Marketing Adjacent

[00:00:00] Mike Grinbeg: Garrio, what's happening? Yo, take two of our attempt at episode one, .

[00:00:12] Garrio Harrisson: You know, I, I think it's, I think it's a good thing, you know, like we were talking about earlier in the, kind of the, the pre-show, show our conversation that it's good that we're, you know, building it in public like this and not pretending that there wasn't a longer version that we're trying to refine.

Um, you know, and then we'll put out it at a later date.

[00:00:36] Mike Grinbeg: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So for anybody listening to this, uh, Garrio and I tried to record or not tried, we did record. Mm-hmm. our first take at episode one, which we are gonna release. Uh, but our initial, original plan. , which we're gonna try to execute today, was more rapid fire, shorter form, keep things interesting, 30 minutes or so, [00:01:00] and kind of sprint through a bunch of topics and, and, and opinions.

We talked for two hours and 46 minutes, , uh, which there's a lot of good stuff. I just listened, I listened all the way through Garrio I dunno if you have to, but there's a lot of great stuff in there. We're gonna release it anyway. Um, but we thought we'd give ourselves a chance to do what we originally planned and set out to do, and that's what this is gonna be, right?

Fingers crossed. Yep. Yep. And the, the, the last thing to maybe point out before we hit it here is, you know, news is coming in hard and fast here, uh, in marketing and business and tech space right now. So what you're gonna hear and see in the full discussion, isn't gonna a hundred percent match what we do today, because there's already been some, some changes and updates that which we're gonna, right, which we're gonna tackle.

So with that, let's hit our intro.

[00:01:58] Garrio Harrisson: [00:02:00] I like, I'm

[00:02:06] Mike Grinbeg: enabling enablement, Steven. Hey Pete, starting today. trademark.

I think that is the way that you diversify risk.

And how do I

[00:02:27] Garrio Harrisson: do it in a way that

[00:02:29] Mike Grinbeg: honors the,

[00:02:33] Garrio Harrisson: the investment of blood, sweat, tears.

[00:02:39] Mike Grinbeg: Are we considered geriatric millennials? Is that what you know what?

[00:02:46] Garrio Harrisson: Legacy building mode, right?

[00:02:56] Mike Grinbeg: All right. Episode [00:03:00] 1.5 of, uh, marketing adjacent. Here we go. So, uh, a couple of, uh, we'll call maybe rules of engagement here for everybody tuning into the, the first one here. Here's what we're gonna do. Um, we're gonna rapid fire go through a number of topics that Garrio and I have selected prior to. Some are current events based, some are things that we're observing and the in the space.

We're gonna give ourselves five minutes to talk about each of those. We're gonna have a handy handed timer here that you'll see in a minute. And once the timer goes off, we're gonna wrap up our thoughts and move on to the next thing. Uh, and really the goal here is to give you condensed to the point, the most pertinent talking points that we can think of.

Uh, on the hot topics today. Uh, one, uh, important thing to note, we are recording on Wednesday, March 29th, so things move fast. This is gonna be going [00:04:00] live on Friday, so by Friday, who knows? Half the stuff might sound different and look different, uh, but it already

[00:04:07] Garrio Harrisson: has from a week ago.

[00:04:09] Mike Grinbeg: Exactly, exactly. All right, well, with that in mind, uh, we're gonna have three segments for us is gonna be the rundown.

We're gonna give you the rundown of, well, we believe the top three most important, most impactful current event topics in business, tech, marketing, advertising, et cetera. Number two is, is it. We're gonna look at a recent campaign and dissect it and talk about whether it is useful. And number three is perspective.

That is where Garrio and I are gonna talk about our perspective and opinions on an observed trend that we're seeing through our work in the marketing space. So with that, let's give people the rundown.[00:05:00]

All righty. So number one topic is the TikTok ban, the Looming TikTok ban. I'm gonna start our timer here. So I'm gonna set the stage here. Uh, number of things have happened. Uh, number one, obviously we all know the government's looking to ban TikTok. Uh, and it seemingly more and more real. And there is now the RESTRICT act that has been proposed.

