In this episode, we take flight to weave the historical tale of Alberto Santos-Dumont, an aviation pioneer whose innovative public engagements and strategic daring reshaped the early 20th-century skies, into the fabric of modern digital strategy and customer experience.

This podcast, with guest Sean Amar, draws a vivid line from Santos-Dumont’s pioneering spirit to today’s digital leaders who are navigating the complexities of aligning operations with strategic goals. Through engaging narratives and expert insights, listeners will explore how the principles of early flight can elevate digital experiences, streamline operations, and harmonize digital initiatives with overarching business strategies.

Join us as we take flight on a journey of discovery, from the adventurous skies of Santos-Dumont to the vast digital landscapes of today.

About our Guest:

Sean Amar, CPA is a master in steering Fortune 500 companies and government entities through the digital era. With over 15 years in technology and digital services, Sean has led teams of 50+ across diverse roles, emphasizing collaboration, excellence, and accountability. At A&Mplify, he pushed AI and analytics to new heights, impacting clients like Verizon, Wells Fargo, and Uber. Sean's unique blend of technical expertise and strategic insight makes him a key advisor for executives navigating technology modernization. Join us as we dive into Sean's journey and extract pioneering insights on driving digital innovation.

So, once again, let's travel back in time to the bustling heart of Paris

at the dawn of the 20th century.

There lived an extraordinary inventor and an aviator named Alberto Santo Dumont.

With a mind as innovative as the Wright brothers and a spirit as adventurous

as Amelia Earhart's, Santo Dumont was not just a pioneer of the skies.

He was a master of engaging the public's imagination.

In the era where flight was the stuff of dreams and fancy, Santo Dumont

took to the skies above Paris, not in secrecy or in solitude, but with a

flair for the dramatic and a passion for sharing his adventures with the world.

His flying machines, as peculiar and extraordinary as they were,

soon became a familiar sight above the Parisian rooftops.

Imagine, if you will, a sunny afternoon near the Eiffel Tower.

A crowd gathers.

Their sky is filled with an airship.

Their eyes look up.

They prepare for the flight.

They look and see what attempts to win a prize to capture the

hearts of all who watched.

With a roar and a puff of smoke, Saint Tudor Mont ascends his

ship with the grace of a bird.

The public, dressed in their Sunday best, watches in awe as he circles the Eiffel

Tower, not just a man in a machine, but a symbol of human ambition and ingenuity.

This wasn't merely a demonstration of technological prowess, it

was an invitation to dream.

Sainte Audemont showed the world that flight was possible,

tangible, and within reach.

He turned the skies above Paris into a stage, and every flight was a dream.

He took was a story.

It was a spectacle that belonged to everyone who dared to look and

dream, but sent to demands legacy extends beyond his airborne feats.

He mirrored what we see today in the digital world, the power of

public demos and social media to engage directly with an audience.

He made the technology of flight accessible, creating personalized

experiences for each member of the public.

This wasn't just about flying.

It was about bringing people together.

Sparking curiosity and inspiring innovation.

Today, as we delve into our topic and we talk about digital transformation

and customer engagement, let's remember this story of Santo Dumont's approach.

Like him, we are reminded that the heart of every technological achievement is the

desire to connect, share, and to inspire.

That's a great question.

First, Officer Taylor.

In the tale of Alberto Santo DeMott, we uncover a timeless narrative of vision

and engagement that resonates deeply with the challenges and opportunities

we face in today's digital era.

His approach to sharing with the public teaches us an invaluable

lesson about innovation, engagement and strategy that are relevant to

those navigating complex currencies.

Of digital transformation today.

Santo Dumont didn't wait for the world to acknowledge the potential of flight.

He brought his dreams directly to the people demonstrating that not only was

it possible for air travel, but the power of involving the community in

the journey helped move it forward.

This proactive stance, taking the initiative to showcase innovation

and its benefits underscored the importance of not just reacting

to change, but leading the charge.

His precision in flight, maneuvering the airships around the Eiffel Tower,

engaging with the public, wasn't just about showcasing his skills.

It was about carefully crafting an experience that

resonated with the audience.

This mirror is not only the need for our own individual endeavors

to, not only collect and analyze information, but to do it in a way

that benefits people, where you can anticipate needs and solve problems.

So as digital pilots today, why should we care?

His spirit embodies what it means to lead in the digital age.

It's a reminder that at the heart of digital transformation is the need to

connect, to engage, and to inspire.

And this is the underlying structure that makes all of this possible.

Though we haven't named it explicitly, it's about how to build a robust

foundation that allows for the seamless flow and analysis of experiences and data.

Not only so we can understand our current environment, but that we can

drive forward to collect and disseminate information that creates an impact.

Roger transformation Tower, we're going to explore the forces of digital

transformation in order to reach our final destination safely over.

