November 3, 2025 • 39 mins
What if your culture metrics could feel as real as a story told around a campfire? We sit down with technologist and humanist Andy Sitison, CTO of Share More Stories, to unpack how long-form narratives—analyzed with AI—can reveal what surveys miss: the emotions, values, and motivations that drive people to show up, speak up, and stay. Andy traces his path from early internet waves to machine learning, then to a sabbatical that reset his compass toward human connection. The result is a platform that treats stories as data and data as a bridge to empathy.
We get specific about the middle space between qualitative and quantitative research. Instead of five voices in a focus group or a sea of anonymous clicks, hundreds of stories become analyzable signals—joy, anxiety, altruism, need for structure—scored at scale and mapped for patterns leaders can act on. A standout insight from YMCA work shows altruism positively correlating with achievement, flipping a common corporate assumption and offering a blueprint for hiring, support, and service design. The bigger surprise: sponsors are often moved to tears reading the first story drops, realizing they’re seeing their people clearly for the first time.
The conversation also leaps from boardrooms to bays. Andy explains the ghost pots initiative on the Chesapeake—derelict crab traps that kill wildlife and drain watermen’s incomes—and how side-scan and forward-scan sonar can make recovery fast enough to change incentives. It’s a masterclass in aligning tech with trust and local knowledge to create win-wins. Throughout, we return to a core principle: protect human agency as AI scales. Step outside the production engine, ask better questions, and measure what matters to people, not just what’s easy to track.
If you’re ready to turn listening into a leadership advantage—and to see how empathy can be operationalized without losing its soul—this conversation is your roadmap. Subscribe, share with a colleague who lives in spreadsheets, and leave a review telling us the one story your organization needs to hear next.
Want to join a community of AI learners and enthusiasts? AI Ready RVA is leading the conversation and is rapidly rising as a hub for AI in the Richmond Region. Become a member and support our AI literacy initiatives.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Welcome back to Inspire AI, where we explore the
human stories behind thetechnology shaping our future.
I'm your host, Jason McGuinty.
And every week we dive into theideas, innovations, and
individuals redefining what itmeans to live and lead an age of
intelligent machines.
(00:21):
In so many organizations today,maybe even yours, we're asking
important questions aboutculture, belonging, and
engagement.
We send out surveys, analyzedata, track how our people are
feeling.
But even with all thatinformation, it's easy to
wonder, are we really hearingwhat people mean when they
(00:44):
respond?
Today's guest is to build acareer around exploring that
very gap between what we measureand what we feel.
Andy Citizen is a technologist,innovator, and humanist who's
worked across some of thebiggest shifts in our digital
era, from the rise of theinternet and big data to the
(01:04):
frontiers of machine learningand AI.
After years of helping globalorganizations modernize and move
to the cloud, Andy stepped backto reflect on how technology
could better serve humanconnection.
That led him to the current roleas CTO of Share More Stories,
where he's pioneering new waysto combine psychology,
(01:28):
storytelling, and AI to helporganizations listen, not just
at scale, but with heart.
Their platform seek bridges theworlds of qualitative
storytelling and quantitativeinsight.
It's helping leaders move beyondsurvey scores to truly
understand the emotions,motivations, and the values of
(01:50):
their people.
And in today's conversation,we'll explore how stories can
become data and how, whentreated with empathy, data can
bring organizations closer totheir communities, employees,
and customers.
Hey Andy, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00 (02:08):
Jason, it's brilliant to be here with you
tonight.
SPEAKER_01 (02:11):
Outstanding.
Let's move in pretty quickly touh the meat of the conversation.
I would love your perspective onhow your career has followed the
evolution of digital technologyand early internet innovations
to today's AI-powered systems.
So can you start off by tellingour audience what patterns have
you seen in how technologychanges us as humans and not
(02:35):
just our tools?
SPEAKER_00 (02:37):
Well, we're starting out big.
That's great.
Um, you know, that is a greatquestion, and we could spend all
our time just on that onequestion alone.
I have had a pretty long career,and I've been in merging tech
for primarily all of it.
And uh, you know, we've alwaysheard that all this standards,
(02:57):
like, you know, all this newtech's going to take our jobs,
or we're gonna have to uhretrain ourselves, and and it it
does transform us almost everybig wave we've had.
We transform who we are aspeople and as workers and and
and as spouses and as familymembers and everything else.
Um I I don't think it takes asmany jobs as everybody worries
(03:20):
about, but it is becoming reallyinteresting right now because
it's becoming less about thebits and the bytes and more
about the digital content,right?
Like content is becoming soimportant and it is so uh
immense and and deep around us.
And um that content is uh somenot only becoming our companion
(03:41):
and sometimes our ourentertainment and everything,
but it's actually becoming ourreality in a lot of ways.
So I think one of the majorthings we have to think about
right now and uh is you know,how do we establish human agency
in that process as we go intothe next few waves of how
technology will evolve us?
SPEAKER_01 (04:00):
Indeed.
Yeah, that that soundsabsolutely right to me.
So, with your extensivebackground, I know that you
described uh in 2016 asabbatical about a moment that
you needed to step back from thedigital noise.
What did you learn about how wecan thrive, not just survive in
this hyper-connected world?
SPEAKER_00 (04:22):
That's a great, great question.
And I you know, I had theopportunity to take a little
time off.
I had a great resume, had agreat career, and I and you
know, it gave me the chance torealize I didn't actually want
to be the person I was.
And so I did a littlereinvention.
I went a little crazy.
I actually looked at massnutrition and looked at things
like protein per acre, cows tocrickets.
(04:42):
And I actually spent a fairamount of time trying to figure
out how many crickets you couldactually grow on an acre of
land.
But I also realized prettyquickly in the process that it
was if I was going to bevaluable, it's gonna be back
around what I'd spent a lot oftime around.
That was the intersection wherehumans meet digital.
And uh, I really wanted to umunderstand where we took that
(05:04):
forward.
And it and in this world rightnow, it's become a really
important thing to focus onbecause humans are uh an
intermix, a cocktail withdigital today.
And you think about like uh uhyou know, Taylor Swift, uh
Kendrick Lamar, you know, wehave all these influencers.
It's like sometimes it's hard totell where the tech and where
(05:26):
the the human begins.
So it's a it's a really fun timeto be in that space.
SPEAKER_01 (05:32):
Love those examples.
So there are definitely manyorganizations that rely on
anonymous surveys, mine as well.
And engagement data.
We want to understand our ourcompany's culture, our team,
what what our team values themost.
But you've built a platform thatlistens in a completely
different way through long formstories.
(05:55):
What inspired your company totake that path?
SPEAKER_00 (05:58):
That's interesting.
You it's uh and it and I want tobe clear, I NPS matters, right?
Like what people are doingmatters.
Uh, there's nothing wrong withthe approaches we've taken.
But what we found is that it andmost of our customers are in a
place where they're like, wefeel like we're still missing
(06:19):
something.
We're not making the connectionwe want to have.
And we'll talk about that, I'msure, as in as we go forward.
But first, let me answer yourquestion about stories and why
stories matter.
Well, you know, what's neatabout stories?
We just talked about all thisemerging evolution of tech and
digital content.
Stories are actually theopposite direction, they're
primitive, they take us back toour earliest uh spots.
(06:41):
I'd like to say it takes us backto our brainstem, you know, back
to our lizard brain, right?
And um allows us to connect itin a much more simple way that
is also deeply felt by almostevery human, if not all.
And you know, think aboutcampfires, think about Mark
Twain, think about any versionof a story you want to.
There's this unique andheartfelt connection that we
(07:04):
have with it.
Um, we also are different peoplewhen we tell a story.
If you ask me to write about,you know, this hammer I bought
that the handle broke on, youknow, online system and I'm I'm
ranting about it, or if you knowI'm doing a survey at work and
I'm not really sure if it'sanonymous, you know, uh all
these things kind of come in andimpact that content sometimes,
(07:26):
right?
But a story, if you tell a storyfor, you know, say three pages,
and we've prompted you to askabout something that is kind of
relevant and probably somethingyou care about.
Maybe it's about your kids oryour dad or you know, first time
you went fishing or whateverthat story's about, by the time
you type that out, you're goingback into your memory, you're
reminding yourself what thatstory is.
(07:47):
And you might not actually haveit exactly the way it happened,
but for you, it's your memory ofthat story, and it matters to
you the way you tell it.
And you bring that forward.
And when you tell that story,what we find is most of our
customers are like, Wow, Ididn't know I needed to tell
that story.
I'm so glad you pulled it out ofme.
I uh and they get therapy fromit.
Like it's it was uh kind of anunintended uh win as part of our
(08:11):
strategy, is our participantstend to get a lot of value out
of creating a voice for memorythat they haven't talked about
in a while.
So stories matter in a in a lotof ways, but those are some of
the core.
SPEAKER_01 (08:22):
Yeah, this is a bit of an uh side question.
How do you bridge a personalstory like that into what the
company is looking for that thatsupports the that particular
associate or the theorganization in an in and of
itself?
