Toward an AI-Enabled Communications Profession - with Anne Green

0:00 Daniel Nestle: welcome or welcome back to the trending communicator. I'm your host, Dan Nestle. I keep saying that the communications profession is dealing with unprecedented change. I mean, that's why I launched trending communicator. If we can get a hold of the trends and the changes happening inside and outside of the marketing and communications professions, then we'll be better at our jobs and better advisors, better communicators. Today, let's take a broad look at some of what's happening in the world of integrated marketing communications with someone who by any standard of measure is a leader and contributor to the profession as a whole. Over three decades, she's blazed a career path that so many PR pros dream of working her way up the agency ladder from her start as an associate at Burson Marsteller, to building leading and growing an award winning agency to shepherding that agency through an acquisition and ultimately becoming a partner and CEO of the new combined agency. Along the way, she chalked up honor after honor, including the PR week 40 under 40, multiple appearances in the PR week, global PowerBook PR news Top Women in PR can go on and on. She is committed advocate for diversity inclusion ethics in our profession. So much more.

1:21 Please welcome the CEO of GNS business communications and my friend, and green and it is good to see you. Hey, Anne Green: Dan, so glad to be here. It's so kind, I'm laughing about how long ago the 40 under 40 award was, but it's nice to hear about it sometimes, Daniel Nestle: well, we don't have to specify dates on this show. I mean, you and I are of the same sort of generation and, you know, that's sort of under the under the banner of no one really needs to know, but but they'll figure it out. So, you know, things we talked about. So forgive the references sometimes, as we as we jam here, you've had a great career. And, and I am, you know, I know that a lot of our listeners are in our world, and you know, they're in agencies, or they're on the client side. I think, you know, before we get into all the stuff and buy stuff, I mean, you know, the changes happening the profession, and by changes happening the profession, I kind of think we're gonna be talking a lot about AI but, but there's a lot of other things too. But before we get into that, I'd love for our listeners to know a little more about you. And you know, if you can just give a little overview of, you know, how you got to where you are, because that career path that you've had is almost textbook of, of what's a success in PR, especially on the agency side look like? So how did you do it? And and what were the highlights? And, you know, tell us Anne Green: Yeah, it seems like really rational and logical. And what's funny is I'm it's really quite accidental, in some ways my undergraduate work was highly liberal arts focused. I was lucky enough to and I consider it a privilege to be able to do an internship, you know, that's not something I take for

3:00 granted. It's something that I think all of us really advocate for trying to give more support for those who that may be harder. But you know, I intended to be a literature professor. And in fact, during my time at Burson Marsteller, right after it and while I was helping to build Cooper cats, which is the agency that you refer to in the middle of the journey, before GNS actually went to NYU and did most of my PhD in American literature, in the highly relevant area of 19th century American literature with a focus on Edgar Allan Poe. So that's a whole lot of goodness. But I love teaching. But I wanted to not go straight to grad school. And so I was looking for internships. And I found the Harold Burson Summer Internship Program, which was Burton's flagship internship, it was competitive, it was 10 people every summer in New York and some of the other offices and I, you know, didn't really have access to Internet back in those days in the late 80s, early 90s. But I was able to intuit what PR was, and, you know, make it through writing phases, and then interviewing and got that internship and ended up going there after graduation from Vassar College. And I think what was great is I was like, let me take some time. Let me work. Let me just explore the world before I go to grad school. So I spent a few years in person and I was lucky enough to be there at a time where there were some very senior people that Harold Burson was still alive. He used to ride the elevator with him, which was inspiring. Bill Marsteller had passed, but I was there with a lot of people that had helped build the firm from the 70s. And some of them were starting to move on to start their own agencies. But I got to start in b2b and consumer marketing. So I was working with like world class brands, both on b2b and b2c. Then it was a great

4:39 training ground. I mean, I learned so much, and I was in factories, and I was in like, I was just learning how things were made. And learning the craft. And verson, of course, was the largest agency in the world at that time. So we had a newsroom. I could see the AP wire and we had a creative team we had, they would help us make the slides, you know, and we had early access to the web and we We you know, and I met Ralph cats and Andy Cooper who were very senior, and they formed Cooper cats. And so even as I went off to grad school, I said to myself, well, I'll go help Andy and Ralph, I'll freelance for a while while I'm doing my coursework. And then of course, that was 96. And 22 years later, I had left a dissertation stage, like I'd said goodbye to academia, which was fine. You know, I made that decision open hearted. I loved it. But there were reasons to leave because I loved our field, too. And I was I ended up CEO and a partner in the firm. And, you know, and we were, you know, $6 million agency by that time and 330 people. So it is an interesting thing, because once I got into the career, it seems very linear, but I really am an accidental CEO to I don't have an MBA I never intended, but I love organizational leadership. So I think the loving the subject matter, the curiosity about that, I mean, we so many different subjects you learn in this field. And I know your career has been really diverse down, right? Yeah, subjects. And then the love of leading people and leading organizations. And it's, it's not for the faint of heart, but it's so rewarding. So yeah, that's my arc, which is it, which is fun to reflect on. At this point, you

6:10 Daniel Nestle: make me want to go down memory lane, just a little bit there. Because now because Cooper cats, that's our connection, originally, I had no cats. And, you know, I had the privilege and honor I suppose to, to meet Andy, before he passed. And this was 15 years ago or so. I was working at the AICPA at the time, and we we held the pitch and, and hired hired Cooper cast as a result of that, to help us with some of the things we were doing. Killer team, so much tension. But the main, the main thing I remember, from those days was how attentive and kind Andy Anne Green: and Ralph were. And, Daniel Nestle: you know, it's the kind of thing where you understand the value of that client, or this rather than I used to hate a client, but the partnership that you have with your, with your clients and with with the agency, and it's, you know, it taught me a lot about what a good agency relationship should look like, you know, and then, thankfully, you know, as time went on, I stayed in touch with Ralph, and, you know, and this is a reminder for me, I gotta reach out to Ralph again, because we used to catch up for lunch every couple of years. He's doing great. You know, a and believe me, we're gonna send him this show when it's done. But But what a you know, what, what a man says, I would say, but he's he is just such a genuinely a genuine leader in the, in the PR world, and in client relationships, and to have learned and and been at his side, and Andy side, too, I suppose, must have been just, I