And to help with that today, I'm excited to bring on a co pilot.

We've got Sean Amar, a master in steering fortune 500 companies.

And government entities through the digital era with over 15 years in

technology and digital services.

Sean has led teams of 50 or more across many diverse roles,

emphasizing collaboration, excellence and accountability.

And amplify he pushed AI and analytics to new heights, impacting clients

like Verizon, Wells Fargo and Uber.

Sean's unique blend of technical expertise and strategic insight

is going to make us a great.

Co pilot for today's episode and benefit us as we dive into

this idea of pioneering insight.

So Sean, thanks for joining us today.

I would love your perspective.

What does that story mean to you as someone engaged where strategy meets

execution to create experiences?

First I have to say that I just literally got off a plane yesterday,

so it's fine to be on a cockpit of a Cessna or whatever background I'm

actually supposed to be in right now.

So that's funny.

No, that story actually means a lot.

I actually wanted to visit France one day.

The idea of looking at something and seeing the impossible actually

happened right before your eyes.

Kind of blows you away.

So the idea of seeing something as simple as like your beach, like North Carolina,

when the Orville brothers were basically in the air, and they're basically

looking down the sand, a new perspective, a new view, a new environment, new

possibilities, that's just so much.

That's like how I feel with some of the different things

I basically done in my life.

I remember one of the biggest times I saw something like that was when

I saw a robot doing a human's job.

And now we see that every single day.

And it still blows my mind away.

So if you're flippy, the robot making burgers inside of Burger King right

now, or if you're basically inside of a warehouse, I'm talking to you,

robot, or I'm talking to you, human.

Yeah, I'm truly mesmerized by some of the digitalness that I've

basically seen throughout my lifetime.

Yeah, that's amazing.

And I definitely can relate.

We've seen a lot of change and transformation and it

seems to be moving so fast.

What thoughts do you have around the speed at which things are moving now

and the ability to actually take action in a way that makes sense, right?

So I'm going to give you two examples real quick.

So I'm going to tell you what happens when you don't innovate.

And I'm going to tell you what happens when you do innovate.

I got off the call yesterday from one of my guys who works at a company.

That's a consulting company that he's basically looking

for people to do analytics.

And he used to work at Sears.

So this is Sears holding company, Sears Kmart.

And one of the things I asked him was like, You worked at such an

innovative company, but they just didn't realize the stuff they had.

You guys created the Discover card, and then the payment method to go with it,

and then Capital One just bought it.

You guys created a giant insurance company called Allstate, and you guys

didn't realize the value of it, and you just gave it to someone else.

You guys created, basically, the catalog system before the internet even came out.

And you guys had a giant idea, and you basically let it go.

Sorry, getting over cold.

And what happens is failure.

Innovate is basically going to lead you behind.

You're going to be the next Sears, or you're going to be the next Blackberry.

Blackberry is another example.

They had the physical keyboard.

They should have been the first person to come out with the best onscreen keyboard.

But look what happens.

They let a competitor come in.

So if you do not innovate, you will basically evaporate or

you'll never, ever be seen again.

When I'm seeing that now in the space these days it's absolutely amazing.

I went to this.

I went to an industry summit yesterday.

It's called Zscaler.

Zscaler is a very big industry leader here when it comes to some of

their cloud offerings and whatnot.

And they are finally now integrating AI into some of their Zscaler platforms.

So the models they are basically using, if I remember correctly, they are developing

some of their own, but they're also in partnership with OpenAI as well, too.

So it's amazing to see how the security world is basically

to be now in touch with AI.

So one example they're going to start doing is something

called penetration testing.

Penetration testing is when you hire a company and it's called the red

team, I believe, and they purposely try to break into your network.

And these guys charge anywhere between 500 to 700 an hour.

But now you don't need that anymore.

You're going to have a I just constantly try to penetrate your

system for much, much cheaper.

So why would you even have a person?

So this is where the innovation is basically coming in.

And yet, and because you have to constantly keep fighting against

new types of attacks and whatnot, you're going to start seeing AI

start to come up with different ways to go around that a human wouldn't.

So going back to your question about, the Eiffel Tower, it's great to see

the airplane, and it's great to see the Eiffel Tower that high, but you've

also now opened a new opportunity of what if bad guys also have planes?

What if they fly over areas?

What if they fly into buildings?

What if they crash into different objects?

Now I gotta defend against that.

It's nice to see a new innovation come out, and I actually see

it through the positive of it.

But unfortunately, most people are gonna also look at the

negative of it as well, too.

We need to now guard against that as well, too.

Yeah, that's a great point.

I remember I held on to my BlackBerry way too long because I love that

physical keyboard, by the way.

I had a BlackBerry Bold 9650, if I remember correctly.

That's right.

