The 229 Podcast: New Host, New Format, Same Mission with Sarah and Bill

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Bill Russell: My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former health system, CIO, and creator of this Week Health, where our mission is to transform healthcare one connection at a time. Welcome to the 229 Podcast where we continue the conversations happening at our events with the leaders who are shaping healthcare.

Let's jump into today's conversation.

All right. It's the 229 podcast, and today I am joined by the incomparable Sarah Richardson. Uh, Sarah, welcome to the show. We're, this is a special show. We're gonna have a well welcome first of all.

Sarah Richardson: It is, it is special, and I'm realizing I still don't 2, 2 9 pullover. What's going on here?

Bill Russell: You know, Sarah, and actually what make what makes it new is, is the new Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. The first batch has been sent out to chairs. And as, as I tell people at our events, they're like, Hey, how do I get your swag? And I'm like, we don't do swag. They're like, I've seen people with your stuff.

I'm like, yeah, yeah. We don't do swag, we do props. [00:01:00] Proper recognition of peer service. And if you're wondering what chat GPT can do for you, it can name something like that. I'm like, Hey, I don't want it to be called swag. What can it be called? They gave me like 10 names. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. And then after the, uh, second round of 10 names, I found one that works.

So proper recognition of peer service. Uh, if you see somebody with one of these. Uh, they have contributed to helping build the community in some way. Either chaired an event or been a part of, uh, something that we're, we're doing. So, um, Sarah, you absolutely will get one. I don't know where it is in the process.

As you know, operation, I've tried to step out operationally as much as I possibly can except, except I keep getting dragged back in. It's, it's sort of like, it's sort of like the diehard movies, you know, he thinks he's away from operations and he keeps getting dragged in, so

Sarah Richardson: that's okay. I am, I am the hat shipping department, so I get it. I understand these things. I have probably 150 hats in my garage and, uh, a whole little shipping section now. It works very well.

Bill Russell: Yeah, people might wonder why I'm not wearing the yellow hat. 'cause I have like, I have like [00:02:00] 50 of 'em over there on my couch. I could, could wear 'em. But, uh, I, I promised my wife that I would wear something other than a yellow hat. And I've worn a yellow hat now for, for like two years in a row.

Sarah Richardson: You need to

Bill Russell: Um,

Sarah Richardson: the

Bill Russell: I, yeah, you know, I would wear Drex is, Drex is are really cool.

Um.

Sarah Richardson: No, come on. You gotta wear this one.

Bill Russell: I can't wear that one.

Sarah Richardson: You can.

Bill Russell: no. I, it it's the, it's the, uh, I wear a cap that's more of a, you know how it has the, the front, I know this is what people tuned in for is you and I talking about hats and, and stuff. .

Um.

Sarah Richardson: We have, they have options.

Bill Russell: Hey, here's, here's, uh, here's what this episode is about. We are, um, when Sarah came on board, we, launched Flourish, and you have had some great interviews there.

We've heard some, uh, phenomenal stories from, uh, patient advocates. We've heard of people's career journeys, uh, people launching books. I mean, you, you know, pre, pre-interviewed people launching books. Uh, just really great, uh, content and really great. Uh, stories, uh, uh, capturing the stories of the people who are in our industry.

And you're gonna continue to do that, but you're, we're gonna going to, instead of having multiple channels, [00:03:00] which again, is an operational overhead. And uh, that's one of the reasons. But the second is we're confusing our audience. Our audience is like, well, I don't understand. Where's Sarah's stuff and where's Drex's stuff?

And where's Bill's stuff? All right. We're just going simplify this a little bit. You're coming onto the, uh, 229 podcast. We're gonna, we're gonna retire the flourish, uh, channel, but we're gonna bring, we're even gonna bring some of those episodes over. For those who haven't heard them, we're gonna drop them in here and, uh, we're gonna keep going.

But, uh, the thing that slightly changes on it is the 229 podcast is a continuation of the conversation we have at the 229 events. And since you're at. Better than half of those events. Uh, because I think you put more miles on last year than Drex and I. So, um, so you're gonna be talking to those people, bringing them on the show and sharing their stories.

Sarah Richardson: Absolutely, and those organic conversations are happening at our. Events anyway, and what we've historically done is say, wow, I love that aspect of your story. Let's put it on flourish. Hey, that's a great cyber conversation. Talk to Drex. Hey, this is actually more of an executive [00:04:00] profile of what's happening inside your health system.

