September 18, 2024 • 25 mins
Discover the remarkable journey of BL Ochman, a true pioneer in digital marketing, as she shifts her focus to the transformative power of artificial intelligence. From managing major PR clients like the American Dairy Association and Miracle-Gro to leading digital strategy sessions for Ford and IBM, BL shares her captivating story of embracing the potential of the internet early on. Now, with her sights set on AI, she reveals her pioneering insights, including the innovative Perplexity's new company pages and the practical applications of AI tools in her client work, providing listeners with a unique perspective on the evolving digital landscape.
Dive into the world of AI tools for content creation, where BL and I discuss how businesses and individuals can streamline their processes and ensure accuracy through AI-generated content. We explore our favorite tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Ideogram, and Canva, breaking down their functionalities and cost considerations. The conversation also highlights Pi, an app that offers reliable information and sources, emphasizing the importance of effective tool usage and continuous learning to maximize AI's benefits in professional settings.
Finally, we delve into the future of AI in business and the critical need for adaptation. Drawing on experiences from professionals and companies like Intuit, we underscore the risks of resisting AI adoption and advocate for a balanced perspective on AI's impact. We also discuss the importance of good writing and proper grammar, even with the rise of AI-generated content, and the role of tools like Grammarly in maintaining quality and authenticity. Tune in for an inspiring discussion with BL Ochman that promises valuable insights for anyone navigating today's digital age.
This podcast is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. An online master’s designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Mediascape insights from digital
changemakers, a speaker seriesand podcast brought to you by
USC Annenberg's Digital MediaManagement Program.
Join us as we unlock thesecrets to success in an
increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
My guest today has been at the forefront of every
emerging digital technology andthen some, and I was just blown
away the first time I met herand had the opportunity to learn
about all the things she's beendoing and how she really blazed
a lot of trails and continuesto do so.
So BL Aukman now is focused onhelping non-geeks learn AI,
(00:46):
which, if you are not on the AIbandwagon, you better get on it,
because there is not going tobe a job that it doesn't touch
in the very near future.
So, bl, thank you so much forgiving some time to me today.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Oh, thank you for having me.
I'm excited to have thisconversation with you.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yes, I'd love to revisit a little bit of our
previous conversation where youreally walked me through and my
jaw just dropped to the floorAll the different things that
you've done from being at theforefront of social media and
podcasting.
So will you give us a littlebit of background on your forays
into the world of marketingcommunication strategy?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well, I have to go back a long way because before I
was online, I owned a PR firmand I had six people working for
me and I had national clients.
I had the American DairyAssociation, I had Miracle-Gro,
I had big clients and when I sawthe internet, I was absolutely
seduced by it and back in thosedays you could call up anybody
(01:46):
and you could say can you showme, can you tell me, can you,
you know, help me?
And everybody, yeah, come over.
And I remember somebody showingme, like these wires that
connected to the internet, likeyou know.
And I mean because I startedusing a computer when you had to
put in hard disks and formatthem and all that stuff.
And I was so excited by itbecause I could see that this is
(02:10):
where marketing would be goingand I tried to get my clients
interested and get them to dowebsites and nobody would do it.
And I tried to sell my agencyand anybody who wanted to give
me money for it wanted me tostay.
For three years I was like no,no, no, there's this new thing,
I have to go do it.
And I respectfully resigned myaccounts either the smartest or
(02:32):
the dumbest thing I ever did andstarted to look at and then
write about what I thought theimpact of the internet would be
on marketing.
Lo and behold, I get calls fromFord and IBM and other big
companies.
Come and talk to us, tell us,you know.
And it was very exciting andthat led to business.
(02:52):
Then along came blogging.
I started blogging in 2002.
And in those days everybody whoblogged pretty much knew each
other, because there weren'tthat many of us and I started
writing for Ad Age about digitalstrategy, and so I started
teaching people about blogging.
I did a blogging day at IBM, Idid a blogging day at Ford, I
(03:17):
was asked to come and talk aboutthat.
And then along came socialmedia in 2007.
And it was clear that that wasgoing to have a big impact.
And so then I started teachingabout using social media and
writing about it and appearingat conferences and all that kind
of stuff.
And then along came AI a coupleof years ago and more
(03:40):
fascinating than anything I'veever seen and every day I
learned something new.
And just today I posted anarticle that I wrote about
something new that I think is agame changer, and that is
Perplexity's company pages.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
You also had a podcast You're very early in the
podcast.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, Podcast started in 2010, I think, and we did it
weekly for quite a long time.
We did it for 12 or 13 years,and then we kind of got bored of
ourselves and so we stoppeddoing it.
So we did it up until about ayear and a half ago and then we
stopped, and I'm just soimmersed right now in AI and
(04:22):
everything that it can do thatyou know I don't really have
time for it and I also do clientwork and AI is helping with
that.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Well, I definitely want to get into the whole AI
transition, but before we getinto that, you really been able
to see what was going to be nextas it emerged and help people
learn about the tools, get newclients out of it.
Was there a point when it wasmore difficult than one of the
other points to make thattransition between offline PR
(04:56):
into websites, into social andall the other technologies?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Honestly.
