Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / 🎙️ M-Dashes, the Cookie Monster & DEX: The BIG Reality Bites 2025 Finale

Transcript

🎙️ M-Dashes, the Cookie Monster & DEX: The BIG Reality Bites 2025 Finale · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome it, change Makers to the Deck Show with Tim
0:05
Speaker 1: Flower and Tom McGraw.
0:07
Speaker 2: Let's get into it.
0:09
Speaker 3: Hello, change Makers, Welcome back to the Deck Show, Show
0:12
Speaker 3: within a show, Reality Bites. It's it's our tradition to
0:18
Speaker 3: have a year's end panel discussion regular listeners to both
0:24
Speaker 3: the Deck Show and Reality Bites and over. Tim and
0:27
Speaker 3: I have the other tradition of talking to Jeff Wright,
0:30
Speaker 3: and we've already recorded that, and now we're very excited
0:34
Speaker 3: to bring the whole panel back together because we have
0:37
Speaker 3: seen an amazing year for Next Think, for decks, for
0:41
Speaker 3: technology in general. I would see, I would say, thinking
0:45
Speaker 3: specifically about decks, we've seen another Gardener Magic Quadrant this year,
0:49
Speaker 3: another leadership position for Next Think. We've seen incredible Next
0:53
Speaker 3: Think innovation unveiled such as Spark and Assistant AI Driver.
0:58
Speaker 3: As we've covered quite extensively on the show. We've had
1:02
Speaker 3: record breaking events in London and Boston, and we've had
1:06
Speaker 3: we're proud and humble to say, another record breaking year
1:11
Speaker 3: here at the deck Show and of course on Reality Bites.
1:15
Speaker 3: So we're gonna we're gonna welcome everybody, all of our
1:18
Speaker 3: all of our regular panelists are here with us, for
1:20
Speaker 3: our end of year party, and we're gonna go one
1:23
Speaker 3: by one. We've got some fantastic and fun questions for everybody.
1:28
Speaker 3: I've loved the answers I've seen put in the chat,
1:32
Speaker 3: so excited to get to everyone. But let's start with you,
1:35
Speaker 3: Tim Flower, Tim Hayden.
1:37
Speaker 4: Good time?
1:37
Speaker 3: How about yourself doing great?
1:40
Speaker 4: Yeah?
1:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, excited, excited just to go through the questions.
1:44
Speaker 3: We've got a little music for everybody, We've got a
1:46
Speaker 3: little a little fun and of course we're going to
1:49
Speaker 3: be asking what you know first and foremost, most substantially,
1:52
Speaker 3: what defined twenty twenty five for you? So let's let's
1:57
Speaker 3: begin with this one. Tim, before we get to our
1:59
Speaker 3: quick five aroun how would you put your finger on
2:03
Speaker 3: the last twelve months.
2:05
Speaker 4: I think you're going to hear a lot and the
2:07
Speaker 4: answers and conversation about AI. So I'm not going to
2:09
Speaker 4: start with AI. What to find it? I We've talked
2:14
Speaker 4: about it on the show before. I write a couple
2:16
Speaker 4: of both business and personal milestones in time related age
2:21
Speaker 4: and time with the company. And I look back at
2:24
Speaker 4: my twenty years at Hartford was all sitting at a desk,
2:27
Speaker 4: and my ten years here at Next Think have primarily
2:30
Speaker 4: been living out of a suitcase and traveling to all
2:34
Speaker 4: corners of the world, talking with people both distant coworkers
2:39
Speaker 4: and IT executives and strangers along the way, and being
2:43
Speaker 4: immersed in different cultures like Tokyo and Sydney and Melbourne
2:47
Speaker 4: and too many to mention all around Europe, and it
2:51
Speaker 4: gives you. I contrast that with sitting at a desk
2:53
Speaker 4: for twenty years, and it just changes your worldview, not
2:57
Speaker 4: just in the business that we're in and how next
2:59
Speaker 4: Thing can help all of these people everywhere they live,
3:01
Speaker 4: but in your personal life too. In a larger sense.
3:05
Speaker 4: It also connects me directly with the business of Next Think, right.
3:09
Speaker 4: I think we can get lost in our chores and
3:11
Speaker 4: our tasks and our to dos when we're sitting at
3:13
Speaker 4: a desk. But being out and talking with people and
3:16
Speaker 4: experiencing what they're dealing with and what next Think is
3:19
Speaker 4: doing to help, I think, really invigorates me. And this
3:25
Speaker 4: past year. This year it was probably the most travel
3:28
Speaker 4: in my career. The first half of the year, I
3:31
Speaker 4: was on the road maybe eighteen weeks out of the
3:34
Speaker 4: twenty six nine weeks all at once, not coming home
3:37
Speaker 4: for nine weeks. I left my home last February it
3:41
Speaker 4: was frozen over and I came home in April and
3:43
Speaker 4: the grass was out in the leaves around. So it's
3:46
Speaker 4: a huge part of my job and my career and
3:50
Speaker 4: my life is that travel around the world. But this
3:52
Speaker 4: year really really peaked with some new places. But then
3:57
Speaker 4: AI as well. Right, it defines almost everything that we
4:03
Speaker 4: did this year. It's become for me. It's become that
4:07
Speaker 4: knowledgeable collaborator rather than just a searcher for answers. Right.
4:12
Speaker 4: It helps me form concepts for research and think about
4:15
Speaker 4: things I might have missed or you know, even in
4:20
Speaker 4: my personal life, helped me research some retirement Q and
4:23
Speaker 4: A questions and planning and modeling, help with road trip advice. Hey,
4:27
Speaker 4: I want to go to these three cities over the
4:29
Speaker 4: course of two weeks, map it out for me and
4:31
Speaker 4: what should I see. All kinds of things that would
4:34
Speaker 4: just take days and weeks or even months to do,
4:37
Speaker 4: it can do in seconds. So, you know, I even
4:40
Speaker 4: uploaded a solar contract. I'm looking at solar for my house.
