Bare Bones Banter with Derek Crager

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sarah (00:06):
Uh, welcome to another episode of Bare Bones Banter
with a Mental Funny Bone.
Today we have a guest.
His name is Derek Crager.
Derek is a neurodivergent,entrepreneur and visionary
behind Practical ai, a companycommitted to reshaping how
organizations teach, train, andtroubleshoot in real time with
Def decades.

(00:26):
Experience in industrialtraining and a lifelong ability
to spot systems others overlook.
Derek Developed Pocket Mentor,an AI powered voice support tool
that turns your best employee'sknowledge into an always
available mentor.
Under his leadership practicalAI is equipping manufacturer's
o.
OEM integrators system.

(00:48):
Bingo.
What's his name though?

Chris (00:51):
Ant filled service providers to eliminate downtime,
retain knowledge, and accelerateonboarding without head count or
hardware.
Whether you're solving workforceshortages or future proofing
your customer support, Derekbrings a compelling vision and
practical roadmap for embeddingAI into.

(01:11):
Real world operations.
I had to say real world likethat because I, that will work.
It, it screws it up.
Anyway, I got through it.
Welcome Derek.
Thanks for joining us.
Beautiful.
Thank you for having me.
You, it, it sounds almost like Iwrote it, Sarah.
It's amazing.
It's amazing.
How much did, did I pay you toread that?

(01:32):
Like that?
I mean, if you were paying me, we would've been
doing this interview a long timeago.
I, I should also warn you guysthat for some reason the air is
cut off in this room and it iscurrently 90.
Degrees outside.
And so I will be turning beetred and sweating by the time
we're done.
Alright.
Just so you're aware, challengeaccepted.

(01:52):
Okay.
Alright.
Awesome.
Well, Derek, how about, um, wejust start pretty basic.
Why don't you give us yourstory, introduce yourself to our
audience.
Sounds great.
Yeah, no, uh, no expectations,Derek, just tell us everything,
right?
Yeah, just give, I
mean, give us a little, you know, your elevator pitch,
is that what we call it?
Well, sure.
Well, that'd be, uh, I thinkwhat, 30 seconds or less.

(02:13):
But yeah, thank you for theopportunity and, and honestly,
ladies, it is a pleasure beinghere.
Uh, it's, uh, uh, it's, it's areprieve from all those stuffy
interviews that I've had.
I had one gentleman, he actuallysaid, let's map this out so I
know what you're saying and youknow what I'm saying.
So it was like I was reading ascript and so far in advance.

(02:35):
So just for the benefit ofeverybody here.
I have no idea what I'm gonnasay today.
And I, I feel the, the feeling'smutual.
Yeah.
Our listeners are all about it.
'cause we never know what we'resaying.
They're,
they
embrace it.
Yep.
So, uh, I think Carl Sagan said,if we're gonna start from the
beginning, we gotta start about,uh, you know, the Big Bang.

(02:57):
And I, I'll go from there.
But, uh, zoom, zoom forward alittle bit, uh, outta high
school, I, uh, went to college.
I didn't say university, but Iwent to college and, uh,
apprenticeship at the same time.
I ended up sticking around the,uh, the industrial side.
I was an industrial constructionfirm.
About five years I moved intoautomotive manufacturing.

(03:19):
I worked from the floor up toengineering, up to process
engineer, and then eventually acompany, company went to the
learning team.
I was diagnosed at age 50 andI'm 58 today.
So I think I got a couple or 12,15 years.
I knew ladies at the minimaland, uh, but when I was, I was
diagnosed at age 50.
Yeah.
What were you diagnosed fromDerek?

(03:41):
Um, well, I had a cold.
No, I was diagnosed autistic, ADHD, and dyslexic.
So, you know, one might ask, howdid you not know until you were
50 that you're dyslexic?
But you know, that's a topic fora different podcast.
But at age 50, I, I was workingat Amazon at this time, my first
year there, and so I actuallyembraced this.

(04:05):
I guess the code term now isneurodiversity and I leveraged
that to, uh, build at the timeAmazon.
Well, and still it's, uh,reigning chant and King,
Amazon's highest rated employeetraining program in company
history.
So that's the feather in myCAPAs.
Where in one nice.
And that brings us to the day.
And on the professional side, I,I took what I learned and built

(04:28):
that knowledge.
So I have a learning companytoday.
We leverage ai.
We're not an AI company.
Anybody that tells you they'rean AI company, they're just
blowing the smoke.
No such thing as really a trueAI company.
You might use AI as a tool.
So we're leveraging AI tofacilitate one-on-one learning.
You know, we're trying to getaway from the one to many that

(04:49):
this country was built on.
Your country was built on, everycountry was built on, and now
we're getting down to the valueof the individual.
And that's what we're speakingto at that realm.
The ability for, uh, ourtraining and onboarding, uh, for
companies and even nonprofitstoo.
Be that one on one.
One size fits one scenario.

(05:09):
So that's where we're at today,ladies.
So how, how are you?
That's awesome.
I mean, that feather in your capis a pretty big one, I would
say.
So.
That's a nice feather.
It's a nice feather.
Yeah,
for sure.
Can you help me turn that into atrillion dollars though?
Million?
Well, no.
If we could, if we could turnfeathers into a million dollars,

(05:31):
they would rate fairy talesabout us.
My goodness.
No chicken would be safe.
Seriously.
I have a, I have a duvet on mybed.
Gone.
I hate those.
I live Indiana.
We call it a duvet.
Oh yes.
That's also what I call it.
I don't even live in Indiana.
My goodness.

(05:53):
Derek, my question, um, and ofcourse I planned on going
through a list of things and I'mgonna go right off of it.
Don't roll your eyes at me,Christine.
Sorry, carry on.
Super excited.
So how exactly did you getdiagnosed with this trifecta
here?
Did you, was it somethingparticular that happened that
sent you looking to get di Likedid you, were you advocating for

(06:18):
yourself?
Did you feel like there wassomething going on?
Well, uh, the comedic responsewas I was in a straight jacket
and I had no alternative.
But, uh, the real life answer iskind of similar.
Um, I, uh, I grew up being the,uh, the weird kid and, uh, I was
always misunderstood.
I, I, I guess,'cause my answersalways spoke to the question ask

(06:41):
rather than the answer expected.
So, um.
I, I honestly grew up, Iremember specifically when I was
14 and I don't know if the yearwent by where I didn't step
outside of the self-help aisle.
You know, that, that virtualself-help aisle that started out
in libraries and went tobookstores and, and we can
explain what books are in a, ina later podcast, I'm sure, but

(07:04):
for those that that don't know,but it's kind of like a Kindle,
but, uh, thousands of them.
Um, wouldn't that be cool?
A dedicated Kindle of one bookand we just put'em all on a
show.
Um, now I lost track.
See, that's why, that's why Iwas the different kid.
So this, we love it.
We embrace

(07:24):
it.
Well, uh, fantastic.
The reason for my pursuit wasthat, well, I didn't find an
answer in the self-help file.
I followed all of the, uh, the,the leaders and, and this is how
to make yourself better, andthis is how to produce a
thousand percent a day and thisis how to connect with people
and this is how to.
Speak with people and, and onand on and on.

(07:46):
And I don't know if your show'slong enough to go through the
list, but, um, I, I got to thepoint where this internet thing
came around and which is asharing of information, and I
just started listening in like afly on the wall to, I don't
know, groups of other screwed uppeople.
And, uh, we kind of, uh, I, Isaid, that kind of sounds like

(08:07):
me a little bit.
So I, I kept zooming in and, andjumping from room to robe, and
then I felt.
My God, I had the confidence toactually speak up and say
something and, and I didn't getjudged.
I thought, whoa, whoa, what isthis?
You know, my episode of theTwilight Zone, I said something,
I didn't get judged.
So, um, we started sharing andit's like, wow, that story, my

(08:28):
story too.
And it eventually got to thepoint where, these are my
people.
So I diagnosed myself justsaying, these are my people, but
anybody who's autistic, untilyou get the certification.
You're still wondering, like, isthere a chance that you're just
really screwed up?
So, um, it, uh, I got, I spentabout 10 years in that friend

(08:49):
zone with autism, and, um, I,uh, eventually just got
diagnosed and because I wantedto know, I, I just, you know.
After 50 years, I'd reach mylimit.
I wasn't gonna wait any longer.
And it was, it wasn't to likesit in and you get diagnosed.
Um, so the autism is kind oflike, uh, it's a professional

(09:10):
behavior diagnosis that takesrepetition to understand.
And for the psychopsychotherapist, psychologist,
therapist, uh.
To map out the A DHD.
On the other hand, were youaware ladies, that they have a
computer program?
You just grab a mouse and yousit down for 20 minutes and you

(09:31):
click the mouse and it will tellyou if you have a DHD.
Christine, did you do that?
Is that how you got diagnosed?
Uh, Olivia had it, Liz.
So my daughter got diagnosedfirst and I was like, wait a
second.
Hang on here.
This feels really, reallyfamiliar.
She's like, yeah, I mean, yousee me, mom, I don't have

(09:52):
trouble.
Like I, I'm not a troublemakerin class.
I'm not talking out of turnmuch.
Uh, but here's the all thethings.
And I was like, oh my God, I amlooking at the test and I'm
like, I am also all of thethings.
So yeah, you just click it andthey're like, oh yeah, dummy.
This is what's a sweatshirtthing is, can I do that for
free?

(10:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Really.
I did not know about this.
I mean, you can do it for free.
The doctor that's gonna diagnoseyou is gonna make you do it
twice.
So
no, I don't wanna go to the, Idon't wanna go, I don't wanna
talk to, to a real doctor aboutit.
I just, I'll diagnose, of coursenot myself and we'll move on.
And Derek, I'll mention that.
Sarah's self-diagnosed herselfwith bipolar, I think at 19 or
20, maybe 22.

(10:35):
She was like, I know what'swrong with me.
It's bipolar.
She wrote it down.
Set
expectations.
We live up to'em.
That's when Noble,'cause we still weren't really into the
internet that big.
Um, I, I think maybe just thebeginning.
I think around that time I hadjust gotten my first email
address, but I was spending alot of times in Barnes and Noble

(10:56):
because that had just startedand that was cool.
And that's where I did most ofmy self diagnosing.
It was great.
It was a bookstore, but theyalso had coffee and other
people.
It was
amazing.
Like you could go there.
I love Barnes and Noble.
Oh, don't get me started.
It smells, smells
so good.
It does on a Saturday.

(11:18):
It's killer.

Becca (11:18):
It's killer.
You could spend

Chris (11:21):
like literally an entire Saturday at Barnes and Noble
drinking coffee and diagnosingyourself with whatever Uhhuh,
irr, bowel syndrome.
You can talk yet.
Right, exactly.
Exactly.
IPS.
Yes.
Irritable bowel syndrome,bipolar, whatever, all of it.
A DH, adhd, I mean, whatever.

(11:43):
But yeah.
So, I'm sorry, Derek, weinterrupted you.
I, uh, I think I was followingup on the question why did I get
diagnosed and then led thediagnosis.
Um, I think I was through.
And so all of that, like just starting with the first
diagnosis, it kind of stumbledinto the the A DH diagnosis, A
DHD diagnosis, and then into thedyslexia diagnosis.

(12:07):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It is really all connected over.
Over a series and say, Hey, ifI'm broke, just tell me how bad.
And I mean if I can't imagine anyone ever calling you
broke just in the what, 15minutes that we have talked.
I am like, yeah, you're notbroke.
So we're best friends.
Look at the shit you're doing.
Like this is pretty amazing.

(12:29):
So on that note on shit you'redoing, talk a little bit about
Pocket Mentor, where it started.
What's going on with it now,where it's going?
Well, certainly it's, I believethat knowledge is key to
everything.
There's, uh, um, research outthere that, uh, that shows,
whether it be the New EnglandJournal of Medicine or in

(12:50):
Psychology or, or many otherones, but there's research out
there that shows and, and it's,it's anecdotal.
We can see it at War two, thatwhen humans have access to
education and knowledge,knowledge is the result of
education.
It's one path to that.
They have higher quality oflife.
They live longer, and theirhealth is better.

(13:13):
So it's knowledge can do that.
And there's also correlationthat, you know, the more
informed, uh, people are, thefewer controversies, there are
the fewer wars.
If we really want to go out onthe, on, like the macroeconomic
scale, I'm not saying I waspursuit, uh, of, uh, world peace
was my goal, but, uh, if thiswas Miss America, that would be

(13:36):
my answer.
But, uh, it really extends to,uh, my passion for being a
teacher.
I'm not a K through 12 certifiedteacher.
I'm certifiable, but not in theteaching.
But I do take, uh, spare timethat I have and, and I do, uh,
substitute teach at at the localschools wherein when I can.
So part of it was, uh, seeingthe opportunity in the K through

(13:58):
12 system.
And the other part came from myhistory in industrial
manufacturing.
Industrial manufacturing.
There's headlines out there thatsay, Hey, you know.
Why go to college when you cango to an apprenticeship and, and
make 120 grand a year, you know,after you get outta the
apprenticeship that you, you'remaking money instead of debt.
So the reason those headlinesare out there is because skilled

(14:20):
trades has been a shortage sincethe nineties.
You know, that's 30 years.
So, um, I've been on.
Production floor.
I've been on the operationsfloor and and worked.
I've been a frontline worker.
I've worked with those frontlineworkers.
I've been responsible fortraining those frontline
workers.
And what we see a lot of is thatthere is such a brain suck and

(14:42):
the industrial realm thatmanufacturers can no longer hire
people with the knowledge.
They even, they gave up decadesago for hiring people with
knowledge because it's such acompetitive landscape for one.
But the other is that, uh, theyjust, there's not enough.
We've been scraping the bottomof that proverbial barrel for

(15:04):
decades.
So they, they hire.
Employees to fill thesefrontline roles and, and their
skilled roles, or whether theybe skilled trades, you know,
where people work with theirhands or, or operations, which
still needs, uh, skill to runthe machines and in
manufacturing environments.
So they hire'em with the, uh,promise that they're gonna train
them.
So it's a promise between thecompany and the employee, but

(15:28):
because they're already shortstaffed, they don't have the
extra people power to betrainers.
Stand by them.
So these frontline workers dotwo things.
They stand with their hands intheir pocket or twiddle their
thumbs, or they stand in linebehind their manager or a
subject matter expert, and theywait in their turn and say, oh,

(15:49):
how does this machine work?
Or, oh, how do I diagnose a uh,A-V-F-D-A POWERFLEX 5 25 series
VFD, and get this motor runningon the production line?
The people end up as, uh, likeflashlight holders.
Like, you know, like when I wasa kid, my dad say, hold the
flashlight type of thing.
I, uh, and Christine have, haveyou been that sun before?

