Building Brand Gravity Podcast

00:00:01:02 - 00:00:24:10
Speaker 2
Oh everyone, and welcome to Building Brand Gravity. I'm Anne Green. I am a principal and managing director here at Sheehan's Business Communications, and I'm so excited today to welcome a guest who I first heard speak at an event earlier this year, and I was so interested in everything he had to say. I reached out to ask him for a coffee, and then I said, Will you be on my podcast?

00:00:24:10 - 00:00:29:13
Speaker 2
And the rest is history. And here we are Howard Pyle. Welcome to building brand gravity.

00:00:29:15 - 00:00:33:00
Speaker 3
Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

00:00:33:02 - 00:00:52:16
Speaker 2
So Howard tell us a little bit about I'm going to let you tell your own bio your career trajectory because you've had a really interesting arc to bring you to the organization you founded today, which is Experience futures.org, which has many arms to it. But tell me a little bit about so our listeners understand your career path.

00:00:52:18 - 00:01:26:17
Speaker 3
Sure. Yeah it's it's a it's a winding road for sure. I think that I'm one of those people that my career journey really only made sense in retrospect. I've had many points in my career where people have said to me, even close friends like, what are you doing now? Like what is that? But the long and the short of it is that I've, I've been in at the intersection of digital product design, development platform brands, communications, for over 20 years.

00:01:26:17 - 00:02:03:10
Speaker 3
And I started my career as actually an engineer, and I was a developer in a design collective in Washington, DC for a long, long, long time ago, very early digital shop. And, and then I was, I went on to be, a dev lead in a communications agency, early digital shop and, and a CTO at a, at a, a CTO at, dot com and, and then went on from there and ran startups or in a mobile startup for a little while, and we got bought out by an agency network.

00:02:03:12 - 00:02:33:21
Speaker 3
And through some twists and turns, I wound up at Ogilvy, and I was a senior partner at Ogilvy, leading digital platforms for the IBM business globally during Smarter Planet and so it was this kind of interesting transition point in my career from, tech digital focused companies to suddenly being in an advertising agency, the biggest company I had ever worked at by several tens of thousands of people.

00:02:33:23 - 00:02:56:18
Speaker 3
And, and then working on IBM, which is, of course, a monster. And I had no experience working with giant organizations. I was in Ogilvy for a couple of years, three years. And then, my client at IBM got promoted, and, he asked me to step in and take his job. So I went to IBM and I ran a network of design studios.

00:02:56:20 - 00:03:31:19
Speaker 3
I ultimately transitioned and ran developer marketing for all the business units. And, and then I went to MetLife, where I ran global brand design, UX, front end platforms. Ultimately, running integrated, marketing and communications for, not like comms, but for branding and, creative campaigns and sponsorships. And we rebranded the, the company for the first time in 30 years and rolled out a global design system and rolled out new front end platforms.

00:03:31:19 - 00:04:10:10
Speaker 3
And so I had this kind of ten years in startups and ten years at big, giant, ginormous companies. And, the thing that I found was that that we were number one, we've gotten to this place where our digital lives have become too complicated. And by the way, it's super complicated within every company managing digital ecosystems, managing web and mobile properties, managing design and dev and and seeing that there was a disconnect between, the mission and purpose of a company and their business impact in digital spaces.

00:04:10:12 - 00:04:37:06
Speaker 3
Seeing that there's a big disconnect there and also seeing, the second thing is that automation and I were going to hit the front end experience layer that we're going to hit. Yeah, design, UX, communications. And so I left MetLife and I started this organization, Experience Futures. And and we're very focused on this next era of how AI is going to impact our digital lives, how it's going to impact digital accessibility.

00:04:37:08 - 00:04:54:02
Speaker 3
We focus on partnering with organizations, helping them to use AI to drive inclusivity, drive digital access, and create positive outcomes, using these new technologies. So that's the that's the kind of journey and, the high level pitch of where I am now.

00:04:54:04 - 00:05:11:22
Speaker 2
Well, I love this. And part of what interested me in talking to you and what excited me when I first heard you speak, which was really about that digital divide. And I want to dig deep with you in that in a moment. But before that, I just want to reflect on how interesting it is to hear that career arc.

00:05:11:22 - 00:05:43:05
Speaker 2
And I appreciate you taking us through it, because the intersectionality to start off and what would be very much understood as a development engineering type of career. But then to understand like where you ended up advertising, UX, consumer experience, the brand, a rebranding of an entity like MetLife, it just shows you how the arc of a career through this marketing communications brand landscape that also deeply involves technology and the experience of the customers.

00:05:43:07 - 00:05:49:13
Speaker 2
It's so intertwined. Try to me, what an incredible intersection of different perspectives.

00:05:49:15 - 00:06:12:11
Speaker 3
Yeah, well, we can say that now. Ten years ago, it would have been like you're doing right now. What do you do? Are you working for an advertising agency now? And, but but I think, I think that there is a through line there and I think it's, it's funny because there was this brief moment where I really believed the term customer experience was going to be a great kind of rally cry for how all these things come together in a company.

00:06:12:11 - 00:06:43:05
Speaker 3
And yeah, actually, my title at MetLife was, SVP of Global Customer Experience and Design and the Customer Experience part of it was constantly confusing to people like internally and externally. Some people thought it meant customer service, some people thought it meant, you know, journey analytics or NPS reporting. It's funny because there isn't really a great term in companies for the way that we engage people in digital spaces, because it's not just about product, it's not just about technology.

00:06:43:05 - 00:07:05:06
Speaker 3
It's not just communications. It's not just marketing. It's not just development. It's not just data, but somehow it's the collection of all of those things. And I think that's part of, to me, the through line is the relationship that companies have with individuals as a result of our digital era. You could actually call that brand. You could say brand is the relationship that you have with a company.

00:07:05:08 - 00:07:25:19
Speaker 3
Or you could say it's the customer experience, which is every touchpoint, every interaction. The sum of all those is your relationship with the company. And more and more that is technology plus brand plus communications plus design. So I think there's that there's there's a, there's a kind of an unnamed territory. There's a territory there that we don't actually have a great word for.

00:07:25:19 - 00:07:26:15
Speaker 3
I think.

00:07:26:17 - 00:07:56:22
Speaker 2
You know, you talked about at the end of all this and now you're at a new beginning, and it's been a few years now to launch something like Experience Futures. When you visit that website. And I encourage people to check it out, experience future story, you forefront the, the statement, the assertion of a digital divide and I think it's really important that we ask you to address this right now to to so that you can share with our listeners what does that mean to you and what is the urgency of that today?

00:07:56:23 - 00:08:15:02
Speaker 3
Yeah, sure. And thanks for that, because I think that it's to me it is it's a critical it's a critical point of discussion. And, I think as a lot of people did coming out of Covid, there's a lot of soul searching, you know, there's a lot of soul searching. Like, what does my work mean? What role do I play?

00:08:15:04 - 00:08:40:09
Speaker 3
And on a personal level, like what? What am I contributing to the world? Am I pursuing the things that I'm passionate about? And and for me, it really starts with the fact that I am not I'm not somebody that should ever have a knowledge worker or white collar job. You know, I just don't have the intellectual, capability for it.

00:08:40:09 - 00:09:12:00
Speaker 3
Not that I'm not smart, but I don't have, I don't have a set of tools that I think a lot of people are expected to have in those corporate jobs. And very specifically, I'm crushingly dyslexic, but I also have, other kind of neurodiversity challenges. I have, you know, some memory challenges. I have challenges with, you know, developing and structured reading very, very long documents.

00:09:12:00 - 00:09:48:19
Speaker 3
But but where it hits me is my ability to write and craft communications in a way that's deeply, kind of inherent in being a knowledge worker. So to me as that it's very strange to me that, I wound up in the positions that I wound up in. And there's a very simple answer as to why I was able to do that, which is I found a set of technology tools very early on that helped me normalize my abilities to be at parity with other people.

00:09:48:21 - 00:10:25:05
Speaker 3
Right. And, and that is, very privileged to have that. I'm very privileged to have that. And I think that I have quite a number of, examples of like over the years where I have created, you know, campaigns or programs or communications, but even individual emails to clients, whereas labored over the words where I've gone back and reread something 40 times and I've missed the fact that there's no verb, or I've missed the fact that I've said and twice or, you know, my run on sentences have run on sentences inside of them.

00:10:25:07 - 00:10:54:22
Speaker 3
And I think that the, you know, it's funny because I think that there is a, you know, the very simple example and there's other examples, but the simple example is I've been able to, over the years, use a combination of, you know, grammar tools and spell checker tools and, you know, like tools. It did allow me to dictate, you know, I've I've experimented with every flavor of the voice dictation going back to, you know, the 90s.

00:10:54:22 - 00:11:21:00
Speaker 3
And, I found a set of tools that worked for me and I was privileged and, fortunate to be able to have done that so that my, aptitude, my intellect could be applied to some of these problems. But for many, many other people, the ability to navigate challenges like that is not something that allows that allows them to kind of, proceed into those jobs.

00:11:21:02 - 00:11:41:18
Speaker 3
It's very it can be very challenging. And that got me really, became, I think over the years I'd been aware of it quite a bit, but it, it brought me to a set of research and some questions that I began poking into, which is what is what do we call this thing that divides people at the experience layer?

00:11:41:18 - 00:12:03:02
Speaker 3
Why is it I so I have a computer. You have a computer, you have more access than I do to the tools and services. What is that called. What do we even describe that as? And I think there is different terminology. You could apply to it. But what we what we found through the research that we did is that it's actually another layer of the digital divide.

00:12:03:02 - 00:12:14:08
Speaker 3
Yeah. And the first layer of the digital divide is this idea of having access to a computer, having access to internet access.

00:12:14:10 - 00:12:20:06
Speaker 2
Which, by the way, is where I think a lot of people I think that first layer is where a lot of people start up. Am I right about that?

00:12:20:12 - 00:12:40:23
Speaker 3
That's right. Okay. That's right. And that's and that's a, that's a very and it's natural because that's the only layer we've been really made aware of, the academics that we follow, and that we've worked with talk about a second layer of the digital divide, which is this idea of design access, content access and cognitive access.

00:12:40:23 - 00:13:09:10
Speaker 3
So the idea of if you don't understand how an interface is created, if you don't understand the language, if you can't navigate and, you know, use those tools as they were designed, then you lose access to everything that comes with digital access to jobs, access to education, access to health care, access to financial management. And so the second layer of the digital divide is actually an enormous, enormous challenge that there's not a lot of research on.

00:13:09:12 - 00:13:45:12
Speaker 3
But it's really tied to this idea of digital capital. And do I have digital capital and can I navigate in my job? Can I navigate in my finances? Can I navigate in social communities online, can I use resources that are available for me? And more and more and more, what we've found is that there is a gap in the services, the digital services that companies and governments and NGOs provide where because their sites aren't intuitive, they're aren't easy to navigate and yes, even not accessible from an Ada perspective for people with disabilities.

00:13:45:12 - 00:14:09:03
Speaker 3
But even beyond that, that people lose access to the services that they're providing. So the second layer of the digital divide is really, you know, do your websites make sense to people? Do your apps make sense to people? Do your communications make sense to people? Do they understand your language and if not, you are restricting access to essential services that they need, whether you're in the public or the private sector.

00:14:09:05 - 00:14:14:05
Speaker 3
So the digital the second layer of the digital divide is, is really the experience layer.

00:14:14:07 - 00:14:34:02
Speaker 2
Something you and I haven't even talked about. But it's coming to mind very strongly for me right now is all of the websites and really functions that are speed based, as in, I want to try to get a restaurant reservation, I want to try to get tickets. I want to try to get. You had mentioned the vaccine websites in New York City.

00:14:34:04 - 00:14:58:07
Speaker 2
It's it's a race, right. And it's like there's a clock ticking down or this ticket to a show, or this ticket to a concert or this table. It's based on how quickly both, physically but also cognitively and where the frigates my credit card. Or am I using like, Apple Pay, like how fast can I process in order to race somebody else for an outcome?

00:14:58:07 - 00:15:11:03
Speaker 2
Now, the vaccine won when you shared that anecdote, and I'd love you to reshare that quote that you shared with me when you were at the Paige Spring seminar earlier this year, because that literally hit me like a lightning bolt.

00:15:11:04 - 00:15:32:23
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, that was a that was a big moment. So, so in New York City during Covid, the both access to testing and access to the vaccines, was released on the state and city run websites. And listen, I don't know the teams that made them and I'm sure they were under an incredible amount of pressure, but they were terrible.

00:15:32:23 - 00:16:20:07
Speaker 3
They were terrible, terrible sites. They were difficult to navigate. They probably got thrown up in a matter of days. Which makes sense because their priority was speed to market, getting it out to people. But what happened was people couldn't literally couldn't navigate those websites. And it was particularly pronounced on the vaccine finder websites. It was this kind of touching moment that happened where when the vaccine sites came out, people on Facebook and on Reddit were were banding together and saying, you know, someone that's older that can't navigate these websites, which, by the way, the it was supposed to be that the most, at risk communities got the vaccines first.

00:16:20:07 - 00:16:24:18
Speaker 3
People who are older, at risk, right? Living, living in nursing homes.

00:16:24:20 - 00:16:25:09
Speaker 2
I remember, but.

00:16:25:09 - 00:16:46:05
Speaker 3
They literally couldn't navigate the website. So it's kind of touching. People were like, well, if you know someone that needs help navigating this website, you know will help them. An older person, but it's a statement of failure. It's a statement of absolute failure of a public service, in a system that's meant to be accessible by a certain audience.

00:16:46:07 - 00:17:02:06
Speaker 3
And, it didn't work. So there was this quote, writing about that situation. There was a quote in the New York Times, that said, when you set up a system that's a race between 25 year olds and 85 year olds, that's not a race, that's elder abuse.

00:17:02:11 - 00:17:04:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think that's powerful.

00:17:04:09 - 00:17:25:19
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's a really powerful. It's a really powerful statement. And I think that the and by the way, this is what's really interesting is in my roles at MetLife, at IBM and startups that I work with, the idea of accessibility often means, are you going to get in trouble for Ada compliance or not?

00:17:25:20 - 00:17:27:16
Speaker 2
Yes. That is such a good point.

00:17:27:16 - 00:17:53:14
Speaker 3
Yeah. And this is a very, very like this is probably the most important thing to to kind of dismantle Ada. Compliance is the only lever that we have around accessibility and inclusion in digital spaces. Right. And and the lever is does it work for people that have a certain type of disability. And it uses certain type of assistive technologies?

00:17:53:16 - 00:18:15:12
Speaker 3
And the only punishment is public lawsuits. So there's people who go around just sue companies for Ada, you know, Ada violations. So it's seen organizationally in a lot of places as a checkbox. I can't tell you how many times I've built a product or design system, and the only funding for accessibility is at the very end, if there's a problem.

00:18:15:14 - 00:18:45:18
Speaker 3
Right. It's never meant to be something that you. So so these vaccine sites, they may have been technically accessible, but they were unusable by at risk communities. So when you think about what's the expanded definition of inclusion there. Well it's it's not just Ada accessibility. It's people that are older people from lower socioeconomic, households that maybe are mobile only users in those sites only worked on desktop computers.

00:18:45:20 - 00:19:15:01
Speaker 3
It's people with neurodiversity. And yes, of course, people with, you know, that are living with disabilities. So the idea is that it's a much, much, much larger population that we have to design for to be inclusive. And I think and our position is that inclusivity is bigger than accessibility. And we find accessibility in the design community to be a labyrinth of confusion, you know, and, this is a big challenge.

00:19:15:03 - 00:19:39:03
Speaker 2
I think this is so profound because first of all, there's and I want to get back to this opening the aperture more on what is inclusion. But the first thing I would observe is that I spent a lot of my career really interested in ethics relative to the communications industry. And as you know, there are things like ethics training that are very much viewed as a checkbox.

00:19:39:05 - 00:20:02:19
Speaker 2
When you treat it that way, it becomes something that's like, I got to deal with that stupid thing, and people treat it that way with anti-harassment training too, of course. But to me, moving through the world, through your life, through your business life with an ethical lens, you know, a set of tools that helps you make some assessments opens your eyes to a whole new world.

00:20:02:20 - 00:20:31:02
Speaker 2
And having discussions with people that are much more dynamic about what is ethics, where is that existing, how do we use it? Which will be, by the way, very relevant when we start to talk about AI more. I find people to be very limited. And so to go to the question of, say, diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, one of the things we've been interrogating a chance with our own DNI task force is how do we understand where we're limiting or putting ourselves in a box about what inclusion means?

00:20:31:03 - 00:20:53:19
Speaker 2
How do we understand ability, disability and accessibility differently? And I think listening to people like you, Howard, it reminds us we are all different. Like use storytelling about your own set of skills and your own cognition. You know, I used to work with Richard Branson. I understand how talented my father was, severely dyslexic, how talented people can be.

00:20:53:19 - 00:21:15:13
Speaker 2
But what tools you need. But I think that cracks open a whole new world for us of understanding what inclusion can mean. Because if we are lucky enough to age as individuals, our ability will change. Our ability to navigate the world is not going to be the same. And you, you coined the term and maybe this is a good way to connect the dots here with experience futures.

00:21:15:13 - 00:21:25:21
Speaker 2
You talk about human experience. Is that your way of putting your arms around these issues and also talking about that earlier challenge. You have a what's the language for this.

00:21:25:23 - 00:21:58:20
Speaker 3
So so I think that the the, the, the simple statement is that if you look at human experience and you look at the idea that we need to design around the individual, whether there are customer or they're an employee, you need to understand their needs. The past 15 years have been really focused on the idea of creating these collaborative workshops, design thinking sessions, you know, these these very kind of like workshops with representative users.

00:21:58:22 - 00:22:30:11
Speaker 3
And then from that building, one experience that's supposed to work for most people. And I think what we've learned is that there is no such thing as most people in digital spaces. You know, my my abilities based on my dyslexia, you know, my mom's abilities based on, you know, her age, my, my partner's ability based on her visual impairment, you know, so there's a, everyone has a set of unique needs at this point.