No, it just was kind of flowingalong, you know, one new thing
after another, and no, I reallydid not.
You know, I find that exciting,honestly.
I mean, I'm a lifelong learner.
You know, I have friends whocan't do a BCC email, despite
the fact that I've made themvideos, that I've sat at their
desks and showed them how to doit.
(05:22):
They just can't and theyforward things that have been
forwarded to four million peopleand so on.
So you know, it's justsomething I have.
I mean, I'm just going to belearning forever.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Do you think that was sparked by your upbringing or
something really early on inyour school years, that you just
always had this love of aninquiry?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
I think that my dad was one of the smartest people
I've ever known, and he was alifelong learner, and so he
brought a lot of new informationinto our lives, as it happened,
and also introduced me to swingmusic, which is my hobby.
But it's just how I am.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Wow, wonderful.
And you're talking about AI asthe most exciting thing probably
in your career.
And you said you just postedabout perplexity and their
company pages and how the toolsare helping with your client
work now.
So I'd love to talk aboutperplexity and how that's
changing things.
And then, what tools are youusing and where do you find the
(06:29):
best use cases in usingtechnology?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Okay, let's start with perplexity, because it's
really pretty new.
A couple of weeks ago, I guess,perplexity introduced pages,
and pages, I think, are anunder-the-radar SEO tactic right
now, until at least Googlefigures that out and gets rid of
them.
But when you go to, I justwrote a blog post and published
(06:56):
it this morning withstep-by-step how you do it.
But what you basically aredoing is you are giving it a
topic and then, becausePerplexity searches the web, it
then goes out and writes aboutthat topic and lists the sources
that it found, and when it doesthat, you can't edit it
(07:19):
directly.
What you can do is go to thesources and take out the ones
that you don't want it to use.
But what I discovered in thecourse of playing with it is
that when I did the one for mywebsite, I found that once I put
what's Next Tech in the titleof every section and also put,
(07:42):
without the URL, whatsnexttechai, it then went to my site and
started to pick up content andit had some other sources.
So when you click on thesources like underneath I have
pictures of this in the blogpost, but underneath you click
on the number and it shows youwhere that came from, and then
on the side it shows you all theplaces where it got information
(08:06):
, and you uncheck the ones youdon't want.
Then it rewrites that section,and so that is what I learned
and you can add pictures to it.
So it will either go out andsearch the web for the pictures
or it will let you upload them.
And so when I got done with it,I had I don't know why, but it
(08:26):
included my email address and mycontact page information.
There's no way for you to putthat in, but when it went to my
site, that's what it found.
So I did one for a client, andthat one is all you know.
I had to take out all thesources, because it's a skincare
company and it's got allnatural ingredients and so do a
(08:48):
lot of products.
So I had to take out all thecompetitor links.
But as I did that and as Iadded the name of the company,
it got more and moreconcentrated on what we need.
So now you can post those pagesin social media, you can put
them on linkedin, you can putthem anywhere that you want to
put them, you can put them inyour newsletter, you can put
(09:09):
them in any place in your email,and so I think this is a
fabulous new tool, kind of asecret.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yes, well, definitely something I'm going to have to
be including in some workshopsthat I'm helping with coming up.
That's amazing, and I feel likethere are so many AI tools that
are being created.
We hear about the big companies, right.
We hear about OpenAI and allthe other ones that are creating
chat and clock Hundredshundreds thousands maybe.
(09:41):
But there are so many othercompanies out there that can
really help streamline ourprocesses, give us great advice.
I use one called Maestrixai,which you can put in a website
or you can put in a description,and it'll come up with your
entire profile insights,advantages, competitors.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
It'll create almost everything you need in a
customer journey and it's reallyfascinating.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
And then I'm like I can pair this and take what I
want and then I can add in whatit's missing, right the more
personal, contextual, strategicinformation from that specific
brand.
That's one thing I really loveabout AI, so I'd love to hear
what tools are you using?
How are you finding them useful?
And then you're not only doingthat, but you're also hosting
(10:27):
seminars for everyday folk,small businesses, but also
speaking at Rutgers.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah, I like to teach , I really do and I always have.
I mean, I feel like knowledgedoesn't mean a lot until you
share it, and you know generouspeople have shared knowledge
with me over the years and Iwant to be that person for other
people, but I don't use a lotof tools.
I try a lot of tools, but Idon't use a lot of tools.
(10:55):
There's an issue here.
If you want the professionaluse of any tool, you're going to
have to pay for it.
There are very few that arereally free, so this becomes a
financial issue.
So the only ones I pay forright now are ChachiPT,
perplexity and Ideogram.
And I don't really pay forIdeogram, which is an image
(11:21):
creator, is because you candownload high-resolution images
if you pay the $20 a month.
And I pay for Canva, which justsent out an email saying
they're basically doubling theirrates at the end of the year.
So I have to give anotherthought to paying for that,
because $12.95 is great but $30is not.
So I'm not paying $30 foranything.
(11:43):
So I don't really use a wholelot.
I've tried Anthropic.
I don't feel like I want to payfor it.
It's fine to be free.