(16:09):
Been on the flashlight?
Yes.
Yes.
I, I, it, it, it wasn't that Iwas doing it wrong, it was just
that he was angry about thesituation.
The light's not bright enough.
Christine.
I know Dad.
Well it, this all connected andon the, uh, on the K through 12
side, there's, uh, I think theratios that are important when

(16:32):
people grade schools or givethem a grade of such is the
student to teacher ratio.
And we all know that unless itgets down to one-on-one, every
student's learning is, is just afraction of what it could be.
And I think even when you hitthe 20 25, 30.
Student to teacher ratio.

(16:53):
It's, uh, the student barely hasany time to give feedback.
It's, it's really just sittingthere with your.
Jaw on the ground, your mouthopen and go, uh, Uhhuh.
So for those two scenarios whereindividuals, where we can't
scale the human trainer orteacher to give support for the
individual, I saw an opportunityusing, well, I'm creating

(17:16):
mentors.
So think of, uh.
I, I haven't built an app.
It's not internet based.
It's not wifi based.
It's a telephone call.
So imagine Sarah if I called youon the telephone and I said,
Hey, that looks like coolChapstick.
You know, talk me through how toput on Cool Chapstick and then.
You could tell me.

(17:37):
Yeah.
Well that's Carmex, Derek, and,and I start with the bottom lip
and I go left and right.
Okay.
So talk me through.
It is the basis for my entirecompany and our flagship product
pocket mentor.
It's a human, uh, I think thecool term is anthropomorphize,
you know, all the coolscientific.
Wow.
Kids are giving thumbs up rightnow.
He said that anthropomorphizedvoice I actually have would be

(18:01):
awesome.
An AI that, uh, it talks throughjust it, and it sounds human.
We don't try to pass it off ashuman, but it sounds human and
that human factor breaks.
Down the barriers ofunderstanding.
And so we have conversationswith our earbuds in and it's
like, all right, pocket mentor,I'm here folding an airplane.

(18:22):
Talk me through it and I canadd, I can, I can go off script.
Because that's the differencebetween following an operations
manual or an SOP, or for thatmatter, a YouTube video.
You know, I love YouTube videosto get out there.
Mm-hmm.
Hi, this is Jimmy, and we'rechanging breaks today, and.

(18:42):
But my car doesn't always knowwhat the steps are.
So what happens when I get tostep three and Jimmy's a cool
guy.
I mean, that mullet is stillrocking and, and I'm out here
and I look at step three and Idon't have the piece that he
mentioned.
Now what do I do?
I can't.
Contact Jimmy and get thatone-on-one.

(19:03):
But I can give, make a phonecall with my earbuds in hands
free and go and hold the toolsor the typewriter or the book,
or the manual or themeasurement.
Stick the laser.
Even the flashlight, Christine,I could have that in my hand and
have a conversation and says,Hey, how do I do this?
Okay, I got to step three, butthat spring isn't blue, that

(19:25):
spring is red and it's short.
It's not long.
Oh, well you must be on the.
2022 model Derek.
And, uh, here's how we adjustthe breaks on, on the 2022
model.
So it's conversational and inthe K through 12 scenario, when
the, the child leaves school andit's after hours or on the
weekend, they can actually callpocket mentor and talk about, I

(19:49):
don't know, seventh gradehistory for, uh, maybe English
class or go over their Spanishor, or maybe geography and they
can dive into, um.
If you've met one neurodiverseperson, you've met'em all.
It's kinda like they get you ina conversation and they don't
talk.
But when they engage, and I'mone of them, when I'm enga, I'm,

(20:09):
somebody's showing me like, Ihave worth enough.
They, they give me the time ofday and now I'm gonna talk your
ear off.
And so all those situationswhere the teacher doesn't have
time to talk to the student inclass.
They now have the ability for atelephone call with a mentor, a
teacher, that, that is a, is aproxy and, and basically that

(20:33):
emulation of, uh, of, of theteacher that they can ask all
kinds of questions, go downrabbit holes, and then come back
Monday with a way to, uh, builda new light bulb or a better
bread box.
This is so great.
I don't know if anyone on thiscall has done, uh, math homework
with a, with an eighth graderbefore, but, uh, particularly

(20:56):
maybe a, maybe a little, uh,spicy brained, uh, eighth
grader.
Uh, it is a hoot.
It is a hoot.
Olivia, uh, you have 11 yellowbikes.
You got 14 green bikes.
How many bikes do you have?
She's like, why are we addingbikes?
Don't, no, I'm not gonna engagein that.
Why?
Just add them together?

(21:17):
Just add them together.
And she's like, well, wherewere, where are the bikes going?
No, no.
That's not the question that weneed, hun.
Just 25 is the answer can.
So if I would've had somebodyelse to be like, can you tell
her why we're adding the bikes?
'cause that would be great.
Can you.

(21:38):
Steer in the right direction.
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Christine, you've got that onpoint, right?
Is it still cool to say onpoint?
For our podcast?
Yes.
Okay.
Alright, cool.
Yes, we have absolutely no cluewhat's cool.
Listen, we, we have Becca withus and she will direct us down
to the college age.
Uh, like below that.
We're gonna have to get another,like elementary school intern in

(22:00):
here to say stuff like Riz or ytor what is that?
Riz.
I don't wanna know.
I don't wanna know.
YI actually don't wanna know.
Okay, cool.
Well, the ye Yeah.
No.
Mm-hmm.
No.
I don't want to,
Hey, you know, you mentioned,you mentioned these younger
generations.
Um, I'm gonna take my Supermanclasses off for this one, but

(22:20):
the younger generations, there'suh, um, they don't like to be
told what to do by the man, butthey love to get things done.
They love, uh, accomplishment,but they like to do it on their
own.
Now, I'm, I'm quoting mydaughter who's a psychological
PhD and, and she said, this isthe way it works, dad.
So don't blame me if I did itwrong.

(22:40):
Sorry.
Bus.
Um, so there's, um, ismillennials and Gen Zs, that's
not even, well, I mean, we havelike alphas and betas now,
right?
They're even younger in theworkforce.
I don't even know what I am.
I have to look it up onlineevery time.
I have no clue.
Guess Becca.
I can.
She

Becca (23:01):
did a multimedia journalism project about all the
generations.
So you guys, I believe are GenX.

Chris (23:08):
Gen X for sure.
Sarah's Gen X, but she's like a,she's like a subdivision, like
right on the right on the edge,right at the cusp,

Becca (23:15):
right on the edge, right on the cusp.
Because my boyfriend was 98 andhe is one year after.
Thats an old boyfriend.
Right.
Well,

Chris (23:24):
she's, she's going for the life insurance.
She's doing it right.
He must have game.
Your mom's gonna be so mad atme.
Your mom's gonna be so mad

Becca (23:34):
at me.
That

Chris (23:35):
is so funny.

Becca (23:37):
That's so good.
And then I was born in 2002, sowe're both technically Gen Z,
but we're more towards like themillennial side.
So it's like a weird, it's youguys, gen X, millennials, and
then Gen Z, and now it's, I knowGen Alpha, but.
It sounds, Becca, it sounds likeyou're throwing us all into a
category.
Yeah, I'm not sure.

Chris (23:58):
I don't like it.
I don't like it.
I, I won't be put into a box Idon't like.
Can you tell me which box Ishould go in though?
Hey, we're human.
We want to know and, and that'sanother good point.
Uh, you say your boyfriend isborn, I assume in 1998, and you
were born in 2002.
So the internet has always beenaround for you.
And so you're more familiar withtechnology as a generation and,

(24:22):
uh, as stereotype, we're gonnastereotype you as a gener.
So because you're more familiarwith technology and you grew up,
you know, punching phones withyour thumbs and all that, you
would rather talk and, andcorrect me Becca if I'm wrong
here, but you would rather talkto an AI than you would a human,
especially a 58-year-old whiteguy, right?
No, in all seriousness,

Becca (24:43):
in all honesty, I would,
I don't like talking to people.
If I, it really just depends on the mood.
Like there's some things whereI'm like, if I just need a quick
answer, that's fine.
But if I'm, like with the carsituation, I have no clue about
cars.
I'm gonna call a human for that.
'cause the AI's gonna tell mesomething and I'm gonna be like,
I have no clue.

(25:03):
I need, I need human, I don'tknow.
Cars.

Derek (25:07):
Yeah.
Well if it, if you called ourai, our AI is trained
specifically on what, whatyou're working on.
So it doesn't give those, youknow, dreamy hallucinogen.
Answers.
Now why I say hallucinogen thatway, and I'm thinking mushrooms,
for some reason, our AI doesn'ttake mushrooms.
But, uh, it should.
It's, it's actually trainedspecifically to, to act just

(25:28):
like a human.
And it's, it's, it's that, it'sthat we don't wanna be judged.
And being on the spectrummyself, I don't like to be
judged either.
Yeah.
Sarah, you said you don't likepeople?
I don't like people because Ifeel like I'm judged all the
time.
So what do I do?
Let's get on a podcast.
Viewed my millions, and thenjust put yourself out there.

Sarah (25:46):
Yeah.
I don't like talking to peoplehere I am doing interviews,
getting ready to start my owncoaching business.
I mean, if I know what I'mdoing, I love talking to people
when I don't know what I'mdoing, like ordering a pizza.
I don't like to talk to people.
I go to ordering the pizza.
'cause I just can't.
If you, if there's no onlineordering, I won't order food

(26:07):
from that place.
That's ridiculous.
But

Derek (26:10):
I'm with you.
I'm with you.
I, I will sit outside theparking lot at Taco Bell and I
will punch in my order and justwait, rather than just go up to
the drive through, legit.

Becca (26:23):
Mm-hmm.
Across from my Taco Bell back inmy, um, college town.
And my friend will be like, justorder.
And I'm like, no, I'm goingthrough the app.
I'm like, can I just walk upthere?
I say my name and then give itto me.
I'm gone.

Sarah (26:35):
It's great.
Yeah.
It's it's great and ridiculousat the same time.
And I love that.
I'm not the only person who doesthese things, but Yeah.
And that's exactly what myholdup is with talking to
people.
If I'm confident what I'mtalking about, if I know what
I'm talking about, Christine,you will, uh, attest to the fact
that I won't shut up.
But if I don't, then, and herewe, here we are today.

(26:55):
Well, you're not even in thesame room together.
We never are.
She's stuck.
She's stuck in Newark and yeah,we never are, so it works.
Alright, so Christine, you'retaking notes.
I, I think you're taking notes,drawing.
Did you have any questions?
Which is a, um, A DHD, uh, wayto stay focused is drawing while

(27:17):
somebody else is talking.
I forget the exact name for it,but I do it all the time.
Diddling, I mean, it's calleddoodling, but there's an actual
like.
Fancy name.
That sounds, I don't know.
You're doing great.
Smart.
Yeah.
Smart.
I used to knit duringteleconferences because that's

(27:37):
how I would pay attention.
'cause if you can keep my handsbusy, then I'm not like clicking
all over the internet, right?
Like I'm not
mm-hmm.

Chris (27:44):
Doing, doing the stuff I usually do.
Um, no.
Here's my thoughts.
Where, yeah, there's always,there is always a fidget toy.
So Olivia and I both have a DH,ADHD and we're both working on
relationships.
So we go to, uh, we go totherapy together.
The two of us are sitting thereand at like our introductory
little therapy thing.

(28:05):
And we're talking aboutsomething or other.
Olivia is her daughter, by theway.
Derek, right?
Just sorry.
I don't know if we covered that,but go ahead and, and uh, and
before we even get to the a DDpart, the therapist hands us
both like tiny little fidgettoys.
She's like, here you go.
I think you're both going toneed these.
And before you even have to sayit, I have your a DD diagnosis

(28:27):
written down already.
I was like, we have been herefor five minutes.
Five minutes.
So.
Exactly, exactly right.
So I, I think the best part thatI can think of about having a
pocket mentor, somebody to, tocall up and, and interact with
and be like, Hey, I got to partseven and now I'm done paying

(28:47):
attention.
Like, I don't wanna, I don'twanna, I don't wanna look at
these instructions anymore.
I have a, I have every, I haveevery booklet from IKEA for
putting together furniture.
I get 80% of the way done.
I have 14 screws left.
I'm like, I'm just gonna hitover the hammer until it goes
together.
We're, we're fine now.
So this is, this is.

