Latest / The Backdrop Podcast / Episode 16 - Enrico Gallorini, Co-Founder and CEO of GRS Research & Strategy

Transcript

Episode 16 - Enrico Gallorini, Co-Founder and CEO of GRS Research & Strategy · The Backdrop Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to the backdrop.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: Our guest today is one of the event industry's leading thinkers on understanding people and the experiences that connect them.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: For more than 20 years, Enrico Gallerini has worked at the intersection of data psychology, customer experience, and live events, helping organizations understand not only what audiences do, but why they do it.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: As co-founder and CEO of GRS Research and Strategy, Enrico has advised Fortune 500 companies, governments, and cultural institutions on audience behavior, event intelligence, and measuring the real value of live experiences.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: He also serves on the board of Explorer in the UK and is a TEDx speaker.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: He is the author of In Person, a journey through the unstoppable evolution of events, exploring the enduring power of human connection in an increasingly digital world.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: Few people combine the science, psychology, and commercial intelligence behind live experiences quite like he does.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: We shared a few words before we started uh recording, and uh really exciting.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and and I feel like now that with all of the research I've done about you and the understanding I had in your background, I only hit the tip of the iceberg.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: So how's everything going?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: How are you?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, very good.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: I have to be very honest with you.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very excited.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: I wake up this morning super happy because um I know we have this uh opportunity to exchange uh, and I'm sure that thanks to you, to your question, I will learn a lot.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm not sure I can give back so much, but I will try to do my best.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And uh thank you very much for inviting me.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: I feel the honor to be here.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think that this is gonna be really fun because you are uh, I mean, from from my perspective, I think you you're like you're an analyst, right?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: You're you, I mean, you are an analyst.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: You delve into research, try to understand people, and you try to understand connections and um and experience.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: And you once said that the event industry itself is suffering from uh data obesity.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, that was your quote.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Data obesity.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's a really, really good quote.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: You said that maybe we need more philosophers than scientists.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: So, what are we buying into that ends up becoming worthless at times?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that uh data obesity is not only in our industry.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say that we live in a moment uh where we do everything related to data.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Data is uh uh the key of everything and so on.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that is wrong.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: We just need to understand that that the data itself does not exist.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: I always um uh think that I also use the the way to explain what our data and the data economy is like the new oil.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: So you have a lot of oil that is the data, and you deep dive, and you have to create infrastructure, and you have to drill and take the oil out, and then you have to distill the oil to distribute the oil and monetize the oil.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: There is a little tiny thing.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Data are not oil, they do not exist.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: So the real point, if we want to have an analogy, I think data is the new wind.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: They are not there because you can store all the data that you want, but it doesn't give you anything at all.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: You can squeeze the data as much as you want, and we have so much, but at the end, they talk about uh usually the past.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: For me, data obesity is thinking that with all the data that our industry has, we can predict the future.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I think that if we take the biggest event organizer in the world and we put all the historical data and the actual data in one single place, probably we will have the same data numbers of uh one carful day in any part of the world.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: We are not in a big data industry, we are in a small data industry.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: So when you are in a small data industry, I think you have not to use the big data science and everything.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, you have to really try to understand what you need, understand which and why you want those data, and deep dive on that, not only from a quantitative point of view, but deep dive on the qualitative uh element of data.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: In event industry, this is everything.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: The point is that in our mind we use, we simplify our life, and we use the infrastructure of e-commerce because uh, I don't know, it's the best one that we can have, and we think it works in the same way.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: In our industry, absolutely not.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, this is why I think I think uh there is uh too much data, data obesity, and we don't even use those data because uh most of the times those data are, I would say, useless, or most of the time they reflect uh a vision of the past.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: What I think is important is try to understand what you want to achieve.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I always say that uh the best way to think about data is this uh uh wind analogy.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: So they can move a turbine, but it's just that you don't know where the wind is coming.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: But when the wind is there, you have to be very quick, easy, and try to take that moment and use it in a feed-forward move, not on a feedback form.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you you delve quite deep into uh again the the the science of events and you try to understand uh you know how the mind works and how uh experiences uh you know come come to be.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of that uh as you've you've uh I've heard you once said that it was really back to the beginning of time when we've had events throughout human evolution, those events become formative, they become so important to the event evolution as we know it today.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: And you sort of dig down deep and into what makes people enjoy, what makes people um you know peel away those core takeaways, you know.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: And and I know that if you ask anyone that's that's been in events that has, you know, created feedback forms or tried to get some some some uh some information from guests after they've left, a lot of that information is not going to be on a feedback form of what they really what they really have got.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: I've heard that speakers are great, probably won't remember them in about six months, but I remember the room was cold.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I remember the food wasn't very, you know, little things like this.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: So everything comes together to to create that that core experience.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: But for human evolution, um, you studied it right from the beginning to come to where you are today about you know where we should be going with events.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: What did you learn from that and what surprised you?