00:22:30:11 - 00:22:55:20
Speaker 3
It's just truth. It's it's there's data to back that up. So if you think about using workshops and design thinking sessions and collaborate spaces, although it can be very powerful from a relationship development and a alignment of thinking perspective, the actual use cases that you can create, the products, the experiences, the actual output that you create from that is actually really limited.

00:22:55:22 - 00:23:26:13
Speaker 3
And oh, by the way, you got to get everybody in person. And oh, by the way, you may not be able to get representative users in. Oh, by the way, eight different agencies are all selling you design thinking exercises. And what we have to evolve to is a place where understanding what the user needs, understanding what design and content works for them, can then be delivered to that individual based on who they are, what they need, what we know about them, and the only way to solve that is to automate the experience.

00:23:26:15 - 00:23:57:20
Speaker 3
So we actually feel and this is kind of our our big, you know, our big revolutionary statement. We actually believe that we need to design intentionally positive use cases for AI and automation in general in the world. For us, the focus is designing how I can solve inclusion in digital spaces, not make accessibility better, not think, make things more inclusive, but literally solve the inclusion problem like that should be our ambition.

00:23:57:22 - 00:24:26:06
Speaker 3
And so as an organization, our goal is we're kind of like the the nonprofit side of what we do, or kind of like a B2B nonprofit. We help organizations, and we have a goal of working with organizations, that serve health care, finance, education, government, legal for older users, for users with living with disabilities, neurodiversity, socio economic challenges.

00:24:26:08 - 00:24:56:07
Speaker 3
If you think about the the top players in each of those spaces and we could if we can use AI to help transform the inclusion in digital spaces that they provide, we can impact digital access for a billion people by 2030. So that's our that's our big audacious goal is that we believe that through partnerships, through the use of AI, through the use of automation, we can transform the digital lives and the digital capital for a billion people by 2030.

00:24:56:07 - 00:25:21:00
Speaker 3
And that's so that's what we're deeply focused on. So. So where does I come into it? Well, I comes into it because it's too much to design for, you know, five different use cases for individual needs for one digital product, say, a website or a mobile app. Most teams, most companies just can't afford to do it. They don't have the resources.

00:25:21:00 - 00:25:43:01
Speaker 3
They don't have the time. They don't have the engineering capacity. They don't have the designers. They don't have the they just don't have the luxury. Every design, organization and experience organization I've ever run has had waves of reduction. It's just been wave after wave after wave of reduction my entire career. And the mantra in corporate America has become do more with less.

00:25:43:01 - 00:25:44:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely.

00:25:44:07 - 00:26:17:07
Speaker 3
And so if that's true, yet we need to have individualized experiences for for our own unique abilities. That's a paradox. Less resources, less expertise, less funding, shorter timelines, more use cases, more permutations, more variation. We have to automate. So how do we use AI to solve the problem of delivering for individual need? And that's our that's our grand mission.

00:26:17:09 - 00:26:17:22
Speaker 2
That's so.

00:26:17:22 - 00:26:47:17
Speaker 3
Powered. And we yeah. And we've, we have we have strategies both on the nonprofit side and we have a software platform that we're creating to help with that. But in the end, we need to be we need to be looking at the technologies that we're creating, not just as, as trend trend lines or opportunities or things that we need to, you know, get on top of in order to stay current.

00:26:47:19 - 00:27:18:06
Speaker 3
We also need to look at them, as kind of vehicles of our personal ethics and beliefs. And I actually believe that I take this kind of radical stance that I actually don't think there's such a thing as ethical. I, I think that organizations and people need to be ethical. And I think that that's the really grand challenge is how do you design your technology and your use of technology to match your ethics, and how do you become intentional about what you're using those technologies for?

00:27:18:06 - 00:27:45:22
Speaker 2
I couldn't love those questions more. When you and I corresponded about that, you know, I remember watching the advent of social media. Web one, web two. You know, you and I've talked about some of this, my feeling about this is that there are things that are more and less comfortable for humans, like an Excel spreadsheet does not cause existential angst, but social media has because it's a complex set of personal and business.

00:27:46:00 - 00:28:10:12
Speaker 2
But the fact is, is that all of this is human generated. You know, until we have truly self generative AI that becomes truly intelligent in whatever way we wanted to find that, you know, and whatever that is in the future. You know, we humans are involved. And so I can be a, reach toward utopian or it can be the garbage fire that other things are, too.

00:28:10:12 - 00:28:49:07
Speaker 2
And I do think that that goes back to that individual ethical lens and how is it that we it's not something that's necessarily happening to us. We have to make active choices around it. I remember when one of the founders of virtual reality, I think it was Jaron Lanier, wrote his famous book, You Are Not a Gadget like he was trying to raise some red flags about these things, which is that there are active choices being made here about our interactions with mobile devices, with algorithms, with social media, with websites, etc. and I feel like you're raising a similar thing, that there are active choices that we have to make about how we're going to

00:28:49:07 - 00:28:55:03
Speaker 2
apply AI to this challenge of mass personalization.

00:28:55:05 - 00:29:19:10
Speaker 3
Yeah, that's a really good question. And, you know, actually, it's it's interesting that you mentioned, Jaron Lanier. I, there's an article that he wrote in The New Yorker, a few months back called There Is No AI, which I think is really powerful. And part of the premise is that what we're experiencing right now isn't actually AI.

00:29:19:10 - 00:29:42:11
Speaker 3
And in the community that I'm a part of, the the technologists and the engineers that I work with, there is a there is a dialog that, yes, we're calling it AI. It's a label, but it's not actually intelligence. It's not intelligence. What we're interacting with is incredibly large volumes of data with very sophisticated, statistical algorithms finding patterns.

00:29:42:11 - 00:30:09:20
Speaker 3
So when you type in something to ChatGPT, it's not actually thinking and responding to you. It is using predictive analytics and statistics to be able to predict what the right response is based on the large amount of data that it's been trained on. So one of the biggest problems is, I actually wrote a brief for, for, for, for for a mentor, who's on the number of corporate boards, about how to think about this moment in AI.

00:30:09:20 - 00:30:34:15
Speaker 3
And the key point was the most important thing for a board member for a C-suite executive, for leaders of all stripes in this moment on AI is understanding and being clear on the use cases that you're trying to solve is still the most important thing. And that's something that doesn't require technical expertise. It's what are we trying to solve?

00:30:34:15 - 00:30:57:03
Speaker 3
What is the business problem we're trying to solve? What is the, what is the use case where we're envisioning? And then in addition to that, you have a set of responsibilities. And, and I'm going to avoid using the word ethics here because I think that that's where you would normally say it. But let me say all this without saying the word ethics.

00:30:57:05 - 00:31:25:15
Speaker 3
Once I have an idea of what I might apply AI to, I need to understand ensure there's a feasibility analysis of is it possible, is it feasible? Does it work? But I have a responsibility to ask myself and my organization and my peers a number of questions. Is it going to harm anyone, and if so, how are there any unintended consequence sets that might arise from using this tool?

00:31:25:17 - 00:31:52:05
Speaker 3
Am I disempowering individuals from essential decision making in their lives? For example, am I am I taking their choice away around critical health care intervention or something financial that might impact their family? Am I protecting their privacy? Am I making judgments or generalizations about who they are in a way that may impact them in a negative way?

00:31:52:07 - 00:32:13:06
Speaker 3
There's more, and I think that, but the idea is that there is a lot to do with AI without being technical or even before you get into the technology or what is it going to do. But I think we see this at the beginning of every hype cycle right? People want technology to be installed and they want it to be used.

00:32:13:06 - 00:32:51:05
Speaker 3
But the truth is, is that it will die away except in the places where it has business value or other types of impact. Yeah. And so I think the most important thing for anyone to do that's either a user of AI personally or in their organization or participating in this, is to double down on what problem we trying to solve, what impact does it have on the organization or articles, what impact does it have on the people and does it align with our social impact goals, our mission, our values, our ethics or Dei strategies and policies, our beliefs about our customers?

00:32:51:05 - 00:32:56:17
Speaker 3
The impact we want to have on the world. Those are the things that need to be asked and addressed.

00:32:56:19 - 00:33:20:06
Speaker 2
I think what you've said, Howard, is so clarifying those questions that you shared with that, that mentor about, what are the first things we should be for fronting before we get caught up in the shiny object? But, I mean, there there's so much here. And I you know, I'm going to really encourage people to listen to this conversation because I think it's helping me clarify some pieces, too.

00:33:20:08 - 00:33:36:20
Speaker 2
Before we wrap up today, because I know I've kept you a long time, what are some of the things that you're excited about now? We talk about the gravity of brands with this podcast. And and there's a gravity to certain things. Could be music. All right. I know that you're you know, I've been a musician very engaged in that world over the years.

00:33:36:20 - 00:33:41:02
Speaker 2
But what are the things that you're excited about right now that you'd like to share?

00:33:41:04 - 00:34:06:02
Speaker 3
Well, I mean, I'm excited about I'm excited about this moment of transformation in in our in our culture and in humanity. We are at a point where, I mean, technology is the story of humanity, you know, the defining nature of us versus, well, every other animal on the planet is our use of technology. So therefore it is fundamentally human.

00:34:06:04 - 00:34:29:06
Speaker 3
The thing that I'm excited about is that we are accelerating fast. And I think that there is it's easy to be concerned about it, but it's also important to look at the optimism in that, which is that we have tools that will empower individuals in ways that that we can't even imagine right now. So the thing I'm excited about is there has been an explosion even in the past six months.

00:34:29:08 - 00:34:52:03
Speaker 3
Forget whether I is AI or not. Forget what it does or doesn't do well. The fact is that it has been an explosion of invention. People using tools that couldn't use tools before suddenly launching companies based on them. I mean, 2 or 3000 new AI companies have launched in the past six months. I mean, it's unbelievable tough time to be in the AI company business.

00:34:52:03 - 00:35:17:12
Speaker 3
But the, but but I think that the, the what that means to me is that it's sparked people's imaginations of how to solve problems and empower people or create new, you know, whether it's commercial or not, create new, ways of integrating tools with our lives. And that to me is exciting. Like, I'm excited about that macro arc.

00:35:17:14 - 00:35:38:06
Speaker 3
And I think that's, I think that's a it's a powerful moment. It's a powerful moment for humanity. And it's so it's exciting to be it's exciting to be a participant scary. But it's exciting and I, I'm, I'm intentionally I'm I'm what I would say is I'm aggressively optimistic. Meaning I'm going to be optimistic. Goddamn it. You know, and I love it.

00:35:38:08 - 00:35:46:05
Speaker 3
I'm going to I'm going to make the things that I believe in happen, as opposed to just worry about the things that I don't want to have happen. So I'm excited about that.

00:35:46:07 - 00:36:11:05
Speaker 2
I think that's a wonderful way of thinking about it, because, again, we have to be part of creating what we want to see. And that sounds like very high falutin. But I also talk about the folks in our own agency. You know, we're engaging with clients and others in the world all the time. We have to look at this moment as a moment of experimentation, of play, but also of caution and thoughtfulness.

00:36:11:05 - 00:36:31:10
Speaker 2
And part of being counselors is to understand both sides of these coins that, you know, humans are coming up with. And I do love the discussion, but it's not really I and I totally get and respect that. And I think it's important, too. I always like to respect the nuance, but at the same time, I love that message of optimism and I want to share that too.

00:36:31:10 - 00:36:43:03
Speaker 2
But Howard, it's been so awesome as always to talk to you. I'm excited to share the conversations we've been having with hopefully a broader audience. And thank you so much again for joining us today on building Brand Gravity.

00:36:43:05 - 00:36:46:14
Speaker 3
Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure.

00:36:46:16 - 00:37:17:14
Speaker 1
You are listening to building brand gravity, attracting people into your Orbit AG Business Communications podcast. Keep connected with us by subscribing to the show in your favorite podcast player. If you like what you've heard, please rate the show that helps us to keep delivering the latest in industry influence. Thanks for listening. Until next time.

 

00:00:00:12 - 00:00:15:22
Speaker 2
Welcome to building brand Gravity. I'm Ann Curry and I'm a principal and managing director here at G and S Business Communications. And I am super psyched to have my friend David Marine join me today. He is chief marketing officer of Coldwell Banker. Hi, David.

00:00:16:00 - 00:00:18:05
Speaker 3
Hello. And it's great to be with you.

00:00:18:10 - 00:00:35:17
Speaker 2
I'm psyched you did this. Thank you so much. You and I met in 2007 when we first started working with the brand, and I have to say, I was going to make a joke about. It was a really intense time to be working in real estate. But I feel like every year is an intense time to be working in real estate.

00:00:35:18 - 00:00:37:07
Speaker 2
Do you relate to that state?

00:00:37:07 - 00:00:46:09
Speaker 3
Isn't it? It always is. It doesn't matter if it's a high or low or what the market conditions are. It's always a bit crazy in our state, but that's what's made it interesting.

00:00:46:11 - 00:00:57:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. So tell talk a little bit about your role. Now you know how the chief marketing officer functions for Coldwell Banker today? Because obviously it's a title everyone knows, but it's a little different company to company.

00:00:57:22 - 00:01:19:09
Speaker 3
Yeah. So I oversee all the marketing efforts, not just for the Cole Banker brand, but, three other if you want to call them facets of it. So one being the core brand, the other being our global luxury program, a more affluent audience and luxury homes. Coldwell Banker Commercial, which is our commercial division, as the name would imply.

00:01:19:11 - 00:01:39:09
Speaker 3
And then I also oversee marketing for Coldwell Banker Realty, which is the company owned side of the franchise organization. So, four different assets within the Cole Banker umbrella, all with our own unique little, aspects to them and a great team behind each of them as well.

00:01:39:11 - 00:01:56:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. And it's interesting, even how each of them function, the relationship with each other. Obviously, Coldwell Banker is the brand as that anchor between them. But even, you know, negotiating that relationship between how they live in the world, how they manifest the audiences, that's that's an interesting portfolio of assets.

00:01:56:06 - 00:02:21:00
Speaker 3
It's it's neat in the fact that Coldwell Banker, as a brand itself, automatically commands, awareness. It's connected to real estate. But then each facet of the business has its own element to it as well. So we're tailoring more towards a luxury audience, global luxury. And what are the different offerings that we have there? What's our messaging. How is that tweak the audience targeting obviously very different commercial side.

00:02:21:00 - 00:02:42:05
Speaker 3
It's almost an entirely different world than residential real estate, where on the residential side, we're very much focused on the home, the emotional aspects, commercial. It's all about the business, the deals getting done, the connections and the relationships through those professionals, zero fluff involved. And then on the realty side, a cold make a real estate friend, the company own side.

00:02:42:07 - 00:03:02:20
Speaker 3
It's very much nuts and bolts getting down to getting deals done. And how do we support those agencies? Boots on the ground on a regular basis through awareness, through giving them the tools in order to get things done. So all of their own unique things. But it's it's good to have a overarching umbrella, what's called anchor and what that messaging, what that brand stands for, to be part of it.

00:03:02:22 - 00:03:14:02
Speaker 2
So when I first met you in 2007, do you even remember what was your role in title then? Because you have had an incredible trajectory and I like to call it growing up. Coldwell Banker.

00:03:14:04 - 00:03:17:14
Speaker 3
That's a good name for it. Maybe that's, in my autobiography.

00:03:17:16 - 00:03:23:22
Speaker 2
That's right. Your memoir. David, I'm giving you the title. So I can, I can I'll think of a subtitle for you, too, at some point.

00:03:23:22 - 00:03:33:07
Speaker 3
Oh, yes. I will tell you now, if I ever write a memoir, you get to be the foreword on the chapter. And growing up. Oh my gosh, yes. Yeah. What was I back then?

00:03:33:07 - 00:03:36:01
Speaker 2
Probably you're on the marketing team.

00:03:36:01 - 00:03:59:18
Speaker 3
I was on the marketing team. I may have been overseeing, some of the media sets at the time, like senior manager of consumer engagement or some fancy title like that. But yes, I've been with the brand for 22 years. They joined in 2002 as the electronic product manager, and then held every pretty much every role within the marketing department since then.

00:03:59:18 - 00:04:04:15
Speaker 3
And, over time made my way through the organization. Now being in charge of all the marketing.

00:04:04:17 - 00:04:18:13
Speaker 2
How is it? I mean, it seems obvious how it would help it. From your perspective, what have you gained or what did you learn by playing so many different roles as you rose up to the organization and ultimately had a chance to shape it the way you wanted to shape it?

00:04:18:15 - 00:04:37:18
Speaker 3
Yeah. What what's weird is, when I was younger, I was very interested in advertising at an early age, like nine, ten years old. I would memorize commercials, jingles, all that stuff. I was obsessive about it. And I told my parents at an early age that I wanted to be in advertising someday. I don't like, you know what?

00:04:37:18 - 00:04:57:01
Speaker 3
My interest goal goes a little bit higher. Don't you want to be something more than that? Like, no, I want to make TV commercials when I grow up. And I majored in marketing in college, and one of those rare people who went to college for years graduated with what they started off in and really had this mindset that this is what I wanted to do some day.

00:04:57:03 - 00:05:14:09
Speaker 3
But what I didn't realize was that we don't just get to make television commercials and mass campaigns right out of school, like you don't graduate. They're like, hey, here you go. Coach wants this my next Friday. No, it was this journey. And so then there's be like, hey, I just need to get a job. I want to be in this field of marketing.

00:05:14:09 - 00:05:34:16
Speaker 3
Let me get started there. And I started off with a small agency. And then that was actually, came to Caldwell and just found different facets of the marketing business that I probably as, even as a college kid didn't even realize existed, like product development. And the digital side of things was just sort of coming into fruition at that point in time.

00:05:34:18 - 00:05:57:21
Speaker 3
And so with this end goal of wanting to be, in advertising and eventually wanting to be CMO someday, I saw these different areas of the marketing spectrum that I knew I needed to get better. So when I started in the product development side, I remember, early on, maybe two years in with Caldwell that someone from the digital team left and they went to get another job somewhere else.