We're not now gonna read through this whole thing, but pretty much it's, they're looking at literally what it is. Restricting use of certain technologies and websites and access to communication and things like that. Uh, and it's, it's quite interesting. Uh, I think is one way to [00:06:00] put it. And again, you can see the topic here is TikTok ban and regulation of tech, more general terms.

Because that's really what this is. It started out as the TikTok ban. That's what people seem to be latching onto. But there's a much bigger thing at play here, right? Which is, um, , what's the precedent that's being set here? Mm-hmm. , whether it's this bill and if it passes or something else, right? Meaning once a particular platform is banned, does that now set a precedent for the government to ban another one and another one?

And for what reasons? What are the limitations? Mm-hmm. . Right. And I think rightfully so, there's a number of, uh, critics of this bill that are saying, well, this is the same thing that China's doing with their, you know, great firewall and all this kind of stuff. So what, you know, how is this any different? Um, and, and [00:07:00] you know, my thoughts on it are, I think that yes, we do need more and better privacy regulation.

I don't know if there's a way around that. Uh, I mean, you're seeing the difference between the US and Europe, and I think that's where things are going, but, um, you know, at what cost does that come? And in general, can the government even keep up with the pace of change of technology and appropriately handle, you know, and set up the regulatory environment?

Um, I actually don't think you can ban it. I don't think that's the way to go. I think a different form of regulation needs to be in place. And I don't think, again, I'm looking at the high level detail. I think it needs to be more guardrails for private institutions and, uh, more [00:08:00] of a strict ban, if you will, for government and secur and like defense institutions, which they're already doing anyway.

You know, Congress, people can't do it, military can't do it, et cetera. So I think rather than enforcing it on the greater populace, I think allowing corporations to a certain extent, police themselves. And if the concern is proprietary IP and data and things like that, let corporations do it rather than banning this at the national firewall level or whatever.

Garrio, what do you think?

[00:08:33] Garrio Harrisson: Yeah, this, I'm with you. The, the proposed solution isn't actually gonna solve the, the, the broader, the broader problem. Um, and you know, the two things about it that's making me a little uncomfortable is the, all the other players in the space are actually doing the same thing.

Right. You know, they just happen to be, um, [00:09:00] uh, been doing it for a much longer Facebook, Google, they all have access to our data and as a result, um, are able to do a lot of the things that the legislators are accusing TikTok of doing. And you know, I remember the, the example that we were talking about that's not as nefarious for advertising purposes, but you know, just something as innocent as, uh, Strava, right?

They had their, you know, there's a military base, I forget, in the Middle East somewhere. And the, the, the, the, the military folks that were there were just, you know, running, um, you know, on their own. And people were able to see, okay, there's a lot of activity in this particular space. We have identified these individuals as military folks and therefore they're able to get an idea [00:10:00] of where there are us, you know, there, there was a US military base, right?

And again, you think about something as simple as that, that's not nefarious at all, just unintentional. And you pair that with, well, what if there's actually negative uh, intention behind it, what happens? And to me that means that, you know, people have to be in, we have to be in more control of our data and the laws that were built, you know, to allow that level of, of privacy and control needs to be updated for the 21st century.

That's, this is a much, this, this, this is kind of where it went off the rails the last time, because we kind of went down a huge rabbit hole, but, um, in the, in, in the spirit of, of this, we'll, we'll, we'll transition and maybe we'll come back to it at the end.

[00:10:53] Mike Grinbeg: Yeah. It's a worthwhile rabbit hole for those who wanna listen to it.

We're gonna release that, like I said, so. All right. Topic [00:11:00] number two on our list is layoffs at Meta and how that relates to the larger topic of the quote, unquote AI revolution that we're all experiencing right now. So, um, you know, if we, if we look at, uh, mark Zucker Zuckerberg, this is a couple weeks ago now, but it's, I think, important to look at.

Uh, he released his, you know, statement around, you know, meta's year of efficiency. Pretty much. This is when he said, you know, they're gonna cut a whole bunch of jobs. But the thing that caught my eye here is down here where he talks about, you know, investment in tools to get more efficient. Mm-hmm. reading between the lines, what he's really saying is, Hey, we can have fewer engineers do the same amount of work.

Mm-hmm. . Right. And we're, that is I think, a major thing [00:12:00] that again, I don't think we're ready for as a society. I think technological innovation up until now, has moved fast, but not this fast. I mean, AI like, like at the scale we're seeing it now, what? Six months? G ChatGPT initially came out, not even. Yep.

