Embracing Content Diversification with Dr. Mick Smith (Doctor of Digital Podcast)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I'm a very busy person. So apologies in advance for
the podcaster show series who has taken a little bit
of a hiatus but during the holidays says, that's what happens,
and you know, it's okay, we're back here, King of Podcasts,
here with you. Thank you for joining me once again.
One of the things that happened was that, you know,
it's always about the attracting and bringing on really good guests,

(00:30):
the filtering process, things like that, and I think we
have a really great guest to can bring on with
us today who, as you know, like myself, has done
a lot of work in podcasting and as current podcast
series six hundred and eighty episodes. Wow. So the leader
has a track record and we've talked to some of
those that have been on here that have had that
long track record doing podcast So my guest is best

(00:52):
known as a doctor digital, a chief Digital officer at
the chief Digital Officer at Smith Consulting, LLC. Whether we're
twenty seven years of experience also leads the idea to
author coaching community background inclusive extensive work at education from
pre K to higher education, experience and ad tech recruitment,
online course development, teaching. He's a podcaster again, six hundred

(01:13):
and eighty episodes on digital marketing, technology, authors, and business innovation.
Also co hosts podcasts on topics like divorce, music, relationships,
and intimacy. I'm here with the Doctor Digital Doctor, Mick
Smith Doctor.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Thanks for being one of this. Oh thank you. I
appreciate the opportunity. Nice to see him scene here.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
For myself, I know that when I started doing podcasting,
now this is before I even got into producing and editing.
We were just calling audio archiving in two thousand and five.
August two thousand and five will be my twentieth year
in podcasting, and twenty twelve was when I started doing
my own because the hosting became affordable enough for me
to go ahead and decide to make the switch. But

(01:52):
one of those things was having some diversity in the content,
because for some people there's the part where, Okay, if
I'm going to do content, I want to be able
to put everything onto one show or create multiple series.
I just remember I tried to go and do a
couple of different pilots, figured out WHI show I'm going
to start off with first and then go on from there,

(02:13):
and that's what I did with yourself. I know this
that was the same kind of direction that you did
for yourself, and being able to go ahead and cover
a wide range in your podcast, and also because of
the fact that if you're gonna be someone that's going
to talk about that, I mean, it's a matter of
how much research you do, you're expertise in it from
your own perspective, or being able to just be a

(02:34):
good interview that gets the right questions out of the
right guests, talk about what it is about what you're
doing right now. To have that diversification of content, hosting
a podcast or the series that you host your cost.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, I think it starts out with the Doctor Digital
podcast and that's where the six hundred and eighty or
so come in. And so that's why I've always said
that's my main podcast. But then I've also found that
there are niches as well. So that's what kind of
the process you walk walk yourself through. So that's how
some of the other podcasts came up. Excuse me, so

(03:09):
where I started looking at some other things and then
ask frankly, because once I'd been around for a while,
I had some people jump in there. So I had
a good buddy of mine and said, you know, I'm
doing these things already on Music one on one, and hey,
I noticed you wrote a book on music, and so
you must know something about music. How about co hosting? Okay, great,
So that's how Music one on one came about. And

(03:30):
he had a couple other podcasts as well, love Letters
and then about Relationships. So we do those. That's three
times a week. So when I'm saying six hundred and
eighty on the Doctor Digital podcast, well, I started accumulating
the other ones that have done now for several months
three a week. And then I had yet another podcast
on the Aftermath the Epidemic of Custody, Divorce and Healing

(03:52):
that had about seven episode. So now I'm starting to think, yeah,
you know, it's like seven hundred, eight hundred episodes. I've
lost count. But I I think what a podcaster can
do is to start with primarily what they know and
what they do, and I think where you started, that's
what I did. I said, all right, I'm going to
make some mistake, right frankly, So this is what happens.

(04:12):
And you start realizing that even when you record a
few episodes when you first get started, Wow, that wasn't
very good. I was fumbling with it. And you know, so,
I think what I would always advise a podcaster to do,
or a potential podcaster, is the bank about ten episodes.
And the reason I say about ten is that you
might look back and start saying, well, I've improved and

(04:34):
I've gotten a little bit better. So you have to
be able to take your expertise, no question about it.
But then there are also some subjects that you may
be able to find that would be of interest to
other people. And that's why I've said it's kind of
unfolded for me. I have one basic episode podcasts, but
then there are some specialties as well, and I've been
fortunate enough to jump on those as well.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
And most importantly, I will always say that in coaching,
producing podcasts for others, a lot of clients we worked
in over the years, hundreds, it's always about you want
to really get The first way to really start improving
your craft is you've got to force yourself to listen back.
You need to catch what you're doing wrong. You need