There are tools that I use, youknow, the free ones, but
they're limited and I findChatGPT pretty much does what I
need done.
The key is how you interactwith it.
(12:03):
But I would have to say myfavorite tool is Pi, the app
that you can have on your phone.
Do you use Pi?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I do not, but I do remember you bringing this up to
me and I wrote it down as oneto look at, and then I went on a
trip.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Oh well, I asked it this morning because I had this
big remembrance of reading aboutthis.
I said did Lucille Ball have apodcast?
And he said it's a he for me.
He said, well, yes, she did.
And she had a 10-minute podcastin the 1960s and she schlepped
her tape recorder around to allher famous friends and she was
(12:42):
on daily and it was called let'sTalk With Lucy and he told me
all that you know, I mean Ididn't have to go anywhere to
find that out.
And then I checked and he givesyou his sources, and I checked
and, sure enough, that's true.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Amazing and the fact that the sources were actually
truthful.
And that's one thing I thinkpeople see a lot is if you
simply rely on tools to give yousources but we've seen that
with chat right Sometimes itgives you fake sources.
Sometimes I've done some testsand then click through and I'm
like this link does not go toanything related to this topic.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
So yes, what I find is that when it gives you
incorrect links, the title ofwhatever it is is still correct.
And then if you go to Google andput in the title, it'll take
you to the actual study or pageor whatever.
But for me I'm finding that youhave to limit what you ask it
(13:39):
to do.
Like you know, there are peoplewho write very long prompts.
I also will write long prompts,but I ask it to go step by step
and when I'm changing topics Imake a different prompt, I add
to it.
But you know I say to it I meanI talk to it, take your time.
You know I'm interested in youraccuracy.
(14:01):
I know you can do it, give mereal links.
And you know, when you do that,a lot of times mostly it does,
and I yell at it, I'm like I didnot ask you that, and then it
will say I'm so sorry, buthonestly, until you write
another prompt just ignoring theone it's screwed up on, it'll
keep on just regurgitating thesame junk.
(14:24):
So you know, it's aboutlearning how to talk to it and
about keeping your requests veryspecific.
But I don't.
I never, never, ever use it forwriting.
I use it, as Ethan Mollickcalls it, co -intelligence.
It's like a separate brain.
If I don't know about a topic,I'll say I don't really know
(14:45):
anything about whatever.
What questions should I beasking and it will tell me.
Can you give me some guidanceon the best ways for me to learn
about?
You know nuclear physics orwhatever, and it will tell you.
So to go in and think that youknow what it will do is not the
(15:09):
way it works.
You know you have to really youhave to play with it and you
have to be very, very specific.
But before you use ChatGPT, youhave to really you have to play
with it and you have to be very, very specific.
But before you use ChatGPT, youneed to personalize it.
You need to tell it how youwant it to respond to you.
You need to upload samples ofyour writing, and so it creates
(15:30):
a persona based on what you tellit about you and it keeps that
in its memory.
I remind it, refer to mypersona, because I don't trust
it.
But I uploaded multiplearticles of mine and said this
is my writing style.
I want you to write in my style, and it does, but you have to
(15:52):
train it.
It's like any other tool thatyou use.
You know you don't just openthe box and use a bandsaw.
You have to learn the rules andI'm not good at stuff like that
, so it was, you know it was aslow process, but it's so
fascinating to see what you canget back.
And you know what I learned thatI love is I put everything in
(16:14):
tables now, like I was doing apart of a website that was about
the ingredients in a skincareline and I wanted to know the
plant-based sources of theingredients.
And before I had the brightidea of asking ChatGPT to help
me, I was looking them up one byone and it was taking me days
because there's so manyingredients and the issue was
(16:36):
everything sounds like achemical but they're actually
from a plant, you know.
And so then I went in to chatGPT and I said please give me
the plant basis of all of theseingredients, put them in a table
and include cultural references.
And it did.
(16:57):
It put them in a table withcultural references and links to
those.
So, for example, it told methat Cleopatra used saffron in
her makeup and it told me somequeen of Egypt used something
else, you know.
But so I had all the culturalreferences.
And that's because it said tome do you want cultural
(17:19):
references along with this?
And boom, in about 30 seconds Ihad something that had taken me
weeks before that.
It can make spreadsheets, itcan read spreadsheets, it can do
a lot of things, and I wouldhave to say that AI has
increased my productivity by atleast 75%, if not more.
(17:41):
How about you?
How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Oh, I definitely feel like it's increased my
productivity Amazing.
And there's so much that Istill want to do Mentioning to
you.
Before we jumped on, I traveleda lot with my daughter this
summer and then I came back toback-to-back conferences for AI
and podcasting two of my passionareas but that meant that I
wanted to really pour into herthat experience and I spent less
(18:04):
time studying.
I have long lists of tools thatI want to dig into and just
learn about, like you, maybe notsubscribe to them, but at least
know the basics, so that I canadvise my students whether to
use them or not, or other peoplethat I know.
But when I do use them, oh gosh.
I even find for some things,rather than looking at a
(18:25):
textbook, if I ask AI to explainit to me in a more, it just
synthesizes concepts for me in away that's easier for me to
understand.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
It is very good at that.
