Your Storytelling Genie is in an AI Bottle – with Park Howell

Dan Nestle [00:00:00]: Welcome or welcome back to the trending Communicator. I'm your host, Dan Nestle. These days, I've been mesmerized by, I don't know, let's call it AI for self inspection. I spent hours with deep research to find out about my own brand visibility and how I'm perceived and what audiences think of my show. You know, that sort of thing. You know, there are so many AI tools out there that can be turned inward. So before long and before you realize it, you've realized that there's just so much to inspect. You could go down so many rabbit holes. You know, maybe it's a good idea to start with the question, what do you need to know? Or more important, why do you need to know what's driving this? So I'm going to go out on a limb here and I'm going to say it's all about our instinctive need to tell our own stories, to own our narrative and tell the stories that spring from it. Our personal stories, our brand stories, product stories. You get the idea. We want to get the information right. We want to find those gems in our history that we may have forgotten or never knew to begin with. And once we have those raw materials, that's when the real work of constructing the story begins. That's when the architecture and design become critical. And even if you have the what, you still need to know the how. Lucky for us, my guest today is, at least in my mind and my humble opinion, synonymous with the word story. From his humble beginnings as a budding musician to his early career as a copywriter and later as an ad agency owner, he's been focused on connecting people on a deeply human level for his whole life. And his discovery of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey framework nearly two decades ago forever changed his trajectory and led to his ten step story cycle system for brand storytelling. It caught on and by the end of the 2010s, he transitioned from his agency to the business of Story, a brand storytelling consultancy, training company, and a podcast of the same name. Now, I met him around that time at a workshop that would change my own approach to story, where I learned the abt. My listeners are familiar with this the and but therefore framework, by now you've probably guessed. And if you haven't seen the episode graphic that I'm talking about. The legendary author, keynote speaker and brand storytelling strategist, the one and only my friend for a long time now, Park, Howell Park. It's good to see you.

Park Howell [00:02:39]: Thank you, Dan. That was absolutely Beautiful. I mean, I'm. That. That was touching. I appreciate that.

Dan Nestle [00:02:45]: No, you're welcome. I mean, look, every time. Every time I think about, you know, even speaking with you when it's not about a podcast or when it's not about, you know, something that we're going to show to other people, you know, the story just keeps, you know, kind of coming to mind, pumping in. Oh, my gosh. You know, I would. One of my. How am I going to, like, keep up my storytelling creds when I talk to. When I talk to Park? So. So you're.

Park Howell [00:03:09]: You don't got to worry about that.

Dan Nestle [00:03:10]: It wasn't necessarily a big abt, but it was a. You know, I really thought about what we've been through over the years or what I've been through and how you've helped me over the years. And, you know, to me, you are story and brand, story in particular. And, you know, it's funny, before we get into it, I just. I'm just reminded that the. The idea of storytelling and, you know, it means different things to different people. I've been talking about a lot with people in the comms world, especially lately, but even, you know, at a. At a conference I was at recently, it's just. It just keeps. Keeps coming up because people really don't know what it is still. Like, we know. We think we know. Is it what. I don't know. Maybe it's one of those things that I know it when I see it. But, you know, there is an actual. There's an art and a science. I've talked about it on the show before and you've talked about it on the show before because this is your second appearance, although your first as under the. Under the umbrella of the trending communicator brand. But, you know, it's something that I think people really need to get a grasp of, and there's no better. No better person I know to kind of bring it to that, you know, tangible, understandable level than Mr. Parkel. So. Well, what more can I say? There you are.

Park Howell [00:04:24]: I appreciate that. And, you know, one of my favorite definitions of what a story is comes from American Legend author Kurt Vonnegut. And he said, and there's a great Little video on YouTube called the Shapes of Stories, and it's about five minutes long. Highly recommend any of your viewers and listeners to go and check it out. At the beginning of that, he says, a story is about a man getting in a hole and a man getting out of a hole. It needn't not be a man. And it need not be about a hole. People love that story. And so it comes down to conflict, problem, solution, dynamic. And as you well know, Dan, in business, the stories we need to tell are in solution to our customers problems. What are they going through, what are they experiencing, what do they want and why is it important to them? But why don't they have it? Because of what problem? And therefore how are you uniquely equipped to help them get it? That is the, the essence of story to me anyways, boiled down to those three words as you mentioned earlier. And, but therefore.

Dan Nestle [00:05:33]: And it's so simple when you think about it. It's just like, I think the word story itself sends people screaming in terror or, or, or you know, just kind of conjures this image of fairy tales in the executive. You know, if you're, you're the, the poor, sorry, you know, head of communications, working for a, a legacy brand, for example, and you walk into the CEO or CFO and you're like, you know, we really need more storytelling. The blank stairs or the even worse, the icy stairs. Where does that fit in the P and L? How do you, don't you even know like what's, are you paying attention to the business of the business? And I'm like, look, this is the business of the business. How do you connect with people? How do you connect with customers? You don't connect with them like you used to with, you know, bombarding them with advertisements until they understand who you are. You have to connect with people on a people level. And I think that's even more critical now and where I really wanted to kick off because you know, we have talked about story before and I'm, and we will definitely talk about it again today. Well, last time we talked there wasn't. It was the, the BC days, the before chatgpt days and lots of change. A lot has changed. Certainly the peop. You know, any professional's ability to construct a story is at your fingertips. But that doesn't mean that people are telling stories properly or making or telling the right stories. We still need to have the right inputs to get the right outputs and you have to be able to. I think it takes a very solid storyteller to get a good story from any tool, whether it's AI or even your own fingers, as it were. But I feel like there's this urge to shortcut this whole process these days and that the, the advent of so many generative AI tools is making the value of the storyteller seem diminished. So let's start there and tell me why that's completely wrong.

Park Howell [00:07:54]: Yeah, because I would definitely argue with that. The value of the good storyteller is not diminished but actually accentuated, I think with ChatGPT, because you as a human being can sniff out those lame bot driven stories that are created. And I'll give you an example. Yesterday my wife Michelle came to me and she's like, you have to stop everything and watch this video from America's Got Talent. And she pulled it up. She had already shared it with all of our kids. And she goes, this is the most beautiful song I've ever heard. I need you. Can you record it somehow? Can you give me a, get me a file of it? And so I watched it and there's this 98 year old Japanese, Japanese gentleman who stands up and tells this marvelous story for the first six minutes without missing a beat. And it's about where the day we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, he and the love of his life were playing this song together as kids in school. And then he explains what happened when the bomb hit. He thought she was dead. Fifty years later, find out they're both alive, they reconnect and now they're playing this song and they're both at 98 years old and they play this most remarkable song. And I had to break it to my wife. I go, honey, it's AI. This isn't real. And she was crestfallen. I go, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful story. They were doing cuts back and forth to the panelists, to the audiences, and they were tearing up. It was over the top, emotional, but it wasn't real. It was fake. And then I, I, I looked at it, watched it, and I went back on YouTube and I went and found another version of it. The one I had had no mention that it was AI created. There's another one out there that says this is a fictional, fictitious story made up by AI. So the question is, how many people? And they had 4.1 million views. How many people were duped in, in all their heart and soul believing that was real when it was fake? And it was a, it's a tremendous story. But Dan, I could see it within the first 30 seconds. I go, this just doesn't feel right.

