Welcome back to Data Driven, the podcast where we dive deep into

data science, AI, and all the intricacies of the tech world

because who doesn't love an existential crisis over machine learning on a

Monday morning? Today, our special guest is Candice

Gillhooley, an industry powerhouse blending technical savvy with

marketing insight. She's here to chat about her latest venture

in sentient marketing. Yes. That's right. Marketing that

thinks and feels in its own way. Together with Frank and

Andy, we'll explore the crossroads of data, AI, and

marketing psychology. Expect revelations on the creative

potential of AI, the nuances of neurodiversity in the

workforce, and maybe a few day tours through nineties nostalgia.

Grab a cup of coffee, and let's get data driven.

Well, hello, and welcome back to Data Driven, the podcast. We explore the emergent

fields of data science, AI, and data engineering.

With me today, I don't have that catchy, like, information

superhighway thing, but, like, I think the information superhighway thing goes way

over kids' heads today. Yeah. So

so today is we're recording this on November 4th, and it's the

1st week in November, which, long time listeners of the show

know that Andy and I kinda treat like New Year's, because

it kinda closes out the crazy busy time of year, at least

for me, and then starts going into the

planning for next year for a lot of things. Although I have 3 kids

now, you know, one almost able to drive and

one still in diapers and one in the middle. So I don't really have a

quiet time of the year anymore. But,

that having been said, this has been a wild

year, and I'm glad to see 2024 in the rear view mirror

for a number of reasons. How about you, Andy? How's things going with

you? Things are going well, Frank. Yeah. I agree with

you. This is, it's a good time to transition

because you get a bit of a jump on the New Year, the whole New

Year thing. And, you know, it's hard to do starting

over stuff, right after the holidays. I mean,

I get it. And it's kinda for me, it's kinda worked out as having 2

New Years, when we do it this way. Yeah. So I get a

lot of prep work done for the January 1st New

Year. And it was you told me it was your mom or grandma. I forget

who. It was my grandma. Yeah. Yeah. And I said, that's that's

a good idea. I'm gonna do that too. It worked out pretty well. And and

and it also is a nice checkpoint because when everyone talks about their New Year's

resolutions, you have 60 days. Like, well, did I really do all the

things I said I was gonna do? Or did I

not? But one of the one of the shining bright lights, there were 2

real, I think, accomplishments for me personally this year.

One is the adoption was finalized. 2, I

co wrote a book and it's actually published. And that is

our guest today is Candice Ghahouli,

and it's a good story on how that's pronounced. And,

it was

you the actual print copy of it. There is a second

edition in the works. So because this is a

fast moving field. But welcome to the show, Candace. How's it going?

It's going great. Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah. To just to speak to kind of November and

new year's, it's true. I I was it's funny. I was looking over

my my resume the other day, and I noticed

that when there were transitions, they tended to happen

in in November. There's something about that

very much of like, almost like a new year type of thing.

And I think that, you know, once everyone is kind of running

towards Thanksgiving, it's mentally

it's when they start to slow down and say, wait a

second, I got Thanksgiving and then Christmas and new years and

family. And this is my time to kind of

take a break, take a pause, and, you know, think about

what happened this year and the changes

in positive ways that you wanna see in the in the upcoming

year. So I completely agree with you on that sentiment.

Absolutely. Yeah. And it's, you know, I think historically,

you know, most civilizations have been kind of agrarian in nature and

harvest time is, you know, roughly this time of year, I guess, depending on your

latitude. Yeah. In the northern hemisphere, I don't wanna leave out our

friends in in Latin America or Africa or

Australia, New Zealand. But this has always been that kind of,

like, thing. And, historically, the Jewish tradition they have, the new

year is in September ish. And

I actually looked into this. So All Saints Day was kinda treated

like a New Year's for my grandmother. Like, that's was a big deal, big

dinner, a whole thing. But it actually has its origins in a

pre Christian tradition where basically

the harvest were done. They're all getting gearing up for winter, and

everybody would just kinda plan, like, how they're gonna survive the winter

and how to get ready for spring. Like, this is going back 1000 of

years. So it's kind of like a good thing. And and for me personally, the

2 older kids have birthdays in late December, in the second half of December.

So the whole idea of getting anything done other than

survival in December is kind

of a joke. Right? So it actually works out pretty well.

But, the, the thing I was excited

about when Candice talked to me about the book was, you know, in my

role as in in sales and selling AI

solutions. Right? And I still do that right now. I'm a technical

marketing manager. So kind of like what Microsoft would call developer

advocacy, evangelism, that sort of thing.

Is there's a lot of marketing folks

who know they need to use AI,

but they're not really sure how to use it. Yeah. I

think the why I think they get why they need to use it. But even

then, the why is so they get keep their keep their companies afloat,

right, and to stay relevant. But, like, you know, and I think, you

know, I think what's really important to ask Candace speak to this is that

we really wanted to have case

studies and examples on why this is important. Right?