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, the the the very I don't know, that the experience that I have uh it's starting from what we do as a research company.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we really try to deep dive on uh all these numbers, all this information.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it's fundamental to have uh a methodology, and that's the base of everything.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So when you talk about uh uh data, uh you need to have a data strategy, and again, feedback form and everything are fundamental because they are the base.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: So without that, uh, you can even start to think in the way that maybe we're doing now.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I have this chance of being this observatory, working with uh hundreds, thousands of different events around the world and collecting all this information and speaking with the leaders that create these events and everything, and I start to try to understand inside of myself why we gather together, what what happened?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: And especially in this historical moment that we have many other tools to gather together and everything, uh I try to understand, but when we start to gather together and what is going to happen in the future with the raise of AI and the machine and so on.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And the journey was uh fantastic because I I tried to deep dive, I tried to understand deeper and try to understand, but when we start, why we start, when we start, and I was going back and back and tried to collect all the information that we have, and it became clear that there was a moment in history, probably 7,000 years ago, that uh this animal that we call human understood that uh gathering together was fundamental to survive.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And those moments in front of a fire were not just a way to get uh less cold together.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, was the moment where our ancestor tried to share stories that was not just leisure or having fun.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, yeah, it was to survive, and we understood through this exchange that those moments that today we call event, but also at that time was event, has some pillars that are actually the same today and probably will be the same also in the future.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: The first pillar that seems uh easy to say, but for me was wow, I never thought about that, is the concept of every event has a ritual and a rituality.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: So there are elements when there is an event that the people gather there that they, I don't know, dress some way, they they are part of an element that has rituals.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the other thing is the rituality.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: We discover that the sun every year goes at that point in that element, and so we know that every year, or maybe the moon, every 28 days, there's something that are happening, and those became when we gather because we can anticipate that moment.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, these two pillars, rituals and rituality, are still very fundamental, and they are the base of something that is even more important, that is for me the real why we gather together.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, sometimes I call it just to be very provocative, is the spiritual side of an event, but just to be very practical because now the people say, What are you talking about?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Is the sense of belonging.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: So when we participate to a human gathering 70,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago today, and probably in centuries, thousands of years from now, there is those moments where we find other people that with an intention meet in the same space at the same time for a similar reason.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a lot, because we as human, we are alone, we are entrapping this experience, but sometimes we feel that we need more, we are more.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: And when we gather, for example, in a concert where we follow our passion, or maybe we gather in a trade show where we meet for business, or we go to a theme park to bond each other, it's not only about that.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's the constellation of things that happen in that same time, same space, because there are bodies that gather together.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: And this for me, I say, wow, nothing really changed.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: You can take your last event, your last personal experience, the last event that you organize, and you can immediately see that those people gathered there with an intention.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: They are there for something, and the way that they act, the rituals, the way that they speak, the vocabulary, the way that they understand each other, the taxonomy, are precisely for that moment and that time.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: And this is for me, it's magic because this also gives our industry, ourselves, we as human, something that is unbelievable.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Every time that we gather together, we co-create the future.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe a little tiny step, but because we know that uh in the next 28 days, there is a moon, so we will gather together, we do a little of improvement, we improve each other, the experience makes us grow, make us heal, we feel better, so we prepare a little better for the next time, and so on, and so on, and everything that we see all around here, it's because we gather together to co-create.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's yeah, I think you're uh you're describing, I think, what is best um probably phrased as just a community with converged interests, right?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: So a community could be back in you know 7,000 years ago around a fire, telling stories, those stories get amplified and amplified, and maybe lessons are learned through those stories.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: And as you say, they evolve and they get better over time.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, wait, wait, we survived.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: But we serve well, that's that's the first thing because we have nothing to resolve ourselves.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but that's also a result of learning, right?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: So, but now, even now, I mean, if you have an exhibition or a trade show, you're also you're in a community of like-minded people sharing the same interest, sometimes staring at your competitor across a hall, you know.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, but you you you learn and you and you meet with the right people, and you and you and you you're part of a community that that evolves.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: But this is uh the incredible things.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if we take uh a complicated uh event by nature, that is a trade show, it's probably one of the very few clear examples of competition.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you mention it.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: People that at outside that space, that moment, they fight each other.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I have understood that thanks to that moment, the sum is not one plus one.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's a lot of people multiply the effect, and it's good for everybody.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, they compete, but there is a moment that we call trade show that is not competition, is cooperation and competition together, co-petition.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is something that uh it's also difficult to describe, but when you go there, you understand.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because again, the constellation of things that happen in a trade show, it's a miracle.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a trade show for me is a perfect example when we're talking about co-creating the future because it's a physical space where you literally enter in the future.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: You open a door, and everything that is happening inside the content of the trade show, and I'm not talking about uh PowerPoint or the other thing, the content of a trade show is the content inside the booth.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the content.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: All those contents speak about the next generation, the next product, the future.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: All the people speak about the future.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a time travel.