Dan Nestle [00:10:19]: What was the giveaway? What was the thing? If you could put your finger on.

Park Howell [00:10:22]: The 98 year old. My mother's 100 and she has all of her faculties and she is doing amazing. This guy is 98, but he spoke like a 35 year old.

Dan Nestle [00:10:34]: Okay, that's a good.

Park Howell [00:10:35]: It wasn't. There wasn't an A hiccup in the six minute story. The six minute story was too perfect.

Dan Nestle [00:10:44]: And this is, this was a Japanese. A Japanese gentleman who was 98.

Park Howell [00:10:48]: Yep, yep. His. Yes. His lovely wife was sitting at the piano. 98 years old. I'm a musician. You see the piano over here to my left? I could tell when she was playing stuff, it wasn't quite syncing up to the music I was hearing. So that was another tell. But it was so subtle that I don't think anybody picked up on it. And I just. Dan. It just didn't feel authentic. It felt like it was completely manipulating our emotions as it was.

Dan Nestle [00:11:25]: I've seen a lot out there, of course, with these manufactured stories and, and I think shortcut stories or whatever you want to call them. And what you're talking about is extreme. I haven't seen that. I'm going to go run to find it after this, by the way, I'll.

Park Howell [00:11:41]: Put it, I'll put a link in the chat here.

Dan Nestle [00:11:43]: All right, thanks. But it's, it is. Does take that human eye really to understand. And I think.

Park Howell [00:11:53]: It.

Dan Nestle [00:11:54]: You have to, maybe you have to approach it with skepticism to begin with or you have to approach things with a little bit more, I don't know, wariness these days. And that's probably de rigor. But for four and a half million people to have seen it, I would imagine the vast majority would not have known that was AI Right.

Park Howell [00:12:17]: And I, I hated to break it to Michelle because she literally was crestfallen. And she, when I first said it, she was like, oh, you know, you're such a cynic. And I go, no, I'm not a cynic. I do a lot of work in AI and, and it wasn't even my eyes at first. It was a feeling. I first had this feeling inside of me like, this doesn't feel right. Then I used my senses, my eyes, in my ears to scrutinize it. And that's when I realized this is a bullshit story. It's very good, but it's not real. And yet it's being posed as being real.

Dan Nestle [00:12:50]: You need that human touch and you need that, that human oversight, I think, to understand everything and to discern what's real and what's not. But the power of the story itself, you know, it can stand alone. I mean, if it was, if it was written out right as a script, maybe we wouldn't have known. Or if it was, if it was, you know, told as A, As a narration or a recreation, maybe we would have fallen for it a little more. Maybe. Perhaps it is based on some somewhat of a true story. I don't know, you hear stories about people reunited over after many, many decades in Japan all the time. But it just makes me think like this whole, this whole, I guess, science, art, art and science of storytelling that we, we in marketing communications, we fundamentally know is the backbone of what we do, right? We. It doesn't matter whether it's an advertisement, a byline, a podcast script, it doesn't make it. There has to be a narrative to draw from. There has to be a story to tell, sometimes many stories in a podcast that you might tell concurrently. But story is the fundamental reason that we do these things, you know, or fundamental kind of, I think, you know, it's the, it's the force behind it because that's how you connect with someone. That's how, as you told me long, long ago, it's the campfire. It's that, it's that. I wouldn't call it lizard brain, but it's that part of the human psyche. Is it, is it neuroscientific? Park, you would, you would know this, and you probably have told me this before, but it's that, it's that kind of way that we connect with a, with a beginning, a middle and end, a, A problem, a. A conflict and a solution that, that's sort of natural in the way that in our, in our, in our neurology or in our, in the way that we think about things.

Park Howell [00:14:59]: Well, and I know neuroscientist Dan, but I would say in everything I've read and, and my good friend Dr. Randy Olson, who helped me, you know, ABT, taught me the ABT. He's an evolutionary biologist from Harvard, PhD. He and I talked about this a lot. And what I think, what I believe it comes down to is our limbic brain, that lizard brain that you're talking about, that sits in the deep recesses of our subconscious. It's the amygdala, hippocampus, some of those. It has one job and one job only, and that is survival and procreation of our being. So it is constantly worrying in the background about, all right, am I in a safe environment? Is it a fight, flight, freeze situation? Is there an opportunity that I should grasp right now? It's a problem solution driven apparatus that makes us Homo sapiens the largest, most aggressive invasive species ever known to us Homo sapiens. So it wants to make meaning out of the madness of being human beings through this setup, problem resolution dynamic because it's the essential learning tool that enabled our ancestors to navigate and survive. The savannah is the same essential learning survival tool we use today to survive this onslaught of communication that we are all bombarded with. And AI is amplifying that even more so it can sniff out the bullshit like it did yesterday with me. Like, Mark, don't believe this. Something ain't right here. Something ain't, you know, it's the survival thing kicking in. So when we structure our storytelling of man gets in a hole, man gets out, it need not be a man and it need not be about a hole. It is simply what is the problem solution dynamic, especially in business that you are sol on behalf of your audience, your customer, your prospect, your colleague in the communities you serve.

Dan Nestle [00:16:59]: Yeah, it's an application to business too, that I think is, is a bridge that a lot of, a lot of people out there have, have difficulty crossing. And we talk about problem agitation solution as, as the foundation for so many, you know, sales scripts or at, for, for a webpage or for like the natural flow of copy. And we get that. I think at least those of us who are in the creative side or those of us who are, who are writing that cop or trying to reach, reach our, our audiences and stakeholders and whatever. It's the fact, I think it's the fact that it's branded as story that may give some, you know, some of the people who hold the checkbook, so to speak, gives them pause. But, you know, just getting back to the AI thing for a minute because, you know, this is, after all, a trending communicator and no episode would be complete unless I talked a lot about AI.

Park Howell [00:17:49]: Absolutely.

