March 6, 2025 • 43 mins
In this episode of Sidecar Sync, hosts Amith and Mallory explore AI’s surprising role in fast food, focusing on Byte by Yum, an AI-powered platform transforming operations at Taco Bell, KFC, and beyond. What can associations learn from Yum Brands’ AI strategy? Then, they tackle Amazon’s return-to-office policy and what it means for workplace culture, collaboration, and AI’s growing influence on job structures. Plus, a shocking revelation—Amith has never had a Crunchwrap Supreme?! Join us for a fun and insightful conversation at the crossroads of AI, associations, and tacos.
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Chapters:
00:00 - Welcome to Sidecar Sync
03:21 - AI Tacos? Yum Brands’ Big Tech Play
08:47 - Can AMS Vendors Drive AI Innovation in Associations?
15:01 - Why Data is the Foundation for AI Success
27:05 - Amazon’s Return-to-Office Mandate: What’s Happening?
32:20 - Remote vs. In-Person Work: What’s Best for Innovation?
38:09 - What Associations Can Learn About Workplace Flexibility
41:05 - Closing: The Crunchwrap Supreme Challenge—Will Amith Try One?
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Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress https://BlueCypress.io, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.
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Mallory Mejias is the Manager at Sidecar, and she's passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space.
📣 Follow Mallory:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Amith (00:00):
Time is your friend when it comes to waiting on an AMS
replacement.
Time is not your friend when itcomes to sitting on the
sidelines and waiting foryourself to somehow figure out
AI.
Welcome to Sidecar Sync, yourweekly dose of innovation.
If you're looking for thelatest news, insights and
(00:20):
developments in the associationworld, especially those driven
by artificial intelligence,you're in the right place.
We cut through the noise tobring you the most relevant
updates, with a keen focus onhow AI and other emerging
technologies are shaping thefuture.
No fluff, just facts andinformed discussions.
I'm Amit Nagarajan, Chairman ofBlue Cypress, and I'm your host
(00:42):
.
Greetings and welcome to theSidecar Sync, your home for
content at the intersection ofAI and associations.
My name is Amit Nagarajan.
Mallory (00:53):
And my name is Mallory Mejiaz.
Amith (00:55):
And we are your hosts.
And before we get into twotopics today, at the
intersection of AI andassociations, we're going to
hear a quick word from oursponsor.
Mallory (01:05):
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(01:27):
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(01:49):
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Amit, I feel like you have hada crazy few days, few weeks.
Honestly, how are you feeling?
How are you doing?
Amith (02:01):
I'm doing great, you know , with kind of like the pace of
AI.
Progress is kind of the way mybrain works right now.
I feel like a ping pong ball oryou know, feel like a ball
inside a you know some kind ofmachine that's relentless and so
it's good.
That's what I thrive on, butI'm ready for a little bit of
break.
I'm going skiing.
By the time this pod drops,I'll be out skiing somewhere.
Mallory (02:23):
So Awesome, awesome.
And today you were doing somebusiness planning, right.
Amith (02:29):
Yeah.
Yeah, we're all about releasingAI agents that can help
associations with their business, and agents are quickly turning
into a new term called digitallabor, which I think is perhaps
a little more approachable, butthat's essentially what agents
are.
So we have several new onesthat we're planning for this
year and continue to grow theones that we already have in the
market.
So we had a team of people inNew Orleans focused on that.
Mallory (02:52):
Awesome, awesome.
Any secrets, sneak peeks thatyou can offer from what might be
to come.
Amith (02:58):
Just stay tuned.
There's a lot going on in BlueCypress's crazy AI factory.
Mallory (03:05):
Speaking of AI factory.
You all are not going tobelieve this today, but we are
talking about AI tacos.
Yep, that is true, that's ourfirst topic for the day, and
then we will be having aninteresting conversation around
Amazon's return to office and,amit, I'm really excited to get
your take on that.
So, first and foremost, aitacos to get your take on that.
(03:28):
So, first and foremost, aitacos.
Bite by Yum is an AI-drivensoftware-as-a-service or SaaS
platform introduced by Yumbrands to enhance operational
efficiency and customerexperience across its global
restaurant brands, which includeKFC, taco Bell, pizza Hut and
Habit Burger and Grill.
So here is a breakdown of whatBite by Yum actually does.
The platform allows forcustomers to place orders
(03:50):
through online and mobileapplications, which streamlines
the ordering process.
Bite by Yum also integratesadvanced point-of-sale or POS
systems that facilitatetransactions, which improve
speed and accuracy at checkout.
The platform includes toolsdesigned to optimize kitchen
operations, enhancing workflowefficiency and reducing wait
times for customers.
(04:10):
It also provides features thatimprove delivery logistics,
which ensures timely service andbetter tracking of orders.
It helps restaurants manageinventory more effectively,
allowing for better forecastingand reduced waste.
It also offers tools formanaging staff schedules and
productivity, which helps toreduce turnover and improve team
member satisfaction.
(04:31):
And finally, restaurants caneasily update and manage menus
through the platform, allowingfor quick adaptations to
customer preferences or seasonalchanges.
So what are the strategicbenefits here?
Well, one Bite by Yumintegrates various operational
tools into a single platform,simplifying management for
franchisees and reducing thecomplexity of using multiple
(04:53):
vendors.
Also, of course, the use ofartificial intelligence allows
for enhanced predictiveanalytics, enabling restaurants
to anticipate customer demandmore accurately and make
data-driven decisions.
And then, of course, bystreamlining operations and
enhancing order accuracy, biteby Yum aims to provide a better
overall experience for customers.
So, as of now, over 25,000 Yumrestaurants globally are
(05:17):
utilizing at least one componentof Bite by Yum, marking a
significant step in thecompany's digital transformation
efforts.
So the next time you're eatinga Crunchwrap Supreme at Taco
Bell, you might be able to thankAI, at least in part, for that.
So, amit, you sent me thisarticle, maybe last week, and
you were the one I've got togive you credit that came up
(05:38):
with the phrase AI tacos.
What are your thoughts herewith AI-driven fast food?
Amith (05:46):
Well, my question first of all what is a Crunchwrap
Supreme?
Mallory (05:50):
You're joking.
Amith (05:52):
Yeah, I'm serious, I don't know that.
Mallory (05:54):
I can't believe we're having this moment live on the
podcast.
I know we have listeners thatknow what this is.
Have you been to Taco Bell?
Amith (06:01):
Oh yeah, I grew up at Taco Bell, it seems, and high
school was like my like, but Inever got to a Crunchwrap
Supreme.
But I ordered the same things Iordered in high school, but
that was a long time ago.
Mallory (06:11):
Okay, Well, I don't know how long Crunchwrap
Supremes have been around, butit's basically a tortilla, a big
one, and then inside you've gotlike your meat cheese, beans,
sour cream, lettuce, tomato,whatever you want, and then
there's a crunchy like a tostadacrunchy tortilla inside, and
then the whole thing is wrappedin like it kind of looks like a
(06:31):
little quesadilla sandwich andthey are so good.
I'm not a big Taco Bell person,but I've actually tried to make
those at home because I likethem that much.
So I think you're going to haveto go get a crunch wrap after
this, Amit.
Amith (06:43):
I might have to go try one in honor of this podcast.
And no, I had never heard ofthat before, but I thought I
knew their menu relatively well,but I haven't paid attention in
40 years.
I think what they're doing isreally cool, so it caught my eye
and I think AI tacos are goingto be a thing.
And if you think about, like,what does the customer
(07:05):
experience look like?
That's the part I think weprobably need to think about for
just a minute.
So this is a big company.
They've got a lot ofrestaurants, a lot of employees,
they got a lot of revenue and alot of capital in play.
But the customer experience atTaco Bell is being improved to
the extent that you can orderyour tacos and the AI in the
application is helping you pickout the Crunchwrap Supreme,
(07:27):
because maybe I had never heardof that taco, or I don't know if
it's technically a taco, butI've never heard of that item
and maybe I'd like it and maybethe app knows that I might like
it based on my prior orderinghistory, right, and all these
other things.
That's a basic recommendationengine.
So if Taco Bell is able to giveme a great experience that way
through a digital technologyenhanced by AI, that means
(07:50):
people are going to expect thattype of customer service from
everyone.
And even though Taco Bell is abig company by virtue of being
part of Yum, by itself it's big,but Yum is, of course, enormous
and they have a lot ofresources.
Consumers don't think about thator care about it.
It's their daily experiencegoing through the drive-through
or ordering ahead through theapp and having that experience
(08:10):
because we've lowered theirfriction, because it's simpler,
smoother, easier, save them time, probably and we've increased
the value that they receive,both through the lower friction,
but also because maybe they gota product that they really
enjoy, right.
So the point I would make wouldbe there's a lot to talk about
(08:31):
here.
Actually, we need to unpack thecrunch wrap, but ultimately
there's something very simplehere that needs to be thought
about is if the consumerexpectation is evolving, to
expect this experience from Tacofreaking Bell.
They're going to expect it fromyou, freaking bell, they're
going to expect it from you,full stop.
Mallory (08:45):
That's a mic drop moment To me, amit, talking
about this Bite by Yum platform,it seems like it does
everything all in one and it'sAI driven, and so, as I was kind
of thinking how on earth can wecontextualize this for our
association audience, I wasthinking, well, is there
something within associationland that kind of is an all
encompassencompassing platformthat does a lot for you?
(09:06):
And then I started thinking ofAMSs, of course.
Do you think there are more?
There are opportunities forAMSs to be like the driving
force for AI enablement, in theway that this is Like.
Can you see that connection, ordo you think that's not the way
to think about it?
Amith (09:23):
A hundred percent.
There's the opportunity.