SPEAKER_00 (08:39):
Yeah, I I think it has a we for us, it's a it's
kind of a uh the beginning ofthe process.
We start with a learningroadmap.
Matter of fact, we're puttinggenerative AI into the learning
roadmap product part of theprocess to help our you know,
our sponsors, our customers tofigure out what they are trying
to figure out, right?
What is the question they wantto ask?
(09:00):
Because often they have aconstituency, a community of
people uh that maybe they'retalking to regularly, but in a
more survey-based way, or theyhaven't talked to at all.
Maybe there's a new productthey're launching, or they feel
like there's a group of peoplethat are not being represented
in a product or service theyoffer.
Um, they can set that up andstage it.
(09:22):
And usually in the process ofunderstanding who that community
is and what our customer wantsto conversate with them about,
we find the story to tell.
Now, you know, we did some workwith Listen Ventures.
They want to talk to themiddle-aged women, women, and
understand what it feels like tobe a middle-aged woman.
And and, you know, that's areally challenging, it's a
(09:44):
connector, it's not a challenge,it's a like a very powerful
person in human society, right?
They are usually caregiving totheir older generation, they're
taking care of the youngergeneration, they have a spouse,
they have pets, they have jobs.
You know, there's no one moreimportant, pivotal and important
to uh American society than themiddle-aged woman.
(10:05):
So, you know, when you reach outto that person and and they they
wanted to know what it felt liketo be that person and what kinds
of things do they need from theindustry at large.
And um, so when you ask thatquestion, they bring forward
stories like, hey, you knowwhat, I've been taking care of
my mom for six months and I'mit's killing me, right?
(10:25):
Like here, and and so it's not adirect product sale, but it what
it does is starts to help definethe need definition of a
community of people through acollection of stories.
And whether you read the storiesin quotes or you're doing
analysis that pulls some of thatnetwork forward, that's how they
that's one way we get to connectto all of them.
SPEAKER_01 (10:47):
That's brilliant.
All right.
So I've heard share more storiesdescribed as bridging the gap
between qualitative andquantitative research.
Uh, for leaders who live in adata-driven environment, how do
you help them particularly seethe power and the practicality
of combining those two worlds?
SPEAKER_00 (11:06):
Yeah, it's a it's a really strong question because
it is uh it because of the waywe're slicing the space, it is
often hits traditional thinkingand like, well, well, which side
of the continuum are you on?
And we're kind of splitting itright down the middle.
Uh, if you think about a focusgroup, maybe you put five people
in a room, you ask them somequestions, they talk, you get
(11:27):
one-fifth of all those people'sstories over the course of an
hour.
But you probably only did thatwith 30 people.
Um, and that's qualitative,right?
You get a lot of content, butyou're actually only you're
sharing often sharing the spacewith people.
So you're only getting theportion that they're talking,
and then you're only going to dothat with so many people because
it's kind of an expensive partof the process.
(11:48):
The other end you havequantitative, where you're maybe
doing tens of thousands of hitsor reviews or scores against web
site activity.
And here you have just tons ofdata to work with, but you know,
it I and I derogatorily callthem monkey clicks, you know,
it's all us monkeys out thereclicking on things, right?
And so, you know, you can learnthings from that, they're both
(12:09):
important.
Um, but what we're finding isthere's a space in between that,
a sweet spot that is, you know,collecting something like a
story is more qualitativebecause it's a it's you know,
you know, 150, 300, 500 words ofcontent, which by the way is
really nice to process with AI.
Um, but we can do that with ourapp, our platform uh at a web
(12:31):
scale level.
So, you know, if we want to dothat for 500 people, want to do
that for a thousand people, wecan reach out and we've
automated a lot of ourprocesses.
So our prediction engines thatrun on cloud all can run
automatically behind the scenes.
So we don't need the humans todo a lot of the processing that
we would have, say, a year totwo or three years ago.
(12:51):
So we're kind of splitting thedifference between them.
SPEAKER_01 (12:55):
I see, I see.
SPEAKER_00 (12:56):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (12:57):
So your platform analyzes stories using AI
models, looking at emotions likejoy, anxiety, and the need for
structure.
For leaders who are used tointerpreting pulse surveys or
engagement scores in PS, ofcourse, how does this kind of
emotional insight change the waythey understand the true health
(13:18):
of their organization?
SPEAKER_00 (13:20):
I've been warned not to get too geeky and too uh
technical on this.
So I'm gonna keep my, you know,I'm gonna keep the bar high on
this uh because we could goreally deep on it.
I love this space.
And so what we do, as I as youmentioned, we use generative AI,
I think I said earlier, uh, invarious aspects of our product,
it's kind of cellular, is what Ilike to call it, but we also do
(13:42):
something else called predictiveAI, classification AI, where
we're predicting a venti modelor a kind of a Likert scale,
very low, low, medium, high,very high.
And we score against emotives orattitudes, uh things like joy,
sentiment, uh, need forstructure, anxiety, um, you
know, all these different uh,you know, altruism is one we
(14:05):
track and um itself-transcendence, even.
And when we score that againstthe stories, we've collected
enough stories to train thestories to recognize high levels
of that and low levels of that.
And what's really interesting isthese individual emotions we
have a score on, but theyactually travel together, things
(14:25):
like variance and covariance.
I won't get into the details ofthat, but we can track the the
inner relationships of that dataas it flows through this
community together.
And I'll give a, you know, andand that is super powerful
because all of a sudden, youknow, something like you know,
something we learned early isthat happiness or sentiment is
kind of a shallow emotion, um,but joy is a deep, longer-term
(14:48):
emotion.
In our interpretation of that,you can be happy or sad, but joy
is something you might keep alittle longer.
And um it's it's a little moreintrinsic to our our our core.
Um, take my interpretation asyou like, but that's that's one
of the things we pull from ourour work.
And you know, another greatexample is I'll talk about the
(15:09):
YMCA for a second.
Um they uh they did some reallyinteresting work around um
wanting to kind of work oncustomer service, but also
employee experience as part ofour customer experience and
employee experience.
And they they have this kind ofbrilliant model that is if we
take care of our employees andand their well-being, they'll be
(15:30):
great.
Our customers will be benefitedfrom that work.
So it's kind of an inside outlook.
And one of the scores they had,uh, I won't talk in detail, but
you know, they had a kind of ahigh um uh achievement with
altruism.
And that sounds okay.
Well, the altruistic people andachievement-oriented traveling
together in a positivecorrelation that's really cool.
(15:52):
Well, it's actually prettyunique because if you look at
normal corporations where youknow your achievers are often
those people coming out ofbusiness school and really want
to get it done and just go afterit, you know, everything
necessary to make it happen.
Altruism is usually trackingpretty low.
It's usually a pretty negativecorrelation in our past work.
So it was fun to see that comeout in a different way, partly
(16:15):
because of the unique culture ofthat one corporation or that
company.
So, you know, that's the kind ofinterrelationship and why it's
important that we're trackingall these different scores and
then looking across for for thepatterns in the complexity of
the data.
SPEAKER_01 (16:29):
I see.
That's pretty fascinating.
Being a longtime member of thewhy, I can appreciate that too.
So you've shared that whenleaders start reading these
stories, they often have realemotional reaction, that they're
changed by them, if you will.
Why do you think that kind ofempathy is so rare in
traditional feedback systems?
SPEAKER_00 (16:51):
Yeah, it's it's it's really interesting because you
know, I'm the science guy, Iwant to get in the details and
uh talk about the tech.
And uh and almost no one everwants to go as deep as I want to
go in that, obviously.
And uh, but what was reallyinteresting is we started
pulling this.
SPEAKER_01 (17:08):
You just don't hang out with the right crowd.
SPEAKER_00 (17:10):
I I know, I just we don't have enough of me in the
company, right?
Like we're we're still startup,we're growing.
So, you know, I I gotta get Igotta get better friends, you
know.
We'll go with that.
Um, but you know what we what welearned is we started rolling
out the web app, we started toscale at bigger levels and
really getting some interestingcustomers, and almost every one
(17:30):
of those customers, one or twoof the people we talk to will
start collecting stories.
It'll be a couple weeks in, youknow, it's just starting to
happen.
We maybe we send over a littlequip here, or they'll peek in
and look at a sample, and andthey'll be profoundly moved.
They'll be like, Oh my gosh,this is a story.
And we're like, Yeah, that'swhat we do is stories.
And and like that, and it'sobviously I'm I'm joking with
(17:52):
them, but what's matters in thisprocess is they they finally
realize that this isn't justanother survey, that they're
actually getting deep stories,like, you know, hey, you know
what, my my mother died in myarms kind of story.
Like, you know, wow, I can'tbelieve this person shared that
with me.
Well, what you didn't realize isthat person wanted a voice and
wanted to share that with you,and they wanted to tell you what
(18:13):
they needed.
And so as this is where the ahais for a lot of our customers,
it's not at the analysis phase,but when they start seeing the
stories come in and they startrealizing I've never had this
data before, I've never knownthis customer or constituent the
way I'm going to know them now.