4:43
Speaker 4: Uploaded the contract and said give me all the red
4:45
Speaker 4: flags and it listed everything out that I should be
4:47
Speaker 4: concerned with from a legal standpoint, So its just having
4:50
Speaker 4: access to instant knowledge that that really woke woke my
4:56
Speaker 4: senses up this year.
4:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds a bit like I had the same
4:59
Speaker 3: thing by in a second hand car. I was just
5:01
Speaker 3: uploading service histories of the cars. I was breaking it
5:06
Speaker 3: down for me, and I thought, I'm no longer blind
5:09
Speaker 3: in this process. I'm no longer as vulnerable as I
5:11
Speaker 3: always otherwise, I am not being much of a car person. Tim,
5:16
Speaker 3: coming back to your the global nature of your year,
5:20
Speaker 3: which is of course indicative of the global creep of decks,
5:25
Speaker 3: right and that we live in, and it's reaching new
5:28
Speaker 3: new markets and new and new horizons. If you had
5:32
Speaker 3: to just think of one place that you were most
5:35
Speaker 3: pleased to have seen with your own eyes, could be
5:39
Speaker 3: very specific, could be a country, and obviously not casting
5:43
Speaker 3: Shade and all the other wonderful places you went. What
5:45
Speaker 3: what what? What was? What were you most grateful for
5:47
Speaker 3: having seen?
5:49
Speaker 4: My favorite is Sydney because I've been there several times now,
5:51
Speaker 4: But the one that really made me set up and
5:54
Speaker 4: pay attention to was Tokyo because going to Japan, it's
5:59
Speaker 4: such it's not a European based culture. It's very different
6:02
Speaker 4: in the way they operate, if you will. And the
6:08
Speaker 4: questions I had going in and flying into into Tokyo
6:11
Speaker 4: were is dex going to translate? And it's almost h
6:18
Speaker 4: It's almost a perfect metaphor because you've got to do
6:20
Speaker 4: so much translation of the language as well. Right, You've
6:23
Speaker 4: got to when you're in a meeting, you talk for
6:26
Speaker 4: two or three sentences and then they translate it, and
6:29
Speaker 4: then they translate it back to you, and then you
6:30
Speaker 4: talk for another two or three sentences. So the will
6:33
Speaker 4: decks translate for me was the perfect metaphor because you've
6:36
Speaker 4: got to you gotta do the language translation first and
6:39
Speaker 4: then make sure the concept also translates to to how
6:42
Speaker 4: they operate. But Tokyo just as a culture, clean, inviting, quiet,
6:47
Speaker 4: so respectful, friendly people. I would go back over and
6:52
Speaker 4: over and over again. The food was great, too.
6:54
Speaker 3: Beautiful, beautiful, Okay, quick fire around Tim, I've got so
6:57
Speaker 3: many people to get for you. But what's a was
7:00
Speaker 3: your word?
7:01
Speaker 4: It just came up the last earlier this week, Tom,
7:05
Speaker 4: and it was one that you coined, and I think
7:06
Speaker 4: it fits perfectly.
7:08
Speaker 3: Ai Fi.
7:12
Speaker 4: Well, it was the first time I heard it was
7:14
Speaker 4: from you, so Ai if I just take it. I'll
7:17
Speaker 4: take it of you know where the world is being
7:22
Speaker 4: AI fied it is.
7:23
Speaker 3: Indeed, that's for sure personal use case if you have
7:26
Speaker 3: you already touched upon that when you mentioned your.
7:29
Speaker 4: Probably my personal use case is just as you know,
7:32
Speaker 4: as you hit that age, you start to think about
7:34
Speaker 4: the future and what retirement might look like. Having instant
7:37
Speaker 4: access to to modeling and advice. Now you obviously got
7:41
Speaker 4: to run it by humans to make sure you're on
7:43
Speaker 4: the right track, but just get your thinking about what
7:46
Speaker 4: what consumption of your savings might look like and how
7:49
Speaker 4: to model it.
7:50
Speaker 3: That was mine, absolutely and the musical flavor to today's song,
7:56
Speaker 3: and it doesn't have to be from this year, just
7:58
Speaker 3: a song that spoke to you. You may have listened
8:00
Speaker 3: to it a lot, or it may have just just
8:03
Speaker 3: vaguely or specifically defined the year in some way.
8:06
Speaker 4: So I don't I have a tough time getting into
8:10
Speaker 4: some of the more modern songs, especially current year songs,
8:13
Speaker 4: so I tend to go into the wayback machine. My
8:16
Speaker 4: taste strange from when I when I need to kind
8:19
Speaker 4: of get it all out. Judas Priests and Scorpions and
8:22
Speaker 4: Iron Maiden and led Zeppelin and Floyd, But then I'll
8:25
Speaker 4: swing over to David Sanborn and Tower of Power. But
8:29
Speaker 4: when I have a busy week and I want to
8:30
Speaker 4: just come home and decompress, I always go back to
8:33
Speaker 4: Pat Metheni group. So if you haven't heard of Pamatheni's
8:37
Speaker 4: awesome guitar player, great music, music, aptitudes, and there's one
8:43
Speaker 4: specific album. All the albums are great. If you haven't
8:46
Speaker 4: heard of Patmatheini, go listen to any album You'll you'll
8:48
Speaker 4: enjoy it. But it's just mellow, real relaxing. So the
8:53
Speaker 4: album as we Live Here and the song is Here
8:55
Speaker 4: to Stay, and it's just that song I go back
8:58
Speaker 4: to whether I'm on a plane and I need to
8:59
Speaker 4: kind of calm the nerves, or I get home and
9:01
Speaker 4: I want to relax. Here to Stay is kind of
9:05
Speaker 4: my go to.
9:06
Speaker 3: Terrific Terrific and I have I'm gonna almost choose it random.
9:10
Speaker 3: We've got Meghan, Dina, Ariana, and Sean with us two.
9:14
Speaker 3: I'm gonna choose them at random other than Dinah, who
9:17
Speaker 3: fair Warning is going to come last, just because I
9:19
Speaker 3: want to end the discussion with Dina's musical choice.