(05:15):
to realize all the stumbling, fumbling, stammering that you're doing
on a regular basis. And you know, for some of those,
we don't get to do that because for some of
my clients I have to go and cut everything out,
so I clean them up beforehand, and oh great for them.
They don't even really take the advantage of approaching that.
But then I have to go and come back to
them as Deevil advocate and say, listen, Kay, you sounded
great right there, but this is what you really sounded like.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
And that's the.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Part where you want that to be the first thing.
I guess in those first ten podcasts, as you say,
that would be one of the first things I would
say that anybody needs going to learn if they're gonna
get themselves polished and be able to go and do this.
And also keep in mind, I came from a radio background.
If you listen to people that are doing radio and
you hear the ones that are not stumbling over and

(05:58):
can pregnant, pause and just realize, okay, you need to
be able to just control what you're saying, sure, intonate
and unciate everything like that. It's those things that could
come across. So initially the Doctor Digital podcast and I'll
I was trying to go and look back about how
far when was the initial start of the series. How

(06:19):
long ago was that that was?

Speaker 2 (06:21):
I would say it's twelve years ago when I first started,
So I started saying, yes, I probably wasn't into it
as heavily as it got because I started realizing it's
really good and I really want to do this, so
I think I just write it out. But it originally
went back about twelve years and then it got more
serious than the last few years, and I a grew
with your point. Actually without broadcasting. That's what got my

(06:42):
interest in podcasting in the first place, because way when,
in a decade, long, long time ago, it was in broadcasting.
So I said, podcasting is very similar to broadcasting in
microphone and an audience, and you're trying to build up
an audience.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Well, and the thing was, at that point we were
already starting to get that first mainstream appeal to podcasting
because Serial had just come out, the NPR series, and
that really just got people to kind of like into
the idea of just getting into it as a hobby
until we got to where we are today. But at
the time of digital marketing, let's go ahead and put that
first in front and forward, because we still have an

(07:19):
existing podcast network, can still operate called WMR dot FM
formerly Webmasterradio dot FM, very much a trench of digital marketing.
So we had the folks from Bruce Clay Incorporated, the
man who coined the term search engine optimization. We did
shows on affiliate marketing. We were doing some great shows
on that. James Martel god rest his soul passing away,

(07:39):
but did a great show call a Philia Buzz with
us for a long time, se one on one, SEO Rocksters.
We were embedded in the whole thing where everybody was
wrong with us. We also Danny Sullivan dealing search casts
anything he might ringabell, but for us, I know the
time Google was going through so many different updates. We
had Panna, we had Penguin, so many things that were
changing and just going the speed of light right then

(08:00):
and there. And of course the advent of social media
really becoming getting a stranglehold on search results because social
media wanted to also be a search engine, and that's
what everybody tried to go and do with Twitter, Facebook
and like, and now the same thing goes with the
other social media outlet's like It's here, TikTok or just
they're all kind of embedding in that way, but talking

(08:22):
about now in those twelve years, about staying on top
of the changes in digital marketing, and also the fact
that mobile has become so important. Mobile started right then
and there at the same time, Like, that's a real
heavy time to go and jump down with a new
podcast and what you've seen through those last thirteen years
so years, tell me about that.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, that's certainly, that's certainly the case. And it's oddly enough,
I did concentrate on digital marketing at the very beginning too.
I had some good contacts in that field, and I said, well,
I could see audio in general and podcasting specifically to
be a growing area. So I said, if you have
digital marketers, this is the area to go into. So

(09:02):
I was fortunate enough I had about twelve or fifteen
or so experts. So that was how I started getting
more serious about it. After doing the initial foray that yes,
I want to be a podcaster, but I don't know
exactly where my re direction go. And then I had
contact with all these great digital marketers and I said, well,
I'm the person with the podcasting, and now this is

(09:22):
another area for them to get into. So as it
kind of evolved, I was also watching the trends and
also watching what else was happening. So you get the
social media, you get the mobile, you start getting the
introduction of YouTube. So now you go back in questions,
I'm saying, is it visual just audio? Do It's both
a combination, So all of those things. I think trying

(09:44):
to stay on top of the trends makes it both
an interesting and engaging and dynamic field, which is why
I always say everybody should be podcasting or listening to
podcasts because it is a really dynamic field.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Now, did you ever notice the correlation. I've noticed this
in retrospect now that prior to twenty twelve twenty thirteen,
we had a lot of the big, major super conferences.
I remember going to events like Search into Strategies or
going to affiliate summon or going to ad Tech or
those kind of areas where these were these big super

(10:17):
conferences five ten thousand folks. We're going to New York.
We're going to the Midtown Manhattan, Hilton or you know,
mayor Mount in Times Square, all Javits, all these big places,
or going to Vegas, or going to California, whatever was
San Jose, California. All the time, I always had events there,
and then we started getting more into the boutique type
of shows, search Working Expo being one of those coming