That's right.

And you're bringing up a great point about the, the dark side

and the light side, if you will.

What I find is interesting in the, this aspect of this rapid evolution

Embracing AI is you have to be intentional and strategic, which a lot

of companies are going through that.

What's the strategy here?

How are we going to manage it?

Let's update policies, right?

We're seeing that at the same time.

There's this other aspect of the human nature of this,

which is I'll wait and see.

I'll see what happens and I'll I'm not going to be a first follower here.

It's too risky.

And this is going to create some sort of, tension between the proactive

ability to drive it value versus the reactive nature to see what happens.

And in that gap, it's moving so fast that you're going to see things like the

dark side, whether it's deep fakes or misinformation or every election cycle.

You're going to have to figure out, is this really a video of a, somebody on the

campaign trail or is this from a, another country trying to tell me how to think?

Yeah, the word you're looking for is pioneers perish, settlers prosper.

That's what it is.

So these guys are now the pioneers.

So let's see what basically happens to that.

And going back to your thing I'm obviously seeing something this

week where this is so new to me and this is just the imagine the amounts

of things I could do with this.

Someone was either a YouTuber or a influencer or something like that.

And they posted a video of their.

General likeness, basically reviewing something.

And what happens is there was an AI video that took that video, reconstructed

their voice, reconstructed their facial movements, and then endorsed a product

or endorsed China or endorse something.

And I just look at this was like, Oh my God.

And then now I have a picture of your likeness.

I have what you sound like.

I have you endorsing something.

All I need to now is get your personal information.

Oh, that's right.

There's a giant AT& T hack that just happened.

I'll just go to the dark web and figure out what your latest information is.

And then boom, I have now just basically copied you on the internet.

So this is one of the reasons why you have to look at it, like scary what

the power is, even this interview right now could be taken from different

contexts and I don't know, I could endorse something that I didn't mean

to endorse, so yeah, you're right.

There's gonna have to be some sort of third party.

And the only thing I can think of is like the way that political messages say

I approve this message and there's some sort of thing on the bottom, that says it,

that's going to have to be like a third party thing now, where there has to be a

third party certification that says this is an authentic message from that person.

So that's the only thing I can think of.

Yeah, who knows?

But there, I see a lot of advancements in biometrics happening.

The, even passwords.

Evolution into single sign on there.

There's a lot of physical security aspects to this, but when it

comes to content creation, that's going to be interesting to see.

How do you digitally sign something?

And have it be legit, for example.

Yeah, this is important to think about,

but this is goes back to a business thing I learned back in graduate

school or I'm sorry, undergraduate, which is basically wherever

there's risks, there's opportunity.

So there is major risk here, which means there's major opportunities for

people as well, too, for the right people that are looking around for it.

So I'll give you one example.

No one cared about the concept of life lock previously, but because

of all this, bad or all this digital information available to bad actors,

they created a product of life lock.

And now that product is doing well and then it was acquired by Norton.

So I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I will tell

you there is plenty of opportunity for people who are looking for it.

Yeah.

Let's talk about that opportunity, right?

We took the story here of Santo Dumont.

And he, think about it back in the 1800s, right?

He's gonna get this airship and he's gonna fly it around Paris I just love putting

myself in that position, you know It's like windy and it's scary and he's got

that perspective that you mentioned it But you know when you look at what he did he

had some audacity To actually just share it publicly and put himself out there

that's one thing and then another thing is You know, for somebody to pull that

off, he had to figure out a lot of moving parts and he had to prepare and execute.

And then, he had to look at what you just said, the potential, where

there's risks there's possibility.

And he saw the potential of connecting and inspiring others to gaze, into the sky

and ask, what if, how does that resonate with you in past experiences with?

With your customers or even in your past with people looking at

digital transformation or just in even an initiative to carry forward,

there's so many.

I can think of the example I could talk about 1st, and I can think

about the example I saw later.

I'll give you an example.

So the RPA one, now RPA used to be a buzzword that everyone had to know.

And it stands for robotic process automation.

And I remember when I was at Verizon, I had to automate a task where long

story short a robot would copy and paste something from a word document and put

it inside an Excel table perfectly.

And I made a robot that did do that correctly.

And it basically.

It was four or five people's jobs that this thing was basically

taking, and I got it to able to work.

And those people weren't replaced.

They were just basically assigned to something else.

But I looked at this and I was like, wow I have just freed up five different

people to go work on other things.

And it's just amazing to see 30 hours a week was dedicated to this one task.

I can get to go do something else.

So I saw the ramifications of that right away.

I was like, if companies really wanted to, they could just automate more and

more to the point that they don't need to.

Luckily, it didn't happen.

So instead, what happened is most of these people got trained

and do other skill sets and then basically help the company that way.

Now, when it came to A.

I.