And that that's profound, andit's it's a great thing to be
(18:34):
part of.
SPEAKER_01 (18:35):
Yeah, I agree.
And something resonated with methere is I feel like people have
so much more to share than whatwhat you can get out of a
survey, and they want to shareit.
They they feel like they're youknow, by sharing that, maybe
their life can improve, theirwork situation can improve,
their leadership can see theworld through their eyes for a
(18:58):
moment.
I think that's that's reallythat's really profound.
Um, the value, the value I wouldsay, like you're pulling from
there.
SPEAKER_00 (19:05):
Um yeah, and I'm gonna hook on that for a second
and say that um, you know, ourour customers, our our customers
are getting that value, but ourparticipants are also getting
that value.
As you mentioned, they get voiceand often things that they would
love to share their voice with,and they love the idea that this
customer, you know, that theybuy or use or or are somehow
(19:29):
related to cares to know whatthey have to say.
So it's a win-win kind of model,like just the sheer fact that
you've asked already has changedthe perspective of your brand,
which is really cool.
SPEAKER_01 (19:41):
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Yeah, that it builds trust likeimmediately when you're asking
them for their their insightsand looking to share their
perspectives of the world inways that you can't get from a
survey.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah.
So tell tell me a little bitabout your environmental work.
(20:02):
I think the uh ghost pots wereuh effort where you know tech
meets purpose.
I think that's that's afascinating story.
Can you share it with us?
SPEAKER_00 (20:12):
Yeah, well, I will try to keep it in a digest form.
Um I, you know, I it's partlyredemption for me traveling too
much.
And I was in a I I missed Imissed recycles for I think it
was six years because I wasnever home on a Wednesday.
You know, like I was in a planeuh so much for so long of my
(20:34):
life.
Yeah, 20 years or so, I was allover the globe.
And so part of that I realizedonce I took the sabbatical was I
just wasn't invested enough.
And it mattered to my health,but it also mattered to my
community.
And that's one thing I wouldtell everybody to make sure you
do is use your feet, get out,meet people, but we'll come back
to that.
Um, Ghostbots.
(20:56):
I I we have a we're have theluxury to have a place down off
the Chesapeake, and you know, Iwanted looking for ways to get
back.
I joined a board down there thathas been kind of working on the
fishery and the shorelines, andand uh I I wanted to give back,
and we had this opportunity todo ghost bots with Vim's and
Noah had a program that they hadput together.
SPEAKER_01 (21:16):
Um, and it's it was intriguing because just can you
explain for our to our audiencewhat ghost pots are?
SPEAKER_00 (21:23):
Ghost spots.
Well, you know what a ghost pot.
Ghost pot is a crab pot that hasbeen one of two, we call ghost
bots one of two types abandonedpots, a pot that got, let's say
a pot floated away and thecrabber lost track.
Sometimes call watermen grabber,same person, um, in our in my
vernacular, but it might havegotten lost or they forgot it,
(21:43):
or somehow it fell out of theirpath.
And it might sit there for threeyears with a float sitting on
it, or even worse, something cutthe line, broke the line, pulled
the float down with grasses orwhatever, but the float left the
top of the water, and now thispot is sitting on the floor of
the water, say 10, 12 feetunderwater, maybe even more,
just sitting there catching,killing, catching, and killing.
(22:06):
Because every time you catch andkill, it becomes bait for the
next one.
And so that's a derelict crabpot, is what a ghost pot is for
us.
And you know, the basic statsare there's 33 million of
revenue lost uh associated withthis each year.
There's about 3 million that diein these pots, uh, six million
caught.
Um, that don't just catch crabs,they catch turtles and fish and
(22:28):
baby, baby otters.
Luckily, I've never run intothat one, but you know, there's
all sorts of things that can gettrapped in these birds.
And um, yeah, they're just notgood.
They're not good for thefishery, you know, and it's not
good for the crabbers.
Crabbers spend about 60 bucks apot.
And so it's like six grand inlost pots each year.
Um, that's not counting thecatch that's in those pots that
(22:49):
they lose.
Now, I'm gonna give you onelittle bit and I'll stop again.
But um the uh the the problem isbecause the regulatory
requirements of all this, wecan't pull pots with the permit
from but January to March 15th,which is when there is no crab
season.
The rest of it's mostly crabseason.
So um, you know, we're onlyallowed to pull them when
(23:10):
they're off, they're not they'renot sitting out there with
floats, which is kind of sillybecause these are all on the
bottom without floats, but youknow, that's the current
regulations.
And so that's that's what we didlast year, that's what we'll do
this year.
We're went from one team lastyear to three teams this year,
and we're pulling pots off thebottom in you know, 30 degree
weather and 36 degree watertemperatures and 20 mile an hour
(23:32):
wind.
So it's uh it's rigorous.
SPEAKER_01 (23:37):
And and just just so I I I hear, right?
This is a very manual effort,um, environmental like impact,
but no, you're you're not reallyusing technology per se.
SPEAKER_00 (23:49):
Well, it that's a great question because yes, we
are, and uh it is manual effort,and you're exhausted because
these pots uh weigh I'm gonnasay 40 to 80 pounds.
They can be full of mud, seagrapes are these big water
vines, they can have fish inthem or dead crabs or whatever,
or live crabs.
(24:09):
Um, and you pull I put I pulledthem up on kayaks and I pulled
them up on small skiffs lastyear with the team.
And the kayak is a is an art,not not many people can do it on
a kayak.
It's uh it's a little hard tolift that much and not break
your secondary line ofstability.
Um, and it was precarious a fewtimes, but uh it is about
(24:31):
technology because we're usingsonar to find these things.
Last year we used side sonar,which is you know an image
shooting out each side, and welearned how to turn on the pot.
And that was what last year wasabout.
We went from like taking 60minutes on average to pull them
in, find them and pull them in,to three to four to six minutes
to pull them in, and that'sgreat with a$300 sonar.
(24:53):
It wasn't expensive stuff, andthat was proven last year.
We want to go forward, but westill don't think that's a
crapper level of quality, ofefficiency.
Because let me stop for a secondto explain why we're doing this,
is to change the profit motive,to you know, uh to bring new
tech to a traditional industrythat they use tech, they they
(25:16):
just don't use every piece oftech out there, and we want to
enable that human market that isthe this old-time, you know,
traditional Markham seafood.
And that new tech is called Forbscan.
There's three or four differentproducts out there, but
essentially being able to shoota really strong quality image,
we're like$3,500 to run thesesystems, and that will allow you
(25:38):
to go right to that pot.
And we think if we can put thatand pilot that on crab water
crab boat, and over the winter,uh, we can teach that team to
pull that and we will change themotive from you know throwing
away 60 bucks because I don'thave time to pull that thing out
of the water in season to I knowhow to pull it out now.
(25:58):
So only take me a coupleminutes.
I'm gonna take my pot backbecause I'm gonna lose the 60
bucks, I'm not gonna lose mycatch.
And why does that matter?
It matters because now thatpot's not sitting in the water
for 300 days until we can pullit again if it's lost and you
don't kill anything, probably inthe process.
If it's two or three days afterit was lost, that crabmer can
get it back out, keep his seeher or her seafood, and move
(26:22):
forward to the next one.
So it's a it's a we want torevitalize the industry doing
this, showing them thattechnology can do this, showing
them that there is a profitmode.
They know there's a profit mode.
We just want to get within themagical equation to make that
the right profit mode of theefficiency process that they
will enable themselves to do.
And you know, we think we getone or two doing this, we can
(26:44):
get you know five, and then wecan get 10 or 50 and keep going
from there.
And all of a sudden, the problemthat is ghost pots starts to go
away.
SPEAKER_01 (26:51):
No more ghost pots, dream of the day.
SPEAKER_00 (26:54):
Probably one or two, but you know, I gotta have
something to do.
SPEAKER_01 (26:58):
Well, you'll find a different issue to work on.
SPEAKER_00 (27:01):
Yeah, well, yeah, I started looking around because I
you can't fish in the winter,there's no fish.
So, you know, you're out there,you gotta do something.
So yeah, ghost spots it is.
SPEAKER_01 (27:10):
So, so what did you learn about community impact?
Um, whether that's throughconservation or corporate
storytelling that you thinkbusiness and tech leaders might
overlook about their people,their teams, and their values?
SPEAKER_00 (27:23):
That's a great question.
And I I started answering threetimes while you're talking.
I was so excited about it.
Um the the answer is trustmatters.
And you know, we learned this atSharon World Stories, trust.
To get authentic stories frompeople, we have to establish
trust.
And so, you know, in ourcorporate corporate world, that
that's really important.
(27:43):
But it's also important intothis industry because the the
answers are there.
It's not hard to see a potentialsolution, but if you take the
the equations of economy, uhregulatory and political
infighting that's happened for ahundred years between different
organizations, no one's atfault, but you know, everybody's
(28:04):
part of it, and that no onetrusts anybody.
So, you know, that's why we haveto pull them out of the water in
the winter, even because it'ssomeone's property.
Well, if I don't have a float,it's at the bottom of the river,
and they're not pulling them upas nobody's property, in my
view.