(10:39):
in as a disruptor into the space, and then we
had a lot of others that would come in small
compact so the community did not convene together. I mean,
going back to even like Pubcon would be kind of
those congregating kind of areas of digital marketers. But that
has changed, and I think that's one of the things
that because those conferences when way that interaction we had,

(11:02):
we need to have something and that was always a
pitch for other digital markets that going to do podcasting
with us is that we want to give you a
platform continue to go ahead communicate with all the people
you would talk to on the trade show floor or
during a session at a conference. We want you to
go and stay engage with them. So that's what you
had a gonn do do you undice that as well?
And it was that something that you kind of noticed

(11:23):
why the podcasting idea was something that was the right
thing to approach at the time.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah, And I think you head on something there which
ties into the whole idea of the pandemic. I think
where you start saying, let's not have to go somewhere,
and then there was a time where we couldn't go anywhere.
So what happens is people start listening and they start
looking or because they're at home or they're not necessarily

(11:50):
going to conventions. I mean, you think about the entertainment industry, conventions, cruises,
I mean, it almost killed some of those industries. So
what you could do is have the advantage of still
meeting and still talking with a lot of people, but
you just do it remotely. And I think one of
the things that came out of the pandemic was the
fact that you can just listen and still make the

(12:11):
connections and still network and still a lot of the
things that you would have done, except you're not doing
it physically. Same thing with work, change the nature of work.
A lot more remote workers now.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Now beyond the doctor digital and this is something that's
kind of interesting out there where you delve not just
into digital marketing, but also in your podcasting, where you
dealt in the music, love and sex through podcasting. One
of those the reasons I to think about two is
that when you look at what you've done in digital marketing,
we also know that when people want to go ahead
and know that Okay, well maybe se O or affiliate

(12:44):
marketing are not areas we can go really be able
to go and make it, you know, big consultancy fees
like we used to in the past. You know, get
the several hundred dollars per hour fee because it's a corporatization.
There's in house you know, outfits now in place. And
always noticed that, you know, it was always one thing
where it's always the kind of like the inside thing.

(13:05):
A lot of those search engine companies are all those
digital marketers. They made their money off of porn pills
and casinos prior to search marketing really becoming really popular
as it was. And then we go into other fringe areas.
So now we have in my area, I know we
expanded to ten years ago to cannabis, and now we're
kind of expanding into plant medicine like psychedelics and biohacking

(13:26):
of various adventures like that. And there's other people that
can go to the crypto like, there's all these other
fringe areas to cover. So is that something that you
look at where the spectrum of what you can talk
about how you kind of brand yourself out because there
is a lot of as a wide range right there
of what you talk about, and the same thing goes
in business for some people where their business goes.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, I think what happens is you find the niche.
So anybody who's in podcasting it would say, here are
some things that you can do. You come out for
your expertise, so you've sort of balance the general interest.
So yes, I never really thought i'd be on a
relationship cho because and I don't know if I'm an
expert at it, but I can think about it, and
I can share my experiences and I can talk about

(14:13):
I think what you'd try to do is you find
both a niche in some ways or else you'll have
a broad enough audience that people are interested. And these
are things and subjects that clearly people are interested in.
So if you like music, then you're going to check
it in the music one oh one. I have certain
errors that I know about so general interests. However, I

(14:36):
don't know about all kinds of music at all times,
and so contemporary music kind of goes over my head.
I'll be honest with it. So Kirston is interested in
the areas of music that I do know I think
they would check it out. And also I think it
helps in terms of all podcasts. It's information. The flow
of information is just incredible. So when you think about

(14:58):
these are revolutions that took place in the past. With Gutenberg,
you know, all of a sudden people have access to
a lot more data. And I see both the Internet
having done that. I think both podcasting has done that.
It's revolutionized the access to information. How many people start
saying when they look at education, they say, well, I
learned just as much on YouTube as they do in

(15:20):
some formal institutional setting. Well, not surprisingly, because there are
so many experts there, and there are so much good
information and so much good data out there that people
gravitate to it. So when you find your interest, there's
other people out there that want to know about that
particular subject.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
So when you decided to diversify out and you had
offers from other podcasters, hey come on to be a
co host of my program. One of the things I
know for me was that I was doing a series
in twenty nineteen, my third series, I called it Whin
I'm Up. Podcasting made it more or less of the
Umbrella series just took about various issues. So some of
the areas where I had to go and work on
the working area in cannabis that I wanted to reach

(15:59):
wal mainstream audio. Then there was an area those are
out society, dating culture, relationships, and there are other areas
I looked at as well that I thought I could,
you know, attest to. And then I would go and
evaluate what those podcasts did, how they performed, and I
noticed the ones about the dating culture, sex all that,
and I was kind of attached from because I did
some work as we had a podcast that those waswards