8:02 was listening to somebody calling it the rub, right? Not not like as in that's the rub, like, Yeah, but as in, it rubs off on you in some in some noticeable way. Anne Green: I'm reflecting on as you talk. And it's such a great memory. I mean, this is why we're having a session coming up soon with our own team about networking, especially with our younger team members. And it kind of reminds you This is about relationships over time, and just staying in touch with people that you enjoy, and you care about and you want to. And as you get older and farther in your career, you can do more to be, you know, collaborative, but what you're making me think of is this industry can be very intense, right, especially on the agency side, but also the client side to the corporate side, right. It's, it's high performance, it's very demanding on the agency side, it's very competitive. It's competitive for talent. It's competitive for clients, right. However, I will say that when I think about how I came up, and that's person and especially with Andy Cooper and Ralph Katz, and we did lose Andy and 2013, to cancer, and he's an amazing person. Ralph is doing great, but they were indicative of a lot of generosity of leadership and is generosity of spirit that I encounter in this agency. And you and I, both being part of page that community, the PR Council, where I've been a board member, you know, here you're in the room with other agencies, CEOs of all sizes. And when we joined the PR Council in 98, Cooper Katz was quite small. I'm now representing, you know, a much larger agency and with Paige as well. But I have to say I continue to find that spirit of generosity everywhere, even

9:35 amidst the competitiveness and that shaped me to your point, it rubbed off on me that I think with Andy and Raul, specifically ethics, really doing the right thing, having an ethical lens on how you view your work and holding that line for yourselves and for your client to protect both and to bring out the better angels on all sides. And then also kindness, and then also a really high bar for doing good work. You know, some of my enters like, Andy, you could tell if he was like, this is mediocre and it's not acceptable. And I tried to be kind about that. But I want to hold a high bar to. And it's a very interesting time to do that as we grapple with this sort of new technology, as you said, and I think we'll be arrested if we don't talk about ai ai, I think, of course, yeah, well, we'll come in and shut the podcast down. But oh, but that's the kind of stuff you make me think of in terms of those human relationships, it's really quite a generous industry.

10:28 Daniel Nestle: Well, maybe you know, that, that brings in minded, probably a good place to start the discussion about change in the industry. Because the things that you're talking about, I think, are, are timeless, and an evergreen, that, you know, you have to have that ethical approach kindness, eye for quality, or understanding what quality really is what's good work. And we always say, you know, don't let, don't let perfect be the enemy of good at cetera. But that's a really hard thing for PR people to grapple with, I found, especially when so many of us, either were trained as writers, or just had that writing skill that got us through everything. And I never went into the world I never, you know, was trained in any particular way apart from academic, academic times, college, etc. But I always had a thing for writing, and I always was good at it, especially editing. And I have found that it's an and that's one of the unchangeable and unchanging aspects of our profession, no matter how much we find the help in AI, in our little interns, and assistants, and partners that we that I call AI, other people might call them other things. But no matter how good your large language models get at editing things, they're never going to get as good as the people who understand what people want to see and read and who get those nuances of language that kind of defy usage and defy grammar and defy us convention. So there's always a role for for that, but it's

12:18 critically important, I think, Anne Green: for us to, to continue to be great writers Daniel Nestle: and great editors, and I think even alluded in some way to the idea that everybody needs to be a critical thinker, too. I mean, you have to really examine everything that you do. And never take yes for an answer and never take no for an answer this question and question and be curious. And those things are our, our I think, threads that just going to continue to run through the profession is everything else around it that I think is wildly unhinged, and, and fraying and tying up in different directions. But, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it is a wild profession, and challenging.

13:02 Anne Green: You know, I'd love to reflect on some of what you're saying, You reminded me of a few things. I remember, you know, being in their careers when we have been, and I'm a proud Gen F sir. Me too. But we got to see a lot of change happening in a compressed time. And of course, we got to see one of the biggest shifts, which is writing to the web, you know, TypePad WordPress, the advent of blogging, the advent of social media, the that admits that advent of two way communication, which really changed the nature of comms that command and control was kind of lost in many ways, which is a good thing. It's a wild world. But the thing about writing that throughout that period, I remember hearing over and over again, there's always that fear of like say when Twitter launched, or x if you if you will, this feeling oh, it's 140 characters, My God is going to destroy writing, or that social media now is just bits and bytes. So there's no substantive writing anymore. There was also a big discussion, you might remember the, I think, was the Atlantic article, which was titled is Google making us stupid? You know, because our brains skill sets are different now than say, I mentioned before literature from the 19th century, someone like Edgar Allan Poe had an encyclopedic memory of what he read spoke multiple languages, and would spend without electric light, you know, nights with a candle writing just voluminous volumes, volumes and volumes of writing, and had to store a lot of that, you know, we just our brains work differently. They're very plastic. So I think I agree with the through line point, no matter how often we've decried oh, we're gonna lose this ability, that ability or writing is not going to matter anymore. Writing continues to matter. So what happened was content continued to be critical, and

14:48 more modes, more channels and more types of writing short form, long form feature editorial, on and on and on and then video and, and I think too, about, you know, the modes, our brains are plastic and will adapt to different modes and channels of information gathering. So maybe we don't need to retain as much, but we'll access it in different ways. I think so the other through line is that there's always been side by side with a need for writing and critical thinking, always a worry that people could work harder at their writing. And I do think now, and we can talk about it now or put a pin in it for later that I think we'd all agree the internet is flooded with a lot of garbage. I hope our industry tries to minimize our role in that. But I know that marketing comms plays a role in pumping stuff out, right. So whether it's paid, or and whatever, but they're, I do think back to your point, that human intervention of writing that is precise, or that sparkles, or that has energy or that's alive, or that leaps off the page, you know, I try to say to my peers, and especially younger ones, I want to see writing that Selectric, I'd like to see it be alive, even if it's a marketing pitch or something, or a deck for new business or whatever. So I think that and then the critical thinking to say, what is something that's really actually interesting right now, what is thought leadership versus just a title that is not really thought leadership at all? So you're making me think about a lot of things at one time? Well, that's Daniel Nestle: good, because we have to think about a lot of things at one time. That's the nature of our of our profession, actually, and I think I think a lot of our listeners don't always understand that, what they don't understand a lot of people won't understand PR, apart from all those people that