I remember my first introduction to A.

I was I was using chat GPT when it came out, and I asked it to give me

not that I was anything wrong with my relationship right now, but I

asked it to give me the divorce laws in Virginia, and it did perfectly.

There's there's I think, five or six different types of default.

There's no such thing as no fault divorce here.

You have to have I think it's a abuse, adultery I'm trying

to think of the other ones.

Abuse, adultery there's five or six other reasons why you're allowed

to get a divorce here in Virginia.

And it gave me the Virginia statute perfectly.

And I could just go look it up and type it in.

It's oh, there's a statute right there.

I looked at this and I was Like, this is a paralegal right here.

This is what you would normally do to have a paralegal do this kind of work.

Then I started asking it different questions.

And then the more and more I looked into it, I was like, wow, this

thing is actually saving time.

I don't have to do this kind of stuff anymore.

Then I started asking it to write emails for me because I didn't feel like

actually writing these emails anymore.

And it's actually doing a really good job.

And fast forwarding nowadays, I have this thing basically doing job apps for me.

And It's amazing to see what this A.

I.

Is doing.

And I'm looking at this from the top down, like this thing is doing all the

work that I would actually normally do.

So you're asking me when I first saw this, what's going

to basically happen from here?

More and more people are going to integrate this in every single day items.

One of the things that I can basically start easily seeing is

the AI personalized assistant.

And basically the concept of Siri, but like all over the place.

And you're going to start seeing this already.

Amazon's already been doing this where every single time you buy

something, it always recommends something else next to you.

I'll use this as an example for my girlfriend because

she's recognizing this as well.

There's a very popular Sheehan, if I'm actually saying that correctly.

And They actually have an AI algorithm on their site that shows you nothing but

your favorite clothing over and over and over and over again to the point that

she's spending like two, three hours a day because it's everything she loves.

It's all literally right there.

And it's amazing to me.

And I'm like, How this thing is going off of your previous purchase history.

And it's tailoring the entire website to only show you the

things that you want to see.

And then it hopes that you buy off that.

And then what's great about this is for inventory.

There's no inventory anymore.

You don't have to keep this in a warehouse because it ended the inventory game.

You have to sell all this stuff in order to get your money back.

But this is all just in time.

So as soon as she buys it, then it gets shipped to China.

Then it gets made.

Then it's shipped right back to you.

This personalized experience, this is just for clothes.

There's so many other things I could do this for.

I get this for hotels where I only could show you hotels of only the best hotels

of the beaches that you like going to.

They're all right there for you.

And then I could give the hotel operator.

Hey, these are the prices he's paid.

He is a stable customer.

He pays this, and this.

If you go in this price range, I will more likely show him your

hotel, and he's very likely to book.

This AI personal assistant, I feel like you're going to start seeing

this on different types of sites, where the web is going to start

catering the internet towards you.

Now, YouTube is like a good example of this, where basically YouTube

only shows you the things that you basically watch, and occasionally

it throws you in something new.

But you're going to start seeing this AI personalization all over the place.

And I just see the power of this and it's just truly amazing.

That is one good thing, which is I'm going to buy lots and lots of clothes

of the same style from Sheehan.

But the problem with AI personalization.

It doesn't show you other ideas you could possibly think of.

It only shows you what you know you'll like.

So imagine if all I drink is Dr.

Pepper.

Every single day I'm drinking Dr.

Pepper.

Cause it clearly knows I love Dr.

Pepper.

And I only give it drinks that are just like Dr.

Pepper.

Like Mr.

Pibb.

I'm trying to think what else is there.

Cherry Coke.

And so on and so forth.

Yeah, so eventually you need to try other sodas besides Dr.

Pepper.

And that's where one of the bad things of AI will come in, or it's

only going to zone you into the things that you actually want.

And now you won't be able to try new things because you don't want to.

Humans don't like change.

We like keeping things consistently the same.

Yeah.

Great points.

And the idea of creating this myopic bubble of, self information, you end

up in a very narrowly defined swim lane and actually unable to relate to others.

And we're seeing that with news as well.

Yes.

So imagine I only drink Dr.

Pepper, and I only go to Sheen, and I only buy this one tank top, and

that's my entire life right there.

Yeah, you have a very, I think the word you used was myopic bubble.

I call it siloed, but yes that's like the fear of it, yeah.

exactly, and then you end up with, and it's an interesting, and I know you

made it, it might not be she spends two hours a day on this, but it's a,

it's definitely longer than the average attention span, which is currently

reported to be about 45 seconds.

So if you've made it this far into the podcast, congratulations

on your attention span.

Because most people today have a 45 second attention span.

So now you juxtapose this with, I'm getting self fed, I'm getting this

AI giving me 45 seconds over and over again of what I already know.

And you end up getting entrenched.

