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.