Dan Nestle [00:17:51]: Well, you know, that's a fascinating story with the, with the Hiroshima survivors. On the most basic level, when we see AI being used by so many people, I mean, there's pros and cons to everything. And the proliferation of content is undoubtedly palpable. You see it in your inbox, you see it in your LinkedIn and your. Whatever social media you happen to be, you happen to be frequenting. And you know, you're always hearing things like, oh, it's the EM dashes. Look at the EM dashes. Or you know, oh, they use delve again. Okay, fine, those are, those are little kind of tells maybe that aren't always real because I like EM dashes and until recently, I like the word delve, which I don't use anymore because of that. But you're gonna have to pry EM dashes For my cold dead hands is my feeling on that one, because I do love a good EM dash. But apart from those little tells, I think it's hard for people to discern when they're telling, when they're using AI to create a good story versus a piece of crap. And I think it'll all shake out. There's more and more people like us, and certainly we want to ask people to really look, look, think about this. If there's something off about it, it's off. Follow your instinct on this. But that's not necessarily enough. So in this place we're in, where there are, you know, agencies, marketing teams, PR consultants, professionals, and your random smattering of people out there who are taking everything into their own hands for better, for worse, creating content that is, you know, as to try to meet the demands that they perceive or just because they're, they're trying to be AI. Like they're trying to show there that they can output a lot of stuff because, you know, we can beat AI. I am noticing that people are using certain kind of patterns and frameworks, of course, to tell those stories. And it's smart to do that. It's smart to say, write this in the style of an ABT or in a Hero's Journey or whatever framework you choose. But it doesn't kind of clear away the, it doesn't pass the smell test still. But I think it's a big disruption in the whole entire world of storytelling. So how can or how should we as storytellers be really using, not only using AI? Because I think we do need to use AI to, to enhance what we do. And if, if nothing else, to be able to combat that crap. Right? You have to fight fire with fire sometimes. But you know, what is it that AI is changing about the way that we go about telling stories?

Park Howell [00:20:55]: Here's the way I look at it, Dan, is say you're sitting down and you and you want to share a story about something. And then AI and a bot will never replace the fact that it's your story. You experienced it. You are the only one that can autobiographically actually tell that story. But say it sits in the middle of a larger blog post or long form content or a sales presentation. And you know that you've got to create this entire piece. Well, what I think AI does is it replaces that blank page and that blank stare with inspiration. So it says, here's what I want to do. And you know, and then goes boom. Here's your 1000 word podcast or blog post or here's your 50 word LinkedIn camp, whatever. Now it's done 80 to 90% of that heavy lifting for you of trying to think about how do I start this, how do I write this, how do I. So that you can bring 100% of your energy to that last 10 to 15 to 20% of it to make it uniquely your own. And like I've got people that say, okay, you know, when I'm, I'm, I'm working with a brand and I'm saying, hey man, that is a great story about this particular thing that you do. It's about a human interaction where you actually helped somebody by doing that. Tell that story. Well, can I just feed it to AI and it will write it for me? I'm like, no, it wasn't there. It doesn't know you. It did not pick up on the emotional and the social cues that you did that you are going to infuse your story with that specificity. It just can't do that. It won't replace your lived experience. And when we're telling stories in the marketing world, they are autobiographical, they are about us or about how we helped our audience or about how we helped the customer. And AI just wasn't there. Now it can give you, you could write it up and you say, okay, this just feels clunky as hell to me. Take that write up. But you've already now written your 500 word story, feed it into a chatgpt, hope it doesn't hallucinate on you, hope it isn't so general that it becomes boring and you could ask it to put it into the five primal elements of a short story framework or the Pixar Way framework or the Hero's Journey framework. And it'll probably get it pretty much there, but it's going to now sound like that Hiroshima survivor because it's not going to feel authentic to you. I mean we as human beings, we make mistakes in our writing and we make grammatical mistakes on purpose sometimes to make a point, to bring emphasis to it. AI is still not very good at that. And I think you got to bring your humanity to it.

Dan Nestle [00:23:58]: Do you think? And I haven't given this too much thought but you know, I was trained as a academically just like anybody else of the Gen X era, I hope, who's been through university, whatever, you know that how you write a research paper or something to me to annotate your sources and to you to use quotes to back up what you're saying and just got me to thinking that more and more dialogue quotes, you know, real humans talking about things, I think injecting those more and more into the longer form of a story right after you have your setup, after you have your, you know, your, your story statement or your brand statement at the beginning, at the beginning of a, of a business, at the beginning of a business document or, or on a web page or something, you know, or presentation, the meat of it really has to have more and more of those personal touches and those own, those, those, it must be human elements. And I think that changes the way that people need to think about story a little bit. Not, not necessarily at the frame up, but in the way that they tell the story. And it might, again, I haven't really thought about this too much, but it might elevate certain frameworks above others in terms of how, you know, what's more appropriate for getting that human message across.

Park Howell [00:25:35]: Well, and I think your point about dialogue really being one of the bot killers out there is fantastic. Now, of course, AI can write dialogue.

Dan Nestle [00:25:43]: Yeah.

Park Howell [00:25:44]: But if you were there and you wrote a really solid little bit of dialogue to again make your point where you are inviting your reader or your listener into the scene, AI is still having a hard time duplicating that, replicating that, because they weren't, or they, it wasn't there. And it's a great, great use. So maybe you go ahead and use AI to help craft that initial document and you're 80 to 90% there. Then you bring your humanity. And one of the great ways to do that is include a little dialog in there. What went down, what was said, what was the reaction? Humans can appreciate that.

Dan Nestle [00:26:25]: Yeah. And of course they can smell it when it's, when it's off as well.

Park Howell [00:26:30]: Right.

Dan Nestle [00:26:31]: You know, I'm getting more and more successful with, because I'm very, my listeners know and you know, I'm very deep into this whole AI driven content creation world. And like, I'm fully in, like, I love having a variety of tools at my fingertips to be able to create work that either I didn't have time to do before or that I would get called to stuck on page, on the blank page, you know, as you said. But my whole shtick, if you want to call it that, is that I just rely heavily on the source material, which is always human. So, you know, I've chosen to do a lot of writing, for example, about stuff that I hear on the podcast and I have, you know, hundreds of hours of transcripts, as do you. When I create something, I ask My podcast guests, what's, you know, what they think. But I don't have to call them because I have the transcript and I can pull information, and I know that the content, the original part of this was 100% human, 100% original. I can stand on that. Now, if I go out there and I say I'm going to write a story about deers in the forest, and I'm saying that because there's actually two little deer running outside of my yard, but I'm going to write a story about deer. I don't. I am just a person who has a window looking at deer. I don't know anything about the habitat of deer, but let's say I decide to write this whole, you know, thing about the pop. The deer population and, you know, go on to have a point of view about this in a position statement. I could use AI and have pages and pages of facts and everything about that, but that's not authentically who I am. I don't have any of that in my history or my. Or no evidence that I've ever written about this stuff. So, you know, but to somebody who doesn't know me or has never seen me, I could pass it off as a piece of good writing for sure, you know, so there's. There's an ethical part. Part of this, but I think it is. I think the whole thing is that the tools that are available that make it, on the one hand, very easy for us to now create this, create stories and create more. More, create more, just say, you know, have that upside of being able to actually enhance our capabilities, while at the same time we have to really be careful, you know.