9:23
Speaker 5: I think it's really happy, It's.
9:27
Speaker 3: Perfect the way to go out. It's a way to
9:29
Speaker 3: go out. So there's a teaser for listeners have to
9:31
Speaker 3: try and guess what it might be. Let's go to
9:34
Speaker 3: you next, Meghan, since you have the last to drop
9:36
Speaker 3: your takes with a year into the chat, and they're
9:39
Speaker 3: and I'm excited to I think to read them, to
9:42
Speaker 3: be honest with you, So I'm excited to hear what
9:45
Speaker 3: they are. How is your year and what defined twenty
9:49
Speaker 3: twenty five in your view?
9:51
Speaker 2: Coming in blind? Let me talk second time. That's brave,
9:55
Speaker 2: all right? My year twenty twenty five, twenty five is
9:58
Speaker 2: a great year, I think for me personally, but also
10:01
Speaker 2: I think for Decks and for our customers and at
10:05
Speaker 2: least the people that I got to work with, which admittedly,
10:07
Speaker 2: if you're a Next Thing customer and you've met me,
10:09
Speaker 2: you're probably a happy Next Thing customer, but hopefully hopefully
10:12
Speaker 2: they all are. But yeah, for me that there were
10:17
Speaker 2: sort of like two contrasting words that came to mind
10:20
Speaker 2: when I was trying to think about this year, and
10:22
Speaker 2: they were balanced and ambition. And I think I'm going
10:25
Speaker 2: to go with the ambition first. Right, I've said this before,
10:29
Speaker 2: but when I was preparing content and working with customers
10:33
Speaker 2: on their sessions for our conference experience. Twenty twenty four,
10:37
Speaker 2: there was a lot of hype around AI and what
10:40
Speaker 2: it could do in the workplace and what agentic AI
10:42
Speaker 2: could do, and they all wanted to build these sort
10:44
Speaker 2: of employee facing self service portals and that all these
10:49
Speaker 2: grand plans, but none of it had actually happened yet.
10:54
Speaker 2: And then this year we started to actually see that
10:56
Speaker 2: come to reality. As I was putting the content together
10:57
Speaker 2: this year, you know, we have actual organizations coming to
11:00
Speaker 2: was saying, hey, we actually were setting this up. It's
11:02
Speaker 2: really working. We're hooking it up to all these different
11:04
Speaker 2: data points, like things are coming into it reality. So
11:07
Speaker 2: for me, that's the ambition piece of it is that
11:11
Speaker 2: people had this ambition in twenty twenty five and the
11:14
Speaker 2: tools to make it a reality. And then for me personally,
11:18
Speaker 2: I started the year by doing my first ever I
11:21
Speaker 2: don't know if this aspect of my personality has made
11:23
Speaker 2: it onto the reality by its podcast, but I'm a
11:26
Speaker 2: very outdoorsy person in my personal life. So I did
11:29
Speaker 2: my first ever technical mountaineering summit at the start of
11:33
Speaker 2: the year in Patagonia. I ran, I did my first
11:36
Speaker 2: triathlon this year started backcountry ski touring. So for me
11:41
Speaker 2: personally too, a lot of my ambitions kind of came
11:43
Speaker 2: to reality. But I think, yeah, it was fun, it.
11:46
Speaker 5: Was a good year.
11:47
Speaker 2: It was a good year in my person in my
11:49
Speaker 2: free time, did a lot of stuff. But I think
11:53
Speaker 2: with that, and with you know, the overall sort of
11:57
Speaker 2: heavy usage of AI that we saw this year, at
12:00
Speaker 2: least for me my perception of it, it seemed to
12:03
Speaker 2: really pick up in twenty twenty five, comes that balance, right.
12:07
Speaker 2: I think along with the rise of AI, comes the
12:10
Speaker 2: rise of AI slop, comes the rise of the awareness
12:13
Speaker 2: that sometimes the stuff that AI gives you is garbage
12:17
Speaker 2: and you have to approach it with balance. I think
12:21
Speaker 2: we've seen that in the professional world where and this
12:25
Speaker 2: will my word of the year is related to this,
12:27
Speaker 2: but people have started to lose faith in some of
12:30
Speaker 2: the content that they find online. I think people have
12:34
Speaker 2: started to lose a little bit of patience with some
12:39
Speaker 2: of the results that AI churns out for them. I
12:41
Speaker 2: think that we need to remember to strike a balance,
12:45
Speaker 2: and I think this year you definitely saw that. I mean,
12:48
Speaker 2: everyone that I spoke to about setting up their interactive
12:51
Speaker 2: employee self service. They were all very optimistic about it,
12:55
Speaker 2: but they also understood that, you know, it's it needs
12:59
Speaker 2: to actually still provide a good experience. We can't just
13:01
Speaker 2: go into this hog and say this is the best
13:03
Speaker 2: thing we've ever made, because what if it isn't? We
13:06
Speaker 2: have to leave room for that, for that balance. And
13:09
Speaker 2: so that's kind of my I'm not the biggest fan
13:12
Speaker 2: of AI personally. I think people know that about me.
13:16
Speaker 2: So I think approaching it with balance was something that
13:18
Speaker 2: I saw people doing, and I saw people sort of
13:21
Speaker 2: becoming a little more cautious and frustrated with the output
13:25
Speaker 2: that you can get from AI and sort of asking, like,
13:30
Speaker 2: you know, is the juice worth the squeeze kind of thing.
13:33
Speaker 3: It's why people have been tuning in in record numbers
13:36
Speaker 3: to a deck show in reality. But where we can
13:39
Speaker 3: we can guarantee six humans in the loop? No, not
13:45
Speaker 3: a single one of us is not a single one
13:48
Speaker 3: of us is being replaced by AI just yet. So
13:51
Speaker 3: you alluded that to the word of a year, But
13:53
Speaker 3: did you give us it?
13:55
Speaker 2: I did not. My word of the year is m Dash.