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, altogether a niche.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are in a specific niche, those two or three days uh it's like that you take an I don't know, a time machine, you enter in a place with people like you that have the same vocabulary, the same taxonomy, and everybody's speaking about the future.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, we just call it trade show?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Is it only about trade?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's also about trade, but it's all the other things that has a huge meaning.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And those people, maybe they have a badge, have a pin.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: What is that?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's a way to recognize each other.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's a moment where they belong to something bigger than themselves.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: How many times has it happened to you that you just exit from a trade show?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: It happened for me last week that I was in a trade show in Singapore and I forgot my badge.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was outside waiting for a taxi, and there was another person with the badge, and we smile each other.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Immediately we connect and say, I'm looking for a taxi.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, my Uber is not coming.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Let's take it together.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a badge brotherhood.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: Why that ratio?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: You should drive a motorcycle and see what they do when you pass each other.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's just it's that's the sense of belonging.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's yeah, it's a community.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's something bigger.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's not only operation, it's not only the venue.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's not the it's converged interests.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if every company that's at a trade show, everyone that's sitting in a booth, they've spent years and years and maybe decades developing something, researching something, making it better, and making it better the year after, making it but and and that that drives the the the innovation, that drive the progression of a solution.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what happens with everyone around them.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, oh, what are they doing?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're doing this.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, they they've changed this up.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we should look at doing the same thing legally, of course, but you know, and and it it makes everyone better.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: So it is it's it's more than an exhibition and a trade show.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of people would would balk at that because it's like, okay, don't make it more than it is, but it it really is because it's it's a place where just by virtue of of the fact that they're making things better, it is futuristic, it's progressive, and it creates um life better for the people within that industry.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Then everybody in there is fighting for the same thing.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: But you said that exhibitions, this is an interesting one.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: You said that exhibitions are um are planned serendipity.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: So you're saying that you can plan serendipity, and that serendipity is the USP or could be a USP for exhibitions themselves.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: So, but isn't planned serendipity a contradiction in terms?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, it's a full contradiction in terms, but let's now deep dive a little bit.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is serendipity?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is that uh when you are doing uh a research, for example, and uh you are trying to understand how the things work uh and what you are doing, do you discover completely another thing, but you you you see that is happening uh and you find another element uh and it happens.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: So the serendipity is something like uh that moves around and everything.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: The point is that you can intentionally uh prepare for serendipity because if it's just a matter of statistics, so if you put uh a lot of people in the same space, in the same time, all together with the same vocabulary, taxonomy, and everything, what you should do, you should open your computer, stay in front of your screen, you should take your phone and do while you are there your personal individual stuff, or you just uh open, speak, shake hand.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's how I say you have to prepare.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Not that you can prepare serendipity, but be open that something magic happened.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not magic, it's statistically proof that you put, I don't know, a hundred people with the same interest in the same room.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think is going to happen?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: There are much more probability than a hundred random people in a Starbucks, right?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the point.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: You just have to be intentionally open to discover, to see, to be also happy and maybe aware that you have a few days, few moments, few hours where the incredible things that all the people similar to you or that have similar intention are there.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Use that moment, be open to the moment.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, it's not a contradiction, it's statistically proven.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: There are much more probability that something could happen if you are all speaking the same language in the same way instead of being in a metro with other people that you don't even know.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: So you had compared uh the event experience uh to a soap bubble.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um I get where you're I get where you're going with this.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's temporary, it's fragile, it's it's there and it's gone.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I think first off, let me just say you're gonna get a lot of these thoughts from in person, not a paid uh paid uh advertisement, but uh this is um a conversation you had in person by Enrico Gallerini, which is uh an interview with uh Julius Solaris.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: Also, yeah, yeah, who who if you don't know Julius Solaris, you're either not in the event industry, perhaps not even involved in any kind of strategy.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Or you've been living in a convention in Toledo, Ohio.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Julius is brilliant, and I think it is a foreword by Jeff Dickinson of DMG as well.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of these thoughts are in in person, and you compared the event experience to a soap bubble, temporary, fragile, comes and it goes.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's fleeting moments.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the most important things that you're going to learn from an event sometimes can't be calculated, sometimes can't be put down as uh as data.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh what did you mean by all of this?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so let's start from the soap bubble, because I think our industry thing itself uh uh very operational, very we need to deliver also because you know, at that day, at that time, we need to open, there's nothing.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so there is super stress inside of our industry, but at the end, uh it's very the best example of uh ephemeral art.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: What is ephemeral art?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's a mandala.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: So a mandala, it's uh people that uh invest uh days, maybe sometimes weeks, on creating something, and then when it's finished, it just disappears.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is our industry, uh, and we have to accept it, and it's also very emotionally impactful because, like a soap bubble, it's there and it's fantastic, and when it's there, you have to take everything from that because then disappear.