Park Howell [00:28:56]: Our son, Parker, he went to film school at Chapman University back in the early 2000 aughts. And one day for Christmas, I gave him a bag of power tools. And this was a couple of years before he went over and he used to help me build all kinds of stuff. And I taught him how to use the tools and whatever. And he took that bag of tools over to Chapman, and I said, aren't you afraid they're going to get stolen? And he laughed at me. And he says, now you got to know how to use them if they're any value to you. And he goes, none of these kids know how to use power tools. And I think AI and storytelling is the same way. You first have to really understand how does story work? Why does story work? Where do I find my stories? How do I know I'm selecting the right story for the right audience that they are going to relate to and actually live vicariously through. Then and only then can you really put AI to work to help you streamline that process, to help, you know, grease the rails a little bit. So you, it can do an initial take on the story, but it still takes your understanding of what makes a story work and then bringing that fun humanity into it. And that is what is going to always separate you from A.I.

Dan Nestle [00:30:16]: Yeah, it's, you know, again, it's this whole what we have available to us disrupting everything, holding on to that humanity and just remembering those, those unique things that make us us. Those, those, those experiences, injecting those into the story is what is ultimately going to be a differentiator. Media also, like the, the, the medium that we choose also is disrupting the way that we talk, tell stories as well. And now we've been seeing this for years with short, with short form video, et cetera. But it struck me the other day that the, the, even the best short form videos are storytelling. Like they tell a full story. You know, they have to in order to capture somebody's imagination. You have your, your, your hook, you have your, the meat and you have a resolution. Right? And, and you know, I, the reason I'm talking about this is because like we're hearing a lot about how the younger generation, let's call them are, are not necessarily having the benefits or the luxury of the experiences that they need to be able to discern what a good story is from what a bad story is or to be able to think critically. And maybe story is one of the things that we need to kind of, I think over index on a little bit more with these in it with less experienced people because there's that instinctive part of it that we can, that doesn't necessarily always have to be taught. What has to be taught is how to then leverage that and blossom it and write properly and all of that. But at least from the point of view of this is a real story, this is a nothing, this is real crap. You know, getting that baseline judgment, maybe, maybe story is one of the things that we, we need to understand as like along with curiosity, along with some of the talents that people have or the natural feelings people have, maybe story is, is we have to start looking at it more as an innate, you know, part of our characters.

Park Howell [00:32:20]: Well, think about it. I mean, Yovel Harari in his book Sapiens, I love that book, you know, he makes the point that in all of the organisms that we know on this planet and anywhere else for that Matter, Homo sapiens are the only organism that uses story to plan, organize and act. Everything is a fiction until we make it, you know, fact. So look at all the stories. We buy into fiat money. We, you know, in and of itself that $100 bill is worthless. But we have all agreed through story that that's worth something. Look at Bitcoin. Sorry, I'm spacing here. It's all digits, binary code. But we all have agreed and bought into the story that it is worth something. So if you are going to inspire and motivate that audience sitting across from you, you won't do it with numbers. The first syllable of number guts. No, you will only do it by couching those numbers in the context of a story. Something that Homo sapien storytelling monkey sitting across from you can visualize, can feel, can be a part of. And that's why storytelling. And there are algorithms to storytelling. I do believe that three word structure of the and bet, therefore is the DNA of storytelling. Because you can even overlay the very complex hero's journey or monomyth on the ABT and say it is the ABT structure. It just now has 12 to 17 steps, depending on who you believe the picks are. Way is the ABT structure played out in eight steps. So there are algorithms that you can follow to make your stories more powerful. And then the only way to become a better storyteller is tell lots of stories and read your audience and figure out what works and what doesn't work and revise it in your voice in your own unique way. You don't have to be Jerry Seinfeld out there telling a story. You know, you don't have to be some brilliant director out there telling a story. Tell it in your own unique way. There is no bot in this world that is going to replace that.

Dan Nestle [00:34:54]: I am 100% on the same page, first of all. But you make me think of a few things and that's where I'm going to try to take us out. All right, well, first of all, I had to share that you've told the first part of numbers is numb story a few times. I think you might have even said that the very first time I saw you. And it stuck with me and I made a very, very big faux pas. And, and I do not blame you. I make my own choices, Park. But, but I once did a presentation for a company I was working at. And, you know, I was trying to talk about the, you know, talk about, I guess, qualitative metrics, you know, in, in communications and the Kind of things that we need to. To. To. To do. And I was also training at the same time, training people to. To give better presentations. And I think I put like, on the one. The early slides, that exact thing, you know. You know, I had numbers up there and then I had an animation, got rid of the errors, and it was numb. Right. Finance people were in the room, didn't know your audience, didn't much appreciate it. So that brings me to the second point that I wanted to really pull in is this. This whole thing about knowing your audience. Storytelling fundamentally has to reach an audience or else it is vapor. Right? It's like Mark Schaeffer says, the value of content that nobody sees is precisely zero. It's the same thing with us. You can write these stories, if nobody sees them, maybe they're meaningful to you. So let's put that aside. But if you write a business story and nobody sees it, or if it's looking at targeting the wrong people, you know, it's. It's not going to do what it's supposed to do. Right. So understanding your audience, I think takes. Takes a lot about, you know, there's all kinds of research tools out there, but knowing your story is one way to sort of get in front of, okay, now what, you know, what is the audience, or knowing the audience, how to frame up your story? But first, I think you have to know thyself. And it. It kind of. It kind of comes full circle a bit to what I was saying in the intro about this idea of inspection and introspection and getting a good handle on. Okay, where are you right now? Let's assume that you're not at zero. So where are you right now with your story? Are you telling stories? What story are you telling? Is it the right story? And now I think more than. Here's where we're going to turn the table a little bit and say. Or flip the script. I don't know what we call it, what metaphor to use, but this is where we're going to say, okay, look, AI is great. Let's say AI is great right now because of that introspection. And it gives. If you know how to use the tools properly, you can get a better understanding of where you are than you ever have before. And I think that that plays very importantly into creating your brand story or your personal story. And I know that you've been doing some work in this. I'm not, you know, and. And I wasn't like, this was not like a purposeful handoff to this, to this particular topic, but just so happens that it works well, because I. I am always. I've always been grateful to you for your help with brand and with understanding my own stories. But you figured out all these great ways to work with AI to make that even more tangible and more practical and more, well, let's just say usable. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about where we're using AI to get that first part right.