00:05:57:23 - 00:06:22:16
Speaker 3
And I was like, you know what? I don't really have any of that experience, at this scale with a brand, I think I need to be better in that. I think that's something I need to to go for. And at the time, the role that was open was a lower in title than my current role. But I went into my boss's office one day and said, listen, I'd really love to get some more exposure on the digital side of things.

00:06:22:16 - 00:06:42:14
Speaker 3
I'm willing to take a demotion in title if I can fill that role and to be able to get that experience. And so one of the great things about cold Bank, and what has kept me here for all these years is they continue to open doors for people to grow. And a couple days later, my boss calls me and he says, no, you know, no demotion in title.

00:06:42:15 - 00:06:57:16
Speaker 3
We're going to move you over there because you're interested in this. And so then throughout my career, I found these different areas and pockets like, oh, well, I need to get better in buying media side of things. Before you get into the creative side of things, I need to understand that world. So how do I get exposed to that?

00:06:57:16 - 00:07:12:14
Speaker 3
And just I've been very fortunate through my career that there have been doors have been opened at times, right. People in place to help me along the way, to kind of round out that holistic marketing view of things that is really, I think, helped me in my current role, being CMO.

00:07:12:16 - 00:07:32:03
Speaker 2
I was laughing at the value judgment implicit in what your parents were saying, like, don't go into advertising. You can aim higher now. I mean, that's not necessarily true. Yeah. They're like really? Seriously? I mean, it's it's actually it's such an exciting area. But what you just said and that's what I love talking to people I've known for a while like this.

00:07:32:03 - 00:07:56:09
Speaker 2
I never knew that story about you sort of advocating to say, look, I'll take a demotion if I can go over here. And then what an incredible outcome, which is kind of what knowing the organization and knowing you, I'm not surprised to hear they're like, hey, I love this initiative. Let's just bring you over laterally, which is a fantastic response to somebody who truly wants to learn and grow.

00:07:56:10 - 00:08:18:23
Speaker 3
Yeah. And I, I've been fortunate to talk to some coach universities and their business schools about career growth. And Sutton and I love relaying that story and not for the idea of look at what I did, but the idea of taking initiative and taking control of your own career. This is something you want to put yourself out there and go do it.

00:08:19:02 - 00:08:54:00
Speaker 3
Don't wait for it to be handed to you. Another example is I knew that I wanted to obviously be in charge of advertising at some point, but there was someone who was already in that role when I was with the company. But I felt like, hey, maybe peripherally, I can get some exposure. So on my own I would start reading articles, I would subscribe to media posts, even though I was on the digital side of things at the time, and just start asking questions with, person who's in charge of it, with the SVP of marketing at the time and showing that interest.

00:08:54:02 - 00:09:17:14
Speaker 3
And then when there was like, hey, you guys are working on this campaign, maybe I can be involved with it. And in my own role from a digital aspect, and then it can give me that exposure. But showing that genuine interest and going above and beyond like this isn't really my job, but I'm expressing interest in it. And it, I think, is what has opened a lot of doors for me, just being willing to have curiosity and put yourself out there.

00:09:17:14 - 00:09:36:09
Speaker 3
And, it also helps to have the right people ahead of you. And that's been one thing that Cole Baker has in spades is their leadership. Throughout my 20 years, career continues to be people that not only want to do a good job, not only want to have success, but also care about the people and making sure that the right opportunities are given to them.

00:09:36:14 - 00:10:00:10
Speaker 2
Now that's so powerful. And it it just brings that goodwill. But also, even if people move on, that network is still out there in the world and can come back and I do think to what you're reminding me of, you know, the marketing communications landscape, whether it's advertising, email journeys, you know, digital stakeholder relationships, it's very integrated, it's really overlapping.

00:10:00:10 - 00:10:26:15
Speaker 2
And that idea of cross training, how do you make sure and self-education too? Because when I think about you, starting in 2002, me meeting you in 2007, tape had in WordPress the idea of writing to the web instantly. That was like 2003, 2004 when it was becoming popularized. And people forget, you know, that that was the day, as I believe, that it was still often being called new media, you know.

00:10:26:17 - 00:10:28:01
Speaker 3
So web 2.0 yeah.

00:10:28:01 - 00:10:48:18
Speaker 2
Exactly. Web one than web two. So I think this idea of opening the lens on what these roles are and how do you engage with them is really, really powerful. That leads me to a question, actually, another sort of evolution. What does the word brand mean to you today versus what brand? I mean, that's such a catch all term.

00:10:48:18 - 00:10:57:23
Speaker 2
There's so much encoded in it. And yet it also has formal definition. So what do you see it as today and how is that evolve for you over time.

00:10:58:01 - 00:11:33:02
Speaker 3
Yeah. Brand probably early in my career was hey, that's something a multinational corporation on the fortune 500 is it's this huge, massive entity that immediately commands universal, acceptance and recognition and that I think with the changes in the digital landscape and from everything from social and new media and beyond has, has completely changed, and that it's no longer available just to those who can fund a television campaign.

00:11:33:04 - 00:12:02:20
Speaker 3
Brand today is basically any person or, organization, whether large or small, that represents something. And they're the ones who are trying to determine what they represent, while the consumer is also coming to that same conclusion and the change in branding as a whole from being a sophisticated organization to basically an individual, it's been one of the biggest changes I've seen.

00:12:03:00 - 00:12:21:09
Speaker 3
And you just have to look at like the NBA for an example where the NBA was a brand itself, it was the Chicago Bulls, the New York Knicks, and Michael Jordan was what was one like. That's those were the big brands. Now it's you've got so many players who are taking control of their own brand and making it into.

00:12:21:09 - 00:12:42:03
Speaker 3
So they're monetizing. You see with the Nil with college athletes today, these this idea of branding and controlling your message has now become so critical to everybody. And I think even for, the average business person today, what is your brand stand for when you're going into an interview? What is it? Tell you what is your resume saying?

00:12:42:03 - 00:12:58:15
Speaker 3
What are you as a person saying? What is your work product, representing and what you want that to be? It's now up to the receiver of that information to say, like, yeah, I agree with that or not. And this goes for, for Cole banker as a whole or for David Marine as an individual.

00:12:58:17 - 00:13:38:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's such a two way street. Right. As you said, the the entity, whether it's a person or an organization, has to figure out what do we stand for? How am I going to manifest that in the world through every touchpoint? But then the receivers on the other side have to decide how it lands for them too. And, you know, this whole time period, we're talking about the feedback loop was so much more, so many more levels of feedback and engagement and coming at us positives, negatives, etc. that that understanding of that brand personality and where it's rooted is constantly pushed, has to be constantly reestablished, constantly revisited.

00:13:39:00 - 00:13:46:10
Speaker 2
I mean, let's say you're working for a brand. That's what, 117 years old now, are we? Is that. Yeah. 1906.

00:13:46:12 - 00:13:47:05
Speaker 3
Exactly.

00:13:47:07 - 00:14:12:19
Speaker 2
That's the long heritage. And it's and it's interesting too, because what a brand means in each decade for a brand that's over 100 years old means something different. How do you how do you think about Coldwell Banker relative to that incredible arc of history? And how is it that you honor the deep roots, which are something that are so precious, like so few companies have that versus making it fresh and real and relevant today?

00:14:12:21 - 00:14:36:21
Speaker 3
Yeah. What is what I'm very fortunate in having, as in being in charge of the Coldwell Banker brand as a whole is it has represented something for those 117 years and hasn't really changed from its core. So there's some brands that, hey, did you know they started as they used to make jugs and now they make headphones, right.

00:14:36:23 - 00:15:07:18
Speaker 3
For Cole Baker, it's always been about real estate and this idea of doing what is best for the customer. And I talked about our founding story all the time. And it's yeah, it's basically is a script for a film where it's a college drop out, comes back home, finds the city in total disarray after the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, and decides to start a real estate business that puts the consumer first because he saw shady real estate deals going on.

00:15:07:20 - 00:15:33:01
Speaker 3
And the competitors you like. That's not real. That's that's a made up, you know, made for TV movie or something. Nobody does that. But that's that's literally what happened with the guy. Kolber Caldwell, 20 something years old, started this company. 117 years later, they still exist. And this idea of home and the financial and emotional aspects of it has been something that's been core for the better part of that 117 years as well.

00:15:33:03 - 00:16:11:16
Speaker 3
And so while the idea and the shape and the cost and value of home is different over time, the emotional value of it has it, it's still this place that we want to call our own. Where memories are made. It's literally the only investment that you can hang things on and you can physically enjoy. So that gives a very wide spectrum for a marketer to be able to play with and continue to develop over time, and how home changes and what it means, today versus 20 years ago, what it meant during the pandemic, and even the greater value of it as a place of safety and refuge than, than it would be

00:16:11:16 - 00:16:29:11
Speaker 3
in a different time, time that we've existed. So having that at its core, really makes the brand stand the test of time, and we're able to just change the volume of it and the messaging of it slightly, but still keep to the core of who we are as a brand.

00:16:29:13 - 00:16:51:07
Speaker 2
I think that, it makes me wonder whether having that history, you can really it can maybe be an anchor for some people in a bad way, like pull you down, but when you allow it to root you in a set of values and really re interrogate those values decade to decade, year to year, context to context, it gives you a really rich palette to work from.

00:16:51:07 - 00:16:52:15
Speaker 2
You know, I think.

00:16:52:17 - 00:17:16:12
Speaker 3
Oh, it certainly does. And it again, going back to we're not just selling a shoe. It's something that's more than that gives you a, a greater purpose behind your brand. And it may sound lofty and truthy marketing guy talking about it, but it's a higher calling, if you will. Like our workforce of agents. They're not selling an object.

00:17:16:12 - 00:17:36:21
Speaker 3
They're selling the American Dream. And that the idea of home ownership is something that while there's headlines about, hey, no one wants to own a home anymore. And this is the rental economy, and I've heard all that yet 700,000 homes were bought or sold in the past 12 to 16 months. So it's still something that goes on every day.

00:17:36:21 - 00:17:56:01
Speaker 3
And people are moving for emotional reasons as well. It's not just because like, hey, home prices are up, so I'm going to sell and therefore I'm going to bank on this. It's no, I want someplace that is going to be closer to where family is or, you know, I want a better place for my family. And what I love is when you hear I'm a big sports guy.

00:17:56:01 - 00:18:07:10
Speaker 3
So when you read about these athletes who come from crazy backgrounds and hard times and then they they get into the NBA or Major League Baseball and, and what's the first thing they want to buy?

00:18:07:11 - 00:18:08:22
Speaker 2
I know exactly what you're going to say.

00:18:09:01 - 00:18:10:23
Speaker 3
They want to buy a home for their mom.

00:18:11:03 - 00:18:12:02
Speaker 2
That's right.

00:18:12:04 - 00:18:32:06
Speaker 3
And because that's not just like, hey, mom, it's an amazing investment. It's going to increase over time. It's like, no, this is a place that I want to be a safety for you, a refuge I want to I want it to be a place that I can go to, and we can spend time and enjoy together. And to me, like that speaks to the value of what the Coldwell Banker brand really stands for.

00:18:32:08 - 00:18:55:07
Speaker 2
It's an interesting thing to do branding in this environment, especially the real estate sector, because it is such a core economic indicator. It's always in the news up, down, sideways. There's always speculation about whether it's new home starts or existing home sales. It's very tied to other macroeconomic indicators like interest rates, the movements of the fed move real estate.

00:18:55:09 - 00:19:19:01
Speaker 2
But the other thing about, shepherding a brand through the environment and doing all of the kinds of marketing, advertising, etc. that a brand like this does, it's a highly multi-stakeholder environment, and it's very much of that B to B to C, you have your broker owners, the companies out there who franchise, you have the, the, the staff that works at the company owned locations.

00:19:19:01 - 00:19:41:23
Speaker 2
You have the agents themselves who have a layered relationship. They're part of the brands, but they also can do what they want. They're very independent as well. And then you have buyers and sellers. How have you grappled with that kind of dynamic sort of Venn diagram of a stakeholder ecosystem over the years? Because everybody needs to see and hear themselves in the messages that you're sharing?

00:19:42:01 - 00:19:47:05
Speaker 3
Yeah, sometimes I think it would be, well, it must be much simpler to be mountain to be like.

00:19:47:07 - 00:19:47:14
Speaker 2
That.

00:19:47:19 - 00:20:16:00
Speaker 3
15 year old boys. This is what I need to target and X-Games. Let's go to slap that logo on stuff. Get it out there in front of them and be good. But you're right. Not only do we have the buyers and sellers, which is kind of like the hey, those those are the people who are dealing with houses, but we have our network of over 100,000 agents across the globe, and then we have our 3500 plus offices and companies that are these franchises.

00:20:16:02 - 00:20:36:15
Speaker 3
So there's this multi layer audience. And anytime I go into a marketing workshop or with the Association of National Advertisers or you're filling out a creative brief, it's like who's your target audience? Like, well, here's the message we need for this audience, but here's how we need to approach it for another. And it's a challenge, but it also what makes it interesting.

00:20:36:15 - 00:21:02:18
Speaker 3
And so one of the approaches that I've tried to take was whatever messaging we are providing to the end consumer, the buyer or the seller, I want it to be so compelling that our network of agents and brokers look at it and say, I can't help but use that because I know that this will work. And sometimes we hit a home run sometimes means we're going to miss on that.

00:21:02:20 - 00:21:28:22
Speaker 3
But that's the idea of, hey, if we can talk to them directly, the buyer or seller and our brokers and our agents across the globe are saying, I want to use that messaging to that is the most powerful marketing that's there, taking national messaging, allowing them to use a hyperlocal level to make those connections. And it just acts as an echo chamber as well, to be able to be for other people, to be able to hear that same messaging time and time again.

00:21:29:00 - 00:21:53:03
Speaker 2
Yeah. And you're reminding me of one thing I was thinking about earlier, which is there, there is the message or messages, and then there are all the channels. And I think sometimes, especially in the kind of environment, the B2B side of it, there's a focus on, rightly so. Well, what are the tools and the and the tech or the channels and what's the what, what's the thing you're giving us?

00:21:53:05 - 00:22:22:04
Speaker 2
But even deeper than that is the message that's going to resonate. What are those messages? What's the the values of the brand? What is the ultimate purpose that's serving for those end users? Who are the buyers and sellers? How do you help the constituencies that you're serving sort of balance between the centrality of that message and getting it right, and also helping them use it and feel it like down to their bones and how it can be expressed versus here's the channels you can put it through.

00:22:22:04 - 00:22:23:03
Speaker 2
Does that make sense?

00:22:23:08 - 00:22:44:23
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think it goes back to the idea of the power of a good story. And then how is that story being relayed over time. So it's one thing if I tell it to you, but it's so much greater if I tell you and then you tell five others about it. And so that's the approach with our our constituents is giving them the ability to tell that story of whatever it is.

00:22:44:23 - 00:23:16:13
Speaker 3
And it may be about a specific product, may be about a specific campaign we're rolling out, or could be even about what is going on in the luxury space, equipping them with not the verbatim. Here is what you're going to recite, but the idea of yes, I understand that we are trying to attract sellers and to increase the listing inventory in our market, and I can do that by talking about the power of of dreaming today, which is one of our current campaigns that's out there and saying like, well, if you could live anywhere, where would it be?

00:23:16:13 - 00:23:21:17
Speaker 3
And 99% of the time when you ask someone that they don't see the place where they're currently living.

00:23:21:19 - 00:23:23:11
Speaker 2
That is probably true. Yes.

00:23:23:13 - 00:23:27:04
Speaker 3
So it's a sometimes extravagant, sometimes it's all will eventually, or.

00:23:27:04 - 00:23:32:05
Speaker 2
Maybe it's returning to an earlier home. It's going back to their roots, which is so powerful.

00:23:32:07 - 00:24:06:20
Speaker 3
So putting that in their minds is oh, okay, now I understand why we're doing this. And I can connect with the fact that this is true. So now how am I going to express that locally as an agent or a local Coldwell Banker franchisee? Okay, now here are the tools in which you can do that, whether it be custom social media campaigns or videos or tool like our move meter or it gives them the ability to then take that talk track and that concept that they get behind and then activate it at a local level.

00:24:06:21 - 00:24:28:11
Speaker 2
Well, I think this is an important conversation too, because there's wheat and there's chaff or cart and horse. Right. And sometimes that can be hard, like in a very dynamic environment that we've been in, especially from a digital perspective, different platforms, new ones launching. You know, obviously there is a change from Twitter to X now there's threads, now there's that whole battle royale going on.

00:24:28:11 - 00:24:49:13
Speaker 2
But I think that in the Markham's landscape, advertising, marketing, communications, branding, there is an anxiety to stay on top of that technology. The platform forming the evolution of the space, but how you stay rooted in the why of it and the who of it, and the what is going to move the needle not you know what I mean.

00:24:49:13 - 00:24:55:04
Speaker 2
Don't get caught up in the tools, but and forget the core of what you're actually trying to communicate.

00:24:55:06 - 00:25:20:10
Speaker 3
Yeah, this is a bizarre example, but, we talk about the best stories that are out there that can stand the test of time. So there have been 100 iterations of Superman from black and white cartoons, comic books, Smallville, Man of Steel, Adventures of Lois and Clark. It's all out there, and they all have their different iterations of it.

00:25:20:10 - 00:25:43:03
Speaker 3
Some work, some don't, but the core of that story is still the same. It's about this alien who comes to Earth, makes his home here, wants to save the world, falls in love with this with Lois Lane. And the different aspects of that can change over time. But the core of it about truth, justice, the American way, helping out, trying to find success in this world by helping others.

00:25:43:05 - 00:26:09:19
Speaker 3
That's always been the same throughout it. So it doesn't matter if the vehicle of that story has changed over time and even the characters playing, that has changed and they look differently now. But at its core, it's still the same story and it always works. So finding a way as a marketer to say, hey, you know what? This outer core is what we stand for and what we want to do and what we want to communicate.

00:26:09:21 - 00:26:28:15
Speaker 3
And now let's think about what are the different ways that we can compel people to engage with that story. That's really powerful. And the hard part is not a lot of brands, and not a lot of marketers have that core story that will stand the test of time. It's very much trying to grab things at a specific moment in time, and that's fine.