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: The point that for me it's important is that uh it's beautiful, and uh the most element that for me is important to remember is that uh everything that was the bubble disappear, but the real element is uh what remained after.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Was it worth it?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: What changed to me?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it's no more for me about uh the experience itself, is the transformation that me as a person first, then as a business, then as a father, we can discuss, but me as a person, I went through those moments, and this is very, very important because in our industry we probably sometimes forget how important we are, how fragile we are, how delicate we are, but how impactful we can be for the good of humanity.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not exaggerating because again, how many events happen every day in every part of the world?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's a big responsibility that we have.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: And again, going back to your question, so how can you measure something that disappears?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's with a clear question.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: The experience has to be today very fundamental, and it's very possible to measure in the proper way with the proper benchmark and so on.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: What we need to understand is what remain after.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: That for me, again, is not the number of business cars, is not that single song, is the transformative moment that you can feel it uh maybe one week after, one month after.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: There are some events that can change your life, and some events that are just a crowded desert.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Here is where the future or the opportunity of our industry is creating memories that last longer than experience itself.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, this is the job that will be even more important in the future because the operational side, obvious, obvious, but the transformational side has to be the new way that we as an industry have to think about our role.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it will be even more important in the future, because again, the raise of AI, the machine, and everything will take outside of our I don't know, ourselves the most of the things that we have been great for.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Do we want to compete in contents with AI?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: We lost, it's finished, and maybe not now, in very soon.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Where it will be useful in the future to understand our industry will be important, first of all, because you cannot delegate presence full stop is impossible, and presence is a lot, and co-creation is important, and creating memories uh it's what we have to do.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: I agree.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: I I think it's very refreshing um your your approach to the customer experience and and treating humans like humans and treating delegates, not just like a column of information pieces, um, demographic title, you know, what city are they from?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Where are they, you know, what is their uh what is their industry, what is their specialization, what is their interest, who do they want to see, that sort of thing.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: It just ends up being an information column where you went one step further, you purchased info salons, you purchased a registration company because your belief was that registration was the gateway of taking that data and putting it back together as a human being and and and creating a human experience.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: So, do you want to walk us through through your thinking behind that?
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: Because that was uh that was a that was a big, like I would say risky, but it's a it was an incredible moment, you know.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I I am a super big fan of uh what happened in the same place in the same time.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: We call it event.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: But to enter in that physical space, you have to open a door.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: And to open a door, usually you have to have uh a ticket or a technology or a badge or whatever it is.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that for me was always being fascinating.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thinking about someone, maybe now, I don't know, in India, that invests a few minutes of his life of digitalizing himself inside of a space that is pure digital, with his name, his uh experience, uh, what he's looking for, and everything.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then that person appears in front of that door before it's opening, and he became human.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: So when I'm talking about data humanization, I visualize that door with someone that became himself that can be, for example, vetted.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not joking, but in a future where we will be not even able to understand, like now, what is true and what is false, those uh doors, those moments where the people enter inside of something that again we call registration, ticketing, whatever you want, it they will become very valuable because that person come back from somewhere that it was a data to something very physical, open the door and enter in the future.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, for me was uh amazing, and and it's amazing to think uh the value of that event tech side that allowed human to be data and then data to be human again.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: So the human-to-human summit.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: That uh you've created this summit, and and you wrote that true presence cannot be created, it needs to be only invited.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: So which for an events industry, it can be a little bit provocative to to say something like that.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, what can organizers do to create that that presence?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: Probably to study a little more about uh who we are.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Not that I know, I have no idea of who I am, but I have learned that uh, for example, what I consider my body, for the most of the time of my life, I thought that my body was a good machine to move around my brain.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: We are all of this.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: We are body, mind, and probably soul.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you want, you can also put this or not.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: But in any case, we are not only that flow of thoughts that every moment speaks with us and everything.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: There is a big part of us that is the human body, and presence is not only being in a place, is being there is the power of that moment, and that power of that moment starts from your body, and again, thinking about the future, but also the present, we have to understand as an industry that all those bodies are big stuff because this instrument that we have it's amazing.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: In this moment, inside of us happen a lot of things.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, we breathe.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Then there's something that moves the blood around, and the blood is full of other things, blah blah blah blah.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: But those bodies go inside of a place in the same moment, in the same time, and these bodies and this is physics connect with the outside world, even if we don't want.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: And there are a lot of physics behind.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you ever heard about uh that if you put different metronome on a beam with different speed, after a while, because the beam has a little vibration, all the metronoms synchronize.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's physic.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's the same for our body, it works in our body, and it's incredible how many studies have been done about uh body, consciousness, and everything that our industry don't even know.