What are your thoughts, Candace? Because I know you picked a bunch of the case

studies. Well, exactly. Like, so remember first, we

started with Target, and the idea is so

We, we, we understand the why as a marketer, we understand

why we want to be able to talk to our audience in

the most targeted and precise and

way that really resonates with them. We understand

that we understand that there's a lot of data out there. That's,

that's gonna come our way. And we can get, we can

drown in the data, which we don't wanna do. And we're a little afraid of

the data, but if we think about working with it

and, and kind of forming this relationship where we're saying,

look, I want to understand what segment of my

audience would respond to a, I want to understand,

you know, what would convert people from having an

item in their car to actually getting them to purchase with this group

B. Okay. And using the data

to set up the right kind of queries where you're able to

pull out the behavioral platform that these

people are working on would and then hand it to the

marketers, then the marketers are able to under they already know the messages

they wanna send. They just wanna be able to send the messages to

the right group. So it makes sense.

And that's That's true. Have to work together. And historically,

on this, obviously, I have a great relationship with the marketing teams at Red Hat.

And I'm not just saying that because that's where I am now. Like, it's legit.

Like, I I really do. But historically, marketing and IT have not

really been on the same page. And my favorite example

of this is, Dilbert cartoon.

Whenever he portrays marketing, they're all dressed in togas, and they all

have alcohol. And it says the science says welcome to marketing

to drink minimum,

which I think is kind of funny. But, like, I mean,

it's not quite adversarial, but it's not quite cordial

either. And I think that one of the things I wanted

people to when they read the book, they they kind of walk away from

it is you have to work together. Right? And I

can only speak as a technologist. Like, historically, Kent. Now I know you're kind of

an exception, Candace, because you've been marketing for technical companies.

But so you're kind of, like, you're kind of one of us, kind of. You

know what I mean? Like, that sounded really bad. I mean, I meant

it I meant it in the most possible best way. All good. No. But I

really did. But, like, in the marketing field, how

how how do marketers perceive IT?

See, IT and wrongly, I

think that marketers don't understand the actual creativity

that happens in the IT

function. And they think that it's very

static and super logical

and, you know, just numbers and queries and

computer programming. It doesn't really

relate to a marketer who is

emotive and creative and analytical where

needed to drive a message. So they don't really

see it as the same kind of person that why

would, you know, potentially a non linear

thinker get along really well with a linear thinker like that. And how could

they work together? But the point is they can. And the point is

that they're more alike than they are different. And

what I have learned over, you know,

maybe the last 10, 15 years working with so many

subject matter experts in, in a variety

of tech sectors is how incredibly creative,

these engineers and IT people are

because they're creating. I mean, like, it's it's you don't think of

it that way, but they're creating something and then they're trying to

show everybody what it can do and they want everyone to get

involved with it. And that kind of innovation

is in fact very similar to the kind of innovation that goes on in

marketers. I I love the way you've

described it because the analogy that's running through my head

is that of definitely art and

different mediums. So some people work in oil, others

work in marble. And, you know, I just never made

that analogy before the way you just explained that. So,

I I really do like that. And it definitely is different types of

creativity. And then when I compare that with,

you know, working with creative people, I'm a I'm an engineer.

I feel the same way you do. I think it's a great description of it.

It's very creative work. But in working with other creative people,

even other engineers, there are often clashes of

personalities because, you know, there's I don't know what it

is about creative people, but it's not the same

as, you know, some other classes of personality, but it's

definitely something there that that happens. So

and I see that. That's I think that's why Dilbert's so funny,

about that when he does it. And, you know, Scott Adams,

did share some of his experiences from corporate America.

And one of my other favorite ones is whenever

the, whenever Dilbert was punished, he was

sent to accounting by by

Phil, the prince of insufficient light. And,

yeah, very, very interesting stuff. Very creative. Speaking of

creative, very creative ways of of portraying that. And,

yeah, because everybody knows engineers and accountants. That's a

that that is a clash, as well. My I'll

say this and I'll shut up. My first CPA once told me that

if I'm ever audited, he said take your degree with you.

Just everybody knows engineers can't can't do accounting. They

can't do accounting. Love that description, Candice. Oh, thank you.

Thank you very much, Andy. I appreciate that. And we didn't do a proper intro

for Candice because Candice has been worked in a number of,

great highly technical organizations. She was marketing at

the Linux Foundation at Manning, and I know I'm leaving a few

off. I know you did some evangelism,

and marketing for some start ups. Yes. I

I much enjoy the startup mentality, you know,

working with the engineer that has all that

exciting creative electricity and then figuring out how

we're going to go to market with with their product. I worked with a

Kupunzu Focus, Kfocus.org, which is a

Linux first laptop, brilliant

for Linux super users and those who were involved in

machine learning, NLP and

AI. It really has this ability to handle modules.

The CPU in it is just out of this world and it's

really able to help engineers of certain types of, of

in certain sectors tremendously. So yeah, I'm, I'm

a total geek. I tell everybody I was

raised by an IBM inventor who was a TJ

Watson Fellow, Doctor. Rudolf Rechtschaffin.

And my whole life was IBM and computers. I

mean, my dad came home with our first computer in

1983 under his arm. And,

I tell everybody that and so this really will date me, but, you know, I,

you know, I look great. What can I say? But I used to play this

game decathlon on this IBM computer in 83

when I originally was Bruce Jenner from the US.