16:28 spin things are, those are the people that, you know, represent famous people as a publicist, or the you know, those are just tiny corners of what we do. And, you know, the idea of equate and just if I could step back a little bit, the idea of equating doing the good job with spin absolutely just just infuriates me. Yeah. You know, there's a new AI tool out called Sumo. I don't know if you've seen it yet, as sumo AI. It is. It's hysterical. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's in the gimmicky stage, I think right now. But with a prompt, you can, it makes a song, simple prompt, it just creates a song and the song are ridiculously good. Like, you know, it takes just a few seconds, and you have, you know, in the free version, a minute and a half of, of a song and any style that you record that you put in there, and with lyrics, and, and vocals and everything. So as a kind of, I don't know, either a joke or a moment of utter internal clarity. I, I was experimenting with it the other day, and I prompted it with you know, write a blues song about a PR communications professional executive, who is tired of waking up every day, and having to spin the truth, and just wants to be a straight talker for a change. And it came up with this with this with this song called Shadows of deception. Oh my god. It's just

18:08 it is great. I will share it with you later and remind me, but I was I was astounded because that's the prompt that I gave it. And it came up with, you know, three verses of lyrics that, you know, on a bad day, that's my, that's my life sometimes, like, I'm not saying that I have to spin for elliptical at all, but, but I am, you know, we're all kind of pressured sometimes to, to just make things sound like they don't suppose to sound or, you know, but take the stink off the off the rows or whatever, whatever metaphor you want to choose. That's, and it's infuriating. So, you know, I think our profession and certainly the kinds of things that we the kind of role that we have to play with for more and more is that of arbiter of what's good and what's not. And, you know, apply that critical thinking to say, look, let's, let's ditch the spin. And let's, you know, apply the principles of quality and good writing and, and truth I suppose, to what we're doing and, you know, I think where I was going with this was that technology and the all the crap that's out there that you mentioned, you didn't say those words, but oh, I Anne Green: might have I think I didn't It's it's it is Daniel Nestle: it is what it is right? It's garbage. It's crap. It's Anne Green: there's terrible content downloaded with a lot of content that's just it doesn't matter. It doesn't get better, Daniel Nestle: certainly doesn't get better.

19:35 You know, we we are uniquely qualified to both be the guard against that, but also to be corrupted into making that kind of crap. You know what I mean? Like there are people who will just take the cash and just make that nonsense and that's a that's a problem for for marketers and communicators out there who want to do good work. Yeah, Anne Green: it's an inch. I think you're making an interesting way, one thing you remind me of years ago, and I could never remember the source was, but I remember seeing some research that showed that there was probably a higher degree of ethical awareness in this field and in many others, because we're on the front lines, especially on the agency side, but in the corporate side to have representing things to other stakeholders. on the agency side, we have contracts that have you know, dual indemnification, because that which is really legally important, because we're representing information on behalf of a company like yours, and, and that and they're giving us information, and we're both kind of liable for that. So I think that there's a lot of misperceptions about what this industry is about. But like anything in human life, there are the two sides of it. You know, there's the angels and the bad actors. And I think that the vast majority of our crew in this field, and I've met 1000s of people now, as you have just so many amazing people of all ages, there is really a highest standard and a lot of deep thought about what is happening with the media. What is what is the role of a media in a democracy, a big messy media landscape? What is the role of paid channels versus own channels, what kind of content we're putting out there, what is hitting our stakeholders, and I do very, very much agree with you. And you and I've talked about this offline before this

21:18 podcast that I don't know if our industry reflects enough on how well suited we are to grapple very intentionally and optimistically, but also thoughtfully and with a lot of control over these new technology tools, for sure. And that we part of that is really bringing an ethical lens to it to ask ourselves, like, how are they being used and to be super, super self educating? And educating individually and as an industry on? How are they changing? And what is happening, what's the structure behind it, and all that good stuff, and also drawing a line for ourselves and for others that we're working with? You know, yeah. Daniel Nestle: And the way that we comport ourselves in the, the work that we produce, is our way to show that we can do these things. Yes. And we just only hope that either we have the persuasive capabilities, the influence capabilities, probably more influence than persuasion, I would think, but we have those capabilities, to build those relationships with our stakeholders, and both internally, and if you're an agency with your clients, you know, that would garner the trust that you need for them to start to respect your capability to contribute in that way, which is, which is a very long slog, and in many cases, it's a long, it's a long haul. And, you know, that's one of the things about our profession that I think other, you know, other functions don't necessarily need to contend with. To that degree, you know, if you're, if you're excellent at finance, you're excellent at finance is pretty

22:50 clear. You know, but if you're a CFO, and you need to create insights, for your business out of finance, that's a different story, right? You, then you're, it's not just about how good you are with numbers and tax code and all those other things, then it becomes more about, wow, what interesting strategic directions Have you suggested for the company and and I think that's the same thing with us, you know, in many ways, any, anybody coming out of college can, you know, theoretically, edit or write a document or learn how to do a press release the basics, right, summarize the media, which is another thing we're going to need to talk about, because who knows if that's going to be necessary as much anymore. But, you know, to rise up as you have through through all the levels of client service of internal and internal management structure, you know, takes a much broader, and I think more, you know, I think, I think a more widely applicable skill set in many ways. And that's part of the change, I think, facing our profession like we we used to be, I think that communications or PR and gr and AR like all these ours were that kind of pigeon holed into certain things that you do. Now, those guardrails, the silos, the cages, whatever you want to call them are permeable

24:20 or breaking down. And some people are not taking advantage of it. But I think a lot of us really see that. And, you know, that is one of the things that's powering the change in the profession is that we, as professionals, want to do more to help our, our businesses, because we think we can, we want to help ourselves, our careers, we want to expand our capabilities, and we want to learn because, you know, so many of us are just habitual learners and very, very curious people. Yes. So all those things together, you know, are are powering the end engine of change. And we as Gen Xers, you know, we've been through a couple of iterations already. And maybe that also uniquely qualifies us to deal with the next one or this current one, which may be the biggest one ever.

25:13 And that, of course, is artificial intelligence, Gen AI, especially with respect to, you know, to comms into marketing. So, as we look at a Gen AI and and what it means, I mean, what a broad question. Yeah, you know, let's, let's just start with some high level thoughts there. I mean, you know, you talked about different modes and channels of, of accessing information. talked about, we both talked about writing capabilities and critical thinking, you know, so from the get go, Jen AI is, is changing the way we approach these things and do these things.