It is really very good at that.
And you know I'm guilty oftaking long articles and putting
them into AI and saying can yougive me the three main points
of this article?
Because they are?
You know I get 800 emails a day.
Email is the bane of myexistence, it truly is.
And you know I can't read themall and that's all there is to
it.
But I probably subscribe to 15daily AI newsletters and don't
(19:02):
read them all every day.
And I belong to a couple ofdifferent communities where
people talk about AI.
And you know I take courses asmuch as I can because you'll
never know enough.
And what Ethan Mollick pointedout in his wonderful book
Co-Intelligence.
He said the tools we have noware the worst they will ever be,
because this is the verybeginning of what will happen.
(19:25):
What will happen is a littlescary, but you know, I mean.
I think that anybody who ispoo-pooing this and not wanting
to learn it is soon going to belike designers who I worked for
a design firm, a very impressivedesign firm that was at that
(19:46):
time part of Reuter and Finn,and there were designers there
who did not want to learn how touse desktop publishing.
Designers there who did notwant to learn how to use desktop
publishing, and they soon had anew title which was unemployed.
Because that's what's going tohappen to a lot of jobs.
What will not go away is thehuman spark and creativity and
the asking of the questions.
(20:07):
Who's going to ask thequestions?
And so you need to learn this.
And those studies all show thatyou know employers will take
somebody with less experienceand more AI knowledge than
somebody with a lot ofexperience and not a lot of AI
knowledge.
And so people are allowingthemselves to companies.
(20:33):
The adoption level seems to us,because we're in it, to be
bigger than it really is.
A very small percentage of bigcompanies are using it.
My sister, for example, is aneconomist, and in the very big
firm she works for, they're notallowed to use AI.
So what does everybody do?
That's like telling kids don'tbring your cell phone to school.
They use it on their phone.
(20:55):
I mean, you need to use it.
It saves time, it helps, it'svery helpful.
So it's something that there's ahuge opportunity for us to be
teaching people, but they haveto want to learn.
You can't go and say you needto learn about AI because they
don't want to.
So I don't know what's going toturn that tide exactly.
(21:18):
I really don't.
And the mainstream media, whohave become more useless by the
day.
When I went to journalismschool, we were taught if a dog
bites a man, that's not news,but if a man bites a dog, that's
news.
So they're looking for that,they're looking for all the bad
stuff, and so you know they wantto talk about the dangers of AI
(21:41):
and you know the horriblethings that it's going to cause
in our society, and that's whatthey're right about, and I think
that's a shame.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Oh, so many things that I want to unpack there.
One tangent, of course, is thatI live in California and the
state is passing a law thatstudents can't use cell phones
at school, which I think hasgood and bad points, depending
on who your kid is and what kindof information can you get if
you're not.
You know you have a closedenvironment for your laptops,
(22:12):
but you might need to do someextra research.
But there is a company that Iknow of, intuit for instance,
that is fully embracing AI.
They've been using AI in a lotof things for different products
, quickbooks, they've beenincorporating into MailChimp and
things.
And just giving it a plug,because I'm a member of the
Intuit Small Business Council inthe US and when we went to DC
(22:33):
in May, our theme was AI powersMain Street and they are a
company who's really embraced it.
There were a number of Intuitpeople at AI4 in Las Vegas and
they're really seeing that theyneed to help small businesses
understand how to use AI toolsfor productivity and for
different areas and sectors oftheir business so that they can
(22:54):
stay in business.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
That's exactly right.
It's so that they can stay inbusiness, because you won't be
able to compete.
I don't know if you're evenable to now, I mean, unless
you're learning about what isavailable to you to help you
with.
I think of AI as a set of tools.
I don't think of it like.
(23:17):
I will never say to it write mea blog post about whatever.
But once I do write something,I will put it in there and I
will say what have I left out?
If three different experts withdifferent points of view were to
look at this, how would theyview what I wrote?
Is my spelling and grammar okay, and can you please put in
(23:40):
subheads and tell me what abetter heading would be?
And it does all that, you know.
But if it writes, you can tellright away anything that's
written by AI.
The sentence structures are allthe same.
It uses a lot of hyperbole.
You know it's not a good writer.
I mean.
People say Anthropic is thebest writer.
Yeah, okay, maybe, but I'm abetter writer.
(24:01):
Right, and you know, I meanit's that.
And I guess, if you don't, Imean the bottom line is
everybody can write now.
Everybody can do research now.
If they will only try, it cando research now, if they will
only try it.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
And there's.
You know, as an academic wejust had a meeting to talk about
.
There is no excuse for poorgrammar these days.
If you think, if you don'tunderstand sentence structure,
that you're missing something orperhaps you're a non-native,
(24:34):
you know English learner thenplease use Grammarly, please use
one of these other tools justto make sure that your sentence
structures are correct.
But another thing that I sawjust a couple of days ago, going
back to both of us in the worldof PR, was there was a list of
the top adjectives andsuperlatives that are used in
press releases and pitches.