Right? I remember that game. I know. I remember that

game. It was, I think they ported it to the Commodore

64 at one point. Okay. So

Yeah. That's cool. Well, I love tech. I love

tech. I've always loved tech, but I'm more of, I'm

not a programmer. I'm, I'm a, I'm a non linear creative on

the other side in terms of sales and marketing. And, but that's why I

really wanted to create this book with you, Frank, because

I felt that the kind of the, the marriage of the two sides,

the marketing side and the it data driven

side would really make sense to what the

capabilities moving forward are going to be. And that

marketers don't, like, don't have to be afraid of

AI, but you should be a little bit more technically literate

because it helps you. Absolutely. And I think I I wanna double

click on something you said earlier. Like, you know, they may not understand each

other, but I think in the years to come, arguably already,

they need each other. You know, to

move forward, any organization that does not

that does their marketing based on kind of, you know, old fashioned ways

or pre technology or pre leveraging data and AI

is really at a severe disadvantage, to companies that

do that. Right? You know,

And whether it's you know, I think a lot of people think

marketing today has been influenced by, you know, social

media and influencers and kind of doing those types of relationships. Well, I think

that's true. I think there's a lot more subtle marketing

going on based on behavioral data. What do you say about

that, Candice? I completely agree with you. I mean,

I just wanna say to the influencers, this weekend, I watched

the documentary about Martha Stewart

that was on Netflix, and I cannot recommend

it more. It was oh my goodness. I

mean, I knew she was smart. She went to Barnard

in the seventies. I went to Barnard in in in the in

the late nineties. Like, you know, she was she was one of the first women

on Wall Street before they even had bathrooms for women,

Like, really tremendously interesting stuff. And

in fact, if you think about it, she was the original influencer

before there were issues. In a lot of ways. Yeah. I mean, and

and people don't realize she was an investment banker. Yes.

And she actually worked at Merrill Lynch. And I I had when I worked at

Merrill Lynch, as a wee lad,

and, there were a lot of people that remember her.

Like, you know, they they were like, you know, she was

like, she they're like, she's one tough cookie. Like, that was kinda her.

And smart. You know what I mean? To survive on Wall Street then as a

woman, I think you needed to have Yeah. You couldn't

just get away on smarts. You had to get be also very tough. So

she was definitely very tough. So I know that you asked me

about behavioral data. I'm sorry. We did we you know, you you've listened to the

show enough, Candice. No. Like, we we do, you know, the the

tangents and offerings. Focused. So focused.

It's almost obnoxious. But what I wanted to mention, which

was so interesting, is it, so when she started as the original

influencer and her whole idea of, of showing people how to

entertain, Okay. She was feeding into a

behavior of many

women out there who were working,

were also parents, but wanted to

do something that felt significant in

the family setting. And so she fed on

a behavior that other people hadn't really thought about before.

So when she came out with the first book on just entertaining, and

it's not just about cooking, but it's about flower

arrangement. It's about table setting. It's about invitations.

She was including everybody into this world of of

a familiar behavior that they wanted. And that's

why she resonated so quickly

because she really targeted a market that

nobody else was talking to. And that's why behavioral data

is really interesting when you learn people's behaviors. What do

they like? What do they wanna see? What are they interested

in? Right? What are the natural connections they make

between individual items? That information is just

golden nuggets.

Well, and there's this whole field of behavioral economics

where, you know, there's all sorts of psychology

involved in that, a lot of enough history,

even in there, there's biology for goodness

sakes, driving some of these behaviors as well. And I

you've encouraged me. I'm gonna watch that that documentary now about Martha

Stewart. I've I've admired her from afar, for a while. So

I'll I'll definitely check that out. I already had a good

excuse to watch that because I you know, Snoop Dogg ain't wrong about much.

I'm just saying. Well, and and the

whole He's become he's Snoop Dogg has

become, like, the representation of

America. Like, in so many different ways, he has

triggered, you know, alliances of many different factions that

would never align before. For shizzle. For

shizzle. And and I love the commercial. It might

have been last year's Super Bowl commercial where and again, she's

a very clever marketer. Right? Like, I I

I had no idea who Martha Stewart was until she did a commercial.