Park Howell [00:38:39]: Yeah, I appreciate that. And what you, of course, are alluding to is our new story cycle Genie. It is based off my 20 years working what I call the story cycle system, which was based on. Based off of Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. I'm not the only one that's ever been inspired by the hero's journey, but I mapped it to 10 steps to business that we could build brand stories on, brand narrative strategy on. And at first it was a science experiment. I didn't know if it was going to work. That same son who went to Chapman University, I had asked him, I said, send me your books and recorded lectures when you're done with them, since I'm paying for them, because I want to know what a story, what does Hollywood know about storytelling? That's where I learned about the hero's journey, and that's when I mapped to the story cycle system. And this is a system that has grown brands by as much as 600% purely by getting their story dialed in and getting all their people on board. But it's hard. I've taken lots and lots of brands through it, and it takes anywhere from two to four months. It's a lot of introspection. It's a lot of discovery, it's a lot of research. It's a lot of exhausting time for the client to go through it. But the outcomes are unbelievable. And they're undeniable when you look at the ROI of how effective it is. Well, Shawn Schroeder, who went through my story cycle system in 2017 for his digital ad agency, Blue river out of Sacramento, and a very large content management SaaS. SaaS platform they built called Mira. We those two brands together using our process. It was exhausting, but we made it work and they loved it. They grew exponentially, and they ended up selling both their agency and Miura. Two years later, Covid hits. He shows up after Covid, we reconnect and he goes, you know, I've been using the story cycle system with some of my friends brands, and it works really well. But God dang it, is it hard to do. He goes, I think we can make an AI out of it and use what we know about building a content management platform to really create something special. Are you in? I said, let's do it. So for the last year and a half, we have built the Story Cycle Genie. We're launching it June 1st. I don't know when this show comes out for the beta users. So our beta users, the people showed up and actually paid US$500. We got 20 of them because they believed in the process, they believed in me. They've been through some of them had been through it with me and they paid to be a beta user. And so now we are applying that 500 back to the launch and they get to use the story cycle Genie for three months. All right, then June 15th, we're going to do a launch to everybody. Well, it'll be a softer launch with a number of, well, about 200 companies that want to be a part of it. And then one figure out, you know, tweak everything. And then at the final, yeah, probably early August, it'll be the full scale launch and you went through it. And what it does is simply by looking at your website, I went in and did yours without your knowledge.

Dan Nestle [00:41:43]: Yeah, but I just snuck up on me.

Park Howell [00:41:46]: Daniel Nestle, here's his website, here's a URL to it, here's a URL to his LinkedIn, here's a URL to his podcast. Create Daniel's brand story in the way it is showing up right now, all based on on the story cycle system. And in under a minute it gave me an initial brand assessment. And in under three minutes it gave me the complete brand story output which then you as the user can go in working with the genie and saying, this is right, this is not right, I need to tweak this, please add this or whatever. And what we have learned in all of our beta testing so far is three major overarching outcomes or benefits you get as a user is number one, it validates what you're already doing well in the telling of your brand story to differentiate your brand and grow your business. Number two, it highlights gaps and miss opportunities that you can bridge and fix to be able to generate more revenue. And then number three, it provides you inspiration ways to talk about your brand that you hadn't thought about simply because you are in the fog of war. You are at ground zero with your brand and we all know that it's hard to see the label when you are inside the jar. Well, this turns that label inside to you so that you can see how everybody else is seeing you and teaching you new ways to tell it.

Dan Nestle [00:43:20]: Yeah.

Park Howell [00:43:20]: So that's what it's all about. And then once it's built, you can create literally any piece of content on it using your voice, your brand archetypes, your tone and everything else gets you about 90% of the way there. Then you bring your human, your humanity to that last 10%.

Dan Nestle [00:43:38]: I, you know, when you snuck up on me with this report, dropped it on me, you know, it's, it's a well known fact, I think, to my listeners and to other people out there that I have a touch of anxiety about things. And we were talking about things like imposter syndrome over the years and we've been talking about things like, oh, you know, I gotta tweak my messaging. Messaging isn't right. Nothing's right. Like, I never feel like it's there and I still don't feel like it's there. But what. When you drop the report on me, I was looking at it saying, oh, by golly, it looks like I'm actually perceived at least close enough or much, much closer to what I, how I want to be perceived than I had thought. And that, you know, it is so very validating. I felt like, okay, the message is getting through in certain ways. Oh, and here's where it's weak and here's where it's not that great. And wait, there's something missing from this report. Why is that? Oh, it's because it's not in my messaging, you know, or, or wait a second, the genie has decided that these are my target audiences. But I hadn't considered all of those target audiences. And it really has helped me to kind of think about how I'm pivoting my business. And look, full disclosure, people who are listening or watching, I am like eight months in. I think when we did this, when you dropped the report on me, I was five or six months into my business. So I'm still in that phase, I think, where I am finding my sea legs. And I know I'm learning more and more about where focus pays off and where it doesn't. Having this in my hands has been a boon in a lot of ways. In that, of course, like I said, it validates on my storytelling. But also I think I was able to say, oh, you know what, I'm not going to go after that audience that I've been trying to go after because, I mean, it's not appealing to them, it's not speaking to them. And it's not speaking to them. Not because I miss them, but because maybe that's not where they should be. The story doesn't lend itself to that. If the story doesn't lend itself to that, is the story wrong or is the business wrong or what? You know, these are questions I think you have to ask yourself. And I just like, no, I think the story's right. So maybe that's, you know, this makes more sense. I'm. I had different. I had a kind of a gap between what I thought was the right thing and what, you know, what is probably a better direction. So incredible. And I will say, you know, the idea of, of taking the output from the Genie and, you know, I'll, I'll just kind of. I don't have the pretty one, but I will just say, like, I'm holding it up to the camera, you've got the beta. But like, it's, like it's, it's substantial. You know, this is not a random sheaf of paper. I'll even.

Park Howell [00:46:48]: Yours is a 40 or is a 20 page report.

Dan Nestle [00:46:51]: So, yeah, let's.