13:57
Speaker 3: Because m dash beautiful show. Just love it.
14:05
Speaker 2: No, I just like to think I'm personally responsible for
14:07
Speaker 2: how much AI uses an M dash because I am
14:09
Speaker 2: a huge fan of it as a piece of punctuation.
14:12
Speaker 2: I think it's a beautiful piece of punctuation. And now
14:14
Speaker 2: we all as copywriters have to go through and systematically
14:17
Speaker 2: delete every M dash we ever use or that if
14:19
Speaker 2: we're using, like, that's the trick right now.
14:22
Speaker 3: No you don't. You can tell it now, Meghan, you
14:24
Speaker 3: can tell it.
14:28
Speaker 4: Meghan replaced it with the Oxford comma.
14:29
Speaker 2: You'll be Also, I've been using a semicolon a lot
14:33
Speaker 2: more than I ever did before. Listen.
14:35
Speaker 3: It's so funny because that whole story, because I was
14:38
Speaker 3: totally cool. Oh god, I know I've been blindly sending
14:42
Speaker 3: my dash. But the thing was, I just think it
14:47
Speaker 3: highlights it illuminates the paradox, the paradox called nature of
14:51
Speaker 3: AI work. Right, we're all using it. I like to
14:55
Speaker 3: think I use it fairly, carefully and well, and then
14:59
Speaker 3: we're all try and cover up our tracks. It's just
15:03
Speaker 3: it's just a silly situation, isn't it. It's a it's
15:05
Speaker 3: a it's a paradoxical scenario.
15:07
Speaker 2: I mean, I definitely use it at work, and then
15:09
Speaker 2: I have to go through and be like let's not
15:10
Speaker 2: make it so obvious. I used it.
15:12
Speaker 6: It work.
15:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I'm quite proud, you know. I think
15:16
Speaker 3: I'm quite quite good at it. But okay, well, my
15:19
Speaker 3: own dashes I'll keep. I'll keep them in point of principle,
15:22
Speaker 3: And what about a personal I here's something I do
15:26
Speaker 3: know about about your megan as well as your your
15:29
Speaker 3: intrepid mountaineering and triathlon earring and such like, which is
15:35
Speaker 3: not big on personal use usages in AI, but which
15:40
Speaker 3: which could scop me entirely? Or is there one you
15:43
Speaker 3: succumbed to this year?
15:45
Speaker 2: So I, on principle do not use AI in my
15:47
Speaker 2: personal life. I think that it is cousin.
15:50
Speaker 4: Well.
15:51
Speaker 2: I won't go into what I think because this is
15:52
Speaker 2: a professional podcast, not my personal take. But I did
15:57
Speaker 2: out of curiosity. I had it build me a training
15:59
Speaker 2: plan for a ski mountaineering race that I am doing
16:02
Speaker 2: in February, and I thought, wow, that's interesting. And I
16:05
Speaker 2: haven't looked at it again since, so I'll be honest,
16:08
Speaker 2: I I thought, cool, good suggestions, CHATCHYBT, thanks, and I
16:13
Speaker 2: sort of yeah, I don't. I don't use a I
16:16
Speaker 2: sorry N word.
16:19
Speaker 3: I like it. I like it. It's a good. It's
16:20
Speaker 3: a good take, and it's a it's a nice a
16:24
Speaker 3: nice thing to stick with. Good good luck to its endurance.
16:28
Speaker 3: Finally getting off the AI track, at least a song
16:31
Speaker 3: of the year.
16:33
Speaker 2: I had a hard time picking this because a lot
16:35
Speaker 2: of the music I listened to I really love is
16:37
Speaker 2: all these like you know, girly pop singers and sort
16:40
Speaker 2: of sapphic music like another member of this podcast, but
16:45
Speaker 2: none of it felt super appropriate to say on a
16:47
Speaker 2: work podcast. So instead I will say uh, won't be
16:51
Speaker 2: Possible by Odd Mob, which I had on heavy repeat
16:55
Speaker 2: for a lot of the year, and it's a good
16:57
Speaker 2: song to reinforce, you know, setting boundaries with people.
17:00
Speaker 3: Very nice.
17:01
Speaker 6: We did have a really good conversation about how amazing
17:05
Speaker 6: it is that there is more sic pop on the
17:08
Speaker 6: theme by this question.
17:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a real renaissance of girl pop happening out there,
17:15
Speaker 2: But all of the songs have themes that I would
17:17
Speaker 2: not want to discuss on this podcast. So I'm not going.
17:20
Speaker 3: To you know, reality by sapphic pop playlist? Why why not?
17:28
Speaker 2: Why not put it in the description?
17:30
Speaker 3: And I just want to say I want every every
17:32
Speaker 3: panelist to give me their unvarnished takes, because if it
17:36
Speaker 3: does cross a lot, I can always just edit you out,
17:39
Speaker 3: me you take, and I'll be the judges where it's professional.
17:44
Speaker 2: It has happened before he has edited me out.
17:48
Speaker 3: Members of the panel. Thank you so much, Megan. Wonderful responses,
17:53
Speaker 3: and let's go next. Since we've just heard from you,
17:57
Speaker 3: and since it will allow us, as you've alluded to,
17:59
Speaker 3: the staffhic pop theme to recur in the musical round,
18:05
Speaker 3: how are you? How's your year been.
18:08
Speaker 6: It's been a really good year this year. I got
18:12
Speaker 6: to work a lot on AI drive, as many of
18:15
Speaker 6: our customers will know, because you've probably gotten an email
18:18
Speaker 6: for me asking how's it going. If not, email me
18:21
Speaker 6: tell me how it's going. But as a result, I've
18:25
Speaker 6: had the chance to speak to so many different people
18:27
Speaker 6: about their motivations, their challenges around using AI, around getting
18:32
Speaker 6: other people to use AI. And it's been interesting to
18:35
Speaker 6: see how the hype of the past two years has
18:39
Speaker 6: turned into this very systematized, operationalized, extrinsic set of motivations
18:45
Speaker 6: where organizations are really pushing the adoption of AI in
18:50
Speaker 6: a way that I think is starting to be at
18:52
Speaker 6: odds with the intrinsic motivators that I think will actually
18:56
Speaker 6: drive the work to make it useful, to make it impactful.