25:57 What are you seeing, as, you know, from the agency side, and as somebody who has broad view of so many businesses and types of businesses and clients, and partners within the industry? You know, what, what are like the top things that you would kind of want to pick on? Anne Green: Yeah, there's so much there. It's so true. And it's, it's an adoption curve, for sure. But it's a moving target. So we've been here before, it's also an arms race on the tech side, so many new platforms. I'm not even talking about like the big gorillas, and you know, which new iteration of Claude or GPT, chat GPT, etc. And what other big ones are Gemini, you know, now, as you evolve from the Google platform, I'm talking about, you know, what's being created on smaller levels? And also what's drafting off of those big guys, like you said, there's like a million new things every day, right? So there's a whole lot of ways we're racing at one time. And it's this is true in corporations and on the agency side, and the agency side is particularly acute because we feel that responsibility to stay ahead of the curve, and to really be those counselors, right? And you don't, there's certain things they say fake it until you can make it that's just not, that's just not acceptable or real. In in this kind of situation. So I think that there's a lot of normal stuff we're sorting through, which we saw before in the social media era, and the web three era, which is like, what tools and platforms do you need? What's their cost structure? It's changing every day, there's 7 million of them and who's testing what, who's building what. But from my perspective, I'm really looking at it at three levels organizationally, for us. And then, you know, for the partners, we haven't really

27:33 the whole industry, because I'm having these conversations all over the place on the ground level. Meaning what is the tools? How is it proliferating AI capabilities and tools we're already using? Because the enterprise landscape of software and SAS, that that's where it is ground zero? For a lot of us on a business level? And also a personal level to how is it being baked into our, you know, consumer tools? And then what new platforms do we need to test? And then what training to folks need? You know, and I like training all the way from, you know, obviously, prompt engineering, but also how is it evolving, but then use case has been? And also like, how do we think about the ethics side of it, and IP and bias and etc? The middle level to me becomes, that's the ground level, the mid level is about intentional engagement and execution and pilots. What are the kinds of pilot programs we're running internally? What are the kinds of tests we're going to run very intentionally with clients to see where is the value? Meaning, maybe you want more efficiency? Maybe you want to automate, automate or eliminate rote tasks? You know, none of us are pasting clips into a book, like those of you in PR would know that from years ago. We're not doing that stuff anymore. Do we don't need to do that stuff anymore. So or where are there higher value things around personas and content generation that isn't garbage? That's actually useful. And then the top level for me, is where I really want I invite everybody, it doesn't matter whether an intern here are my partners and ownership, or your CEO or someone in school, I want to invite people to think about big picture questions like what will it mean to be human? What is authorship mean? What does it mean to have co intelligence or augmented intellect? What does

29:12 it mean to treat an AI like a companion in that way? I think AIs are gonna be companions in many ways. You know, this is a wild world, and it'd be very human and very alien at the same time. So I feel it's incumbent upon us all to think ground level, mid level and high level and that can also be conceived as immediate, short, near term and far term, because none of us have a crystal ball. But one thing I will say is that I've been around for a lot of prognostication where it's like agencies are dead, the press release is dead. This is dead, that is dead. And usually, and it's also not true that nothing's going to change. And I think we've got to be in that moment. Now to to say like, I'm going to resist the extremes but also be very open to some very radical change Daniel Nestle: the tent, I think the tendency of humans is to just immediately assume it's a zero sum game. You have things behind us that things that are the way they are in our going to be the way they Anne Green: always are. I hate there's some thinking, and boy, do we do it all the time. We do it all the Daniel Nestle: time. And it's the source of so much. So much strife, yes. Because you know, by that, by that philosophy, or by that measure, if I have something, then you don't have it. And it's very dangerous, you know, Anne Green: and by the way, I just, I can't cosign on that enough. And it's dangerous everywhere. It's dangerous. between two people. It's dangerous in organizations, it's dangerous in a society 100. And it's, it's something we have to resist. Yeah.

30:47 Daniel Nestle: And I go on, sometimes about abundance, thinking and all that kind of stuff. People talk about fixed mindset versus learning mindset. It's all one part of the same, you know, pie, I suppose. But to get out of our own way, and to stop navel gazing and sort of say, okay, yeah, we're going to change. But, you know, the profession, as we know, it is probably going to be a different profession several years from now, but it's still our profession. And yes, I, I everything for everything I read, and all the wonderful people I speak to, and, you know, being immersed in, in AI, especially as I am, there's no question changes could happen very, very fast. But I don't think it's going to happen that fast, where everybody is suddenly going to be out on the street. I mean, that's not the way it is, you know, Gary Vee, who I, by the way, don't enjoy very much. Occasionally, he says things that are actually good or true personality, his personality. Yeah, I'm not I'm not a follower. But, you know, he says that, you know, if you're not using AI, at least 20 or 30, or whatever, an hour a day, then you are going to be dead in the water? I don't, I wouldn't go that far. But I do think that in our profession, if you are not getting familiar with AI, with generative AI, especially if you're not experimenting and asking, What if I do this, what if What if all the time, then you will be left behind, or you'll be relegated to kind of just trying to figure out how to edit the next press release, or whatever it is, right? So there is going to be a difference between those who the I don't even wanna say embrace, but those who adopt and see the

32:41 way to use AI for themselves and for their organization, and so on. And those who don't. But back to your three, your three points, three levels, your ground level, intentional engagement. And I'll call it philosophy, philosophical level, those three things. It seems like, you know, it's not just midterm short term, mid short, mid long term, although it's helpful to think of it that way. But I think that people are in all three of these places at once, in many cases. And it really depends on you know, what you're trying to accomplish with that particular AI are that task? In our case, or in my personal case, I'm probably all three, like, you know, I have I have discussions all the time about this, what does it mean to be human? Oh, yes. And it's such a critical part of this, and we should get back to that shortly. But I spend most of my time in the ground level, right, most of the time is like, training people or understanding the tools, you know, and just understanding the enterprise landscape and trying to within my company anyway, spread the word educate, advocate for a suite of the suite of tools that our IT team has, has, has created, which is really, I will say, such an advancement over so many other companies, like some companies doing nothing, and, you know, we have a killer team in Japan that's been doing whatever they can to provide