And we're already talking about impact to jobs, not theoretically, practically. Yep. Uh, we're writers, creatives, engineers. I mean, literally it's everything. We're gonna dive into a topic at a bigger level here. Um, but, you know, when we think about what's happening is, I think it's this again, the, the rate of change is, uh, the issue.

And, you know, uh, there's, I dunno if anybody saw, uh, was it yesterday? I think that open letter came out from a whole bunch of, you know, big names saying, Hey, can we slow this [00:13:00] down? Yeah. . Mm-hmm. right now. I don't know where it's gonna go. I signed it because I, I agree. I think it's, you know, again, my opinion, everyone's entitled to their opinion.

Mm-hmm. , I, I don't think we are ready for this. And I think in a capitalist society where things are moving so fast in the name of the dollar, you know, I believe this is, this is the equivalent of our Manhattan project. Yep. In our generation, in both scale and potential impact, both good and bad. So I think we owe it to ourselves to slow it down just a teeny, teeny bit.

[00:13:40] Garrio Harrisson: Yeah. Um, we've been going back and forth on this quite a bit on, on LinkedIn, um, you know, sharing articles that we're seeing different perspectives. Um, I think the, the, the, the two, two things that I'm thinking about with this, like that. [00:14:00] That open letter was interesting. I don't think it's gonna change anything.

Right. Like it's, it's, it's a nice little, you know, Hey, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're asking you to slow down, like you mentioned. It's, it's, we're, we're a capitalist society. Google's not slowing down their arms race. Microsoft's not slowing down. Um, you know, every player is, is racing to, to, to integrate some sort of AI into what they do.

So I think, I think the solution here is, you know, as professionals buckling up and just going like, look, we gotta learn this stuff quickly and figure out how, how can you use it to, to, to be better at your job. That's kind of, from an employee employer standpoint, that's kind of the, you know, what needs to happen.

The last time we, we talked this idea that still been rattled around in my, in [00:15:00] my head and I think it's actually a good threat to pull on, is the idea of the rate of change. Our current laws and institutions are not set up to regulate at that pace. So we're gonna have to figure out, I think you called it agile, agile legislation, right?

That framework I think needs to get, needs to get put into, put into place so that, you know, we can mitigate some of the risk of like all the stuff that's that's coming at us. because there's not enough, there's not enough worst case scenario, red teaming taking place that, you know, people are, people are looking at all the good at it can do, but not enough people that are going, okay, but what's the worst case scenario?

And when there is a worst case scenario. , there's kind of a black box. They don't know how the, how it got to that worst case scenario, but then they put guardrails around it. [00:16:00] Right. And I think that there's,

I think we just need to be a little bit more thoughtful and acknowledging the worst case scenarios and planning for it. Um, because actually I'm gonna suggest that we go a little bit over on this because I'd love to have you talk a little bit about your idea of the downstream impacts that is not being talked about specifically when it comes to jobs.

[00:16:33] Mike Grinbeg: Yeah. Uh, I'll, I'll keep it brief. I mean, the example I gave, um, in a LinkedIn conversation is, again, it's going back to this rate of change. You know, when the automobile first came out. . Sure. The, you know, the, the carriage driver would probably pretty easy for them to become a, a, a chauffeur. Mm-hmm. . But what about the horse farmers, right?

Mm-hmm. and, and again, if we think about [00:17:00] it, yeah, sure, that took decades fine. You know, uh, then think about as innovation changed, uh, with, uh, whatever the, you know, the, the, uh, the atomic revolution in terms of how quickly that escalated things from a energy grid perspective and we, and weapons and all sorts of stuff, right?

Then you look at, and, and that obviously impacts, you know, global politics and all sorts of other things. Then you look at the iPhone as another example. That took, what, five, six years to kill off pretty much every other, you know, mobile phone manufacturer out there that was at the top and change all sorts of other things.

And like we're talking about, this is. Six months we're talking, right? So we're thinking about all these downstream effects of, okay, what does this mean for, I mean, literally everybody. Mm-hmm. , okay, what does this mean for [00:18:00] jobs? How can we, you know, usually the answer is well retraining. Well retraining has been a really, has been really awfully done historically.