00:26:28:17 - 00:26:44:17
Speaker 3
But realizing that, hey, you know, this is going to work for this point in time, then we're going to come up with something else later on. That's a realization you have to come to. But when you can find something that you know stands the test of time and truly find the methodology of a great story, then it doesn't matter.

00:26:44:19 - 00:26:48:15
Speaker 3
When you're trying to express it, you're able to adjust it to the time at hand.

00:26:48:17 - 00:27:10:14
Speaker 2
You know, I appreciate the kind of culture jacking, news jacking, brand jacking, nimbleness where, you know, somebody comes out with that amazing tweet or Facebook post right in the moment. That's so pithy, but you're kind of zooming out to the bigger picture. I think the Superman one, you and I are both comic book people way back, is super relevant on Superman.

00:27:10:16 - 00:27:33:22
Speaker 2
I because it shows that those brands, the comic brands and Marvel. But DC, I give them a lot of credit too. They have, by their nature, the comic books over the decades, there's a reboot of the stories that's built into it. There's always a reinvention. And yet how do they play with those core values? I think that's a really interesting way of looking at it.

00:27:33:22 - 00:27:56:06
Speaker 2
And frankly, a lot of organizations today, and I've been an organizational leader for a long time. One of the pressures on a lot of leaders today is the fact that there is so much feedback now, and that's that two way street, which I really embrace. It's much I like it much better than the early days of command and control that I encountered when I first came into the industry, which, like the early 90s, I was Chuck was basically the late 70s.

00:27:56:06 - 00:28:30:08
Speaker 2
It was still the same. But today that feedback loop, yeah, that feedback loop can be tough because not everybody's going to feel the same about the values of the brand. Not everyone's going to feel the same about the partnerships you do, the way in which you may speak up on certain things. It's these are big audiences, right? And so one thing I see a lot of executives struggling with, and we've and as counselors, we have to think about this because there's no right answer sometimes, which is how do you pull back and reroute yourself in the values of the brand and what that means, not just for external audiences, but also your own employees and

00:28:30:08 - 00:28:42:11
Speaker 2
what you stand for at times where there may be different voices that are saying, I don't like this or I don't like you. I mean, it's that's how do you think about that? Because you and I have worked through some of those issues in the past.

00:28:42:13 - 00:29:12:22
Speaker 3
Yes. The feedback loop. You know, here's the great thing. Being in marketing, it's that every person is a marketing expert. You know, I live with marketing experts who are quick to tell me what is good and what isn't. So the feedback loop is universal. The trick is listening to the right feedback, which is true in anything, regardless of marketing your own advice given to you, whether you're from a career, a parent, marriage, whatever, there's always that advice.

00:29:13:01 - 00:29:33:20
Speaker 3
The key is picking the right stuff to listen to. And so not worrying about what everyone is saying, but who are the people that you most want to hear from? What are they saying and how do you adjust to that? Let's jump back to the comic books example real quick, because we brought Marvel and DC, and I think that is an example within DC universe.

00:29:33:22 - 00:29:38:21
Speaker 3
So like for example, my boys and I were were rewatching Smallville. Okay. We watch.

00:29:39:02 - 00:29:39:16
Speaker 2
I remember.

00:29:39:20 - 00:29:57:14
Speaker 3
The show. Well, yes, my wife and I were first married. Like we watched it however many seasons or whatever. And so now are the summer as a family. We're it's like, what's the safe show you can watch these days? It's very hard to find one from an age group, from a fifth grader to a sophomore in college. So we started that and everybody enjoys it.

00:29:57:14 - 00:30:14:07
Speaker 3
And they're they're like storyline. Like, why is that still compelling today? Well, the storyline is good. It develops the characters. It's interesting and a core. The message still resonates. So my ten year old asks me, I like Smallville, but why do all the DC movies stick?

00:30:14:09 - 00:30:14:17
Speaker 2
Why are.

00:30:14:17 - 00:30:16:23
Speaker 3
They good.

00:30:17:01 - 00:30:18:03
Speaker 2
Questioners.

00:30:18:03 - 00:30:44:10
Speaker 3
And said yes. And the reason is, is because I think it and I can't speak for DC, but my assumption would be that they thought, well, people love these characters, so we're just going to throw them in a movie and people will eat it up when instead of focusing on developing that storyline for today to to attract that audience first, like, hey, we're going to come out with documents can have an amazing special effects.

00:30:44:10 - 00:31:04:21
Speaker 3
People are going to go see it and we'll be breaking the money. On the flip side, Marvel took the time of laying out all these different phases, and here's how we're going develop the story. And in five, seven, ten years from now, it's going to culminate in it's in Avengers Infinity War and End Game. And that's going to be a capstone on this.

00:31:04:21 - 00:31:24:22
Speaker 3
And then we'll be able to reset again. So a different approach, two different approaches both with this basically the same assets at hand create stories. Great characters known but approached differently. One seen immense success from it and one is just trying to now reboot yet again with DC. Bring on James Gunn to kind of run their storyline.

00:31:25:00 - 00:31:46:06
Speaker 2
That's such a powerful example, and it blows my mind to think about. And there are some, you know, individuals and visionaries within that, but that ability of Marvel to hold to that arc, for Marvel to say we have we're going to create a long arc of story and we're going to have to have wins along the way. And they did obviously have some big wins.

00:31:46:06 - 00:31:53:18
Speaker 2
And there's some reasons in terms of the talent they brought in to me, we can I'm sure they owe a giant debt to Robert Downey Jr, but it's.

00:31:53:18 - 00:31:54:20
Speaker 3
Exactly.

00:31:54:22 - 00:32:19:17
Speaker 2
It still takes a lot. And I think it's a metaphor for the kinds of dedication and will and also courage, but also foresight that one has to have in shepherding a brand over the long haul. And I think your role is so interesting, David, because we've all, you know, we all read the stats and adage over the years and, you know, the A and A is my former client, very friends with the folks over there.

00:32:19:17 - 00:32:43:03
Speaker 2
And you know, we know how short ten years can be for marketers in different organizations. And now you've been CMO for a certain amount of time, but your trajectory goes much farther back. So just the ability for you to have thought for so long about this brand have been a part of how it has operationally evolved. I mean, it's not just the external, it's operationally how it works.

00:32:43:05 - 00:33:04:04
Speaker 2
Like that's a that's a pretty rare thing. And the Marvel thing, though, reminds me of another question I had for you, because you are a very culturally savvy guy, like you said, into sports and marvel and entertainment and, and just really litter out on that front. And we are seeing the side from Marvel is some just absolutely powerhouse brand moves this year.

00:33:04:08 - 00:33:34:11
Speaker 2
You mentioned Jordan. So the movie air and the kind of reigniting of the Air Jordan origin story and where the brand sat and then of course, there is the B-word Barbie, which has been also, by the way, reached a billion. So there's another B. Yeah. So Greta Gerwig, now the biggest, you know, female selling director ever. But what is your observation about sort of where brands play in the cultural conversation, the relevance that they can have when they hit it?

00:33:34:11 - 00:33:47:11
Speaker 2
Right. And it really resonates, to use that earlier metaphor versus when it rings false. What are some of your observations and how do you judge that when you're making deals that puts your brands out in the cultural conversation?

00:33:47:17 - 00:34:11:12
Speaker 3
Yeah. Brands today, can tread lightly in knowing that you are either going to create a brand that's going to be amazingly compelling and talked about through books and television series and movies, or warning you're going to be a brand that's going to be talked about in movies, television and stories, depending upon where you end up.

00:34:11:14 - 00:34:13:12
Speaker 2
Like the double edged sword.

00:34:13:14 - 00:34:26:15
Speaker 3
Think of rework, right? Yes. One of the best series I've watched on Apple TV was, Jared Leto just running around the office, stealing my side. You know, that's part of the we crashed to the series.

00:34:26:15 - 00:34:27:16
Speaker 2
True story.

00:34:27:16 - 00:34:57:17
Speaker 3
So real, real story, a highly compelling and disruptor brand that just kind of exploded, or self imploded, I should say, versus Nike and, talking about, air, which is likely going to be up for some Academy Awards, I would expect just a fantastic story about a brand that's been around for a while. Everybody's kind of known that story, but putting it all together with some powerhouse talent behind it to it also puts it in a new light.

00:34:57:19 - 00:35:25:02
Speaker 3
And as a father of four boys, I can tell you right now that they're my 15 year old and 12 year old. Both wanted Air Jordans, as their basketball shoes. And those were the shoes that I wanted 25 years ago when I was in high school, in junior high. And to be able to say, like. And the guy who hasn't played in the last 25 years or so is compelling in that that's a brand that has time.

00:35:25:02 - 00:35:49:09
Speaker 3
And so that's one that I personally enjoy near and dear to my heart. But as a marketer, you're marvel at the way that they're able to say it. It was around a guy, one player, Michael Jordan, who he was. He's the greatest player ever in basketball, in my opinion. But when he's no longer playing, how do you get 12 and 13 year olds to still be engaged with that identity?

00:35:49:11 - 00:36:14:15
Speaker 3
And they've done a good job of not only from speaking the shoes appealing in a fashion icon, but then also finding a way to like, okay, whether it's Jayson Tatum or Luka Dunk Touch, they're going to be able to find that next generation of talent to also wear that brand. It doesn't hurt that every University of Michigan, team also has to implement their jerseys, engaging the uses to that.

00:36:14:16 - 00:36:38:08
Speaker 2
Well, it's a long game, you know, and it has to be continually reinvented. And it does require that attention to the core values of that brand and also the core values that Nike has shown about being aligned with athletes and really raising them up. Celebrate ING the effort behind it, as well as the amazing prowess, you know, on the field or on the court.

00:36:38:09 - 00:36:53:05
Speaker 2
Last time I saw you, I did show you a picture of my brand new Air Jordan High Top. So even even the 52 year old women are also interested in this brand now. It took a long time. It's hilarious. So. But it was one of those things where I'm like, I've always wanted to own a pair of those.

00:36:53:05 - 00:36:54:05
Speaker 2
I think I'll go get a pair.

00:36:54:05 - 00:37:10:13
Speaker 3
It is. It is a moment when you can go out and be like, you know what? I need a pair, a new pair of Jordans. That to me is going to. Yeah. And my wife jokes with the boys all the time, but it's like, well, choose the one thing that daddy will spend money on when you mean, there you go.

00:37:10:15 - 00:37:17:15
Speaker 2
Get him, get it. Well, you know, is something he supports. Well, and the Barbie thing is interesting to me. Have you seen the movie?

00:37:17:15 - 00:37:23:04
Speaker 3
I have not, although, my wife has said we need to go at some point in time.

00:37:23:06 - 00:37:44:17
Speaker 2
I would say that it works on many levels. And as a marketer, you definitely need to go. And the reason is, is that the portrayal of Mattel and I've been in communications, as you know, for 30 years, and I've advised a lot of brands and I understand what feels comfortable or what does not feel comfortable for different companies based on, you know, where they're putting themselves out there.

00:37:44:19 - 00:38:25:23
Speaker 2
And we do know that brands that authentically and that's a very charged word. But brands that authentically are able to embrace either humor or not being so serious or poking fun at themselves or looking clearly at the hard issues and their history, that's really powerful. And I think what's interesting about Mattel, and we'll have to talk about this not on this podcast, but after you've seen it, is, is that there's so much tongue in cheek, but there's also a serious critique of what Barbie has meant in society, as well as good stuff and a lot of silliness and a lot of madcap insanity that the Mattel leadership and advertising folks must have, like, swallowed hard

00:38:25:23 - 00:38:43:23
Speaker 2
and been like, oh my God. But they went for it and it was really amazing. When you can see a brand that is both humble enough and has sense of humor enough, like a person to be able to kind of be like, yeah, we're complicated too. Does that make sense with you? I mean, it's really hard to modulate along this line.

00:38:44:00 - 00:39:12:21
Speaker 3
Oh, it does, and I've been impressed, one with the sheer volume of Barbie partnerships and different ways they've found to like, make connections within the film, but also Barbie as a whole, as a brand on its own, is incredible that it stood the test of time to think about 1950s doll that was created, and it's still being bought today, and now $1 billion feature film around it.

00:39:12:23 - 00:39:32:13
Speaker 3
That's that's something in and of itself to talk about. Hey, this is something that still resonates with people today in a number of different ways. And I bet there's different people who react negatively to Barbie. But it doesn't matter because they've still been able to showcase like, hey, there's noise around these people to like us, but guess what?

00:39:32:15 - 00:39:51:05
Speaker 3
We're still this entity and we've been able to last for 50 plus years. And now I've been impressed with the film. There's a lot of hype behind it initially. Yeah. And there was a question of like, well, is it really going to pan out? I saw a lot of pink. Are we ready for that? I'm not sure.

00:39:51:07 - 00:40:04:23
Speaker 3
But clearly the evidence is in that the audiences are coming out and it's become a cultural moment, which is one thing that as a brand, you would want to have in, in a positive way. And it's certainly done that.

00:40:05:01 - 00:40:24:09
Speaker 2
Yeah. Lightning in a bottle. Once you see it, you can see if you agree with me that Ryan Gosling deserves a new category of Academy Award for fully and completely committing. So just put a pin in that in your mind so as it's truly amazing. So as we wrap up today, what are you know, this is called building brand gravity.

00:40:24:09 - 00:40:38:04
Speaker 2
And that's very intentional. It's sort of the idea of the weight and the pull of brands. What brands have you in their orbit right now? I mean, I know you so I know some of the brands you've loved for a long time, but what are the ones that are top of mind for you right now?

00:40:38:08 - 00:40:57:18
Speaker 3
Oh, we've already touched on, Air Jordan. We're still very much, in my world, a brand looking at maybe the nontraditional big brands that have really just entered my realm in the last five or even ten years. One, it's been. Dude, perfect to know who dude Perfect is.

00:40:57:20 - 00:40:58:09
Speaker 2
No.

00:40:58:09 - 00:41:08:23
Speaker 3
Did you not? So they are like the number two most subscribed YouTube channel like in the world. Wow. They put out a video and in 20 minutes it's got like 30 million views.

00:41:09:04 - 00:41:10:00
Speaker 2
It's amazing.

00:41:10:03 - 00:41:24:19
Speaker 3
Four guys, five guys, five guys who started filming trick shots, like, in their backyard and have, over time become this phenomenon. So again, having four boys interested in sports, they do. Yeah.

00:41:24:19 - 00:41:26:10
Speaker 2
You can see my demographic at home.

00:41:26:12 - 00:41:26:20
Speaker 3
Exact.

00:41:26:22 - 00:41:28:12
Speaker 2
In. But I like to be educated.

00:41:28:12 - 00:41:45:13
Speaker 3
Thank you. But what's great about them is they've stuck to. They know who they are and they're not afraid. Like and for fun of themselves. Not like. How many trick shots can we possibly do? So they found ways to expand and they've and now they've posted their own little like mini talk show called overtime, which is a 20 minute YouTube segment.

00:41:45:18 - 00:42:10:18
Speaker 3
And they do different things. They've created, fake characters that they each play, and they create not only video series, but now they've expanded into, apparel and they've got they've got a show that's touring around and they're selling out football stadiums or basketball stadiums or whatever. You're like, these are five guys who just started throwing basketball through hoops off their roof.

00:42:10:20 - 00:42:31:01
Speaker 3
But it's really interesting to see how, like, they can possibly be lasting this long. And they even talk about how they were going to break up, you know, a couple of years ago or whatever. And it just found new ways to reinvent themselves. So that's that's one that's it definitely in my bank and compelling the other. That's great.

00:42:31:01 - 00:42:47:19
Speaker 3
I mean, that is that term is Meadowlark Media. So I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a lot of people who are leaving ESPN these days. Yes, absolutely. And a lot of changes obviously, in the journalism spectrum. Like that's a whole nother realm. And we could spend hours on breaking.

00:42:47:21 - 00:42:49:22
Speaker 2
That's a whole podcast in and of itself.

00:42:50:02 - 00:43:10:11
Speaker 3
Exactly. So, I'm a big fan of Dan Lieberthal, and Stu, who did a show on ESPN radio and on ESPN for a number of years. And, fortunate enough to have met a cold banker Jim Blue event in Miami when you interview him and just really enjoyed the kind of irreverent style they they love to joke around.

00:43:10:17 - 00:43:40:12
Speaker 3
They don't treat sports seriously. And they decided to leave ESPN about two years ago, you and Haskell, and they decided, like, we want to ensure that the people that we know and love who have worked on our show are going to have a place and going to be employed. What sparked it is one of their like, assistant producers got fired from ESPN during one of these cutbacks, and they said, I will pay for his salary out of my own pocket if you let him continue to work here.

00:43:40:14 - 00:43:57:23
Speaker 3
And through that, all, they just said we were going to leave. And so being able to see like, wow, that is saying this is what's important to us and we want to help these creative minds who we believe in succeed. So they started their own media company, Meadowlark Media podcast series, YouTube channels and all that kind of stuff.

00:43:58:01 - 00:44:26:08
Speaker 3
And it's a lot of people from ESPN. Pablo Torre, who was the host of ESPN daily podcast for a number of years, has now joined them as well. So starting to see that Antiestablishment media, if you will, trying to find their own footing. And I find that really compelling just to see where that creativity and what, you know, restrictions might have been on them being part of, ESPN and how that expands out into being able to do something on their own.

00:44:26:10 - 00:44:53:05
Speaker 2
I love that example, because there can be such, pessimism about new media launches and that way and, you know, we've seen some come and go in the past ten years, and there there have been a lot of sad and hard stories about properties that had a lot of promise, very journalist driven, not making it. But the other side is there's still the ability to launch new things like this and to try new things.

00:44:53:05 - 00:45:08:09
Speaker 2
And I think it's really good to highlight, like the optimistic view of let's keep that energy going. And it kind of goes back to that earlier piece about what's really at the heart of your brand, within even a bigger brand, and how do you bring that to life. And maybe sometimes it's your own thing.

00:45:08:11 - 00:45:29:08
Speaker 3
Yeah, sometimes it it has to be. And you need to step out there and take a chance. If it's something that you truly believe in as well as a marketer. To that point, one of the best pieces of advice that I got when I was talking to people about becoming CMO is they said, always do something that makes you feel slightly uncomfortable, not totally uncomfortable.