The AMS sits at theintersection of the equivalent
lanes of traffic or data to whatyou described.
Thinking about the app thatBite by Yum provides, you know,
all these different functionalareas the online ordering it's
the customer facing experience.
Kitchen optimization that's theproduction side, right.
How do they manage inventory?
(09:44):
That's an input into thatprocess.
How do they manage labor?
And that, of course, is verydynamic in an environment with
lots of part-time and full-timeemployees coming and going,
people getting sick, all thesethings.
And ultimately, the menumanagement, where they're able
to quickly adapt based oncustomer preferences and
evolutions, things that areseasonal.
These all reflect back on thebusiness operations of Yum, both
(10:04):
the front office or thecustomer facing side, and the
back office.
Or, essentially, how do youmake the product right?
And so for an association,there's an equivalent world
right, where you have your eventproduction side, where you
spend 360 days a year workinglike crazy in an office trying
to figure out how to put on agreat event, and then four or
(10:25):
five days here you're on siteactually delivering the event,
which is when the customer getsto eat the taco, but you spend
all year preparing and gettingready and trying to deliver the
best possible experience.
So, coming back to the software, you have software tools, of
course, to handle registration.
There probably are somesoftware tools you use on site,
like mobile apps and otherthings like that, but you use a
(10:47):
lot of tools to help you plan.
Now, ams is sometimesparticipate in that.
Sometimes you use a variety ofthird-party software to help
with that.
But the essence of what you'redescribing and I think it's
right on point is that thisintegrated software system that
has provided so much value toYum in both a customer-facing
way and a back-office way, has aparallel universe, that
associations should have anintegrated suite of technologies
(11:10):
that can deliver this kind ofvalue in that way right, in this
integrated way and with an AIlayer.
But to integrate it is hardbecause most of the AMSs that
are out there are not based oncutting-edge tech.
There's a lot of legacy systemsout there and even the ones
(11:30):
that are based on newerplatforms suffer from a lot of
challenges in terms of dataintegration, data quality.
So it's definitely not a silverbullet kind of thing, but I do
think it's a clue, like you said, that people in the commercial
world are experiencing successthrough number one, getting
their data all in one place.
It could be one single system,or it could be a system where
you put air quotes around theword system, because it's really
(11:51):
a combination of systems, andthen they're layering AI on top
of it, because the AI is whereyou can take advantage of that
data.
So, in a sense, what has Yumdone is they got their data
house in order first and theybuilt a series of applications.
I don't know if they got someof that from commercial vendors.
I suspect maybe they did forparts of that, because some of
these problems are solvedproblems like supply chain,
(12:11):
logistics, inventory management.
I don't know that it makessense for them to build that on
their own when there's severaldozen vendors that provide great
software in that category.
But maybe they decided for somereason there's a process area
they needed to optimize thatwent beyond a package software.
But that's not the point.
The point is they've builttheir system, which is probably
a combination of some off theshelf and some custom software,
(12:32):
and they put an AI layer on itand the net result is more
efficiency and better customervalue at the same time.
So your point about the AMS isdead on.
I don't know which AMS vendorsor how many AMS vendors might
choose to participate increating the AI native AMS, but
it's a compelling concept.
I think that part of what AMSvendors need to be thinking
(12:54):
about, though, is that they'renot the center of the universe
anymore.
Back when I was in thatbusiness, that was the thesis is
that you're the AMS andeverything is in the AMS, and
that's decreasingly the case.
There are still people whooperate that way, but the reason
for that is actually quitesimple is there's lots of great
software in the world.
There's great software formanaging very specific slivers
(13:15):
of your business aroundeducation or events or parts of
events, and so people want tohave choice.
They want to be able to usebest of breed-breed tools and
then mix them together, andthat's the world we live in now.
I still think the AMS has avital role to play in many
organizations, but it needs toadapt.
It needs to be a participant inthe digital ecosystem rather
(13:36):
than the center of the digitalecosystem, but the AMS vendor
can make that easier for theirclients and also find ways to
drive a great business forthemselves if they provide some
of that AI capability.
I personally haven't seen awhole lot going on in the AMS
space in this category or thisline of thinking, but I think
it's an opportunity.
(13:57):
The other concept that's againsame thing that Yum did is they
had to get their data house inorder, so somewhere in that
architecture they have theability for data to fluidly come
and go from the differentsubsystems you described.
That's not easy.
In their case.
They're a very large enterprise.
I'm sure it wasn't cheap, butit's important.
It's really really importantbecause the AI you're talking
(14:19):
about, in order to do somethingas seemingly simple as saying,
hey, amith, crunchwrap Supreme,it should be part of your life.
Right, you did a great jobselling it.
What if the app could do that?
But what if the product's notavailable right now?
That would suck, that would bereally bad.
Right, I wouldn't have a greatexperience.
It's like, oh, crunchwrapSupreme, it sounds awesome, but
(14:39):
my local Taco Bell doesn't havethat Crunchwrap Supreme.
I wouldn't feel great about it.
So you have to integrate yourinventory side with your
customer recommendation system,and that's what we're talking
about here.
Right, pulling it all togetherso that the experience side and
the efficiency work welltogether.
Mallory (14:55):
It's a really interesting point about the AMS
not necessarily being the centerof the universe as it was
thought to have been.
Would you say there's anyparticular element that is the
center of the associationuniverse?
Would that be this data house,this common data platform Like?
Is that the thing our listenersneed to be focused on right now
?
Amith (15:14):
So I'm definitely biased in this area, because I spend a
lot of my time thinking about AIdata platforms and I also
obviously spend time helpingbuild one of these with Member
Junction, but I obviouslybelieve the answer is yes.
For the last several years,I've been pushing this concept
really hard and we've beenbuilding this open source AI
data platform called MemberJunction, which is not a system
(15:36):
of record, it doesn't processtransactions, it is not an AMS
and it never will be any ofthose things.
It's simply a place where youcan very easily pull all your
data together and then you canrun AI workflows on top of it.
You can run AI agents and youcan have AI decision making on
top of that data.
But I would say that, yes,that's definitely part of the
solution If you have reallyancient infrastructure for your
(15:58):
event software or your LMS.
So many associations have reallyaging technology for core
business functions.
Well, the question is, do yougo out and replace that first or
do you try to solve the dataecosystem question first?
I believe that you shouldreally focus on the data
ecosystem question first,because if you try to replace
(16:20):
the AMS or the LMS or somethingsimilar first, you haven't
figured out how you want thingsto connect.
What you do know withoutquestion in my mind, is that
there will be many systems thatneed to play well together.
That's our reality in 2025 andin the future.
We're going to have a lot ofsoftware, probably two times,
(16:40):
three times, 10 times as muchsoftware as we have now, because
these software tools are goingto be more and more specialized
and they're going to be reallygood at a few things.
So we are going to need to havea flexible and dynamic adaptive
way of connecting our data andmaking sense of it at scale, and
scale isn't necessarily thenumber of gigabytes, terabytes
(17:03):
or petabytes that you have yourdata size probably isn't that
massive but it's the complexityof these different data streams
and data sources coming together.
So I would argue that youshould figure that out first
before you replace a major chunkof your infrastructure, because
that major chunk ofinfrastructure, absent a clear
vision on the data ecosystem itlives in, you're going to have
(17:23):
to reinvent the wheel.
You're going to basically doall this wiring for the new
infrastructure.
The new AMS, for example, isgoing to have a bunch of
integrations with a bunch ofthese software tools, Whereas if
you get the data ecosystem theAI data platform in this example
Whereas if you get the dataecosystem the AI data platform
in this example in place first,then your replacement of the AMS
or the LMS or whatever it isbecomes much simpler, because
(17:45):
that just needs to plug intoyour future state data
environment.
So that's why I'm focused onthat.
I think it's really important.
The other part of it that'sreally critical is this concept
of ownership of data.
So Yum, through the Byteapplication and really the
subsystems that are in there,has a very clear data strategy.
I don't know them and I don'tknow their application stack,
(18:09):
but I know for a fact they havea very clear data architecture,
because what they have in thatsystem could not exist if the
data wasn't able to be as fluidas I'm describing.
So that, in turn, is really thekey to having flexibility to
grow, to add new applicationsand so on.
So, from my perspective comingback to the beginning of the
(18:30):
conversation and whereassociations need to go, the
idea of AMS or LMS orreplacements.
These are projects thattypically take at least a year,
sometimes two or longer For manyassociations.
As a percentage of their annualbudget, an AMS replacement
could be a big, big chunk of it.
It could be 10, 20, 30% of theannual revenue of the
(18:51):
association in the year that youimplement it Not ongoing,
obviously, going obviously, andso it's a big, big deal and it's
important and it's going tohave a role at some level.
But I think figuring out thedata pieces is incredibly
critical because you don't wantto reinvent the wheel and
integrate the new AMS the wayyou just got done, like
essentially undoing with the oldAMS.
Mallory (19:11):
Have you ever thought about creating an AI-enabled AMS
, amit Like?
Has that crossed your mind?
Amith (19:21):
I have.
It has not crossed my mind assomething that I have any
interest in doing, just to beclear, but I have been asked
that question by many people,given my background.
But no, it's not a categorythat I have an interest in
personally.
I think there's an incredibleopportunity.
I think there's plenty ofcompanies that have the
resources and the interest inserving this market well long
term.
That someone will do it ormultiple players, hopefully,
will do it where there'll be AIenabled or what I'd call,
(19:43):
hopefully truly an AI-nated AMSat some point.
But I hope to see those systemsbe highly compartmentalized so
that people have choice and theycan pick the pieces that they
really want and they really needfrom that vendor and then pull
in pieces from other vendors aswell that are complementary in
nature.