And that's when things were slower. Like, right, who's gonna spin up a retraining right now that's gonna solve this problem in six months? It just, not even realistic, I don't think it's a realistic option. Um, you know, and that's not, forget, like there's, we're talking kind of mainstream stuff. These same technologies are being used for drug discovery and all these other things.

Like, okay, do we, is the FDA even ready for that? , right. For the potential flood of new drugs that they have to, you know, research our, our current regulations up to speed to like, keep up with this. Right. It's one thing to discover them. Great, you discovered it, but if it takes you five years to get the thing to market, does it really matter?

Right. Right. So there's all these things in my mind, and I know we're, we're over time, but that's [00:19:00] sort of my, my thing of downstream effects of, of this.

[00:19:03] Garrio Harrisson: Yeah. We, we made it to, again, we made it to pick this up on the, on, on the back end of this, but That's right. Yeah.

[00:19:09] Mike Grinbeg: Well, let's keep going. All right, so last topic in the rundown here.

Uh, people have kind of forgotten about this, but I think it's still important aftermath of svb, right? I think with all the things with AI and TikTok, I feel like that the news cycle has sort of forgotten about, uh, SVB a little bit, unless you're following financial news specifically. But I think it's really important to talk about.

[00:19:37] Garrio Harrisson: Yeah. Well, let, let, lemme cue, lemme cue this one up. From the standpoint of the, the marketing angle, right, because there's a lot of, there's a lot of conversations going on online right now. A lot of people are all of a sudden, you know, armchair financial banking, regulat regulation experts, right? So [00:20:00] if, if, if we leave that aside and just look at, again, you were talking about the rate of change, how the current banking system, I don't think was designed for the two, two main things that caught my attention during this whole saga, right?

The first was how quickly the, the decision or the coordinating of the quote unquote run on the bank. took place in a digital era, right. Via Slack. Text messages like banking. You know, I, I, I imagine the bank, the bankers went to work like every other day. Just, you know, nothing, nothing's changed, right? All of a sudden someone interpreted something that they did as a negative, which just happened to be a center of, center of influence, right?

Um, Peter Thiel, I think, was, [00:21:00] was, was, was, um, agent Zero as they say. Um, but he touches so many different entities, people who look to him for just kind of thought leadership, uh, companies that he's invested in his network of, of folks. And you start this chain reaction of, um, you know, in our role we call it like dark social, but you know, it's, it's basically.

Conversations that aren't visible kind of to the, to, to the public via, you know, messaging, messaging apps. That coordination takes place. And then there's the run on the bike. And I think it was like, what is it? It was like 40 something billion in a, in, in a, in a day or something like that. Like just crazy amount of, of, of money that just got requested to be moved.

Now you have the, the speed of that coordinating take place, and then you have the speed in which we expect to be able to transact large volumes of [00:22:00] dollars online taking place as well. So again, it's get back to what we're talking about, the rate of change that's happening and the technology being used in unexpected ways and our regulatory systems and just the way we think about doing business, not being prepared for the downstream consequences.

So that's the setup.

[00:22:30] Mike Grinbeg: What do you think? I think it's, uh, , it's, it's an interesting lens for sure, because in just in general, if we extrapolate from even this, right? It, I think everything in the age of social media just disseminates and spreads so much faster. Mm-hmm. . Right? And again, the, the common thread through, I think a lot of things we're gonna talk about is now we've got another layer on this.

Mm-hmm. , because [00:23:00] we can create an insane amount of noise in the system, if you will, generative ai. And it can spread like wildfire because of how social networks work. That's the whole premise. And I do think I pulled up that, that, uh, headline from The Guardian. It was, uh, you know, I'll pull it up one more time here.

it's the first Twitter fueled bank run. Mm-hmm. , I mean, just, just the headline makes you think, right, right. Now, you know, they've got, you know, the photo here shows people lining up, and I'm sure people did, but the reality is the majority of this transactions were done online. They weren't done at the bank.

Right. Like 42 billion was not pulled by these people standing in line that I just showed. It was pulled by, you know, uh, company founders that were, I think you even talked about, uh, in our long conversation around, you know, people being on stage at, uh, forget what conference by making transactions south by, there we go.

