You Are The Media (YATM) is the home for marketing misfits. It started in 2013 at the seaside, in England 🌊 The community is built around creativity, interdependence, visibility, experimentation and co-learning.
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Hi YATMers! I’m Brianna Ryder-Maki, Bri for short (yes, like the cheese).
I'm a busy boy mum, dog mum, and events enthusiast with a deep passion for creating spaces where people can thrive and make meaningful, impactful memories.
I’ve spent my career in the events world and now work at the British Chiropractic Association, where I get to blend purpose with creativity. I’m also completing a PhD, exploring how wellbeing is becoming a strategic differentiator in business events. It’s a topic I care deeply about and one that’s shaping the future of how we gather.
Outside of work? Well… life just got a little more lively! We’ve recently welcomed a new puppy into the family, so as far as what I’m watching, I’m currently watching her like a hawk.
When I do get a moment to myself, one of my favourite listens is the Happy Place podcast by Fearne Cotton. It's a brilliant mix of honest conversations, emotional intelligence, and gentle inspiration. The kind of thing that fills your cup when you need a little grounding or a moment of calm. I’m also really excited to be attending the Happy Place Festival for the first time on 31st August.
Here I am enjoying sunflower season, one of my favourites (I can’t land on one favourite flower, it is too difficult of a decision).
People won’t notice the shortcuts, but they will remember the effort.
There are tools to help us write, design, film, publish and post within seconds. Everything can be templated, automated and scheduled. AI can spin full blown articles and essays in less than a minute.
Fast makes sense where platforms encourage volume.
When everything feels instant and effortless, does it start to feel empty? Perhaps what people want and the shift that is happening isn’t just the next thing in the feed, it’s the realness behind it.
What we become drawn to is effort. It’s the signs that someone genuinely cares.
That’s what I’d like to share with you, it’s the work that doesn’t happen instantly. The signal where you say, “This took me time and thought.”
Every Wednesday, I record a short video that sums up my weekly writing.
It sits at the end of the YATM newsletter and goes out on LinkedIn every Thursday morning.
I wish I could get it right in a couple of minutes. I don’t use an autocue. I do it as a way to sense-check my thinking and to summarise the work, in my own words.
Some weeks (like last week), it took a lot longer than I thought it would. Maybe you’re the same, when your phone ends up full of takes you forgot to delete.
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Today's newsletter wasn’t fast or frictionless, but maybe that’s the point.
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The Real Signal Is: This Took Effort
In YATM Club recently, Phill Agnew, from Nudge podcast was part of a session where the focus was people value your work more when they see the effort behind it.
Phill walked 61km from Salisbury to Creator Day 2025. It took him 12 hours. Phill didn’t do it for a bet, but to demonstrate another reason, effort matters.
Phill referenced the psychological principle called the IKEA Effect. This is when people put effort into building something (even badly), they value it more. Phill’s point, audiences are the same. If people can see the work that went into it, they’ll feel the value.
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We Trust What’s Harder to Fake
During the session, Phill also introduced Costly Signalling Theory. This means the more effort something looks like it took, the more trust we assign to it.
If something is difficult to imitate, it likely has real value. Recently, Phill wrote a LinkedIn post analysing an ad campaign from Canva that intentionally highlighted the effort involved in creating the ad.
Instead of focusing on the message itself, the campaign showcased the intricate processes, including layers of planning and complexity. As it appeared hard to replicate, it signaled a sense of value.
Phill posted, ”These Canva ads are scientifically proven to be more effective. Why? Because they are costly to make and therefore harder to fake. That's why we trust them more."
That’s the heart of costly signalling, we don’t just trust the polished product, we trust the visible effort that went into making it.
Right now, AI makes faking easier than ever. What about the aspects that look like they took time, mistakes, revisions, tweaks, retries? Those are the signals we believe in.
Phill went viral with the Canva post, want to know what happens when you go viral, watch this, one minute...
People Don’t Want Perfect. They Want Proof You Tried.
Phill mentioned another bias: the Pratfall Effect. This is when people show a flaw or make a mistake, we tend to like them more.
It’s the opposite of an over-produced Instagram story. It’s the behind-the-scenes of a failed take. The moment you nearly gave up, but didn’t.
This is what people respond to now. Not the polish, but the persistence.
This videos shares the early days of YATM when I was struggling to share the role that YATM played for people.
I’ve experienced this first-hand, and not always by choice.