Mallory (20:01):
Yep, and I don't know if I touched on this in my
summary, but this system as wellByte is also modular, like
you're describing, so you cankind of like implement it piece
by piece or choose which piecesyou need first, which I think is
essential.
Amith (20:14):
Absolutely, and you know the concept of using AI.
You know we talk about this inour courseware for the AI
Learning Hub, mallory, but wetalk about data a lot.
There's actually a whole courseon data and in the data course
we used the term that a lot ofpeople refer to, which is that
data is essentially the fuel forthe AI machine or the AI engine
, and so absent data, you knowyou can't do that much with AI.
(20:36):
Now you can use consumer-gradeapplications like a chat GPT and
get quite a bit of value justtalking to it.
In that sense, you're providingdata and then answer them
(20:57):
fluidly.
You need your data, you have tohave your data.
So a lot of times people lookat that and go, oh, you know, I
really don't want to talk aboutthat.
It's been such a pain point.
It's not a particularlyinteresting topic.
There's not a lot of sizzle tothe data conversation.
You know it's not like thething.
People get up and go, oh, thisis gonna be awesome, I'm going
to have like a full day meetingon data.
You know people typically feelthat way because data has been
(21:19):
beating them up for a long time.
You know their data has beenvery difficult to maintain, and
the problem really also is thatthe scale of data even in a
small association is going to betoo big, even for the staff of
a large association to manuallydeal with.
You know, like duplicatemanagement or correct addresses
or just simple, simple thingslike that, and the simple has to
(21:40):
be in air quotes for that onetoo, because it's really
actually quite complex and thereare great AI solutions for
these problems.
Now, unfortunately, mostassociations still haven't
touched any of this.
So I think that.
But again, do you solve that byinjecting these things into
archaic old tools that you'reusing?
Do you try to replace thosetools, or do you do some of this
workload in a place that'sagnostic and will work with both
(22:00):
the old tools and the new tools?
So, clearly, the third categoryis what we talk about with AI
data platform and what I suggestpeople consider.
It's also about time.
If you spend the next year totwo years replacing an AMS, the
question you should ask yourselfis do you think it's going to
really reinvent your business oris it more of an incremental
improvement?
And most people will look at meand say no, it's an incremental
(22:21):
improvement.
We want to solve a lot of ourkind of past ills in terms of
how bad our current system is,and we want to make ourselves
more efficient and have someimproved tooling in various
areas, but ultimately, nobodyreally thinks a new AMS is going
to revolutionize their businessmodel or radically change their
efficiency.
It's an incremental improvement.
So then my question would bewhy focus on that right now?
(22:41):
You have the next year, twoyears.
In that time period, you'regoing to have two, three, four,
five doublings of AI power isvery likely, and in that time,
if you focus most of yourorganizational resources on an
incremental improvement, even ifyou achieve that incremental
improvement, it's not reallythat interesting.
In the meantime, ai isexperiencing these radical
(23:03):
improvements and you're clearlynot doing much with it because
you don't have the bandwidth todo an AMS replacement and also
do meaningful AI innovation.
So my argument, of course, isdo the AI stuff, at least for
this year it's 2025.
Let's focus on AI, and the AMSreplacement is still going to be
important.
In the future, you might have adifferent perspective.
(23:24):
The other reason to wait on thisAMS replacement conversation is
let's give the vendors a littlebit of time to figure AI out.
Most of them are not AI experts.
I know a lot of these people Iknow a lot of them are looking
at it saying, hey, it's ourresponsibility to do something
for our clients, and I lovehearing that.
I think if we give the AMSvendors a little bit more time,
they might surprise us and giveus some really exciting
(23:46):
capabilities.
I mean, there's so manyopportunities in those kinds of
systems to make AI incrediblypowerful.
So my thought process is youknow, time is your friend when
it comes to waiting on an AMSreplacement.
Time is not your friend when itcomes to sitting on the
sidelines and waiting foryourself to somehow figure out
AI.
It doesn't happen unless youput the effort into it.
(24:08):
So that's my point of view onthe whole thing.
When I see an article like thisone about something totally
different from associations,like restaurants or the scale of
this business, I always thinkabout it and say, okay, how can
we apply this and think about itin the association context,
both from a customer perspective, because we're all consumers at
(24:29):
the end of the day how do wefeel when we deal with the brand
?
And one of the ways to thinkabout it is this you can ask the
question of any technologywhether it's truly valuable is
hypothetically, how would theperson feel if you took it away
from them?
So if I took away somethinglike an AMS, actually you might
laugh and say, oh, peoplewouldn't miss it at all, but in
(24:49):
reality they would, becausetheir whole business would
completely stop.
And that's why people pay a lotof money for AMSs and why
there's so much energy spent onit.
But think about the Taco Bellexample.
If your AI taco app went awayand you got used to using it and
you're like this is cool.
I had discovered the CrunchwrapSupreme through the AI taco app
and that has fundamentallychanged my existence as a human
on planet earth.
(25:10):
I am so in love with the tacoCrunchwrap thing and then all of
a sudden, the app goes away.
That's a problem for you, right?
You're going to be pissed.
Or, at a simpler level, I buy alot of smoothies from Smoothie
King, right, and so their app isactually kind of hard to use,
but it's a hell of a lot easierthan waiting till I drive to the
store, ordering there andwaiting five minutes.
(25:30):
So I use that app all the time.
If they took that app away, I'dbuy a lot less from them.
It's a convenience thing, right?
It doesn't cost anything.
It just saves me a few minutesbecause I can put the order in
before I drive there and thenit's sitting there waiting for
me and I like that.
So it would be painful to mepersonally if that app just went
away.
So I think that's a key way tothink about these tools.
(25:51):
Is that, if they go away, howdo people feel?
No-transcript, and they findthese content assets.
(26:26):
They're going to be real happy.
And again, if you did that fora while and people got used to
it and then you yanked it awayfrom them, they'd miss it right.
So that's one of the ways tothink about if a technology is
worth investigating is if itworked, would people miss it if
it was gone?
That's a very simple kind ofrubric to apply to any kind of
new technology investment.
Mallory (26:45):
I would miss Crunchwrap Supremes if they were no longer
here.
And I can tell you, Amit, Iwould have never guessed on the
Sidecar Sync podcast we'd betalking about Crunchwrap
Supremes this much.
But you never know what to getwith us.
It's always a surprise.
Amith (26:57):
I like food.
Mallory (26:59):
You should go get Crunchwrap Supremes for the
family this evening, I think youmight do that.
Amith (27:03):
Yeah, I might just do that All right.
Mallory (27:16):
Moving to topic two today, amazon's return to office
.
Amazon has implemented a changein its return to office policy,
marking a shift from itsprevious hybrid work model.
The company announced that,starting January 2nd of this
year, most corporate employeeswould be required to return to
the office full time five days aweek, days a week.
Ceo Andy Jassy cited severalreasons for this change,
including strengthening Amazon'sculture, improving
collaboration and brainstorming,enhancing learning and teaching
among employees and betterconnecting teams.
(27:39):
There are some exceptions thatwill be made for situations like
caring for a sick child andneeding isolated environments
for specific tasks like coding,and needing isolated
environments for specific taskslike coding.
Despite the initial January2025 deadline, amazon has faced
a few hurdles in implementingthis policy.
Namely, they don't have enoughoffice space in cities like
Atlanta, austin, houston,nashville, new York and Phoenix,
(28:01):
so that's kind of an essentialif you're asking everybody to
return to office Among employees.
There are various reactions, asyou can imagine.
Some view it positively, seeingit as a way to revitalize
downtown areas and improve workdynamics.
Others have expressed concernsabout accommodations for
disabilities, child care andelder care.
And, of course, there areworries that the policy might be
(28:24):
an indirect method for reducingthe workforce.
Amazon's decisions align withsome other major companies
reverting to full-time officepolicies, like JPMorgan Chase.
However, it contrasts with thebroader trend in the tech
industry where many companiescontinue to offer flexible work
arrangements post-pandemic.
This marks a shift from thecompany's pandemic-era policies
(28:46):
and sets Amazon apart as one ofthe largest private employers to
fully roll back work from homearrangements.
So, amit, I'm not sure when youand I discussed this, but once,
I think, I asked yourperspective on this and I
remember thinking well, we'reall remote, so surely Amit
prefers a remote environment.
And you actually surprised meby saying that you think
(29:09):
especially younger employees inthe workforce are kind of
missing out on opportunities bynot having that in-person
element.
So what's your take on this,and do you prefer remote work or
in-person work?
Amith (29:21):
I think it's an incredibly important and
interesting topic, so I'm gladwe're featuring it in the pod.
I do think it's actually deeplyrelated to AI, even though the
way we introduced the topic isabout people coming to the
office or not coming to theoffice.
But it's very much an AIconversation, because AI is both
an enabling technology and adisplacement, because AI can do
a lot of jobs now right.
So I think for me personally,there's a couple of things I
(29:44):
would share.
Number one is I do think thatwhen you're not in the office at
all, you don't see yourcolleagues face to face at all,
you're missing out on a lot.
It is not possible to buildrelationships with people, in my
opinion, that are like deep,deep, like types of work
relationships over purely videoand audio.
It just doesn't work the sameway.
(30:04):
So, for example, with all themoney you're saving on office
space, you can get peopletogether from time to time in
person and have summits ormeetings or hackathons or
retreats or whatever you want tocall it.
So I think there's ways toaddress that, but I like doing
those things on top of having anin-person environment back in
the day.
So I grew up in an officeenvironment.
I built offices for all mycompanies in the past.
(30:25):
I was a big proponent of officeculture and collaboration and
all that.
But I also think at the sametime, the flip side of it is is
what we've learned Essentiallywe were forced to learn this
through the pandemic thatthere's a lot of advantages to
the remote work thing.