So personalization is great.

However, it creates this bubble that you operate within, which is the complete

opposite of how do you, for example, keep AI on the tracks and not make

it, completely out of control where it controls all humans and decides

one day it reaches singularity and decides that humans are wasteful, right?

That would be bad.

So how do do you outsource all of your critical thinking to other people?

And let them do it for you.

Yeah, see, that's a question.

Do I want to outsource my thinking to something else?

So I'll tell you the business answer and then I'll tell you I don't

know about the personal answer.

So the business answer is if you can't do it perfectly, outsource

it to someone else that does.

Because that person will do it perfectly for you.

You just repackage the package and then you sell it yourself.

That makes perfect sense in a business setting.

But do I really want to outsource my ability to think

and influence my decisions?

To not even someone else, but something else.

That's a very tough thing to do.

Even for me I'm starting to notice that I don't want to

read the Wall Street Journal.

So I'll copy and paste a journal, an actual summary, I'm sorry, I'll

create, I'll copy and paste an article inside Chapter 16 and just tell me

to summarize what's the point of it.

Today, I found out that Jersey Mike's is selling its chain

to Blackstone for 8 billion.

And of course, I just literally copy pasted the entire thing, put it in there.

And I was like, all right, it's Blackstone.

It's this is the price and terms and so on and so forth.

And I said, wow, 2, 400 stores.

And they're just literally selling it for 8 billion.

And it's a sandwich store.

So I was like, wow, that's a, that's really great.

I wish I could sell a sandwich store for 8 billion.

So yes, would I want to outsource that?

I don't know yet.

Do you say I want to outsource my low value thinking to something

else and I want to keep my critical thinking to myself?

Especially when you think about critical thinking isn't necessarily

a skill that's widely embraced or taught because of it takes too long.

It takes too long to do critical thinking.

We don't have time for that.

So it's a whole it's a whole piece of computing power and your cognitive

abilities as a human and then your ethics and your value system.

In relation to a supercomputer that has a whole entire Internet at its

disposal that can tailor every single message and serve it up on a website

through an avatar that speaks to you in a way that you want to be spoken to.

And you know what?

It's not a diverse avatar.

It's the avatar that you relate to the most, which

gives you, more of your bubble.

So it's going to be interesting to see.

And I think we're seeing it with TikTok and that's why.

There are house hearings on TikTok because of that algorithm and how

it serves up to our young people.

And really doesn't allow for that critical thinking.

That's just touching the tip of the iceberg of it.

But the bottom line is this idea of personalization that you're

bringing up here is, the good and the not so good at personalization

and how do we navigate that?

Yeah.

Unfortunately I, this is just a theory of mine, but America

gravitates to things that are the most easiest and the less hardest.

So if it's easier, they're more likely to embrace it.

So just going off of the past, I just feel like, so for example,

I'll use Amazon for this.

I used to go to Walmart because it was a dollar cheaper than Amazon.

Now I was like, forget that I'm not going in the car, starting it up,

driving and going in traffic, go picking it up, taking it to the cash

register, swiping my card, and then going back to the car and driving back.

Too much.

I'll pay a dollar more just to have something because it's easier.

And look what it just did.

I paid a dollar more for something because it was easier.

So going back to critical thinking, I believe that what's gonna happen

is a lot of our young people, they're not gonna want a critical thing.

It's too difficult.

They'd rather just have things easier.

They're what's the word?

I'm not gonna say instant gratification, but like another word

where they prefer the easier path instead of the more difficult path.

And sometimes the more difficult path is actually a better one.

And I do believe that's probably what's gonna end up happening, though.

And I tend to agree with that.

And when you think about that in terms of business, customer empathy

understanding buyers, buyer centricity, customer centric empathy, these things

you hear a lot in terms of strategy, but they're quite difficult to execute on.

I remember, talking to a a trucking and shipping company and they were

telling stories about, Hey, I'm standing in front of a customer, The customer

saying, Hey, Amazon's giving me 15 minute increment updates on where

my underwear is in my neighborhood and that it's four stops away.

You people can't tell me where my 250, 000 generator is.

And you're telling me it's between Dallas and Minneapolis

somewhere, like what is going on?

You're right.

So this is a interesting time for businesses to think about

what does personalization mean?

And then are you really customer centric at all?

Yeah, actually, going back to that, I remember one of the things that

the Amazon did was Black Friday was destroyed by Amazon because I used to

one of those people that would camp out in line to get the TV or whatnot.

And nowadays, I just say, forget that.

I just added to my list.

And as soon as this Black Friday hits, all the prices go down.

Fine.

I'll just buy.

So now going from that and you obviously saw the announcement that

Amazon is starting to sell cars.

With Amazon's customer centric model and the ability to sell

a high ticket item like a car.