Let's put it over here with Bill. And just confuses people. They literally are like, which channel do I need to be tuning into? So we'll continue to have those really meaningful conversations. Those life events in some cases, bring it over to one place. So when you're driving in your car, when you're going for your run, when you're doing all those myriad activities. You're literally, your download is one place to find our content. And that's what's really key because even all my news shows in the morning that get filtered in, they are separate downloads that I have to queue up. So from a 2, 2, 9 perspective, you have a one size fits all from the type of conversations you and I are having because we are still going to keep cyber with Drex as a really phenomenal brand inside of our organization.

Bill Russell: Yeah, people might ask, you know, why, Hey, why aren't you bringing Dexy stuff across? I'm like, 'cause this, that cybersecurity community, they like be a little separate. They have their own signal channels, they have their own. You know, there's signal chats and, and things of that effect. So, uh, no, and he has a, he has a pretty good following of, of that group.

And, um, I don't, [00:05:00] we may in the future bring it across, but right now we're gonna leave it over there. Hey, what do you think about doing a, uh, live show next week in, uh, we're gonna be together in Dallas. You, you, I, and Drex.

Sarah Richardson: Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's really fun when we get to be together. What people don't realize is how infrequently, especially the three of us are together, and when we are, we're doing something significant for the industry and for our community. We don't really ever get. You know, we don't have, we do not have water cooler time in person. And doing a live show or having those perspectives always fun because we, our philosophies, we're really here to serve. And so every once in a while we get time together and, uh, not only a live show with us. What'll be super fun is being able to pull in some of the conversations because we've got a massive, amazing contingency of

Bill Russell: Right.

Sarah Richardson: leaders next week.

So tapping into all of that is key. And honestly, if you and I were on Drex channel, people would be like. Why are you two talking about, I mean, it would be like,

Bill Russell: You guys, you guys are s know anything about cybersecurity?

Sarah Richardson: dly about security. We know enough to [00:06:00] probably fill in when he's at Burning Man. But then again, I'd rather have like Steven or Shauna or

Bill Russell: Oh

Sarah Richardson: have that

Bill Russell: yeah.

Sarah Richardson: anyway, so, you know, we're just being responsible about subject matter expertise.

That's a mouthful this morning.

Bill Russell: Well that's, that's what we'll do next week. We'll do a, we'll do a live show. We'll invite people, because we have three summits going on where you chose to get a different summit. Uh, you're doing the doctors, so you're in with the CMIOs. That'll be, uh,

Sarah Richardson: gosh. First of all, I couldn't be happier when I get to be in a room with Matt and Brit.

Bill Russell: it is a fun group.

Sarah Richardson: first thing is that it's fun, which is an element that we always have a responsibility to bring forward what we do. Because what we do is really important, but also when I'm with them, it's like the ideas that come up, the perspectives, the solutioning.

And we typically raise a good amount of money for Alex's lemonade stand when those two are at the helm. So I'm excited to see what we can do next week from, uh, moving the needle forward in our industry, but also continuing to support philanthropies that serve families who need it most.

Bill Russell: I'm looking forward to that. I have a, uh, I have a CIO table and, uh, that's, that's a [00:07:00] pretty, pretty cool table. I mean, we have some, uh, uh, some, some newer CIOs, some people who are new in the chair, which is kind of, kind of fun and I'm looking forward to that. And, uh. We also have, uh, it was one of the larger health systems.

The CIO said, look, this is, uh, this is my number two, and likely the person who's coming in after me.

Sarah Richardson: Yep.

Bill Russell: you know, is it okay if that person comes? I'm like. Sure. Because one of the things that happens at those larger health systems, as you know, 'cause you were at HCA, um, those regional CIOs and whatnot, they have a fair amount of responsibility and, uh, can, can actually sit at a table with, with the CIOs and, and hold their own.

And, uh, especially on the strategy conversation. So that'll be fun. And then Drex, of course, Drex and the, uh. A team. I think they have, uh, 14 or 15 CISOs. Uh, so we'll, we'll be safe. At least we'll know. We will, we will not get hacked while we're there.

Sarah Richardson: Yeah.

Bill Russell: Yeah. Who knows? Who doesn't?

Sarah Richardson: safe is relative to, uh, well, your bank account safe and maybe these aspects. But, um, even we are doing multifactor authentication for registration of our events and [00:08:00] just part of the norm. That's a, that's it's key.

