this is just incredible. And I am thrilled that we have this time to chat together. And I will be following all the things you're doing because I think it's so necessary and so needed and such a help to parents, um, and caregivers that, oh, I'm just [00:42:00] excited about it. So I will be telling all my friends about this.

Um, and cheering you on. 

Nichole: Well, thank you, Katie, so much. And thanks for the, you know, thoughtful, thought provoking conversation around all of this. I, I, you know, like I said, I get lit up and I'm, I'm always happy to talk about it. So thank you for taking the time. 

Katie: Amazing. Okay. Well, keep going. I will be cheering for you.

Nichole: Thank you.