19:01
Speaker 6: And I think that that is going to also lead
19:03
Speaker 6: into twenty twenty six. I want to talk too much
19:06
Speaker 6: about this because I'm excited for us to share predictions,
19:10
Speaker 6: but I do think that we're going to start to
19:13
Speaker 6: see some of this reckoning we're starting to hear about.
19:16
Speaker 6: You know, we can't just ride the hype train, right,
19:20
Speaker 6: we have to actually figure out what we're doing with
19:23
Speaker 6: this and be really intentional about it. So that's been
19:27
Speaker 6: a really big defining thing for me professionally this year.
19:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like what you said. Everyone's been quite positive
19:34
Speaker 3: about this year. And I was just listening to you
19:36
Speaker 3: say that as well, Oriana, and I thought, maybe this
19:39
Speaker 3: has been like obviously, everybody can have personal circumstances in
19:42
Speaker 3: any given year which suck, right, and putting that to
19:46
Speaker 3: one side, could twenty twenty five have been like the
19:49
Speaker 3: first generally positive year we've all seen since COVID, Do
19:52
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? We're more often than not
19:54
Speaker 3: people like, yeah, it was quite good. It was quite good.
19:56
Speaker 3: I quite like this year.
19:57
Speaker 6: Personally, Like I'm in the US and I'm on a
20:00
Speaker 6: professional podcasts, so I'm not going to answer.
20:06
Speaker 4: The US.
20:07
Speaker 3: I'll be editing myself out of it's a fat point.
20:12
Speaker 3: But everyone seems quite cheerful. Everyone seems quite I mean.
20:16
Speaker 6: I will also say that, like, fundamentally, the the ideology
20:21
Speaker 6: that I most despise is nihilism. So not to get
20:25
Speaker 6: overly philosophical, but I do think that in any situation
20:31
Speaker 6: where you know, especially as somebody who is very passionate
20:35
Speaker 6: about many topics, I think that's the most important thing
20:39
Speaker 6: to me is not you know, despairing at the problems
20:46
Speaker 6: in the world, but rather like what are we doing
20:49
Speaker 6: about it? And actually going to my word of the year,
20:53
Speaker 6: my word of the year is going to be a
20:54
Speaker 6: mediation because I don't know, I know often word of
20:58
Speaker 6: the year is like a new word, but this has
21:00
Speaker 6: been like the theme for me, shall we say so.
21:04
Speaker 6: I did the course on mediation at the beginning of
21:05
Speaker 6: the year, and as a really fascinating experience, is something
21:10
Speaker 6: that is motivated to do as a way to give
21:12
Speaker 6: back to my communities, and I've already found it incredibly
21:15
Speaker 6: useful personally and professionally to just be a better facilitator
21:21
Speaker 6: to help people have more effective conversations. And it's also
21:25
Speaker 6: made me think a lot about you know, what mediates,
21:29
Speaker 6: what feel facilitates our experiences?
21:31
Speaker 2: Right?
21:31
Speaker 6: How do we interact with the world? And AI is
21:34
Speaker 6: one of those things, right, And it is a filter
21:40
Speaker 6: through which we interact with the world, right, And I
21:42
Speaker 6: think it's made me reflect a lot on what are
21:45
Speaker 6: the filters that we don't realize that we have, what
21:49
Speaker 6: are the filters that we do realize that we have.
21:51
Speaker 6: How do these shape our experiences? And so, you know,
21:55
Speaker 6: even having a lot of thoughts and feelings and opinions
21:59
Speaker 6: on what's going on on the thing that's important to
22:02
Speaker 6: me is okay, and how do I choose to engage
22:04
Speaker 6: with that?
22:04
Speaker 2: Right?
22:05
Speaker 6: So that's that's my my reaction to.
22:08
Speaker 5: All of that.
22:09
Speaker 3: The perfect dovetailing of your personal and professional focus there
22:13
Speaker 3: isn't it. You know that that question of mediation is
22:16
Speaker 3: is your is your area of professional expertise and passion
22:20
Speaker 3: as well as as well as as well as the
22:22
Speaker 3: sort of personal extra professional one.
22:26
Speaker 6: Yeah, I love it.
22:28
Speaker 3: Awesome And do you have a personal AI use case?
22:32
Speaker 3: You got one of those for us?
22:34
Speaker 6: So I also don't really like to use AI in
22:37
Speaker 6: my personal life. I've definitely experimented with it because I
22:40
Speaker 6: need to learn about it, right, I want to be aware.
22:45
Speaker 6: But honestly, one of the things that I find is
22:49
Speaker 6: that if I need help with the project, if I'm
22:52
Speaker 6: lacking a relevant skill to me, that's a great opportunity
22:55
Speaker 6: for me to connect with other human beings. I am
22:59
Speaker 6: surrounded by me community, and every time I ask somebody, hey,
23:03
Speaker 6: I need the skill I need to work on this project,
23:05
Speaker 6: It's helped me build stronger bonds with people. It's taught
23:09
Speaker 6: me new skills rather than having a machine do it
23:11
Speaker 6: for me and having to just trust that it was good.
23:14
Speaker 5: Right.
23:14
Speaker 6: Like, the feedback cycle of working with people is fantastic,
23:20
Speaker 6: and I highly recommend hitting with creative people around you
23:23
Speaker 6: to solve interesting problems. It's a lot of fun.
23:26
Speaker 3: I like it a sort of a not using AI
23:28
Speaker 3: used case of for you if that's cool too?
23:31
Speaker 6: And yeah, yeah, Like anytime I'm attempted to use AI,
23:33
Speaker 6: I'm like, okay, but how do I know that it's good?
23:39
Speaker 6: Who can help me with that? And then I talk
23:40
Speaker 6: to a human and then you know, I don't know,
23:42
Speaker 6: maybe there's an application fore I, but I've gotten more
23:46
Speaker 6: out of it by starting with other people.