I wanna say it was for American Express

where she would do these, like, ridiculous over the top things,

and she was acting like it was no big deal. Like, she was she was

tiling she was tiling, like, the bottom of her

swimming pool, like, to look like a, Renaissance

work. I don't know. It'd be cool if that commercial was in the documentary, but

it was just like you know, she's like, what do you do with your old

credit cards? And it was just like, you know and she basically cut them up

and had this mosaic on the pool floor that she was making, and it was

just kinda like she would do these, like, over the top kind of things. And

I was like, wait. This lady is real? Like, this is like a real

thing. Right. And

then and then after she and then and then she survived going going into

jail. And then, and then she came out of jail and it, it

tells you in the documentary not to ruin anything, but when she went to go

do the Justin Bieber roast, it

completely opened up an entirely

new generation to who she was. Right. And

they she was so smart in

this roast for 5 minutes

that she recreated her career again. And

now, you know, she's doing everything else that she's doing. She's she was

she she she put a thirst a thirst picture up for,

for Sports Illustrated Magazine at 70 years old. And she's

like, yeah. I like sex. Yeah. I'm a woman. And

I'm like, go. You do you. Because if you don't do

you, no one's gonna you're never gonna get done. So I

loved it. I loved it. I have to say, I mean, I'm always impressed with

people who can reinvent themselves And Yeah. And and particularly with

her her situation with jail, which I suspect that

given that she was on Wall Street, presumably, she had her series

7, it would be a really

it would be really hard for her to say to the prosecutor, I didn't really

know what I was doing. Right? Because it was just kinda like there were enough

people around still in the Wall Street. Wall Street's a very small place in a

lot of ways, and there would be a lot of people, like, how could you

not know this was insider training? Right?

But, like, when she came out of that, like, it was really kinda like, well,

is this the end of her, or will she reinvent herself? No. Now we don't

know the answer, but, like, it's still pretty impressive in terms of, you

know, I've always had great respect for people who can

continually reinvent themselves. And I didn't realize she was 70, but I guess the

math does kinda point in that direction that she'd be

she'd be up there. But, like, I mean and and the whole thing of, like,

you know, you know, being part of that Justin Bieber

roast, right, does reintroduce her to a new generation. And, you

know, it's it it's fascinating to see that the Super Bowl commercials

that she's done have been very clever where, you know, I use

it to light candles. And then Snoop Dogg comes on with

Willie Nelson, and they say, or other things.

And I was like, it's Safeway and, like, around that time. And there was this

whole thing where there was a picture of the 3 of them where she has

a speech bubble that says, you know, lighting candles. And

then the Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg say or other things,

which is like it's brilliant. Like, it's just kinda like,

she really leaned into that, you know, her friendship

with Snoop Dogg and things like that. It's it's it's interesting to see that.

But I also think that because of social media, because

of the constant barrage we have of images,

concepts, and whatnot, you almost

have to reinvent yourself constantly. Right? Like, if you look at the

Kardashians, right, and I would hold them up as kind of like the

the counterexample of Martha Stewart. Right? Because I don't really know what

the Kardashians do. I just know that they're famous. But

that, you know, the ability to

be an influencer like that. I think you're right. I don't think the

Kardashians have been I think really Martha was there first. Oh,

absolutely. And because she was, like, in a there was only one influencer,

1 or 2, but the industry was probably made by the

by, you know, capitalized on by the Kardashians

and things like that. And

people don't have people have more positive despite

being an ex convict, people have positive impressions of

Martha. When you say the Kardashians, somebody

always cringes like in the room. They don't get that sense with Martha.

But again, we're on another sidetrack. Sorry about that. Oh, and I know. And how

are we gonna wrap this all the way up? I don't know. I have no

idea. Somehow we always land the plane, and I'm never sure how.

My, my kids were watching the Madagascar movies last

night. And, like, the penguins remind me kind of like how

we run the show. Like, you know,

the penguin where they do this thing like Now now we have to figure out

who's Kowalski. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. I don't know.

I don't know who it is. Maybe it's Bailey. Maybe Bailey's Kowalski.

I always go for the AI. That's right. Just blame the

AI. Well, there you go. But but I think it's it's

important for people one of the notions that you came up with in the

book, which I when I first heard it, I was like, that's a strange word.

But it really works. Glimmers. Oh, I

love glimmers. I think glimmers is really kind of like

part and parcel of the of the book. Can you explain what glimmers

are? Oh, I love glimmers. Glimmer is when you

you are reminded of something that makes you really

happy. If it's a sense, if it's a sound

and you, you see something and then you're immediately

brought back to this really happy moment, that's something that's

like inherent inside of you. And it just, it

resonates. And then when you're able to trigger a glimmer,

you've got the customer, the client, whoever it is,

because you have spoken to something that, you know,

is so deep within them, that it just makes sense. And

usually those kinds of things are like evocative of, of like, if it's a

commercial, you'll see, it's like a song. So like, you know,

everybody remembers the Coca Cola commercial. I'd like to buy the world

of Coke, right? The song, it was evocative of, of the, of the

seventies, which, you know, felt much more familiar

and people caring about each other and being part of a big family.

So glimmers in marketing are exactly that, finding something

even universal, but that's going to evoke the right

emotion in people that's going to bring them to the sale. I

love glimmers. I love them. Love them. Love them. And because we're constantly

connected and constantly given these streams of things, I think,

there's opportunities for the savvy marketer to bring these glimmers

to life and really kind of embed

that in their thing, their thing, their marketing

campaign. Right? Like, you can tell we're recording this on a Monday morning.

So it definitely definitely feels good. Before your coffee. Right

after the time change. Coffee right after the time change.

With kids, man, that that time change is brutal.

But, like, right now, I'm

totally fascinated with the insurance commercials. The

insurance commercials are they're hilarious. They are

absolutely hilarious. And it's not just the emu guy, and I love the emu guy.