If I could sell a car on the internet.

What can't I sell now?

So it's going to be amazing to see how they actually do it.

And yeah, especially to, to survive down the business environment here,

customer centricity is, has to be it.

I don't even deal with businesses that don't want to deal with me.

I just, I don't even think about that.

I'd rather just go out and find the one that does.

I'm going to the dentist in about an hour.

I call around until one of them actually called me back and

said, Hey, I'll see you tomorrow.

And I was like, exactly what I need is my tooth is hurting.

So that type of.

model where it has to be customer centric, has to be quick, has to be fast.

That is what people have to do now to survive.

let's carry this forward into the idea of personalization and innovation.

When you think about those aspects from your digital experiences and

how you've been able to align really customer centric strategies with

digital strategies to serve customers better and to make an impact.

What are some things that our audience might need to think about in terms

of bridging this gap between what really is a customer centric vision

and the ability to execute on it with personalization, innovation, et cetera.

So I remember when the word was, I think it was called Omni channel.

And then before that, it was some other word.

I think now it's called multi channel.

And then.

Now, we're just customer centricity.

So I what I usually do to answer that question, which is

basically how do I focus on the customer is exactly what it is.

I just focus on the customer and I just go backwards from there.

So the only cut, there's only two or three customers.

I'm sorry, two or three companies that I feel like I've actually done that.

I feel like Apple's done it.

I feel like Amazon's done it.

done it.

We're basically they just start their processes around the consumer first

and they end up going backwards.

And that's basically what the best companies are doing.

So they go out, they go backwards and they start saying, Okay, we need to have our

data 100 percent good about this customer.

So they're going through the systems.

There's archaic S.

A.

P.

Systems and these archaic Oracle systems, and they try their

best to clean up their data.

They try their best to actually apply a I to it.

But basically, just starting from scratch is actually having a correct

like database system is like one of the Harold's of most companies.

I remember I went back to some of the companies that I had basically

advised and these people didn't even have database systems.

It was literally just Excel.

I was like, wait, so you put 200, 000 names in Excel and then you guys

just do B lookups on it and then this is how you like pop it out.

Like this is your, this is a multi billion dollar company and

you guys are still using Excel.

Don't you guys like, you need a database where it's just

starting as simple as that.

Like you need to just at least have clean data.

And that by itself is.

Difficult issue.

Oh, yeah.

I remember back in the day.

I'd say, where's that data?

And they say that's, that's Sean.

No, I'm like, no, that's a person.

Where is it?

Yeah.

Sean has that.

He has that data.

It's on his computer in the Excel spreadsheet.

So the person was the database and that person granted access or not.

Yeah.

So the idea of getting your hands on it was one thing, but having it be a

Integrated having it be the foundation for data driven decisions about your customer.

That was incredibly far off.

And this was only 2 or 3 years ago.

Yeah.

So it started with, Flat files like Excel.

Then it went to ERP systems like Oracle, and then it went to CRM systems

like Salesforce, and now here we are at our database AI systems now.

So it goes back to the very beginning, just having clean data and making

sure it's in a centralized place.

Make sure it's a single source of truth because I've also seen

multiple systems where basically one customer's data is in multiple systems.

Now they solve that with the cloud.

Cause then all these systems dump into one giant cloud.

And then from there you could access it, but it goes back to the basics.

So clean data.

Clean databases.

Then when you have both of those, then you need to start building your customer data.

I'm sorry, your data driven decisions by your customer.

So what I basically seen, happened to it is This customer always comes

in between one o'clock in the morning and three o'clock in the morning.

They always buy a Dr.

Pepper and they always buy this.

So next time there's a customer that comes in at one to three o'clock

in the morning, let's show him this coupon because he's shown indication

that he likes this product previously.

So let's show him a coupon.

And what I'm basically talking about is CVS.

CVS has done this where if you go inside some of their call it the

drink sections of their stores.

Some of them have digital coupon screens now, and what they

basically did is they connected.

Basically, when someone walks in at their time, Hey, this person is more likely to

buy this coupon at this time, so only will show you the coupon at a certain time.

So that idea is data driven decision making.

Just the simple idea of, Hey, I'll give you this person,

a little bit of money off.

They actually come in at during this time of the day, so they start doing

things like that, and I've noticed, Like it actually does work because

certain customers when they do come in every single day and they see

this coupon, the more likely to come in again to get that same product.

So that's like that.

Some of the data driven decision makes you can easily see.

What else have I seen?

That's like very similar to that.

Once you have a customer's purchase history, you can do exactly what

many of these other companies do, which is create a loyalty program.

For example, with CVS, every single time I swipe my CVS card, all

my data is basically interacting with CVS's server and saying,

This person bought this, and this.

And that information gets basically sold to third parties via third party cookies.