Right. [00:24:00] So it's, uh, I, I think just, I don't, I guess my, my, my thought on it really is, um, and, and you, you talked about it, which is this, this, all of a sudden the, the cognitive load that it puts on, , the individual, the, the investor, the entrepreneur, the business owner of, well, I gotta worry about this. Yeah.

From a very different angle than I thought I would.

[00:24:29] Garrio Harrisson: One more thing to worry about when you expect to put your money in a bank and the, and the money's just there, right? Like, you don't expect to have this be another layer of due diligence. Start building a startup is hard enough. Now you have another layer of due diligence that's being put on the, the controller, the cfo, o of the company, in the midst of economic headwinds.

[00:24:57] Mike Grinbeg: Yep. Totally. All [00:25:00] right, well this is all, it all sounds like doom and gloom of all the stuff we're talking about. Let's talk about something fun, right?

All right. So is it helpful, we're gonna talk about some marketing campaigns, some recent ones, um, to, to maybe set, set things up a little bit here. You know, um, actually no, you know, I take that back. Let's just jump in because I, rather than setting it up, let's just jump right in. Here's what we're talking about.

We're talking about two campaigns. Garrio, you wanna, you wanna set these up?

[00:25:56] Garrio Harrisson: Yeah. So the, the first is a, [00:26:00] uh, what is Twisted? Twisted Tea? It's a like,

[00:26:05] Mike Grinbeg: hard, it's like a hard, uh, hard tea, right? Alcoholic, whatever. Uh, Yeah. So clearly we don't drink , right?

[00:26:15] Garrio Harrisson: We're gonna cue, we're gonna cue these two up. Um, but so I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep 'em brief.

So the first one there was a campaign, uh, yeah, there it is. So a credit, uh, creative agency decided that this was a good idea. Um, we, we can, we can talk about how they arrived at this as a part of the creative process. Um, but they,

they sat in a room, um, brainstormed this, this, this idea and decided that they were gonna [00:27:00] draw a connection to, uh, ice tea and vasectomies, right? and that that was gonna be a good use of their company's marketing investment. So we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna chat a little bit about, about that whole process.

And the second one is Coca-Cola. Uh, yeah. Using some of these new tools and technology that's kind of on the market now to create a, uh, you know, a campaign. And my thought on this is, it's on, on both of these actually, that it's predictable. Um, no knock on the people that, you know, came up with the idea, cause I'm sure they're pretty creative people, but the, the process of how campaigns are designed [00:28:00] today result in lazy solutions like that.

Right. So with that being the setup, um, , actually, lemme explain why, why the, the Coke one is lazy, right? It's, they, they look at these technologies and just at the surface level, that's like basic right? You, if you've ever used Mid Journey, you're gonna take some assets and you're gonna make, make something cool.

And we're gonna run, we're gonna have potential customers or clients, uh, not clients, uh, you know, Coke drinkers create u use our iconic assets to create their own art. That's kind of the, the premise of it, crowdsourcing it, and then somebody wins a prize. Okay? The technology's so much more powerful that if someone had just went a step further and go, okay, we've done that before.

What [00:29:00] else could we do? And given themselves the time to be a little bit more innovative, they would've come up with a better solution. . Same thing is true on the, on the, on the ice tea thing where everybody sat in a room, everybody brainstormed. Someone came up with that idea and nobody turned and said, okay, well let's add another layer on top of this and go, does this add economic value to the organization long term?

So, you know, the if to to just to close the loop on it. The first, for the first one, nobody asks a secondary question of is there a better way to tie this back to a business outcome? And we're Coke is concerned, it's, is there another way we can push this idea further than the most obvious solution?

That's the [00:30:00] setup.

[00:30:01] Mike Grinbeg: Yeah. And well, my, my mind goes to, f first in this whole thing is the con, this concept of, when I talk about affinity versus awareness mm-hmm. , right? I mean, the Twisted Tea example is specifically, it's like how many commercials can we think of? The commercial was memorable. We have no idea what brand it was for.

You know, the, the one that comes to mind for me almost all the time is the, um, and I had to look this up recently, is, uh, the Geico Camel, remember the Hump Day commercials? Yep. Hated that thing because my name's Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike Mike. Anyway, um, it was, everybody remembers the Geico Gecko. Nobody remembers the Geico Camel.