Bill Russell: Yeah. Um, does add a little friction, but it's, it, it makes a lot of sense. You know, this is also part of a larger move by us. So our, our interviews, we're gonna continue to do these, uh, longer form interviews, maybe 30, 40 minutes of executives. Sometimes we'll be 20 minutes. It'll, it'll, it'll vary depending on the, on the show and what's going on.

Um, but one of the things we are committed to is, is something we're calling, uh, 229 Signal and 229 signal for us is, uh, we know that healthcare professionals are so busy, they're just inundated with information and people send them, you know, emails with. 50 links on it and says, you know, this is an important story.

Read this. And, and what I'm hearing from most of 'em is that's just going straight into a, you know, into a bucket. Now I can't, can't keep up. And so we've heard that loud and clear, and one of the things we're going to keep doing is, uh, or one of the things we're going to start doing is really focusing in on the intelligence, on the signal from our interviews, and pull that stuff out and put it into formats.

That [00:09:00] people can read very quickly or people can consume very quickly. So the, the clips become even more important. The, um, and the signal reports that we're using at the events, uh, we've gotten pretty good feedback on those where we're, we're grabbing what's going on in the industry and, and creating, um, signal reports before there are dinners and other things.

Uh, those are gonna become more important and we're just gonna continue to try to. I don't know, keep the noise at bay as much as we possibly can and really focus in on what people need in order to do their jobs effectively.

Sarah Richardson: We started sending those out prior to our dinners. We've tried that for a couple of weeks now. A lot of success in the preparation of the conversation and also even elevating and morphing that into ensuring we're covering the dynamic and diverse types of topics that affect us more than, I mean, AI hits everybody's radar all day, every day, all the time. It's our,

Bill Russell: I wanted to talk to you about that. 'cause, um, the last two dinners I did and, you know, and we try to keep the conversation going and, you know, and, and, uh, you know, [00:10:00] address some other topics that are going on. It was hard for me to get off the AI topic, like it's all they wanted to talk about.

Are you finding the same thing?

Sarah Richardson: I am. And I also realize though, that there are so many elements. So if we steer an AI conversation towards, well, how are you creating ethical boundaries and usage? How are you securing your information and those perspectives, there's still the ability to layer in how are you managing the workforce? How are you managing the security aspect?

What are your point solutions look

Bill Russell: Oh. There, there, there's no doubt. It's a massive topic,

Sarah Richardson: it

Bill Russell: but I mean there, but there's cybersecurity people in the room and they wanted to talk about AI and there's doctors in the room and they wanted to talk about AI and there's CIOs in the room and they wanted to talk about ai. I'm like, is is that, I mean, is that the only conversation we're really having these days?

Sarah Richardson: Well of the reason we're having the conversation the way we are is that it is touching all elements regardless of what your solution set is.

Bill Russell: Yeah.

Sarah Richardson: an element of AI in it. Now, every, every partner has it as part of their [00:11:00] solutioning. So if a partner has it as part of their product offering, then it's going to filter into a conversation, and then it becomes the usage of it within that domain.

And so it's, it's more than just automation agent use. Cowork and coding, et cetera. There are so many aspects of it. I will always route back into the conversation about what is your data strategy and scenario look like? How clean is that entrusted as is it as an element of decision making? And then you're laying, you're in the governance opportunities and then the AI aspects and then how you're getting people to adopt and use it appropriately.

How you continue to revisit the measurements and if those, those success criteria are, have the same or how they have changed, where's the drift occurring? It is an endless, appropriate conversation that can hit stakeholder that we serve. Think about that. An imaging and revenue cycle. Applications.

Technology. The CIO. The CDO, it's an all of their plates right now.

Bill Russell: I think you and direct got to talk about this, but I was, I was reading an article this morning on Project Glasswing, [00:12:00] and it's called Mythos is another name. It goes by, uh, and it's the next release of Claude and they. Uh, they essentially started, they, they have the tool obviously internally, and they started to do some stuff with it.

And one of the first things is they found, uh, that it could find zero day, uh, vulnerabilities. You know, and just to give people some perspective here, define a single zero day vulnerabilities is a big deal. Define two is like, man, you're in the upper echelon of people who can really do things. They turned mythos on things like open BSD, which hasn't had a zero day in like 20 years, and it found a zero day.