Now, because of AI, becausepeople aren't going through and
fine tuning and that really isthe difference, at least at this
(24:56):
moment in time we need to bethe strategic, creative thinkers
, the people who actually put inthe meat.
We just can use the frameworkof the ideas or the questions to
ask, but not have it writeeverything.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
No, and you know you can.
I mean I'm very annoyed thatLinkedIn has all these AI posts
and you know you can.
I mean I'm very annoyed thatLinkedIn has all these AI posts
and you know bots who want toconnect with you and sell you
whatever they want to sell.
And you know that's notnecessary.
I mean, that's not what AI isfor, and I stopped doing the
articles on AI that weretraining their AI.
(25:31):
No, thank you, you can pay mefor that.
Yeah yeah, I don't need to beone of your top AI voices
because I.
Welcome to Mediascape insights from digital
changemakers, a speaker seriesand podcast brought to you by
USC Annenberg's Digital MediaManagement Program.
Join us as we unlock thesecrets to success in an
increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
My guest today has been at the forefront of every
emerging digital technology andthen some, and I was just blown
away the first time I met herand had the opportunity to learn
about all the things she's beendoing and how she really blazed
a lot of trails and continuesto do so.
So BL Aukman now is focused onhelping non-geeks learn AI,
(00:46):
which, if you are not on the AIbandwagon, you better get on it,
because there is not going tobe a job that it doesn't touch
in the very near future.
So, bl, thank you so much forgiving some time to me today.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Oh, thank you for having me.
I'm excited to have thisconversation with you.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yes, I'd love to revisit a little bit of our
previous conversation where youreally walked me through and my
jaw just dropped to the floorAll the different things that
you've done from being at theforefront of social media and
podcasting.
So will you give us a littlebit of background on your forays
into the world of marketingcommunication strategy?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well, I have to go back a long way because before I
was online, I owned a PR firmand I had six people working for
me and I had national clients.
I had the American DairyAssociation, I had Miracle-Gro,
I had big clients and when I sawthe internet, I was absolutely
seduced by it and back in thosedays you could call up anybody
(01:46):
and you could say can you showme, can you tell me, can you,
you know, help me?
And everybody, yeah, come over.
And I remember somebody showingme, like these wires that
connected to the internet, likeyou know.
And I mean because I startedusing a computer when you had to
put in hard disks and formatthem and all that stuff.
And I was so excited by itbecause I could see that this is
(02:10):
where marketing would be goingand I tried to get my clients
interested and get them to dowebsites and nobody would do it.
And I tried to sell my agencyand anybody who wanted to give
me money for it wanted me tostay.
For three years I was like no,no, no, there's this new thing,
I have to go do it.
And I respectfully resigned myaccounts either the smartest or
(02:32):
the dumbest thing I ever did andstarted to look at and then
write about what I thought theimpact of the internet would be
on marketing.
Lo and behold, I get calls fromFord and IBM and other big
companies.
Come and talk to us, tell us,you know.
And it was very exciting andthat led to business.
(02:52):
Then along came blogging.
I started blogging in 2002.
And in those days everybody whoblogged pretty much knew each
other, because there weren'tthat many of us and I started
writing for Ad Age about digitalstrategy, and so I started
teaching people about blogging.
I did a blogging day at IBM, Idid a blogging day at Ford, I
(03:17):
was asked to come and talk aboutthat.
And then along came socialmedia in 2007.
And it was clear that that wasgoing to have a big impact.
And so then I started teachingabout using social media and
writing about it and appearingat conferences and all that kind
of stuff.
And then along came AI a coupleof years ago and more
(03:40):
fascinating than anything I'veever seen and every day I
learned something new.
And just today I posted anarticle that I wrote about
something new that I think is agame changer, and that is
Perplexity's company pages.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
You also had a podcast You're very early in the
podcast.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, Podcast started in 2010, I think, and we did it
weekly for quite a long time.
We did it for 12 or 13 years,and then we kind of got bored of
ourselves and so we stoppeddoing it.
So we did it up until about ayear and a half ago and then we
stopped, and I'm just soimmersed right now in AI and
(04:22):
everything that it can do thatyou know I don't really have
time for it and I also do clientwork and AI is helping with
that.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Well, I definitely want to get into the whole AI
transition, but before we getinto that, you really been able
to see what was going to be nextas it emerged and help people
learn about the tools, get newclients out of it.
Was there a point when it wasmore difficult than one of the
other points to make thattransition between offline PR
(04:56):
into websites, into social andall the other technologies?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Honestly.
No, it just was kind of flowingalong, you know, one new thing
after another, and no, I reallydid not.
You know, I find that exciting,honestly.
I mean, I'm a lifelong learner.
You know, I have friends whocan't do a BCC email, despite
the fact that I've made themvideos, that I've sat at their
desks and showed them how to doit.
(05:22):
They just can't and theyforward things that have been
forwarded to four million peopleand so on.
So you know, it's justsomething I have.
I mean, I'm just going to belearning forever.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Do you think that was sparked by your upbringing or
something really early on inyour school years, that you just
always had this love of aninquiry?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
I think that my dad was one of the smartest people
I've ever known, and he was alifelong learner, and so he
brought a lot of new informationinto our lives, as it happened,
and also introduced me to swingmusic, which is my hobby.