Mm-hmm. , maybe not nobody. I'm sure somebody out there does. But it's this whole thing of you need to connect. The idea [00:31:00] to the brand. It can't just be a clever idea on its own because that, that's a, that's a flash in the pan. Short term. Maybe it, you know, does something for your revenue numbers, especially for like a consumer product, maybe.

Mm-hmm. for the very short period of time, but likely not. And then, because the opposite example of that, that I, that I think about, and I think this is like a, you know, HBR case study, if I, if I remember correctly, is the Tide commercial from like, like the early two thousands, 2008 ish or something. I don't remember the year in India where they ran this campaign around, um, uh, fathers talking to their daughters about laundry.

Because in India there's kind of this traditional, you know, division of labor. Only the women do laundry. The men don't like that kind of thing. And, and one one was

[00:31:46] Garrio Harrisson: one thing, one thing to point out there that this was when that campaign ran, was at the height of the lean-in movement. Mm,

[00:31:54] Mike Grinbeg: yes. Yep. That's a very, that's a very good point.

Um, and the impact [00:32:00] of it was men started buying detergent, right? That was one of the unintended consequences. Mm-hmm. . So that's an example of, it's a, it's a current events topic if you will. Mm-hmm. , but it connects directly to the brand and the brand ethos, if you will. Not just, oh, hey, we sell detergent, whatever.

Right. And I think that that's a core component because it, you see this a lot with what I call current events chasing in marketing where it's like, oh, this, this thing is happening, let's jump on it. This other thing is happening, let's jump on it. And it's just, what's the connection? Right? I mean the, the basic example I always give is like the, uh, the commemorative days, right?

It's like why? Unless you're gonna do something that really connects to your brand ethos, just don't bother. It does absolutely nothing for you. Probably even hurts. Right? So that's. . That's my thought on that. Right. What about the Coke? [00:33:00] Coke? Same thing. I mean, I think it's, you know, it's funny. Initially my thought was when you sent to me, like, what?

That's kind of cool. Yeah. But then as we talked about it, I'm like, yeah, okay. It's la it's lazy thinking as always. Right. It's lazy thinking. And again, it's like, how can you, you know, Coke is supposed to be like, of the people connecting the people, you know, Coke around the world. I mean, there's so many directions that could have taken this.

And instead it's just, Hey, let's just create some AI art. Right.

[00:33:32] Garrio Harrisson: Lame. Right. I think some of you, you pointed out when we were talking about this, this earlier that I think is worth, um, flagging here as well, is how often you interact with the use case for the brand. Right? So for the, the, the, the sweet tea or the Yeah, the tea.

it's during the Super Bowl, is the kind of the big moment. So you, you add up the cost to produce this thing, to promote it, to buy the Super Bowl, [00:34:00] add like all that, right? That's, that's a huge capital expenditure to, for that one moment that is pretty much forgettable. But then you look at the, uh, the, the Tide ad, and it's every time you do laundry is a, is a opportunity for a brand moment, right?

When you're standing in the grocery aisle and you're looking at the detergent because you went to go buy it, a woman or a man, that's an opportunity for that moment. So it, it goes beyond, it has a longer shelf life, um, for the brand than just like a flash in the pan. So you can smooth out that cost curve a lot further.

Um, cause I mean, look at this. We're talking about this ad today. and you know, if we were, you know, if we were in the market for Tide, you know, for different reasons we're not. But if we were to go to the grocery [00:35:00] store and we had this conversation, it's either gonna be a word of mouth where we're talking to our significant others about it, or we're looking at the aisle, then we go, oh yeah, I remembered this conversation that I had and I'm picking up type that literally goes directly to the bottom line.

And I don't know if that ad is, is still running, it's probably available on YouTube, but it be, it, it's a cultural moment that spans longer than the time it ran. Right? Yep. So again, return on investment right there. A hundred percent.

[00:35:37] Mike Grinbeg: All right, and with that, let's move on to our next segment here.

I gotta work on my transitions. That was a lame trans, not, not the visual. The visuals fine. I had a, had a different transition plan. We took the conversation in a different direction. I was like, uh, [00:36:00] next segment, please. Yeah.