And then it's finding multiple zero days in browsers. It's finding multiple zero days in operating systems.

Sarah Richardson: Mm-hmm.

Bill Russell: and, and they said, oh, slow down. Like we can't release this yet 'cause we've gotta give the good guys a chance to get ahead of this. 'cause it's, it's, and, and by the way, the prompt for that is go find a zero day.

It's not like it's, it's, you know, [00:13:00] some fancy big old prompt that you have to come up with. Whatever. It's like, Hey, look at this. Look at this website, see if there's a vulnerability that I can hack. Oh, look at this, whatever. And it went boom. And it found them.

Sarah Richardson: Ones that are over 20 plus years old, to your point. And they're unpatchable. I mean, that was this morning when Dr. One of the articles that Drex released, he has his own signal channel now. So if you're listening in your. Love Signal. Drex has a signal channel on the Signal app, so you know it's encrypted and all that good stuff.

Um, I wouldn't share war plans, you know, I think that's still a bad idea, but, um, general updates from, from our partners. It is fascinating though, the things it's finding and you don't even need your hands on your keyboard for it to go find those things because so many of us, I mean, I talk to as much as I type to it, uh, because of what we can, and it's helpful and it's your stream of consciousness. Becomes a succinct output that you go back and edit and make sure it sounds right. I mean, it is so fantastic to think you don't need a keyboard at

Bill Russell: We're, we are getting, we we're, we are getting there and, uh, I've been looking at [00:14:00] Whisper and, uh, because the keyboard is my limiting factor now and, um, I've finally gotten past the, having a single agent working at, at one time. I can now you. Get four agents working at the same time, plus they're spawning subagents.

So,

Sarah Richardson: Mm-hmm.

Bill Russell: in fact, I'm now burning through credits faster than I, I have access to 'em, like I'm, because I, I have these four things going at the same time, so I have ac.

Sarah Richardson: the credits bill.

Bill Russell: Yeah, so I'm actually using multiple, uh, different tools. I'm using Gemini for some things. I'm using chat for some things. I'm using club for some things.

Um, and so, uh, you know, appropriate tool for the appropriate thing, but I'm able to get foregoing. But the keyboard's still, the limiting factor. Whisper is really interesting to me because it doesn't do word for word. Translation it, uh, it does do that itself, but then it recognizes that when you're talking to ai, you might talk, like you talk to Sarah and I might say, da, da da, da.

Oh yeah. And, uh, don't forget this, and Oh, throw this in and whatever. And so it takes all that, that it's translated, but then it forms it in, in a proper like. You know when we type, we're thinking and we go, oh no, let's do this and this, and we, we actually edit while we're typing, but we don't do that as much while we're talking.

[00:15:00] Whisper actually does that. It's really fascinating.

Sarah Richardson: The hardest part in getting used to using some of the voice. Capabilities is that when you do voice to text, you have to add punctuation. When you're doing voice to ai, you don't have to use punctuation. If you look at my, my own transcripts to myself, it'll have like period, comma, exclamation point. Like I have to get used to utilizing that element of it, which I've found to be rather, uh,

Bill Russell: That it does, it does make me laugh when I hear people who are text voice to text and they go, da, exclamation point

Sarah Richardson: Yeah,

Bill Russell: period

Sarah Richardson: That's me all the time.

Bill Russell: reminds me of Red Kels old, uh uh. That's how old I am. I remember Red Kels and.

Sarah Richardson: he is too. I still think about Carac the magnificent, and most people are

Bill Russell: Oh, Carson. Carson was fan, but yeah.

Sarah Richardson: his head.

Bill Russell: Um,

Sarah Richardson: So fun.

Bill Russell: yeah. But, uh, yeah, red Skel used to do this whole thing where he made s sounds for the various, uh, punctuation marks. And, uh, it was a, as a kid I remember laughing hysterically. I don't know if I would laugh [00:16:00] hysterically today, but it was funny. What else do we wanna cover? Do we wanna cover anything else? I mean, we have, I mean, the other thing I'm, I'm really excited about is these regional staff roundtables. We had a, uh, we had a call yesterday with the chairs from Boston and you know, it was, uh, eight leaders, uh, you know, the CIOs and others from, uh, the major health systems in Boston.

And we're gonna do an event there, I think it's in October. I think that's one of the.

Sarah Richardson: 27th, is Boston.