Park Howell [00:46:52]: Let me. I want to see if anything has changed in your life since you got this a few months ago. So the first thing that Jeanne does is the overall brand assessment. You look and say, yep, that's probably pretty close. So you can tweak anything you want in it. Then it comes out and says who your top three audiences are and it connects the emotional drivers with each audience, including challenges, fears, frustrations and aspirations. And it said your number one audience, again, according to what your website and how you are communicating, is communications leaders and executives.

Dan Nestle [00:47:28]: Yeah.

Park Howell [00:47:28]: Is that still your number one audience.

Dan Nestle [00:47:35]: Currently? Hamster is turning on that one? I think, I think they are. And the way that I have everything set up for some of what I do. Yes. Okay. For, for what I initially led into the marketplace with. Yes, those are the, those are the targets. Because, you know, that's where I come from. I'm from this communications and, you know, and marketing space. I, I get the corporate world and when I talk about AI training, when I talk about, you know, delivering AI enablement, that is the kind of perfect audience for that. So, yes, that is, that is right. I would, where I am now, I would change the priorities a little bit. Right. From. From where, from what I'm seeing. That's, that's hitting. And what's hitting? Less. Yeah, right. But yes, I think that's, that's right. So communications.

Park Howell [00:48:23]: What I would do too is I would ask the Genie because It's a little bit broad for me. I'd say, okay, yeah, we're, we're in the arena, let's get even more focused. Yeah, are these CMOs interested in AI enablement? And maybe you might even say, are these small to medium sized companies or does it matter? Are they SMBs or something? So I'd ask the GENIE to get a little bit more specific and it absolutely will. But what I wanted to do real quick is just read through these emotional descriptors. So for, in this case, communications leaders and executives, their challenges are keeping pace with rapidly evolving technology and AI tools, integrating new technologies into existing communication strategies, demonstrating ROI of communications initiatives to leadership, managing resource constraints while needing to innovate. Now, is that pretty accurate to what you were responding to?

Dan Nestle [00:49:18]: Very accurate. And this is where there was that, that thing that was missing right in my mind where I said, wait a second, they're not talking about competition like dealing with competitors, helping, you know, where, where marketers and communicators are, are, should be at the forefront of helping their company to take market share. Right. And deal with the competition. In some ways I put that in my, that was in my head as something that they should be thinking about. But, and I think I even put it into part of my website. But when the GENIE didn't put that in there, I was like, wait a second, maybe competition really, really isn't on the forefront of the minds of this target audience and, or maybe it is.

Park Howell [00:50:07]: And it wasn't clearly communicated on your website. Well, well, that could be it too.

Dan Nestle [00:50:12]: That could be it. But, but I think the other things there are far more accurate this idea that there's a struggle to keep up there. You know, what am I, where am I going to get started? Where do I go next? Got to deal with this content deluge. How do I get ROI out of this? And, and how do we, how do we stay visible with all this change? And maybe that's where the competition is, is like, how do we, how do we stay visible? Or how do we be, how do we stand out? And those are more realistic to me. And it's borne out by anecdotal evidence and by discussions I've had with leaders since then. So this is more accurate to what I need than what my original thinking was.

Park Howell [00:50:55]: And what you can always do is go back into the GENIE and iterate on this as you learn more from your customers, you go in and you can add to the challenges. You can replace them, you can reword them just so the GENIE gets smarter about your specific brand. And it talked about their fears being left behind as competitors adopt new technologies, making costly investments in wrong technologies or approaches, losing relevance in an AI driven communications landscape, inability to upskill teams quickly enough. And these again all become story points for you. They can be landing pages, they can be blog posts taking on each one of these. So right there you've got 16 different ways to talk about your brand to your audience. When you look at the challenges, fears, frustrations and aspirations.

Dan Nestle [00:51:47]: Yeah, Yep, it is. And I have used this in that, in that very way as a foundational input. Let's call it, you know, because I've, I'm building my own content engine for myself, right. And it's not, you know, it's not an app that I'm gonna, that I put out there. It's not, it's not an automated thing. When I say content engine, I mean a collection of different tools that I use with my, with certain prompts, certain workflows, et cetera, to be able to generate the kind of content that's appropriate and at the highest of quality for me. So, you know, the inputs to that are critical and if the inputs are of, not are of, of low quality or don't really answer all the questions need to be answered, then you're going to spend so much time with the AI massaging that, that, that output that it's not worth going to the AI in the first place. You know, like I have gone through 19, 20, 30, 40 iterations on an article, right. That I, when I look back I'm like, I could have just written the whole thing in four hours, right? It's like, it is, it is just, just like that. But with these inputs it changes the game. So I have used this and some other reports that I've run, let's say through deep research tools and when you put them all together, they reflect different parts of me. They're different facets of the, I'm not going to go so far as to say diamond. Let's just call it the cubic zirconia. That is Dan. I mean like I've got these different facets and as we all do and you know, the brand story is, covers a lot of the business and the business strategy part of that. Yeah, right. And then there's the other stuff that's.

Park Howell [00:53:41]: All feeds into it and we, and the, the genie is built on the three proven frameworks that we teach, including the. And. But therefore the five primal elements of a short story that creates a big impact. The anecdotes that you can tell to make your business points for you. And of course the ten step story cycle system. Can I read the ABT that up with for your number one audience? And it did this by the way for all of your audiences. Y touched on all their challenges, fears, frustrations and aspirations and created foundational abts. This one reads as a communications leader, you want to harness the power of AI and emerging technologies to transform your communication strategy and gain competitive advantage while demonstrating greater value to your organization. But you feel overwhelmed by the rapid pace of technological change and uncertain about which approaches will deliver real results because the landscape is constantly shifting. Therefore, you can confidently navigate the future of communications implementing practical innovative solutions that drive measurable impact, guided by inquisitive communications, cross functional expertise and future focused strategies.

Dan Nestle [00:54:59]: Pretty good. Now we've made some changes since then park, and if you recall, we did run an updated report. So I'm going to come right back at you and give you the slightly updated ABT on that one.

Park Howell [00:55:11]: I love it. And this is an example of the iteration.

Dan Nestle [00:55:14]: That's right.

Park Howell [00:55:15]: It'll do real time for you.

Dan Nestle [00:55:16]: Here it is. As a communications leader, you want to stay relevant, rapidly evolving digital landscape and maximize the impact of your content investments. So we've already got a change, right? But you feel overwhelmed because valuable content sits unused in archives while you scramble to create more, draining your resources and limiting your reach. Therefore, you can transform your approach to create a steady stream of high quality content without the constant pressure to start from scratch, guided by inquisitive communications, strategic AI enablement and content efficiency engineering. And that happened after I layered in the content engine I just been talking about. So I really think that iteration is key. The ABT is just like now I know how to start the website. It's not going to be these exact words necessarily, but when I have that opening section, the hero section on the website or on a proposal, you know, this is, this is where I start.

