Learning Smarter, Eating Less, and Innovating Better with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we talk about Google's Learn Your Way platform, the ripple effects of GLP-1 Medications. And we explored the $10,000 question of why startups build products nobody wants. Let's get started.

Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help innovation leaders navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to grow and thrive in a world of hyper uncertainty and accelerating change. Join me, Brian Ardinger and Mile Zero's, Robyn Bolton. As we discuss the latest tools, tactics, and trends for creating innovations with impact. Let's get started.

Podcast Transcript with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton

Google’s Personalized Learning and the Future of Education

[00:00:40] Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And with me, I have Robyn Bolton from Mile Zero. Welcome, Robyn. 

[00:00:48] Robyn Bolton: Thank you. Great to be here as always, Brian. 

[00:00:51] Brian Ardinger: It is exciting to have you on the podcast as our co-host. We always have some great conversations, and this week is no different.

We've got three articles we want to talk about, and we're going to start with Google. Google has just solved one of the oldest problems in education, according to Albano Cintas. He has a Twitter post that I saw. In that, he talked about how Google has dropped Learn Your Way, which basically rewrites textbooks based on your individual interests.

It's turning boring lectures into fun lessons. Students say that they've used it and have scored 78% versus 67% on retention tests. So maybe it actually works. Let's talk a little bit about Google and other things impacting the world of education. 

[00:01:31] Robyn Bolton: When I saw the post, I immediately went to Learn Your Way and I took some of their sample lessons, one on economics, an overview of economic systems, and another one on intro to data structures and algorithms, and for the last several years, I've worked a lot with a company in the K through eight curriculum industry. And I immediately sent this to them, with the message, "Uh oh." 

Because clicking into the system, and I highly encourage listeners, go try one of these out. You know, I did computer science as if I was a middle schooler who enjoyed cooking and food, and I had the option of reading the textbook sort of thing, but having quizzes every couple paragraphs to make sure I was learning.

I could watch a slideshow with a voiceover. I could just listen to the voiceover. I could look at a mind map. I was surprised at how many different modalities that I needed to use. But I also did really well on the quizzes, especially the data algorithms, which I usually find computer science stuff very boring. So this feels a hundred percent like the future of learning and truly personalized learning to all the different mechanisms that students have and how different students learn differently. 

[00:02:54] Brian Ardinger: It's quite exciting and you add that onto the things that you can learn from YouTube. Obviously, Google owns YouTube. They have access to all those particular things, so I'd imagine there's some opportunities and ways they can tie those particular entities together in some way to get you access to just the right paragraph or just the right video clip or things along those lines.

You know, I work in Nelnet in the education space, and we're always looking at how is the world of education changing? How does this impact higher education? How does it impact K through 12? How does it affect student loans? All these things can come into play when you have access to the world's knowledge, and it's fed in such a way that it makes it easier to digest and make it easier for the person to actually learn the stuff.

I think a lot of our existing school system is functioned on, not necessarily even teaching the person to go through it, but to get them through the gauntlet. And what if we created a world that allowed them to actually learn and created folks that had better tool sets, mindset, skill sets around that. How would that change the world? It's one of those few things of AI that's positive.

GLP-1 Medications and Shifting Consumer Behavior

[00:03:58] Robyn Bolton: Yes, that is positive. We always have to look at the systems out there. And you know Google, yes, has YouTube. It also has Google Classroom, which is the learning management system. So, you already have a lot of teachers in schools plugged into Google, already using it for so many aspects in the classroom. This just fit perfectly, seamlessly, fits in, especially to get better results. It's a wild new world. I love making it relevant to students and their interests and how they learn. 

[00:04:28] Brian Ardinger: The second article is a good transition because it moves away from ai, but it's yet another innovation that could have significant effects on a lot of different things.

And the article's from Harvard Business Review, and it's how GLP-1 medications are changing consumer behavior. They took a look at PWC analysis, looked at GLP medications like Ozempic. They're actually. Looking at the behavior, and it's pretty incredible in the analysis, more than 11,000 households, they looked at the grocery spending and it declined 6 to 8% within the first 12 months of a household that went on GLP-1 as their primary food purchaser.

Not only that, so it was a sharp contraction of a category that doesn't typically shift that fast or it's much more likely to shift slowly if you are gonna change your diet and grocery spending habits. But it also, the total household spending outlays only failed 2 to 3%. So it's showing that it actually was pointing to some reallocation of those savings towards other categories. So, you know, I'll pose the question to you. You used to work at P&G. If the entire consumer product space is changed by one particular drug, how is that going to shape the world? 

[00:05:37] Robyn Bolton: It's a really great question. What I found so interesting about the data is that, and I have a family member who is on a GLP-1 and so know that like their appetite just shrinks. Like they just get to a point very quickly in a meal where they're like, I'm done. I don't want to eat anymore. So you're consuming less food, which then leads to a decision at the store like, well, I used to buy, you know, hamburger meat, but we're eating so little. Why don't I upgrade the beef that I get?

Like, so instead of ground beef, let's get filet mignon. And so that's why you're seeing the dichotomy of the data in there. So, I think what it does is it actually puts, especially for food and beverage companies, I think it actually puts the onus on them to start creating more premium products. And instead of how cheap can we get this? How can we get a lot of food really cheap into bags, into boxes? It's flipping it to say, how can we create these premium experiences that are, it's a bite of chocolate instead of a bag of chocolate. 

[00:06:40] Brian Ardinger: Well, how can we not necessarily have to pack every single calorie into every single bite? There's a whole food process industry that's been designed to create and pack high-calorie content that tastes good. You know, the other thing I've seen about the GLP-1s is it's not necessarily all...