And they say, Hey, Coke, this person buys your product, and it's usually anonymized.

Now it is, he buys it from here to here at this time.

He bought this 20 ounce bottle.

He bought this flavor and so on and so forth.

And that's how they basically take your money.

And I'm sorry, they take your data and they make money with it.

So you need to have a data driven decision culture like that, where

your data is clean, it's in a nice database, you can easily access to it.

And then you create a customer program to it.

Just like every other customer, I'm sorry, every other company out there

that does and attach data to it.

And then actually do things with their data, share it with

vendors and so on and so forth.

Yeah, this idea of personalization and crafting those experiences that

resonate, it's important to have that.

We want that as humans.

We want that as consumers.

But we also want the data privacy.

But when it comes to personalizing at scale, what they had to do is

they had to, like you said, leverage data, leverage analytics, and they

had to figure out through testing what's the best way to serve this up.

Somebody had to come up with the idea of these digital, Real time coupon

screens and they had to be able to put them in the store and test it.

There's actually a lot of moving parts to something like that.

And keep in mind you have to have internet connection to this random cooler basically

So I remember verizon basically sold hot spots that basically connect back and

forth to it So and then you have to have the infrastructure to actually buy the

new coolers that actually have the ability to do this so Yeah, they're connected

through, new 5g networks making it real more real time Another thing that people

can try in this makes me think about is the idea of, baby steps starting small.

I think as humans, we want to say there are 1200 CVS stores.

How are we going to make that happen overnight?

But it really is important to scope something down, even in a B to

B setting to, to pilot and start really with a minimum viable approach

to, to figure out if 1st place.

I think there, there is a.

An aspect here on the digital flight podcast.

Why I'm going back into history is, somebody had to figure out how

to make the first thing happen.

And I think we've lost a bit of the art and science around that

in our quest to scale immediately.

So this idea of minimum viable, get through that false foster a

culture of learning, learning as you go, these are critical aspects.

But the last thing I think that you're making me.

Really think about it, and I'd love to unpack more is this idea of

getting your operational components in order your data in order.

You mentioned having it clean, but there's there are a lot of operational

processes required to really execute on customer centric strategies.

So you have any thoughts that you'd like to share on how to help people

get started on tackling some of the.

The operational side of things.

. They just all migrate to the cloud and they just take everything and dump it

into one giant S3 bucket inside of Amazon.

And then from there, they basically query everything from that point.

The ability to go back in time and actually create this from scratch.

I don't even think people are even doing it anymore.

They're just literally just uploading it to the cloud.

They're taking everything, dumping it into one giant place, and then

basically querying it from there.

That's a lot of, there's still a lot of moving parts to execute that and the,

There's everything is constantly, in an agile mentality, continuously improving,

and this idea of starting small and beginning to take baby steps is I think

one of the things that gets you to a future emergence of the right answer

as opposed to having all the answers.

So Sean any other things that you want to share that, that

this conversations perhaps.

Triggered based on your past or even in current experiences with your customers,

clients, or even through real world that you want to share with our listeners on

actually nothing specifically about this.

What I do want to say is there is, I'm going to pull this article up right now.

I know, and this is slightly old, but this is the future.

Like I'm looking at this and I'm like, this is the next thing.

And I have to figure out what was her name?

It was it was the AI Instagram model.

Yeah, so I'm gonna paste the link.

in the chat here.

And now this is the one thing that I'm a little bit scared of.

So what I pasted is this is an Instagram link of a, I'm not going

to say a woman cause it's really an artificial intelligence woman.

She made news a couple months ago.

This is entirely fake.

Her image is fake.

Everything is fake.

So you're going to start seeing what I call like fake influencers

now because they're not real.

So I'll give you an example of this.

I forgot the name of her, but she's in Spain.

Yeah.

She's in Barcelona.

Yeah.

Her name's Atiana.

She's, yeah that's gotta be her.

Yeah.

Pink haired.

Yeah.

That's not where she is.

Yeah.

So this woman makes 10, 000 Euro.

I can't say woman.

I have to also get around this.

I'm going to say robot.

This.

AI makes 10, 000 euros a month.

Okay.

And it's not even real.

It's literally everything is fake.

The backgrounds are fake.

The model itself is fake with all the clothes she's wearing is fake.

Everything is fake.

I cannot understate this enough that this is all fake.

And this AI makes 10, 000 a month.

Now think about that for a second.

Why do I need a human influencer?

I could just have the perfect influencer with the perfect body in the perfect

paradise, posting the perfect drinks.

Why do I need to pay a human for this?

I can have this thing, just generate it all for me.

And this blew me away because I'm like, everything on Instagram

is already fake as it is.

Now you add real artificial intelligence to it.

And now I'll give you one example of this.

I'll take, her name is what Atana, right?