Um, don't quote me on that.
But those those are the kinds sowe're working within a a less
than optimal model until youstart bringing people together.
(28:26):
And that's why this hasn't beenabout let's force more
regulation on, let's actuallymake you more money, let's let's
give you some technology, seehow you do with it.
And so, what we want to do, wementioned the pilot in the
winter, but what I want to do isleave that on the boat, give it
to the give it to the grabber,and check back with them a
couple times over the season andsay, hey, did you lose 20% like
(28:47):
you did last year?
Or did you lose 10%?
Did you lose 5%?
You know, how did it changeyour, you know, did you use it?
You didn't?
Okay, well, it was kind of awaste.
Or, you know, did I impact yourbusiness?
Did I impact your your family'slivelihood and your livelihood
in the process?
And again, we talked aboutwin-wins a minute ago.
I think it's a win-win.
If you approach us the rightway, we can we can get everybody
(29:11):
on board behind a good idea.
And so we're just trying toright now prove that this is
truly a good idea.
SPEAKER_01 (29:17):
Yep.
Fantastic.
What kind of thing?
I think I think it's a wonderfulthing being able to abridge your
you know expertise of technologyand and creating um impact uh
and value through your yourcommunity.
I'm sure that was part of yourpivot in 2016, but uh it's great
to great to find that there arepeople out there that um you
(29:41):
know want to leverage theirtheir talent and skills to make
the world a better place.
SPEAKER_00 (29:46):
People people always care.
And it's just uh and and I thinkuh that's a that's a big thing
about technology, is we gottakeep and we gotta remember that,
you know.
I I haven't said it yet.
I expect to say it a couple oftimes, but like I'm constantly
you.
The opinion that we need to redand blue pill ourselves, right?
You got a big production enginerunning through your corporation
(30:06):
of marketing or technology, redand blue at every you know, you
know, which pill you're taking,step outside, get organic for a
minute, look back at it, andthen get back in, right?
Like we we have to we have toconnect.
And uh, you know, this is thisis one of the ways I find a
really good way to connect.
And and you know, everybody atthe table has really good
intentions.
So it's just about making sureeverybody understands.
SPEAKER_01 (30:30):
Yep.
Yeah, absolutely.
Communication.
So thinking about bringing usback to how AI integrates with
every aspect of work.
What what advice would you giveleaders who want to use the
tools to deepen empathy and notjust efficiency?
SPEAKER_00 (30:50):
Yeah, I think it's uh it's getting easier to do
business.
You know, if you think aboutcapitalism in general, you know,
you go back to financial banksof you know, 1900s or railroads,
or you know, when it took tomanufacture the first major iron
ship.
Uh, those things were reallythat was all we could focus on
(31:12):
at some point in the past.
But now, you know, those areeasier aspects of our business.
They're still serious.
I'm not not downplaying thevalue and the effort that goes
into that.
But we've found time to do otherthings within corporations.
And so capitalism, in a way, hasalmost become too easy.
And I don't want to kick off aprovocative thought there, but
(31:33):
you know, it's getting uh it'seasier to globally connect and
get out and create a revenuestreams associated with that.
So as we do that, because it'seasier, we have to be careful
with the technology.
It's like I started this withabout you know human agency.
I think we have to reallyconsider you know the the
(31:53):
individual in this as we goforward, not only because we
should care that they're ourconstituent and our customer and
so forth, but you know, somelevel of societal health and
well-being is important thatit's all we keep going in that
direction.
So I, you know, I I you know theuh this the astronaut Guerin
said something recently that Ireally loved, and that was that
(32:14):
he was flying around the spacestation.
He's like, it's very he lookeddown at this fragile marble, and
he's like, you know, I've kindof flipped on what I used to
think, and now I think it'splanet society economy.
And I really like the sentimentof his saying there in that we
we have to worry about theplanet.
There's you know, all the datacenters are throwing in with AI
(32:35):
right now.
What does that do?
And you know, I spoke at aresiliency conference conference
about AI there well about amonth ago, and and man, I got I
got a real good uh talking toabout all the resiliency issues
associated with AI.
And and it and well,thoughtfully so, right?
And so but we have to think ofthat, we have to think about you
(32:56):
know how humans play out in thiswhole thing.
And when you when you're just ayou know you're you're you're a
manager or a C level uh within acompany, uh I mentioned red and
blue pillar, right?
Like figure out a way to stepaway from the production engine
that is the company and considerthe aspects that matter, you
know, what matters?
(33:16):
What what humans matter thatmix?
How do you bring them into thestory?
How do you know what they careabout?
What do they need from you?
I like to say, you know, it'snot the question that you that
that we the answers to thequestions we ask, but to learn
the question we should haveasked you in the first place,
and um, you know, part of thathas to be different techniques,
(33:37):
and and so share more stories isbringing some of that to the
table, giving us new ways toconnect to people and get a
deeper understanding.
But we need to do more of thatas we go forward and and and
understand the human in the mix.
SPEAKER_01 (33:50):
Yeah, that brings it home for me.
I got one more question for you.
SPEAKER_00 (33:54):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (33:55):
So what's next for share more stories?
And what gives you hope aboutthe future of human connection
in this increasingly digitalworld?
SPEAKER_00 (34:05):
Great.
Okay.
Well, I think share more is, youknow, we're gonna be like that
old joke, you know, uh 40 yearsovernight success kind of story.
Uh, we're we're 10 years intothis this environment and we're
we're to a place where the worldis starting to understand who we
are.
And, you know, it it was aninteresting journey to learn
(34:26):
what it meant to offer what weoffered.
And it was it was alsochallenging to find that the
customers wouldn't figure outwho what exactly we did until we
were done.
Uh, it's really hard to marketsomething that people don't
figure out until they'refinished executing what you
actually did.
Good news is they were allhappy, but uh, you know, so we
are now seeing, you know, chiefexperience officers, we're
(34:49):
seeing CMOs really start toprioritize this type of thinking
in uh what be partly because ofthe maturation of marketing
today.
We've done a lot of the otherstuff, we've figured it out,
we've got strategies.
So how do we go next?
What's the next step?
And we believe what we're doingis in the trend of what is the
next step.
So we hope to ride that wave andum you know enjoy that that
(35:13):
experience.
Um, what's the next in thefuture of technology?
I hope, you know, I hope you seea lot of uh, you know, COVID
brought a lot of natureconnection for individuals.
I'm seeing a lot of kind ofalternative programs where
people are, you know, doingcommunity walks and uh doing
(35:34):
local library activities, andand I hope to see um I hope to
see that kind of make it way itsway into technology.
I'd like to see us, you know,algorithm what's the analog it a
little bit, right?
Like as we go more and moredigital, how do we, how does
analog become, you know, webecome fandoms of analog.
(35:54):
You sell LPs came back and soforth.
I think we're gonna just seemore and more of that where
people are reconnecting withaspects of humanity that are
maybe not efficient or mostoptimal in the current tech
realm that we're in, but becausethey speak to them in other
ways.
And and so yeah, I think I thinkwe're in a weird, interesting, I
(36:15):
said weird and I mean it, butinteresting period of our our
our um existence.
And it's really, I feel like inpivotal, I think we have to we
have we have the opportunity tobe the Jetsons or Terminator,
right?
And so I I think we all want toride the wave and and be a
little more like George.
(36:35):
So you know, I think we have toconsider that and all the
aspects of that meet what thatmeans.
SPEAKER_01 (36:43):
Yeah, I I love the Jetsons.
Um it's it it is it's a futurethat I wouldn't mind living in
as long as the earth can thrive,right?
And we haven't destroyed it bythen and have to live in the
upper atmosphere because theground isn't any good or
anything crazy like that.
SPEAKER_00 (37:00):
Yeah, when no one really knows what the Jetsons
ground looks like.
I mean, come on, there's athere's a origin story that you
know would be really good video.
SPEAKER_01 (37:11):
I think they should bring back the Jetsons,
honestly, with all these greatgraphics they got.
SPEAKER_00 (37:16):
Yeah, I mean, there there was somebody that did some
mock-ups.
There was a it was likegenerative AI little shorts of
old 50s, you know, PopeyeJetsons, and they're actually
pretty cool.
I uh I I I I wormholed them orrabbit holed them for a little
bit uh one time.
So yeah, you know, we havemainstreamed yet.
SPEAKER_01 (37:37):
I have to check that out.
So a surprise question that Ilike to ask all of my guests on
the show is if you had asuperpower, what would it be and
why?
SPEAKER_00 (37:51):
I'm trying not to be boring.
I'm I'm I was gonna say strengthand in in invincibility because
I kind of live that way, eventhough I'm probably not either.
Um, but I like to I I have amotto that says, My wife or my
wife will kill me eventually,right?
Because that's the way I like tolive.
But uh I actually would preferuh, and this seems almost campy,
(38:14):
but I I prefer to betterunderstand people.
And it literally has nothing todo with back shot.
We just podcasted all aboutthat, but I would love to
interpret people better.