But it's just how I am.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Wow, wonderful.
And you're talking about AI asthe most exciting thing probably
in your career.
And you said you just postedabout perplexity and their
company pages and how the toolsare helping with your client
work now.
So I'd love to talk aboutperplexity and how that's
changing things.
And then, what tools are youusing and where do you find the
(06:29):
best use cases in usingtechnology?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Okay, let's start with perplexity, because it's
really pretty new.
A couple of weeks ago, I guess,perplexity introduced pages,
and pages, I think, are anunder-the-radar SEO tactic right
now, until at least Googlefigures that out and gets rid of
them.
But when you go to, I justwrote a blog post and published
(06:56):
it this morning withstep-by-step how you do it.
But what you basically aredoing is you are giving it a
topic and then, becausePerplexity searches the web, it
then goes out and writes aboutthat topic and lists the sources
that it found, and when it doesthat, you can't edit it
(07:19):
directly.
What you can do is go to thesources and take out the ones
that you don't want it to use.
But what I discovered in thecourse of playing with it is
that when I did the one for mywebsite, I found that once I put
what's Next Tech in the titleof every section and also put,
(07:42):
without the URL, whatsnexttechai, it then went to my site and
started to pick up content andit had some other sources.
So when you click on thesources like underneath I have
pictures of this in the blogpost, but underneath you click
on the number and it shows youwhere that came from, and then
on the side it shows you all theplaces where it got information
(08:06):
, and you uncheck the ones youdon't want.
Then it rewrites that section,and so that is what I learned
and you can add pictures to it.
So it will either go out andsearch the web for the pictures
or it will let you upload them.
And so when I got done with it,I had I don't know why, but it
(08:26):
included my email address and mycontact page information.
There's no way for you to putthat in, but when it went to my
site, that's what it found.
So I did one for a client, andthat one is all you know.
I had to take out all thesources, because it's a skincare
company and it's got allnatural ingredients and so do a
(08:48):
lot of products.
So I had to take out all thecompetitor links.
But as I did that and as Iadded the name of the company,
it got more and moreconcentrated on what we need.
So now you can post those pagesin social media, you can put
them on linkedin, you can putthem anywhere that you want to
put them, you can put them inyour newsletter, you can put
(09:09):
them in any place in your email,and so I think this is a
fabulous new tool, kind of asecret.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yes, well, definitely something I'm going to have to
be including in some workshopsthat I'm helping with coming up.
That's amazing, and I feel likethere are so many AI tools that
are being created.
We hear about the big companies, right.
We hear about OpenAI and allthe other ones that are creating
chat and clock Hundredshundreds thousands maybe.
(09:41):
But there are so many othercompanies out there that can
really help streamline ourprocesses, give us great advice.
I use one called Maestrixai,which you can put in a website
or you can put in a description,and it'll come up with your
entire profile insights,advantages, competitors.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
It'll create almost everything you need in a
customer journey and it's reallyfascinating.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
And then I'm like I can pair this and take what I
want and then I can add in whatit's missing, right the more
personal, contextual, strategicinformation from that specific
brand.
That's one thing I really loveabout AI, so I'd love to hear
what tools are you using?
How are you finding them useful?
And then you're not only doingthat, but you're also hosting
(10:27):
seminars for everyday folk,small businesses, but also
speaking at Rutgers.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah, I like to teach , I really do and I always have.
I mean, I feel like knowledgedoesn't mean a lot until you
share it, and you know generouspeople have shared knowledge
with me over the years and Iwant to be that person for other
people, but I don't use a lotof tools.
I try a lot of tools, but Idon't use a lot of tools.
(10:55):
There's an issue here.
If you want the professionaluse of any tool, you're going to
have to pay for it.
There are very few that arereally free, so this becomes a
financial issue.
So the only ones I pay forright now are ChachiPT,
perplexity and Ideogram.
And I don't really pay forIdeogram, which is an image
(11:21):
creator, is because you candownload high-resolution images
if you pay the $20 a month.
And I pay for Canva, which justsent out an email saying
they're basically doubling theirrates at the end of the year.
So I have to give anotherthought to paying for that,
because $12.95 is great but $30is not.
So I'm not paying $30 foranything.
(11:43):
So I don't really use a wholelot.
I've tried Anthropic.
I don't feel like I want to payfor it.
It's fine to be free.
There are tools that I use, youknow, the free ones, but
they're limited and I findChatGPT pretty much does what I
need done.
The key is how you interactwith it.
(12:03):
But I would have to say myfavorite tool is Pi, the app
that you can have on your phone.
Do you use Pi?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I do not, but I do remember you bringing this up to
me and I wrote it down as oneto look at, and then I went on a
trip.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Oh well, I asked it this morning because I had this
big remembrance of reading aboutthis.
I said did Lucille Ball have apodcast?
And he said it's a he for me.
He said, well, yes, she did.
And she had a 10-minute podcastin the 1960s and she schlepped
her tape recorder around to allher famous friends and she was
(12:42):
on daily and it was called let'sTalk With Lucy and he told me
all that you know, I mean Ididn't have to go anywhere to
find that out.