(29:08):
Amazing.
I love it.
I am, I am all in on it.
Mm-hmm.
And I know that Olivia would betoo, if she ever had to put
anything together because I, I,I like it at the beginning.
I'm like, yes.
And that is, that is like, alsothe hard part for me is like the
idea of putting together IKEAfurniture super appealing.
I'm like, let me lay out all thebits and pieces in their little

(29:29):
rows.
Let me get all ready for it andlet me look through the
instructions up until step fiveand now, um, now I'm bored.
I get bored.
I get bored easily.
Yeah, like same thing like superexcited about net, my new IKEA
furniture, and I actually don'tmake it past, like setting out
all the pieces' like cool's.
Why?
That's why you have me.

(29:49):
That's awesome.
Yeah.
True, true.
Yeah.
I think my question would be howdo you, how do you see, do you
see the pocket mentor growing?
How do you see it, it evolvingover the, over the next couple
of years?
Are you looking to do more ofsort of the industrial
education?
Are you looking to do more of,uh, more of the workplace?

(30:12):
Are you looking to do more ofelementary math, uh,
applications?
What, where do, where do you seeit being the most useful and,
and where are your plans fortaking it there?
The, um, just the, this voiceinterface, it speeds up the
response so much faster thantyping at a keyboard.
And, and if I had to pull out myphone and find the app and, all

(30:35):
right, chat, GPT, and I'm typingright?
And well, now I gotta go backand all the correct, you know,
all the frustrating barriersthat we have, but this, we're
really at a singularity pointwhere we can just speak.
Have a conversation with ahuman.
And I tell everybody that ourtechnology is 50,000 years old.
What?
Yeah.
Our AI technology is 50,000years old because we train it

(30:58):
like we have for 50,000 yearsthrough storytelling from human
to human to human.
And the uh, the difference nowis our human doesn't.
Take a sick day and doesn't goon vacation and doesn't retire
and take their knowledge withthem.
So, um, that's the process andit feels like, uh, I invented

(31:20):
either a paperclip or paper andthe value is not in the
paperclip itself or the paperthat you have, but in what you
do with this.
So I've been avoiding that,answering that question now for
about 38 seconds.
But I see it as a, uh, in theUnited States, there's a push to

(31:40):
increase manufacturing, get backto the 1960s where we're
building a lot more.
And if we're short skilledtrades right now, uh, what, how
are we gonna grow manufacturingif we're already short?
Qualified employees.
So I see pocket mentors beingfoundational for that growth.
On the teacher education side, Ijust looked at a graph that's,

(32:01):
and I'm not saying it'sauthentic, it, it looked
authentic'cause it was cool.
It had lines and it said, yeah,I love those.
1980, the, uh, nationaleducation system.
There was like.
$20 billion a year spent.
But in 2022 it peaked out at$634billion.
And in the next page there wasanother graph that said, reading

(32:24):
comprehension, lower mathcomprehension lower.
And we're not solving problemsby throwing money at it.
Um, I think we really need toget down to that one-on-one
scalability and.
When I substitute, I'm kind ofchecking out the ages of people
'cause I need to know whatcabinet I fit in, right?

(32:45):
There's those that have beenteaching for 20, 30 or 40 years,
and then there's the ones thathave been there one or two
years.
But in the middle there's not alot of, uh, age representation
in or.
Experience in the middle becauseso many people that you know
from the time they're six yearsold, when I grow up, I wanna be
a teacher.
And then they go through collegeand they get their
certifications and theirdegrees, then they step foot in

(33:07):
a public school system.
They're appalled.
They, I wanna teach, oh no, youcan't teach, you gotta do this
for, I want to teach.
And so that light bulb that'sbeen on for 20 years now
suddenly goes off.
And so we have a brain drain inon the teacher realm.
So I think that, and I thinkPocket Mentor can give that

(33:29):
one-on-one attention to the 90%of the classroom that needs
one-on-one attention and do itwithout.
Impacting that teacher.
'cause those teachers, eventhough it's a seven and a half
hour day, depending on whereyou're at, um, in school day,
those teachers are working 12,13 hours a day.
They start before school.

(33:50):
They're after school and they'restretched thin.
And so they're barely getting byin their own classroom.
So they definitely don't havethat extra bandwidth to train
other teachers, mentor.
Other teachers.
So I had us interviewed on ateacher podcast and, and they
said, Hey, can you see usingthis to help onboard teachers at

(34:10):
school system?
And I went.
I hadn't thought about that.
How great, how great is theworld that they just offer and
identify opportunities formaking our life better?
So in that round, it could helpthe teacher out, uh, on their
year one, year two, et cetera.
And it gives that one-on-onewith the students.
So the future I see is that weall have the information

(34:35):
delivered to us.
What we need, when we need it atthe speed of light.
And I, there's so much value inthat versus my, you know, think
back, yeah, think back when youwere young, Becca, when the US
Post, you know, rode horsesacross the country and, and
delivered letters that took, youknow, uh, a month and a half.
So it's that, it's thatiteration ability and, and we're

(34:58):
at this crescendo, and it's thetrue singularity point where we
can iterate immediately insteadof.
Backtracking through technologytyping.
I got a prompt engineer aquestion just to get the answer
I'm looking for.
So how long does that take?
So let's say, even if it's aminutes versus instant and then
back before that, well, let mewait till Monday and I'll, I'll

(35:21):
call Christine and say, Hey,how, talk me through this again.
How do I do.
So now we're talking a day ortwo or three.
And then let's go back evenfurther before the internet and
let me write letters.
And now it takes weeks at bestto go across country or across
the world.
So if you can only iterate onceevery two weeks, your iteration

(35:43):
is, is success is gonna fail.
Whereas if you could iterate,boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, go
off on a tangent and iterate,boom, boom, boom.
Imagine a Einstein.
Could, uh, soundboard withhimself or Nicola Tesla could
soundboard with himself, howmuch more they would've built.
I just think, I think that's anincredible future, right?
And I wanna be, I wanna helpthat vision.

(36:04):
Yeah, that's
amazing.
Like to the point where I mighthave goosebumps because that's.
I love this so much.
I absolutely love this so much.
Yeah.
And a lot of, uh, sorry Sarah.
No, go ahead.
Go ahead.
A lot of, a lot of what we talkabout on the podcast is, uh,
recognizing that not every brainworks the same and, and being

(36:26):
able to say to other people,Hey, uh, I have this, or This is
how my brain works.
And.
Being able to tailor a response,being able to work with a pocket
mentor and have that pocketmentor understand and you know,
recognize that I'm not gonna aska question the same way Sarah's
gonna ask a question.

(36:47):
I'm gonna ask it completelydifferently.
And if I'm Olivia, I'm gonnawanna know why there's bikes in
my math question.
And we're gonna have to getthrough that before we can get
to anything else.
And I think if we can, cantailor.
The education to the individualin a way that makes it make
sense.
Then I, I think, you know, thenyou've really, you've really,

(37:08):
and improved a broken system.
Like right now, we just giveeverybody the same education,
the same words, the same book,the same.
The same.
Same.
And being able to kind of takeit from, you know, where Sarah
and I are coming at sort ofmental health is you have to be
you and you have to do yourindividual thing.
And being able to apply thatyounger and younger and have the
expectation be that somebodyresponds to that, not with, Hey,

(37:30):
that's a great idea.
Here's your assignments for nextweek.
Go home and hassle your parentsinto helping you until they want
to murder the people that arethere to take care of'em when
they're old.
So I, I, again, uh, I mean, Ithink that the more that we can
fit things for purpose and themore we can recognize that every

(37:51):
brain isn't gonna be the sameand every brain isn't going to
be able to ask the same questionthe same way, every brain isn't
gonna be able to come up withthe ideal AI prompt as I'm
typing it in.
Like, this is awesome.
Make sense?
Yeah.
You see the vision?
I, I love that you were boughtin and you mentioned, you know,
the differences.
Our brains are different.
There's a, uh, I was actuallyjust speaking with her today,

(38:13):
um, and throw this in your SEOfor your type script.
Um, but the Dr.
Nancy Doyle is, she's outtaLondon or nearby London.
US Americans are geographicallychallenged, but I figured
London's close enough.
She actually built somethingcalled Genius Within, and it's
genius within dot, and she has apage called What is Diversity?

(38:33):
What is Neurodiversity?
So on that page she talks aboutthe spiky profile.
So we are all different, andeven those of us that are
autistic or A DHD, that doesn'tmake us mirrors of somebody else
who's autistic and A DHD.
We are truly individuals andmm-hmm.
Dr.
Doyle is, uh, double D.

(38:55):
Now, this alliteration is in mymind and is Bango Spectro Gadget
is, I guess is where I wentthere.
But, um, she came up with aspiky profile and it shows an,
an XY axis in this graph is.
Average people or normal is whatwe call'em.
They're average.
They have this slightly up anddown on every skill set.
They perform slightly aboveaverage, slightly below average.

(39:18):
Nobody is average all the wayacross, or that's probably is
one person and he's reallyboring.
But in the spiky profile of theneurodiverse, and they're
starting to say even a DHDautism, that they're starting to
get away from individual namingstructure and just saying, Hey,
we got box A or box B.
Which island of misfit toys doyou wanna be on?

(39:38):
So she shows that on certainskills, like, uh, I don't know,
reasoning and analytical, maybe,uh, somebody, uh, with autism is
at the 200% level.
Compared to, you know, the, thenorm or the median, I guess.
And then, but on communicationand social, uh, prowess, they
might be on the negative 200% orthey just fail.

(39:59):
So, Hey, Mr.
Tesla, you just built, uh, youknow, wireless electricity, why
don't you speak at our event?
And then they get fired, right?
And I've, I've been, uh, I've,I've fallen on that ax a number
of times.
Um, you know, praised for allthe.
Cool things I did in production,I did.
But then, uh, you know, nextweek that was all forgotten.

(40:19):
I, I said something wrong orsomebody misunderstood what I
said.
And, and no, we gotta, we, we,we gotta get rid of you.
You're just not.
Part of the culture we're likein here.
So because I ask questions, I'msorry.
That is, that is the best part of the, of all, all of the,
the focus on, uh, mental health,all of the people kind of going

(40:42):
to the internet being like, hangon a sec, I'm not weird.
I'm just, uh, a little bit, uh,spicy brain, just like everyone
else in this particular chatroom.
So, and having, having employersrecognize that as well, that,
you know, just because you havean idea of this culture, um, and

(41:03):
that, that's a big thing, oh,everyone likes to play like ping
pong or whatever.
You know, everyone really digsthis slide in the kitchen.
Instead of making the investmentthere, maybe make the investment
in something that actually doesget the sort of neurodivergent.
Included in what's happening.
Maybe that's a, maybe that's abetter way to define and, and

(41:24):
recognize a culture in acompany.
I just love this so much and Ifeel like it's way more than I
was thinking it was when wefirst got on this call and I did
learn.
I didn't know what an OEM was.
I don't know it.
See, it's on my screen here.
'cause I had to look up what anOEM was.
So I learned that before we goton this call.

(41:45):
Not a freaking clue why I justwent onto that anyway.
Yes, this is much more than Ioriginally thought it was, and I
think that what you are doing,Derek, and your brain and the
way it works, is an absolutegift.
And I love it so much.

(42:07):
And I think the vision that youhave is incredible.
And I know, I'm pretty sure Ispeak for all of us.
Not that we have huge reach, butwe are gonna do whatever we can.
To help you and get your messageout there for sure.
'cause it's, um, it's extremelyinspiring.
So thank you for that.
Yeah, yeah.

(42:27):
I do have more questions.
That wasn't just wrapping us up,that was just me.
I was like, we're not done yet.
Sarah, thank you so much.
But
yeah, please,
please continue.
I've,
I've got all night.
Yes.
I'm kind of hungry.
So, um, my next question isabout the clients that you have.
So I actually didn't.
No, that before we got on thiscall, apparently I didn't do

(42:50):
enough research.
I didn't realize that you werein the realm of education as
well as, um, industrialmanufacturing and whatnot.
I didn't know that you had areach into both of those areas,
and I think that is amazing.
Since you have started this,what, what have your clients
seen in return?

(43:11):
With the pocket mentor, whattype of feedback do you get?
I'm assuming someone like youwants to look at data to see
what's going on.
So what are your clients seeing?
Well, there's, uh, there's.
Pushback, depending on the, uh,you know, the personality and,
and, and the realm.
Honestly, it's, it's somethinglike, uh, I, I taught at Amazon.

(43:32):
It's, it's change management is,there's those that are early
adopters.
Um, and same thing goes with AIright now, you know, worldwide,
there's the early adopters, thenthere's the, you know, the
Luddites that are out there.
It says, no, no, no, that'sevil, that's Satan.
And then there's a lot of peoplein the middle that we could say
are on the fence.
So, um, once, once theyunderstand.

(43:52):
Stand it.
To be honest, I, I feel I'vearticulated it better here.
This, uh, in this room todaythan, than I have in the past.
And getting past thatarticulation, like how do you
define what paper is, what's thevalue of paper?
Well, you can write stuff up.
I've got my cave wall.
I, you know, that stuff burnsand it will blow away.
Paper will never make it sothat, that's part of a wall of

(44:16):
change, that knowledge orarticulating the value around.
But those that have got to it,there's some pushback and then
there's others that jump rightin and it's like.
Wow.
It's, it's, it's like I'mtalking to a human and I don't
have to get Jim out of bed at2:30 AM on a Saturday morning.
'cause Jim's the only person, orJanet is the only people that
have the answer to that.