00:45:29:10 - 00:45:40:13
Speaker 3
That's not a very good place to be, but slightly uncomfortable. That's when you know you're continuing to push things. That's where you explore new territory and that's where you learn. So I think that's that's very true here.

00:45:40:15 - 00:45:51:23
Speaker 2
Well, that is an awesome place to end. David Marine, CMO of Coldwell Banker Real Estate. It's been so awesome having you here today. Thank you again. And this is an green with building brand gravity. Thanks for joining us.

00:45:52:01 - 00:45:55:03
Speaker 3
My pleasure. And, I'm.

00:45:55:05 - 00:46:27:01
Speaker 1
You're listening to building brand Gravity Attracting People into Your Orbit, a business communications podcast. Keep connected with us by subscribing to the show in your favorite podcast player. If you like what you've heard, please rate the show that helps us to keep delivering the latest in industry influence. Thanks for listening. Until next time.

 

00:00:00:10 - 00:00:20:19
Speaker 2
Welcome to building brand Gravity. I'm Kyle Turner, digital growth and analytics director here at ZnS Business Communications. And I'm actually really excited to welcome, here a personal friend of mine and also the co-founder and chief brand officer of the Chief executive Network, Lindsay Kaplan. How you doing, Lizzie?

00:00:20:21 - 00:00:24:16
Speaker 3
Hey, Kyle. Thank you so much for inviting me here today.

00:00:24:17 - 00:00:48:08
Speaker 2
It was a pleasure. I really wanted to talk to you about, community building. And honestly, the the heard of the challenges and successes that are kind of inherent with building a community of, that is an ally for a group while still being inclusive to a much broader, cohort. You and I have known each other for 20 years.

00:00:48:08 - 00:01:00:23
Speaker 2
So, you know, first and foremost, it's just kind of crazy to see, like, how much you've done when it comes to building communities. In your career, I mean, you were like, employee. What number for a Casper's that you like? I was.

00:01:00:23 - 00:01:04:01
Speaker 3
Employee number one at Casper.

00:01:04:03 - 00:01:22:01
Speaker 2
Which is nuts to me. You know, so you you actually have quite a bit of experience building a community, whether it be for a brand or, you know, for for allyship. So I guess my first question to you is, really, why did building an executive community appeal to you?

00:01:22:03 - 00:01:54:01
Speaker 3
Well. Oh, I actually, I think it's so interesting that you mentioned Casper to say go back a step because we talked a lot about community. In past jobs I've had running, brand running, you know, organic marketing. Community always comes up, whether it's the community of your followers, community of your brand advocates. So there's almost like little C community, and then there's big C, like I am opting in formally, officially to a, a community like I'm paying money.

00:01:54:02 - 00:02:19:02
Speaker 3
I'm putting it on my, you know, I have a badge and everything. And they're they're wildly different beasts. And if you can channel that that big community to behind a powerful brand that's like a two plus two equals 20 situation. So I knew when I started chief that I wanted to both build a business that was, you know, based around a community.

00:02:19:05 - 00:02:42:10
Speaker 3
But I also wanted to build a really powerful brand as well. And and managing those two has been a really, interesting parallel because they are they take very different. They have different needs, different wants. And they're sometimes in conflict. So to go back to your original question of why started chief and why I wanted to build this executive network for women.

00:02:42:12 - 00:03:04:14
Speaker 3
It came from a super personal place. As you mentioned, I was at Casper. I had been the first employee. There was a lot of guys at Casper, and they were good guys, progressive guys. But when you're a VP and you are surrounded by mostly dudes, you know the expression it's lonely at the top? Well, it gets a lot lonelier faster when you're a woman.

00:03:04:16 - 00:03:37:01
Speaker 3
And so all of the sudden, I felt this pressure to both be really good at my job, to be making great executive decisions. All of my, you know, all the work mattered more than ever. But I also had this, pressure that that I loved. But I felt like I was representing a lot of women who worked at Casper, that I was, you know, going out for those lunches and asked to be a mentor and speaking on panels about being a woman in business.

00:03:37:03 - 00:04:00:00
Speaker 3
And so managing both that executive pressure, plus this idea of being a model woman in business. I felt really lonely and I felt like I wanted to be around other women who were managing those same issues and needing something beyond the networks that I saw. I saw a lot of incredible networks for, just for women in general, which were great.

00:04:00:00 - 00:04:36:13
Speaker 3
But then I kind of became the de facto mentor there. I found really great networks for women in marketing, but I kind of also felt like I'm networking with my competitors who were maybe, you know, looking for the same jobs and partnerships. And, and it didn't feel like I could be fully vulnerable around those people. And so this concept of building a network specifically for executives felt really important for people who, again, had all that stress and pressure and no outlet and no community where they could show up and be their real, authentic selves.

00:04:36:15 - 00:04:54:04
Speaker 2
I love everything you said there. I think kind of turning that kind of personal, struggles, a bit of a strong word here, but it certainly was a personal hurdle. Personal and professional hurdle interaction. I think it's awesome. I do wonder.

00:04:54:06 - 00:05:17:13
Speaker 3
Low, low grade, like low grade, very minor. Yeah. Not it's not the struggle. You know, nobody should be feeling like it's a struggle, but definitely feeling like maybe the guys around me had a little bit easier. Like, maybe feeling like they all had this kind of networking mentality. And so yeah, I don't think I agree. I don't think it was a struggle, but it definitely felt like I didn't have that leg up.

00:05:17:13 - 00:05:26:22
Speaker 3
And I felt really, just kind of vulnerable. And this would be a great time for me to actually have more wind in my back.

00:05:27:00 - 00:05:49:10
Speaker 2
You you're talking about kind of a, A disadvantageous position. You know what I mean? And I and I and I'm trying to word it that way, because I think that you, you represent certainly a cohort that has advantages, for sure. But I think for most women in corporate America, I think this is true across the board.

00:05:49:12 - 00:06:12:00
Speaker 2
There's always going to be a level of, a level of, of advantage that you're denied. That isn't always, I guess, readily visible if you're not, like, actively paying attention the way you were a Casper. I guess knowing that and it's these are kind of like unspoken things or at least, unspoken, outside of, you know, very small groups.

00:06:12:02 - 00:06:23:16
Speaker 2
What was your approach to building this executive leadership network for women? And, like, how did you, I guess how did you and Carolyn kind of get connected in order to make this happen?

00:06:23:18 - 00:06:49:20
Speaker 3
So I was feeling that way. I knew Carolyn, my co-founder. I kind of vaguely knew of each other. Startups in New York is, there's not that many women executives in the startup scene. So, yeah. So there was enough. We we met actually, at a really crappy networking event. If you ever go to one of those events where you're kind of, like, trapped at a table and you're stuck talking to the two people next to you.

00:06:49:22 - 00:07:14:07
Speaker 3
And then there's like, like you don't actually meet everybody. And I met her at the coat check. We have, funnily enough, and we kind of both rolled her eyes like that was a waste of two hours. Stayed in touch. And so when Carolyn actually had the concept of chief, she was thinking about a co-founder. And when we we actually went out for, like, a co-founder date.

00:07:14:09 - 00:07:36:16
Speaker 3
And, and when she kind of talked about this concept, it resonated with me so deeply. I was like, I have to join you. I have to I, we have to do this together because I don't think I know I needed it. I was again feeling this loneliness and feeling burned out and stressed all the time. Loving the idea of community but not actually having one.

00:07:36:22 - 00:07:56:19
Speaker 3
So, it when she shared kind of like the broad strokes of what she was thinking about for the business, wanted to join. And one of the first things we talked about was the I actually said to her, I was like, I just, I want to be her co-founder, but I was like, I don't know if it makes sense for two white women to start this business.

00:07:56:21 - 00:08:28:14
Speaker 3
Like, I'm a mom and I'm Jewish. But, when we look at the cross-section of women in business, we see that. Yes. Like, women are at a disadvantage. But but women of color at it are at a significant disadvantage. Right. So we know that, when you look at VP through C-suite in America, only 18% of those positions are held by women of color who identify as, nonwhite.

00:08:28:16 - 00:08:56:16
Speaker 3
So one of the first things we did when we started, chief, was we say, all right, let's make sure we are surrounding ourselves by with, with diverse leaders. And, and let's start with not just representation, but accountability for us and an integration of inclusivity within this network. So for us, that meant first of all, setting a goal before we even launched of making sure that we had representation within the community.

00:08:56:21 - 00:09:19:00
Speaker 3
So we set that goal, to to double that number. We saw 18%. We set our goal at 36. Today, I believe we are at, I think we were at 33%, which is again, 15 points higher than, you know, that number in America, which we're really proud of. But I, you know, we're not quite at our goal.

00:09:19:00 - 00:09:44:19
Speaker 3
So that's something that we are working on. And integrating inclusivity and belonging into that core DNA of our business was essential for us. So that meant making sure that, you know, our workshops were always thoughtful about how are we bringing in, speakers who are who are representing different people? How are we knowing that we have a powerful cohort of women?

00:09:44:23 - 00:10:07:01
Speaker 3
How do we make sure that at a minimum, we are doing monthly, workshops around Dei because these women shouldn't just join the network. But our real mission is that they can pave the way for others so they can go back into their organizations feeling stronger and implement change, and make sure that they feel strong enough that they stay.

00:10:07:03 - 00:10:40:11
Speaker 3
They don't drop out of the workforce. And that they are supporting and promoting other women and women of color to join them in the ranks of leadership. And so we also forged identity groups to make sure that even within chief, that there were subsets of communities to make sure that, again, the problems and challenges of black women, of, indigenous women, within chief, that they could come together with a facilitator and have subcommunities that were private, vetted and secure for them to talk through.

00:10:40:13 - 00:11:02:13
Speaker 3
So it was definitely the foundation of of what we built. And I think a lot about, I think a lot about making a cake. Like, you can't make a cake without eggs and smear the eggs on later. It had it has to be mixed in at the very beginning. So that was really important for us when we thought about what this community would be.

00:11:02:15 - 00:11:35:22
Speaker 3
And I remember, I have an acquaintance, CoA back, who was working on a book called White Feminism, which I hadn't even known the term. I didn't know what white feminism was. And I'm so glad that co-op, prior to her book being published, walked me through kind of, again, the like the concept of what it is when women are only looking out for white women and not thinking through, you know, the, the intersectionality that comes with being a woman, specifically a woman for us at an executive level in business.

00:11:36:00 - 00:11:57:20
Speaker 2
You touched on a few points there that I want to kind of double click on, specifically the the point you make about being, two white women starting a, a network that seeks to be as inclusive as possible. Where did your biases seep in? You know, because you mentioned white feminism, I think I think it's a really it's obviously a really smart book.

00:11:58:01 - 00:12:24:20
Speaker 2
I've I've heard much about it. My mother in law has actually read it. But I think these are things that people don't readily think about if they don't have to. So I'm curious, as you were building, chief at the beginning, like where where were your biases creeping in? What kind of strategies did you have to employ in order to ensure that you weren't kind of floating through some of those, ignoring them?

00:12:24:22 - 00:12:30:20
Speaker 2
In the worst case, and actually integrating them into your strategy for building cheap.

00:12:30:22 - 00:12:54:15
Speaker 3
I'll give you a good example. I think of some of my bias, which is I came in to chief thinking, if I build a great experience for for chief, for women who join chief. I've done my job. And when the experience isn't that great, I'll fix it. And I think what I, what I know, what I didn't think about is what an experience is.

00:12:54:15 - 00:13:25:02
Speaker 3
Not great if there's something wrong or if somebody doesn't have a, you know, a good meeting or, or, you know, like it's a yearlong membership. We're not perfect. But hopefully like, net net, the experience is, you know, pound for pound, worth it. I don't think I realize when someone doesn't have a good experience. And they are a woman of color that bad experiences magnified because you're not just thinking about I didn't like it.

00:13:25:04 - 00:14:03:06
Speaker 3
You're thinking about. I didn't like it. And. And was that about me? Was there. Was there more here than meets the eye? So as a white woman, sometimes if I don't like a conversation or if I feel like the women in the conversation aren't giving me what I need, I just think wasn't a great conversation. But what I didn't pay attention to is if you are the only person in the room, if you are the only you know Asian woman in the room and you feel like it wasn't a great conversation, then, then you're also feeling a sense of disenfranchisement, of feeling like an only a feeling like maybe that conversation wasn't good because I

00:14:03:06 - 00:14:27:01
Speaker 3
don't belong here. And so not thinking through that lens was, was real bias from again, as a white woman that I didn't think about. I just thought, you know, I got to build a good experience and, and make it, you know, feel like everybody should belong. But what does it actually mean to build something that is thinking through the filters of all of that?

00:14:27:03 - 00:14:55:18
Speaker 3
Again, like that intersectional experience that I don't have as a white woman that I need to make sure is at the forefront of building different experiences throughout, chief, to really make sure we are nailing belong, belonging, nailing inclusivity, and knowing that if the experience, fails somebody out, then I failed somebody. Then chief has failed you. Then we need to go back and make sure that we are doing a better job and learning lessons on how to make that better.

00:14:55:20 - 00:15:35:23
Speaker 2
I think, there's so much that comes to for when you're talking about, leadership, community building, whether it's at a place like chief or whether it's at an agency like the one, I work at Jones. It's difficult, I think, at times to kind of consciously make those choices because it requires effort, requires kind of a forceful, intentional, action based approach to seeing those, noticing them and not deciding that they are too big, too weighty to tackle and that that therefore letting ignoring them, letting them fester, etc..

00:15:36:01 - 00:16:16:17
Speaker 2
So I guess kind of knowing that and as you're, as you've seen such exponential growth over the last, three years, you know, I started chief in 2019, we're now four years, three and a half years into that. And so this great experiment, what's been, I guess, the prevailing lesson, that you've learned about building, again, a community that seeks to create allyship among a diverse, subset of women, but women, but also kind of remaining inclusive within that, that community such that you don't turn people away.

00:16:16:17 - 00:16:22:10
Speaker 2
And to your point that you don't feel like chief has failed anyone.

00:16:22:12 - 00:16:50:20
Speaker 3
Yeah. So I think what's interesting about chief is that you do have to apply that it is specifically for, women who are meet our criteria as executive leaders. And we do that specifically because, again, there are a lot of incredible organizations for women who are, you know, solopreneurs who are, not yet at an executive level.

00:16:50:22 - 00:17:16:11
Speaker 3
And I go back to that experience of feeling like as an executive, that I end up becoming the mentor, that I can't necessarily feel vulnerable and go through my own kind of, business, challenges with people who don't, for lack of a better phrase, get it, get the experience that I'm going through. So chief is specifically for that woman.

00:17:16:13 - 00:17:53:18
Speaker 3
From there. Yes. We absolutely. Then center belonging and inclusivity, at the forefront of what we do because we're building a community for those people. And I think what we've learned is if our mission is to change the face of leadership, then we are starting with chief. But we are not ending with chief. We know that there is pent up demand for other cohorts of of individuals who want what chief represents, which is this, combination of community group learning, peer mentorship, allyship.

00:17:53:20 - 00:18:17:09
Speaker 3
We know that that is resonated with. I mean, I we have 20,000 members so far. And so I think for us, the real learning is we can't stop here and we need to think through how we can democra ties, what we do for more groups, for more cohorts. Because I think it's it's really special. We know our members love what they get from Chief.

00:18:17:09 - 00:18:22:09
Speaker 3
And so our goal is to extend that, eventually to reach more people.

00:18:22:11 - 00:18:26:05
Speaker 2
How do you prevent that from becoming lip service?

00:18:26:07 - 00:18:49:01
Speaker 3
It's pretty simple. You just have to you have to. You can't just talk the talk. You have to walk the walk. Right. So what does it mean to say, and I'll give you another example. When we say that we believe in representation and that we want to hit that goal of, of doubling, women of color in leadership within our chief organization.

00:18:49:03 - 00:19:12:14
Speaker 3
That means that last year we gave out over $5 million of grants. That means that we do outreach. So we're not just waiting for applications that we outbound women to make sure that people have heard about, chief, that we'd like them to join chief. It means that we publish articles all about what it is to, to be a progressive leader in the workplace.

00:19:12:16 - 00:19:37:09
Speaker 3
How intersectionality shows up in the workplace. And when I speak about intersectionality, it, it, you know, I think there's, there's multiple interpretations of that thinking beyond just women of color and the intersection of, being a black woman, in business. But also, what does it mean to identify ageism, neurodiversity, socioeconomic class? We want to cover all of that.

00:19:37:09 - 00:20:02:15
Speaker 3
So again, it's it's putting our money where our mouth is literally like putting $5 million behind that, knowing that every year we've committed $1 million to support nonprofits, and organizations that align with our mission that we don't necessarily specialize in. So for us, we believe if women need to get to the top, we can't do that if our reproductive rights are in jeopardy.

00:20:02:17 - 00:20:28:04
Speaker 3
So, you know, this past year, we've donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations that support women's reproductive rights and women's health. Specifically looking at organization. And so that focus on, underserved, and underrepresented minorities because they need more access than white women. So we we try to go really deep and make sure we are yes, we are for women.

00:20:28:06 - 00:20:42:07
Speaker 3
Yes, we are, an executive network. But we don't just want to give lip service. We truly want to make sure that we are as much as we can driving impact and, backing up what we want to do.

00:20:42:08 - 00:21:07:11
Speaker 2
Are you talking about investment? I yeah, often tell my clients that if you actually want to create a relationship with the the demographic you seek to speak to, like, you got to invest there, got to invest, and you got to keep investing there. You gotta make it such, such a common thing that it ceases to even register.

00:21:07:13 - 00:21:11:08
Speaker 2
Any kind of notice because it's happening so, so commonly.

00:21:11:08 - 00:21:33:06
Speaker 3
And that's, that's interesting though, because I think we had been doing this for years, but we didn't talk about it. And so I think what we failed to do was communicate what we were doing, what our what our Dei commitment was. We had like bare bones on our website. If you go to chief.com, if you went a few months ago, there wasn't much there.