34:13 access to, you know, to this game changing AI and AI, I keep saying technology, but it's Game Changing, changing entity thing, whatever, of AI that, you know, because I think they recognize that, you know, the AI enabled business is the one that is going to win, or it's the minimum it's going to be table stakes for being able to compete, you know. So I find myself in that at that ground level a lot and just playing around. But it's hard to get, it's hard to get the word out. Anne Green: Here. You know, there's there's a lot of things I've been thinking about as you're talking. You used to joke that no one had an existential crisis over a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet because it's a business tool and it's real cut and dry. Social media really collapse the price In public domain, the personal and business domain, it really was a collapse of that divide. And it trapped with a lot of other trends in society, and technology and business and life. That changed the nature of that that intermingling that we, we use the word hybrid today in different ways. But, and I think that this tool, social media was challenging in that way, it continues to be challenging generationally, people may be used to it, but they still have a lot of feelings about it. And it's complicated, especially as they've seen the impact of algorithms over time, the kind of unintended consequence that we sort of wandered into Jaron Lanier and others were talking about it for a long time. But I think now that this is even more complicated in terms of how people feel about it and relate to it, there's going to be a very diverse adoption curve. Like anything, people have to find their killer app, the first

35:51 time I heard that phrase, which was more in the.com, boom, it reminded me of the first time I saw spell check on the early personal computers in the 80s. And I realized for the first time, why I might want to learn to use a computer. Before that time was like, I don't know if I need this. Yeah, I saw spell checking. I'm like, damn, I need this. And the idea of the killer app, finding those killer apps, those moments that is your personal entree, so it's like, there's the business tool, okay, I could learn to use it and irrationally, understand it, and how might AI augment me and, you know, and, and make things efficient. And this is how this works. And I'm playing with this. But where's that moment where you cross the Rubicon into a personal relationship with like, this technology is truly useful to me, and wow, it's lighting me up. Right. And so you and I both listen to the Ezra Klein podcast, he's doing some incredible deep dives into this and speaking with people like Ethan Moloch. And you know, Ethan was saying that you really need to spend 10 hours with it. And part of it is not just like treating it, like, I will put in question you give answer, right. It's more that discursive process of building and learning and also training these tools to manifest and a personality or a set of parameters that you can relate to or that relate to the business need, or the personal need. This is a radically different shift. And I think for me, as I contemplate this, and like you'd get, try to get as deep as I can, and also try to push myself to be hands on where I am also finding barriers to be like, how am I using this today? I'm not you know what I mean? But I think that I'm trying to also something you said earlier, project myself forward, and say, What is this future state gonna look like? I'm standing in this agency in this physical space.

37:37 What is it look like? What are we doing? What are we not doing? What was hard? What was easy, I think, project back to the adoption curve for web one, web two and social. And I can see what those shifts ended up being I can see how hiring change. We don't look that different, but we are profoundly different. So I am very interested in this question. And I want to keep interrogating, because I'm not 100%. Sure. Like I was just having a discussion with a few agency CEOs yesterday, like, will our hiring change? Will the entry level look different? Like the these are big questions of how do we project forward? Where the pace of change is so massive? That it's hard? And it's and we don't really have an analogue for it? If that makes sense? Oh, Daniel Nestle: it makes perfect sense, at least when it comes to things like web one and web two and social, you know, it's a flat screen it's, it's, it's a one way of what's going from one way communication to a communication, oh, well, people can comment and know this, and this great Oh, my God, isn't this terrible, like, it's this whole we've been in it, we've been we've been dealing with it, we're still in most people are still in web two. And just dealing with that, and we're seeing the consequences in so many ways. And, you know, it, it took on a life of its own, and, in many ways gave technology as a whole, a very bad rap and a high level of suspicion, and rightly so, brands, people should be suspicious. And should or should approach with extreme caution. Anything that there anything new that they're doing, and bias by extreme caution, I mean, protect your personal information. I mean, you know,

39:16 like, do the steps that you need to do now in this world of ours, you know, it's, you know, imagine that every time you you log in to any tool, it's like going through airport security, right? You got to take shoes with less you have that maybe you have you have your your facial recognition, which is your TSA Pre and you don't take your shoes off, but generally speaking, you got to go through this process. And then you got to change it up all the time. Because, you know, bad people get smarter too. And that's, that's just the way it is. Now add AI to this. And it's a whole new level of stuff. People aren't sure whether to treat it as a layer of technology that requires the same type of thinking, or something completely different. No, of course You and I both think it's something, it's both of those things. But it's also something very, very, very different. We also don't know, it's a black box, right? We keep hearing that it's black box, black box, even more, like you mentioned before, is doing incredible work in trying to figure out what the heck is in that black box.

40:15 Anne Green: I love it. Daniel Nestle: I know, it's so interesting, fascinating. And 10 hours is nothing on this, you can, you know, it just goes by. But getting back to something that you said and and, you know, how I think we need to approach it even, even at the beginning, is you said something, and I'm laughing because I, I include it when I talk about AI with people who don't understand AI or when I train people in my organization. You know, one of the first things I say is you have to learn a new way of speaking, that isn't any new way of speaking at all right? So you have to learn, you have to get past this cognitive dissonance, that everything is Google, like you ask a question, you get an answer. Oh, thank you by done Anne Green: like that transactional neutral transaction, exactly. In Daniel Nestle: the case of generative AI, as you know, and and, you know, many of the large language models that are out there, you need to approach it as if you are about to have a an interaction, call it a conversation, call it an interrogation, whatever it is, you know, that, that you will get more out of it. When you're able to refine the things that you are saying and you're thinking, even along the way? Yes. You know, when you go to Google with a question, you have the question, I have questions. Here's my answer. When you go to, you know, chat, GPT or Claude are, you know, and I love

41:49 Claude these days, by the way, but when you go to church to your Claude, you know, you may have a question. But understanding that, you know, it's you're walking up to, you're essentially walking up to something that has access to all of the information that has ever been digitized. Yeah, and, you know, give or take. And if I was going to ask you an you know, tell me about an agency. Now you have your agency experience, you could you could talk about what agencies are from this, from your, your experience at Burson and then at Cooper Katz, and now at the GNS for communications and for business communications, right. But you'll tell me about an agency? And I'll say, okay, great.