I am left-handed, uh ADHD,cognitive, divergent, you know,
I'm a weird dude, and I I I livein a fun world, but I also am
(38:36):
also not connected with people.
So I guess my superpower wouldbe to more to appreciate
everyone for the place that theyare.
And I'm gonna stop there.
I'm just let it ride.
SPEAKER_01 (38:46):
That's beautiful, man.
Hey, there's no there's no wronganswer there.
So I'll I'll just go ahead andwrap it up for us today.
Um, when I think about anonymoussurveys, they they of course
give us a snapshot of what'sgoing on in the health of the
organization.
But stories, they give us amirror.
(39:07):
They show us not just where weare, but who we are.
And maybe that's what everygreat leader needs to understand
first.
So, Andy, thank you so much forjoining us today on Inspire AI.
Your work is a powerful reminderthat beyond every data point,
it's a human story, and thatlistening deeply might be the
(39:29):
most transformative technologyof all.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (39:33):
Thank you.
Welcome back to Inspire AI, where we explore the
human stories behind thetechnology shaping our future.
I'm your host, Jason McGuinty.
And every week we dive into theideas, innovations, and
individuals redefining what itmeans to live and lead an age of
intelligent machines.
(00:21):
In so many organizations today,maybe even yours, we're asking
important questions aboutculture, belonging, and
engagement.
We send out surveys, analyzedata, track how our people are
feeling.
But even with all thatinformation, it's easy to
wonder, are we really hearingwhat people mean when they
(00:44):
respond?
Today's guest is to build acareer around exploring that
very gap between what we measureand what we feel.
Andy Citizen is a technologist,innovator, and humanist who's
worked across some of thebiggest shifts in our digital
era, from the rise of theinternet and big data to the
(01:04):
frontiers of machine learningand AI.
After years of helping globalorganizations modernize and move
to the cloud, Andy stepped backto reflect on how technology
could better serve humanconnection.
That led him to the current roleas CTO of Share More Stories,
where he's pioneering new waysto combine psychology,
(01:28):
storytelling, and AI to helporganizations listen, not just
at scale, but with heart.
Their platform seek bridges theworlds of qualitative
storytelling and quantitativeinsight.
It's helping leaders move beyondsurvey scores to truly
understand the emotions,motivations, and the values of
(01:50):
their people.
And in today's conversation,we'll explore how stories can
become data and how, whentreated with empathy, data can
bring organizations closer totheir communities, employees,
and customers.
Hey Andy, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00 (02:08):
Jason, it's brilliant to be here with you
tonight.
SPEAKER_01 (02:11):
Outstanding.
Let's move in pretty quickly touh the meat of the conversation.
I would love your perspective onhow your career has followed the
evolution of digital technologyand early internet innovations
to today's AI-powered systems.
So can you start off by tellingour audience what patterns have
you seen in how technologychanges us as humans and not
(02:35):
just our tools?
SPEAKER_00 (02:37):
Well, we're starting out big.
That's great.
Um, you know, that is a greatquestion, and we could spend all
our time just on that onequestion alone.
I have had a pretty long career,and I've been in merging tech
for primarily all of it.
And uh, you know, we've alwaysheard that all this standards,
(02:57):
like, you know, all this newtech's going to take our jobs,
or we're gonna have to uhretrain ourselves, and and it it
does transform us almost everybig wave we've had.
We transform who we are aspeople and as workers and and
and as spouses and as familymembers and everything else.
Um I I don't think it takes asmany jobs as everybody worries
(03:20):
about, but it is becoming reallyinteresting right now because
it's becoming less about thebits and the bytes and more
about the digital content,right?
Like content is becoming soimportant and it is so uh
immense and and deep around us.
And um that content is uh somenot only becoming our companion
(03:41):
and sometimes our ourentertainment and everything,
but it's actually becoming ourreality in a lot of ways.
So I think one of the majorthings we have to think about
right now and uh is you know,how do we establish human agency
in that process as we go intothe next few waves of how
technology will evolve us?
SPEAKER_01 (04:00):
Indeed.
Yeah, that that soundsabsolutely right to me.
So, with your extensivebackground, I know that you
described uh in 2016 asabbatical about a moment that
you needed to step back from thedigital noise.
What did you learn about how wecan thrive, not just survive in
this hyper-connected world?
SPEAKER_00 (04:22):
That's a great, great question.
And I you know, I had theopportunity to take a little
time off.
I had a great resume, had agreat career, and I and you
know, it gave me the chance torealize I didn't actually want
to be the person I was.
And so I did a littlereinvention.
I went a little crazy.
I actually looked at massnutrition and looked at things
like protein per acre, cows tocrickets.
(04:42):
And I actually spent a fairamount of time trying to figure
out how many crickets you couldactually grow on an acre of
land.
But I also realized prettyquickly in the process that it
was if I was going to bevaluable, it's gonna be back
around what I'd spent a lot oftime around.
That was the intersection wherehumans meet digital.
And uh, I really wanted to umunderstand where we took that
(05:04):
forward.
And it and in this world rightnow, it's become a really
important thing to focus onbecause humans are uh an
intermix, a cocktail withdigital today.
And you think about like uh uhyou know, Taylor Swift, uh
Kendrick Lamar, you know, wehave all these influencers.
It's like sometimes it's hard totell where the tech and where
(05:26):
the the human begins.
So it's a it's a really fun timeto be in that space.
SPEAKER_01 (05:32):
Love those examples.
So there are definitely manyorganizations that rely on
anonymous surveys, mine as well.
And engagement data.
We want to understand our ourcompany's culture, our team,
what what our team values themost.
But you've built a platform thatlistens in a completely
different way through long formstories.
(05:55):
What inspired your company totake that path?
SPEAKER_00 (05:58):
That's interesting.
You it's uh and it and I want tobe clear, I NPS matters, right?
Like what people are doingmatters.
Uh, there's nothing wrong withthe approaches we've taken.
But what we found is that it andmost of our customers are in a
place where they're like, wefeel like we're still missing
(06:19):
something.
We're not making the connectionwe want to have.
And we'll talk about that, I'msure, as in as we go forward.
But first, let me answer yourquestion about stories and why
stories matter.
Well, you know, what's neatabout stories?
We just talked about all thisemerging evolution of tech and
digital content.
Stories are actually theopposite direction, they're
primitive, they take us back toour earliest uh spots.
(06:41):
I'd like to say it takes us backto our brainstem, you know, back
to our lizard brain, right?
And um allows us to connect itin a much more simple way that
is also deeply felt by almostevery human, if not all.
And you know, think aboutcampfires, think about Mark
Twain, think about any versionof a story you want to.
There's this unique andheartfelt connection that we
(07:04):
have with it.
Um, we also are different peoplewhen we tell a story.
If you ask me to write about,you know, this hammer I bought
that the handle broke on, youknow, online system and I'm I'm
ranting about it, or if you knowI'm doing a survey at work and
I'm not really sure if it'sanonymous, you know, uh all
these things kind of come in andimpact that content sometimes,
(07:26):
right?
But a story, if you tell a storyfor, you know, say three pages,
and we've prompted you to askabout something that is kind of
relevant and probably somethingyou care about.
Maybe it's about your kids oryour dad or you know, first time
you went fishing or whateverthat story's about, by the time
you type that out, you're goingback into your memory, you're
reminding yourself what thatstory is.
(07:47):
And you might not actually haveit exactly the way it happened,
but for you, it's your memory ofthat story, and it matters to
you the way you tell it.
And you bring that forward.
And when you tell that story,what we find is most of our
customers are like, Wow, Ididn't know I needed to tell
that story.
I'm so glad you pulled it out ofme.
I uh and they get therapy fromit.
Like it's it was uh kind of anunintended uh win as part of our
(08:11):
strategy, is our participantstend to get a lot of value out
of creating a voice for memorythat they haven't talked about
in a while.
So stories matter in a in a lotof ways, but those are some of
the core.
SPEAKER_01 (08:22):
Yeah, this is a bit of an uh side question.
How do you bridge a personalstory like that into what the
company is looking for that thatsupports the that particular
associate or the theorganization in an in and of
itself?
SPEAKER_00 (08:39):
Yeah, I I think it has a we for us, it's a it's
kind of a uh the beginning ofthe process.
We start with a learningroadmap.
Matter of fact, we're puttinggenerative AI into the learning
roadmap product part of theprocess to help our you know,
our sponsors, our customers tofigure out what they are trying
to figure out, right?
What is the question they wantto ask?
(09:00):
Because often they have aconstituency, a community of
people uh that maybe they'retalking to regularly, but in a
more survey-based way, or theyhaven't talked to at all.
Maybe there's a new productthey're launching, or they feel
like there's a group of peoplethat are not being represented
in a product or service theyoffer.
Um, they can set that up andstage it.
(09:22):
And usually in the process ofunderstanding who that community
is and what our customer wantsto conversate with them about,
we find the story to tell.
Now, you know, we did some workwith Listen Ventures.
They want to talk to themiddle-aged women, women, and
understand what it feels like tobe a middle-aged woman.