So if you take away the obviouspart and say, okay, there's a
lot of cost savings becauseoffice space is a very expensive
thing to provide your employees, you also have the ability to
(30:46):
hire people basically anywherewithin the time zones that you
work in, you have the ability topotentially provide people who
don't have the ability tocommute for whatever reason, a
more flexible work environmentwhere you can get access to
amazing talent who otherwisewould not be available, based on
their commute distance from theoffice you happen to choose, or
things like that.
Right, and then I think youknow, from my perspective,
(31:09):
perhaps maybe there's a way toblend that, maybe there's a
creative way to combine it.
So I personally think you knowfor small to medium-sized
businesses, there might be waysto be flexible.
For a large company like thatthat's looking at hundreds of
thousands of office workers youknow, across the country and
globally.
It's an interesting shift.
(31:30):
I think the power dynamic isdefinitely shifting back to the
employer, because yet right now,employment's extremely low, but
at the same time, employers arelooking at things pragmatically
and saying, well, what can I dowith AI?
And so you have a bullet pointin part of what you said that is
this an indirect way of doing areduction in force?
And 100% is, and it's actuallynot that indirect.
(31:51):
It's pretty damn obvious thatsome people will opt out, either
because they cannot return tooffice or they just refuse to,
and there are alternatives.
There's plenty of companieshiring that are 100% remote or
mostly remote.
So I think it's all thosethings.
So I don't have an opinionabout Amazon's decision, other
than to say I think it'sobviously going to be
influential on the workforce interms of the number of people
(32:13):
we're talking about, and a lotof companies will follow suit
when you have big, bigbusinesses like this making this
kind of decision and that thecollective mind is often more
powerful than the individual.
Mallory (32:32):
I would also say collaboration is easier in
person.
With that, I would say we're avery innovative family of
companies and we're all fullyremote, so it's definitely
possible to cultivate that.
But would you say, cultivatinga culture of innovation is
perhaps easier when you havethat in-person element or that
hybrid element 100% because youdon't always have to have a
specific agenda.
Amith (32:50):
So I just got done with two days of meetings where we
had team members from all overthe country come together to
have a planning session for oneof our businesses and it was
great.
We spent a lot of time, qualitytime, together.
We had a nice dinner last night.
It was good quality time,solved a lot of problems, came
up with a lot of ideas.
It was cool.
(33:13):
But we have to do it that waybecause we have people all over
the place and so we cannot geteveryone together on a high
frequency basis.
So we do these things where wefly people in regularly Like
we're traveling, probably a fairbit more than we would
otherwise, and you know werotate these meetings around.
We try to also make them littlefun, which is cool.
Put them in different cities.
I can't imagine running acompany without any of that.
I know there's some companiesthat are truly 100% remote and
(33:35):
they don't ever get together.
I don't know how you do that.
So for me, part of that is againthe way I grew up.
Building companies and growingteams is you get to know people
face to face and maybe at somepoint people work remotely part
of the time or whatever, butthat's all that's once they have
experience and once therelationships have been formed.
Clearly we live in a differentworld today than what I grew up
(33:55):
in, but I guess what I'd say isyou know, you mentioned a point
earlier that I think is worthunpacking a little bit, which is
by experience level, it mightbe interesting to think about.
So someone who's been doingtheir job for five years, 10
years or longer, versus someoneright out of college Like, how
do we train people that arecoming in from college,
(34:16):
graduation or earlier how to beprofessionals Forget about the
domain of your job or yourassociation or your organization
, but just how to beprofessionals.
Like what does it mean to cometo work and do your job?
How do you interact with peopleprofessionally?
In my experience, people thatare in their early 20s, coming
out of college, rarely have agreat skill set when it comes to
(34:37):
those basics.
And that's not a dig on youngerpeople.
It's like that's just what itis.
You haven't you definitionallydon't know how to do those
things because you haven't donethem yet.
So part of what I'm saying whenI say younger people really are
, I think, suffering from thisin terms of their career
development is they're notgetting that and, as a result,
also where you see youngerpeople earlier in their career
(34:59):
potentially showing some signsof amazing potential, people who
work with them that have beenaround a little bit longer have
a harder time picking up on thatbecause you don't see it as
obviously as when you're infront of people a lot and you
can have conversations thataren't on the agenda right.
What people want to say is thewater cooler conversation where
you just have these unplannedinteractions with people at all
(35:19):
levels of an organization.
It's amazing, it's powerful,and so I think younger people
are limited in terms of whatthey might explore or discover.
The creativity and curiositymight be limited, so I think
that's a real challenge.
You know I've got kids that aregoing to be entering the
workforce in not the immediatefuture, but in the next, say,
five, seven years, and I thinkabout them a lot in terms of
(35:40):
what's their experience going tobe like.
I likely will recommend to themthat they find a company that
they can go to work for, wherethey're in the office at least
three or four days a week, atleast for the first few years of
their career, because I wantthem to have that experience and
have those opportunities.
But I also realize there'speople that are entering the
workforce for us right now, forexample, who are fully remote
(36:00):
from the start, and hopefullythere's a good path for that as
well.
But I do love the fact thatwhen you have a workforce that's
geographically diverse, you cangive people more flexibility to
weave their life in in a waythat makes sense for them, and
that's an incredible quality oflife thing where you spend less
time behind the wheel or in abus or in a subway commuting and
(36:21):
more time either working orwith your family, or both.
Right, I don't think anyone'sever missed the commute, so I'm
sure there's somebody out therewho's missed the commute, but I
(36:42):
never have.
I've been pretty fortunate inthat respect.
I've never had super long ourspecies having a future from a
work productivity perspective ina world of artificial
superintelligence which is onthe horizon, which is that.
I think the creativity thatcomes from what we do, when we
do it together, is enormouslypowerful.
(37:03):
And, by the way, tying thisback is what we just talked
about for the last few minutesis generic to any entity.
Right, it could be a nonprofit,it could be a commercial
organization, it could begovernment, it could be whatever
, but associations, right.
If you took away the annualmeeting, if you took away the
in-person conference whateverthat is or the conferences, the
(37:24):
entire feel of the culture ofthat association changes.
The entire feel of the cultureof that association changes.
And what we learned during thepandemic was that people craved
those in-person, face-to-faceopportunities because we, as a
species, connect.
We're like biologically wiredto want to connect in groups,
right, and so it's verydifficult to take that away and
still have the same experience.
(37:45):
And associations know thatdeeply because they organize
these events.
And so I would simply say like,I think we need to find ways to
get more creative about thatand find opportunities to do
that, and obviously there'sthings like cost concerns and so
forth, but I think you have tomake investments in building
relationships like that.
At the end of the day, and.
I think associations areextremely well positioned to
(38:06):
help with that.
Mallory (38:07):
by the way, Indeed, and I was saying we were fully
remote, I think.
But yes, we do have thesein-person quarterly sessions.
We also, I would say, from likeMarch to November, at least
once a month.
Normally I'm traveling to someof our events or industry events
where I can connect withcolleagues.
So we're not hybrid quite, butwe do have a lot of
opportunities to connect withone another in person, which is
(38:29):
really helpful.
I know there are some remote,like fully remote, associations
out there.
I don't know that that'snecessarily the norm, but do you
have, amit, any advice forfully remote associations that
are trying to be innovative,that are trying to create a
culture of collaboration, likejust things that you've learned
in the past few years fromrunning a remote organization?
Amith (38:51):
Well, I know that many associations were fully remote,
fully remote on a temporarybasis, you know, during the
pandemic, and for some period oftime after.
Most associations I talked toare back in the office the
majority of the time, maybe not100 percent, but three days a
week, two days a week, five daysa week in some cases.
It'd be great to study ifpeople have.
(39:12):
I'm sure there's manyassociations out there, many
tens of thousands ofassociations, just the United
States.
I'm sure some have stayed fullyremote and maybe there's some
that were born that way.
You know, maybe there's anassociation called the Remote
Work Association and theythemselves have awesome office
space, but they probably areremote as well.
But you know, in reality I'msure there are examples and if
(39:35):
you're listening or if you knowsomeone that is in that category
, please write to us and shareyour feedback.
We'd love to have more input onthis that we can share in our
content with our listeners andour readers.
But my main advice is don'tforget that we're human.
We, at the end of the day,thrive on connections, we thrive
on being together.
So invest some dollars inconnectivity, especially when
people are onboarding.
(39:55):
Bring people together.
You know, we have a program herewhere we hire a lot of people
right out of college, but wehave a particular program that's
a form of a fellowship where webring people in, and it's a
fully remote thing right now.
But we are thinking about, well, how do we organize that?
Maybe there's a way where, inthe first three months, or maybe
even just the first 30 days ofa new person's employment, that
(40:19):
they're in a location where wehave a lot of people so that
they can be onboarded and kindof nurtured in a way where, hey,
like this is what work is like,this is what it's like to be a
professional, these are thepeople you get to know.
So it's an interesting thing.
A long time ago I started anoperation offshore with a former
company and when we did that,we brought a number of the
(40:39):
people from the new offshorebusiness to live in the United
States with their colleaguesworking in an office in this
case Chicago for, I think, threemonths, which was a big
imposition, big request.
But it worked beautifullybecause those people had these
relationships when they wentback to their home country and
they were able to collaborate inan incredible way.
If we hadn't done that, itwouldn't have worked so well, so
(41:01):
I think you just have to becreative.
I guess is the way I'mdescribing it.
Mallory (41:06):
Well, everyone, thanks for tuning in to the end of this
episode.
I think you all have earnedyourself a Crunchwrap Supreme.
So if you go out and get one,post a pic on LinkedIn and tag
us in it.
We will see you all next week.
Amith (41:20):
Thanks for tuning in to Sidecar Sync this week.