Park Howell [00:56:18]: This is where I well, the beautiful thing is it will replace that blank website page with inspiration because we've got 24 different agents within side the story cycle Genie. We're only talking about one that handles the foundational brand story narrative. But you can take this and say okay, this is darn close. Now create my landing or my homepage for my website and the agent is completely based on taught on behavioral marketing dynamics, what content needs to go where, in what order and it then takes your story and creates the headlines, the subheads, the body copy the bullet points, delivers it to you and then you bring your hundred percent of your energy to that last 10% to tweak it a little bit here and there if you need to tweak it at all. So because it knows you, it knows a brand story, you've already done the iteration in it and it is basing its, you know, behavior off of what you told it and how you are showing up in the world.

Dan Nestle [00:57:24]: It's. I have. I really. All right, I can't wait to actually test drive those parts of this.

Park Howell [00:57:31]: Yeah. You know, you know what our freebie is, Dan? You're really going to love it and your viewers going to love this.

Dan Nestle [00:57:36]: What's the freebie?

Park Howell [00:57:37]: It's the free brand story grader. So you'll be able to go in, just upload your website, you know, URL into the Genie and it is going to grade how well you are showing up in 14 different points based on the story cycle system. It'll grade it from A pluses to F minuses. It will point directly to places on your website that are falling down. It'll say, are you customer centric in your writing or are you brand centric in your writing? Are you boring people through and, and, and, and, and not using the ABT in areas to, you know, set a problem resolution? And it will give you an audit of your current brand story and then you can decide if you want to do anything about it or not.

Dan Nestle [00:58:21]: Yeah, I am, I'm in. Incidentally, my, in fact, I'd like, I, I would like to knit this together with the things that I do for my clients and my customers. I think it's a, you know, it's a. Again, it's all about having the right base. If you're going to work with AI especially and if you know that you're going to be using AI tools to create content or to do well, to do any number of things for your company. If you don't have it's, if it's not standing on a solid foundation, then you get wobbly answers and you get generic nonsense and you get hallucinations.

Park Howell [00:58:58]: Hallucinations. Yep, exactly.

Dan Nestle [00:59:01]: And you know, with, with a certain combination of, of tools and prompts and workflows and you know, sooner than later, sooner rather than later. Automations and agents. You know, there's, there's so many things that you can do right. Providing that the introspection that happens at first is on the money. And I, you know, I, I don't. That's why like when you think about it, consultancy is big project, you know, from your, from your accentures and your BCGs all the way down to little inquisitive communications. Right. You often start with an audit. You start with a figuring out what the as is is. And you know, the genie is, is that it is an odd, it is not a predictive model. Right. It is simply, it is show though the report anyway that I have just shows how you're showing up what your messaging is saying, who your targets are as of the time of the running. Right. It's not right.

Park Howell [01:00:00]: So and then enables you to go in and tweak anything that you don't like in there and then it'll give you the report and say, okay, now help me go back and rewrite this stuff with all this new intel in there and it'll give you that report and then you can decide as the humanoid how much you want to keep, how much you want to throw out, what do you want to tweak, whatever.

Dan Nestle [01:00:18]: Oh man, I am, you know, I love doing this show with people like you park, because I feel like I have a lot of homework but I always have this list of tools to play with or things to add into my absolutely must dos for my own company. And this is no different. I have to admit, I'm losing track of time here. Just for our listeners and viewers, normally we do this on Squadcast, but tech happens. So this time we've gone over to Zoom to, to record this and I'm telling you what I'm, what I'm missing the most right now is my countdown clock because I don't, I don't know how long we've been talking. I kind of do about an hour.

Park Howell [01:01:01]: And a half actually.

Dan Nestle [01:01:02]: We've been, we've been on it for a while, so but I, I, I do, I do understand that is it is time to start to bring us home a little bit here and, and you know, as we head into the home stretch, I kind of want to bring this particular like the brand genie, but also just in general this idea of understanding your story at this level. Right. Which of course the Brand Genie gives you. And what is that? Like, how is that. And I know, like I can instinctively know the answers to this, but I want to hear your take on this. Why should communicators really think about this? Because communities, you can't even think about marketers, like, why is this even more critical now I think than it has been.

Park Howell [01:01:53]: Speed to market. I mean everything is accelerating around us and those that are dragging behind are going to lose out. So instead of taking three months to define and refine your brand story. You can now do it in minutes, literally, instead of, and, and by the way, saving the tens of thousands of dollars it typically takes for you to do that down to a few hundred bucks.

Dan Nestle [01:02:21]: Yeah.

Park Howell [01:02:21]: You know, the ability to create content immediately based off of the refine and define brand story as you have iterated, using your pal the GENIE to do that, being able to create campaigns that the genie will also create marketing plans for you, content strategy plans, right down to the actual topics to talk about, all based on your story. And then of course, it will write that blog post for you if you want to. And then you come in and do that. So how long did it take you to put together a marketing plan in the past? It could be weeks to months. This will do it in minutes. And then you vet it as the humanoid sitting across from it. How long did it take you to put together content plans and what you're going to talk about? Well, the genie polls from the challenges, fears, frustrations and aspirations of your audience. It also pulls from your nine one word descriptors that are essentially your brand personality traits. It also writes it in the tone of your three archetypes that it identifies for you and that you iterate on. And so now you can create that thousand word blog post in seconds. The GENIE provides it to you and then you bring all of your energy to go ahead and you might spend an hour or two tweaking it, or 20 minutes, and now it really sounds like you and boom. Speed to market at a fraction of the cost of the old way of doing it.