I love the emu with the sunglasses. I love that. But the other

guy who's like this actor who's like the chaos guy.

Oh, mayhem. See? Tell me. There you go. You love him.

Right? Reminds me of my middle child. You laugh every time you

see him. Yep. And it's like a sense of

humor that has happened with these insurance commercials that

really resonates. I really believe now with

generation x and either, you

know, generation X were the ones that are finally in the positions that we get

to make the final decisions. And that's why maybe the commercials are so

resonating and so funny with me because they really speak

to, you know, the time that I grew up in and how I think

about things and okay. But they're

hilarious and they stand out in their hilarity.

They really do. And like you you're, you're not going

to fast forward through one of those because sometimes because

she's really like it. It makes you giggle. I saw the there's a new

emu commercial where, I guess, they have Thanksgiving Day parade

floats. And it was on it

was actually on Madagascar because it was, like, intercut, the commercial, and I was

like, what? What is going on? And I I didn't watch the

whole thing, but I was like, that's clever. Like, you know I also think

too, like and I think you brought up something with gen x. Right? Like,

I don't know if this has happened if this has happened before, but the whole

notion that you have different generations is not new. But

having having to market to different generations,

I think, is a relatively new phenomena. Right? Because obviously, you're gonna market one

type of thing to an older crowd. You're gonna market another thing to a younger

crowd. And that definitely still happens. But the whole idea, you would market car

insurance across, you know, for for millennials

and gen x and even boomers. It it's fascinating to

kinda see. I also think

about the medium in which they're doing the advertising. So I think the advertising

that's happening right now to generation

Zed is on social media. It's on Instagram.

It's on TikTok. It's on Twitter.

And when they see it, let's say, or, or on Snapchat

where they, they see it and then they, and then they, that is the

omni mark, you know, the omnichannel marketing. They see it on one

of these platforms, they click into it, and then they keep on

continuing in, in the virtual cycle till purchase because they're just

gathering all the information they can because the social media allows them

to. They're not even bothering going to the website,

right? They're certainly not going to the mall to find it in a

store. Right? So, you know, so the the the

marketing that has to be resonating with that with

that particular market, let's say, gen zed, is different.

It's genuinely different than the marketing that is resonating with

gen z who are still watching television and who are watching television and who are

not watching everything on their phones. Right? That that is an interesting because I

I've noticed that with my kids is, like, you know, as they get

older, they do start watching TV. Now when they watch

TV, it's usually a streaming platform. Right? Like, the whole notion of

broadcast TV is, like, alien to them. Right.

My mom, god rest her soul, was, you know,

kind of an early boomer, I guess. But, like,

whenever Christmas time came around, she'd be like, Rudolph is on tonight.

Like, you gotta watch it. Right? And and and, like Now that I

can go stream at any time I want to. Right. Like, you know, I didn't

have the heart to tell her we had it on DVD, which for you kids

out there who don't know what DVD is, it was kind of like a CD,

but, kind of like an iPad. Kind of like an iPad, but for

video. But it was a separate thing. Dating yourself

as you continue going. Right. As I go through it. Well, I remember

the generational change in tech is fascinating to see. Right? And I

I I I I I wanna write more about it, but one of the things

was, you know, my oldest,

he's about 15 now, and we had to burn the CD

for, a friend wanted something for to burn a

CD. Then he heard that. He's like, woah, burn

a CD. That sounds so cool. Right? And he was, like, 9

at the time. And I'm like like, yeah. I don't think it's but

he wanted to help me do it. Right? So we're, like, he's, like, going

down my my office with me and, like, burn a CD. We're gonna

burn a CD. And I'm, like and then he stops and said, what's a

CD? I was like, oh, that hurts. That

hurts. And it turned out it was very anti climatic burning a

CD was like, no. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And the

funny the funny thing is is that I bought they used to sell these

big spindles at CompUSA. Yes. Of, like, a

100 of them. And I'm like, I bought one. I'm still

using it. Like, I found it the other day, and it's still not even halfway

down, like, in terms of, you know, because, like, I even if I

had a burner CD now, I'd have to really think about Not many

computers come with, come with the option of playing them anymore.

So unless you have, like, a c unless you have a CD player,

really, because the computers don't have have it. So they're kind of

Yeah. I had my when I got my new car back in 2018,

2019, it was about a month before I realized it didn't come with

a CD player. Right. And you and and now, like, if you don't have a

car that doesn't have, like, where you can plug in, like, your stick. Right. You

know, while your songs are just go hook up right to your Spotify. Or

Apple CarPlay. Just use Bluetooth. Yeah. Yep. Yes.

So one of our previous guests, Mark Tabadillo, fascinating guy.

Smart guy. Yeah. On the on the stream, first time I'd heard the

term, he called it the divide between, digital

natives. And I forget the term he used. I guess Digital

immigrants. Immigrants. And it was a it was an

interesting contrast, and it's that same thing, Candace, you were just talking about.

And and we see it in in our kids. I'm my

experience goes back about 15, 16 years when I'm

explaining to Stevie, the icons

in Word. And I say, well, you know, here's the this is a picture

of a folder. We have file folders, so he he got it. You

open a folder. You take out a file.