Looking to dive deeper?
Download your free copy of ournew book Ascend Unlocking the
Power of AI for Associations atascendbookorg.
It's packed with insights topower your association's journey
with AI.
And remember Sidecar is herewith more resources, from
webinars to boot camps, to helpyou stay ahead in the
(41:42):
association world.
We'll catch you in the nextepisode.
Until then, keep learning, keepgrowing and keep disrupting.
Time is your friend when it comes to waiting on an AMS
replacement.
Time is not your friend when itcomes to sitting on the
sidelines and waiting foryourself to somehow figure out
AI.
Welcome to Sidecar Sync, yourweekly dose of innovation.
If you're looking for thelatest news, insights and
(00:20):
developments in the associationworld, especially those driven
by artificial intelligence,you're in the right place.
We cut through the noise tobring you the most relevant
updates, with a keen focus onhow AI and other emerging
technologies are shaping thefuture.
No fluff, just facts andinformed discussions.
I'm Amit Nagarajan, Chairman ofBlue Cypress, and I'm your host
(00:42):
.
Greetings and welcome to theSidecar Sync, your home for
content at the intersection ofAI and associations.
My name is Amit Nagarajan.
Mallory (00:53):
And my name is Mallory Mejiaz.
Amith (00:55):
And we are your hosts.
And before we get into twotopics today, at the
intersection of AI andassociations, we're going to
hear a quick word from oursponsor.
Mallory (01:05):
If you're listening to this podcast right now, you're
already thinking differentlyabout AI than many of your peers
, don't you wish there was a wayto showcase your commitment to
innovation and learning?
The Association AI Professional, or AAIP, certification is
exactly that.
The AAIP certification isawarded to those who have
achieved outstanding theoreticaland practical AI knowledge.
(01:27):
As it pertains to associations,earning your AAIP certification
proves that you're at theforefront of AI in your
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Join the growing group ofprofessionals who've earned
their AAIP certification andsecure your professional future
(01:49):
by heading to learnsidecarai.
Amit, I feel like you have hada crazy few days, few weeks.
Honestly, how are you feeling?
How are you doing?
Amith (02:01):
I'm doing great, you know , with kind of like the pace of
AI.
Progress is kind of the way mybrain works right now.
I feel like a ping pong ball oryou know, feel like a ball
inside a you know some kind ofmachine that's relentless and so
it's good.
That's what I thrive on, butI'm ready for a little bit of
break.
I'm going skiing.
By the time this pod drops,I'll be out skiing somewhere.
Mallory (02:23):
So Awesome, awesome.
And today you were doing somebusiness planning, right.
Amith (02:29):
Yeah.
Yeah, we're all about releasingAI agents that can help
associations with their business, and agents are quickly turning
into a new term called digitallabor, which I think is perhaps
a little more approachable, butthat's essentially what agents
are.
So we have several new onesthat we're planning for this
year and continue to grow theones that we already have in the
market.
So we had a team of people inNew Orleans focused on that.
Mallory (02:52):
Awesome, awesome.
Any secrets, sneak peeks thatyou can offer from what might be
to come.
Amith (02:58):
Just stay tuned.
There's a lot going on in BlueCypress's crazy AI factory.
Mallory (03:05):
Speaking of AI factory.
You all are not going tobelieve this today, but we are
talking about AI tacos.
Yep, that is true, that's ourfirst topic for the day, and
then we will be having aninteresting conversation around
Amazon's return to office and,amit, I'm really excited to get
your take on that.
So, first and foremost, aitacos to get your take on that.
(03:28):
So, first and foremost, aitacos.
Bite by Yum is an AI-drivensoftware-as-a-service or SaaS
platform introduced by Yumbrands to enhance operational
efficiency and customerexperience across its global
restaurant brands, which includeKFC, taco Bell, pizza Hut and
Habit Burger and Grill.
So here is a breakdown of whatBite by Yum actually does.
The platform allows forcustomers to place orders
(03:50):
through online and mobileapplications, which streamlines
the ordering process.
Bite by Yum also integratesadvanced point-of-sale or POS
systems that facilitatetransactions, which improve
speed and accuracy at checkout.
The platform includes toolsdesigned to optimize kitchen
operations, enhancing workflowefficiency and reducing wait
times for customers.
(04:10):
It also provides features thatimprove delivery logistics,
which ensures timely service andbetter tracking of orders.
It helps restaurants manageinventory more effectively,
allowing for better forecastingand reduced waste.
It also offers tools formanaging staff schedules and
productivity, which helps toreduce turnover and improve team
member satisfaction.
(04:31):
And finally, restaurants caneasily update and manage menus
through the platform, allowingfor quick adaptations to
customer preferences or seasonalchanges.
So what are the strategicbenefits here?
Well, one Bite by Yumintegrates various operational
tools into a single platform,simplifying management for
franchisees and reducing thecomplexity of using multiple
(04:53):
vendors.
Also, of course, the use ofartificial intelligence allows
for enhanced predictiveanalytics, enabling restaurants
to anticipate customer demandmore accurately and make
data-driven decisions.
And then, of course, bystreamlining operations and
enhancing order accuracy, biteby Yum aims to provide a better
overall experience for customers.
So, as of now, over 25,000 Yumrestaurants globally are
(05:17):
utilizing at least one componentof Bite by Yum, marking a
significant step in thecompany's digital transformation
efforts.
So the next time you're eatinga Crunchwrap Supreme at Taco
Bell, you might be able to thankAI, at least in part, for that.
So, amit, you sent me thisarticle, maybe last week, and
you were the one I've got togive you credit that came up
(05:38):
with the phrase AI tacos.
What are your thoughts herewith AI-driven fast food?
Amith (05:46):
Well, my question first of all what is a Crunchwrap
Supreme?
Mallory (05:50):
You're joking.
Amith (05:52):
Yeah, I'm serious, I don't know that.
Mallory (05:54):
I can't believe we're having this moment live on the
podcast.
I know we have listeners thatknow what this is.
Have you been to Taco Bell?
Amith (06:01):
Oh yeah, I grew up at Taco Bell, it seems, and high
school was like my like, but Inever got to a Crunchwrap
Supreme.
But I ordered the same things Iordered in high school, but
that was a long time ago.
Mallory (06:11):
Okay, Well, I don't know how long Crunchwrap
Supremes have been around, butit's basically a tortilla, a big
one, and then inside you've gotlike your meat cheese, beans,
sour cream, lettuce, tomato,whatever you want, and then
there's a crunchy like a tostadacrunchy tortilla inside, and
then the whole thing is wrappedin like it kind of looks like a
(06:31):
little quesadilla sandwich andthey are so good.
I'm not a big Taco Bell person,but I've actually tried to make
those at home because I likethem that much.
So I think you're going to haveto go get a crunch wrap after
this, Amit.
Amith (06:43):
I might have to go try one in honor of this podcast.
And no, I had never heard ofthat before, but I thought I
knew their menu relatively well,but I haven't paid attention in
40 years.
I think what they're doing isreally cool, so it caught my eye
and I think AI tacos are goingto be a thing.
And if you think about, like,what does the customer
(07:05):
experience look like?
That's the part I think weprobably need to think about for
just a minute.
So this is a big company.
They've got a lot ofrestaurants, a lot of employees,
they got a lot of revenue and alot of capital in play.
But the customer experience atTaco Bell is being improved to
the extent that you can orderyour tacos and the AI in the
application is helping you pickout the Crunchwrap Supreme,
(07:27):
because maybe I had never heardof that taco, or I don't know if
it's technically a taco, butI've never heard of that item
and maybe I'd like it and maybethe app knows that I might like
it based on my prior orderinghistory, right, and all these
other things.
That's a basic recommendationengine.
So if Taco Bell is able to giveme a great experience that way
through a digital technologyenhanced by AI, that means
(07:50):
people are going to expect thattype of customer service from
everyone.
And even though Taco Bell is abig company by virtue of being
part of Yum, by itself it's big,but Yum is, of course, enormous
and they have a lot ofresources.
Consumers don't think about thator care about it.
It's their daily experiencegoing through the drive-through
or ordering ahead through theapp and having that experience
(08:10):
because we've lowered theirfriction, because it's simpler,
smoother, easier, save them time, probably and we've increased
the value that they receive,both through the lower friction,
but also because maybe they gota product that they really
enjoy, right.
So the point I would make wouldbe there's a lot to talk about
(08:31):
here.
Actually, we need to unpack thecrunch wrap, but ultimately
there's something very simplehere that needs to be thought
about is if the consumerexpectation is evolving, to
expect this experience from Tacofreaking Bell.
They're going to expect it fromyou, freaking bell, they're
going to expect it from you,full stop.
Mallory (08:45):
That's a mic drop moment To me, amit, talking
about this Bite by Yum platform,it seems like it does
everything all in one and it'sAI driven, and so, as I was kind
of thinking how on earth can wecontextualize this for our
association audience, I wasthinking, well, is there
something within associationland that kind of is an all
encompassencompassing platformthat does a lot for you?
(09:06):
And then I started thinking ofAMSs, of course.
Do you think there are more?
There are opportunities forAMSs to be like the driving
force for AI enablement, in theway that this is Like.
Can you see that connection, ordo you think that's not the way
to think about it?
Amith (09:23):
A hundred percent.
There's the opportunity.
The AMS sits at theintersection of the equivalent
lanes of traffic or data to whatyou described.
Thinking about the app thatBite by Yum provides, you know,
all these different functionalareas the online ordering it's
the customer facing experience.
Kitchen optimization that's theproduction side, right.
How do they manage inventory?
(09:44):
That's an input into thatprocess.
How do they manage labor?
And that, of course, is verydynamic in an environment with
lots of part-time and full-timeemployees coming and going,
people getting sick, all thesethings.