Bill Russell: Yeah, it's one of the last ones that we're doing. I mean, these are, these are fair, they're closed events from the perspective of it's invite only. And, uh, those people get to, uh, invite the people from their health systems. That's how, that's how these things are working. And we're gonna do 13, I think we're doing 13 now.

Sarah Richardson: We

Bill Russell: Um,

Sarah Richardson: 10 and we go all the way through the end of October.

Bill Russell: yeah, that's, that's gonna be a crazy travel schedule. We'll have to figure that one out. Um.

Sarah Richardson: looking at that. I was like, well, do I just stay on the East Coast for a week or two? Because sometimes it's easier than coming all the way back and [00:17:00] that's okay.

Bill Russell: We have,

Sarah Richardson: Yeah.

Bill Russell: we will have conversations. Uh, we don't all have to be at at all of 'em. I will be at all of them.. Um. But you know, you and direction can take turns. Where, where you go and that kinda stuff. I just, I want to, I wanna get the feel for each city that we go into and meet people. Plus, you know, at that point I'll probably be signing, uh, you know, the third in my book series, uh, you know, copies and that kind of stuff.

Uh, I, I dropped.

Sarah Richardson: Thing to talk about. I mean, you have written some really fun fiction that you continue to post out on your newsletter site

Bill Russell: I, I don't think, I don't think Sarah Chen would consider it fun. She got fired in the last chapter of the last book

Sarah Richardson: hey, she can hang out with us now.

Bill Russell: I should have. That's what I should have done. I should have had her join the 229 project. That would've been, that would've been

Sarah Richardson: has never been technically fired, so I feel like

Bill Russell: I,

Sarah Richardson: but

Bill Russell: yes.

Sarah Richardson: he's always the outlier for the right reasons.

Bill Russell: Yes. Uh, yeah. So I had her get fired and uh, today was the first day I dropped, uh, the first in the, uh, intelligence era.

The foundations, uh, she's going [00:18:00] to, uh, go into a, a health system, actually not a CIO, as a different role. And I think that's one of the trends I sort of wanna point out is. That it's not information as we traditionally know it, it's, it really is an intelligence job. It's how do we, how does an organization organize its intelligence and practically u utilize it, uh, to be more effective as an organization?

And so 20, 22 chapters. 22, is it really that many? It's something like that. It's 22 weeks of release and, um. The other thing I said this morning, if people are, they don't wanna wait the 22 weeks, it's gonna release one every Thursday. Chapter releases. If they don't wanna wait, they can give a hundred dollars to Alex's lemonade stand and just put, uh, put, you know, DM me the information and I'll send you the PDF.

It is all written as opposed to my last book, which I wrote one chapter a week. I literally wrote it as we went. It was nuts.

Sarah Richardson: I mean, then you have the ability to, uh, I'm just waiting for, I hope no one like tries to kidnap you and make you change the ending like misery. Remember that Kathy Bates and [00:19:00] James can

Bill Russell: Oh yeah. Well, no, that'd be fun. But no, it's already written. It's already written. Well, you have a copy of the, uh, of the full transcript, which I have, which I have.

Sarah Richardson: It needs to be like, I need to be able to download you reading it or AI reading it to me. I'm sure there's already an app out there that says, read this content to me, because if I'm gonna go for a ride or a walk or a run, um, then it's playing in my ear. I mean, a lot of people like to consume audio content, so how do we make your book a downloadable audio version?

Bill Russell: Well, I will, I will give that to our, our intrepid team to figure out if they can, uh, do that. They will not have the author read it. I can't possibly find the time in my schedule to read it. So, uh, uh, yeah. So that's, that's, uh, book number two. Maybe, you know, by the time we get to, uh, book number three, I'll have a hard copy, uh, hardback, uh, copy.

And, uh, of, of some of these things. We'll see. Uh, but it's, it is a lot of fun to, um, to take the stories we hear in the 229 project. And when you think about it, it's not, we can't like just flat out share these stories, but some of [00:20:00] them need to be shared. Like, and fiction is a great way to do it without people going, Hey, is he talking about, you know, that health system?

Or is he, you know, was that from this story or whatever. And it really is a. Amalgamation of the stories that we're hearing as we're out and about and you know, the things that are working and the things I include a bunch of things that aren't working, uh, to, to keep the, the realism. If people read this book and think, man, I wanna be a CIO, then I haven't written it right.