00:21:33:12 - 00:21:57:11
Speaker 3
And so it, it was a failure on our part to really successfully communicate what we do. And I think, you know, I look back and I'm like, man, I wish we were more communicative about it. I wish we had talked to our members more about what we were doing and got feedback. Because I say all of this not in a way that I feel like I'm there's so much more we can do and there's so much more we can evolve to do.

00:21:57:12 - 00:22:22:19
Speaker 3
So our job is to listen, to get really clear on what we do and to communicate. And I think we could have done a better job listening, getting really clear and communicating with our community. But I think this is a conversation that, like every company should be having, every company should be talking. Sure. Like on a, on a regular basis, you know, quarterly at minimum around TCI.

00:22:22:23 - 00:22:46:19
Speaker 3
We've seen now in 2023 with the, you know, economic landscape, people are pulling funding now from Dei programs. I remember speaking with Ken Chanel six, who's the former, CEO and chairman of American Express, where so lucky to have him on our board. And I asked Ken, you know, if you were to grade corporate America Dei, what would you what would you give them?

00:22:47:00 - 00:23:13:15
Speaker 3
And he, he said incomplete, right. Like people made big promises in 2020, walked it back. And in 2023 we see people defunding Dei. So I think this conversation needs to be consistent. And, and have champions within an organization to make sure it it persists beyond what we had promised and continues to evolve.

00:23:13:17 - 00:23:35:10
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. The I think the champion aspect is really important. Do you think it mattered more that you didn't or did or didn't? Whether whether or not you did or didn't is immaterial, but do you think it matters more to communicate those kinds of strides internally or externally? Because obviously, to your point, it's quite a bit of literature.

00:23:35:10 - 00:23:52:12
Speaker 2
There's quite a bit of content on your da be an eye page now. Looking at the page, months ago wasn't the case, and you were obviously kind of committed to changing that. But is is it is it worth it to communicate those kinds of things outwardly?

00:23:52:12 - 00:23:52:18
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:23:52:22 - 00:24:06:20
Speaker 2
Such that they be scrutinized constantly. Or is it better to just kind of gauge the temperature of your community, kind of continue to, to communicate to them, but just kind of move in silence, you know, like real? Geez.

00:24:06:22 - 00:24:32:00
Speaker 3
Yeah. Well, I think it's better to, to, to share it. I think I learned the lesson, which is we were doing things in a vacuum. And when you are, when you're feeling like, oh, we're doing all this good, but you're not getting feedback from the community, you're not letting the community and that's a failure. So I think my original, my original approach, which was, we're just going to do it.

00:24:32:00 - 00:24:56:12
Speaker 3
We're not going to shine a light on it. Was was a huge mess. And there's a difference between, you know, communicating and, but like, doing it in a performative way. And I think I personally was afraid of it looking performative, like I just wanted to do the work. But if you're doing the work and not sharing it out, you're not getting feedback.

00:24:56:13 - 00:25:17:22
Speaker 3
You're not like you're not letting the community in. So it was a huge mess. And to answer your other question about, is it your team or is it the community? I believe team comes first. So if you think about a community, the little ring inside is your team. You know, like the bigger ring outside is the community as a whole.

00:25:17:22 - 00:25:27:10
Speaker 3
And, you know, the team is the core part of our community. So if they're not brought in your community is not going to be brought in at all.

00:25:27:12 - 00:25:53:22
Speaker 2
I want to zoom out a little bit. So you worked at Casper. You were employee number one at Casper. So you're you're kind of building small. See community there. What what lessons did you take, from your time there? And kind of what what things did you want to repeat from your experience there? And what things were you running like, how to avoid.

00:25:54:00 - 00:26:21:09
Speaker 3
Oh, that's such a good question, Kyle. Well, what I loved about working there is I had permission to do weird stuff. So as a marketer, I. Casper really valued creativity. We had one of our brand values was called zing. Like, it had to have zing and zing meant just like a little wacky and a little, like, offbeat.

00:26:21:11 - 00:26:44:14
Speaker 3
And so. Oh, man, I did. I did some just weird marketing brand activations. I have my team will laugh at me if if they hear me say this, but I always say never bring a kazoo to a parade. Meaning like don't, don't be quiet. And little and do a little brand campaign and think that anybody's going to care like you have to be.

00:26:44:14 - 00:27:13:19
Speaker 3
If you can't afford to float, don't show up to the parade like do something else. Do something weird and different. And and I think I took that with me to chief when we launched. We had, you know, when we raised money, everybody said no. We were so lucky to have some amazing early investors who supported us when we had like, essentially like a deck that had an idea and no real business yet.

00:27:13:19 - 00:27:34:15
Speaker 3
No proof of concept. And when I started Chief, I was like, how how do I make this weird and different? So the website was basically empty. There was nothing on it. And we were sending out cold emails to people who were like, what is this? What is this women's network? And they'd show up. I blew all my budget on, on a space in Tribeca.

00:27:34:17 - 00:27:56:00
Speaker 3
So imagine you're this very powerful, influential woman, and you get this email to join this, like, Secret Society network, and you show up to Tribeca, and you walk up a staircase and what looks like some, like, bougie apartment building, and there's, like, this tiny little speakeasy looking lounge. I want, a matte, like, I wanted to be a part of that.

00:27:56:00 - 00:28:22:10
Speaker 3
And so did they. So we had, pretty spectacular product marketing fit, a product market fit. But I think that there were a lot of women's networks. And so, again, from Casper, I took this, like how do I make us stand out? And, and this kind of goes back to this, this tension between community and brand, because what we built chief on which was this, like secretive.

00:28:22:10 - 00:28:50:04
Speaker 3
What is it? Is this like a secret society, a whisper network of powerful women that worked for the first year that does not scale into an inclusive community of 20,000 women? You cannot be a secret society. You cannot do things that are, like, weird and offbeat. That, but also think through, like, the feelings of 20,000 people.

00:28:50:05 - 00:28:57:17
Speaker 3
So I think balancing brand with community has been a challenge that I didn't have to face at Casper.

00:28:57:19 - 00:29:21:02
Speaker 2
I love that, I think because, like, what you you are kind of not just co-founder, chief brand officer, part of the C-suite of that that small circle within the concentric one that you were talking about earlier, the team. But you're technically also kind of managing, again, you know, your your membership basis 20, 30,000, people strong, not more.

00:29:21:03 - 00:29:39:19
Speaker 2
I think you've got one another 60, 50, 60 on waiting was trying to get in. What is the balance between leadership like small leadership within your circle and the kind of inclusive leadership that you just described? What does it actually, tangibly look like in action to be an inclusive leader?

00:29:39:21 - 00:30:24:10
Speaker 3
I think I'm learning how to be a better, inclusive leader every day. So I think that I would be, full of shit if I could, you know, sit here and tell you like I am an award winning, inclusive leader. Because I'm still learning what it is to be a good, inclusive leader. But but I think it means just, like, really, again, understanding your weaknesses, understanding your own biases, bringing, an open mind to the table and really listening and if if I learned anything over the last six months is I have a really strong gut.

00:30:24:12 - 00:30:55:07
Speaker 3
And I have a very, like, deep, deep feeling around what I believe, chief, is to be. But I think being an inclusive leader is about stepping back and really listening with an open mind. And there's listening and there's listening and hearing and interpreting and, like, digesting what people are sharing with you about how they feel, their expectations, their disappointments.

00:30:55:09 - 00:31:29:01
Speaker 3
And, and that's inclusive leadership. It is putting your ego away and letting all of that flood over you and knowing that all of that matters. And your job is to show up and make sure you are represen ING everything you hear. All of that feedback, all of that hope, fear, disappointment, love, all of that. As a leader, you need to represent, and your job is to help both implement what it takes to to build on that.

00:31:29:02 - 00:31:34:16
Speaker 3
And create an environment that feels safe enough for people to continue to share.

00:31:34:18 - 00:32:02:21
Speaker 2
You know, I'm glad you mentioned the last six months because, anybody who's kind of read the news and kind of is in these executive spaces, you guys know, about the controversy. I think if there's been enough ink spilled on it that I won't have to get into too much detail here, but basically, chief was, livid, complaining about kind of prioritizing white feminism, which is something that you, kind of brought up, in pro, in prose earlier.

00:32:02:23 - 00:32:35:20
Speaker 2
So knowing that the last six months have represented, I think, probably one of the first, like, I guess public trials, for you and for for chief and again, for you as a leader. What was the weakness that you thought that was highlighted about yourself as a leader, that you then took to adjust, to change, over the last six months and kind of moving forward over the next five of this year.

00:32:35:22 - 00:33:08:19
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think it is being really intentional about listening. So I have so many relationships with chief members. I read all the feedback, good and bad. But we, my co-founder Carolyn, and I did a listening tour. We did 38 hour long sessions, for chief members. And I think being, again, really intentional about hearing, about feeling, about getting all of that vulnerability.

00:33:08:21 - 00:33:11:11
Speaker 2
And you thought this was a blind spot for you. Prior to this.

00:33:11:13 - 00:33:42:08
Speaker 3
I think, I don't I think I was listening, but I don't think I had set aside time to intentionally listen. And I think that, you know, listen. Every mission driven company has detractors. There's heightened expectations when you have a mission behind you, when you have those heightened expectations that that sets somebody up for disappointment. And so really, again, like putting time to listening to where, we disappointed people was really important.

00:33:42:10 - 00:34:05:00
Speaker 3
And it hits different than, you know, reading comments and, and reading emails, you know, it hits different than one. Our feedback session compared to like 38, because things rise to the top. You start hearing themes, you start hearing, certain words that, that, you know, if you did your own like word cloud, you'd be like, oh my God, like it.

00:34:05:00 - 00:34:16:01
Speaker 3
It's, a much more significant dedication to that intentional listening for me. Than passive listening. I would refer to what I had been doing prior.

00:34:16:03 - 00:34:43:14
Speaker 2
I think that's fair. And I also don't think that's uncommon for most people, let alone leaders. I think that we all have to, like, actively make a decision to not just listen, to respond, but, you know, listen to absorb and to to change and to kind of empower your cohort, whether that's your children, whether that's your membership base, whether that's your team.

00:34:43:16 - 00:35:05:03
Speaker 2
So, I mean, I think, I think you guys have kind of weathered the storm, fairly well, all things considered. But I think moving forward, I'm. I'm kind of curious, like, now that you've kind of maybe hit the other side, of this tumult. Where do you see chief? Kind of expanding. How do you see chief?

00:35:05:05 - 00:35:16:21
Speaker 2
Chief expanding? What is the future of this kind of executive leadership group kind of look like to you with all the things that you've learned in the three and a half years that that it's been around?

00:35:16:23 - 00:35:46:01
Speaker 3
Well, I don't know if we're on. I don't know if this was like a, you know, a storm that passed. I think that feedback and what happened publicly imprinted on us. I believe things imprint on you as people and as businesses. And so I don't think there's like, you know, it wasn't something we did. We didn't get sick and then recover, you know, like, all of that was important for us to go back and again, make sure that we were communicating what we were doing a lot more.

00:35:46:01 - 00:36:16:23
Speaker 3
We weren't being clear. We weren't communicating, setting up that that intentional listening. And being really focus and intentional about our mission and impact that, that we want to achieve. I think this is a conversation every company should be having. I think a lot of organizations are probably not listening. And so my hope is that, you know, the the changes we've made are not one off changes that we will continue listening and evolving chief services, evolving the community.

00:36:17:01 - 00:36:39:13
Speaker 3
As as we continue to listen to the community at large. And again, I go back to a place of a lot of the feedback was about you are serving this executive woman. What about everybody else? And so, we've we've been thinking about that for for a while. We want to make sure that we make chief as a model.

00:36:39:15 - 00:37:04:01
Speaker 3
Again, like, I want chief to the services. Everything we do for our members to come first today. But I think tomorrow, once we feel like that is, I don't know, perfected, but that, our members are absolutely loving every part of chief that we can then take this concept and say, how do we extend it? How do we reach more cohorts?

00:37:04:01 - 00:37:10:16
Speaker 3
How do we develop other communities that we can serve that have gotten the benefit that chief members have gotten?

00:37:10:18 - 00:37:23:12
Speaker 2
You said at TechCrunch disrupt, last year that you guys don't believe in the term girlboss. I agree, it's a relatively stupid term. And I do think that there are there are times.

00:37:23:18 - 00:37:25:01
Speaker 3
Kyle, are you a boy?

00:37:25:01 - 00:37:28:19
Speaker 2
Boss?

00:37:28:21 - 00:37:45:03
Speaker 2
No. I'm not. I'm just the boss, ma'am. And I think that that is exactly how you guys kind of framed it, too. It's just kind of leadership. Do you feel like there's a space for chief to create? Not just a network for current executives, but, a network for burgeoning ones as well?

00:37:45:05 - 00:38:09:19
Speaker 3
Yes, absolutely. I don't think we can achieve our mission of changing the face of leadership with just chief. But, you know, we heard loud and clear that our members want more and that we needed to evolve some of our offerings or services. The way that we bring the community together. So we're focused today there first, but in the future.

00:38:09:21 - 00:38:34:22
Speaker 3
Absolutely, absolutely. There's there's so much for us to do. There's so many, there's so many different people that we want to make sure we can engage with. So I'm excited about the future. I am a time traveler. And so I cannot wait for us to, to open more doors and serve more communities.

00:38:34:23 - 00:38:58:03
Speaker 2
I'm going to leave you with this question, Lindsey, and it's kind of a ridiculous one. So bear with, like, ridiculous questions. So we've known each other for about 20 years now. We both went to Brandeis University. I knew you back then. You haven't really changed, from a personality perspective. Very much. Maybe you're a little bit more serious, but that's about it.

00:38:58:05 - 00:39:12:05
Speaker 2
If you're like, if you're going back 20 years, being the prime time traveler that you are, what are you what are you saying to yourself? What what what advice are you imparting in yourself? 20 years ago.

00:39:12:07 - 00:39:39:19
Speaker 3
Weird question. Gets a weird answer. Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because I'm so proud of the community that I've built. Of the team that works at chief, you know, a few stock tips. Sure. But, like, again, like the lessons that you learn in print. And so hearing me from the future. Tell me something. I don't know if I would believe it.

00:39:39:20 - 00:39:41:17
Speaker 3
Come on. You remember 20 year old Lindsey.

00:39:41:21 - 00:39:43:23
Speaker 2
I do remember to. I remember 20 or Kyle.

00:39:44:00 - 00:39:53:21
Speaker 3
She was. I mean, she was smoking cigarets. I was wearing aviator glasses to, like, parties and at night. I don't know what I was thinking, Lindsey.

00:39:53:23 - 00:40:19:12
Speaker 2
I'm. I'm really excited to see what the future of chief looks like and what the future of of you looks like. And I'm really, really thankful that you made the time to kind of talk to me about this. And I think inclusive leadership empowerment is something that's probably not going away. And I think organizations like yours, I do think help to push that, agenda because it is an agenda and it is necessary to call it that, forward.

00:40:19:12 - 00:40:24:01
Speaker 2
So again, thank you for, for, for the time and sure, continued success.

00:40:24:05 - 00:40:26:06
Speaker 3
Thanks, Kyle.

00:40:26:08 - 00:40:54:13
Speaker 1
You're listening to Building Brand Gravity Attracting People into Your Orbit, a business communications podcast. Keep connected with us by subscribing to the show in your favorite podcast player. If you like what you've heard, please rate the show that helps us to keep delivering the latest in industry influence. Thanks for listening. Until next time.

 

00:00:00:15 - 00:00:24:03
Speaker 2
Welcome to building Brand Gravity. I'm angry, and I'm a principal and managing director here at Chinese Business Communications, and I love my two guests. I'm very psyched about them today. So first we've got Kim Sample. She's president of the PR Council, which, if you don't know, is the US Industry Association that represents more than 100. Well, more than 100 agencies of PR, integrated marketing communications.

00:00:24:05 - 00:00:46:08
Speaker 2
And, Kim, you made me laugh when I asked for your bio and you described yourself as a 100% agency animal, which I am as well. So she's worked in big firms, small firms. She built a firm from $0 to $35 million, which I am very, very impressed by. And, she's just been an incredible leader of our profession as president of the PR Council.

00:00:46:10 - 00:01:11:17
Speaker 2
And then we have Mark McLennan, who I've known, I think Mark almost 20 years now, probably. He's worked in tech and fintech comms for 20 plus years against small firms, mid-sized big holding company agencies. And he's now general manager in the Boston office of C plus C, which is a purpose, purpose driven agency. But for the conversation today, I think what's really notable is Mark's been a big voice on ethics in our industry.

00:01:11:18 - 00:01:34:13
Speaker 2
So he's hosted Ethical Voices, dot com, the podcast since 2019, 100 plus episodes. Check it out. And also, authored a book, Ethical Voices Practicing Public Relations with integrity. Which hit number one on Amazon and its categories in 2022. Good job Mark I love that. And he was 2016 National Chair of PRC. So thank you both for joining me today.

00:01:34:17 - 00:01:36:00
Speaker 3
Awesome. Great to be here.

00:01:36:05 - 00:01:37:01
Speaker 4
My pleasure.

00:01:37:03 - 00:02:02:20
Speaker 2
So we're here today to talk about what is a hot topic generative AI. I'm sure everybody is thrilled for more content on this. But frankly, we got to talk about it. And the reason that specifically we're talking today is because the PRC work together with Mark and I and a task force to create new guidelines on the ethical use of generative AI in the communications industry.

00:02:02:22 - 00:02:20:21
Speaker 2
And this is truly I mean, you both know, a hot topic everywhere, not just in the news, but every industry association meeting we go to. I know, Mark, you said you just came back from Counselors Academy for Prsa. I'm sure it was talked about there, but I guess let me just set the stage by asking him why these guidelines and why now?

00:02:20:21 - 00:02:23:02
Speaker 2
What was the genesis of this project?

00:02:23:06 - 00:02:54:19
Speaker 3
Yeah. We had made the decision. It's our 25th anniversary and we felt like an important piece of work to launch as part of the 25th anniversary was a focus on ethics and standards for our industry, because so much is evolving, our work is so fully integrated. We just wanted to put a dedicated focus on making sure that we were being as ethical as possible and really meeting the demands of a changing society.