(16:21):
Adult towards the tail end of the adult industry when
it was still had, when there wasn't so highly regulated
and the money was still going on. People could still
monetize in the area, but now of course it's changed.
The thing was I found out that content was something
that I could resonate with because when I talked about
those particular episodes, they did well. So I decided, okay,

(16:42):
I'm going to just convert that show into a new
series and focus on that. It's called the Prades in
the Bochers. It's done pretty well. Like on YouTube, I
get pretty good numbers overall, and it's better than I
thought it was going to be, you know, just hitting
even on the right subjects. But that was the part
where I found a way to make it where it
was my own and the content was something I do

(17:04):
a lot of research on because you know, it's funny,
like I do a lot of reading. I'll look at
articles regular basis wherever I'm going to go find it
from x so the Google newsfeed, all these places I'm
going through and going through like this algorithm of just
kind of like, Okay, I'm going to filter through what
I want to go and find that is interesting to me.
And maybe these topics are things I don't get to

(17:25):
talk about anybody. This is to anyone else. Tell me
about that part about what you're get to talk about
outside of digital marketing, the expertise you get from it,
how you're getting to expertise, how much of it is
attached to you, and really, why do you feel like
that's something that you have enough people that you could
talk about this, And that's why if you don't, you

(17:47):
channel it here to these shows.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
And I think you can give an example. So one
of them that I said was the Aftermath the epidemic
of divorce, custody and healing, So that was the surprise.
So I came across a person that from a third person.
They said, we first got interviewed on her podcast, and
they said, you know what, you guys ought to collaborate
and said yes, because we both had our own experiences

(18:12):
and he could bounce off of one another. It was
almost like the perfect setting because we had a male
female perspective mother, then you have a male father perspective.
Both of us had experienced something separately. However, you could
get the male female perspective mother father perspective, and then
sure enough we also came across as the leading experts

(18:35):
in the field, which was really fortunate. So through the
series of sixty or seventy episodes that we did on that,
for example, we talked to the top people. Yeah, absolutely,
top people in the United States and also in the UK,
and surprisingly that turned out to be a top five
percent global podcast, which surprised us because we weren't really

(18:56):
thinking about that. But what you find is that this
is a niche, and that's often the case of people
who are really seeking information, they wouldn't necessarily have access
to the top experts, and sure enough that thing kind
of took off like wildfire. So you find these subjects
or these topics, and you find your audience because you're
providing good information and good value. So a couple of

(19:19):
things that I would always say podcasting you have to
always produce value, and you also have to be authentic.
And with a serious subject like this that hit people
personally like myself and my co host, it was definitely authentic.
It was from the heart, and it also provided value.
So in a podcast, I think those are some two

(19:39):
key elements that you have to have.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
So I'm looking through some of the episodes that you
had done on that, and I can imagine there is
a lot to cover in that from what you're talking
about when it came to the legal side, counseling the
trauma that comes after this, Like that's really I mean,
you covered a lot of ground on that. And was

(20:03):
any that to do with just the expertise of maybe
what you've done in terms of any counseling at all,
Like what was it that made you a good contributor
to co host that podcast? What were some of the
things that you were able to offer.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
I think one of the things I wrote a novel
on burning America and the best interests of the children
and was about my experience, and that's how we connected
in the first place with my co host from third person,
because they actually had a good story, and a good
story is something which is very compelling. I also apply
this to podcasting in general when I'm interviewing people. And
here's how I would say it. There's this notion of

(20:39):
in media rests, which when you're writing a novel, you're
writing something creative, it's in the middle of So when
some people are saying I'm going to write this book
and it kind of goes on a lot of background,
is going to know what you really want to do
is you do this technique, which is called in media
arrest in the me middle of something and usually something traumatic,
because if you don't do that start there, then nobody's interested.

(21:02):
So likewise, I've applied this to my interviews and I
try to say, for a person, tell me about your background,
usually something that's most interesting, most startling, most dramatic thing,
and that's the hook. So once you get people hooked
at the very beginning, then they will also continue listening
because they can see that there's value in that particular episode.