I.

Sarah Richardson: Well, and you could call the title, like you can't make it up like literally because the things that happen in real time, you literally, you cannot make up. And it's how resilient and capable are we of managing those sometimes, uh, in real time. What I do love though, is even on one of our recent chair calls is a CIO saying, bill, I want you to come to my facility and help us with our annual. Recurring expense. we're introducing, you're introducing ideas inside of this quote unquote fiction that are based on real stories and real occurrences. And the CIOs that are sticky to that are realizing this isn't just fan fiction for fun. [00:21:00] These are real time like names removed to protect the innocent. And you, we can help them with some of these aspects. And that's why this community exists. Like, Hey, I need help with this. And guess what? You can come here to get it.

Bill Russell: The last last book introduced two uh, frameworks, and this book introduces, uh, multiple frameworks, which are at the end, the last couple of chapters. Um, plus, as a result, I ended up writing, uh, what I think is a. Um, uh, a guide for the chief human resource officer, or whatever title they go by these days, um, because I think we need to re-look at all these jobs within the entire health system.

And so I, uh, I started to go down that path with that. And I also, uh, anyway, I, I just, I'm gonna keep. Developing content. And so when people, uh, give to Alex's Lemonade stand, they also get that stuff, which is PowerPoint decks and all sorts of other stuff, um, that we are developing along the way. So that's it.

Sarah Richardson: hit, we're gonna hit 229 for Alex Awfully soon.

Bill Russell: We are [00:22:00] $120,000 short. Uh, our goal was 229,000. Uh, we are really now just getting into our season, so I'm pretty excited that we're at 80,000 already. Uh, no, we're at a hundred thousand already for the, for this year. Um, so it's a good, it's a good start. And, uh, we'll, we will have our summits. We have the bike ride coming up if people are interested in the bike ride.

Uh, James has done a great job putting together some, uh, some bikers. They're going to do, I think 90 miles, something like that. 90 mile bike ride. I, I called him a wimp. I thought we would do more than that, but he's like, first time.

Sarah Richardson: miles. Well, the virtual version, which I'm participating in is a 22.9 miles, uh, on my Peloton. Uh, as an example, if you have a road bike, you can. Do it that way. For Peloton owners out there, 22.9 miles is about an hour and 15 minute ride if you're if or less, depending on what pace you're setting. And then we have a group out in Napa who are a group of Peloton owners.

Like they have a bike club and they're doing a virtual ride, um, actually an in person ride, but they're doing that on behalf of

Bill Russell: Yeah. They, they,

Sarah Richardson: popups else.

Bill Russell: and they, yeah. And they, they heard about this and they're [00:23:00] like, Hey, can you do a ride in, uh. In Napa and, and, uh, my response to, um, to James was, uh, let's, let's, let's walk first, let's, I, I would love to see bike rides going on in six or seven different cities next year to benefit, uh, Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation.

But we'll, uh, we'll do one city this year and learn the things we need to learn and then we'll adjust.

Sarah Richardson: Yes.

Bill Russell: That's what we're thinking about. So those are the things that are going on. Uh, that, and I'm building a new studio. So the construction workers, I got my permits yesterday. They're, uh, starting to put an addition on the back of the house for a new studio.

Um, so, uh, don't worry. Albert will go with me. And, uh, we'll, uh, we'll figure that out. That won't be for another, let's see, I think they said three months they'll be done. But, uh, I'm looking forward to a new studio. Um, I'm not sure people will even notice. It'll probably look a lot like the same if I thought about it.

Sarah Richardson: you could, you could spruce up the general background. I mean, I remember when I started almost two years ago now you're like, you need good branding for your background, and I'm only Kate and I [00:24:00] have actually taken you

Bill Russell: Well, all right, so, so let's, let's just go through the background real quick here. So all these things mean something. This baseball, I love baseball. And, uh, this was given to me by a vendor, oddly enough, and his name is signed on this. Um, the only thing it has is meaning is I love baseball, and it sort of shows that.

Second is this, which is my original iPhone box. And, um, I, this was one of the more transformational events in technology history right here, this first, uh, first iPhone. I, I'm sad. I, I did the stupid thing and I turned the phone in. I did the trade in. I should have kept this first one that,

Sarah Richardson: have my old iPod originally from like 2000, what? Seven ish or

Bill Russell: I mean,

Sarah Richardson: year I came out. It doesn't, you can't charge. It won't turn on, but I still have it.