[00:36:01] Garrio Harrisson: You know what, we we're gonna, we're gonna, we're definitely gonna get better at this.

Uh, I, as you mentioned that, I'm thinking back, like we had a lot more dad jokes in the last, in the last, the last recording

[00:36:13] Mike Grinbeg: there was, there was definitely a few. Yeah. There's definitely for those who, like dad jokes, you got two and a half hours worth of No, I'm kidding. Yep. Uh, in the other recording, but, all right.

So perspective, um, what we wanna talk about here is we're, we're calling the, the rapidly changing. white collar work landscape. Mm-hmm. , it's a long-winded way of saying there's a lot of stuff happening, and if you're not aware of it, everything's gonna change. Mm-hmm. . Um, and I think being, especially I think us being in marketing and sales and being so tech forward in the business that we're in, the businesses that [00:37:00] we're running gives us a first row seat if you'll do this.

Mm-hmm. , I not a seat. We're not just a, we're we're active observers. If that, if you can call it that. Great. We're,

[00:37:12] Garrio Harrisson: we're active participants, we're participants, we're using the tools.

[00:37:14] Mike Grinbeg: Yeah. And so, uh, I think there are four main things happening right now, all at the same time, where if it was one or two of them, I think it wouldn't be as big of a deal.

Mm-hmm. , but all four of 'em happening at the same time, I think is causing a major. Sea change, major consternation. So what are they? Number one, the economy is currently in a bit of a downswing. Mm-hmm. , right? Globally for that matter. So recessions are not new. They go in cycles. If this was the only thing happening, wouldn't be that big of a deal.

[00:37:49] Garrio Harrisson: Could adjust.

[00:37:50] Mike Grinbeg: Mm-hmm. . Correct. Obviously we've got ai. Mm-hmm. , that's a huge thing all on its own. Even if that was the only thing happening, that would be a lot. Mm-hmm. [00:38:00] and it is a lot. Then we're gonna dig into that. But now you add to that remote work, we just got through the pandemic. Remote work is all of a sudden a big thing.

You know, I haven't looked at the latest stats, but you know, a large portion of the workforce is working remote. Mm-hmm. and how companies are trying to force people back to the office. It's not working out so well. There's all these things happen. Again, if that was the only thing, not that big of a deal, you got these other two.

Last but not least, generational shift. Mm-hmm. the, uh, We have a changing of the guard in both leadership and subject matter roles that's happening across, I mean, really, I guess it's white collar and blue collar even, but we're specifically talking about white collar here, uh, work. And you take all those four things together and I don't think we're remotely ready to deal with it as a, uh, as a society, as a nation, as a, as businesses.

[00:39:00] So that's my, that's my perspective. . Yeah. It's always doom and gloom from Mike Grinberg. .

[00:39:09] Garrio Harrisson: No, it, it, it's, you know, I, I like to call it, you know, when, when you and I chat, there's a little bit of, uh, pragmatic optimism that comes out of, comes out of all of this, right. And, you know, and, and, and the last, last time we talked about it, and this tends to be a common theme where we, when we, when you and I get together, it's.

you know, looking at the realities of the world, not, not through roles, cluttered glasses, but with a sense of, okay, if we understand the facts as they are, then there's an opportunity to impact, you know, to impact the direction with, with towards a positive outcome with a little bit more intention. Right.

Um, and I think, you know, when we, when we, when we last spoke, the, the thing that that [00:40:00] stood out to me that, that kind of got me excited about all this, was the fact that for the first time in history in our lifetimes right, we have lived through a global pandemic, right? That that has never happened before in our lifetime, global.

And you couple that with coming out of that global pandemic, there is, you know, if, if, if, depending on who you, who you talk to, it's either as revolutionary as fire. , um, or, you know, the restructuring of the internet as we know it, um, or as transformative as the Gutenberg press, right? The, the distribution of knowledge.

I think it's somewhere in the middle, right? But it's still, it's, it's still gonna fundamentally change like every facet of our lives, right? And, uh, the thing, that thing that it reminds me the most of is cross between the [00:41:00] internet as a whole, like graphic user interfaces and what that ushered in and the concept of search, right?