I could take an Atana A Tracy and I don't know, Alexi.

And here's all three of them.

One, I can license to Nike one.

I can license the Lululemon one.

I can license to Under Armour.

Okay.

Now it's basically creating generated fake content.

That's licensed by an artificial intelligence and

it's making 10, 000 a month.

So now what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take those three and I'm going

to sell it to a marketing company.

Okay.

And now that marketing company owns this product of fake AI

influencers that is now a brand.

And you're going to start seeing this now a lot more often because

why do I need a real human model?

Why do I need New York Fashion Week?

I could just create the model with my own skin tone, with my own preferences,

with whatever my followers want.

I don't need to actually look for this in real life.

And some other things that's interesting is this is not even a human, yet this

thing generates 10, 000 euros a month.

So an AI makes more than a human does.

That's, I don't even know how to, I don't understand that.

It's better to not be a human.

I'd rather just be an ai.

I make $10,000 a month.

I don't, so this entire thing is actually I was thinking about the final way I

was gonna leave office conversation.

I don't want to leave off to your audience members that the amount

of power that I just basically showed with this one thing here.

And this is just one influencer on Instagram.

That's not even real.

And there's so much ramifications of this that I can simply say that this goes right

back to the story from the very beginning.

The guys looking at the Eiffel Tower.

Oh, it's absolutely beautiful.

This is now the new 10, 000 foot view of Hey, I'll just create my own Eiffel Tower.

And now everyone sees it.

So that's, I'm gonna leave it off.

Yeah, great point.

And I think this idea of having an A.

I serve up the exact recommendations in a way that people like

this extreme personalization.

It really does.

It really does make you think.

And, this idea of being precise, understanding your customers, being able

to code that up, and having the data to do it, having the information, Having

it know what to say, if that's the route you're going to go it's so that extreme

personalization requires an extreme amount of customer centricity, right?

Now, also this model never ages, it's always timeless.

It's always in the fashion though.

It knows everything.

And there are people out there that are going to compare themselves

to this AI now, and that's another issue down the road.

So yeah, very powerful yeah,

thanks, Sean.

I really appreciate it.

Audience, here's the takeaway from today's discussion.

The idea of innovation, it's critically important, and there

are a lot of things to think about.

This idea of being visionary with the ability to execute requires

understanding your audience, understanding your customer, but

you also need to have a vision,

we talked about the idea of having a vision.

We've talked about the idea of personalizing at scale, starting

small, having your data be aligned and having that operational perspective.

And I want to share with you now, we've probably made you think a little bit

and really don't be afraid to engage.

And that's your pioneering perspective for today.

Engage and innovate, embrace that pioneer mindset.

It's a great call out for us to integrate digital strategies in your organization.

You have to be precise.

You have to be engineering.

You have to be pioneering.

So engage and innovate.

It'll help you be a digital pilot.

Sean, thanks so much for your time today.

I really appreciate it.

And look forward to seeing you out there in the digital skies.

Yep.

It was truly a pleasure.

Thank you.

And Santos Dumont, who innovated with each flight, pushing the boundaries

of what's possible, challenge yourself to think beyond conventional limits.

We've given you a lot to think about today.

And the tools and technologies at your disposal don't just create problems,

they actually create opportunities.

As Sean said, with a lot of risk comes a lot of opportunity as well.

Remember, you can reach out through social media, email, or directly

on the Digital Flight Podcast.

Remember, this podcast is not just a one way transmission, it's an open sky

for dialogue, learning, and growth.

So keep the feedback and ideas coming.

As we depart today's digital flight, it's time to take that

first step towards cultivating an environment where experimentation

is not just accepted and encouraged.

Be that pioneer in your organization.

Engage and innovate.

Now it's time for the digital flight throttle up here at digital flight.

I conclude each episode with a throttle up moment.

It's our way of turning up that energy and inspiration as we wrap up.

Think of it as that final boost that propels a rocket into its final orbit.

Remember, this journey that we're on is not just about the

destinations we might reach.

It's far more about the transformation we're experiencing along the way,

the connections that we forge, and the legacy that we're building.

So as you navigate the intricate digital skies, keep this in mind.

Be precise.

In the vast expanse of the digital realm, accuracy and a keen eye for detail

will be your best navigational tools.

Be proactive.

Don't just react to the winds of change.

Anticipate them.

Look ahead.

Identify potential challenges and opportunities and adjust your course.

And finally, be pioneering.

Embrace the spirit of innovation.

The digital frontier is vast and ever expanding.

Stay brave in the face of uncertainty.

Stay endlessly curious about the world around you, and more

than anything, keep pioneering.

You're not just flying through the digital age, you're charting its course.

Until next time, keep your throttle up, and your eyes on the skies.

Safe travel, digital pilots.

Wheels up.