23:51
Speaker 3: And I know you submitted in the chair a song
23:54
Speaker 3: for you? Is it sapphic pop? Because I didn't know
23:56
Speaker 3: a song, it's not actually a song hearing.
24:03
Speaker 6: So I do love suffic pop. That is a lot
24:07
Speaker 6: of my playlists. But the other thing that I love
24:10
Speaker 6: is actually trad folk, so it's these are not the
24:14
Speaker 6: same at all. But this year I started hosting house
24:18
Speaker 6: concerts in my home and it has been an incredible experience.
24:23
Speaker 6: The last concert was last night, which is why I
24:26
Speaker 6: popped that in the chat extremely late at night, because
24:28
Speaker 6: I had just finished up and was just full of
24:32
Speaker 6: the joy that comes from being in a room with
24:36
Speaker 6: live music, with you know, a packed space full of
24:40
Speaker 6: people singing along to the choruses. And it's another reminder
24:44
Speaker 6: of just how important those those human experiences are. And
24:48
Speaker 6: the word I said was collective effervescence, which is a
24:51
Speaker 6: term that was coined to describe that experience when you're
24:56
Speaker 6: experiencing something with a group of people together. You know,
24:59
Speaker 6: you're moved by the music, and a re single artist
25:02
Speaker 6: that has performed in my house has told me, Wow,
25:04
Speaker 6: that was such an amazing experience because when you have
25:08
Speaker 6: such an intimate show. You have that incredible feeling of
25:12
Speaker 6: like connection and vibing together.
25:15
Speaker 3: That's just truly peak awesome. We're all assuming you've got
25:20
Speaker 3: the most amazing home. Now are honor as well?
25:23
Speaker 6: You know, well, don't be too impressed. We had to
25:26
Speaker 6: cramp some people onto an hear match just because we
25:28
Speaker 6: ran out of chairs.
25:29
Speaker 3: Not necessarily lavish, but you know, able to capture a
25:32
Speaker 3: vibe like that, it must be it must be a
25:34
Speaker 3: special place. Wonderful though. Thank you so much, Arianna, And
25:40
Speaker 3: it does sound like you had a nice year, regardless
25:42
Speaker 3: of you know, all the Shenanigans in the background. And
25:47
Speaker 3: since we know dinner is last, it means Sean is
25:50
Speaker 3: of course next. And you know, like many people on
25:55
Speaker 3: this pod, Sean I would say, you know something of
25:59
Speaker 3: something of the AI skeptic. It's a little bit AI resistant,
26:05
Speaker 3: but maybe this year has seen you teach a little
26:08
Speaker 3: bit nearer to a dark side. Tell us about.
26:10
Speaker 7: It, false incorrect?
26:13
Speaker 4: I like it.
26:14
Speaker 7: I just have reservations. No, I've been using it a
26:16
Speaker 7: lot this year. That's what kind of defined the year
26:19
Speaker 7: for me, both in work and in personal life. But yeah,
26:24
Speaker 7: I just find like most people have already said in
26:26
Speaker 7: the pod, like sixty to eighty percent accurate, which brings
26:30
Speaker 7: up like bigger philosophical questions what happens when it gets
26:32
Speaker 7: to one hundred percent accuracy? How do we find our
26:35
Speaker 7: own agency in the work we do, et cetera, et cetera.
26:38
Speaker 7: But I think it's an awesome tool. I'm just always
26:42
Speaker 7: slightly skeptical of what comes out.
26:45
Speaker 3: As well as well. One might be healthy. Yeah, any
26:51
Speaker 3: any other detail from the year that stands out to
26:54
Speaker 3: you show you want to I mean, I like a
26:58
Speaker 3: quick fire around here, you go for me, you can
27:01
Speaker 3: do it, but it's to you. Yeah.
27:02
Speaker 7: No, I mean we focused a lot for in terms
27:05
Speaker 7: of research this year and like what defines workplace productivity
27:08
Speaker 7: and for businesses and how do they trace it to
27:10
Speaker 7: value and what does that mean? But I think, like
27:13
Speaker 7: we're all saying, you know, it's pretty positive. I think
27:15
Speaker 7: next year is going to be We're going to have
27:18
Speaker 7: more data and research out there, both from next Think
27:22
Speaker 7: and externally about like how are these tools really living
27:25
Speaker 7: up to their names? And that's going to be pretty
27:28
Speaker 7: cool and interesting. And we're just going to continue to
27:30
Speaker 7: kind of change the definition of work like individually and
27:34
Speaker 7: then organizationally, how people are getting things done and how
27:38
Speaker 7: they find value. So it's a very interesting topic that
27:41
Speaker 7: I like.
27:41
Speaker 3: Working on super word of for year.
27:44
Speaker 7: Sean Oh, we talked about this a couple of weeks
27:47
Speaker 7: ago Vibe coding, but just personally because I'm I'm too
27:50
Speaker 7: stupid to understand coding, so I thought this is great,
27:53
Speaker 7: but I definitely recognize the dangers that exist, and we
27:57
Speaker 7: talked about our prior episode please it out checking that podcast.
28:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, personal AI use case of.
28:08
Speaker 7: So this is really geeky, but I'd like to ask
28:10
Speaker 7: it like history questions, and I do this thing. I
28:13
Speaker 7: used to do this in Wikipedia, where I would just
28:14
Speaker 7: scroll to the bottom or I'd find like a certain
28:17
Speaker 7: figure and click on that person's profile and then I
28:19
Speaker 7: just kind of go in a rabbit hole. Now I
28:21
Speaker 7: just go to CHATCHYBT and I'll ask, like, who else
28:24
Speaker 7: was alive during Genghis Khan and where and when? And
28:27
Speaker 7: then I just go down thirty minutes of that just
28:31
Speaker 7: asking it historical questions.