42:41 But really what I really want to knows, actually, what about an advertising agency or marketing agency? Or maybe what I really want to know, is something completely different. So if it was Google, I would ask question come back. But with AI, I would approach and then they say, Well, no, no, that's not what I mean. Let me refine my question. Let me talk to you a little bit more. And we'd have a conversation. So I kind of got to the bottom, the bottom bottom line of, of what your knowledge is now with, with AI? And what kind of questions I should be asking you, right? With AI, you know, you, you can have a lot of thinking beforehand. And sort of, you know, understand your context. And instruct this thing that has billions and billions and billions of bytes of data, whatever. I don't know what the mountain terabytes, you know, gigabyte, I don't know. But all of this data, and you have to realize that you're asking it a simple question, when it has all the complexity in the world to search through to get to that simple question. So you need to give it a little bit of a guideline, right, so that you're not wasting time and go back and forth and iterate it reminds Anne Green: me it is a new old language, because it's more human language. But that's too simplistic and also complicated at the same time. But yeah, it reminds me of the early days of search. We had to be trained and Google helped to refine this training of how to do search now. You went from Ask Jeeves for you know, our, you know, our older folks out there remember Ask Jeeves, right? Where people would write very long questions, because that's you came to it like human that hadn't been trained in search yet. Then we got trained to get really small and precise about like just a phrase. And we got really good

44:27 at it. People are very good at search today. Right? Very, very good. And then we realize, oh, Google's super smart. It's reading for meaning, you know, this is the early days of AI it's able to understand so our queries got longer and we all know the stats that most searches like are pretty unique. They're quite distinct from each other. I forget the exact stats but to go into it more in a conversational mode. A real back and forth like you're doing an interview and interrogation reminds me immediate training. This is not interrogation but to go through it with full, complete sentences and also paragraphs and say, as you said, Claude, that wasn't my intention, I want you to rethink about this in a new context. What if I was asking about this area of inquiry, then also, don't forget, I want you to add this layer to it in this context to it. We're not trained to interact that way with machines.

45:24 We've been trained to interact with humans that way. So, right, to me, it goes back to that plasticity of the brain, how quickly we adapt. That's right. We have to confront change and how resilient and quick we are. When we find those killer apps, especially suddenly, everybody's behavior changes. I mean, the second that Google Maps launched with traffic, everyone's like, now I need a cell phone, you know, I need an iPhone for this. So but it's what you're saying is very key to how we are changing now and are going to have to change and how hard is that learning curve? Daniel Nestle: Yeah, it's a it's a learning curve. It's a mindset. And it's, it's like we said, it's, again, this kind of cognitive dissonance, where I'm looking at a computer. So I have to behave a certain way. Yeah. But you're telling me that all I need to do is like, use my normal natural language and something's going to happen. What that what, what's that about? With, with people who are getting the most out of Jenai, especially, it's, you know, they're getting the most out of it, because they, they think about all the different things that they want to say or that they want, like all the different different permutations or directions that this could possibly go in there. No, I don't want this to go in that direction. I don't wanna go in that. I have it like, I have an idea. And I want to see if it's going to work. I'm going to give all the information I possibly can. And then I'm going to remember Oh, yeah, I think it would be useful. If, you know, if the AI had this other information to look at and oh, maybe it would be useful if it had this data to look at you know, and then you can start to add more and more in and, and people have to understand this multimodal thing where you can you can use different types of media, and you can talk about different

47:07 kinds of things. And such a leap. It's such a, it's such a jump from from where we are. And sometimes it's it's easy to overlook that. Or he's easy to forget that for those of us who've been in, you know, deeply because we love this kind of stuff. Or we know it's we know it's necessary, you know that the vast majority of people still are in the question answered to buy mode. And this is, I think the very first thing that needs to really happen in order for folks to find that killer app, you know, AI, the other great thing about AI is, or dangerous thing I don't it depends on how you look at it is the killer app is you and your thinking. So at the at the most basic level, you hear about things, people creating prompts, just on their own, a great prompt, that they then cut and paste and put someplace else and hold on to it, because they're gonna use it again and again and again, in order to, you know, create something that they need to create again, and again and again. And guess what you've just done. You've just, you've just coded a program is what you've done, you've coded congratulations, but you've just been able to do it with your natural language. So it's this making these connections to what you're actually able to do. You've created an app, every prompt you make is an app. And essentially, you know if you can repeat it if you can use it repeatedly. So the the way that your mind has to kind of expand I'd say or just drop conventional approaches interpret conventional wisdom. It's more like that, again, going back to Carol Dweck, the learning mindset, you know, you have to be flexible when you kind of approach these things and adapt her Yeah, gone.

48:48 Anne Green: Oh, no, I think that part of it is that it brings me back to you know, what is you know, as an organizational leader, and as a communicator that has been working for this long and as a counselor and still actively counseling clients and still actively training you know, I love media training and presentation skills training and you know, I'm still actively doing my craft as well as leading. You know, part of it is inviting folks to really think differently so that they can understand how to engage in new ways and that's whoever I run into, or you run into and so myself and then pushing myself to get uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable moment. This kind of change is like really uncomfortable, especially when you're hearing the prognosticators and bless Gary V for telling us all we're going to just be right off the ship you know if I get it right, I've we've heard that kind of stuff for years. And that's the kind of stuff that I don't have a lot of patience for. But I get why we need the kick in the butt. I get it for sure. And I take it for what it's worth, you know, I use it for fuel. But to me, that's where also bringing it back down to that ground level, which is what makes it real.

49:54 What makes it useful. What brings us to value my another one of the things I've been Seeing leaders work smarter, not harder. How do we do that? And how do we make sure that, especially if time on the agency side of the time we're being paid for how do we make sure that time is being used the most valuable way? One of my big mantras to my team this year, is well, first of all, how do we show our clients, we're an essential partner every day, because that's not something you can take for granted. But the bigger part of that is the Northstar is how do we know what is valuable to that organization or those individuals on a given day? What is valuable, and I'm not talking about value in terms of money, like what's actually valuable to be doing and executing. And this is making us interrogate all of that. And I'm seeing on the ground level, like many folks, our creative team is all over this, because there's been a proliferation of new capabilities. And some of the core enterprise tools like Adobe and Getty that are amazing. And it's helping them do stuff that was the equivalent of the PR person pasting clips into a book and measuring column inches, masking out stuff and rebuilding backgrounds in seconds. And, and then in our areas, which are highly, highly specialized things like agriculture, they can have their eyes on a field and know if it's correct or not. And that's really detailed knowledge. So that's one and then the analytics teams, how they're using it. So it's been really interesting to me to watch. Yeah, where have the obvious use cases taken? Hold? Where is that adoption? Where are people like, Guys look at this, look at this, look at this and within the guidelines and the guardrails we've created? And then where is it that people are like, Wow, I feel like it should be useful here. But I'm