And then this is the icon next to it that we use

to save a file. And he's like, what's that what's that a picture

of? I said, it's it's a floppy disk. He's like,

what's a floppy disk? And I was like, he's never seen

one. I had some. I still have some. When I've got one, I said,

this is a small one. Little ones? The little the little plastic

ones? The 3 and a half inch. Yeah. Yeah. The 3a half. I said, and

I think I may have around here somewhere the 5a quarter, some

5a quarter. So I don't think I have a way to to access

those. I may because I never throw anything away. I

I'm not a hoarder. I could stop anytime I want. You're a

collector. It's a bit thank you, Frank. It's like a

the difference between a gossip and a historian. I

like that. Oh, yes. That's a great comparison. It's

one of my good my my better ones, but you can take it. It's okay.

The the whole idea of perspective, I mean, floats through that. We've

had conversations. I don't think we've ever had one online about this,

Frank, but we've had conversations about in the SQL world,

SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server world, there are SQL

generations. And I had an opportunity to share this with a friend,

less than a month ago at SQL Saturday Pittsburgh. He had

been, one of the technical people in the community, SQL

Server community, and he'd shared a lot of posts and

information and ideas. Great stuff. And he'd done it, then he

moved into management. And that was about 6 or 7

years ago. And now he's kinda drifting back into

the community, and he's like, gosh, I miss all that. And I I

feel a little like, you know, I'm I'm out of the loop. Nobody knows who

I am and all like that. And I'm like, maybe. But here's the

thing. SQL generations run about every 4 to 5 years.

That's a that's a true thing. If you step away from

technical blogging for that amount of time, then nobody's

gonna know who you are. Not nobody, but you're not gonna pick up any new

people, obviously, or or very, very few. But what I

shared with, with my friend, Mike, was that

here's here's where you are. You know how to do

this. You've done it before. And because you know how to do it, you

can do it quicker. And don't

feel like you've missed out. Just

start and do what you did before minus the mistakes,

and you'll be right back up there. Again, you know, you'll be the the new

guy, the the new guy in 9 months. You

know? So Well, but, I mean, that's a great example. Right? Because SQL Server

has has changed. It's been around not forever, but, you know? A

long, long time. Since the years began with 1. Since the years began with

1. And, you know, it it

but it's really goes through kudos to the engineering team at Microsoft

for keeping it fresh and relevant. Right? Like, more so than any of

their competitors. But, like, you know, I remember when they

added XML as a as a type. Right? And that was like, woah.

And then, you know, then obviously, the Azure versions.

Right? And then there's this is what what? Four ways to run SQL Server

in Azure alone? Oh, I think so. Plus on prem? Maybe 5? I

don't know. They have really been pouring the innovation into Azure

SQL DB. Yep. And it's it's almost

magic here in 2024, just features they've added. It's

are just almost magic. There's a really good YouTube channel. It's

run by Anna

Hoffman. Mhmm. I think that's her name.

It is. Because I was at an

internal Microsoft event where she was before she was married and changed

her name. So I I always forget which is the new name, which is not.

I think so so so, like, she did a chatbot workshop,

and then now she's on the, the SQL

team. And, like, she has a great I think it's called Data Exposed. Yep.

Awesome show because it's like it's a good round up on kinda, like,

if you wanna keep up the date of what's cutting edge there, it's cool to

watch. Yeah. And that reminds me of

another guest we had who said we should sponsor an off road

racing team because we

always go off track. But,

where do you, you know, I think but all this is very relevant. Right?

It's all very germane. Like, we can It's a pleasure, Frank. Well, we can it

is a feature. We you can always but

now marketers have to deal with this. Right? Like, you know, you think about technology

generations. Right? Or just

let's let's keep it the mark marketing and technology. Right? Like, or marketing

technological solutions. Right? It changes

pretty rapidly, and that's like a cliche, but it really does change rapidly.

Right? So, you know, your your friend who was out of the game,

right, may actually be back in style

because the whole rush to the cloud, the frenzy

to go to the cloud, I think, is over. Yeah. And I

think I and I think that on prem is now cool again.

And I think that you can bring that experience to bear because there's probably a

lot of kids, can't if you can't see the air quotes, I did kids, but,

like, who just don't know how to run a sequel on

premise anymore. Well, people do, you know, new to the

to, you know, to the experience, know that.

And definitely applies, to marketing. And

I I track what Microsoft Marketing does.

I you know, like a lot of people in this field and just a lot

of people out of this field, I'm yeah. I see patterns, as they

emerge. And what we saw for a

good solid 5 years before, you know, say, 2017

to 2022. What I heard out of Microsoft marketing was all about

the cloud. Yep. And, excuse me,

I I can tell when the curve has changed.

So So all of a sudden, you're drawing people and attracting people. Maybe there's a

little bit of a curve going there. It's growing a touch

exponentially. And then when it gets to a spot where it either

begins to level off or and I'm I'm kinda drawing this if you're watching

the video. And then, you know, then they know that they need to do something

new. And, Candace, I know you would know all of the right words to use

with this, but they would take a different approach, new campaign maybe.