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I I can give you hundreds of examples, and by the way, this is uh where I'm focusing right now in terms of uh research and future research, and maybe could be my my second book, because this element of uh the body connection, the synchronization between body, it's big stuff, and we all know we were talking before about the sense of belonging.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: Those moments in which we are in a concert, for example, and we sing all together the same song.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: What happened to us?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, I'm not alone.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here, I'm present, I'm now.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: The power of this moment uh heals me.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: But technically, it killed me really, because the studies see that those moments with other people are so important, and in an age that historians uh already call the hyper isolation age.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: We live alone.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we we scroll down this little file.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna say, even in concerts, it's just phones recording something that you'll never watch later.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but I was a concert for the first time with my two daughters, yeah, Emma and Elena, and with my wife Eliza, and they are 12 and 14, and we were the first time wait, wait, wait, wait.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: So they had that little screen in front of them.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's okay.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: I and I was there as a father, not as a researcher.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was a father, I I I am a father, but obviously I I see things and it's part of the thing.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a moment in which I saw that they take out their little fire, single fire.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: I call the phone uh instead of the big fire where we gather together.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's a little fire, yeah.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I I want to get a little hot.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: They take it and they give it to me.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: The most uh secure space in the world, the pocket of your father, and they start to sing.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: They are two siblings that they are nice and everything, but they are two sisters, they start to sing together, they start to watch each other, yeah, embrace each other.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: What that thanks, event industry, yeah, thanks that experience, those things are amazing.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: The most of the time they came naturally, and there's nothing that says built from an operational, strategic, thoughts point of view from the organizer that focus on the screen, on the big content and everything.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: But how many things we can build as an industry to make those connections, those moments uh deeper and create memories, memories that stay after that the bubble explodes forever.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is where I think our industry should look.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: And there is a lot of physics, there is a lot of studies, nothing our industry.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but this is where also my my I don't know, my passion, my I'm curious to see what I'm going to discover because uh I felt in my body sometimes that uh there are this clear synchronization.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: I felt in my body when I'm in an event and it's a complete uh crowded desert.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: I felt it.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: I want to deep dive how it works because probably our industry have to work and study more on our in-body connection.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: So now you you work, uh your group now you you connect advocacy to to repeat visits and spend and profitability and all of that.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: So, how do you go from that sort of like I'd say, you know, where if we could bottle that childlike enthusiasm and excitement that your daughters had with what we do at events now, if you could find a way to transfer something like that, how do you how do you take that, what an experience I loved being there, into something that's commercially predictable?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's very important because again, we have to do step by step.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, it's quite incredible that today, thanks to I don't know, companies like Explori and the other things, uh, we have a base, a benchmark of experience, we can compare each other and so on.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Very good.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: We can measure the experience from the customer, visitors, exhibitors, uh delegate point of view.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the base because without this, uh, sorry, we'd we stop.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: The second step is understanding that there is an impact of what we do.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: There are taxi that come around, hotels room, there are uh uh food, there are people, airplanes, and everything.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's a big impact.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we we are entering this space.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Then there is also the impact for for that industry, for example, how how much it produces for I don't know, the food industry, the tech industry, the oil and gas industry, uh, whatever it is.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: So that there is another space that we're still far away.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: But for example, as a research company, we we deep dive on this uh deal tracking uh to understand not the impact on the city level that is fundamental, but it's again explory the base, then we have the city level impact, then we have the industry impact.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm trying to push ourselves is the human impact.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: That is where our industry it's so relevant.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: It is not about money, it's about the fact that uh what when you go with your um kid for the first time in a theme park and you bring him in in front of um um big slope and everything, you know that there is security, that uh all the things is check and everything.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: But for him, it's the is the biggest personal experience ever.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and and he's scared.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do it for him, that's a transformative moment.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's big stuff.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that element uh makes human being a little better.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, how to make this uh clear?
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's measuring the in-person impact to people is where we we are trying to go, and it's um sometimes um also fascinating to see that it's so clear.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you speak to any anybody and you say, uh, what was the impact to your last concert and everything, they they they tell you clearly.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: The point is that the most of the time our industry forget that that is the final goal.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's healing ourselves, it's make us growing, is give the opportunity to humanity to go to the best version of ourselves.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: But if you if you crack that, the revenue will come.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: So if you put the cart before the horse, the money first before the experience.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, my point now it's very clear.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to repeat an experience that was worth it, yeah, and worth it is no more about economical impact.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: Worth it is uh a tiny impact.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: All of us, we are super busy, and we are competing with the most difficult things a nice sofa in the evening and a free content in YouTube.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's our competition.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that time is not one hour, it's taking the person to buy the famous ticket, bring the family himself, take a flight and going overnight to a trade show, to a concert, and spend the the queue and all it's a lot, it's a lot.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the question at the end is the same is it worth it?