51:32 trying to fight for it. So that that, to me is gonna be something I'm watching really carefully going forward. Yeah, Daniel Nestle: yeah, me too. And, you know, you're making me think of something that my mentor and friend, and occasional co collaborator, Mark Schaefer has been saying, part of me lately, we keep talking about, okay, how learning how to talk to AI, learning how to speak with AI, learning this kind of new language, and I think that's a very, very important and critical thing. But he just mentioned that, you know, it's an Adobe Suite now, and it's, you know, if you go on LinkedIn, if you I'm not sure if it's for all LinkedIn members, but it's a you can, you can check, you can create comments based on, you know, with by with a click on AI. So AI will come to you, you don't have to do anything, right, it's coming to you. So understanding, like, the vague, the kind of complexities of prompting may not be necessary for everyone, I understand that. But kind of understanding the way that that actually works, will help you understand how to take the best advantage of what's going on inside, you know, Adobe Suite, or what's going on inside Microsoft, office with copilot, you know, these are, these are, these are all connected, you know, the, the, the whole thing kind of brings to mind, really, and I think this is, you know, where we where we're gonna go in a upcoming webinar that we're doing together. But let's, let's talk about here for a second.

53:01 You know, talking with AI, and we talked about having conversations and interrogating, and I like to say interrogate because I think it's like that question answer thing is, it's just kind of like such a killer interaction. But, you know, communications people, and I guess, marketers who are really well suited for this, like, we have a very specific skill set in understanding the way humans relate to each other. That that gives us a leg up. But we're not necessarily being given that opportunity to show that we have a leg up, or we're not taking advantage of that, as a profession. In all the places that we can, we're letting you know we're letting or letting is the wrong word. Organizations, especially in enterprises, start with it, because it's a tech project. It's a tech Initiative, or an infrastructure initiative, you know, where they start with digital, because it's on a computer, you know, it's on the web. But, you know, I would argue that it's the creative people, it's the writers and the thinkers, the folks who have to create narratives out of various kinds of disparate information.

54:18 The people have to interpret what's what others are really thinking, what you think they're thinking, you know, these skills, creativity, curiosity, interpretation, interrogation, interviewing, all these things are the core skill set of the future for AI. And, you know, comps is I think, uniquely qualified to do this. So what does that mean for the people that we're bringing into the profession? What does that mean for the way that teams are going to evolve? If indeed, and I believe we will be but if indeed we get the chance to show our chops here and you know, we really start to leverage AI to really contribute to our businesses and to our clients. You Anne Green: make me think of something I've said to my teams a number of times over the years. And I'll talk about in the agency context, but it's absolutely true of corporate side and integrated marketing communications. And I do use that phrasing because I think it's broad. There's so much as you said, permeability between those, although some organizations, obviously, comms and marketing are separate, I totally get that. But there's a real symbiotic. But one thing I've said to folks, especially as they're growing in their career, is to remind them, especially those that are on the calm side, because we have many different professionals here, digital creative paid media, project management, but overall, this, this industry is a really elite profession, in terms of the skill sets required, if you think about all the things that we have to do and try to do well, and we were very good at

55:56 beating ourselves up to especially in the client service side, we're like, Oh, my God, I need to be better at this. But it's like writing, communicating all types of forms of writing speed project management strategy, like, elite communications, because most stuff goes off the rails because humans aren't communicating properly. You know, every flexibility, resilience, learning, learning, learning, you know, researching, sourcing, and analyzing, and spitting it back out and says something that is more valuable than just the component parts. So I that same speech I give to people, which by the way, sometimes people have stood back and said, My God, you're right, I never conceived of myself this way. And I'm like, Look, we can all grow, we all have some issues. But we need to start and understand like how elite this profession is and how much it demands. So then I very much cosign everything you said about these skill sets, I would add research and sourcing to that. And also the ethical lens, and also the questioning we do have, how does that work? Why does that work? Where's that coming from? When we are in a corporation or at an agency? We spent all the time interrogating our peers or our clients? Why is that? Where's the proof? What's the backup? How does that work? Can I go to the factory? Can I see it? Can I see who's the coder? So one thing that I think first and foremost that our industry needs to do is start to recognize and be mindful and engaged with why it is that this these skill sets are well suited for today. But that requires a mindfulness and education regarding all the things we've been talking about, about what AI is and is not and where is going. I mean, we don't know where it's going eventually, but the way in which it's a more discursive, exploratory

57:43 interrogative building iterative process, right? So that's the first thing we need to take more ownership of our characteristics, and really be mindful and say, Guys, this and then we need to start to practice it. And and we need to be thinking very strongly and and clearly and mindfully and intentionally about what is, say an entry level role look like? And what are the kinds of things where we can help folks work smarter, not harder, because the curve I want every person here to come up from intern on is I want them to come up the curve as a counselor, the counselor has to think really deeply about something they have to self educate, they have to learn their industry, and they have to be have their eyes up eyes in the work and then eyes up to understand what's happening. So that's the dialogue I'm trying to have. It's like, how do we work smarter, so you know, own our characteristics, and own wide is and that'll help you actually learn to how to use AI. And then figuring out let's actually learn how to be smarter so that we can offer more value to ourselves and others faster.

58:48 Daniel Nestle: Oh, you know, all I keep thinking of is moving up the value chain, you know, now, this whole idea of being the counselor to the trusted advisor, just the the level of understanding and knowledge that you need to have about a business, or about a client is already deeper than anybody else in the business. For the most part. Anne Green: Because you see across more of a to that's one thing that's like someone new your position is having a partner, it's not just multistakeholder outside of your organization's it's multistakeholder inside. And it's incumbent upon you to understand I need to really understand the life of the senior counsel, I need to understand the life of our finance team, I need to understand the needs of our research and development. Like that's baked into it. I think Daniel Nestle: it's also you're totally right. And it's also Anne Green: the only I think it's the only role or the only function, you know that that just has to know everything like across Daniel Nestle: the entire organization, but for the purpose of connecting dots. So like It's one thing to say, Yeah, I know what's going on in that factory, or I know it's gone. It doesn't know it, it doesn't do anyone any good.