And when they changed direction, I noticed

it in 2023. I noticed it at last

year's past summit, and I saw 2 new things.

1 was all of a sudden, it was cool to be hybrid.

And I think what had happened was they had seen the acceleration

and, frankly, made the money that they were gonna

make out of that, go to the cloud, go to the cloud, go to the

cloud. And while it was a great solution, it still is

an awesome solution for a number of start ups and a number of businesses

like that, you get to a spot where you have reached some level of

saturation for that segment of the market. And I think that's

what happened. I think the curve began to not flatten, but

not to accelerate less. And so they realized that

there's this huge piggy bank sitting out there of

people who aren't ever gonna go completely to the cloud, but they may

go partially to the cloud. And that's what hybrid's all about. Some of

your stuff is on premises. Some of your stuff's in the cloud.

Number of reasons for that that range from being

practical to being secure, to being

regulated, to to not be able to do that.

And I saw that. The other the other direction was, of course, what y'all's

book's about. See? I am taking the plane down.

What y'all's book is about, which is marketing and AI and

how to use what I loved about the book, I still love it, and I

can't wait to to read what you're writing. What I loved

about the first edition was how you not only talked about

marketing and then AI, you talked

about marketing AI. There's that piece. But then it's

almost a pivot where using AI to

help with with market. I don't know if that makes any sense or not, but

it's like, you're you're certainly gonna you market you know,

everything gets marketed. So AI is one of the things. But

there's that aspect of it. But then there's a pivot where you say, how

can we utilize AI to do better marketing or

faster marketing? And that's I I thought

y'all nailed that. And the way you present it, that was it wasn't

a subtle pivot. It was definitely a pivot in the book where you talked about

both of those things. And you didn't say, no. These are different.

You didn't say all Candice is doing. That was her idea. Yeah. Totally. Like, that

was totally her brilliant thing. I'll let her expound upon that. But, like, it was

kind of like, you know, sometimes as practitioners,

we get too wrapped up in this. Right? And it was

like, when she kinda said some things, I was like, holy

crap. That is an interesting way to look at it. So let's

let's let's look at Candace. Oh, no. I'm enjoying listening to Andy talk

about how much he's enjoying what what I wrote. That's that's way more

interesting to me than having me. Because

because, again, what it really comes down to is what did he get from it?

What, what is he going to use from what he learned?

What new ideas did it evoke in him for him to understand

why there is this vital connection between marketing

and IT And that we

are, you know, we are way better together,

right? And, and again, like in

terms of dealing with a variety of personalities, like the whole

world is filled with a variety of personalities, right?

And, you know, I've explained I've had years of working with subject

matter experts and I can go everywhere with like, you know, from

the savant, you know, to the, you know, apoplectic

academic. Do you know what I mean? Like, you know, you, you, you learn to

pull the genius out of them where you can, and where

that they will do the best job possible in the playground. But no,

I, I, I loved hearing, what you thought, Andy. I thought that was

great. Thank you so much.

Yeah. Thank you all for writing the book. I mean, it was a it was

a great presentation, and I'm super excited about,

the second edition. I know y'all are working on it now, so you don't know

when you'll be done. And there's another book too that's, like, in the middle where

we kinda talk about, like and also too, I think one of the things I

don't know if we wanna spoil the, the the surprise, but

kinda we've also been documenting the processes in terms

of I've seen this in echo. One of the things

that Candace is very good at is using AI to create

content. So if you look at her on LinkedIn, you know, she's been

making, like, these little cartoons and, you know,

which are really cool. Right? And they they I'll let her talk about, like, what

she covers, but, like, they're really cool. And, you know, I've

kinda helped her and, you know, with, like, some of this and some of the

experimental stuff that I'm working on, that some people have seen the output, like

the Bailey and Jen show. She was

a beta tester for that. She has the

Fetcheroo. I think you have Fetcheroo, don't you? I have Fetcheroo.

I do. Fetcheroo is, is

a tool that pulls down transcripts from YouTube videos. Nice.

And the idea for that well, I'll let Candice explain that. Well,

it's really exciting because I wanna make sure that I'm also talking about everything

that's going on. And I'm a big believer in, honestly, in talking about

neurodiversity. And that's where, my

the cartoon started. So Frank has been so amazing. He's taught me so much.

I can't I cannot even list on 2 on 2 hands how

many different AI tools that he has introduced me to that I

can use to kind of get my message out there. And so one of

my big messages, about neurodiversity is neurodiversity

strength. I want people to understand that if you have anxiety,

that means you're really good at XYZ. And

I'm not really interested in the challenges that it represents

because I see those more as opportunities. And so

I wanted to find a really non threatening easy way of

going out and saying, Hey, you know, if you have

anxiety, then you probably have anticipatory preparedness,

which means, you know, you really know how to set yourself up for

success. You know how to create a plan, you know, the

individual steps and milestones that go into the plan, and then you know how to

execute the plan. Because when you do this, it gives you less

anxiety because you are more in all of what you're doing.