28:32
Speaker 3: So that's how cool I am. No, bro, I really
28:36
Speaker 3: relate to that, like I could. I kind of build
28:38
Speaker 3: I'll build up like a little shortlist of historical topics
28:43
Speaker 3: I want to talk to chat about, and then I'll
28:45
Speaker 3: just be like, Okay, I've got spare forty minutes, and
28:47
Speaker 3: I'll just, like you say, just go from one one
28:49
Speaker 3: to the next time.
28:50
Speaker 7: I mean, it's cool to be like, all right, so
28:51
Speaker 7: what was going on during the Aztec Empire over here
28:54
Speaker 7: in Europe or what was just kind of hop around?
28:57
Speaker 4: I love that?
28:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I could. And I get like a real
29:00
Speaker 3: sense of fulfillment from it being I'd come away thirty
29:02
Speaker 3: forty minutes and that was fun. That was fun in
29:04
Speaker 3: that that like filled a lot of little gaps in
29:07
Speaker 3: my head, you know. Yeah, I love that one.
29:08
Speaker 7: Yeah, forget it on. Then I go back and do
29:10
Speaker 7: it again the next day.
29:11
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I see you got it. You got a song
29:14
Speaker 3: fresh on?
29:15
Speaker 4: Yeah.
29:15
Speaker 7: My song of the Year is seased for Cookie by
29:18
Speaker 7: the original Cookie Monster, Sesame Street. My daughter and I
29:21
Speaker 7: listen to that every morning on the way to take care.
29:23
Speaker 4: It's gonna be stuck in my head all day now, Sean.
29:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a gym. How's it good. I'm gonna get
29:31
Speaker 3: on this.
29:31
Speaker 7: Corporate podcast, you know how.
29:33
Speaker 3: I am pretty fresher. I want the melody. Okay, I'll
29:37
Speaker 3: let you have wonderful thank you so much showing and
29:41
Speaker 3: of course, last but not least, Dina, how are you?
29:46
Speaker 3: How was twenty twenty five?
29:48
Speaker 5: I'm all good. It was a mix of everything, just
29:53
Speaker 5: like every other year. Uh not so great. On the
29:57
Speaker 5: personal side, I lost my dad this year year, so
30:01
Speaker 5: that's that one is one of the biggest heroes I've
30:04
Speaker 5: ever had in my life. However I have been when
30:08
Speaker 5: that's on the personal side. So on the professional side,
30:11
Speaker 5: it has been motivating me to actually go back and
30:15
Speaker 5: find the matrix of everything. Pun no pun intended, you're
30:19
Speaker 5: gonna You're knew I would mention the matrix was going
30:22
Speaker 5: to come up always always because so when when when
30:26
Speaker 5: you're confused, you want to go to back to the basics, right,
30:29
Speaker 5: And this is one of the things this year has
30:32
Speaker 5: defined was exploring what are our basic measures for success
30:36
Speaker 5: for innovation, for how to automate what to automate, what
30:40
Speaker 5: not to automate the use of AI and actually go
30:43
Speaker 5: back to the basics, build some pillars. We're going to
30:46
Speaker 5: be using AI unfortunately fortunately sometimes right, but we have
30:51
Speaker 5: to have some pillars, which led us to agree as
30:55
Speaker 5: a team, maybe on most of the cases on looking
30:57
Speaker 5: at quality, efficiency, and comple lines. These are our pillars.
31:01
Speaker 5: We're going to use AI, but we don't want to
31:03
Speaker 5: be losing our human fingerprints along the process to fall
31:08
Speaker 5: into sloppiness, which now i'll lude into my word of
31:13
Speaker 5: the year's AI slop or work slop.
31:17
Speaker 3: And I think you introduced us to that.
31:20
Speaker 5: Yes, it's been there and few and few articles have encountered.
31:24
Speaker 5: And actually the more people are going to start to
31:27
Speaker 5: use a new tool. So AI is just an automation tool,
31:31
Speaker 5: just one more cool way two automate what you are
31:36
Speaker 5: repeating most of your time. So it will lead to
31:39
Speaker 5: some efficiency, but it's drawing the boundaries, finding those lines
31:43
Speaker 5: as in what should I use AI for and what
31:45
Speaker 5: should I not use a I for? Also not to
31:47
Speaker 5: use your human touch into it at the end of
31:50
Speaker 5: the day.
31:52
Speaker 3: MS and work slop kind of kind of close, I
31:55
Speaker 3: think is a word.
31:57
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, the more the more I use E, the
31:59
Speaker 5: more I don't want to use AI. So that's just
32:02
Speaker 5: how it is, like both ends of the extremes.
32:06
Speaker 3: Was there a personal use case for your dinner?
32:08
Speaker 5: Where plenty plenty? So I use it in my personal
32:11
Speaker 5: life to help me brainstorm, to help me arrange travel trips,
32:18
Speaker 5: recommendations on where to go, what to where not to go,
32:21
Speaker 5: when to go, what's the best places, and such things.
32:23
Speaker 5: So basically arranging and getting my thoughts that are all
32:27
Speaker 5: over the place into one spot, help me focus on
32:31
Speaker 5: some things and highlight value of whatever we're trying to articulate.
32:35
Speaker 5: So basically summing everything back to those three pillars, quality deficiency,
32:39
Speaker 5: under compliance of everything that you want to do.
32:42
Speaker 3: Phenomenal and you know, we reach for your song and
32:45
Speaker 3: your dinner in just a second. But we'll say that
32:47
Speaker 3: part of the reason I was like, well, Diana has
32:49
Speaker 3: got to go last, it's partly because the song just
32:53
Speaker 3: is just it's just got such a kind of culmination
32:57
Speaker 3: quality to it, you know, culminate in this song in
33:01
Speaker 3: my in my opinion, And so tell us, tell us
33:05
Speaker 3: what it is and why it's your song, not only
33:07
Speaker 3: as I understand it twenty twenty.