1:00:07 If you can't add to that, in some way, in an additive way that nobody else is thinking over that, or that people are not necessarily in the mindset to come up with, what is the dots, what is the.or dots that need to be connected with this particular issue, you're on a conversation, you're at a meeting, if you're an advisor, and a counselor and the communication side of things. You know, you're in a leadership meeting, and people are talking about a people are talking about B, you understand ABCD, EFG, through y, and z, at a very, you know, maybe at a surface level, but you kind of get it and you're like, wait, you skipped, you skipped E, or, you know what, I heard something about this over there, that you're not taking into account. Or might what happens a lot, a lot more often in corporate comms is, you know, this is everything that you're talking about with brand and with product is terrific. There is our corporate mission and corporate sustainability. And there were announcements by the CEO last week, we can plug this in here, because it's it not only supports what you're doing, it enhances and maybe gives you some new insights and perspectives about how you might want to better market this product, or you know, what your narrative should be. And it's that additional information, the additional, I guess, package packaging, of different pieces of information that you have, you know, it's really important for the comms person to be the nerve center of an organization or the comms team to be the nerve center. And, you know, back to AI.

1:01:46 How can we, you work with AI to enhance that role. And it part of it is, well, we can, at the, if we're in the if we're in the ground level stuff, part of it is, well, AI can now do a lot of the grunt work, right, so that we can now focus our minds higher, which is really, really important because time is your friend here. But there's also ways that we are not we haven't discovered yet, or that we're in the process of discovering that will enhance that those connections that will enhance what you're doing. If I have the I'm at the point now, where, you know, if I have ideas about something, I may not blurt them out in a meeting, but I'll take I'll take them away. And I'll create a mind map or something. And, and by the way, when you talk about AI coming to you, I use a tool called X mind and X mind AI now has the capability for as you're creating a mind map, you click on one of the branches of the mind map and you hit the little AI buttons going to come up with seven 810 potential branches to that, to that to that branch. So it's a killer brainstorming app. You know, that said, you know, I'll take my idea. So go back to think of it think it through. But now I have a friend, I have a little, little smart friend, my friend, I have a colleague calls it your smart friend, I call it my intern, our CEO calls your power suit, however you want to describe it. Now you have this capability to say you

1:03:18 know what, I've been thinking about these things. I need you to act like a strategic adviser. And I need you to kind of walk me through a few things. This is my, this is what I heard. This is what I'm thinking, how can you help me connect these things together? Can you validate what I'm thinking? Can you come up with some some other ideas? You know, and it's like having this just new employee who's super smart, but but quite dumb, because they're not directed? You know, so you have to direct it properly, but then you're gonna get so much out of it, you know, and they lie. So it's a little it's a little intern that lies sometimes doesn't know what's lying. But I Anne Green: know, we haven't talked about the beautiful euphemism of hallucinations, but just, you know, part of the wild world that we live in right now. Well, Daniel Nestle: sometimes they're straight up lies, and sometimes they are hallucinations. You know, you mentioned to Gemini before and I've had my issues verified. We'll have to save that for another time. I think we have we have so much here that we've spoken about. And I really appreciate your the framework that you offered, really about how we're approaching AI at these at these three levels on the ground level, and then the intentional engagement part part of the process. And moving on to this philosophical question, and I'm going to, I'm going to leave it with that that philosophical question almost. The last with the last thing I want to ask you before we wrap up, which is maybe not related to AI, but maybe it could be but it's just this the question I asked a lot of my guests which is what's keeping you up at night these days and and, you know, if it's related to everything we've

1:04:54 talked about, that's cool, too. But, you know, what's like, what's keeping up what's the last things that you would your last words she would say to our listeners, Anne Green: oh my gosh, I don't want to become very dystopic. At the end of our wonderful conversation. I am kept up in with a connection with what we've been talking about with just the proliferation of divisive pneus and fake stuff online and very much engineered. You know, I really put it in the category of disinformation or also the convenience to many actors around the world, both either for money or for nation state meddling to rile people up and create rancor and anger. And that is upsetting to me, I I'm thinking a lot about the fact that there is many issues that are could become politicized, that I think are actually really just important for us as a human society, like inclusion, and understanding the differences of strength. And that's true of the states and the political landscape with the election year. So that stuff keeps me up. But I think also just the state of the world I want to I was a Star Trek fan for years. In Star Trek, there was sort of a feeling underneath of utopianism. And that as much as humans would screw things up that we the plucky humans would pull it out at the end. That was really Captain Kirk's whole personality. While Spock was like, I wouldn't advise that and Captain Kirk's, like, Let's go for it. We're the plucky humans. So I'm really hopeful. While I'm also worried about where we're at right now, because we're at a lot of crossroads, as usual. So running a business, I love to see resilience, I love to see the economy doing well, and dealing with a lot of weird

1:06:35 curveballs. And I'm really grateful the resilience of our people. So I have a lot of confidence, but I'm definitely watching the big picture landscape. And the AI is a big part of that. Because when you're asked to shepherd, an organization, whether you're internal or running it as I am, you know, that's a lot of responsibility. And I feel the need to keep my eye on the big picture here. Daniel Nestle: Yeah. And thank goodness you are I mean, we need more people like, like you who are looking at the big picture. I would like to be a little little hopeful. With Yeah, my thinking about AI. And, and my hope is that humans, by nature, are inventive, and creative. And, you know, again, back to what we, where we started, this is not a zero sum game, things are going to change and continue to change. And they have the potential to really change in a terrific way. On that note, and I think our listeners, if they want to reach out to you, they can just go to je s communications.com. They can look up and green on LinkedIn, that's an with an E and Jean with a green with no E. I often had them fuse, but and green anyplace else that people should be looking for you and really Anne Green: LinkedIn. Yeah, and green, and she is communications. That's our website. And you know, I'm always happy to connect. These are big picture issues. I love being in touch with folks like you, Dan and others talking about these. So I do welcome people to reach out and connect.

1:07:54 Daniel Nestle: Thanks so much. And I know we're going to be in touch a lot more in the near future. So again, thanks. Thanks for coming on the trending communicator and appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for taking the time to listen in on today's conversation. If you enjoyed it, please be sure to subscribe through the podcast player of your choice. Share with your friends and colleagues and leave me a review. Five stars would be preferred. But it's up to you. You have ideas for future guests or you want to be on the show. Let me know at Dan at trending communicator.com Thanks again for listening to the trending communicator.