And then I checked and he givesyou his sources, and I checked
and, sure enough, that's true.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Amazing and the fact that the sources were actually
truthful.
And that's one thing I thinkpeople see a lot is if you
simply rely on tools to give yousources but we've seen that
with chat right Sometimes itgives you fake sources.
Sometimes I've done some testsand then click through and I'm
like this link does not go toanything related to this topic.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
So yes, what I find is that when it gives you
incorrect links, the title ofwhatever it is is still correct.
And then if you go to Google andput in the title, it'll take
you to the actual study or pageor whatever.
But for me I'm finding that youhave to limit what you ask it
(13:39):
to do.
Like you know, there are peoplewho write very long prompts.
I also will write long prompts,but I ask it to go step by step
and when I'm changing topics Imake a different prompt, I add
to it.
But you know I say to it I meanI talk to it, take your time.
You know I'm interested in youraccuracy.
(14:01):
I know you can do it, give mereal links.
And you know, when you do that,a lot of times mostly it does,
and I yell at it, I'm like I didnot ask you that, and then it
will say I'm so sorry, buthonestly, until you write
another prompt just ignoring theone it's screwed up on, it'll
keep on just regurgitating thesame junk.
(14:24):
So you know, it's aboutlearning how to talk to it and
about keeping your requests veryspecific.
But I don't.
I never, never, ever use it forwriting.
I use it, as Ethan Mollickcalls it, co -intelligence.
It's like a separate brain.
If I don't know about a topic,I'll say I don't really know
(14:45):
anything about whatever.
What questions should I beasking and it will tell me.
Can you give me some guidanceon the best ways for me to learn
about?
You know nuclear physics orwhatever, and it will tell you.
So to go in and think that youknow what it will do is not the
(15:09):
way it works.
You know you have to really youhave to play with it and you
have to be very, very specific.
But before you use ChatGPT, youhave to really you have to play
with it and you have to be very, very specific.
But before you use ChatGPT, youneed to personalize it.
You need to tell it how youwant it to respond to you.
You need to upload samples ofyour writing, and so it creates
(15:30):
a persona based on what you tellit about you and it keeps that
in its memory.
I remind it, refer to mypersona, because I don't trust
it.
But I uploaded multiplearticles of mine and said this
is my writing style.
I want you to write in my style, and it does, but you have to
(15:52):
train it.
It's like any other tool thatyou use.
You know you don't just openthe box and use a bandsaw.
You have to learn the rules andI'm not good at stuff like that
, so it was, you know it was aslow process, but it's so
fascinating to see what you canget back.
And you know what I learned thatI love is I put everything in
(16:14):
tables now, like I was doing apart of a website that was about
the ingredients in a skincareline and I wanted to know the
plant-based sources of theingredients.
And before I had the brightidea of asking ChatGPT to help
me, I was looking them up one byone and it was taking me days
because there's so manyingredients and the issue was
(16:36):
everything sounds like achemical but they're actually
from a plant, you know.
And so then I went in to chatGPT and I said please give me
the plant basis of all of theseingredients, put them in a table
and include cultural references.
And it did.
(16:57):
It put them in a table withcultural references and links to
those.
So, for example, it told methat Cleopatra used saffron in
her makeup and it told me somequeen of Egypt used something
else, you know.
But so I had all the culturalreferences.
And that's because it said tome do you want cultural
(17:19):
references along with this?
And boom, in about 30 seconds Ihad something that had taken me
weeks before that.
It can make spreadsheets, itcan read spreadsheets, it can do
a lot of things, and I wouldhave to say that AI has
increased my productivity by atleast 75%, if not more.
(17:41):
How about you?
How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Oh, I definitely feel like it's increased my
productivity Amazing.
And there's so much that Istill want to do Mentioning to
you.
Before we jumped on, I traveleda lot with my daughter this
summer and then I came back toback-to-back conferences for AI
and podcasting two of my passionareas but that meant that I
wanted to really pour into herthat experience and I spent less
(18:04):
time studying.
I have long lists of tools thatI want to dig into and just
learn about, like you, maybe notsubscribe to them, but at least
know the basics, so that I canadvise my students whether to
use them or not, or other peoplethat I know.
But when I do use them, oh gosh.
I even find for some things,rather than looking at a
(18:25):
textbook, if I ask AI to explainit to me in a more, it just
synthesizes concepts for me in away that's easier for me to
understand.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
It is very good at that.
It is really very good at that.
And you know I'm guilty oftaking long articles and putting
them into AI and saying can yougive me the three main points
of this article?
Because they are?
You know I get 800 emails a day.
Email is the bane of myexistence, it truly is.
And you know I can't read themall and that's all there is to
it.
But I probably subscribe to 15daily AI newsletters and don't
(19:02):
read them all every day.
And I belong to a couple ofdifferent communities where
people talk about AI.
And you know I take courses asmuch as I can because you'll
never know enough.
And what Ethan Mollick pointedout in his wonderful book
Co-Intelligence.
He said the tools we have noware the worst they will ever be,
because this is the verybeginning of what will happen.