(44:36):
So in the industrial setup, it'slike, uh, well.
Can't get ahold of Jim or he ison vacation, so let's just shut
the line down.
And in production we talk aboutdowntime is a cost of the
company.
So if a machine or a line or anoperation goes down and it's
down for hours and especiallydays depending on the

(44:57):
manufacturer, they could belosing hundreds of thousands of
dollars per hour.
When it's down, so it'simportant to get back up.
Um, on the, uh, on the schoolside, I don't have any official
contracts with, uh, K through12.
We have some experimentationgoing on.
Okay.
Every school has, uh, at leastone, if not two, of those techno

(45:18):
nerds that, uh, that's justwanna play with every toy that's
out there.
So we're, uh, we're, we'redabbling and enjoying and with a
li this, I don't know, a limitedbeta, I guess you you'd call it.
Mm-hmm.
At a couple schools, thefeedback is, Hey, I like it, but
can it do this?
Hey, I like it, but can it dothat?

(45:38):
So there's still theunderstanding of the value, and
so every bit that they learn,we're learning too to make the
product better because this.
What we're doing here.
It's not just, you know, saddleChat, GPT with a microphone,
speaker and role.
We are actually training, gotsome secret sauce of our own
right in the, in the back end.

(45:58):
Mm-hmm.
We're training it on only thespecific information that needs
to be trained on, but now thatthe information is there.
How do we interface mostefficiently?
Um, it's like train the trainerand you can teach a trainer or a
soon to be trainer, Hey, here'sthe information, but you also
have to train the trainer on howdo you handle situations when

(46:21):
you know you've got the negativeNellie and the know-it-all NEDs
out there, or the ones that justwon't participate or, or they
push back here.
You have to handle thatpsychological and social.
Interface.
So we train our AI the same way,so it's about 60% psychology and
only about 40% true ai.

(46:43):
Um, but then it's, it's thoseanswers.
So the closer we get.
And we're doing pretty good now,we, we can usually line in tune
that voice response to thepersonality that, um, that the
client or the school or theteacher wants it to represent.
Some say talk slow, some saytalk fast.

(47:03):
Some say add humor.
Some say let's just, you know,go without humor.
But it's, it's still a bigexperiment right now.
But even though there's so muchsuccess and, and positive
feedback for those that haveactually.
Indulge that, uh, that, thatthere's positive growth here.
And I, I look forward to, uh, toconnecting.

(47:24):
There's a lot of K through 12schools out there.
I, i, I wish I could connect tothem all.
So if, if anybody's out therethat just wants to experiment,
no cost, let's just play around,see if we can build a future
together.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
I think that's amazing.
And like I said, we were, we'regonna push this one out as much
as we can for sure.
And I know I have a shit ton ofteacher friends, um, because on

(47:48):
a daily basis I'm saying, you'reunderpaid.
You could pay me enough to dothe shit that you do.
So I'm gonna push this out tothem as much as we can.
Absolutely.
I do have another question.
So when you have a new client,uh.
Coming on board, I guess itwould be like onboarding.
How, how does the process gowith a new client?
How does it work when you'rejust building that relationship

(48:10):
and getting started with, um,the pocket mentor?
It, it begins with understandingthe problem that they wanna
solve.
And, uh, too oftentimes somebodyis selling a, a, a solution
without identifying a problem.
So I, I truly believe that, uh,for every hour we should, you
know, thinking about a problem,55 minutes of it should be on

(48:31):
the problem on why and, and whatthe goals are.
And then the other 5%, thesolution just rises to the top.
So a typical, uh, intake.
Of a new client is, uh, first ofall connecting with all the
SMEs, the subject matterexperts.
I almost said subject wrong,subject matter experts, uh,
SMEs.
So yeah, throw some acronyms outthere.

(48:53):
Um, SMEs, SMEEs.
Yeah, I love them.
Uh, it's identifying who theyare.
So it's, it, it becomes aproject at this, at this point.
And I am, I'm a certifiedproject manager and there's
certain steps and expectations.
Derek, as a project manager knowyou have absolutely no power and
except influence.

(49:13):
So, um, even when we have a.
Uh, a paying client, there'sstill that barrier of can we
connect to everybody and can weget that initial information to
identify what the problem isthat we're solving for?
And then once we solve for that,uh, give us the data, the
knowledge, whether it be manualsor books that you use to train
your trainer.

(49:35):
That's our starting point fortraining our trainers.
So the process is that normallytakes up to 30 days.
I put a window on that because Iwant them to have a deadline,
right?
Because we can't do anythingreally until we get that
knowledge.
So 30 days there and thenthere's 45 days.
We put out a uh, MVP and theyknow what MVP stands for.

(49:57):
Um, minimal viable product.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
It's a, you're such a nerd.
Yeah, sure am.
Yeah.
A hundred percent total.
I was like, that's super easy.
It's the most valuable player.
No, it does.
It has nothing to do withsports, statues or anything.
Shit.
Okay.
Or
naked tats or juujitsu.
I get it.
I love it.
I love it.

(50:17):
Uh, to close out, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
To close out so we can listen tothe pretty people here in a
minute.
We put out the MVP and thenthere's a, uh, a trial, uh,
internal trial.
It's not publicly releasedinside the company, but we just
go back and forth and it, it'sjust cism and, and, and
relationship and communicationand tell, it's tuned just right.

(50:37):
Sometimes we hit it right out ofthe gate and they're up and
running within 45 or 60 days.
We've even had somebody up andrunning in seven days from where
we started.
Wow.
So I don't wanna set thatexpectation.
Um, I was taught to underpromise and over deliver.
Chris, you know, that one too.
Okay, cool.
Cool.
Um, so, and that's the way itworks.

(50:57):
Uh, we just iterate as a teamuntil they get the solution.
So our work is really heavy onthe front end, uh, working with
the client and, uh, and theknowledge.
But once we get the knowledgethere.
It pretty much goes automatic.
Now, we, we throw in some CFMscustomer feedback mechanisms.
I learned that while it ends onCFM customer feedback mechanism,

(51:19):
so on an ongoing basis we canimprove the process and improve
the, uh, the conversation.
But, uh, by the time we get tothis point, we're really 95% of
the way to, uh, what somebodymight call perfection.
Um, sissy, Becca, do you guys have any other questions?

(51:41):
I mean, I'm, that's, that's itfor my questions, so if you guys
have anything.
I, I mean, I will, I will saythat I work in a heavily,
heavily regulated industry andall, all that, all that these
guys are talking about now, likethe people who provide
technology for clinicalresearch, all anyone is talking
about is ai.
Oh, we gotta do ai.

(52:01):
What are we gonna do with ai?
I'm like, well, what are, and ifI had a nickel for every time, I
said, well, what problem are yousolving with ai?
Like, what are you, what's the,what's the challenge that you
think we can do?
And what are we doing right nowand how can we do that?
Right?
We're solving everything.
We're gonna solve everything.
It doesn't matter, Christine, aslong as it's ai, it
doesn't matter.
We're gonna solve it.
I
was like, well, okay.

(52:23):
Yeah.
I mean, I could think of fourproblems right off the top of my
head, but Okay.
Yeah.
No, we'll throw, we'll throw ana eye like getting your sister
to shut up while you're talkinglike.
These are gonna be tough to probto problem solve with ai.
But I mean, yeah, I don't know.
I mean, we definitely could workon it.
I mean, it is literally the onlything people are presenting,

(52:43):
like, and if you don't have anAI related topic, even if you
have a topic that is, uh,important to the industry, you
just throw and AI on the end ofit.
To get, to get someone listento, to listen to you.
Like, you know, we're, we're,we're talking about better ways
to, you know, cut an orange.
I'm like, oh, using ai.

(53:04):
We'll just put that at the endand then we can talk about how
we just asked Chad TPT how manysections should I cut this
orange in?
And then we're done.
But it is a, it is a wild timeto, uh, to, to kind of watch
people try to.
You know, just, just throw AIaround to get stuff done, and it
is kind of refreshing andreally, really nice to hear

(53:27):
somebody say, well, what problemare you trying to solve?
Like straight, straight.
Outta the gate and have someonewho understands that.
Yeah, like the knowledge is the,is the core of it, but the
interface and the way you getpeople to interact with it is
gonna be the way that you changethe world.
Like, and I know you're notgoing for world peace or you
know, whatever, but mm-hmm.

(53:48):
That is how you are going toimpact the generations down the
line.
We've got plenty of knowledge.
We've got plenty of Internetsand instructions and manuals,
and what we really need to workon is how do we, how do we get
the interface to interact with?
People in a, in a better way andstarting, starting with
education and starting with thetwo applications where there's

(54:10):
this huge disconnect betweenwhat people want their world to
look like and what it looks likenow.
Like, wanting to go back to makeAmerica great and, and kind of
get all the industrial pieces inplace, but not having the,
necessarily the background andkind of the infrastructure to do
that.
And then looking at the littlebabies who don't understand why
there's a bike in their mathproblem.
These are two great ways to getinto it.

(54:31):
I'm so excited to see what youguys can do in the future.
Like, I can't, I can't wait.
I'm pumped.
And it has given me, honestly,like a little bit of hope that
everyone isn't just kind oftagging AI into something that
they're actually mm-hmm.
They're actually thinking andconsidering, you know, what's
gonna be the, the thing thatreally changes how we, how we

(54:53):
work with it.
And it's not gonna be.
It's not gonna be, uh, gettingbetter knowledge or eliminating
data processors from, from anequation.
It's gonna be the way that wetalk to it and the way we get
what we need from it.
So, thank you.
Congratulations.
This is amazing work and I can'tbelieve that if somebody conned
this guy into being on ourpodcast, that's awesome.
I know, right?

(55:14):
This is like, wow.
I, I'm, I am extremely impressedin my ability to get someone on.
I actually think Derek mighthave, he might have initiated it
because we're seriously funny.
Um, I searched
out only the highest ratedpodcast with the highest quality
content

(55:35):
that's us with the, the funniest chicks on it.
That is a hundred percent us.
We're changing the world.
One little opinion aboutneurodivergent people at a time.
We win a.
Derek, I do have one morequestion, not so much a
question, but for our listeners,let them know where they can get

(55:56):
in touch with you if they'reinterested in learning more.
Oh, certainly.
Uh, if you grab my name onLinkedIn, I'm, I'm one of very
few people with, uh, with myname.
Uh, it should pop up readily onLinkedIn, and if you're looking
for our web presence, uh.
I think I have it if the labelshows up on the video screen.
Practical ai.app.

(56:17):
A PP.
So it's kind of ironic that our,our company is practical AI do
app like Apple, Paul, Paul, butour solution is not an app.
Yeah.
So we're.
We're self ironic.
How would we phrase that, Becca?
We we're ironic of self.
I don't know.

Becca (56:32):
That's interesting because it just is, it's
sounding more like a piece ofsoftware versus like an actual
like application that you can,don't say that like it's a bad
thing.
No, no.
I'm excited because.
Well, in all honesty, like Ijust graduated college.
This sounds incredible.
Like thank you I, this soundslike something that would've

(56:54):
helped me with my stats versusme crying over it and begging
the lady and be like, pleasejust pass me.
Please.
I'll be out of your hair.
I'll be gone.
I'm very excited to see wherethe conversational aspect goes
because I feel as though AI isnecessarily used as replacement
and not a tool when it comes tomy generation.
Mm-hmm.
Which sucks and I think that'swhy I struggle so much with it.

(57:17):
So I'm really excited to seelike the conversational aspect
that you were mentioning, but Iwould say it's more of a system
than an app.
Thank you.
Thank you, Becca.

Chris (57:27):
Nerd Becca.
I love it.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining our team,Becca Nerd.
Well done.
Well done nerds.
All right, Derek, is thereanything else that you wanna
share with our audience?
You know, uh, sincerity.
Thank you very much for havingme here and, and being
entertaining and, andentertaining my presence.

(57:48):
Um, oh, by the way, did I tellyou that, uh, in, uh, that
there's one way to get apromotion When you work at
Amazon, you just shave your headlike Jeff, and it gets
guaranteed to give you one levelpromotion.
I went from a a L five to an Lsix just because of this.
Wow.
I can pull it off.
You
can, I mean, I have a, I have a Please don't

(58:10):
shave your head.
Well, I don't wear, I don't work for Amazon.
Sta Well, I don't, I just, I, Isaw it for a second and it was
making me nervous and Daddy hasexplained what your head looked
like when you were born.
It might be my sleep paralysis

Becca (58:25):
demon for the night am like trying to fall asleep and I
just see.
Chrissy with a bald head.
It's not pointed anymore.
No, but that's,

Chris (58:36):
that's still the story I have in my head is daddy tapping
on the glass and looking at thenurse and saying,
listen, it's fine.
They had to, what's wrong withher head?
They had to grab me with littlehooks and it made my head a
little pointy, Derek.
That's all I mean.
Yeah.
Don't shave your head.
Okay, fine.
I won't.
Fine.
I won't.
Okay.

(58:57):
All right.
Well we're gonna go ahead andwrap up.
We will hit stop re Well,Christine will hit stop
recording because that's whatshe's in charge of'cause I
always hit the wrong button.
Sounds great.
Thank you.
Alright, thank you.
Thanks.

Sarah (59:10):
Uh, welcome to another episode of Bare Bones Banter
with a Mental Funny Bone.
Today we have a guest.
His name is Derek Crager.
Derek is a neurodivergent,entrepreneur and visionary
behind Practical ai, a companycommitted to reshaping how
organizations teach, train, andtroubleshoot in real time with
Def decades.