And and, you know, that's areally challenging, it's a
(09:44):
connector, it's not a challenge,it's a like a very powerful
person in human society, right?
They are usually caregiving totheir older generation, they're
taking care of the youngergeneration, they have a spouse,
they have pets, they have jobs.
You know, there's no one moreimportant, pivotal and important
to uh American society than themiddle-aged woman.
(10:05):
So, you know, when you reach outto that person and and they they
wanted to know what it felt liketo be that person and what kinds
of things do they need from theindustry at large.
And um, so when you ask thatquestion, they bring forward
stories like, hey, you knowwhat, I've been taking care of
my mom for six months and I'mit's killing me, right?
(10:25):
Like here, and and so it's not adirect product sale, but it what
it does is starts to help definethe need definition of a
community of people through acollection of stories.
And whether you read the storiesin quotes or you're doing
analysis that pulls some of thatnetwork forward, that's how they
that's one way we get to connectto all of them.
SPEAKER_01 (10:47):
That's brilliant.
All right.
So I've heard share more storiesdescribed as bridging the gap
between qualitative andquantitative research.
Uh, for leaders who live in adata-driven environment, how do
you help them particularly seethe power and the practicality
of combining those two worlds?
SPEAKER_00 (11:06):
Yeah, it's a it's a really strong question because
it is uh it because of the waywe're slicing the space, it is
often hits traditional thinkingand like, well, well, which side
of the continuum are you on?
And we're kind of splitting itright down the middle.
Uh, if you think about a focusgroup, maybe you put five people
in a room, you ask them somequestions, they talk, you get
(11:27):
one-fifth of all those people'sstories over the course of an
hour.
But you probably only did thatwith 30 people.
Um, and that's qualitative,right?
You get a lot of content, butyou're actually only you're
sharing often sharing the spacewith people.
So you're only getting theportion that they're talking,
and then you're only going to dothat with so many people because
it's kind of an expensive partof the process.
(11:48):
The other end you havequantitative, where you're maybe
doing tens of thousands of hitsor reviews or scores against web
site activity.
And here you have just tons ofdata to work with, but you know,
it I and I derogatorily callthem monkey clicks, you know,
it's all us monkeys out thereclicking on things, right?
And so, you know, you can learnthings from that, they're both
(12:09):
important.
Um, but what we're finding isthere's a space in between that,
a sweet spot that is, you know,collecting something like a
story is more qualitativebecause it's a it's you know,
you know, 150, 300, 500 words ofcontent, which by the way is
really nice to process with AI.
Um, but we can do that with ourapp, our platform uh at a web
(12:31):
scale level.
So, you know, if we want to dothat for 500 people, want to do
that for a thousand people, wecan reach out and we've
automated a lot of ourprocesses.
So our prediction engines thatrun on cloud all can run
automatically behind the scenes.
So we don't need the humans todo a lot of the processing that
we would have, say, a year totwo or three years ago.
(12:51):
So we're kind of splitting thedifference between them.
SPEAKER_01 (12:55):
I see, I see.
SPEAKER_00 (12:56):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (12:57):
So your platform analyzes stories using AI
models, looking at emotions likejoy, anxiety, and the need for
structure.
For leaders who are used tointerpreting pulse surveys or
engagement scores in PS, ofcourse, how does this kind of
emotional insight change the waythey understand the true health
(13:18):
of their organization?
SPEAKER_00 (13:20):
I've been warned not to get too geeky and too uh
technical on this.
So I'm gonna keep my, you know,I'm gonna keep the bar high on
this uh because we could goreally deep on it.
I love this space.
And so what we do, as I as youmentioned, we use generative AI,
I think I said earlier, uh, invarious aspects of our product,
it's kind of cellular, is what Ilike to call it, but we also do
(13:42):
something else called predictiveAI, classification AI, where
we're predicting a venti modelor a kind of a Likert scale,
very low, low, medium, high,very high.
And we score against emotives orattitudes, uh things like joy,
sentiment, uh, need forstructure, anxiety, um, you
know, all these different uh,you know, altruism is one we
(14:05):
track and um itself-transcendence, even.
And when we score that againstthe stories, we've collected
enough stories to train thestories to recognize high levels
of that and low levels of that.
And what's really interesting isthese individual emotions we
have a score on, but theyactually travel together, things
(14:25):
like variance and covariance.
I won't get into the details ofthat, but we can track the the
inner relationships of that dataas it flows through this
community together.
And I'll give a, you know, andand that is super powerful
because all of a sudden, youknow, something like you know,
something we learned early isthat happiness or sentiment is
kind of a shallow emotion, um,but joy is a deep, longer-term
(14:48):
emotion.
In our interpretation of that,you can be happy or sad, but joy
is something you might keep alittle longer.
And um it's it's a little moreintrinsic to our our our core.
Um, take my interpretation asyou like, but that's that's one
of the things we pull from ourour work.
And you know, another greatexample is I'll talk about the
(15:09):
YMCA for a second.
Um they uh they did some reallyinteresting work around um
wanting to kind of work oncustomer service, but also
employee experience as part ofour customer experience and
employee experience.
And they they have this kind ofbrilliant model that is if we
take care of our employees andand their well-being, they'll be
(15:30):
great.
Our customers will be benefitedfrom that work.
So it's kind of an inside outlook.
And one of the scores they had,uh, I won't talk in detail, but
you know, they had a kind of ahigh um uh achievement with
altruism.
And that sounds okay.
Well, the altruistic people andachievement-oriented traveling
together in a positivecorrelation that's really cool.
(15:52):
Well, it's actually prettyunique because if you look at
normal corporations where youknow your achievers are often
those people coming out ofbusiness school and really want
to get it done and just go afterit, you know, everything
necessary to make it happen.
Altruism is usually trackingpretty low.
It's usually a pretty negativecorrelation in our past work.
So it was fun to see that comeout in a different way, partly
(16:15):
because of the unique culture ofthat one corporation or that
company.
So, you know, that's the kind ofinterrelationship and why it's
important that we're trackingall these different scores and
then looking across for for thepatterns in the complexity of
the data.
SPEAKER_01 (16:29):
I see.
That's pretty fascinating.
Being a longtime member of thewhy, I can appreciate that too.
So you've shared that whenleaders start reading these
stories, they often have realemotional reaction, that they're
changed by them, if you will.
Why do you think that kind ofempathy is so rare in
traditional feedback systems?
SPEAKER_00 (16:51):
Yeah, it's it's it's really interesting because you
know, I'm the science guy, Iwant to get in the details and
uh talk about the tech.
And uh and almost no one everwants to go as deep as I want to
go in that, obviously.
And uh, but what was reallyinteresting is we started
pulling this.
SPEAKER_01 (17:08):
You just don't hang out with the right crowd.
SPEAKER_00 (17:10):
I I know, I just we don't have enough of me in the
company, right?
Like we're we're still startup,we're growing.
So, you know, I I gotta get Igotta get better friends, you
know.
We'll go with that.
Um, but you know what we what welearned is we started rolling
out the web app, we started toscale at bigger levels and
really getting some interestingcustomers, and almost every one
(17:30):
of those customers, one or twoof the people we talk to will
start collecting stories.
It'll be a couple weeks in, youknow, it's just starting to
happen.
We maybe we send over a littlequip here, or they'll peek in
and look at a sample, and andthey'll be profoundly moved.
They'll be like, Oh my gosh,this is a story.
And we're like, Yeah, that'swhat we do is stories.
And and like that, and it'sobviously I'm I'm joking with
(17:52):
them, but what's matters in thisprocess is they they finally
realize that this isn't justanother survey, that they're
actually getting deep stories,like, you know, hey, you know
what, my my mother died in myarms kind of story.
Like, you know, wow, I can'tbelieve this person shared that
with me.
Well, what you didn't realize isthat person wanted a voice and
wanted to share that with you,and they wanted to tell you what
(18:13):
they needed.
And so as this is where the ahais for a lot of our customers,
it's not at the analysis phase,but when they start seeing the
stories come in and they startrealizing I've never had this
data before, I've never knownthis customer or constituent the
way I'm going to know them now.
And that that's profound, andit's it's a great thing to be
(18:34):
part of.
SPEAKER_01 (18:35):
Yeah, I agree.
And something resonated with methere is I feel like people have
so much more to share than whatwhat you can get out of a
survey, and they want to shareit.
They they feel like they're youknow, by sharing that, maybe
their life can improve, theirwork situation can improve,
their leadership can see theworld through their eyes for a
(18:58):
moment.
I think that's that's reallythat's really profound.
Um, the value, the value I wouldsay, like you're pulling from
there.
SPEAKER_00 (19:05):
Um yeah, and I'm gonna hook on that for a second
and say that um, you know, ourour customers, our our customers
are getting that value, but ourparticipants are also getting
that value.
As you mentioned, they get voiceand often things that they would
love to share their voice with,and they love the idea that this
customer, you know, that theybuy or use or or are somehow
(19:29):
related to cares to know whatthey have to say.
So it's a win-win kind of model,like just the sheer fact that
you've asked already has changedthe perspective of your brand,
which is really cool.