(21:24):
So my personal expertise I guess had a good story,
so with the other person had a good story, and
from there we were just very fortunate because we started
talking to the leading experts in the field. Provided that
value for the audience. And then at the same time,
what you have is this wide range of things, just
like you mentioned, Okay, there's legal, there's psychological, there's traumatic

(21:48):
things that are going on. How do you counsel people,
how do you help people, how do you help your children?
At what age can you help your children? And what
do you do at the different ages that children are
if they are going through this process. So there is
a lot there and with that much of content that
could be produced. Turns out what we were doing is

(22:08):
had that value for people and listeners.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
So it's going to focus in the reason you were
able to call yourself the doctor Digital. So in the
program itself the podcast, you start off and you make
mention of and if I'm taking from a story from
Canvas Rebel Canvas Rebel that they did a profile on you.
You talk about in nineteen ninety four, you jumped on
early adopting the internet. You built distance learning programs that

(22:34):
were very profitable, and you did consulting and then you
started navigating for digital transformation and group companies and education
nonprofit and the internet and for the internet startup fields.
Now from the area of digital marketing, give me the
expertise you were able to get from that respect, because
ninety four, you know, that's when SEO really started becoming

(22:54):
not having become a term yet, but people were starting
paying attention to right around that time. So if there's
enough people that I have in the space where you
know my boss over at Double Mass Radio on Cannabis Radio,
his name is s he Guru, you might remember the name.
In the mid nineties, that's where that's where his name
comes from. And he's what we call like the an

(23:14):
og sel, one of those first engining pioneers in the field.
And there's plenty of others we know in the same place.
If I gave names like you know what Gorilla or
Baked Jake or oil Man and the people like that
that you know, the handles were all everybody knew. People
buy and what you had to do through coding to
get yourself notice the search results and helping others to

(23:35):
do the same thing on Google or you know, maybe
what was Netscape or whatever there was back in the
day that was or Yahoo, that was where everybody was
really picking intention to So talking to me about your
expertise as an early adopter.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
In digital Yeah, and I think that's where the name
came from. So people have asked me like, how did
you come up with the doctor of Digital and why, Well,
because there's a digital transformation that's taking place in my
particular setting. I was an educator and I've been for
a long time. So I say, now at this point
I'm recovering academic because I was in academia for a
long time. In nineteen ninety four, I noticed that after

(24:10):
the nineteen eighties and all the stumbling through computers and
how inefficient they were and how they didn't work. So
I now apologize course to all it computer people because
the eighties didn't seem like computers were going to go anywhere,
but by ninety four it did with those things that
you mentioned, say Netscape, for example, And what I saw
is that this could be applied to education, and certainly

(24:32):
it has more extensively since then. But if you started
with distance learning, which I did at the time, I said, Okay,
we can be very efficient with this if we digitize
all of our content. We're able to produce much more
revenue with not producing more and more content all the
time because now it's archive. Now we can allow access

(24:53):
for the students, and from there it really built out.
So I then in nineteen ninety eight I went to
A and M and I got a certificate in distance
learning the administration because I realized that, well, this is
opening up a whole consulting field. If people are starting
to go into colleges and universities and then other institutions
are going to offer distance learning, there's going to be

(25:15):
a need for it. So that's what I really saw.
And from there, of course, then you start getting the
lms's learning management systems, some of which are still around,
some of that have fallen by the wayside. But what
it means is that digitizing education was really a new
concept in the nineties, and then about two thousand and
then two thousand subsequently it starts to become more and

(25:36):
more common. In fact, one of the things I noticed
since the background in education, there were what I called
no name institutions, right, they weren't the big IVY schools,
they weren't the leading lights. But all of a sudden
you find some colleges or universities because they embraced distance
learning and online education so much, they suddenly became players.

(25:56):
They suddenly became much more popular, much more profitable because
they saw the trend. And that's the digitizing revolution that
I saw.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
Now in the world of digital now today, and before
the term of artificial intelligence became such a such a
popular term these days, we were talking about machine learning
and language learning models. So now we're in this place
where we are going into where it's now being a
better even in our podcasting prowess today, I know I

(26:28):
use AI for a lot of things right now, just
to go and generate tititles, subscriptions, whatnot. And there's a
lot of affordability and to be able to go and
just create your own content with the right quality of equipment.
Everything like that has come in technology has made it
much easier to go and do this. Plus your content
obviously has gone through the evolution of technology as well.
What do you think about where we are in the
direction now where if we leave it up to the

(26:49):
machines now to kind of take care of these kind of.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Things, Well, I think it's both exciting and also sort
of uncharted. Territory, which makes it even more or exciting, right,
because I can make an analogy to the Internet in general.
This is what I describe AI is the Internet on steroids.
That's how I see it because just like when the
Internet came in and you had access to all kinds

(27:13):
of information remotely, now what AI has done is it's
really made that whole process much faster. So when I
need information now I can get it quicker, better, faster.
And also those tools. I say it's also analogy like
a horse race because I use about six AI tools
that I can see. Because the eqivments are going so

(27:34):
quickly that everyone is competing with everyone else, which is
really awesome, which means they're going to improve. They're going
to get better and faster. So one of the things
that you notice that they do hallucinate because what they
are trying to do is to give you an answer.
But you notice that there are things that will pop in.
So I'll give you an example with music. So I'm

