Literary, (almost) globe-trotting and curious about everything, Camille does not have a classic background and nothing destined her to a future as a Tech influencer.

However, she has become the official ambassador of Notion, the Nocode editor for collaborative content and data management, in France and Portugal.

Design, tourism and Portugal: this is the rule of three of Camille Blanchod, trainer of theAlegria.academy.*

Camille, you are systematically labelled Notion, what is your relationship with this tool?

For the past year and a half, I have been working for Notion as the Director of the French and Portuguese communities. Concretely, I organize events and launch initiatives based on what users do with the tool. This is an important part of my role: I detect trends in the use of Notion and can decipher the evolution of the practices of different profiles: from Citizen Maker to professionals. I am also involved in their marketing activities and manage the different social networks (Discord, Facebook, Twitter). Besides these activities, I also design templates and other resources on Notion for the community.

At the same time, I am a certified Notion consultant and trainer.

You have settled permanently in Portugal where you have built everything from scratch, without family, friends or a local network. Can you tell us a bit more about it?

I have always loved to travel. In 2016, I started to prepare a project of solo cycling trip in the south of Europe. 

As a fan of content creation and design, I had fun creating sites on Wordpress and forums. So I created my blog in preparation for this one-year adventure.

2017 marks a turning point with the realization of this trip that I started in Spain. The next destination, Portugal, was not supposed to keep me longer than a month. In the end, I stayed there for 5 months and after a short stay in France I returned to Lisbon to put down my bags for good. 

While there, I learned Portuguese and quickly made friends. At first, they were more expats like me; digital nomads. Little by little, I integrated perfectly into the local population.

And professionally/financially how did you manage?

I first worked in tourism and customer service. I started with a short, very hands-on experience in a hostel, and then quickly moved into a role at Airbnb supporting travellers and hosts. There I saw all the hazards of the field and even some disaster scenarios! My role was to support users and provide solutions immediately. It was extremely formative, especially from an experience and customer journey point of view. 

Travel, tourism, then... Tech?

With Airbnb, I got my foot in the door of tech and I never left! Afterwards, I worked in the technical support department of Google Ads. I dealt with a lot of technical tickets and learned everything about how these digital marketing platforms work.

And how did you come to specialise in much less technically complex tools, such as Notion?

Content creation and management are the disciplines that have always attracted me the most, but I have my limits: I never wanted to learn to code. That's not the part that interested me! On the other hand, I was quite spontaneous in monitoring content creation platforms and was often an "early adopter" of new tools.

As a teenager, in 2007, I was creating forums and blogs on the first content management platforms on the internet. I particularly liked the organization and categorization aspect. I even had roles as a forum administrator (settings, structures, design, hierarchy, organization of topics).

During the 2020 lockdown, I discovered and adopted Notion. I explored it thoroughly and quickly became an expert user.

It was through Twitter that I became increasingly involved with this tool and its community.

Nocode is, in general, quite new, Notion was born in 2018. Were these your first steps in Nocode and more broadly, in the world of computer science?

I started to work with Nocode very early on, even before it was called "Nocode"! 

I am thinking in particular of the scratch software, created by an American university to design video games without coding from very visual blocks (a game intended for children!). This platform played an important role in my life. I really explored this tool thoroughly and could do quite sophisticated things (yes, as for Notion, you can say there is a pattern! - laughs). I accidentally converted my whole family to scratch and it became a shared hobby!

‍

For our readers who might not be familiar with Notion, can you describe how you use it?

Notion is literally my second brain. In my personal use, I use it primarily to keep track of my tasks and projects, and I also use it to take notes. Sometimes I use it to help me create content.

For my clients, it is also mainly on these uses that we work: project management, task tracking, editorial calendar, notes and documents, collaboration with other freelancers, etc.

Nevertheless, Notion is a powerful tool that can be used even further! 

It is also compatible with many other platforms that allow it to extend its functionality even further.

What tools do you use outside of Notion?

There are many depending on the use case, some of which are also directly related to my work on Notion.

In design, I love Canva and Figma. I communicate mostly via Slack but am very active on Discord and Circle. I use Tally and Typeform form interfaces for all my surveys or interactive projects.
Like many people since 2020, I am very often in video conferences on Google Meet but also via Whereby in smaller groups and I create events on Livestorm or Crowdcast.

You work with Alegria Academy students as a trainer and Notion expert. What is your pedagogical vision and what do you expect from the students?

In my opinion, learning comes through practice. There is nothing like practicing on practical cases to learn and develop new skills.

My role as a trainer is to help them discover the range of possibilities with Notion and to push them to explore the tool. I expect the students to be curious, creative and invested. I can't wait to see what they will produce!

Do you have a fun anecdote to share about your school career?

I took Japanese classes for 3 years... and finally chose to live in Portugal!(laughs) I also did over 700 hours of philosophy in high school.

When you are not busy with your various professional activities, what do you do with your free time?

I have many passions! I love walking in the city and in the country and spending time with animals. I also enjoy creative activities such as drawing, photography and cooking. And above all, as a travel enthusiast, I love meeting new people and discovering new cultures. 

👉 You can also find Camille on her blog!