Bill Russell: but look at that. I mean, look how small that was. Look at. I mean, this had no app. Remember, it had no app store. They,

Sarah Richardson: the.

Bill Russell: they expected everything to be written as.

Sarah Richardson: music and paid for it.[00:25:00]

Bill Russell: And they expected all the apps to be written as, uh, uh, web apps, and that's how they were gonna work. Then of course you have Albert, Albert. People have asked me, why do you have Albert behind you?

Is it because you're arrogant? You want people to think you're smart. Um, and actually I would love it if people thought I was smart. Uh, but I love to think different campaign. I'm a huge Apple fan and, uh. My daughter painted that. So that's an actual painting that she did. And then the last thing, which you can't see, and I am pretty proud of that, my son and I did a mud run in, uh, uh, camp.

Uh, what's, what's the one in San Diego? Is it Camp Pendleton?

Sarah Richardson: Yeah.

Bill Russell: Camp Pendleton, we did a mud run and I was pretty proud. 'cause I had to, I had to much like your bike ride. I had to, I had to work pretty hard to, uh, finish that mud run, uh, with the Marines standing there. Uh, I, I was a little disappointed 'cause the Marines were encouraging and I thought they were gonna like, yell at you like, like, uh, you know, like they yelled at Richard Ge in that movie.

Uh, but

Sarah Richardson: and gentleman.

Bill Russell: officer and gentleman, but no, they were, they were encouraging and kind and I'm like. That's not what I paid for. I paid for you to be Marines yell at me

Sarah Richardson: it's having your golf picture [00:26:00] be centered so you get the whole experience of the, uh, you know, that you like to have And,

Bill Russell: Yeah, I tried to figure out how to get, like, this is Alex's lemonade stand, uh, black. I tried to figure out how to get, but it gets really busy behind you. That's the challenge, uh, with it. This is a gift. The picture of Pebble Beach over here is a gift from the, uh, staff. Um, Jarris and I played that hole.

It's, it's, it's pretty meaningful and, uh, exciting. But again, if you put too much stuff behind you, it gets kind of, it's kind of crazy. Yours, I, I, I love yours. 'cause you can, first of all, no matter where you are, it is the same thing. But second of all, um, you handpicked all those things that are in your background, which is kind of fun.

Sarah Richardson: the scuba gear, the lemon, the cat, the logo. Yeah.

Bill Russell: Yeah, well, the logo's gonna change. Don't tell anyone, uh,

Sarah Richardson: Hey Jeremy, if you're listening, we

Bill Russell: what, what

Sarah Richardson: that to the

Bill Russell: j

Sarah Richardson: logo

Bill Russell: does know that the logo's gonna change. Um,

Sarah Richardson: the team that's responsible

Bill Russell: Uh.

Sarah Richardson: Hey, by the way.

Bill Russell: Yeah, pretty much, uh, you're gonna see a rebranding towards the 229 [00:27:00] project and away from this week Health. But, um, the other thing we have now, which is really cool, is we have 229 logos for all the cities we're doing City tour, uh, city, uh, staff roundtables in regional staff roundtables and city tour dinners.

Uh, and those logos turned out really cool. So, uh, we're gonna figure out where to, uh, put those in. I love having a team. I love having you and Drex be a part of this, but I also love the people behind that, uh, that, that most people don't see, who are every day thinking, Hey, maybe we could do this for the community.

Is this a good idea? Maybe we produce these things and they're always constantly thinking about what we can do for, uh, for this community. So fun, fun group to be a part of.

Sarah Richardson: It is, and I'll finally have an email that is legit, Sarah, at 2 2 9 project.com because Sarah dot Richardson at this week, health.com is just a lot of typing.

Bill Russell: You did, you did ask for it. The problem was we already had a Sarah at this week, health.com. So,

Sarah Richardson: behind the scenes genius, uh, on the team. So anyway, I get to have the Sarah two tonight [00:28:00] project.com.

Bill Russell: um.

Sarah Richardson: actually email us there now. It works. It's just when we send it, it still says this Week Health, but all the details and logistics we'll

Bill Russell: Did I, did I actually give you the Sarah at 2 2 9 project.com? I did. Wow.