(19:25):
What will happen is a littlescary, but you know, I mean.
I think that anybody who ispoo-pooing this and not wanting
to learn it is soon going to belike designers who I worked for
a design firm, a very impressivedesign firm that was at that
(19:46):
time part of Reuter and Finn,and there were designers there
who did not want to learn how touse desktop publishing.
Designers there who did notwant to learn how to use desktop
publishing, and they soon had anew title which was unemployed.
Because that's what's going tohappen to a lot of jobs.
What will not go away is thehuman spark and creativity and
the asking of the questions.
(20:07):
Who's going to ask thequestions?
And so you need to learn this.
And those studies all show thatyou know employers will take
somebody with less experienceand more AI knowledge than
somebody with a lot ofexperience and not a lot of AI
knowledge.
And so people are allowingthemselves to companies.
(20:33):
The adoption level seems to us,because we're in it, to be
bigger than it really is.
A very small percentage of bigcompanies are using it.
My sister, for example, is aneconomist, and in the very big
firm she works for, they're notallowed to use AI.
So what does everybody do?
That's like telling kids don'tbring your cell phone to school.
They use it on their phone.
(20:55):
I mean, you need to use it.
It saves time, it helps, it'svery helpful.
So it's something that there's ahuge opportunity for us to be
teaching people, but they haveto want to learn.
You can't go and say you needto learn about AI because they
don't want to.
So I don't know what's going toturn that tide exactly.
(21:18):
I really don't.
And the mainstream media, whohave become more useless by the
day.
When I went to journalismschool, we were taught if a dog
bites a man, that's not news,but if a man bites a dog, that's
news.
So they're looking for that,they're looking for all the bad
stuff, and so you know they wantto talk about the dangers of AI
(21:41):
and you know the horriblethings that it's going to cause
in our society, and that's whatthey're right about, and I think
that's a shame.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Oh, so many things that I want to unpack there.
One tangent, of course, is thatI live in California and the
state is passing a law thatstudents can't use cell phones
at school, which I think hasgood and bad points, depending
on who your kid is and what kindof information can you get if
you're not.
You know you have a closedenvironment for your laptops,
(22:12):
but you might need to do someextra research.
But there is a company that Iknow of, intuit for instance,
that is fully embracing AI.
They've been using AI in a lotof things for different products
, quickbooks, they've beenincorporating into MailChimp and
things.
And just giving it a plug,because I'm a member of the
Intuit Small Business Council inthe US and when we went to DC
(22:33):
in May, our theme was AI powersMain Street and they are a
company who's really embraced it.
There were a number of Intuitpeople at AI4 in Las Vegas and
they're really seeing that theyneed to help small businesses
understand how to use AI toolsfor productivity and for
different areas and sectors oftheir business so that they can
(22:54):
stay in business.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
That's exactly right.
It's so that they can stay inbusiness, because you won't be
able to compete.
I don't know if you're evenable to now, I mean, unless
you're learning about what isavailable to you to help you
with.
I think of AI as a set of tools.
I don't think of it like.
(23:17):
I will never say to it write mea blog post about whatever.
But once I do write something,I will put it in there and I
will say what have I left out?
If three different experts withdifferent points of view were to
look at this, how would theyview what I wrote?
Is my spelling and grammar okay, and can you please put in
(23:40):
subheads and tell me what abetter heading would be?
And it does all that, you know.
But if it writes, you can tellright away anything that's
written by AI.
The sentence structures are allthe same.
It uses a lot of hyperbole.
You know it's not a good writer.
I mean.
People say Anthropic is thebest writer.
Yeah, okay, maybe, but I'm abetter writer.
(24:01):
Right, and you know, I meanit's that.
And I guess, if you don't, Imean the bottom line is
everybody can write now.
Everybody can do research now.
If they will only try, it cando research now, if they will
only try it.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
And there's.
You know, as an academic wejust had a meeting to talk about
.
There is no excuse for poorgrammar these days.
If you think, if you don'tunderstand sentence structure,
that you're missing something orperhaps you're a non-native,
(24:34):
you know English learner thenplease use Grammarly, please use
one of these other tools justto make sure that your sentence
structures are correct.
But another thing that I sawjust a couple of days ago, going
back to both of us in the worldof PR, was there was a list of
the top adjectives andsuperlatives that are used in
press releases and pitches.
Now, because of AI, becausepeople aren't going through and
fine tuning and that really isthe difference, at least at this
(24:56):
moment in time we need to bethe strategic, creative thinkers
, the people who actually put inthe meat.
We just can use the frameworkof the ideas or the questions to
ask, but not have it writeeverything.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
No, and you know you can.
I mean I'm very annoyed thatLinkedIn has all these AI posts
and you know you can.
I mean I'm very annoyed thatLinkedIn has all these AI posts
and you know bots who want toconnect with you and sell you
whatever they want to sell.
And you know that's notnecessary.
I mean, that's not what AI isfor, and I stopped doing the
articles on AI that weretraining their AI.
(25:31):
No, thank you, you can pay mefor that.
Yeah yeah, I don't need to beone of your top AI voices
because I.
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