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: The point is that if we're able to manage all this, what we call customer journey, but it's not a journey, it's a real experience that will make him to repeat it.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: Would you ask me today?
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: Would you go again to buy the ticket and fighting for the concert that we see with other thousands of people?
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was impossible to find the ticket, me and my wife with different things and everything.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: And we spent a lot of money, not only for the ticket, but to take the train to go to Milan, to sleep there, to eat there.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we stay one hour and a half in the queue with my daughter.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I did it.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then we went inside, but yes, I will do it again.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: It would be more expensive, no problem, because that moment was transformative, was a memory, and we can translate this with very practical things, and there's nothing to invent.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: For example, in our industry, we are all fear about queuing, but guys, queuing is never been a problem.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: Again, another study says that is not the cue the problem, is uncertainty the problem.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: If you're queuing in Disneyland, the queue is the expectation for the experience.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: How many times in our industry we just forget to say from here is five minutes or what is happening?
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: We disappear.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: So all of this is the space that uh even if you are very sure that uh our job is operation, everything, yes.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Let's make all the elements and the operation and everything clear that this body, mine, yours, and everything is suffering.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: So if during the experience we are trying to heal or help that person value this more than any cost, because there's only one thing that this matters to us is the return on time.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: And again, connecting with the AI, with the sofa and everything, the presence, that moment, uh, it's what will distinguish in any case from machine and everything, because it's uh it's human.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think this is probably the one of the most refreshing conversations I've had, not just here, I think, in in the history of ever.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: I've like now I know why you're being pulled onto stages and uh into podcasts regularly.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_02: You have a you have a lot of incredible uh sort of real evidence led research led information, but you've done in a very and sort of you know message in a very, very passionate way.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it comes also with being, because I know this firsthand as many do, being a dad changes how your perception is.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think that.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Not just with with what your your daughters are experienced at the concert.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: But I just think that it just broadens your your mind in how things how things are experienced.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I I I like, you know, I think it was very poignant when you said that it's not the cue, it's what the uncertainty of what's after that cue.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: What comes after that?
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: I I saw a film the other day.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: It was just a film.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's you know, it's a it's the low-hanging fruit of ideas, is is the film being the example of of the same experience.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: If it was a really poor film and I paid money and I drove there, I found parking, I had to walk through a mall, and I finally get, you know, pay a lot of concessions and I sit down.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: And if it was terrible, I lost two hours, I spent money, and it was just there was no thought put into it.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: It was just a derivative idea.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: But if I come out and I said, wow, that was real, I would go again.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: I would actually do that again.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe in that moment you just have your hand, the hand of your daughter with you.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's yeah, it changes the everything.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just that's a microcosm idea.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's a small, uh, small.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we're talking about big, uh, sort of the largest scale things, but uh and in the investment that goes into it to make it right for the person to create uh a more human recommendation, evidence-led experience for the people and treating them like human beings.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I want to ask you about um your company, about GRS.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_02: Can you give us a little bit of background on it's been around for a while?
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's been 16 years, is it?
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, 16 years.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, can you give us a little bit of uh sort of a boilerplate on what's going on there, what you've done, how you've evolved and where you are now and what you're doing?
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: So the the the inception of GRS uh was uh very clear.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: I had the opportunity uh to sell my previous company that was an event organizer.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: I I discovered that uh uh uh I was doing an exhibition without knowing.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I started when I was super young, I was 22, and it became the second biggest in the world.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I had the chance for some reason to take a pose for myself because I was uh a little bit lost.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's deeper than what I'm saying, but it's okay.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: But uh I I tried to understand in 2012 uh a little more about myself and what drive myself as a person.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm passionate about research, I'm passionate about events, and there was and there's still very little knowledge about what we're doing.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the first thing that I discovered was uh that uh there is a need, for example, very clear need, and it was my need uh when I used to run an event, uh, because uh we know that is one of the most stressful events, and we know that one hour of our day when we organize an event, two days before the event, doesn't have the same value of three weeks before the event, and it's completely different than the same hours, and 60 minutes, three months before the event.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because the the way that we work goes so up that is insane.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the the secret of why we're still in this industry, because we are addicted of something that uh they say that uh the best drug in the world.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a drug expert, just to be clear, but they say that the best drug in the world is adrenaline.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: Our industry, because of the delivery and everything, has a huge adrenaline that goes so up and it's so wow, and you feel that you can do everything, your brain, it's fantastic.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: But like every single drug, he has a bit side.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: So after that, you reach the point, you open the famous gate that people enter, even if you don't want, you just collapse.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's the what I call the event blues.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: And whoever has organized an event knows perfectly what I'm talking about.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: The day after of the event, you're still thinking, I have to do this, it's done.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: The bubble is explosed.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's no bubble.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: Where's the bubble?