At Creator Day 2024, my microphone didn’t work at the start of the day. I became frustrated and it threw me, as it’s not the kind of tone I want to set when welcoming 200+ people into the theatre.
At the YATM Conferences in 2018 and 2019, there were moments where the projector failed, and we were left with a blank screen. Not ideal when you’re trying to keep people engaged.
In 2021, we had to evacuate the theatre mid-event when the electricity went. No one panicked. Hardly anyone left. We stuck together and kept going.
None of those moments made the events worse. If anything, they made the experience more memorable. It became more about us, the community.
That’s the Pratfall Effect in action, it’s not your mistakes that define you, it’s how openly and honestly you navigate them.
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Homemade Still Commands A Premium
In 2022, I wrote an article called "Homemade Commands a Premium". It explored why people still pay more for items that feel handmade.
Since then, the contrast has become much more apparent. When something is AI-generated, we often can’t tell. When something is homemade, we always can.
The human hand, eye and voice, are no longer just features of our work, they are the differentiators.
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The Road Is The Work
Jeff Bullas recently wrote about this too. He suggested that creators who only post polished content miss the real connection.
"It’s not just the content that counts," he said. "It’s the story of how you made it."
Jeff’s point mirrors Phill’s. People don’t just want to see the work. They want to feel it.
That’s why my newsletter video might never be perfect. It’s also why I keep doing it.
It’s a visual footnote to the written piece. But more than that, it’s a way of saying this wasn’t instantly generated. It took a bit of effort.
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The Algorithm Isn’t On Your Side, But People Can Be
The boom days of audience growth are done. Platforms aren’t handing out easy reach anymore. If you want people to stick around, you have to earn it.
AI simplifies the production of polished, quick content, but trust remains scarce, as it always has.
The next wave of meaningful work won’t be won with hacks, reach or funnels. It will be won with trust. Having YATM by my side since 2013 has taught me that trust takes time and effort.
People are becoming more selective about where they spend their time and the communities they engage with. Your visible effort serves as a signal that can help you stand out.
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What Do People Never See In Your Work?
That’s what I’d like to leave you with.
What part of your work do people never see, but would value more if they did?
Is it the time it took you? The versions you discarded? The moment it clicked?
At the YATM Club session, people shared what they are going to do:
John is hand-writing thank-you notes to clients
Becky is going to share screenshots of her early-morning idea notes and share with clients
Phill reads 44 books a year and found 25 books worth recommending that he’ll showcase
These aren’t humblebrags, they are signals that someone cares.
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This Week, Try Adding One Human Detail
Here is a question and a task to close on, what is one thing you can do this week, that people know it was from you?
A timestamp on a thought you had
A screenshot of your failed takes
A sentence about what this really took
Not to make a point, but to make your work feel real.
In a world of fast and fake, effort isn’t a delay, it’s a differentiator.
Let people see what it took. Let them feel what it all means.
The session with Phill Agnew on people seeing the effort you put in, is in the resource library in YATM Club. If you are a Club member, click here to watch the hour session.
The YATM Club library is packed with videos and sessions with a focus on being self-sufficient and the audience you build. Read more about YATM Club here. Perhaps it feels a good time to join us?
Every summer I have three weeks off. To recharge, have a short break and then when we start again, it's the new '25/'26 YATM year.
Thank you so much for letting this weekly newsletter arrive in your in-box.
Whilst it can be easy to hand over the brain to AI, it's still the homemade content that I work away at and share with you each week.
Have a fantastic summer. We've got a lot teed up when back and I hope YATM feels a good place to be.
Head Out & Meet The Others In September
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From September, why not head out and make new work friends?
Lunch Club is back and if London or if Poole feels ok, let's get you all booked in and we spend the afternoon together.
Thursday 4th September is Lunch Club London, book here​
Thursday 11th September is Lunch Club Poole, book here​
The Experience You Make Wins
It’s not always about the content you create, but the welcome mat you put out for people so they know you are the right person for them.
This is what I now know when you put effort into the interactions you make:
Your personality and how you present yourself have a stronger impact than writing, audio, or video in terms of leaving an impression. It’s something that people can’t find anywhere else or casually come across on social media.
When those few people feel connected to you and your work, they’ll tell others and with the network effect in play, your audience will grow.
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​Click here to watch the end of newsletter video. Have a great summer. I'll see back here on Thursday 28th August.
You Are The Media (YATM) is the home for marketing misfits. It started in 2013 at the seaside, in England 🌊 The community is built around creativity, interdependence, visibility, experimentation and co-learning.
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