And ultimately, the menumanagement, where they're able
to quickly adapt based oncustomer preferences and
evolutions, things that areseasonal.
These all reflect back on thebusiness operations of Yum, both
(10:04):
the front office or thecustomer facing side, and the
back office.
Or, essentially, how do youmake the product right?
And so for an association,there's an equivalent world
right, where you have your eventproduction side, where you
spend 360 days a year workinglike crazy in an office trying
to figure out how to put on agreat event, and then four or
(10:25):
five days here you're on siteactually delivering the event,
which is when the customer getsto eat the taco, but you spend
all year preparing and gettingready and trying to deliver the
best possible experience.
So, coming back to the software, you have software tools, of
course, to handle registration.
There probably are somesoftware tools you use on site,
like mobile apps and otherthings like that, but you use a
(10:47):
lot of tools to help you plan.
Now, ams is sometimesparticipate in that.
Sometimes you use a variety ofthird-party software to help
with that.
But the essence of what you'redescribing and I think it's
right on point is that thisintegrated software system that
has provided so much value toYum in both a customer-facing
way and a back-office way, has aparallel universe, that
associations should have anintegrated suite of technologies
(11:10):
that can deliver this kind ofvalue in that way right, in this
integrated way and with an AIlayer.
But to integrate it is hardbecause most of the AMSs that
are out there are not based oncutting-edge tech.
There's a lot of legacy systemsout there and even the ones
(11:30):
that are based on newerplatforms suffer from a lot of
challenges in terms of dataintegration, data quality.
So it's definitely not a silverbullet kind of thing, but I do
think it's a clue, like you said, that people in the commercial
world are experiencing successthrough number one, getting
their data all in one place.
It could be one single system,or it could be a system where
you put air quotes around theword system, because it's really
(11:51):
a combination of systems, andthen they're layering AI on top
of it, because the AI is whereyou can take advantage of that
data.
So, in a sense, what has Yumdone is they got their data
house in order first and theybuilt a series of applications.
I don't know if they got someof that from commercial vendors.
I suspect maybe they did forparts of that, because some of
these problems are solvedproblems like supply chain,
(12:11):
logistics, inventory management.
I don't know that it makessense for them to build that on
their own when there's severaldozen vendors that provide great
software in that category.
But maybe they decided for somereason there's a process area
they needed to optimize thatwent beyond a package software.
But that's not the point.
The point is they've builttheir system, which is probably
a combination of some off theshelf and some custom software,
(12:32):
and they put an AI layer on itand the net result is more
efficiency and better customervalue at the same time.
So your point about the AMS isdead on.
I don't know which AMS vendorsor how many AMS vendors might
choose to participate increating the AI native AMS, but
it's a compelling concept.
I think that part of what AMSvendors need to be thinking
(12:54):
about, though, is that they'renot the center of the universe
anymore.
Back when I was in thatbusiness, that was the thesis is
that you're the AMS andeverything is in the AMS, and
that's decreasingly the case.
There are still people whooperate that way, but the reason
for that is actually quitesimple is there's lots of great
software in the world.
There's great software formanaging very specific slivers
(13:15):
of your business aroundeducation or events or parts of
events, and so people want tohave choice.
They want to be able to usebest of breed-breed tools and
then mix them together, andthat's the world we live in now.
I still think the AMS has avital role to play in many
organizations, but it needs toadapt.
It needs to be a participant inthe digital ecosystem rather
(13:36):
than the center of the digitalecosystem, but the AMS vendor
can make that easier for theirclients and also find ways to
drive a great business forthemselves if they provide some
of that AI capability.
I personally haven't seen awhole lot going on in the AMS
space in this category or thisline of thinking, but I think
it's an opportunity.
(13:57):
The other concept that's againsame thing that Yum did is they
had to get their data house inorder, so somewhere in that
architecture they have theability for data to fluidly come
and go from the differentsubsystems you described.
That's not easy.
In their case.
They're a very large enterprise.
I'm sure it wasn't cheap, butit's important.
It's really really importantbecause the AI you're talking
(14:19):
about, in order to do somethingas seemingly simple as saying,
hey, amith, crunchwrap Supreme,it should be part of your life.
Right, you did a great jobselling it.
What if the app could do that?
But what if the product's notavailable right now?
That would suck, that would bereally bad.
Right, I wouldn't have a greatexperience.
It's like, oh, crunchwrapSupreme, it sounds awesome, but
(14:39):
my local Taco Bell doesn't havethat Crunchwrap Supreme.
I wouldn't feel great about it.
So you have to integrate yourinventory side with your
customer recommendation system,and that's what we're talking
about here.
Right, pulling it all togetherso that the experience side and
the efficiency work welltogether.
Mallory (14:55):
It's a really interesting point about the AMS
not necessarily being the centerof the universe as it was
thought to have been.
Would you say there's anyparticular element that is the
center of the associationuniverse?
Would that be this data house,this common data platform Like?
Is that the thing our listenersneed to be focused on right now
?
Amith (15:14):
So I'm definitely biased in this area, because I spend a
lot of my time thinking about AIdata platforms and I also
obviously spend time helpingbuild one of these with Member
Junction, but I obviouslybelieve the answer is yes.
For the last several years,I've been pushing this concept
really hard and we've beenbuilding this open source AI
data platform called MemberJunction, which is not a system
(15:36):
of record, it doesn't processtransactions, it is not an AMS
and it never will be any ofthose things.
It's simply a place where youcan very easily pull all your
data together and then you canrun AI workflows on top of it.
You can run AI agents and youcan have AI decision making on
top of that data.
But I would say that, yes,that's definitely part of the
solution If you have reallyancient infrastructure for your
(15:58):
event software or your LMS.
So many associations have reallyaging technology for core
business functions.
Well, the question is, do yougo out and replace that first or
do you try to solve the dataecosystem question first?
I believe that you shouldreally focus on the data
ecosystem question first,because if you try to replace
(16:20):
the AMS or the LMS or somethingsimilar first, you haven't
figured out how you want thingsto connect.
What you do know withoutquestion in my mind, is that
there will be many systems thatneed to play well together.
That's our reality in 2025 andin the future.
We're going to have a lot ofsoftware, probably two times,
(16:40):
three times, 10 times as muchsoftware as we have now, because
these software tools are goingto be more and more specialized
and they're going to be reallygood at a few things.
So we are going to need to havea flexible and dynamic adaptive
way of connecting our data andmaking sense of it at scale, and
scale isn't necessarily thenumber of gigabytes, terabytes
(17:03):
or petabytes that you have yourdata size probably isn't that
massive but it's the complexityof these different data streams
and data sources coming together.
So I would argue that youshould figure that out first
before you replace a major chunkof your infrastructure, because
that major chunk ofinfrastructure, absent a clear
vision on the data ecosystem itlives in, you're going to have
(17:23):
to reinvent the wheel.
You're going to basically doall this wiring for the new
infrastructure.
The new AMS, for example, isgoing to have a bunch of
integrations with a bunch ofthese software tools, Whereas if
you get the data ecosystem theAI data platform in this example
Whereas if you get the dataecosystem the AI data platform
in this example in place first,then your replacement of the AMS
or the LMS or whatever it isbecomes much simpler, because
(17:45):
that just needs to plug intoyour future state data
environment.
So that's why I'm focused onthat.
I think it's really important.
The other part of it that'sreally critical is this concept
of ownership of data.
So Yum, through the Byteapplication and really the
subsystems that are in there,has a very clear data strategy.
I don't know them and I don'tknow their application stack,
(18:09):
but I know for a fact they havea very clear data architecture,
because what they have in thatsystem could not exist if the
data wasn't able to be as fluidas I'm describing.
So that, in turn, is really thekey to having flexibility to
grow, to add new applicationsand so on.
So, from my perspective comingback to the beginning of the
(18:30):
conversation and whereassociations need to go, the
idea of AMS or LMS orreplacements.
These are projects thattypically take at least a year,
sometimes two or longer For manyassociations.
As a percentage of their annualbudget, an AMS replacement
could be a big, big chunk of it.
It could be 10, 20, 30% of theannual revenue of the
(18:51):
association in the year that youimplement it Not ongoing,
obviously, going obviously, andso it's a big, big deal and it's
important and it's going tohave a role at some level.
But I think figuring out thedata pieces is incredibly
critical because you don't wantto reinvent the wheel and
integrate the new AMS the wayyou just got done, like
essentially undoing with the oldAMS.
Mallory (19:11):
Have you ever thought about creating an AI-enabled AMS
, amit Like?
Has that crossed your mind?
Amith (19:21):
I have.
It has not crossed my mind assomething that I have any
interest in doing, just to beclear, but I have been asked
that question by many people,given my background.
But no, it's not a categorythat I have an interest in
personally.
I think there's an incredibleopportunity.
I think there's plenty ofcompanies that have the
resources and the interest inserving this market well long
term.
That someone will do it ormultiple players, hopefully,
will do it where there'll be AIenabled or what I'd call,
(19:43):
hopefully truly an AI-nated AMSat some point.
But I hope to see those systemsbe highly compartmentalized so
that people have choice and theycan pick the pieces that they
really want and they really needfrom that vendor and then pull
in pieces from other vendors aswell that are complementary in
nature.
Mallory (20:01):
Yep, and I don't know if I touched on this in my
summary, but this system as wellByte is also modular, like
you're describing, so you cankind of like implement it piece
by piece or choose which piecesyou need first, which I think is
essential.
Amith (20:14):
Absolutely, and you know the concept of using AI.
You know we talk about this inour courseware for the AI
Learning Hub, mallory, but wetalk about data a lot.