Dan Nestle [01:03:51]: I always think of these things in terms of ecosystems until we're at the point where you just have an agent does everything for you. You know, everybody has their own kind of like either if you're in a company, you have, you have guidelines or restrictions about what kind of IT and what kind of applications you're allowed to use. Your ecosystem might be predefined if you're somebody like me who is a solo operator and has utter total freedom to choose whatever the hell I want to choose. My ecosystem is quite complex and I have different tools for different workflows depending on what I'm doing. I have one set of things that I do for my podcast and I'm comfortable with the flow right now. And when I find a way to improve it, I do. When I look at the brand Genie, I think of, okay, how is this fitting into my ecosystem? And as a, as a, like I said, as a, as a solo operator, as somebody who's really hitched his wagon to AI content and certainly AI for communications and marketing and for executives and for leaders and for small businesses, especially when it comes to executive positioning. I see this now as like an anchor to the ecosystem for me. Right. And you know, we'll have to talk about this offline, but I think some, like I use a variety of tools to get to a certain point that is, gives me some of this information, but not nearly all of it. And this is like, if I, if I could do it one, one place, fantastic. Now I've eliminated seven steps from my own ecosystem or for my own workflow. Right. And I still have these other things I like. You know, I know what I'm doing with my own content. The way that I have my prompts done. Well, this will give me better inputs to improve the output from that. But I'm really, really happy with the way that tool's working. So I'm not going to mess with that one right now. Yeah, but you know, like, so I think in these terms it, you know, if you're just a, if you're working on a team or if you're a, if you're a leader of a, of a corporate marketing or corporate communications team, you know, is this going to be something that is going to plug in very easily or is it, you know, does it require a lot of other bells and whistles? I don't know if you're at liberty to talk about it and stuff yet, but.

Park Howell [01:06:08]: No, that's cool. Remember Sean Schroeder and his main development guy? There's three of us, Matt Levine, they were the ones that created the MIRA content platform that was gigantic. Adobe use Mira, we used it well, they've got Brightsea AI. It's their new version of a content management platform. So they know how to build them for enterprise scale. So you will be able to plug the story cycle GENIE right into an enterprise. We already have interest from large organizations like u Haul International, L3 Electronics, where imagine picture this, the brand department can work with the GENIE to completely control the foundational brand narrative strategy. Sales can come in and put guardrails on them, but they can create their sales content based off of that. They can't mess with the brand story, but they can create sales presentations and scripts, you name it. Marketing can come in, build all those stuff, talking about bridging the gap between sales and marketing because they're going to be working from the exact same brand story framework. HR and leaders can come in and use it for all their internal communications and it's priced such that it is literally a fraction of the cost of what these large and you've been there with Mitsubishi, what large enterprises typically spend for this is going to be a fraction of the cost and the go to market is going to be exponentially faster with all of your content and your content's going to stay consistent, clear, compelling, using that authentic brand voice.

Dan Nestle [01:07:52]: And that I think sums it up perfectly. Look, I mean there's a lot of tools available to people and believe me, we're wrapping this up now. Parks, don't worry. There's a lot of tools available to people out there. I know that. I'm a experimenter and a user like everything not everybody's like this. You know, if you can, if you can find the right combination of tools and of things then you're in a great place right now. That's where we are in the cycle. Eventually, you know it's going to all kind of I think even out to some very everything will sort of simplify. But the fact is those tools, your own use of chat GPT, your own use of. Even if you find custom GPTs that, that, that, that kind of somewhat meet your needs, your, your Claude projects, everything like this, they don't have the benefit of wisdom and knowledge of the, of the experts that have, that you're, that you're looking for right now. Sometimes I'm an expert in communications and marketing and, and, and storytelling. I trust my, my prompts but, but I'm not as much of an expert as, as park and I know that hey, if I want to get the apts going and I want to have a better view of what my story is or what somebody's story is, it's much easier for me to say I'm going to call on Park's expertise right now through the genie. And that I think is where is where we have to continue to remember that the AI is only as good as the wisdom that lies behind it and the IP that lines lies behind it. So I'm. What I'm trying to say is ringing endorsement. People need to be, need to be doing this and looking at this. Especially if you're in the business of, in the business of story as it.

Park Howell [01:09:38]: Were and branding and sales and branding and all that. And what Sean keeps reminding me is, you know, park, remember you and the story cycle system are the moat. Nobody else has it. They can't get it anywhere else. We have spent a year and a half prompt engineering with the agents APIs that we're bringing in to make It. It's the only place you can get it. It will never be replicated anywhere else on the web to the extent of it that it is with our own story cycle Genie.

Dan Nestle [01:10:10]: Awesome. This is fantastic. And park, before we go, any last words for the. For the. For the watchers, listeners, et cetera?

Park Howell [01:10:16]: Well, I've got to show you my genie bottle. Oh, look at that. I got it from India and it actually Egypt, my wife reminded me. And it even has little story cycles on it. It's our genie bottle. And that just came that way as bespoke that way. And so what I want your listeners and viewers to know is now you can let your brand genius out of the bottle with the story cycle genie. How about that?

Dan Nestle [01:10:42]: I love it. Everybody out there. You can find park on LinkedIn. Park Howell, you can go to businessofstory.com any of the socials. Look for Parkowell on the business of story. Check out the podcast business of story. It is. It is a leading podcast number. I think you've been number one in the, in the. In the storytelling sort of business communications.

Park Howell [01:11:05]: Different polls. Yeah, a couple different polls. Number one. We've been doing it for nine years.

Dan Nestle [01:11:09]: Nine years. I mean, I've been on the show way back when, and I might very well be be bucking for another appearance. Park, you don't need to commit right now. No pressure.

Park Howell [01:11:19]: No, I'd love to. Once you get your story completely dialed in and you're comfortable with it and you have no imposter syndrome around it, then you're on the show. So I'm going to lay down that gauntlet to make you do your work.

Dan Nestle [01:11:32]: All those caveats and qualifiers mean you're not coming back on the show, Dan, you are. I know, but it's has absolutely given me something to shoot for. Park, park, thank you so very much for coming on the show and for all of you out there, believe it or not, park is, he's, you know, he does business of story marketing and stuff. He's a communicator. So he's the trending communicator this week.

Park Howell [01:11:56]: And people can find the Genie at StoryCycleGenie AI.

Dan Nestle [01:12:00]: Oh, you have a separate part of me. StoryCycle Genie.

Park Howell [01:12:04]: I'm not sure when this is airing. If they want to sign up the.

Dan Nestle [01:12:07]: It'll go after the launch.

Park Howell [01:12:08]: Oh, okay, great. Yeah. Then go to StoryCycle Genie.

Dan Nestle [01:12:11]: StoryCycle Genie AI.

Park Howell [01:12:13]: Yep.

Dan Nestle [01:12:14]: Business story dot com. StoryCycle Genie AI folks.

Park Howell [01:12:17]: Yeah. Not. Yeah. Two different websites. Exactly.

Dan Nestle [01:12:19]: Two different websites. Wonderful. Awesome.

Park Howell [01:12:22]: Park, great to see you as always, thank you, Dan. I really appreciate it.

Dan Nestle [01:12:26]: All right, 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. Do you have ideas for future guests or you want to be on the show? Let me know@dantrendingcommunicator.com thanks again for listening to the trending Communicator here.