(59:30):
Experience in industrialtraining and a lifelong ability
to spot systems others overlook.
Derek Developed Pocket Mentor,an AI powered voice support tool
that turns your best employee'sknowledge into an always
available mentor.
Under his leadership practicalAI is equipping manufacturer's
o.
OEM integrators system.

(59:51):
Bingo.
What's his name though?

Chris (59:55):
Ant filled service providers to eliminate downtime,
retain knowledge, and accelerateonboarding without head count or
hardware.
Whether you're solving workforceshortages or future proofing
your customer support, Derekbrings a compelling vision and
practical roadmap for embeddingAI into.

(01:00:15):
Real world operations.
I had to say real world likethat because I, that will work.
It, it screws it up.
Anyway, I got through it.
Welcome Derek.
Thanks for joining us.
Beautiful.
Thank you for having me.
You, it, it sounds almost like Iwrote it, Sarah.
It's amazing.
It's amazing.
How much did, did I pay you toread that?

(01:00:36):
Like that?
I mean, if you were paying me, we would've been
doing this interview a long timeago.
I, I should also warn you guysthat for some reason the air is
cut off in this room and it iscurrently 90.
Degrees outside.
And so I will be turning beetred and sweating by the time
we're done.
Alright.
Just so you're aware, challengeaccepted.

(01:00:56):
Okay.
Alright.
Awesome.
Well, Derek, how about, um, wejust start pretty basic.
Why don't you give us yourstory, introduce yourself to our
audience.
Sounds great.
Yeah, no, uh, no expectations,Derek, just tell us everything,
right?
Yeah, just give, I
mean, give us a little, you know, your elevator pitch,
is that what we call it?
Well, sure.
Well, that'd be, uh, I thinkwhat, 30 seconds or less.

(01:01:17):
But yeah, thank you for theopportunity and, and honestly,
ladies, it is a pleasure beinghere.
Uh, it's, uh, uh, it's, it's areprieve from all those stuffy
interviews that I've had.
I had one gentleman, he actuallysaid, let's map this out so I
know what you're saying and youknow what I'm saying.
So it was like I was reading ascript and so far in advance.

(01:01:39):
So just for the benefit ofeverybody here.
I have no idea what I'm gonnasay today.
And I, I feel the, the feeling'smutual.
Yeah.
Our listeners are all about it.
'cause we never know what we'resaying.
They're,
they
embrace it.
Yep.
So, uh, I think Carl Sagan said,if we're gonna start from the
beginning, we gotta start about,uh, you know, the Big Bang.

(01:02:01):
And I, I'll go from there.
But, uh, zoom, zoom forward alittle bit, uh, outta high
school, I, uh, went to college.
I didn't say university, but Iwent to college and, uh,
apprenticeship at the same time.
I ended up sticking around the,uh, the industrial side.
I was an industrial constructionfirm.
About five years I moved intoautomotive manufacturing.

(01:02:23):
I worked from the floor up toengineering, up to process
engineer, and then eventually acompany, company went to the
learning team.
I was diagnosed at age 50 andI'm 58 today.
So I think I got a couple or 12,15 years.
I knew ladies at the minimaland, uh, but when I was, I was
diagnosed at age 50.
Yeah.
What were you diagnosed fromDerek?

(01:02:45):
Um, well, I had a cold.
No, I was diagnosed autistic, ADHD, and dyslexic.
So, you know, one might ask, howdid you not know until you were
50 that you're dyslexic?
But you know, that's a topic fora different podcast.
But at age 50, I, I was workingat Amazon at this time, my first
year there, and so I actuallyembraced this.

(01:03:09):
I guess the code term now isneurodiversity and I leveraged
that to, uh, build at the timeAmazon.
Well, and still it's, uh,reigning chant and King,
Amazon's highest rated employeetraining program in company
history.
So that's the feather in myCAPAs.
Where in one nice.
And that brings us to the day.
And on the professional side, I,I took what I learned and built

(01:03:32):
that knowledge.
So I have a learning companytoday.
We leverage ai.
We're not an AI company.
Anybody that tells you they'rean AI company, they're just
blowing the smoke.
No such thing as really a trueAI company.
You might use AI as a tool.
So we're leveraging AI tofacilitate one-on-one learning.
You know, we're trying to getaway from the one to many that

(01:03:53):
this country was built on.
Your country was built on, everycountry was built on, and now
we're getting down to the valueof the individual.
And that's what we're speakingto at that realm.
The ability for, uh, ourtraining and onboarding, uh, for
companies and even nonprofitstoo.
Be that one on one.
One size fits one scenario.

(01:04:13):
So that's where we're at today,ladies.
So how, how are you?
That's awesome.
I mean, that feather in your capis a pretty big one, I would
say.
So.
That's a nice feather.
It's a nice feather.
Yeah,
for sure.
Can you help me turn that into atrillion dollars though?
Million?
Well, no.
If we could, if we could turnfeathers into a million dollars,

(01:04:35):
they would rate fairy talesabout us.
My goodness.
No chicken would be safe.
Seriously.
I have a, I have a duvet on mybed.
Gone.
I hate those.
I live Indiana.
We call it a duvet.
Oh yes.
That's also what I call it.
I don't even live in Indiana.
My goodness.

(01:04:57):
Derek, my question, um, and ofcourse I planned on going
through a list of things and I'mgonna go right off of it.
Don't roll your eyes at me,Christine.
Sorry, carry on.
Super excited.
So how exactly did you getdiagnosed with this trifecta
here?
Did you, was it somethingparticular that happened that
sent you looking to get di Likedid you, were you advocating for

(01:05:22):
yourself?
Did you feel like there wassomething going on?
Well, uh, the comedic responsewas I was in a straight jacket
and I had no alternative.
But, uh, the real life answer iskind of similar.
Um, I, uh, I grew up being the,uh, the weird kid and, uh, I was
always misunderstood.
I, I, I guess,'cause my answersalways spoke to the question ask

(01:05:45):
rather than the answer expected.
So, um.
I, I honestly grew up, Iremember specifically when I was
14 and I don't know if the yearwent by where I didn't step
outside of the self-help aisle.
You know, that, that virtualself-help aisle that started out
in libraries and went tobookstores and, and we can
explain what books are in a, ina later podcast, I'm sure, but

(01:06:08):
for those that that don't know,but it's kind of like a Kindle,
but, uh, thousands of them.
Um, wouldn't that be cool?
A dedicated Kindle of one bookand we just put'em all on a
show.
Um, now I lost track.
See, that's why, that's why Iwas the different kid.
So this, we love it.
We embrace

(01:06:28):
it.
Well, uh, fantastic.
The reason for my pursuit wasthat, well, I didn't find an
answer in the self-help file.
I followed all of the, uh, the,the leaders and, and this is how
to make yourself better, andthis is how to produce a
thousand percent a day and thisis how to connect with people
and this is how to.
Speak with people and, and onand on and on.

(01:06:50):
And I don't know if your show'slong enough to go through the
list, but, um, I, I got to thepoint where this internet thing
came around and which is asharing of information, and I
just started listening in like afly on the wall to, I don't
know, groups of other screwed uppeople.
And, uh, we kind of, uh, I, Isaid, that kind of sounds like

(01:07:11):
me a little bit.
So I, I kept zooming in and, andjumping from room to robe, and
then I felt.
My God, I had the confidence toactually speak up and say
something and, and I didn't getjudged.
I thought, whoa, whoa, what isthis?
You know, my episode of theTwilight Zone, I said something,
I didn't get judged.
So, um, we started sharing andit's like, wow, that story, my

(01:07:32):
story too.
And it eventually got to thepoint where, these are my
people.
So I diagnosed myself justsaying, these are my people, but
anybody who's autistic, untilyou get the certification.
You're still wondering, like, isthere a chance that you're just
really screwed up?
So, um, it, uh, I got, I spentabout 10 years in that friend

(01:07:53):
zone with autism, and, um, I,uh, eventually just got
diagnosed and because I wantedto know, I, I just, you know.
After 50 years, I'd reach mylimit.
I wasn't gonna wait any longer.
And it was, it wasn't to likesit in and you get diagnosed.
Um, so the autism is kind oflike, uh, it's a professional

(01:08:14):
behavior diagnosis that takesrepetition to understand.
And for the psychopsychotherapist, psychologist,
therapist, uh.
To map out the A DHD.
On the other hand, were youaware ladies, that they have a
computer program?
You just grab a mouse and yousit down for 20 minutes and you

(01:08:35):
click the mouse and it will tellyou if you have a DHD.
Christine, did you do that?
Is that how you got diagnosed?
Uh, Olivia had it, Liz.
So my daughter got diagnosedfirst and I was like, wait a
second.
Hang on here.
This feels really, reallyfamiliar.
She's like, yeah, I mean, yousee me, mom, I don't have

(01:08:56):
trouble.
Like I, I'm not a troublemakerin class.
I'm not talking out of turnmuch.
Uh, but here's the all thethings.
And I was like, oh my God, I amlooking at the test and I'm
like, I am also all of thethings.
So yeah, you just click it andthey're like, oh yeah, dummy.
This is what's a sweatshirtthing is, can I do that for
free?

(01:09:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Really.
I did not know about this.
I mean, you can do it for free.
The doctor that's gonna diagnoseyou is gonna make you do it
twice.
So
no, I don't wanna go to the, Idon't wanna go, I don't wanna
talk to, to a real doctor aboutit.
I just, I'll diagnose, of coursenot myself and we'll move on.
And Derek, I'll mention that.
Sarah's self-diagnosed herselfwith bipolar, I think at 19 or
20, maybe 22.

(01:09:39):
She was like, I know what'swrong with me.
It's bipolar.
She wrote it down.
Set
expectations.
We live up to'em.
That's when Noble,'cause we still weren't really into the
internet that big.
Um, I, I think maybe just thebeginning.
I think around that time I hadjust gotten my first email
address, but I was spending alot of times in Barnes and Noble

(01:10:00):
because that had just startedand that was cool.
And that's where I did most ofmy self diagnosing.
It was great.
It was a bookstore, but theyalso had coffee and other
people.
It was
amazing.
Like you could go there.
I love Barnes and Noble.
Oh, don't get me started.
It smells, smells
so good.
It does on a Saturday.

(01:10:22):
It's killer.

Becca (01:10:22):
It's killer.
You could spend

Chris (01:10:24):
like literally an entire Saturday at Barnes and Noble
drinking coffee and diagnosingyourself with whatever Uhhuh,
irr, bowel syndrome.
You can talk yet.
Right, exactly.
Exactly.
IPS.
Yes.
Irritable bowel syndrome,bipolar, whatever, all of it.
A DH, adhd, I mean, whatever.

(01:10:47):
But yeah.
So, I'm sorry, Derek, weinterrupted you.
I, uh, I think I was followingup on the question why did I get
diagnosed and then led thediagnosis.
Um, I think I was through.
And so all of that, like just starting with the first
diagnosis, it kind of stumbledinto the the A DH diagnosis, A
DHD diagnosis, and then into thedyslexia diagnosis.

(01:11:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It is really all connected over.
Over a series and say, Hey, ifI'm broke, just tell me how bad.
And I mean if I can't imagine anyone ever calling you
broke just in the what, 15minutes that we have talked.
I am like, yeah, you're notbroke.
So we're best friends.
Look at the shit you're doing.
Like this is pretty amazing.

(01:11:33):
So on that note on shit you'redoing, talk a little bit about
Pocket Mentor, where it started.
What's going on with it now,where it's going?
Well, certainly it's, I believethat knowledge is key to
everything.
There's, uh, um, research outthere that, uh, that shows,
whether it be the New EnglandJournal of Medicine or in

(01:11:54):
Psychology or, or many otherones, but there's research out
there that shows and, and it's,it's anecdotal.
We can see it at War two, thatwhen humans have access to
education and knowledge,knowledge is the result of
education.
It's one path to that.
They have higher quality oflife.
They live longer, and theirhealth is better.

(01:12:17):
So it's knowledge can do that.
And there's also correlationthat, you know, the more
informed, uh, people are, thefewer controversies, there are
the fewer wars.
If we really want to go out onthe, on, like the macroeconomic
scale, I'm not saying I waspursuit, uh, of, uh, world peace
was my goal, but, uh, if thiswas Miss America, that would be

(01:12:40):
my answer.
But, uh, it really extends to,uh, my passion for being a
teacher.
I'm not a K through 12 certifiedteacher.
I'm certifiable, but not in theteaching.
But I do take, uh, spare timethat I have and, and I do, uh,
substitute teach at at the localschools wherein when I can.
So part of it was, uh, seeingthe opportunity in the K through

(01:13:02):
12 system.
And the other part came from myhistory in industrial
manufacturing.
Industrial manufacturing.
There's headlines out there thatsay, Hey, you know.
Why go to college when you cango to an apprenticeship and, and
make 120 grand a year, you know,after you get outta the
apprenticeship that you, you'remaking money instead of debt.
So the reason those headlinesare out there is because skilled

(01:13:24):
trades has been a shortage sincethe nineties.
You know, that's 30 years.
So, um, I've been on.
Production floor.
I've been on the operationsfloor and and worked.
I've been a frontline worker.
I've worked with those frontlineworkers.
I've been responsible fortraining those frontline
workers.
And what we see a lot of is thatthere is such a brain suck and

(01:13:46):
the industrial realm thatmanufacturers can no longer hire
people with the knowledge.
They even, they gave up decadesago for hiring people with
knowledge because it's such acompetitive landscape for one.
But the other is that, uh, theyjust, there's not enough.
We've been scraping the bottomof that proverbial barrel for

(01:14:08):
decades.
So they, they hire.
Employees to fill thesefrontline roles and, and their
skilled roles, or whether theybe skilled trades, you know,
where people work with theirhands or, or operations, which
still needs, uh, skill to runthe machines and in
manufacturing environments.
So they hire'em with the, uh,promise that they're gonna train
them.
So it's a promise between thecompany and the employee, but

(01:14:32):
because they're already shortstaffed, they don't have the
extra people power to betrainers.
Stand by them.
So these frontline workers dotwo things.
They stand with their hands intheir pocket or twiddle their
thumbs, or they stand in linebehind their manager or a
subject matter expert, and theywait in their turn and say, oh,

(01:14:53):
how does this machine work?
Or, oh, how do I diagnose a uh,A-V-F-D-A POWERFLEX 5 25 series
VFD, and get this motor runningon the production line?
The people end up as, uh, likeflashlight holders.
Like, you know, like when I wasa kid, my dad say, hold the
flashlight type of thing.
I, uh, and Christine have, haveyou been that sun before?