SPEAKER_01 (19:41):
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Yeah, that it builds trust likeimmediately when you're asking
them for their their insightsand looking to share their
perspectives of the world inways that you can't get from a
survey.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah.
So tell tell me a little bitabout your environmental work.
(20:02):
I think the uh ghost pots wereuh effort where you know tech
meets purpose.
I think that's that's afascinating story.
Can you share it with us?
SPEAKER_00 (20:12):
Yeah, well, I will try to keep it in a digest form.
Um I, you know, I it's partlyredemption for me traveling too
much.
And I was in a I I missed Imissed recycles for I think it
was six years because I wasnever home on a Wednesday.
You know, like I was in a planeuh so much for so long of my
(20:34):
life.
Yeah, 20 years or so, I was allover the globe.
And so part of that I realizedonce I took the sabbatical was I
just wasn't invested enough.
And it mattered to my health,but it also mattered to my
community.
And that's one thing I wouldtell everybody to make sure you
do is use your feet, get out,meet people, but we'll come back
to that.
Um, Ghostbots.
(20:56):
I I we have a we're have theluxury to have a place down off
the Chesapeake, and you know, Iwanted looking for ways to get
back.
I joined a board down there thathas been kind of working on the
fishery and the shorelines, andand uh I I wanted to give back,
and we had this opportunity todo ghost bots with Vim's and
Noah had a program that they hadput together.
SPEAKER_01 (21:16):
Um, and it's it was intriguing because just can you
explain for our to our audiencewhat ghost pots are?
SPEAKER_00 (21:23):
Ghost spots.
Well, you know what a ghost pot.
Ghost pot is a crab pot that hasbeen one of two, we call ghost
bots one of two types abandonedpots, a pot that got, let's say
a pot floated away and thecrabber lost track.
Sometimes call watermen grabber,same person, um, in our in my
vernacular, but it might havegotten lost or they forgot it,
(21:43):
or somehow it fell out of theirpath.
And it might sit there for threeyears with a float sitting on
it, or even worse, something cutthe line, broke the line, pulled
the float down with grasses orwhatever, but the float left the
top of the water, and now thispot is sitting on the floor of
the water, say 10, 12 feetunderwater, maybe even more,
just sitting there catching,killing, catching, and killing.
(22:06):
Because every time you catch andkill, it becomes bait for the
next one.
And so that's a derelict crabpot, is what a ghost pot is for
us.
And you know, the basic statsare there's 33 million of
revenue lost uh associated withthis each year.
There's about 3 million that diein these pots, uh, six million
caught.
Um, that don't just catch crabs,they catch turtles and fish and
(22:28):
baby, baby otters.
Luckily, I've never run intothat one, but you know, there's
all sorts of things that can gettrapped in these birds.
And um, yeah, they're just notgood.
They're not good for thefishery, you know, and it's not
good for the crabbers.
Crabbers spend about 60 bucks apot.
And so it's like six grand inlost pots each year.
Um, that's not counting thecatch that's in those pots that
(22:49):
they lose.
Now, I'm gonna give you onelittle bit and I'll stop again.
But um the uh the the problem isbecause the regulatory
requirements of all this, wecan't pull pots with the permit
from but January to March 15th,which is when there is no crab
season.
The rest of it's mostly crabseason.
So um, you know, we're onlyallowed to pull them when
(23:10):
they're off, they're not they'renot sitting out there with
floats, which is kind of sillybecause these are all on the
bottom without floats, but youknow, that's the current
regulations.
And so that's that's what we didlast year, that's what we'll do
this year.
We're went from one team lastyear to three teams this year,
and we're pulling pots off thebottom in you know, 30 degree
weather and 36 degree watertemperatures and 20 mile an hour
(23:32):
wind.
So it's uh it's rigorous.
SPEAKER_01 (23:37):
And and just just so I I I hear, right?
This is a very manual effort,um, environmental like impact,
but no, you're you're not reallyusing technology per se.
SPEAKER_00 (23:49):
Well, it that's a great question because yes, we
are, and uh it is manual effort,and you're exhausted because
these pots uh weigh I'm gonnasay 40 to 80 pounds.
They can be full of mud, seagrapes are these big water
vines, they can have fish inthem or dead crabs or whatever,
or live crabs.
(24:09):
Um, and you pull I put I pulledthem up on kayaks and I pulled
them up on small skiffs lastyear with the team.
And the kayak is a is an art,not not many people can do it on
a kayak.
It's uh it's a little hard tolift that much and not break
your secondary line ofstability.
Um, and it was precarious a fewtimes, but uh it is about
(24:31):
technology because we're usingsonar to find these things.
Last year we used side sonar,which is you know an image
shooting out each side, and welearned how to turn on the pot.
And that was what last year wasabout.
We went from like taking 60minutes on average to pull them
in, find them and pull them in,to three to four to six minutes
to pull them in, and that'sgreat with a$300 sonar.
(24:53):
It wasn't expensive stuff, andthat was proven last year.
We want to go forward, but westill don't think that's a
crapper level of quality, ofefficiency.
Because let me stop for a secondto explain why we're doing this,
is to change the profit motive,to you know, uh to bring new
tech to a traditional industrythat they use tech, they they
(25:16):
just don't use every piece oftech out there, and we want to
enable that human market that isthe this old-time, you know,
traditional Markham seafood.
And that new tech is called Forbscan.
There's three or four differentproducts out there, but
essentially being able to shoota really strong quality image,
we're like$3,500 to run thesesystems, and that will allow you
(25:38):
to go right to that pot.
And we think if we can put thatand pilot that on crab water
crab boat, and over the winter,uh, we can teach that team to
pull that and we will change themotive from you know throwing
away 60 bucks because I don'thave time to pull that thing out
of the water in season to I knowhow to pull it out now.
(25:58):
So only take me a coupleminutes.
I'm gonna take my pot backbecause I'm gonna lose the 60
bucks, I'm not gonna lose mycatch.
And why does that matter?
It matters because now thatpot's not sitting in the water
for 300 days until we can pullit again if it's lost and you
don't kill anything, probably inthe process.
If it's two or three days afterit was lost, that crabmer can
get it back out, keep his seeher or her seafood, and move
(26:22):
forward to the next one.
So it's a it's a we want torevitalize the industry doing
this, showing them thattechnology can do this, showing
them that there is a profitmode.
They know there's a profit mode.
We just want to get within themagical equation to make that
the right profit mode of theefficiency process that they
will enable themselves to do.
And you know, we think we getone or two doing this, we can
(26:44):
get you know five, and then wecan get 10 or 50 and keep going
from there.
And all of a sudden, the problemthat is ghost pots starts to go
away.
SPEAKER_01 (26:51):
No more ghost pots, dream of the day.
SPEAKER_00 (26:54):
Probably one or two, but you know, I gotta have
something to do.
SPEAKER_01 (26:58):
Well, you'll find a different issue to work on.
SPEAKER_00 (27:01):
Yeah, well, yeah, I started looking around because I
you can't fish in the winter,there's no fish.
So, you know, you're out there,you gotta do something.
So yeah, ghost spots it is.
SPEAKER_01 (27:10):
So, so what did you learn about community impact?
Um, whether that's throughconservation or corporate
storytelling that you thinkbusiness and tech leaders might
overlook about their people,their teams, and their values?
SPEAKER_00 (27:23):
That's a great question.
And I I started answering threetimes while you're talking.
I was so excited about it.
Um the the answer is trustmatters.
And you know, we learned this atSharon World Stories, trust.
To get authentic stories frompeople, we have to establish
trust.
And so, you know, in ourcorporate corporate world, that
that's really important.
(27:43):
But it's also important intothis industry because the the
answers are there.
It's not hard to see a potentialsolution, but if you take the
the equations of economy, uhregulatory and political
infighting that's happened for ahundred years between different
organizations, no one's atfault, but you know, everybody's
(28:04):
part of it, and that no onetrusts anybody.
So, you know, that's why we haveto pull them out of the water in
the winter, even because it'ssomeone's property.
Well, if I don't have a float,it's at the bottom of the river,
and they're not pulling them upas nobody's property, in my
view.
Um, don't quote me on that.
But those those are the kinds sowe're working within a a less
than optimal model until youstart bringing people together.
(28:26):
And that's why this hasn't beenabout let's force more
regulation on, let's actuallymake you more money, let's let's
give you some technology, seehow you do with it.
And so, what we want to do, wementioned the pilot in the
winter, but what I want to do isleave that on the boat, give it
to the give it to the grabber,and check back with them a
couple times over the season andsay, hey, did you lose 20% like
(28:47):
you did last year?
Or did you lose 10%?
Did you lose 5%?
You know, how did it changeyour, you know, did you use it?
You didn't?
Okay, well, it was kind of awaste.
Or, you know, did I impact yourbusiness?
Did I impact your your family'slivelihood and your livelihood
in the process?
And again, we talked aboutwin-wins a minute ago.
I think it's a win-win.
If you approach us the rightway, we can we can get everybody
(29:11):
on board behind a good idea.
