Humans of Martech

What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of chatting with the profoundly eloquent Juan Mendoza.Summary: Juan unpacks the unique journey of OpenAI, underscoring the importance of distinguishing between tech hype and real value. As AI intertwines with our lives, Juan highlights the delicate dance of harnessing its efficiency while preserving human creativity. He calls for a critical balance in using AI as a creative aid without stunting our own creative prowess. Amid the benefits, Juan also raises crucial questions about trust and privacy, advocating for marketers to use AI responsibly. Ultimately, this episode reaffirms the need to thoughtfully navigate AI’s limitless potential while upholding our fundamental human values and ethics.About JuanJuan is based in Melbourne, Australia where he got his start in various roles including startup marketing, martech strategy and conversion rate optimization.  He spent 4 years at The Lumery, a premier Martech consulting shop where he worked on customer centric strategies across various channels.In 2020, he started the Martech Weekly, a newsletter covering where the industry is going and why.He’s also the host of the Making Sense of Martech podcast, an extension of his newsletterOne podcast and a newsletter isn’t enough for Juan though, in 2022 he teamed up with Scott Brinker and started the Big Martech show covering big news and big ideas in Martech4 months after launching a premium subscription and growing his newsletter to thousands of martech pros over 65 countries, Juan decided to go full-time on TMW Recently he announced TMW 100 – a global Martech awards event ranking the most innovative marketing technology companies from 1st to 100th placeThe OpenAI Approach: Laser-Focus and High-Quality Language ModelsJuan underscored the significance of OpenAI’s niche focus and dedication to developing large-scale language models. Unlike big tech giants—Google, Amazon, Meta and others—who spread their resources and attention over various types of AI technologies, OpenAI chose a distinct path. They concentrated all their efforts on building transformative generative models like GPT-3 and GPT-4, which set the groundwork for the success of ChatGPT.Juan suggested that OpenAI’s edge lies in their extreme focus, patience, and funding. Established as a Silicon Valley tech company, OpenAI was backed by tech tycoons like Elon Musk and Microsoft, as well as some of the world’s largest venture capital firms. However, OpenAI’s goal differed. They weren’t trying to distribute AI across various services and products. Instead, they strived to create something unique and powerful—a tool that could manipulate language with an unprecedented level of precision.Juan further highlighted how OpenAI’s technology feels “magical” compared to competitors. For instance, Google’s BERT, although an impressive model, doesn’t meet the same level of accuracy as ChatGPT. Moreover, it ‘hallucinates’—generates incorrect or nonsensical outputs—significantly more often than ChatGPT.Juan also reminded us of the chatbot craze of 2016, which, despite the hype, resulted in less-than-stellar customer experiences. Fast forward to today, the launch of GPT-based models has reinvigorated the chatbot space, breathing new life into the industry. The key difference? An AI agent that can actually provide intelligent, useful responses.Takeaway: OpenAI’s specific concentration on creating large, high-quality language models, backed by extreme patience and funding, was pivotal in their success story. Their dedication to a niche allowed them to develop an AI that is more accurate and less likely to hallucinate than its competitors. This focus transformed the realm of chat interfaces, redefining the future of AI agents and encouraging a fresh wave of startups to build on this advanced technology.The Adoption Race: Comparing ChatGPT and Snapchat’s AI Tools Juan’s analysis of the rapid spread of ChatGPT brought fascinating insights. He cited how ChatGPT became one of the fastest-growing apps globally, reaching a million users in merely five days. This impressive rate outpaced even Instagram and TikTok’s growth, both of which took weeks to months to reach the same number of users. He attributed this meteoric rise to the simple yet brilliant user experience, which only required users to create an account and start chatting.However, Juan posed an interesting counter-argument, comparing ChatGPT’s growth with the newly launched AI tool by Snapchat—Snap AI. Despite being on the market for only two months, Snap AI already boasts 125 million users and over 10 billion messages sent. It reached 100 million users faster than ChatGPT, achieving the feat in just two months compared to ChatGPT’s four to five months.Juan speculated on the factors driving Snap AI’s rapid growth, posing two possibilities. One might be the timing—Snap AI could be riding the wave of excitement and acceptance generated by GPT-based technology. Another potential factor could be a generational shift, with younger users flocking to the more AI-enhanced environments provided by platforms like Snapchat.Takeaway: While ChatGPT has been a massive success, becoming one of the fastest-growing apps globally, other AI tools, like Snap AI, are rising quickly in the adoption race. The rapid growth of these platforms may be due to a combination of riding the AI hype cycle and a generational shift towards AI-enhanced environments. It is a reminder that, in the ever-evolving AI space, being first to market doesn’t always mean you’ll be the fastest-growing or most widely adopted solution.The Metaverse, AI and the Hype Cycle: A Critical AnalysisJuan expressed his concerns about the hype cycle surrounding emerging technologies like AI, the metaverse, and web 3.0. He opined that such hype cycles often lead to exhaustion, especially among senior individuals who are tired of constant pitches for the “next big thing.”Juan cited an example where he was at a conference and representatives from Meta and an advertising agency were zealously promoting the metaverse. According to him, they were pushing marketers to prepare for the metaverse, without critically analyzing why it should be included in their marketing strategies in the first place.Juan also expressed disappointment in certain consultancy companies for their uncritical acceptance of Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the metaverse. McKinsey, Accenture, and Bloomberg were among those criticized by Juan for their generous predictions of the metaverse’s economic impact, without rigorous analysis of the feasibility and practical implementation of this new trend.Contrasting this with the iPhone, Juan pointed out that it took five years for the iPhone to reach mass consumer market penetration, despite it being recognized as one of the most significant shifts in consumer experiences, software development, and mobile technology. Thus, according to Juan, hype without actual products often...