(01:15:13):
Been on the flashlight?
Yes.
Yes.
I, I, it, it, it wasn't that Iwas doing it wrong, it was just
that he was angry about thesituation.
The light's not bright enough.
Christine.
I know Dad.
Well it, this all connected andon the, uh, on the K through 12
side, there's, uh, I think theratios that are important when

(01:15:36):
people grade schools or givethem a grade of such is the
student to teacher ratio.
And we all know that unless itgets down to one-on-one, every
student's learning is, is just afraction of what it could be.
And I think even when you hitthe 20 25, 30.
Student to teacher ratio.

(01:15:57):
It's, uh, the student barely hasany time to give feedback.
It's, it's really just sittingthere with your.
Jaw on the ground, your mouthopen and go, uh, Uhhuh.
So for those two scenarios whereindividuals, where we can't
scale the human trainer orteacher to give support for the
individual, I saw an opportunityusing, well, I'm creating

(01:16:20):
mentors.
So think of, uh.
I, I haven't built an app.
It's not internet based.
It's not wifi based.
It's a telephone call.
So imagine Sarah if I called youon the telephone and I said,
Hey, that looks like coolChapstick.
You know, talk me through how toput on Cool Chapstick and then.
You could tell me.

(01:16:41):
Yeah.
Well that's Carmex, Derek, and,and I start with the bottom lip
and I go left and right.
Okay.
So talk me through.
It is the basis for my entirecompany and our flagship product
pocket mentor.
It's a human, uh, I think thecool term is anthropomorphize,
you know, all the coolscientific.
Wow.
Kids are giving thumbs up rightnow.
He said that anthropomorphizedvoice I actually have would be

(01:17:05):
awesome.
An AI that, uh, it talks throughjust it, and it sounds human.
We don't try to pass it off ashuman, but it sounds human and
that human factor breaks.
Down the barriers ofunderstanding.
And so we have conversationswith our earbuds in and it's
like, all right, pocket mentor,I'm here folding an airplane.

(01:17:26):
Talk me through it and I canadd, I can, I can go off script.
Because that's the differencebetween following an operations
manual or an SOP, or for thatmatter, a YouTube video.
You know, I love YouTube videosto get out there.
Mm-hmm.
Hi, this is Jimmy, and we'rechanging breaks today, and.

(01:17:46):
But my car doesn't always knowwhat the steps are.
So what happens when I get tostep three and Jimmy's a cool
guy.
I mean, that mullet is stillrocking and, and I'm out here
and I look at step three and Idon't have the piece that he
mentioned.
Now what do I do?
I can't.
Contact Jimmy and get thatone-on-one.

(01:18:07):
But I can give, make a phonecall with my earbuds in hands
free and go and hold the toolsor the typewriter or the book,
or the manual or themeasurement.
Stick the laser.
Even the flashlight, Christine,I could have that in my hand and
have a conversation and says,Hey, how do I do this?
Okay, I got to step three, butthat spring isn't blue, that

(01:18:29):
spring is red and it's short.
It's not long.
Oh, well you must be on the.
2022 model Derek.
And, uh, here's how we adjustthe breaks on, on the 2022
model.
So it's conversational and inthe K through 12 scenario, when
the, the child leaves school andit's after hours or on the
weekend, they can actually callpocket mentor and talk about, I

(01:18:53):
don't know, seventh gradehistory for, uh, maybe English
class or go over their Spanishor, or maybe geography and they
can dive into, um.
If you've met one neurodiverseperson, you've met'em all.
It's kinda like they get you ina conversation and they don't
talk.
But when they engage, and I'mone of them, when I'm enga, I'm,

(01:19:13):
somebody's showing me like, Ihave worth enough.
They, they give me the time ofday and now I'm gonna talk your
ear off.
And so all those situationswhere the teacher doesn't have
time to talk to the student inclass.
They now have the ability for atelephone call with a mentor, a
teacher, that, that is a, is aproxy and, and basically that

(01:19:37):
emulation of, uh, of, of theteacher that they can ask all
kinds of questions, go downrabbit holes, and then come back
Monday with a way to, uh, builda new light bulb or a better
bread box.
This is so great.
I don't know if anyone on thiscall has done, uh, math homework
with a, with an eighth graderbefore, but, uh, particularly

(01:20:00):
maybe a, maybe a little, uh,spicy brained, uh, eighth
grader.
Uh, it is a hoot.
It is a hoot.
Olivia, uh, you have 11 yellowbikes.
You got 14 green bikes.
How many bikes do you have?
She's like, why are we addingbikes?
Don't, no, I'm not gonna engagein that.
Why?
Just add them together?

(01:20:20):
Just add them together.
And she's like, well, wherewere, where are the bikes going?
No, no.
That's not the question that weneed, hun.
Just 25 is the answer can.
So if I would've had somebodyelse to be like, can you tell
her why we're adding the bikes?
'cause that would be great.
Can you.

(01:20:42):
Steer in the right direction.
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Christine, you've got that onpoint, right?
Is it still cool to say onpoint?
For our podcast?
Yes.
Okay.
Alright, cool.
Yes, we have absolutely no cluewhat's cool.
Listen, we, we have Becca withus and she will direct us down
to the college age.
Uh, like below that.
We're gonna have to get another,like elementary school intern in

(01:21:04):
here to say stuff like Riz or ytor what is that?
Riz.
I don't wanna know.
I don't wanna know.
YI actually don't wanna know.
Okay, cool.
Well, the ye Yeah.
No.
Mm-hmm.
No.
I don't want to,
Hey, you know, you mentioned,you mentioned these younger
generations.
Um, I'm gonna take my Supermanclasses off for this one, but

(01:21:24):
the younger generations, there'suh, um, they don't like to be
told what to do by the man, butthey love to get things done.
They love, uh, accomplishment,but they like to do it on their
own.
Now, I'm, I'm quoting mydaughter who's a psychological
PhD and, and she said, this isthe way it works, dad.
So don't blame me if I did itwrong.

(01:21:44):
Sorry.
Bus.
Um, so there's, um, ismillennials and Gen Zs, that's
not even, well, I mean, we havelike alphas and betas now,
right?
They're even younger in theworkforce.
I don't even know what I am.
I have to look it up onlineevery time.
I have no clue.
Guess Becca.
I can.
She

Becca (01:22:05):
did a multimedia journalism project about all the
generations.
So you guys, I believe are GenX.

Chris (01:22:12):
Gen X for sure.
Sarah's Gen X, but she's like a,she's like a subdivision, like
right on the right on the edge,right at the cusp,

Becca (01:22:19):
right on the edge, right on the cusp.
Because my boyfriend was 98 andhe is one year after.
Thats an old boyfriend.
Right.
Well,

Chris (01:22:28):
she's, she's going for the life insurance.
She's doing it right.
He must have game.
Your mom's gonna be so mad atme.
Your mom's gonna be so mad

Becca (01:22:38):
at me.
That

Chris (01:22:39):
is so funny.

Becca (01:22:41):
That's so good.
And then I was born in 2002, sowe're both technically Gen Z,
but we're more towards like themillennial side.
So it's like a weird, it's youguys, gen X, millennials, and
then Gen Z, and now it's, I knowGen Alpha, but.
It sounds, Becca, it sounds likeyou're throwing us all into a
category.
Yeah, I'm not sure.

Chris (01:23:02):
I don't like it.
I don't like it.
I, I won't be put into a box Idon't like.
Can you tell me which box Ishould go in though?
Hey, we're human.
We want to know and, and that'sanother good point.
Uh, you say your boyfriend isborn, I assume in 1998, and you
were born in 2002.
So the internet has always beenaround for you.
And so you're more familiar withtechnology as a generation and,

(01:23:26):
uh, as stereotype, we're gonnastereotype you as a gener.
So because you're more familiarwith technology and you grew up,
you know, punching phones withyour thumbs and all that, you
would rather talk and, andcorrect me Becca if I'm wrong
here, but you would rather talkto an AI than you would a human,
especially a 58-year-old whiteguy, right?
No, in all seriousness,

Becca (01:23:47):
in all honesty, I would,
I don't like talking to people.
If I, it really just depends on the mood.
Like there's some things whereI'm like, if I just need a quick
answer, that's fine.
But if I'm, like with the carsituation, I have no clue about
cars.
I'm gonna call a human for that.
'cause the AI's gonna tell mesomething and I'm gonna be like,
I have no clue.

(01:24:07):
I need, I need human, I don'tknow.
Cars.

Derek (01:24:11):
Yeah.
Well if it, if you called ourai, our AI is trained
specifically on what, whatyou're working on.
So it doesn't give those, youknow, dreamy hallucinogen.
Answers.
Now why I say hallucinogen thatway, and I'm thinking mushrooms,
for some reason, our AI doesn'ttake mushrooms.
But, uh, it should.
It's, it's actually trainedspecifically to, to act just

(01:24:31):
like a human.
And it's, it's, it's that, it'sthat we don't wanna be judged.
And being on the spectrummyself, I don't like to be
judged either.
Yeah.
Sarah, you said you don't likepeople?
I don't like people because Ifeel like I'm judged all the
time.
So what do I do?
Let's get on a podcast.
Viewed my millions, and thenjust put yourself out there.

Sarah (01:24:50):
Yeah.
I don't like talking to peoplehere I am doing interviews,
getting ready to start my owncoaching business.
I mean, if I know what I'mdoing, I love talking to people
when I don't know what I'mdoing, like ordering a pizza.
I don't like to talk to people.
I go to ordering the pizza.
'cause I just can't.
If you, if there's no onlineordering, I won't order food

(01:25:11):
from that place.
That's ridiculous.
But

Derek (01:25:14):
I'm with you.
I'm with you.
I, I will sit outside theparking lot at Taco Bell and I
will punch in my order and justwait, rather than just go up to
the drive through, legit.

Becca (01:25:27):
Mm-hmm.
Across from my Taco Bell back inmy, um, college town.
And my friend will be like, justorder.
And I'm like, no, I'm goingthrough the app.
I'm like, can I just walk upthere?
I say my name and then give itto me.
I'm gone.

Sarah (01:25:39):
It's great.
Yeah.
It's it's great and ridiculousat the same time.
And I love that.
I'm not the only person who doesthese things, but Yeah.
And that's exactly what myholdup is with talking to
people.
If I'm confident what I'mtalking about, if I know what
I'm talking about, Christine,you will, uh, attest to the fact
that I won't shut up.
But if I don't, then, and herewe, here we are today.

(01:25:59):
Well, you're not even in thesame room together.
We never are.
She's stuck.
She's stuck in Newark and yeah,we never are, so it works.
Alright, so Christine, you'retaking notes.
I, I think you're taking notes,drawing.
Did you have any questions?
Which is a, um, A DHD, uh, wayto stay focused is drawing while

(01:26:21):
somebody else is talking.
I forget the exact name for it,but I do it all the time.
Diddling, I mean, it's calleddoodling, but there's an actual
like.
Fancy name.
That sounds, I don't know.
You're doing great.
Smart.
Yeah.
Smart.
I used to knit duringteleconferences because that's

(01:26:41):
how I would pay attention.
'cause if you can keep my handsbusy, then I'm not like clicking
all over the internet, right?
Like I'm not
mm-hmm.

Chris (01:26:48):
Doing, doing the stuff I usually do.
Um, no.
Here's my thoughts.
Where, yeah, there's always,there is always a fidget toy.
So Olivia and I both have a DH,ADHD and we're both working on
relationships.
So we go to, uh, we go totherapy together.
The two of us are sitting thereand at like our introductory
little therapy thing.

(01:27:09):
And we're talking aboutsomething or other.
Olivia is her daughter, by theway.
Derek, right?
Just sorry.
I don't know if we covered that,but go ahead and, and uh, and
before we even get to the a DDpart, the therapist hands us
both like tiny little fidgettoys.
She's like, here you go.
I think you're both going toneed these.
And before you even have to sayit, I have your a DD diagnosis

(01:27:31):
written down already.
I was like, we have been herefor five minutes.
Five minutes.
So.
Exactly, exactly right.
So I, I think the best part thatI can think of about having a
pocket mentor, somebody to, tocall up and, and interact with
and be like, Hey, I got to partseven and now I'm done paying

(01:27:51):
attention.
Like, I don't wanna, I don'twanna, I don't wanna look at
these instructions anymore.
I have a, I have every, I haveevery booklet from IKEA for
putting together furniture.
I get 80% of the way done.
I have 14 screws left.
I'm like, I'm just gonna hitover the hammer until it goes
together.
We're, we're fine now.
So this is, this is.