33:09
Speaker 5: Five, but every year almost Yes, it's my favorite favorite
33:13
Speaker 5: song of all times. I think it's my way Frank
33:16
Speaker 5: Sinatra because it really takes you back to the bits
33:22
Speaker 5: and pieces of everything. It has a journey, it has
33:24
Speaker 5: a beginning, it hasn't and it has a sweet, melancholic
33:27
Speaker 5: feeling into it as well, so and it's not so
33:31
Speaker 5: sub centered. So it's in the respective of the name
33:35
Speaker 5: that I ludes to my way, it's just mine out
33:37
Speaker 5: of the highway. But that's not the case. On the contrary,
33:41
Speaker 5: it's the other way around, where it's just a journey
33:45
Speaker 5: that you're feeling through. So everybody could could go through
33:49
Speaker 5: it in their own different kind of ways. But yeah,
33:52
Speaker 5: irrespect of how many songs I fall f on for,
33:56
Speaker 5: I go back to the matrix.
33:59
Speaker 2: Which is my way.
34:00
Speaker 3: Excellent, excellent, Thank you, Thank you, Dinna, thank you for
34:04
Speaker 3: bringing the perfect way to conclude our collective reflection on
34:08
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five. One thing I would I would say,
34:11
Speaker 3: and I think it's I think what's been common to
34:14
Speaker 3: the show and obviously common to us all as individuals,
34:19
Speaker 3: is a very kind of real sense that we're living
34:21
Speaker 3: through a period of genuinely historical change for the world.
34:26
Speaker 3: I think they'll forever be a pin in the mid
34:29
Speaker 3: twenty twenties as being a time of some significance for humanity,
34:34
Speaker 3: hopefully hopefully one that's seen in hindsight as more good
34:39
Speaker 3: than bad. And I think the Deck Show has reflected this,
34:43
Speaker 3: and I think reality bites in general, and certainly today
34:46
Speaker 3: has reflected that too. We hope we've been able to
34:50
Speaker 3: contribute to the discussion and contribute to all of our
34:53
Speaker 3: listeners the way our listeners look at the development of
34:56
Speaker 3: all this technological development and the development of professional lives
35:01
Speaker 3: and the digital workplace in general. It's certainly so many
35:05
Speaker 3: for people we've spoken to, and so many for people
35:07
Speaker 3: we get to speak to here and on a regular basis,
35:10
Speaker 3: have influenced how I've seen things and how I've approached
35:14
Speaker 3: my own my own planning and future, and and my
35:20
Speaker 3: planning for my own future. And it's always been a great,
35:24
Speaker 3: great pleasure to work on the show with you, Tim
35:26
Speaker 3: and with everybody here. And shout out to our shout
35:29
Speaker 3: out to our producers Ella and Catherine as well as
35:32
Speaker 3: always who do such a phenomenal job in the background,
35:35
Speaker 3: and shout out to the listeners. We appreciate you all
35:38
Speaker 3: very much, and the Reality by Its team look forward
35:41
Speaker 3: to seeing you next year and a happy new year
35:45
Speaker 3: to everybody.
35:48
Speaker 2: Everybody.
35:52
Speaker 1: To make sure that you never miss an episode, subscribe
35:55
Speaker 1: to the show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, your favorite podcast player,
35:59
Speaker 1: and if you're listening on Apple podcasts, make sure to
36:01
Speaker 1: leave a rating of the show. Just have the number
36:04
Speaker 1: of stars you think the podcast deserves. If you'd like
36:07
Speaker 1: to learn more about how next Thing can help you
36:09
Speaker 1: improve your digital employee experience, head over to next think
36:12
Speaker 1: dot com. Thank you so much for listening.
36:15
Speaker 3: Until next time, everybody, well, Tim in particular called me
36:19
Speaker 3: out having shuffled off the state sharing my own song
36:25
Speaker 3: for year and and and and what do you want?
36:29
Speaker 3: Do you want all of them? Tim?
36:31
Speaker 4: The word the word what the year meant to you
36:36
Speaker 4: is really articulate, really well done, But you skipped out
36:38
Speaker 4: on the places where we can actually ridicule you.
36:42
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, so exactly they're not very fun that okay, ridicula.
36:47
Speaker 3: Good luck to you with these solid with these solid suggestions.
36:51
Speaker 3: Word for you decentralization. Yeah, comes back to that episode
36:58
Speaker 3: we did on it Take a I with with Rob Wilson,
37:05
Speaker 3: and he just it just was so striking to me,
37:08
Speaker 3: this notion that the the conventional sense of a career,
37:13
Speaker 3: the day days are probably numbered, the conventional sense of
37:16
Speaker 3: what it means to work for an organization, to have
37:18
Speaker 3: a to have a job, as we've understood our whole lives,
37:22
Speaker 3: it's probably are probably numbered, you know, sooner or later, right,
37:26
Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean Also, if you think about it
37:28
Speaker 3: as decentralization, it's not that that's necessarily a negative, because
37:32
Speaker 3: there's something potentially quite liberating in that, you know, totally
37:36
Speaker 3: new way of maybe of approaching our lives and and
37:39
Speaker 3: and our and and and how we make a living,
37:42
Speaker 3: and how we and how we think of us what
37:44
Speaker 3: our skills are. So it made me feel kind of.
37:46
Speaker 3: It struck me, but it made me feel very kind of.
37:48
Speaker 3: It gave me an optimism at the same time, something
37:51
Speaker 3: very new and my my song of the year. So
37:54
Speaker 3: I encourage everybody to check out Freddie Gibbs and Alchemists
37:59
Speaker 3: Alfredo two album. It was really a a It's a
38:03
Speaker 3: sonic delight. But there you go, everybody, anyone want to
38:07
Speaker 3: mock me, mock away.
38:09
Speaker 4: We've got to listen to the song. But I think
38:10
Speaker 4: you're I think you're on solid ground.
38:12
Speaker 5: Okay, you're good, You're past.
38:19
Speaker 3: Disappointed. I shouldn't have had something more cringe. I promise
38:22
Speaker 3: next year I will have cringe Arama for you. Okay,
38:24
Speaker 3: So see y'all next year.
38:26
Speaker 4: Everyone