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and I remember when I used to organize events that there was one of my colleagues uh in the office, also a week after that, she was crying.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: I said, What why are you crying?
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I I don't know.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it was true, she didn't know.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: The fact is that that drug is very important.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: The point is that we drop down the event blues happen in a point that is probably the most important in the event life cycle.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because the event life cycle is uh inception, I'm thinking the next edition, planning, and then doing, doing, doing, doing.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: The point is that when the event opens, the cycle is not finished.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: There are two parts that are fundamental.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: That is, feedback is the moment where you have all your clients, all the people there that can give you insights and everything.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: And if you have feedback, you can do the analysis, the strategy, and prepare for the next time.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: The point that this is happened exactly where you're drained.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: You don't you don't have the power, you don't have the brain, you don't want, you are tired.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought that would have been a nice pace to help organizers doing research for them and being really the one that collect, listen, be their eyes, their ear, during the moment that they are more fragile, they are destroyed and everything.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: So GRS, research and strategy, it's very known for this.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: But then obviously that was 2012, and now we do feasibility study and so on.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: But again, for me, it was incredible to find in my journey as an entrepreneur, people like Explori, Mark Brewster that create the platform to collect all this feedback.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's fantastic because, again, that's the base to build all the other things.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: I am a researcher.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I I I wake up every morning, say that I'm the luckiest person in the world because that was my it's my dream.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's and thank you for inviting me here because I it's a dream what I'm doing, really literally.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: But we need numbers, we need things and everything.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: And in our industry, the moment that we collect numbers is where we are at the lowest.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: So this is why probably we started, why we exist, and from there we became quite a bigger company, doing a lot of research, a lot of deep dive, speaking with the client, and try to fix these two elements that is if you have information, you can do analysis and then you have insight to do the next strategy.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't have information, not because you don't want, just because it happened in the wrong moment, how can you do the next strategy?
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a little bit of the inception of GRS.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: Research is like trying to jump into a moving car because it's always changing and it's always moving ahead of you, and you have to keep up with it.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's you know, a lot of that um a lot of that fatigue and that, you know, when you open the doors, everything you're saying, it's just a lot of that is crisis, or sorry, risk.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, it's all that sort of crisis uh management.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's all the problem solving, the fire putting out that makes you sort of that exhaust.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_02: But this is exactly the research helps you exactly quench that before it see behind the walls.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: Look, see behind the curtains before it happens.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's the research and the preparedness based on that research that helps you avoid that sort of, you know, it's always gonna come because you're tired.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean it's it's always it's part of the of our human nature.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: We have to accept it and we have to speak about it.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's important for the job that you do.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: We have not to be shamed.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: We are human, it's fantastic to be human.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: And as human, we have our peak and our low, and it's all good.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: But going back to the point is that as you mentioned, I I believe so much in instinct.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: Again, because we're human, because our body reacts first and everything, then we rationalize.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: But instinct plus uh methodology and data, wow, it's incredible.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: But you can see the future, but again, it's about feedforward using the base that you have, uh, not to measure the past, it's fundamental, eh?
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's fundamental, but to use it for the next level, the next element.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: Feed forward is the way that research today in our industry have to think, and thanks God, somehow what what we are doing, the people have understood that they can trust us.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and many times we are in autopilot, so they say, do it, because we are doing our operational stuff, our things and everything.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have time.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we know that we have to collect the NPS and the other things, but usually it just disappears.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: But when they discover that there's someone that is uh, let's say expert, able, and there are tools like exploring and everything, uh, they say, do it, we will meet after.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: And when we'll meet after, wow, the magic happened because it's no more that the cusing of the president sent to the CEO something.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's number, is instinct, is what you experience, visualizing a good way with all the knowledge to understand.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: So what?