And so we're just trying toright now prove that this is
truly a good idea.
SPEAKER_01 (29:17):
Yep.
Fantastic.
What kind of thing?
I think I think it's a wonderfulthing being able to abridge your
you know expertise of technologyand and creating um impact uh
and value through your yourcommunity.
I'm sure that was part of yourpivot in 2016, but uh it's great
to great to find that there arepeople out there that um you
(29:41):
know want to leverage theirtheir talent and skills to make
the world a better place.
SPEAKER_00 (29:46):
People people always care.
And it's just uh and and I thinkuh that's a that's a big thing
about technology, is we gottakeep and we gotta remember that,
you know.
I I haven't said it yet.
I expect to say it a couple oftimes, but like I'm constantly
you.
The opinion that we need to redand blue pill ourselves, right?
You got a big production enginerunning through your corporation
(30:06):
of marketing or technology, redand blue at every you know, you
know, which pill you're taking,step outside, get organic for a
minute, look back at it, andthen get back in, right?
Like we we have to we have toconnect.
And uh, you know, this is thisis one of the ways I find a
really good way to connect.
And and you know, everybody atthe table has really good
intentions.
So it's just about making sureeverybody understands.
SPEAKER_01 (30:30):
Yep.
Yeah, absolutely.
Communication.
So thinking about bringing usback to how AI integrates with
every aspect of work.
What what advice would you giveleaders who want to use the
tools to deepen empathy and notjust efficiency?
SPEAKER_00 (30:50):
Yeah, I think it's uh it's getting easier to do
business.
You know, if you think aboutcapitalism in general, you know,
you go back to financial banksof you know, 1900s or railroads,
or you know, when it took tomanufacture the first major iron
ship.
Uh, those things were reallythat was all we could focus on
(31:12):
at some point in the past.
But now, you know, those areeasier aspects of our business.
They're still serious.
I'm not not downplaying thevalue and the effort that goes
into that.
But we've found time to do otherthings within corporations.
And so capitalism, in a way, hasalmost become too easy.
And I don't want to kick off aprovocative thought there, but
(31:33):
you know, it's getting uh it'seasier to globally connect and
get out and create a revenuestreams associated with that.
So as we do that, because it'seasier, we have to be careful
with the technology.
It's like I started this withabout you know human agency.
I think we have to reallyconsider you know the the
(31:53):
individual in this as we goforward, not only because we
should care that they're ourconstituent and our customer and
so forth, but you know, somelevel of societal health and
well-being is important thatit's all we keep going in that
direction.
So I, you know, I I you know theuh this the astronaut Guerin
said something recently that Ireally loved, and that was that
(32:14):
he was flying around the spacestation.
He's like, it's very he lookeddown at this fragile marble, and
he's like, you know, I've kindof flipped on what I used to
think, and now I think it'splanet society economy.
And I really like the sentimentof his saying there in that we
we have to worry about theplanet.
There's you know, all the datacenters are throwing in with AI
(32:35):
right now.
What does that do?
And you know, I spoke at aresiliency conference conference
about AI there well about amonth ago, and and man, I got I
got a real good uh talking toabout all the resiliency issues
associated with AI.
And and it and well,thoughtfully so, right?
And so but we have to think ofthat, we have to think about you
(32:56):
know how humans play out in thiswhole thing.
And when you when you're just ayou know you're you're you're a
manager or a C level uh within acompany, uh I mentioned red and
blue pillar, right?
Like figure out a way to stepaway from the production engine
that is the company and considerthe aspects that matter, you
know, what matters?
(33:16):
What what humans matter thatmix?
How do you bring them into thestory?
How do you know what they careabout?
What do they need from you?
I like to say, you know, it'snot the question that you that
that we the answers to thequestions we ask, but to learn
the question we should haveasked you in the first place,
and um, you know, part of thathas to be different techniques,
(33:37):
and and so share more stories isbringing some of that to the
table, giving us new ways toconnect to people and get a
deeper understanding.
But we need to do more of thatas we go forward and and and
understand the human in the mix.
SPEAKER_01 (33:50):
Yeah, that brings it home for me.
I got one more question for you.
SPEAKER_00 (33:54):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (33:55):
So what's next for share more stories?
And what gives you hope aboutthe future of human connection
in this increasingly digitalworld?
SPEAKER_00 (34:05):
Great.
Okay.
Well, I think share more is, youknow, we're gonna be like that
old joke, you know, uh 40 yearsovernight success kind of story.
Uh, we're we're 10 years intothis this environment and we're
we're to a place where the worldis starting to understand who we
are.
And, you know, it it was aninteresting journey to learn
(34:26):
what it meant to offer what weoffered.
And it was it was alsochallenging to find that the
customers wouldn't figure outwho what exactly we did until we
were done.
Uh, it's really hard to marketsomething that people don't
figure out until they'refinished executing what you
actually did.
Good news is they were allhappy, but uh, you know, so we
are now seeing, you know, chiefexperience officers, we're
(34:49):
seeing CMOs really start toprioritize this type of thinking
in uh what be partly because ofthe maturation of marketing
today.
We've done a lot of the otherstuff, we've figured it out,
we've got strategies.
So how do we go next?
What's the next step?
And we believe what we're doingis in the trend of what is the
next step.
So we hope to ride that wave andum you know enjoy that that
(35:13):
experience.
Um, what's the next in thefuture of technology?
I hope, you know, I hope you seea lot of uh, you know, COVID
brought a lot of natureconnection for individuals.
I'm seeing a lot of kind ofalternative programs where
people are, you know, doingcommunity walks and uh doing
(35:34):
local library activities, andand I hope to see um I hope to
see that kind of make it way itsway into technology.
I'd like to see us, you know,algorithm what's the analog it a
little bit, right?
Like as we go more and moredigital, how do we, how does
analog become, you know, webecome fandoms of analog.
(35:54):
You sell LPs came back and soforth.
I think we're gonna just seemore and more of that where
people are reconnecting withaspects of humanity that are
maybe not efficient or mostoptimal in the current tech
realm that we're in, but becausethey speak to them in other
ways.
And and so yeah, I think I thinkwe're in a weird, interesting, I
(36:15):
said weird and I mean it, butinteresting period of our our
our um existence.
And it's really, I feel like inpivotal, I think we have to we
have we have the opportunity tobe the Jetsons or Terminator,
right?
And so I I think we all want toride the wave and and be a
little more like George.
(36:35):
So you know, I think we have toconsider that and all the
aspects of that meet what thatmeans.
SPEAKER_01 (36:43):
Yeah, I I love the Jetsons.
Um it's it it is it's a futurethat I wouldn't mind living in
as long as the earth can thrive,right?
And we haven't destroyed it bythen and have to live in the
upper atmosphere because theground isn't any good or
anything crazy like that.
SPEAKER_00 (37:00):
Yeah, when no one really knows what the Jetsons
ground looks like.
I mean, come on, there's athere's a origin story that you
know would be really good video.
SPEAKER_01 (37:11):
I think they should bring back the Jetsons,
honestly, with all these greatgraphics they got.
SPEAKER_00 (37:16):
Yeah, I mean, there there was somebody that did some
mock-ups.
There was a it was likegenerative AI little shorts of
old 50s, you know, PopeyeJetsons, and they're actually
pretty cool.
I uh I I I I wormholed them orrabbit holed them for a little
bit uh one time.
So yeah, you know, we havemainstreamed yet.
SPEAKER_01 (37:37):
I have to check that out.
So a surprise question that Ilike to ask all of my guests on
the show is if you had asuperpower, what would it be and
why?
SPEAKER_00 (37:51):
I'm trying not to be boring.
I'm I'm I was gonna say strengthand in in invincibility because
I kind of live that way, eventhough I'm probably not either.
Um, but I like to I I have amotto that says, My wife or my
wife will kill me eventually,right?
Because that's the way I like tolive.
But uh I actually would preferuh, and this seems almost campy,
(38:14):
but I I prefer to betterunderstand people.
And it literally has nothing todo with back shot.
We just podcasted all aboutthat, but I would love to
interpret people better.
I am left-handed, uh ADHD,cognitive, divergent, you know,
I'm a weird dude, and I I I livein a fun world, but I also am
(38:36):
also not connected with people.
So I guess my superpower wouldbe to more to appreciate
everyone for the place that theyare.
And I'm gonna stop there.
I'm just let it ride.
SPEAKER_01 (38:46):
That's beautiful, man.
Hey, there's no there's no wronganswer there.
So I'll I'll just go ahead andwrap it up for us today.
Um, when I think about anonymoussurveys, they they of course
give us a snapshot of what'sgoing on in the health of the
organization.
But stories, they give us amirror.
(39:07):
They show us not just where weare, but who we are.
And maybe that's what everygreat leader needs to understand
first.
So, Andy, thank you so much forjoining us today on Inspire AI.
Your work is a powerful reminderthat beyond every data point,
it's a human story, and thatlistening deeply might be the
(39:29):
most transformative technologyof all.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (39:33):
Thank you.
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