(27:56):
going to ask for give me a tune for if
Stevie Wonder from the nineteen seventies, and it'll give me
one in the nineteen sixties. I go, no, you made
a mistake. Now, I don't want to sound like I'm
really arrogant, but some things I know better than the AI,
they make mistakes and they hallucinate. But I think those
are one of the fields that people are going to
improve and improve very quickly. So if you think about

(28:18):
AI as opposed to content that is, graphics, in terms
of written material, in terms of accuracy, all of these
things are coming. And exactly where it's going I don't know,
but I don't think anybody can predict. But it's going
to be very exciting. It's going to be much quicker,
much faster, and it replaces a lot of the boring

(28:39):
I would say. Right, So, if I had to come
up with content, I'd have to think about things for
a day or so and mull it over what I
call percolate in my head. I got to think about things.
But with the AI and machine learning tools that can
be adapted and personalized, you can get that information much
quicker and much faster, and it's a good day sis

(29:00):
or foundation upon which you can reflect on. So there
are some tools, brainstorming tools and also ideas, content episodes, summaries.
All of those things are incoming, and I think they're
just going to get much better as time goes on.
It won't be very long.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah. Right now, With AI, I know that I can
get quite a bit of work done, but I can't
deal with all with one system at a time. I
have to use multiple, So I will switch between Chat,
GBT and Google Gemini for anything I kind of do.
With Google Gemini, I have more of it. I have
a premium program because I have the Google One subscription

(29:37):
that includes it, so I try to do more with that.
But Google Gemini has its limitations, and I know they're
still trying to get it in process of work. The
olying two is that for anyone using AI, it's about
the input. It's whatever going to inject of yourself that
has to be brought in, and you have to get
used to the fact that. Okay, treat it like an employee.

(29:59):
Give all the information you're gonna need to give. Don't
assume that it's gonna know everything, and continue to just
keep tweaking it. Go back, Okay, here we do like this,
do it like this, And I'm not gonna expect the
learning model to go ahead learn itself. I don't even
expect that. I'm just gonna expect Okay, this is almost
gonna be a novice to like barely above knowledge or
release will be good at. Data entry will be good at,

(30:21):
you know, taking information that's already been gathered. Fine, archivists
all that kind of thing, But it's not gonna think
for itself. You're gonna have to give as much input
as possible to make sure you get the most out
of it. And that's what I've learned from myself, Like
I'll put in and just spit out a whole lot
of that need to go and get into the system
to get it done right. And you know, sometimes it'll

(30:43):
even do things where you know, if you want to
try to put an argument counter argument, it won't really
do that because I know in the dating society, culture things,
if I try to make it say something in Gemini
that it's gonna be there, it's not the pop of
your opinion. It won't even allow it to go in
generate because there's just certain things that what's being built
into those particular models they don't want to go and do.

(31:04):
So you have to go with multiple models to be
able to go and operate well and have the right
input and comp tweak tweak it's still going to be
a short amount of time to do with that route
than trying to go and orgain it to generate yourself
and then just continue to proofread, rewrite, revisit and all that.
I think there's a common ground in all that that
still does work for time management and still allows you

(31:27):
to go ahead and have someone else stinking for you
helping out in that process.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
You know, if you make a comparison to a staff
person or a VA, so you have a virtual assistant
and it is very quick, very efficient, and really terrific
at what they do, but they need direction. So AI
is something like that. If you treat it like a
staff person, they need direction. And there's where the prompt
comes in, because I think that's a really valid point

(31:53):
when you're working with AI, depending on what you put in.
And it's the old thing that goes back to what
programmers said encoders when I first started working with them,
they said garbage in, garbage out. It's something like that.
So if you give it the correct prompt, and if
you are very specific, it often will improve the answer
that you're getting. So AI in machine learning is taking

(32:15):
all the stuff that's out there. That's why it will
make mistakes and it hallucinates. There's a lot of mistakes
out there. There's a lot of things that are incorrect,
and what a machine learning is doing is taking all
of that in. It doesn't mean it gets the best material,
doesn't mean it gets the worst material, but it's somewhere
in the middle. But what we do as human beings
is we take that as a basic starting point and

(32:36):
a foundation, and then what we do is to apply
our human thinking to improve all the data that's out
there and all that stuff that's out there. So one
of the things that AI will probably get better at
is what you mentioned. If we personalize, the more I
train it, the more it's personalized to what I need,
the more and more accurate and better answers that I'm

(32:58):
going to get.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
All Right, So I gotta ask about one of the
other podcasts that you do right now, Love Letters. That's
what Daniel Lucas your co host with him, and you
know it's part of where what would you come into
and where you're talking about. I don't know about Daniel
and what his background is, but I mean, is it
two older I guess more adult gentleman talking about love