00:02:54:21 - 00:03:21:18
Speaker 3
And it just so happened as soon as we launched that work and I was able to attract these two amazing leaders to lead that work. Generative AI became the hot topic in our agencies. Everybody was talking about it and everybody was handwringing about it, or fast forward on it, and it just felt like a huge public service.

00:03:21:20 - 00:03:50:07
Speaker 3
If we could bring together the brightest minds in public relations focused on ethics, Dei, technology, corporate reputation, all of these different areas, if we could bring everybody together and come up with guidelines, it would be a huge success, not only for our member firms, but across the industry. And we just felt like there was so much at stake for the industry in not approaching this in a really smart way.

00:03:50:09 - 00:04:01:12
Speaker 2
Marc, what was your feeling about the urgency of it or why you said yes? When Kim approached us about taking this on, what was what was your first thought about, this is the right time to try to put guidelines.

00:04:01:13 - 00:04:25:21
Speaker 4
I was so happy. I mean, this is one of the most significant issues and transformative opportunities for PR agencies. And I thought there was a lack of clear, actionable guidance. Others have looked at it. There's been some folks that have definitely given some great advice, but I thought there was a void that needed to be filled, and I was so happy to see PR Council stepping up to fill it.

00:04:25:22 - 00:04:43:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. You know, and what's interesting about these guidelines, right. Because there's again, I mean, we all know the news cycle, right? We know how the hype cycle is something is off your radar. And then maybe you're a first mover and you start to see it cooking and then suddenly, boom, it's everywhere. And then then the the the flow changes.

00:04:43:21 - 00:05:05:05
Speaker 2
It goes up and down, right. But there's so much discussion going on. We'll get into some of the big trends as we get into this conversation. But I want to center this, the start of this conversation on the fact that these guidelines are focused around ethical use of generative AI, which is an interesting and critical to me. I agree, Mark, like right in the wheelhouse of stuff I think about.

00:05:05:05 - 00:05:26:17
Speaker 2
But let's go to you, Mark. You've been a voice, a very powerful, thoughtful and insistent voice around centering ethics in our industry for years and years since the early days when I've known you. Why talk about generative AI in that context? And why was that important? That that's how our guidelines are shaped around.

00:05:26:19 - 00:05:49:06
Speaker 4
Ethics is central to the human condition and has been the key pivot point as long as there's been humanity. Without ethical guidance. We have murder, mayhem and Machiavelli maneuvering. And I think this is a case where when people understand it, there's laws that are evolving. You know, there's going to be a lot of evolving legal issues when it comes to the use of generative AI.

00:05:49:08 - 00:06:07:04
Speaker 4
But the good part about ethics is the fundamental ethical guidelines are rules are universal and stand the test of time. So by using that to a discussion, it's a great framework to build a discussion for agencies on what you should and shouldn't do with generative AI.

00:06:07:06 - 00:06:36:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, Kim, I love that answer and I love the alliteration. Nice job there. That's I agree we would it's kind of chaos if that sense of an ethical framework ethical decision making. What is the ethical mind. How does that come into us as individuals as is into our organizations? But I'll ask you the same question, Kim. We are talking about these guidelines within the PR Council, with technologists, with the leaders in our agencies that are digitally driven with overall leadership, organizational leaders.

00:06:36:07 - 00:06:45:03
Speaker 2
Why for you, was it important or did you see the deep connection to let's look at this through the ethical lens and the PR Council code of Ethics?

00:06:45:05 - 00:07:16:05
Speaker 3
Yeah, it just made perfect sense. And I think I was spurred on by the realization that I don't think our agencies are talking enough about ethics. I think we get so busy. We're so in service of client needs and wants. But it was like an important reminder that this is central to what we do. This is the backbone, and we need to be having constant conversations.

00:07:16:05 - 00:07:27:07
Speaker 3
And I, I feel so lucky that the two of you were willing to take leadership of this effort because you so firmly believe that and model that. And, I.

00:07:27:08 - 00:07:48:22
Speaker 2
Mean, I'll build off often and riff on that. And then I have a follow up question for Mark that I know is in your wheelhouse. I do you very, very much believe that ethics is not necessarily thought of not just in our firms, but by individuals and also our society in a way that I think makes sense to how it actually operates.

00:07:48:22 - 00:08:13:04
Speaker 2
It's sort of what you said, Mark. It's a central engine, a central lens that we can deploy. And this question of I mean, you, Kim, you've heard me say this, and I think, Mark, you may have to when I do ethics training in my own firm. And I've really been very happy over the years that the PR Council has taken programs from some of the larger agencies, and white labeled them and made it available.

00:08:13:04 - 00:08:35:23
Speaker 2
And I would very I was a big consumer of those take it. I'm a very big proponent of in person or small group training, role playing, etc., because what I often say is that ethics is not, the villain with the, you know, with the black hat standing in the corner, twirling his mustache, saying, haha, I'm going to do evil now what it often is.

00:08:35:23 - 00:08:58:16
Speaker 2
And it's actually really tragic to see it. It's death by a thousand papercuts. It's a lot of small bad decisions and often huge, failure in leadership. We've seen a lot of examples out there, of where there was pressure from the top of an organization and the pressure wasn't saying, I want you to break the rules or I want you to act unethically.

00:08:58:18 - 00:09:20:17
Speaker 2
But the message was basically results at any cost. And therefore it drove a culture of permissiveness and and blind eye turning to this. So I think that for me, I agree, I was really excited about this because it was a chance to again recenter ethics in the fact that it's woven into everything. I mean, Mark, tell me you and I talked about this.

00:09:20:21 - 00:09:31:04
Speaker 2
For a lot of organizations, ethics can be kind of like a once there, check the box. What what is the challenge with that for you and what what would you rather see in organizations today?

00:09:31:05 - 00:09:54:01
Speaker 4
Well, to my mind, ethics at once your training this is effective. You go to going to the gym once a year or taking your vitamins once a year. It is not going to make you fit and healthy people do it. They check it and they go back. And it shows, frankly, that you're looking at ethics as a check the box comply initiative, and you're telling your folks that you don't have significant weight on it.

00:09:54:03 - 00:10:19:06
Speaker 4
And my dream when it comes to ethical training and I talk about this a lot, is people need to train their ethical minds because there's studies that show biologically, our initial instinct is to be selfish. And it's only when we give a deliberative thought that we tend to elevate. And I don't know about you, but there's fewer things that are less controlled chaos than a PR person's day.

00:10:19:08 - 00:10:37:22
Speaker 4
And so by having these discussions, it's like a golfer hones their swing, a batter hones their swing, you get ready to make these decisions. And what I love to have people do is both talk about it. I've senior management bring it up and make it a part of your regular meetings at least twice a month. Share relevant ethical issues.

00:10:38:00 - 00:11:01:16
Speaker 4
Did you see this? Have other staff bring in ethical issues? Discuss it. Debate the pros and cons. Look at applied scenarios that you may be dealing with. And really, that gets your entire staff to understand that you're putting ethics first. I'd say it shouldn't just be with your staff. You should share it with your clients because frankly, one of your clients know the importance you put on ethics and also what may alert your client issues.

00:11:01:16 - 00:11:20:02
Speaker 4
They may have. Because if your client has ethical failings that may come and blowback on you as well. And so you really just want to have this discussion. And the final point I'll say about that is, as a senior leader, you shouldn't be the one giving your opinion. First, you need to wait. Otherwise you're going to stand for the bait.

00:11:20:04 - 00:11:35:11
Speaker 4
And don't ever worry about running out of topics. I teach PR Ethics at Boston University, and the first half an hour of every class is what were the PR ethics issues this week? And I have never had a lack of anybody having an issue to bring up.

00:11:35:13 - 00:11:58:23
Speaker 2
Somehow that does not surprise me and our society today, but to to pick on something you said it's that training your mind and it's very important, I think, for people to understand that that moment of intentional thought, whether it's looking at through an ethical framework, it can also be trying to interrupt your own bias, which is something we talk about a lot with T, E and I.

00:11:59:01 - 00:12:23:18
Speaker 2
It can be stopping and asking yourself, what is the implications of the decision I'm making? Is there someone else I should bring into this? And this does bring us back to generative AI, because there is so much power being unfurled, and it is so transformative. And it's it's kind of, you know, the first time you encounter these large language models, especially with the release of, the various platforms of ChatGPT over the past few months, it feels like a magic trick.

00:12:23:18 - 00:12:45:00
Speaker 2
It feels amazing. It's sort of blows you away, but you start to unpeel what are the implications of this? What is the positive power, the negative power? And one thing I'd love you guys to reflect on, because it's really a personal thing as well as a business question. We're hearing now a lot of discussions. Either this is amazing.

00:12:45:00 - 00:13:06:16
Speaker 2
It's going to be totally amazing. The utopian kind of view, which always comes with tech, which is, I think, a very important energy. But there's also the destroyer narrative, which is, are we about to be in the matrix? Right. And it's interesting to see people like Geoffrey Hinton, one of the pioneers of AI, just left Google so that he can be a very open voice of, hey, this is moving faster than we realize.

00:13:06:16 - 00:13:24:22
Speaker 2
And there may be bad implications here as we get caught up as leaders and as people in this hyper zone where it's like Utopia destroyer, Utopia, destroyer. How are each of you modulating that as especially in our field? I mean, Kim, how are you weighing these two poles of discussion?

00:13:25:00 - 00:13:54:04
Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, I think it's very interesting. And I would say that the extremes are moderating a little bit. And I feel that people in our industry are getting a bit more in the middle. And I use this evidence. We had a digital community meeting yesterday, and we were all talking about how we're using generative AI in our agencies and to a person, you know, they are not using it for client work.

00:13:54:23 - 00:14:21:10
Speaker 3
They are encouraging experimentation and they're encouraging, its use, you know, if there's a roadblock, you know, you could use generative AI, play around with it, see if it helps you open up your roadblocks. So I think we're getting to a good place, which we can take credit, you know, for really, pushing people to have these ethical conversations.

00:14:21:12 - 00:14:56:08
Speaker 3
But I think it's so important for our industry. Like that doom and gloom message was so strong for a while that our industry is going to be most affected. And I don't see that. And I think it's important for people to understand like, this is this is an opportunity. You know, you have a responsibility as a communications professional to learn, maybe to safely experiment, but to understand that really the value that we're offering to clients is still there.

00:14:56:08 - 00:15:15:02
Speaker 3
It's going to be even more so. There. But maybe there's a way that I can be used to eliminate some of the more, you know, rote aspects of our job that, frankly, nobody enjoy. So if there's an opportunity to create more exciting jobs, we're all in, right?

00:15:15:04 - 00:15:27:14
Speaker 2
Shout out to all the people of a certain age who used to cut clips out of newspapers and measure them to see what the advertising equivalency would be, and if if you didn't understand any of those words, then you're younger.

00:15:27:14 - 00:15:33:18
Speaker 4
And back then the debate was, do you tape the clips or do you paste the clips and you had people on either side?

00:15:33:20 - 00:15:35:08
Speaker 2
I really enjoyed a glue stick, man.

00:15:35:08 - 00:15:54:04
Speaker 4
That was a tape guy. But the one point I want to build on Kim. So and this is it's an interesting concern I have. I think we're talking a lot about agency and agency operations, and I go back and forth. I am more utopian of what I'm seeing, some of the technology going, but I am also, in some very specific cases, being extremely dystopian.

00:15:54:06 - 00:16:18:19
Speaker 4
Deepfakes scare the heck out of me, and the technology is getting better. And the more I learn about that, the more concerned I am. And I was. I was talking to a number of colleagues recently. If you do not have deepfakes as part of your crisis plan and you're not working and thinking about how to respond to them, you were not doing your clients a good service and you need to learn how to do it, how you can count on them and really, really how you can incorporate that.

00:16:18:19 - 00:16:25:15
Speaker 4
So in some cases, the dystopian I think is still on the rise, and I think it's going to rise for quite a while.

00:16:25:17 - 00:16:49:16
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think that's really fair. I was going to ask you guys where the things that give you the most pause. I do think that, you know, I remember and I've talked to both of you about this back when social media really first came to the fore, and I'm really thinking about blogging. We forget how revolutionary Typepad and WordPress were when you could suddenly write to the web without any coding experience whatsoever.

00:16:49:18 - 00:17:18:04
Speaker 2
And that was amazing. And in those early days of social media, kind of talking to clients about it, talking to colleagues about it, you know, we've been on this journey about what are the net positives, what are the net negatives? And I think that for me, you know, we're living in a world where we've really had to reflect very long and hard about the impact on individuals and society of algorithmic manipulation and none of us are innocent from this.

00:17:18:06 - 00:17:35:19
Speaker 2
You know, we're we are in the business of shaping perception, and so we're always under suspicion from the outside. I would allege, though, and I would say, and I feel very strongly about this, that to Mark's earlier point, our industry actually thinks more about ethics and more about what are the implications of what we're communicating because we represent others.

00:17:35:21 - 00:18:05:13
Speaker 2
We have contracts, obligations, etc.. But I it does give me a great pause. We've seen now the level of manipulation of the human brain, the behaviors that can come of it, radicalization, you know, polarization. And then when you get down to the pure deepfakes, it's it's scary. And I think you're right, Kim. I think one of the pieces I've been reflecting on is how this opens up more and more space for what we do best, which is to be counselors.

00:18:05:15 - 00:18:25:12
Speaker 2
What is the nature of how the media landscape is changing? How do you deal with things where there's no perfect or right answer? What do you you know, what is that mix of art and science in a crisis that helps you understand how to deal with this? But I think you're right, Mark. If companies aren't thinking about the implications here, it's it's pretty heavy for sure.

00:18:25:14 - 00:18:56:19
Speaker 3
There is an interesting thing you just brought to mind for me that I've been sort of pondering is, how will we train counselors when AI is doing a lot of the rote work? So, for example, when we stood at the copy machine and taped or pasted, we've read those clips. It was our job to read every one of those clips and new ideas came from that.

00:18:56:19 - 00:19:19:12
Speaker 3
So a machine can do that to some degree, I don't know. It's like if we're eliminating some of those rote tasks that train your brain and let you search for patterns, how will we develop up those analytical and counseling abilities in our young talent? I think that's a big TBD.

00:19:19:14 - 00:19:48:09
Speaker 2
It's a really good question. I mean, it makes me wonder, you know, sometimes I've been the kind of person who says very literary focus growing up of like, oh, we're not reading in this way anymore. We're not writing anymore in this way or etc. and just new technology and how it changes the brain and how you communicate. And there's a school of thought that, you know, folks adapt and they bring it in and they find new ways of expressing that, like our folks today are pulling articles, they're using already tools, but they're still ingesting it.

00:19:48:09 - 00:19:55:03
Speaker 2
Maybe the AI helps them do an analysis if they find that to be accurate. But yeah, I don't know. Mark, do you have any thoughts?

00:19:55:03 - 00:20:17:19
Speaker 4
I think it comes down, frankly, to individual agencies making their own discussion. And the specific point I want to highlight, because we had a very robust debate at CPAC over this, is on meeting notes and action items that, you know, there are tools out there right now that can absolutely do meeting notes and action items, automate the process and turn them off very quickly.

00:20:17:22 - 00:20:35:18
Speaker 4
And so the time is one. Does that let you save some billable hours and not bring a junior person to the meeting? But people be more present in the meeting. But the corollary to that is, you know, if they're if you don't have somebody, the way you learn how to pick up these key ideas and do the actual finances by doing the meeting notes.

00:20:35:20 - 00:20:55:15
Speaker 4
And so we need to decide, do you want to use AI to save time, or do you want to make sure you still have somebody there and give them that training opportunity? And I think you can make the argument either way. And that's why it's up to the agency decide what to do in our case, we've decided we want to make sure we have somebody because we want to train their critical thinking and train their ability to find those key messages, as Kim talked about.

00:20:55:20 - 00:20:59:07
Speaker 4
So we're not using it right now for that purpose.

00:20:59:09 - 00:21:30:06
Speaker 2
I think it might be also a magnificent way to to engage all generations within an organizational environment to say, hey, what is a value to you? There's obviously the judgment we can bring as more senior leaders, because we have seen professional development and sort of see the nuances of how that might shift from person to person learning style, but also to ask younger people, what are the places where you feel you really need to be at the table, and how does this bring the value for you, etc., etc.?

00:21:30:06 - 00:21:49:01
Speaker 2
I mean, there's there's so much great stuff here. I think about this very much as an organizational leader, even thinking beyond the agency context, but also as a practitioner and as a person. I mean, I think we on this kind of issue, I think we have to be considering and reflecting on this on multiple levels at all times because of the 360 nature.

00:21:49:03 - 00:22:09:01
Speaker 2
So let's talk about the guidelines for a bit. And I've got them up here on my other screen. There's a lot of great things in here in terms of we it's it's and it's aligned. And Mark you really were a proponent of this aligning the view of generative AI and the use of it in an ethical context with the PR Council's Code of Ethics that is signed by all agencies.

00:22:09:03 - 00:22:32:14
Speaker 2
These guidelines are not mandatory, but the code of ethics is. So there's a lot of good stuff in here protecting the integrity of client information, our role in society, accuracy, transparency. But for each of you, I don't know. I'll start with you, Kim. What are some of the key themes or areas of focus or topic in there? Or maybe one of the guidelines that most resonates with you, or that you would love to highlight?

00:22:32:16 - 00:23:05:23
Speaker 3
First, I just have to praise Mark for the brilliance and, you know, just using the code of ethics as the format and just work so beautifully. I think, one of the sections that I really valued, and I also enjoyed the discussion on an input from a number of people, was the, preventing bias, particularly around diversity? I thought we were able to do a really good job of creating questions for folks to ask.

00:23:06:07 - 00:23:34:07
Speaker 3
And for me, it was so important because our industry lacks diversity. So we have to, you know, overcompensate for the fact that we don't have diverse teams typically. And really all sort of teach ourselves to watch for that bias. And I think we did a good pass at that.