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: And also here, just to be very clear, this is where AI cannot compete.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because AI doesn't have the in-body presence for now.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: So talking about this, thinking that research is not just uh something that you click.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you can do it with Cloud, fantastic.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, if you need that, please don't call it research, just call it uh I'm checking a box.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but research is something that is very serious, very intentional, very deep.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: And because of this, because of a very little niche where we are, yeah, with the small data that we're talking before, if you want to do it, you have to do it seriously.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think there's one episode where AI doesn't come up, but it uh because it's important, but AI does not attach itself to it has no pathway to human intuition.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like that's gonna be always, you know, for now, at least it's gonna be the downfall of being able to use UA as a tool for research.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: And just to be very clear, uh, I'm a big fan of AI.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: I use AI every day.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: Our company, it's uh probably uh uh super advanced on AI and everything, but we have to trade to put in data in buckets, yes, and it's a fantastic tool, and it's super intelligent.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, he beat me 7-0 on doing the things faster and better than me.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, fantastic.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: The point is another one.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: What we as human have that is uh scarce?
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: What is the difference uh where we can play against AI?
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because again, if we want to play against AI, we lost, but there are something that we cannot delegate.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: We we talked before co presence, impossible to delegate.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, AI has nothing to lose, and I want to go deeper on this AI has nothing to lose because doesn't have a body, doesn't suffer, doesn't have a son, does the our feeling feel consequences?
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, he is very, very clear this uh that we our instinct that uh is born before our rationalization is because we are finite, we we we we we die, we die, or we suffer before we die, it's well I don't want to be apocalyptic, but we suffer, so we do something because there is a reason behind that is very clear.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: We we don't want to suffer, so that element uh may have us different, and this creates something that for me is even more important uh for myself is that because of all of this, the most important value in the future of AIs and race of machines is integrity.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody can do a software now with AI done, easy, do it.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_01: The point is uh so what do we want to compete on this?
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's not the case.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: We have to be clear that there are elements like uh trust that is based on integrity we cannot delegate and all of this goes to one point that you say, and and thank you for for saying this.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: I know passion you cannot replace passion.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, you cannot copy-paste passion, and again, why passion?
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're can't fake passion, you can't fake and because we're finite, yeah.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: And if you did fake it, it would be so tiring.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_02: And you'd give up over some time.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's you just if you really, really, and I get that from you is is in this has comes from probably years and years and years of of being in that in that in that space and trying to understand that space and picking apart everything in you in you know about what you're doing, about how people think and how the experience-led um, you know, planning goes a long way.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if I can say this, but it's uh you can say anything.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's very transparent.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like I have a purpose.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I understood that uh many people as a purpose is making money.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm not saying that it's wrong, but I I have uh another purpose, and I I feel that uh I have the opportunity to have uh this as a sort of mission, and somehow I don't even know how it's possible that there are people that are much, much better than me in my company in GRS, that are doing incredible things, that they are so fantastic that I absolutely am not.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I I think that uh I I want to do what I'm doing, and and it's it's expensive from a human point of view, but also from an economic point of view, because you you can shortcut things, especially today, you can shortcut things, but I I I I inside of me, I I don't know, I I I feel it's uh very important uh to have a long-run vision uh and incredibly enough, then the money arrives even more than you expected.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_01: So these are the elements that in this moment are uh uh changing.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody can do everything with AI, but if you don't have the right, I'm not here to teach anything.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm I'm really I'm the last one that can say anything.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm say what I feel uh in the future, passion, integrity, co-presence, what happened between bodies is unreplaceable.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: But sincerity as well, because you present that sincerity when you're in that passion, you know.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: Or at least I believe it.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean maybe I'm completely wrong, crazy.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_02: You'd have to really, really, really believe it.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if it's it's to come across as sincere, if it isn't sincere, but it is uh it it's really, really important uh to have have the sincerity to yourself that this is really something that uh means a lot to you, something that you want to share with others and and and help to sort of create those journeys uh through your research.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_01: Just to be very honest, uh maybe it's uh it's a way to justify all my suffering, all my pain, all the flight overnight, all the time that I miss my uh daughters, my wife, uh all the complexity of being an entrepreneur in our industry that is quite intense.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, all the time that I saw our client do not understand what we're doing and put uh the NPS in a brochure.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, and so I have to convince myself that what I'm doing makes sense.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I maybe it's uh a self-way to protect all of this because this is my nature.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_02: Enrico, really, it was amazing to have this guy.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_02: This this was like I said, we do this on the Saturday morning, and the coffee was nothing compared to the the the waking up that you've provided uh for me.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: It was really, really invigorating, great conversation, very refreshing.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really incredible to be able to speak about the the human experience with with when it comes to events and um and the customers not journey but experience.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm really, really happy that you could uh could you know share with us your passion today.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um really have been a very great honor for me.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: I hope I was able to answer some of your question.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: I have nothing to teach really.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sharing my experience, and I hope it can somehow help others.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure it has, yeah.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Rico.
• 1:00:51
  unknown: Bye.
• 1:00:53
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• 1:01:01
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• 1:01:07
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• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you for watching.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_00: The backdrop was recorded live at One Central in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was hosted by Michael McClennan and produced and edited by Dan Powell.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.