(33:21):
talking about various areas where you bring up only fans,
you bring up you know, do hot girl settle when
it comes to age of abandonment? All these different psychological, emotional,
cultural topics. Talking about where you're doing that show pretty
regularly right now, and it's one of those things where
you are able to offer the expertise that you give

(33:43):
and I know, for me, I'm always trying to track
a younger audience. So tell me what you do, what's
the target audience you're going for, and you know, what
kind of response do you get and what kind of
content do you feel like you need to bring to
the table that's going to attract that audience.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, I think if it's one of those things that
have been bigger than you might think, or I would
found well, I don't know why anybody would be interested
in what I particularly have to say, but it is
a uniqu perspective. And when we start going over the
data and we do the analytics with Daniel to start seeing, well,
how many countries are we in, We're in fifty countries,

(34:20):
in eighty countries, so everyone we're saying the goal is
one hundred countries. So actually it's a global audience. So
Oddly enough, there are people all over the world listening.
So love letters to me is, yes, I'm a cultural
critic in some way, right, so I'm a historian by training.
That was actually my expertise, but that also spills over
into I'm thinking about culture, and these are cultural issues,

(34:43):
but of course they hit the heart. There are, you know,
things that are really personal to people, and love is
very personal, right, So culturally these are the things that
are going on. I see them, I observe them, I'm
commenting on them, and hopefully, based on the questions and
the sponsors we're getting, there are those people who are listening,
and surprisingly enough, it's a global audience, so it means

(35:06):
that probably people are very interested in this and want
to know more. I just have a focus because I
am an American and I do have some religious affiliations
and belief and I think that's what provides the cultural
critique that I think has that unique perspective because I'm
a godly person in some ways I would say righteous person,

(35:28):
and I'm doing the best that I can to provide guidance,
mostly for younger people, but for some of us older
folks as well.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
I know when I do the program of my own.
There's been parts where the only fans epidemic about that.
I'm just and now, you know, I can almost understand
where there are certain you know, habits and certain things
that people are going to do now that or I'm
not going to understand anymore because you know, being older
and I remember, you know, eighties and nineties were just

(35:57):
people were very sexually active with it was just a
certain way of handling things and what people like to
go and do, what the praise to the boxer's things
they might like to do. And so the way has
changed so much because now it's not even where it's like, okay,
you want to do something like that, you want to
do something that's like that, you know, crazed and very
out there. It would be in person, but now all
that's being hidden behind you know, computers, but online that

(36:20):
all that kind of behavior is more online than it
was ever before. Unless there's somebody that's doing the continent
in person and they're putting an online for want to
go and watch. There's this whole you know, the industry now,
the way it's being done, I mean, like we're porn
was a certain way, okay, you had actress actresses, a
whole set up. Everything's being watched, people can watch it
in theaters, whatever it was. Now it's all being held

(36:42):
behind online. And I don't think people understand the risks
they take into putting themselves into that kind of environment
and what it means to them, because there's so many
people now that can be easily persuaded and adapted to
this environment, because so many people have looked at the
online environment and they take us so much to heart,
like it really means something to them, is so realistic.

(37:04):
But we know older we see us not we do
this difference between reality outside the real world and what
there is online.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah, and in some ways, I'd say there's an advantage
because even though the doctor of digital I lived in
a pre digital age, right, so what it was like
to not have all of these things. And that's why
as much as I enjoy technology and as much as
I talk about it, as much as I use it,
I'm not a slave to it. So if you notice

(37:32):
the younger people they walk around, and they said, they're
all going to have the neck syndrome because they're always
bending overlooking over their phones, which I don't do because
I can detach from it. I remember an age when
we didn't have all of these things, So as much
as I use it, that's where the cultural critic comes in.
How about a simpler age? How about a less is

(37:53):
more kind of age? Because when we didn't have those things,
I would argue that we were much more creative in
some way because we had to come up with entertainment ourselves.
We had to create ourselves and not necessarily look for
digital entertainment and also that sort of addictive digital entertainment
because we had to do things on ourselves. In a

(38:14):
previous generation, even further back older than me, that's why
people would say learn musical instruments, though they would learn
the violin the piano, they would have to entertain themselves,
and it was a simpler age. So my point here
is that for a lot of younger people not knowing
any of those things, I think the perspective of a

(38:34):
more mature in some ways I'm going to say wise
or a little bit of wisdom that you can also
detach from these things. So when you brought up, say OnlyFans,
which are really interesting, right, so people can then expose
themselves and they're going to make a whole lot of
dollars and a whole lot of money, which some few
people have. Well, the surprising statistic can come up with

(38:55):
is the average person on only fans makes one hundred
and eighty dollars a month. You know. So look, if
you think you're gonna get rich just like it was
back in the gold rush days, that's probably not gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
So now in the last four months, we have several
particular you know, models that have decided to go go
to the route of doing what you know, some of
those adult stars did back in the day where okay,
we're gonna six with thousands of minutet a time like it.
Just now we're getting to that point where like this
is the part where like, okay, we're gonna get out
of control here. Who's going to try to fall along