So that's a strength. Well, kind of like it's, you know, the

old Eddie and I, we talked about this on the podcast. Like, you know, we're

weaponizing, like, our ADHD or we

weaponize a lot of this, like, you know, weaponize paranoia. Right? Like, if

you're if you work in, like,

high availability disaster recovery, that type of anxiety that

she just talked about is a huge advantage

over a normie. Right? Or, like, you know, a typical

person. Like, so it doesn't have to be. And one of the

things I think is interesting about,

the concept of neurodiversity

And I think the last, let's say, 50 to a 100 years where we

everybody work you know, they got they got a job. They got an

education. They either got a job in a factory or they got a job in

an office. That only appeals to one type of

personality when in fact for the eons of

time that animals or, you know, nervous systems have existed,

you always have a little bit of this, like, you know, variances. And some

variances catch on and some don't.

Yep. And I think that as the world changes from

that nice, you know I was talking to my to my wife about

this the other day about some people she knew from college where, you

know, he

he doesn't believe in getting certifications for continuing education

because his thought he's very much an anachronism for Gen Xer. He's

very much out of place.

But the whole idea is that, you know, I got my and I know people

like this. I went to school with, right? So I'm not just picking on him.

He's like, I got my degree in computer science. Kurt Cobain

was recently dead. I think he was still alive.

Tupac was still alive. Right? And I don't

have to ever learn anything new again. I just sit in a desk. I get

my, you know, my watch in 20 years,

and I get my retirement, and that's it. Then I go then I go do

what I really want to do. And those days are gone. Yeah. That's

he's in if he feels that way, he's in the right job, and he should

never leave. If that job exists. If that

job exists. But he's very unhappy in his job and, like

2024. But it doesn't exist anymore. I mean, like, you

know Right. I kinda maybe go too far the other

direction. By the way, I hit 210,

search licenses. But

that's but that's neither here nor there. But I think, you know, but to to

Candace's point, like, you know, people who are neurodiverse or

not neurotypical. Right? Or maybe neurocelebrated

would be a better word. Right? Like I mean, the neurotypical,

I I consider to be neuro basic. Neuro basic.

And the neurodiverse give it another 20 years,

and it's going to be the majority, not the minority.

Right. Yeah. Well, it probably already is, but I think a lot of people are

are, what's the word,

covering for themselves. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Or They don't feel

accepted yet and be and they feel they're gonna be penalized because

they think differently. But if you look at the richest people in the world

today, as opposed to Many are. Hang on. Yeah. I

mean, Elon Musk. Yeah. Enough said. He plans it.

Yeah. Richard Branson, You know,

one of the guys from Shark Tank is a very vocal, that he

has dyslexia growing up. Yes. Right? Richard

Branson too. But yeah. Bill Gates,

obviously. Even Jeff Bezos. Right? He has kind of

this obsessive Mhmm. You know,

thing. It's not necessarily a bad thing. No. I don't

think so either. Yeah. It's a it's a brain that's

wired for opportunity. Right. Because

nothing nothing easy nothing

comes easy. Right. You know, when you sit there and you

can read and you can write and you can count and you're

just doing it, that's one

thing. But when you're an individual who has to learn how

to learn, everything changes.

Right. That is that is a very pregnant statement,

and I think we need to do another show where we just pick on that.

You're right. I think that neurodivergence and how it's

that would be a fascinating topic And would love

to to have Candice would love to have that that conversation with

with us 3 once a week. That'd be cool. That'd be cool. That'd be

great. So we're almost at the time here,

and, wanna point out that the book is Sentient Marketing,

Foundations of Sentient Marketing. If you go to sentientmarketingbook.com

yep. She's holding the cover if you're watching. There's 2 options. You could buy

the online course, or pick up the book

on Amazon. Sentientmarketingbook.com.

Sentientmarketingbook.com. Okay.

And there's links to Candace's LinkedIn page,

her Include Us World site that she has, which is about

neurodiversity ultimately. Nice. And

I think she's on to something. I think including people who are neurodiverse

in decision making and strategy will let you see things that

one type of lens won't let you see. Well,

thank you, Frank. Thank you, Andy. I would so

enjoy coming back and doing another call about

neurodiversity and and all of the the exciting

wild world that there is out there for that. That's starting to

Let's do it. Yeah. Alright. So anything else, Andy?

Nope. Anything else, Candice? No. Thank you so much again. Thank

you. Cool. And include us world is the URL. Right? So include

us.world. World. Got it. Yes. One of those fancy

new top level domains. Mhmm. And with that, we'll

let the nice British lady, Bailey, end the show. And that's a

wrap for today's dive into the vibrant world of AI driven

marketing with Candice Gillhooley. We hope you're leaving this

episode with a fresh perspective on how data, creativity,

and a bit of sentient tech can truly transform the way we connect with

audiences. Remember, whether you're an analytics ace, a

marketing maverick, or just here for Frank and Andy's tangents, there's

always a place for you in the data driven community. Until next

time, stay curious, keep questioning, and let's keep

pushing the boundaries of what's possible with data. Now, I'll

let the nice British AI, that's me, Bailey, officially

sign off. Cheers.