Sarah Richardson: did. I know. It's

Bill Russell: You, you, you, you finally earned that, uh, that moniker. Drex is Drex. 'cause do we know anybody else named Drex? And so that was an easy one to just give away. Um, but we do have two Wess as well. So it gets kind of,

Sarah Richardson: And a whole team of js.

Bill Russell: oh my gosh.

Sarah Richardson: partnership team is four J

Bill Russell: Four Js James.

Sarah Richardson: or J.

Bill Russell: James Jarris, uh, Josh and Jimmy. Um,

Sarah Richardson: uh, expand that team. It just has to be part of the, um, job posting. Your name

Bill Russell: well,

Sarah Richardson: with the j.

Bill Russell: it make, it, it makes the, uh, going through the resumes really easy. You just put it through, you know, some AI thing and say, look, their name doesn't begin with a J. Uh, cut 'em out and then you'll end up with like three or four resumes, and then I.

Sarah Richardson: get like Jesus or Javier and then it's gonna kind of, from the phone perspective, it's going to be totally different. So, you know, that's how, that's how

Bill Russell: Hey, ai, AI can tell the difference. We could say it not only, not only, uh, start with a J, but it has to be phonetically. Start with a J. Um, I don't know. Does that violate, [00:29:00] does that violate something?

Sarah Richardson: does. You violated a lot of things publicly just now. So now

Bill Russell: Oh, man.

Sarah Richardson: that's named like, you know, Xavier or

Bill Russell: Yeah, if, if somebody's wondering, that was, I have no idea how that happened, that we ended up with four people with Jays as their first name.

Uh, it was not a, an intentional hiring practice that we went about. So, um, yeah. But, uh, definitely fun group people. Sarah, I'm looking forward to, uh, having you on the 229 podcast. We'll continue to do the. Um, uh, this, the Newsday show, uh, UI and Drex and we'll release it here and Drex releases it on his channel as well.

Um, and, uh, and they can look forward to some flourish soundbites as well. I mean, one of the things that's interesting is, uh, at some of these dinners and whatnot, we have the next generation. I'd love for you to continue to capture those career journeys of, uh, uh, the young and up and comers, but also. Some of the career journeys of the, of the people that have, have made it and been around and maybe even some of the retirees.

'cause uh, now in the 229 project, my gosh, we have at least three or four people that have [00:30:00] been at our events that have retired. Four, four or five. I mean, there's a bunch that have retired so.

Sarah Richardson: with us via legacy and others. And so every step of your career, whether you're 22 or in some cases 62 72. There's a story that we can capture and what's most important, I believe in all that too, bill, is we can also connect you with that person for a conversation. I mean, one of the, I think our superpowers is people consistently call us for help. Confidentially, and we either are that conversation for them or we put them in touch with the person we believe would be best for with whom they could be speaking. And that is a hallmark of who we are. The amount of phone calls all of us get every single week where people need help and things that they are not willing to share publicly. And I love that we get to be that for others.

Bill Russell: Absolutely love, uh, helping people through their career challenges and things to that effect. Um, well, Sarah, that's gonna be the end of this episode. You and I are gonna have a short conversation about our internal AI tool, [00:31:00] Albert. And, we also have helos internally. All this software we've written ourselves and it's, it's a lot of fun.

At some point we might release Albert to the wild, but right now we're doing a lot of internal stuff with it. So, um, I'm, I'm looking forward to getting your feedback as you continue to go through this, uh, MIT class on AI and, you know, are we doing the right things? I, I saw your article this morning on governance.

That's, um. You know, it's, it's an imperative now, and I, I I I love that. Um, I'm not sure people understand how different governance is. It, governance used to mean like controlling the amount of projects and the technology and whatever that's coming through. Governance with AI is much deeper and has to be systemic.

Uh, yeah. Especially when we start talking agents. It's gonna be, this is gonna be real time. Technology making decisions. All right. How are we applying governance to those specific decisions as they're happening? It's gonna be wild Anyway. Cool, Sarah, thanks and, uh, look forward to, uh, look forward to having you on the show.

Sarah Richardson: And that's all for now.

Bill Russell: [00:32:00] That's all for now.

Thanks for listening to the 229 podcast. The best conversations don't end when the event does. They continue here with our community of healthcare leaders. Join us by subscribing at this week health.com/subscribe.

If you have a conversation, that's too good not to share. Reach out. Also, check out our events on the 229 project.com website. Share this episode with a peer. It's how we grow our network, increase our collective knowledge and transform healthcare together. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.