(01:28:12):
Amazing.
I love it.
I am, I am all in on it.
Mm-hmm.
And I know that Olivia would betoo, if she ever had to put
anything together because I, I,I like it at the beginning.
I'm like, yes.
And that is, that is like, alsothe hard part for me is like the
idea of putting together IKEAfurniture super appealing.
I'm like, let me lay out all thebits and pieces in their little

(01:28:33):
rows.
Let me get all ready for it andlet me look through the
instructions up until step fiveand now, um, now I'm bored.
I get bored.
I get bored easily.
Yeah, like same thing like superexcited about net, my new IKEA
furniture, and I actually don'tmake it past, like setting out
all the pieces' like cool's.
Why?

(01:28:53):
That's awesome.
Yeah.
True, true.
Yeah.
I think my question would be howdo you, how do you see, do you
see the pocket mentor growing?
How do you see it, it evolvingover the, over the next couple
of years?
Are you looking to do more ofsort of the industrial
education?
Are you looking to do more of,uh, more of the workplace?

(01:29:16):
Are you looking to do more ofelementary math, uh,
applications?
What, where do, where do you seeit being the most useful and,
and where are your plans fortaking it there?
The, um, just the, this voiceinterface, it speeds up the
response so much faster thantyping at a keyboard.
And, and if I had to pull out myphone and find the app and, all

(01:29:38):
right, chat, GPT, and I'm typingright?
And well, now I gotta go backand all the correct, you know,
all the frustrating barriersthat we have, but this, we're
really at a singularity pointwhere we can just speak.
Have a conversation with ahuman.
And I tell everybody that ourtechnology is 50,000 years old.
What?
Yeah.
Our AI technology is 50,000years old because we train it

(01:30:02):
like we have for 50,000 yearsthrough storytelling from human
to human to human.
And the uh, the difference nowis our human doesn't.
Take a sick day and doesn't goon vacation and doesn't retire
and take their knowledge withthem.
So, um, that's the process andit feels like, uh, I invented

(01:30:24):
either a paperclip or paper andthe value is not in the
paperclip itself or the paperthat you have, but in what you
do with this.
So I've been avoiding that,answering that question now for
about 38 seconds.
But I see it as a, uh, in theUnited States, there's a push to

(01:30:44):
increase manufacturing, get backto the 1960s where we're
building a lot more.
And if we're short skilledtrades right now, uh, what, how
are we gonna grow manufacturingif we're already short?
Qualified employees.
So I see pocket mentors beingfoundational for that growth.
On the teacher education side, Ijust looked at a graph that's,

(01:31:05):
and I'm not saying it'sauthentic, it, it looked
authentic'cause it was cool.
It had lines and it said, yeah,I love those.
1980, the, uh, nationaleducation system.
There was like.
$20 billion a year spent.
But in 2022 it peaked out at$634billion.
And in the next page there wasanother graph that said, reading

(01:31:28):
comprehension, lower mathcomprehension lower.
And we're not solving problemsby throwing money at it.
Um, I think we really need toget down to that one-on-one
scalability and.
When I substitute, I'm kind ofchecking out the ages of people
'cause I need to know whatcabinet I fit in, right?

(01:31:49):
There's those that have beenteaching for 20, 30 or 40 years,
and then there's the ones thathave been there one or two
years.
But in the middle there's not alot of, uh, age representation
in or.
Experience in the middle becauseso many people that you know
from the time they're six yearsold, when I grow up, I wanna be
a teacher.
And then they go through collegeand they get their
certifications and theirdegrees, then they step foot in

(01:32:11):
a public school system.
They're appalled.
They, I wanna teach, oh no, youcan't teach, you gotta do this
for, I want to teach.
And so that light bulb that'sbeen on for 20 years now
suddenly goes off.
And so we have a brain drain inon the teacher realm.
So I think that, and I thinkPocket Mentor can give that

(01:32:33):
one-on-one attention to the 90%of the classroom that needs
one-on-one attention and do itwithout.
Impacting that teacher.
'cause those teachers, eventhough it's a seven and a half
hour day, depending on whereyou're at, um, in school day,
those teachers are working 12,13 hours a day.
They start before school.

(01:32:54):
They're after school and they'restretched thin.
And so they're barely getting byin their own classroom.
So they definitely don't havethat extra bandwidth to train
other teachers, mentor.
Other teachers.
So I had us interviewed on ateacher podcast and, and they
said, Hey, can you see usingthis to help onboard teachers at

(01:33:14):
school system?
And I went.
I hadn't thought about that.
How great, how great is theworld that they just offer and
identify opportunities formaking our life better?
So in that round, it could helpthe teacher out, uh, on their
year one, year two, et cetera.
And it gives that one-on-onewith the students.
So the future I see is that weall have the information

(01:33:38):
delivered to us.
What we need, when we need it atthe speed of light.
And I, there's so much value inthat versus my, you know, think
back, yeah, think back when youwere young, Becca, when the US
Post, you know, rode horsesacross the country and, and
delivered letters that took, youknow, uh, a month and a half.
So it's that, it's thatiteration ability and, and we're

(01:34:02):
at this crescendo, and it's thetrue singularity point where we
can iterate immediately insteadof.
Backtracking through technologytyping.
I got a prompt engineer aquestion just to get the answer
I'm looking for.
So how long does that take?
So let's say, even if it's aminutes versus instant and then
back before that, well, let mewait till Monday and I'll, I'll

(01:34:25):
call Christine and say, Hey,how, talk me through this again.
How do I do.
So now we're talking a day ortwo or three.
And then let's go back evenfurther before the internet and
let me write letters.
And now it takes weeks at bestto go across country or across
the world.
So if you can only iterate onceevery two weeks, your iteration

(01:34:47):
is, is success is gonna fail.
Whereas if you could iterate,boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, go
off on a tangent and iterate,boom, boom, boom.
Imagine a Einstein.
Could, uh, soundboard withhimself or Nicola Tesla could
soundboard with himself, howmuch more they would've built.
I just think, I think that's anincredible future, right?
And I wanna be, I wanna helpthat vision.

(01:35:08):
Yeah, that's
amazing.
Like to the point where I mighthave goosebumps because that's.
I love this so much.
I absolutely love this so much.
Yeah.
And a lot of, uh, sorry Sarah.
No, go ahead.
Go ahead.
A lot of, a lot of what we talkabout on the podcast is, uh,
recognizing that not every brainworks the same and, and being

(01:35:30):
able to say to other people,Hey, uh, I have this, or This is
how my brain works.
And.
Being able to tailor a response,being able to work with a pocket
mentor and have that pocketmentor understand and you know,
recognize that I'm not gonna aska question the same way Sarah's
gonna ask a question.

(01:35:51):
I'm gonna ask it completelydifferently.
And if I'm Olivia, I'm gonnawanna know why there's bikes in
my math question.
And we're gonna have to getthrough that before we can get
to anything else.
And I think if we can, cantailor.
The education to the individualin a way that makes it make
sense.
Then I, I think, you know, thenyou've really, you've really,

(01:36:12):
and improved a broken system.
Like right now, we just giveeverybody the same education,
the same words, the same book,the same.
The same.
Same.
And being able to kind of takeit from, you know, where Sarah
and I are coming at sort ofmental health is you have to be
you and you have to do yourindividual thing.
And being able to apply thatyounger and younger and have the
expectation be that somebodyresponds to that, not with, Hey,

(01:36:34):
that's a great idea.
Here's your assignments for nextweek.
Go home and hassle your parentsinto helping you until they want
to murder the people that arethere to take care of'em when
they're old.
So I, I, again, uh, I mean, Ithink that the more that we can
fit things for purpose and themore we can recognize that every

(01:36:55):
brain isn't gonna be the sameand every brain isn't going to
be able to ask the same questionthe same way, every brain isn't
gonna be able to come up withthe ideal AI prompt as I'm
typing it in.
Like, this is awesome.
Make sense?
Yeah.
You see the vision?
I, I love that you were boughtin and you mentioned, you know,
the differences.
Our brains are different.
There's a, uh, I was actuallyjust speaking with her today,

(01:37:17):
um, and throw this in your SEOfor your type script.
Um, but the Dr.
Nancy Doyle is, she's outtaLondon or nearby London.
US Americans are geographicallychallenged, but I figured
London's close enough.
She actually built somethingcalled Genius Within, and it's
genius within dot, and she has apage called What is Diversity?

(01:37:37):
What is Neurodiversity?
So on that page she talks aboutthe spiky profile.
So we are all different, andeven those of us that are
autistic or A DHD, that doesn'tmake us mirrors of somebody else
who's autistic and A DHD.
We are truly individuals andmm-hmm.
Dr.
Doyle is, uh, double D.

(01:37:59):
Now, this alliteration is in mymind and is Bango Spectro Gadget
is, I guess is where I wentthere.
But, um, she came up with aspiky profile and it shows an,
an XY axis in this graph is.
Average people or normal is whatwe call'em.
They're average.
They have this slightly up anddown on every skill set.
They perform slightly aboveaverage, slightly below average.

(01:38:21):
Nobody is average all the wayacross, or that's probably is
one person and he's reallyboring.
But in the spiky profile of theneurodiverse, and they're
starting to say even a DHDautism, that they're starting to
get away from individual namingstructure and just saying, Hey,
we got box A or box B.
Which island of misfit toys doyou wanna be on?

(01:38:42):
So she shows that on certainskills, like, uh, I don't know,
reasoning and analytical, maybe,uh, somebody, uh, with autism is
at the 200% level.
Compared to, you know, the, thenorm or the median, I guess.
And then, but on communicationand social, uh, prowess, they
might be on the negative 200% orthey just fail.

(01:39:03):
So, Hey, Mr.
Tesla, you just built, uh, youknow, wireless electricity, why
don't you speak at our event?
And then they get fired, right?
And I've, I've been, uh, I've,I've fallen on that ax a number
of times.
Um, you know, praised for allthe.
Cool things I did in production,I did.
But then, uh, you know, nextweek that was all forgotten.

(01:39:23):
I, I said something wrong orsomebody misunderstood what I
said.
And, and no, we gotta, we, we,we gotta get rid of you.
You're just not.
Part of the culture we're likein here.
So because I ask questions, I'msorry.
That is, that is the best part of the, of all, all of the,
the focus on, uh, mental health,all of the people kind of going

(01:39:46):
to the internet being like, hangon a sec, I'm not weird.
I'm just, uh, a little bit, uh,spicy brain, just like everyone
else in this particular chatroom.
So, and having, having employersrecognize that as well, that,
you know, just because you havean idea of this culture, um, and

(01:40:06):
that, that's a big thing, oh,everyone likes to play like ping
pong or whatever.
You know, everyone really digsthis slide in the kitchen.
Instead of making the investmentthere, maybe make the investment
in something that actually doesget the sort of neurodivergent.
Included in what's happening.
Maybe that's a, maybe that's abetter way to define and, and

(01:40:28):
recognize a culture in acompany.
I just love this so much and Ifeel like it's way more than I
was thinking it was when wefirst got on this call and I did
learn.
I didn't know what an OEM was.
I don't know it.
See, it's on my screen here.
'cause I had to look up what anOEM was.
So I learned that before we goton this call.

(01:40:49):
Not a freaking clue why I justwent onto that anyway.
Yes, this is much more than Ioriginally thought it was, and I
think that what you are doing,Derek, and your brain and the
way it works, is an absolutegift.
And I love it so much.

(01:41:11):
And I think the vision that youhave is incredible.
And I know, I'm pretty sure Ispeak for all of us.
Not that we have huge reach, butwe are gonna do whatever we can.
To help you and get your messageout there for sure.
'cause it's, um, it's extremelyinspiring.
So thank you for that.
Yeah, yeah.

(01:41:31):
I do have more questions.
That wasn't just wrapping us up,that was just me.
I was like, we're not done yet.
Sarah, thank you so much.
But
yeah, please,
please continue.
I've,
I've got all night.
Yes.
I'm kind of hungry.
So, um, my next question isabout the clients that you have.
So I actually didn't.
No, that before we got on thiscall, apparently I didn't do

(01:41:54):
enough research.
I didn't realize that you werein the realm of education as
well as, um, industrialmanufacturing and whatnot.
I didn't know that you had areach into both of those areas,
and I think that is amazing.
Since you have started this,what, what have your clients
seen in return?

(01:42:15):
With the pocket mentor, whattype of feedback do you get?
I'm assuming someone like youwants to look at data to see
what's going on.
So what are your clients seeing?
Well, there's, uh, there's.
Pushback, depending on the, uh,you know, the personality and,
and, and the realm.
Honestly, it's, it's somethinglike, uh, I, I taught at Amazon.

(01:42:36):
It's, it's change management is,there's those that are early
adopters.
Um, and same thing goes with AIright now, you know, worldwide,
there's the early adopters, thenthere's the, you know, the
Luddites that are out there.
It says, no, no, no, that'sevil, that's Satan.
And then there's a lot of peoplein the middle that we could say
are on the fence.
So, um, once, once theyunderstand.

(01:42:56):
Stand it.
To be honest, I, I feel I'vearticulated it better here.
This, uh, in this room todaythan, than I have in the past.
And getting past thatarticulation, like how do you
define what paper is, what's thevalue of paper?
Well, you can write stuff up.
I've got my cave wall.
I, you know, that stuff burnsand it will blow away.
Paper will never make it sothat, that's part of a wall of

(01:43:20):
change, that knowledge orarticulating the value around.
But those that have got to it,there's some pushback and then
there's others that jump rightin and it's like.
Wow.
It's, it's, it's like I'mtalking to a human and I don't
have to get Jim out of bed at2:30 AM on a Saturday morning.
'cause Jim's the only person, orJanet is the only people that
have the answer to that.