Like the way we interact on LinkedIn, we search Facebook, we search, we search the global internet as a whole. So there's this thing that we now use. This was a behavior that changed all of a sudden we had knowledge at our fingertips. This is a version of that. and every generation experiences it a little bit differently, right?

Getting back to that generational shift. Um, and that's where I think it's a challenge today. Um, but within that challenge comes a lot of opportunity, right? And that I, I, I'm looking at it from through the lens of, of sales, right? So just one example, you have, you know, old school sales folks that understand business acumen, know how to work a room, understand how to read [00:42:00] non-verbal cues, you know, have lived in the world of, you know, bad carrying, uh, salesmen, like selling knives, right?

You know, like you have that group. Then you have another generation, but they have no idea of the new technology cause this is not how they operate. And then you have another generation that is afraid to pick up the phone.

[00:42:21] Mike Grinbeg: is not able to, I hate picking up the phone, I'll be honest. . Well,

[00:42:26] Garrio Harrisson: yeah, but you know, but you, you, you, you are, you are comfortable in sales conversations and I think a lot of younger sales reps have been given the promise that the internet is going to save them from the, the need to just go through the reps of rejection.

Right. Go through those uncomfortable conversations, get stumped by an objection that you don't have an answer for, right? So you have this opportunity here where you have two generations that [00:43:00] have skillsets that if you create an, uh, an environment where they can have that knowledge exchange, you end up with both being better and, and that's just in sales.

The same is true for every single role in any organization. . Um, so this whole idea of like, you know, remote work and, and so on, I think every generation feels differently about what's happening, right? If you're, if you finally earned your way to the corner office right before the pandemic, you want everybody back in the office, right?

Because you earned that spot, right? If you've never met your coworkers and your entire relationships were built online, the commute just seems like an unnecessary burden being put on you by your employer,

[00:43:50] Mike Grinbeg: right? , sorry. So, I'm just laughing because I'm, right now I'm recording literally from my bedroom and I've got windows on all sides and my bed's right there.

So, [00:44:00] yeah, the commute sucks and I've got my and I've got my, uh, my corner office, if you will, . Oh, you're more

[00:44:07] Garrio Harrisson: productive, right? So it's like, I, I think there's just a, a, a cultural negotiation that needs to take place. and aligned incentives, right? Like if, if you are, I use, use the example of, of the corner office.

If, if I'm, you know, of the generation where I get my best work done in the office, right? And I got a corner office and this, this is, this is, I worked my entire career for this, right? So I'm gonna be comfortable going into the office. What is in it for a, a young person that's just starting out their career and, you know, doesn't have that experience, hasn't, hasn't paid their quote unquote dues to get to that corner office and don't care about [00:45:00] it.

because they, they've, they've never seen their, their, their boss or their supervisor or their manager aspire to that. So they don't even know that that's something to aspire to. Well, there's an opportunity for mentorship. That's why you come into the office. . Right. But I think it's, I think the communication about that isn't being done well.

Right? You hear like, Hey, we're gonna mandate two days a week in the office. Okay, but what's for right? We can get our work done, um, you know, via Slack. Okay, cool. But you're missing that face-to-face mentorship that will make you better at your job. Nobody's talking about that, right? And the same thing is true on the other side.

Like learn how to actually interact remotely asynchronously, right? That, that needs to happen too. Because if you're, if you are gonna lead, you have to learn how to lead the people the way that you're gonna get the best work. That's what leaders do, [00:46:00] right? So you, as the person with the Coron office, have to learn to adapt as well.

And I think that nuanced conversation is not being had. So again, back to the whole idea of, um, optimism is, , you know, and, and, and us having a very, like, what are the facts? I think, uh, yeah, we just need to have more of those honest accounting of like, where are we? What are the facts? And then what collective story are we gonna tell ourselves about the fact so that we can paint the future that we, we wanna build?

And the same is true for ai. The same is true for just, you know, the future of work. It's all the same thing. It's a story that we want to tell. So that's my optimistic take. Nice.

[00:46:52] Mike Grinbeg: Well, I think we end on an optimistic take. There you go. I think it's a good place to stop. All right. [00:47:00] Until next week. Until

[00:47:01] Garrio Harrisson: next week.

I feel like we should do more of these.