There's actually a whole courseon data and in the data course
we used the term that a lot ofpeople refer to, which is that
data is essentially the fuel forthe AI machine or the AI engine
, and so absent data, you knowyou can't do that much with AI.
(20:36):
Now you can use consumer-gradeapplications like a chat GPT and
get quite a bit of value justtalking to it.
In that sense, you're providingdata and then answer them
(20:57):
fluidly.
You need your data, you have tohave your data.
So a lot of times people lookat that and go, oh, you know, I
really don't want to talk aboutthat.
It's been such a pain point.
It's not a particularlyinteresting topic.
There's not a lot of sizzle tothe data conversation.
You know it's not like thething.
People get up and go, oh, thisis gonna be awesome, I'm going
to have like a full day meetingon data.
You know people typically feelthat way because data has been
(21:19):
beating them up for a long time.
You know their data has beenvery difficult to maintain, and
the problem really also is thatthe scale of data even in a
small association is going to betoo big, even for the staff of
a large association to manuallydeal with.
You know, like duplicatemanagement or correct addresses
or just simple, simple thingslike that, and the simple has to
(21:40):
be in air quotes for that onetoo, because it's really
actually quite complex and thereare great AI solutions for
these problems.
Now, unfortunately, mostassociations still haven't
touched any of this.
So I think that.
But again, do you solve that byinjecting these things into
archaic old tools that you'reusing?
Do you try to replace thosetools, or do you do some of this
workload in a place that'sagnostic and will work with both
(22:00):
the old tools and the new tools?
So, clearly, the third categoryis what we talk about with AI
data platform and what I suggestpeople consider.
It's also about time.
If you spend the next year totwo years replacing an AMS, the
question you should ask yourselfis do you think it's going to
really reinvent your business oris it more of an incremental
improvement?
And most people will look at meand say no, it's an incremental
(22:21):
improvement.
We want to solve a lot of ourkind of past ills in terms of
how bad our current system is,and we want to make ourselves
more efficient and have someimproved tooling in various
areas, but ultimately, nobodyreally thinks a new AMS is going
to revolutionize their businessmodel or radically change their
efficiency.
It's an incremental improvement.
So then my question would bewhy focus on that right now?
(22:41):
You have the next year, twoyears.
In that time period, you'regoing to have two, three, four,
five doublings of AI power isvery likely, and in that time,
if you focus most of yourorganizational resources on an
incremental improvement, even ifyou achieve that incremental
improvement, it's not reallythat interesting.
In the meantime, ai isexperiencing these radical
(23:03):
improvements and you're clearlynot doing much with it because
you don't have the bandwidth todo an AMS replacement and also
do meaningful AI innovation.
So my argument, of course, isdo the AI stuff, at least for
this year it's 2025.
Let's focus on AI, and the AMSreplacement is still going to be
important.
In the future, you might have adifferent perspective.
(23:24):
The other reason to wait on thisAMS replacement conversation is
let's give the vendors a littlebit of time to figure AI out.
Most of them are not AI experts.
I know a lot of these people Iknow a lot of them are looking
at it saying, hey, it's ourresponsibility to do something
for our clients, and I lovehearing that.
I think if we give the AMSvendors a little bit more time,
they might surprise us and giveus some really exciting
(23:46):
capabilities.
I mean, there's so manyopportunities in those kinds of
systems to make AI incrediblypowerful.
So my thought process is youknow, time is your friend when
it comes to waiting on an AMSreplacement.
Time is not your friend when itcomes to sitting on the
sidelines and waiting foryourself to somehow figure out
AI.
It doesn't happen unless youput the effort into it.
(24:08):
So that's my point of view onthe whole thing.
When I see an article like thisone about something totally
different from associations,like restaurants or the scale of
this business, I always thinkabout it and say, okay, how can
we apply this and think about itin the association context,
both from a customer perspective, because we're all consumers at
(24:29):
the end of the day how do wefeel when we deal with the brand
?
And one of the ways to thinkabout it is this you can ask the
question of any technologywhether it's truly valuable is
hypothetically, how would theperson feel if you took it away
from them?
So if I took away somethinglike an AMS, actually you might
laugh and say, oh, peoplewouldn't miss it at all, but in
(24:49):
reality they would, becausetheir whole business would
completely stop.
And that's why people pay a lotof money for AMSs and why
there's so much energy spent onit.
But think about the Taco Bellexample.
If your AI taco app went awayand you got used to using it and
you're like this is cool.
I had discovered the CrunchwrapSupreme through the AI taco app
and that has fundamentallychanged my existence as a human
on planet earth.
(25:10):
I am so in love with the tacoCrunchwrap thing and then all of
a sudden, the app goes away.
That's a problem for you, right?
You're going to be pissed.
Or, at a simpler level, I buy alot of smoothies from Smoothie
King, right, and so their app isactually kind of hard to use,
but it's a hell of a lot easierthan waiting till I drive to the
store, ordering there andwaiting five minutes.
(25:30):
So I use that app all the time.
If they took that app away, I'dbuy a lot less from them.
It's a convenience thing, right?
It doesn't cost anything.
It just saves me a few minutesbecause I can put the order in
before I drive there and thenit's sitting there waiting for
me and I like that.
So it would be painful to mepersonally if that app just went
away.
So I think that's a key way tothink about these tools.
(25:51):
Is that, if they go away, howdo people feel?
No-transcript, and they findthese content assets.
(26:26):
They're going to be real happy.
And again, if you did that fora while and people got used to
it and then you yanked it awayfrom them, they'd miss it right.
So that's one of the ways tothink about if a technology is
worth investigating is if itworked, would people miss it if
it was gone?
That's a very simple kind ofrubric to apply to any kind of
new technology investment.
Mallory (26:45):
I would miss Crunchwrap Supremes if they were no longer
here.
And I can tell you, Amit, Iwould have never guessed on the
Sidecar Sync podcast we'd betalking about Crunchwrap
Supremes this much.
But you never know what to getwith us.
It's always a surprise.
Amith (26:57):
I like food.
Mallory (26:59):
You should go get Crunchwrap Supremes for the
family this evening, I think youmight do that.
Amith (27:03):
Yeah, I might just do that All right.
Mallory (27:16):
Moving to topic two today, amazon's return to office
.
Amazon has implemented a changein its return to office policy,
marking a shift from itsprevious hybrid work model.
The company announced that,starting January 2nd of this
year, most corporate employeeswould be required to return to
the office full time five days aweek, days a week.
Ceo Andy Jassy cited severalreasons for this change,
including strengthening Amazon'sculture, improving
collaboration and brainstorming,enhancing learning and teaching
among employees and betterconnecting teams.
(27:39):
There are some exceptions thatwill be made for situations like
caring for a sick child andneeding isolated environments
for specific tasks like coding,and needing isolated
environments for specific taskslike coding.
Despite the initial January2025 deadline, amazon has faced
a few hurdles in implementingthis policy.
Namely, they don't have enoughoffice space in cities like
Atlanta, austin, houston,nashville, new York and Phoenix,
(28:01):
so that's kind of an essentialif you're asking everybody to
return to office Among employees.
There are various reactions, asyou can imagine.
Some view it positively, seeingit as a way to revitalize
downtown areas and improve workdynamics.
Others have expressed concernsabout accommodations for
disabilities, child care andelder care.
And, of course, there areworries that the policy might be
(28:24):
an indirect method for reducingthe workforce.
Amazon's decisions align withsome other major companies
reverting to full-time officepolicies, like JPMorgan Chase.
However, it contrasts with thebroader trend in the tech
industry where many companiescontinue to offer flexible work
arrangements post-pandemic.
This marks a shift from thecompany's pandemic-era policies
(28:46):
and sets Amazon apart as one ofthe largest private employers to
fully roll back work from homearrangements.
So, amit, I'm not sure when youand I discussed this, but once,
I think, I asked yourperspective on this and I
remember thinking well, we'reall remote, so surely Amit
prefers a remote environment.
And you actually surprised meby saying that you think
(29:09):
especially younger employees inthe workforce are kind of
missing out on opportunities bynot having that in-person
element.
So what's your take on this,and do you prefer remote work or
in-person work?
Amith (29:21):
I think it's an incredibly important and
interesting topic, so I'm gladwe're featuring it in the pod.
I do think it's actually deeplyrelated to AI, even though the
way we introduced the topic isabout people coming to the
office or not coming to theoffice.
But it's very much an AIconversation, because AI is both
an enabling technology and adisplacement, because AI can do
a lot of jobs now right.
So I think for me personally,there's a couple of things I
(29:44):
would share.
Number one is I do think thatwhen you're not in the office at
all, you don't see yourcolleagues face to face at all,
you're missing out on a lot.
It is not possible to buildrelationships with people, in my
opinion, that are like deep,deep, like types of work
relationships over purely videoand audio.
It just doesn't work the sameway.
(30:04):
So, for example, with all themoney you're saving on office
space, you can get peopletogether from time to time in
person and have summits ormeetings or hackathons or
retreats or whatever you want tocall it.
So I think there's ways toaddress that, but I like doing
those things on top of having anin-person environment back in
the day.
So I grew up in an officeenvironment.
I built offices for all mycompanies in the past.
(30:25):
I was a big proponent of officeculture and collaboration and
all that.
But I also think at the sametime, the flip side of it is is
what we've learned Essentiallywe were forced to learn this
through the pandemic thatthere's a lot of advantages to
the remote work thing.
So if you take away the obviouspart and say, okay, there's a
lot of cost savings becauseoffice space is a very expensive
thing to provide your employees, you also have the ability to
(30:46):
hire people basically anywherewithin the time zones that you
work in, you have the ability topotentially provide people who
don't have the ability tocommute for whatever reason, a
more flexible work environmentwhere you can get access to
amazing talent who otherwisewould not be available, based on
their commute distance from theoffice you happen to choose, or
things like that.