(01:43:40):
So in the industrial setup, it'slike, uh, well.
Can't get ahold of Jim or he ison vacation, so let's just shut
the line down.
And in production we talk aboutdowntime is a cost of the
company.
So if a machine or a line or anoperation goes down and it's
down for hours and especiallydays depending on the

(01:44:00):
manufacturer, they could belosing hundreds of thousands of
dollars per hour.
When it's down, so it'simportant to get back up.
Um, on the, uh, on the schoolside, I don't have any official
contracts with, uh, K through12.
We have some experimentationgoing on.
Okay.
Every school has, uh, at leastone, if not two, of those techno

(01:44:22):
nerds that, uh, that's justwanna play with every toy that's
out there.
So we're, uh, we're, we'redabbling and enjoying and with a
li this, I don't know, a limitedbeta, I guess you you'd call it.
Mm-hmm.
At a couple schools, thefeedback is, Hey, I like it, but
can it do this?
Hey, I like it, but can it dothat?

(01:44:42):
So there's still theunderstanding of the value, and
so every bit that they learn,we're learning too to make the
product better because this.
What we're doing here.
It's not just, you know, saddleChat, GPT with a microphone,
speaker and role.
We are actually training, gotsome secret sauce of our own
right in the, in the back end.

(01:45:02):
Mm-hmm.
We're training it on only thespecific information that needs
to be trained on, but now thatthe information is there.
How do we interface mostefficiently?
Um, it's like train the trainerand you can teach a trainer or a
soon to be trainer, Hey, here'sthe information, but you also
have to train the trainer on howdo you handle situations when

(01:45:25):
you know you've got the negativeNellie and the know-it-all NEDs
out there, or the ones that justwon't participate or, or they
push back here.
You have to handle thatpsychological and social.
Interface.
So we train our AI the same way,so it's about 60% psychology and
only about 40% true ai.

(01:45:47):
Um, but then it's, it's thoseanswers.
So the closer we get.
And we're doing pretty good now,we, we can usually line in tune
that voice response to thepersonality that, um, that the
client or the school or theteacher wants it to represent.
Some say talk slow, some saytalk fast.

(01:46:07):
Some say add humor.
Some say let's just, you know,go without humor.
But it's, it's still a bigexperiment right now.
But even though there's so muchsuccess and, and positive
feedback for those that haveactually.
Indulge that, uh, that, thatthere's positive growth here.
And I, I look forward to, uh, toconnecting.

(01:46:28):
There's a lot of K through 12schools out there.
I, i, I wish I could connect tothem all.
So if, if anybody's out therethat just wants to experiment,
no cost, let's just play around,see if we can build a future
together.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
I think that's amazing.
And like I said, we were, we'regonna push this one out as much
as we can for sure.
And I know I have a shit ton ofteacher friends, um, because on

(01:46:51):
a daily basis I'm saying, you'reunderpaid.
You could pay me enough to dothe shit that you do.
So I'm gonna push this out tothem as much as we can.
Absolutely.
I do have another question.
So when you have a new client,uh.
Coming on board, I guess itwould be like onboarding.
How, how does the process gowith a new client?
How does it work when you'rejust building that relationship

(01:47:14):
and getting started with, um,the pocket mentor?
It, it begins with understandingthe problem that they wanna
solve.
And, uh, too oftentimes somebodyis selling a, a, a solution
without identifying a problem.
So I, I truly believe that, uh,for every hour we should, you
know, thinking about a problem,55 minutes of it should be on

(01:47:35):
the problem on why and, and whatthe goals are.
And then the other 5%, thesolution just rises to the top.
So a typical, uh, intake.
Of a new client is, uh, first ofall connecting with all the
SMEs, the subject matterexperts.
I almost said subject wrong,subject matter experts, uh,
SMEs.
So yeah, throw some acronyms outthere.

(01:47:57):
Um, SMEs, SMEEs.
Yeah, I love them.
Uh, it's identifying who theyare.
So it's, it, it becomes aproject at this, at this point.
And I am, I'm a certifiedproject manager and there's
certain steps and expectations.
Derek, as a project manager knowyou have absolutely no power and
except influence.

(01:48:17):
So, um, even when we have a.
Uh, a paying client, there'sstill that barrier of can we
connect to everybody and can weget that initial information to
identify what the problem isthat we're solving for?
And then once we solve for that,uh, give us the data, the
knowledge, whether it be manualsor books that you use to train
your trainer.

(01:48:39):
That's our starting point fortraining our trainers.
So the process is that normallytakes up to 30 days.
I put a window on that because Iwant them to have a deadline,
right?
Because we can't do anythingreally until we get that
knowledge.
So 30 days there and thenthere's 45 days.
We put out a uh, MVP and theyknow what MVP stands for.

(01:49:01):
Um, minimal viable product.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
It's a, you're such a nerd.
Yeah, sure am.
Yeah.
A hundred percent total.
I was like, that's super easy.
It's the most valuable player.
No, it does.
It has nothing to do withsports, statues or anything.
Shit.
Okay.
Or
naked tats or juujitsu.
I get it.
I love it.
I love it.

(01:49:21):
Uh, to close out, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
To close out so we can listen tothe pretty people here in a
minute.
We put out the MVP and thenthere's a, uh, a trial, uh,
internal trial.
It's not publicly releasedinside the company, but we just
go back and forth and it, it'sjust cism and, and, and
relationship and communicationand tell, it's tuned just right.

(01:49:41):
Sometimes we hit it right out ofthe gate and they're up and
running within 45 or 60 days.
We've even had somebody up andrunning in seven days from where
we started.
Wow.
So I don't wanna set thatexpectation.
Um, I was taught to underpromise and over deliver.
Chris, you know, that one too.
Okay, cool.
Cool.
Um, so, and that's the way itworks.

(01:50:01):
Uh, we just iterate as a teamuntil they get the solution.
So our work is really heavy onthe front end, uh, working with
the client and, uh, and theknowledge.
But once we get the knowledgethere.
It pretty much goes automatic.
Now, we, we throw in some CFMscustomer feedback mechanisms.
I learned that while it ends onCFM customer feedback mechanism,

(01:50:23):
so on an ongoing basis we canimprove the process and improve
the, uh, the conversation.
But, uh, by the time we get tothis point, we're really 95% of
the way to, uh, what somebodymight call perfection.
Um, sissy, Becca, do you guys have any other questions?

(01:50:45):
I mean, I'm, that's, that's itfor my questions, so if you guys
have anything.
I, I mean, I will, I will saythat I work in a heavily,
heavily regulated industry andall, all that, all that these
guys are talking about now, likethe people who provide
technology for clinicalresearch, all anyone is talking
about is ai.
Oh, we gotta do ai.

(01:51:05):
What are we gonna do with ai?
I'm like, well, what are, and ifI had a nickel for every time, I
said, well, what problem are yousolving with ai?
Like, what are you, what's the,what's the challenge that you
think we can do?
And what are we doing right nowand how can we do that?
Right?
We're solving everything.
We're gonna solve everything.
It doesn't matter, Christine, aslong as it's ai, it
doesn't matter.
We're gonna solve it.
I
was like, well, okay.

(01:51:27):
Yeah.
I mean, I could think of fourproblems right off the top of my
head, but Okay.
Yeah.
No, we'll throw, we'll throw ana eye like getting your sister
to shut up while you're talkinglike.
These are gonna be tough to probto problem solve with ai.
But I mean, yeah, I don't know.
I mean, we definitely could workon it.
I mean, it is literally the onlything people are presenting,

(01:51:47):
like, and if you don't have anAI related topic, even if you
have a topic that is, uh,important to the industry, you
just throw and AI on the end ofit.
To get, to get someone listento, to listen to you.
Like, you know, we're, we're,we're talking about better ways
to, you know, cut an orange.
I'm like, oh, using ai.

(01:52:08):
We'll just put that at the endand then we can talk about how
we just asked Chad TPT how manysections should I cut this
orange in?
And then we're done.
But it is a, it is a wild timeto, uh, to, to kind of watch
people try to.
You know, just, just throw AIaround to get stuff done, and it
is kind of refreshing andreally, really nice to hear

(01:52:31):
somebody say, well, what problemare you trying to solve?
Like straight, straight.
Outta the gate and have someonewho understands that.
Yeah, like the knowledge is the,is the core of it, but the
interface and the way you getpeople to interact with it is
gonna be the way that you changethe world.
Like, and I know you're notgoing for world peace or you
know, whatever, but mm-hmm.

(01:52:52):
That is how you are going toimpact the generations down the
line.
We've got plenty of knowledge.
We've got plenty of Internetsand instructions and manuals,
and what we really need to workon is how do we, how do we get
the interface to interact with?
People in a, in a better way andstarting, starting with
education and starting with thetwo applications where there's

(01:53:14):
this huge disconnect betweenwhat people want their world to
look like and what it looks likenow.
Like, wanting to go back to makeAmerica great and, and kind of
get all the industrial pieces inplace, but not having the,
necessarily the background andkind of the infrastructure to do
that.
And then looking at the littlebabies who don't understand why
there's a bike in their mathproblem.
These are two great ways to getinto it.

(01:53:35):
I'm so excited to see what youguys can do in the future.
Like, I can't, I can't wait.
I'm pumped.
And it has given me, honestly,like a little bit of hope that
everyone isn't just kind oftagging AI into something that
they're actually mm-hmm.
They're actually thinking andconsidering, you know, what's
gonna be the, the thing thatreally changes how we, how we

(01:53:57):
work with it.
And it's not gonna be.
It's not gonna be, uh, gettingbetter knowledge or eliminating
data processors from, from anequation.
It's gonna be the way that wetalk to it and the way we get
what we need from it.
So, thank you.
Congratulations.
This is amazing work and I can'tbelieve that if somebody conned
this guy into being on ourpodcast, that's awesome.
I know, right?

(01:54:18):
This is like, wow.
I, I'm, I am extremely impressedin my ability to get someone on.
I actually think Derek mighthave, he might have initiated it
because we're seriously funny.
Um, I searched
out only the highest ratedpodcast with the highest quality
content

(01:54:39):
that's us with the, the funniest chicks on it.
That is a hundred percent us.
We're changing the world.
One little opinion aboutneurodivergent people at a time.
We win a.
Derek, I do have one morequestion, not so much a
question, but for our listeners,let them know where they can get

(01:55:00):
in touch with you if they'reinterested in learning more.
Oh, certainly.
Uh, if you grab my name onLinkedIn, I'm, I'm one of very
few people with, uh, with myname.
Uh, it should pop up readily onLinkedIn, and if you're looking
for our web presence, uh.
I think I have it if the labelshows up on the video screen.
Practical ai.app.

(01:55:21):
A PP.
So it's kind of ironic that our,our company is practical AI do
app like Apple, Paul, Paul, butour solution is not an app.
Yeah.
So we're.
We're self ironic.
How would we phrase that, Becca?
We we're ironic of self.
I don't know.

Becca (01:55:36):
That's interesting because it just is, it's
sounding more like a piece ofsoftware versus like an actual
like application that you can,don't say that like it's a bad
thing.
No, no.
I'm excited because.
Well, in all honesty, like Ijust graduated college.
This sounds incredible.
Like thank you I, this soundslike something that would've

(01:55:57):
helped me with my stats versusme crying over it and begging
the lady and be like, pleasejust pass me.
Please.
I'll be out of your hair.
I'll be gone.
I'm very excited to see wherethe conversational aspect goes
because I feel as though AI isnecessarily used as replacement
and not a tool when it comes tomy generation.
Mm-hmm.
Which sucks and I think that'swhy I struggle so much with it.

(01:56:21):
So I'm really excited to seelike the conversational aspect
that you were mentioning, but Iwould say it's more of a system
than an app.
Thank you.
Thank you, Becca.

Chris (01:56:31):
Nerd Becca.
I love it.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining our team,Becca Nerd.
Well done.
Well done nerds.
All right, Derek, is thereanything else that you wanna
share with our audience?
You know, uh, sincerity.
Thank you very much for havingme here and, and being
entertaining and, andentertaining my presence.

(01:56:52):
Um, oh, by the way, did I tellyou that, uh, in, uh, that
there's one way to get apromotion When you work at
Amazon, you just shave your headlike Jeff, and it gets
guaranteed to give you one levelpromotion.
I went from a a L five to an Lsix just because of this.
Wow.
I can pull it off.
You
can, I mean, I have a, I have a Please don't

(01:57:14):
shave your head.
Well, I don't wear, I don't work for Amazon.
Sta Well, I don't, I just, I, Isaw it for a second and it was
making me nervous and Daddy hasexplained what your head looked
like when you were born.
It might be my sleep paralysis

Becca (01:57:29):
demon for the night am like trying to fall asleep and I
just see.
Chrissy with a bald head.
No, but that's,

Chris (01:57:40):
that's still the story I have in my head is daddy tapping
on the glass and looking at thenurse and saying,
listen, it's fine.
They had to, what's wrong withher head?
They had to grab me with littlehooks and it made my head a
little pointy, Derek.
That's all I mean.
Yeah.
Don't shave your head.
Okay, fine.
I won't.
Fine.
I won't.
Okay.

(01:58:01):
All right.
Well we're gonna go ahead andwrap up.
We will hit stop re Well,Christine will hit stop
recording because that's whatshe's in charge of'cause I
always hit the wrong button.
Sounds great.
Thank you.
Alright, thank you.
Thanks.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Bare Bones Banter with Derek Crager

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

All Episodes

Bare Bones Banter with Derek Crager

Stuff You Should Know