(39:26):
and try to go ahead and super see what they're doing?
The behavior that's being accepted, there's not a lot of
outcry to it, and if there is, you know, there's
the common ground of people that might be very a
little bit more sanctimonious or hypocritical themselves. But I talk
about it. But it's also the part because I'm just
trying to say, listen, I'm not gonna stop anybody from
you know, curving their behavior. People are gonna do what

(39:47):
they're gonna do. I'm kind of just you know, the
spectator here watching what's being done. But there has to
be a point where, Okay, somebody has to be adult
in the room and say listen for those young people
that are coming into this and they're saying, oh, they're
kind of starting to idolize who these women are. Stop
Because there's that, and there's all different places we watch
in terms of what we watch on TV, movies, what's

(40:10):
streaming right now, it's I mean, it used to be where,
you know, sexual content was like front and center when
we watched a lot of movies, a lot of sex scenes,
a lot of things like that. But then there's this
whole thing of taking all that out of our content
because you don't see so much of it anymore, because
it has to be some kind of quota has to
be the way all these different things need to be covered.

(40:31):
So the way we want to have been sexualized in
the nineties and two thousands, that's kind of gone. But
now it's just being hidden, and it's like I don't
want it to be hidden. I want it to still
be in the front because I want people to feel
shamed for it. If they're gonna do it, Okay, you're
gonna feel shamed for at least you're gonna do it,
and you're gonna admit you're doing it. You know, it's
not gonna be hiding behind some computer screen and not

(40:54):
being able to go and thinking you're not gonna get
any consequences or you're not gonna be taking the risk,
and you're going to realize the risk is going to
hurt you because I don't think anybody realizes the consequences anymore.
So that's one of the things they can do it
without any retribution whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
And I think this is where maybe there's a unique
perspective or a little bit better. It's a caution because
I agree with the statement. I mean, you know, look,
people are going to do what they're going to do.
I have no right to tell anybody else what they
should do. I don't want people telling me what I
should do. But there's some caution. I do think you
could say some guidelines, so you know, is this the

(41:31):
best behavior? And unfortunately younger people, if this is what
they grow up with, they are going to think it's normal.
Just like I give this story. I grew up in
New Jersey around oil refineries, right, so I thought the
whole world had oil refineries. And then you get a
bit older and you realize, well, no, this is not normal.
It's just that's the happened to be the way that
I grew up and where I grew up. So for

(41:52):
younger people, they should know that certain behaviors are probably
not the best thing to do. That's not the best
to engage in spectives. Have you thought about this? Have
you thought about this as you get older? So let's
say you're a younger person and you expose yourself in
a certain way, are you ever going to be able
to live with that for the rest of your life?

(42:12):
And that means as you get older and you start thinking,
I'm going to develop a relationship, I'm going to have children.
I mean, is this the content that you want your
children to see? I mean, there's there are things that
are common sense. I mean, be an adult in the
room just saying you know, this is just something to consider,
just something to think about. So rather than seeing the
things that are here now as normal, maybe you can

(42:34):
say there's alternatives. And I would always say it comes
down to individual choice. What do you think is the
best choice for you to be doing and for you
to be engaging in at this moment.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
Doctor Nick Smith, really appreciate you coming on and now
tell me about all this. Let's go really quickly go
into your content. So again, aditial show is a Doctor
Digital you can find that of course all major podcast platforms.
And you're still doing shows us Today love Letters we
talked about as well, also a current show you're co
hosting and among that. That's so much ground you're coming

(43:08):
right there. So what's the best possible place. I know
there's a couple of different ways people can can find you.
I noticed the website of the book burning, Burning America
dot com, Burning Hyphenamerica dot com. But is there any
other websites or any other places that people can go
and fall along with you so you can go and
get to your content.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yeah. I think probably the best place is the idea
author coach on Facebook. And the reason they use Facebook
Facebook is that most people are there. It's ubiquitous and
that was never a big user of it, but I
find there's so many people there and a lot of
my activities can be found there as well, So the
idea author coach on Facebook. It's primarily for a person
who wants to express themselves. They want to write a book,

(43:50):
and they want to sell more books. I can help
them do that. That's where the recovering academic part of
me comes in. Everything you know about academia, publish your parish,
having known that field and knowing that I've got some
other projects along those ways. So I'll keep people updated.
And people want to write, you want to sell books,
let me know, and keep tabs on all my other activities.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
All right, we're gonna leave it there, Doctor Nick Smith,
the Doctor Digital. Thank everybody's eneral on podcast or drill.
Really appreciate you to get the time out listeners. Thank
you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.

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