Right, and then I think youknow, from my perspective,
(31:09):
perhaps maybe there's a way toblend that, maybe there's a
creative way to combine it.
So I personally think you knowfor small to medium-sized
businesses, there might be waysto be flexible.
For a large company like thatthat's looking at hundreds of
thousands of office workers youknow, across the country and
globally.
It's an interesting shift.
(31:30):
I think the power dynamic isdefinitely shifting back to the
employer, because yet right now,employment's extremely low, but
at the same time, employers arelooking at things pragmatically
and saying, well, what can I dowith AI?
And so you have a bullet pointin part of what you said that is
this an indirect way of doing areduction in force?
And 100% is, and it's actuallynot that indirect.
(31:51):
It's pretty damn obvious thatsome people will opt out, either
because they cannot return tooffice or they just refuse to,
and there are alternatives.
There's plenty of companieshiring that are 100% remote or
mostly remote.
So I think it's all thosethings.
So I don't have an opinionabout Amazon's decision, other
than to say I think it'sobviously going to be
influential on the workforce interms of the number of people
(32:13):
we're talking about, and a lotof companies will follow suit
when you have big, bigbusinesses like this making this
kind of decision and that thecollective mind is often more
powerful than the individual.
Mallory (32:32):
I would also say collaboration is easier in
person.
With that, I would say we're avery innovative family of
companies and we're all fullyremote, so it's definitely
possible to cultivate that.
But would you say, cultivatinga culture of innovation is
perhaps easier when you havethat in-person element or that
hybrid element 100% because youdon't always have to have a
specific agenda.
Amith (32:50):
So I just got done with two days of meetings where we
had team members from all overthe country come together to
have a planning session for oneof our businesses and it was
great.
We spent a lot of time, qualitytime, together.
We had a nice dinner last night.
It was good quality time,solved a lot of problems, came
up with a lot of ideas.
It was cool.
(33:13):
But we have to do it that waybecause we have people all over
the place and so we cannot geteveryone together on a high
frequency basis.
So we do these things where wefly people in regularly Like
we're traveling, probably a fairbit more than we would
otherwise, and you know werotate these meetings around.
We try to also make them littlefun, which is cool.
Put them in different cities.
I can't imagine running acompany without any of that.
I know there's some companiesthat are truly 100% remote and
(33:35):
they don't ever get together.
I don't know how you do that.
So for me, part of that is againthe way I grew up.
Building companies and growingteams is you get to know people
face to face and maybe at somepoint people work remotely part
of the time or whatever, butthat's all that's once they have
experience and once therelationships have been formed.
Clearly we live in a differentworld today than what I grew up
(33:55):
in, but I guess what I'd say isyou know, you mentioned a point
earlier that I think is worthunpacking a little bit, which is
by experience level, it mightbe interesting to think about.
So someone who's been doingtheir job for five years, 10
years or longer, versus someoneright out of college Like, how
do we train people that arecoming in from college,
(34:16):
graduation or earlier how to beprofessionals Forget about the
domain of your job or yourassociation or your organization
, but just how to beprofessionals.
Like what does it mean to cometo work and do your job?
How do you interact with peopleprofessionally?
In my experience, people thatare in their early 20s, coming
out of college, rarely have agreat skill set when it comes to
(34:37):
those basics.
And that's not a dig on youngerpeople.
It's like that's just what itis.
You haven't you definitionallydon't know how to do those
things because you haven't donethem yet.
So part of what I'm saying whenI say younger people really are
, I think, suffering from thisin terms of their career
development is they're notgetting that and, as a result,
also where you see youngerpeople earlier in their career
(34:59):
potentially showing some signsof amazing potential, people who
work with them that have beenaround a little bit longer have
a harder time picking up on thatbecause you don't see it as
obviously as when you're infront of people a lot and you
can have conversations thataren't on the agenda right.
What people want to say is thewater cooler conversation where
you just have these unplannedinteractions with people at all
(35:19):
levels of an organization.
It's amazing, it's powerful,and so I think younger people
are limited in terms of whatthey might explore or discover.
The creativity and curiositymight be limited, so I think
that's a real challenge.
You know I've got kids that aregoing to be entering the
workforce in not the immediatefuture, but in the next, say,
five, seven years, and I thinkabout them a lot in terms of
(35:40):
what's their experience going tobe like.
I likely will recommend to themthat they find a company that
they can go to work for, wherethey're in the office at least
three or four days a week, atleast for the first few years of
their career, because I wantthem to have that experience and
have those opportunities.
But I also realize there'speople that are entering the
workforce for us right now, forexample, who are fully remote
(36:00):
from the start, and hopefullythere's a good path for that as
well.
But I do love the fact thatwhen you have a workforce that's
geographically diverse, you cangive people more flexibility to
weave their life in in a waythat makes sense for them, and
that's an incredible quality oflife thing where you spend less
time behind the wheel or in abus or in a subway commuting and
(36:21):
more time either working orwith your family, or both.
Right, I don't think anyone'sever missed the commute, so I'm
sure there's somebody out therewho's missed the commute, but I
(36:42):
never have.
I've been pretty fortunate inthat respect.
I've never had super long ourspecies having a future from a
work productivity perspective ina world of artificial
superintelligence which is onthe horizon, which is that.
I think the creativity thatcomes from what we do, when we
do it together, is enormouslypowerful.
(37:03):
And, by the way, tying thisback is what we just talked
about for the last few minutesis generic to any entity.
Right, it could be a nonprofit,it could be a commercial
organization, it could begovernment, it could be whatever
, but associations, right.
If you took away the annualmeeting, if you took away the
in-person conference whateverthat is or the conferences, the
(37:24):
entire feel of the culture ofthat association changes.
The entire feel of the cultureof that association changes.
And what we learned during thepandemic was that people craved
those in-person, face-to-faceopportunities because we, as a
species, connect.
We're like biologically wiredto want to connect in groups,
right, and so it's verydifficult to take that away and
still have the same experience.
(37:45):
And associations know thatdeeply because they organize
these events.
And so I would simply say like,I think we need to find ways to
get more creative about thatand find opportunities to do
that, and obviously there'sthings like cost concerns and so
forth, but I think you have tomake investments in building
relationships like that.
At the end of the day, and.
I think associations areextremely well positioned to
(38:06):
help with that.
Mallory (38:07):
by the way, Indeed, and I was saying we were fully
remote, I think.
But yes, we do have thesein-person quarterly sessions.
We also, I would say, from likeMarch to November, at least
once a month.
Normally I'm traveling to someof our events or industry events
where I can connect withcolleagues.
So we're not hybrid quite, butwe do have a lot of
opportunities to connect withone another in person, which is
(38:29):
really helpful.
I know there are some remote,like fully remote, associations
out there.
I don't know that that'snecessarily the norm, but do you
have, amit, any advice forfully remote associations that
are trying to be innovative,that are trying to create a
culture of collaboration, likejust things that you've learned
in the past few years fromrunning a remote organization?
Amith (38:51):
Well, I know that many associations were fully remote,
fully remote on a temporarybasis, you know, during the
pandemic, and for some period oftime after.
Most associations I talked toare back in the office the
majority of the time, maybe not100 percent, but three days a
week, two days a week, five daysa week in some cases.
It'd be great to study ifpeople have.
(39:12):
I'm sure there's manyassociations out there, many
tens of thousands ofassociations, just the United
States.
I'm sure some have stayed fullyremote and maybe there's some
that were born that way.
You know, maybe there's anassociation called the Remote
Work Association and theythemselves have awesome office
space, but they probably areremote as well.
But you know, in reality I'msure there are examples and if
(39:35):
you're listening or if you knowsomeone that is in that category
, please write to us and shareyour feedback.
We'd love to have more input onthis that we can share in our
content with our listeners andour readers.
But my main advice is don'tforget that we're human.
We, at the end of the day,thrive on connections, we thrive
on being together.
So invest some dollars inconnectivity, especially when
people are onboarding.
(39:55):
Bring people together.
You know, we have a program herewhere we hire a lot of people
right out of college, but wehave a particular program that's
a form of a fellowship where webring people in, and it's a
fully remote thing right now.
But we are thinking about, well, how do we organize that?
Maybe there's a way where, inthe first three months, or maybe
even just the first 30 days ofa new person's employment, that
(40:19):
they're in a location where wehave a lot of people so that
they can be onboarded and kindof nurtured in a way where, hey,
like this is what work is like,this is what it's like to be a
professional, these are thepeople you get to know.
So it's an interesting thing.
A long time ago I started anoperation offshore with a former
company and when we did that,we brought a number of the
(40:39):
people from the new offshorebusiness to live in the United
States with their colleaguesworking in an office in this
case Chicago for, I think, threemonths, which was a big
imposition, big request.
But it worked beautifullybecause those people had these
relationships when they wentback to their home country and
they were able to collaborate inan incredible way.
If we hadn't done that, itwouldn't have worked so well, so
(41:01):
I think you just have to becreative.
I guess is the way I'mdescribing it.
Mallory (41:06):
Well, everyone, thanks for tuning in to the end of this
episode.
I think you all have earnedyourself a Crunchwrap Supreme.
So if you go out and get one,post a pic on LinkedIn and tag
us in it.
We will see you all next week.
Amith (41:20):
Thanks for tuning in to Sidecar Sync this week.
Looking to dive deeper?
Download your free copy of ournew book Ascend Unlocking the
Power of AI for Associations atascendbookorg.
It's packed with insights topower your association's journey
with AI.
And remember Sidecar is herewith more resources, from
webinars to boot camps, to helpyou stay ahead in the
(41:42):
association world.
We'll catch you in the nextepisode.
Until then, keep learning, keepgrowing and keep disrupting.
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