00:23:34:09 - 00:24:03:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. And shout out to, the individuals and the diversity, community, the CDOs, the chief diversity officers who, corresponded with who came and took a look at that because they added a lot to it. And for those who haven't looked at the guidelines yet, not only are there the guidelines themselves, but relative to that issue, there's a whole series of questions that are part of this document that one can ask to interrupt bias or recognize bias in the process of engaging with generative AI.

00:24:04:01 - 00:24:20:13
Speaker 2
And I would argue that the questions are just good in general for, putting yourself on the spot, stepping back from your normal mode and saying what is actually happening here. But Mark, the question goes to you, what was a theme or a piece of the guidelines that really resonated to you.

00:24:20:15 - 00:24:46:19
Speaker 4
For a lot of them. But I mean, we'll talk about training. I think I mentioned already, so I want to highlight something else that I think is important. That was something I hadn't quite realized the full implications of was dealing with protecting the integrity of client information and really looking at all the different ways we could potentially be compromising, ethically and legally, our responsibilities when it comes to what we may use generative AI to enhance.

00:24:47:04 - 00:25:05:09
Speaker 4
And it's really important to understand the difference between closed and open generative AI, which is something. And frankly, we were laughing. We were always where we were developing these guidelines, where they become outdated, how quickly and the good news about tying it to ethics, it doesn't really get outdated. And you may need to be mortified and updated, but the core principles stay the same.

00:25:05:10 - 00:25:27:03
Speaker 4
But the day of the webinar, we had announcing that there were some new developments when it came to closed AI. And so that's why people need to constantly learn as well. But it's understanding that in any open AI system, any information you put in there can eventually be incorporated into a large language model. And so it's things like are you then liable or are you then putting your client's data at risk?

00:25:27:03 - 00:25:37:18
Speaker 4
There's a whole bunch of elements. And I think that's something where you got to really look at what can and what should you not put into generative AI platforms.

00:25:37:20 - 00:25:57:15
Speaker 2
I think that's such a great one. And that and that's one where it was really interesting, some of the discussions we had around it, because the space is so fast moving. And I think there's also maybe a sense and no one said this explicitly, like in our task force or in some of the reactions that we got from industry and conversations I've had.

00:25:57:15 - 00:26:18:01
Speaker 2
But I do wonder too, with the large public models like ChatGPT, like the public version, if they're if people don't have an assumption, sort of like the school of fish theory. Oh, there's so many fish. Like I'm just like, it'll never pop up. Like there's just so much stuff in there. But, I think it's really important to be rigorous about that and say, you don't know that it won't.

00:26:18:01 - 00:26:43:02
Speaker 2
You don't know that it won't. It's that's the power of these models. My my favorite part. I mean, I really loved every part of this conversation because the frustrated academic in me really enjoys this kind of thing, like very deeply and profoundly. But the thing I enjoyed a lot was having a chance to reflect as a group with different points of view on what does transparency and disclosure mean in this context.

00:26:43:04 - 00:27:18:14
Speaker 2
So there were a lot of different threads of that conversation. One was, and I have great respect for the folks that brought this up, and I understand the context of why, although I will dispute it right now, you know, the sense of disclosure. Well, hey, we're already using Grammarly. I'm already using this AI is embedded like all through wherever my phone is, all through that I feel that is a little bit, I think I think it's a misguided conflation of what is sort of the evolution of not even AI tools as they exist today, and what is coming.

00:27:18:16 - 00:27:38:05
Speaker 2
So this question of disclosure, I don't feel that that can be used as an excuse. And I and again, I don't think people are proffering it as an excuse, but it's more like but this. So I think that was one big thing I had to really reflect on. And then this question of transparency, it's like if it walks and quacks like a duck, is it a duck?

00:27:38:05 - 00:27:58:23
Speaker 2
So if if we created something and X percentage of it was contributed to by generated generative AI, where is the authorship? Does it have to be 51%. Was the human? Does it have to be 60%? 70%? There's a there's a thought leader in this space and I can't remember his name right now. We can put it in the in the show notes.

00:27:59:01 - 00:28:20:04
Speaker 2
Who? One of my colleagues, Kyle Turner, in our titular group who's amazing, shared with me. And this guy was talking about the release of fix, Facebook's Lama, which is open source, a whole nother level of this thing. He calls it the next pebble in the avalanche. And he, at the beginning of his video said this. Here's my disclosure.

00:28:20:04 - 00:28:53:04
Speaker 2
This was 95% human driven. There's 5% where generative AI has created images for me. And I thought that was really, really interesting. My, my colleague Steve Halsey, who some of you know, said to me he was having a discussion at page about what if you had a generative AI spokesperson that was generated video and they if there was a crisis with a company, they that that program could be set to communicate in, you know, 50, 60, 70 languages simultaneously around the world.

00:28:53:06 - 00:29:01:01
Speaker 2
How would we feel about that? So what do you guys think about that, that use case that is really interesting to me.

00:29:01:03 - 00:29:04:10
Speaker 3
It's frightening to me.

00:29:04:12 - 00:29:21:13
Speaker 2
I mean, let's, let's, let's imagine in this thought experiment that it is the company doing it. And, and they want to be able to communicate quickly and they are using AI and it's an avatar and they're saying it's the but it still feels weird if it does it. It took him.

00:29:21:15 - 00:29:51:06
Speaker 3
At it just feels like such a thin line between good and evil on that use case, right? Like, I don't know, it's so super scary. And then if the information is wrong or dangerous or illegal, then is it the company? You know, I don't know. It just feels fraught with peril.

00:29:51:08 - 00:29:55:05
Speaker 2
What's your take on that, Mark? This one really? I was like, wow, that's so it's interesting.

00:29:55:05 - 00:30:13:17
Speaker 4
I mean, I think in the end people would be more reassured right now, at least today, hearing from a live person and making the statements in a real human, because they want to hear from the CEO or the VP of marketing, I almost bifurcated in two ways. It's one around the image and the text. And or are we creating this, the AI, creating it?

00:30:13:19 - 00:30:38:00
Speaker 4
And then to, as you said, 50 or 70 different languages. And yes, it's kind of really interesting to use with the translation automatic because there's tools that do that. But one of the things we understand is translation is in transcription. And no matter how good the translation tools are right now, they do not get the cultural nuances, which is why I tend to involve, you know, human people from the cultures that can understand and use the right terminology.

00:30:38:00 - 00:30:53:13
Speaker 4
Otherwise you're going to have something which some people assume means one thing, and everybody's talking about pop and, you know, like that's your father, while other people think it's a soda. And, you know, it's a it's another thing that you got to make sure you deal with those cultural nuances appropriately.

00:30:53:15 - 00:30:55:17
Speaker 2
Yeah. I'm originally from Ohio, so I was.

00:30:55:17 - 00:31:00:10
Speaker 4
In the past. That's sort of our bubble, if you want. Right. I mean, hey, to the water fountain. Yeah.

00:31:00:10 - 00:31:27:11
Speaker 2
No, I think I wanted to hit you guys with this sort of without warning with this use case, because it just came to me. Steve came into my office yesterday and said, listen to this. And I said, what an interesting thought experiment, because it does trigger so many questions that I think are the right questions. Again, going back to that ethical minds, the ethical decision making framework of what does it mean to have a non-person, an avatar saying this versus how will it be received?

00:31:27:11 - 00:31:55:02
Speaker 2
And for different cultures, different societies at different times, and sort of what you're implying in your answer, Marcus, right now, for many cultures and societies, probably a real person would be the more relevant thing. Will we adapt later on to where that will feel differently? And then the question of is that translation good enough? You know, it's amazing to have live time translation tools, but where does that become a net negative if we don't really understand that?

00:31:55:04 - 00:32:17:07
Speaker 2
There's just I think it's going to be very cool. And we talked about this, Kim, to sort of create a repository of use cases or interesting questions or, hey, this is what's emerging. So as an industry we can start to look at, okay, here's some obvious uses already, but here's some ones that we maybe haven't thought about yet and that that's something I want to keep on my radar.

00:32:17:07 - 00:32:24:18
Speaker 2
It's hard to do that at scale, but maybe that's as as this project, the guidelines of all of that could be something we look at.

00:32:24:21 - 00:32:49:14
Speaker 3
I agree, I think that's the power of having this task force. You know, you couldn't do this within your own firm. Most firms don't have the kind of expertise we will able to bring. You know, just even the person power to to get this work done. The one thing I wanted to mention on that use cases, how long will it be before we can't tell avatar or human?

00:32:49:14 - 00:32:52:00
Speaker 3
I mean, I don't think that's that far off.

00:32:52:02 - 00:33:22:11
Speaker 2
Yeah. And that that gets back to the deepfake question and and another piece that interested me, which is sort of the strands disclosure, transparency, authenticity. You know, there's been folks in our society that have been yearning for this singularity for decades, which is for whatever one judges to be the merger of man and machine, you know, and and that's a very kind of visionary tech utopian to me that feels dystopic.

00:33:22:11 - 00:33:43:16
Speaker 2
I just read just a lot of dystopic fiction growing up. So I'm like, oh. But, the idea of what is an authentic human expression, this is going to really challenge that, especially when it's taught to talk like us. You know, it comes out in a way that sounds human. I find it it's going to cause a lot of emotions, which it already is, clearly.

00:33:43:16 - 00:33:44:00
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:33:44:04 - 00:34:17:06
Speaker 3
I think another interesting conversation that I've been having is AI and Art. Yeah. And I have felt worried for artists, musicians, visual artists, writers. But you know in speaking with some friends they're pointing out that, you know, technologies have been playing a role in the creation of art for so long. And artists are adaptable. So maybe it isn't a threat.

00:34:17:06 - 00:34:22:14
Speaker 3
It's a, you know, eight to creating art. I don't know, Mark.

00:34:22:14 - 00:34:28:03
Speaker 2
I think I'd love to hear your point, because I think this goes back to questions, too, about being really intentional about ownership and copyright.

00:34:28:05 - 00:35:00:03
Speaker 4
No, I think so. And I think the one point I want to really emphasize, and then something we had discussed earlier, is you need to make sure you get multiple opinions, because otherwise you're going to have your bias. And I'll tell you right now, I've been a PR guy and a digital PR guy for 25 years. That's where I think, at C plus C, when we formed our AI task force, we made sure we had somebody from research, somebody from Creative, digital, multicultural, and the folks from creative that were doing all the artwork and all the other issues were bringing up ideas that I never would have considered.

00:35:00:05 - 00:35:15:05
Speaker 4
I mean, and so I think we evolved some of our guidelines to deal with a lot of that creative area, which is not something we've necessarily talked about specifically on these, because that's a point there is you need to look at as you're doing business in multiple areas. What are some of the guidelines you're going to have?

00:35:15:05 - 00:35:18:14
Speaker 4
It may be different, and you need to keep that in mind.

00:35:18:16 - 00:35:40:20
Speaker 2
I love the idea of bringing multiple points of view and perspectives to the table. And that kind of gets to the earlier thing we talked about is sort of wrestling with the dynamic tension of everything humans create can be amazing or a garbage fire like we have demonstrated ability to have both at once with everything that we create and some things are more potentially destructive than others.

00:35:40:20 - 00:36:01:21
Speaker 2
But I love the idea that because, you know, Mark, and tying back to something you said, that's the complete parallel with the question of ethics, which is more voices are better. If you have a feeling something's wrong, get to others, talk about it, get perspectives. Same thing with bias. If you feel like am I gaslighting this person? Am I?

00:36:01:23 - 00:36:20:17
Speaker 2
Am I seeing this in a way that am I? Isn't this performance evaluation of doing as someone warped because of the systems of race that surround me in the society? Like what is happening here and getting out of your hole and talking to multiple people. I love that advice, Mark. I think it's so important. So guys, what comes next in this process?

00:36:20:17 - 00:36:40:04
Speaker 2
We have this guidelines. There are going to be a living document. You know, what do you think will be the journey for this kind of project. And what are you watching most closely. I mean obviously we're not going to be updating them every week. We might look quarterly and say what's happened, but you know, Kim, what what's on your mind about where does this go from here?

00:36:40:22 - 00:37:06:22
Speaker 3
I love the idea of regularly convening. And, you know, now I'm obsessing about we need creatives. We need to get creatives pulled together and have this conversation. But I think the more time we can make to talk about this, even if we're not issuing changes to our guidelines, but quarterly, just having these conversations, I think is going to sharpen our thinking.

00:37:06:22 - 00:37:26:20
Speaker 3
And it says a lot about the thoughtfulness of our industry. One thing I wanted to share, which is just the tiniest bit of a tangent, but we did a bunch of research on early career professionals in other industries. But, you know, with the idea of how do we attract people with really valuable skills into our agency? So lore.

00:37:26:20 - 00:37:51:04
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yes. Advertising educators, we do so much education. We need educators. So we went through all of these different professions and we asked them, do they think public relations is ethical? And I'll be honest, I thought that there was not going to be a really positive response to that just because of the impact of pop culture, you know, because of the way our industry is portrayed.

00:37:51:06 - 00:38:29:00
Speaker 3
And it was amazing, like almost to a person like, well, they have to be, don't they? I mean, how can you be a public relations professional and not be focused on ethics? Well, we know you can, but I thought that that was really terrific to hear from young potential talent, and it made me want to do an even better job and have these conversations and get them out into the public a bit more, so people know we are doing this work very thoughtfully.

00:38:29:02 - 00:38:35:16
Speaker 2
Yeah. Mark, what are you think? What are you looking at as next steps or things that you're keeping your eye on as we go forward in this? Well, I.

00:38:35:16 - 00:38:49:09
Speaker 4
Think two things that I want to circle back to one thing, Kim, just talked about, about how PR is ethical. And I mean, I think one of the things that really harkens me, if you haven't looked at the other sphere studies, you know, when people are talking about it, we say being ethical is good for business. There is an ethics premium.

00:38:49:09 - 00:39:10:08
Speaker 4
I have found usually 10 to 13% are higher performance by ethical companies, by the world's most ethical company. So, you know, paying attention to these things is not just morally the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do when it comes to business as well. But in terms of what I am looking at, and I've kind of gone down another rabbit hole right now, but I think it's absolutely fascinating.

00:39:10:13 - 00:39:35:04
Speaker 4
And we're focusing on generative AI. But when you look at what autonomous agents are going to be able to do in the coming years, that is something that is it changes it even more. We got to see how effective it's going to be. But I think over time, the looking at the ethics of autonomous agents and what we're going to allow to do, which is kind of taking generative AI to the next level, is going to be a bigger deal.

00:39:35:05 - 00:39:55:05
Speaker 2
That's a really great point. There's a lot of and I think we've been around long enough to see these convergence of technology. I remember working in tech and including wireless and health care and financial services, and watching them all converge. Mark, you and I both did that in the industry is and I think we're going to see a lot of convergence of these things.

00:39:55:07 - 00:40:18:03
Speaker 2
I think for me, I am really interested in how and I think Facebook did it to kind of catch up with the others. But the release of an open source and it's not a full interface, it's not a fully paid platform. It's really noncommercial, open source software that gives other people the keys to a full, you know, a large language model that they can then fine tune for their own uses.

00:40:18:05 - 00:40:39:17
Speaker 2
And as I've dug into this more in technologists listening to this would be like, no duh. But there's just, huge amounts of smaller platforms now cascading off of that release. And how is it then our clients start to use AI internally in private models. So it's kind of like the private public cloud. There's a hybrid cloud strategy, hybrid AI strategies.

00:40:39:17 - 00:41:01:00
Speaker 2
I mean, I really feel like I want to keep digging into the tech side of it, but that's only because I always feel I was choke that as someone who's not a technologist first and foremost, I the technology train continues barreling down the track. I need to stay on at least the last car. I'd like to be farther up on the train if I can't, but I have to at least hold on to the back of it.

00:41:01:01 - 00:41:26:14
Speaker 2
So I do feel like a real responsibility to try to read as much as I can and stay updated on how these technologies are morphing and evolving in real time. So the open source thing to me is really interesting. And and it may be something that, you know, eventually some of these things sell together. And later in the year we bring the task force back together and shout out to all the agency leaders on our ethics task force.

00:41:26:16 - 00:41:46:18
Speaker 2
And we we talk about what everyone's seeing. And I love Kim by the by the way, the idea of maybe the PR Council convening specialized roundtables. Let's have another one with technologists. Let's have another one with people who identify as creatives. You know, there might be another one with the paid media professionals in our agencies, the DNI, professionals in our agencies.

00:41:46:18 - 00:41:50:19
Speaker 2
And that way, we can keep all those voices going.

00:41:50:21 - 00:42:20:19
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think that's a great path forward. You know, I just want to put a sharp point on what both of you have just said, and that is the need for public relations professionals to constantly be educating themselves in this area, particularly in the area of technology. I really think it's a mistake if people at all levels are not seeing themselves as students.

00:42:20:19 - 00:42:26:03
Speaker 3
And, it's going to be a big mess for your career if you don't.

00:42:26:05 - 00:42:35:05
Speaker 2
And isn't that the fun of being in this industry? Yeah. Constant learning. It literally is. The number one thing about especially being in the agency side. So Mark, any final thoughts for me?

00:42:35:05 - 00:42:52:06
Speaker 4
You know, I think just on Kim's point, it's a phrase I've heard used a lot. I'm going to change it a little bit. AI is not going to cost PR professionals their jobs, but PR people that know how to operationalize AI, they're the ones going to cost you your jobs or cost your agency, your clients.

00:42:52:08 - 00:43:08:02
Speaker 2
Well said. With that, I think that's the end. But, Kim sample, Mark McKinnon, always a pleasure. It's been such a pleasure to do this work together. And we're going to continue. And thank you for being on building grand brand gravity, and I'll talk to you all soon.

00:43:08:02 - 00:43:08:12
Speaker 3
Thank you.

00:43:08:12 - 00:43:11:00
Speaker 4
And thank you.

00:43:12:18 - 00:43:41:21
Speaker 1
You are listening to Building Brand Gravity Attracting People into Your Orbit, a business communications podcast. Keep connected with us by subscribing to the show in your favorite podcast player. If you like what you've heard, please rate the show that helps us to keep delivering the latest in industry influence. Thanks for listening. Until next time.