Boris Jabes, Co-founder and CEO of Census and a former Microsoft Program Manager, shares insights from his journey in tech and entrepreneurship. He discusses the evolution of Customer Data Platforms, emphasizing the shift toward composable architectures for better data management. Boris covers the importance of collaboration between marketing and data teams, detailing how reverse ETL can break down silos. He also addresses AI's role in marketing, weighing its advantages against the challenges of maintaining data trustworthiness.

In our latest episode, we're thrilled to feature Dan Balcauski, Founder of Product Tranquility, as we navigate the world of SaaS pricing models.About Dan BalcauskiStarted his career in product management at National Instruments, based in Austin, Texas.Ascended to the role of Product Strategy Principal at SolarWinds, a SaaS company serving DevOps and IT professionals.Made a significant shift to B2C, leading product at LawnStarter Lawn Care.Boasted a successful freelance career as a product manager, earning a place in the top 3% of PM professionals worldwide on Toptal.Imparts his industry knowledge as a program leader at Northwestern University, where he teaches product strategy.In 2019, Balcauski launched Product Tranquility, a venture dedicated to assisting B2B SaaS CEOs in defining pricing and packaging for their products.A Personal AdventureWhat sets Balcauski apart is his remarkable spirit of adventure. Before starting Product Tranquility, he embarked on a personal voyage as an independent travel consultant, planning and undertaking a global expedition through 21 countries. This extraordinary journey demonstrated his fervor for continuous learning, during which he acquired new skills ranging from digital marketing and Spanish proficiency to kiteboarding and Argentine Tango.Join us as we dive deep into the insights and stories Balcauski brings to the table.Value-Based PricingIn our engaging chat, Dan Balcauski brought up some crucial insights regarding the struggles businesses often face while setting up pricing in the SaaS industry. There's often a lack of structure, leading to heated debates rather than an organized approach. To combat this, Balcauski introduces the 'Services' model.Key Challenges in Pricing:An unclear target customer profile: Companies often struggle to understand exactly who they are serving.Poor understanding of how they create customer value: Businesses might be unclear on the unique value they deliver to their customers.Unclear product differentiation: Companies often grapple with distinguishing their products from others in the market.Underappreciation for the depth of decisions in pricing and packaging: Many overlook the vast array of factors impacting pricing, focusing only on surface-level elements.The 'Services' Model:The 'Services' model stands for Segments, Value, Competition, and Strategy, and was designed to address these challenges.Segments: Understand the specific context and constraints of your customer segments, as they dictate what they value most.Value: Recognize how each segment perceives value and rank orders value drivers, influencing how they value your product.Competition: Be aware of the competitive alternatives each segment has available. What would they use if your product didn't exist?Strategy: This comes in the Michael Porter sense of the word. Strategy involves trade-offs; you can't be everything to everyone. Decide who you're going to target, how you position yourselves in their minds, and how you'll balance the different elements of SaaS packaging. This includes price metrics, price models, offer configurations, etc.The combination of these four components informs the price level you set, helping your business achieve its objectives. The 'Services' model ensures a more thoughtful, strategic approach to pricing, moving away from arbitrary decisions.What is value based pricing? Dan Balcauski clarified the concept of value-based pricing and distinguished it from other terms like value metrics and price metrics.Value-Based PricingValue-based pricing, at its core, concerns how value is divided between buyer and seller in a transaction. This notion dates back to Adam Smith and the concept of trade, where specialization and trading lead to overall improvements for everyone involved.“...goes all the way back to Adam Smith with trade, right, you've got the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker, they don't all try to, you know, bake their own bread and cut their own meat, etc. Because it's better if we all specialize, we're all better off if we specialize in trade, right.” - Dan Balcauski Value Metric vs. Price MetricValue Metric: Using a 'Jobs to be Done' framework, the value metric is how customers measure the effectiveness of your product in achieving their specific outcomes. These outcomes could be economic (saving time, decreasing costs, increasing revenue), emotional (reducing anxiety, boosting status), or social (contributing to causes like climate change, equal rights, education, health care).Price Metric: While value metrics focus on the customer, price metrics focus on the product. The price metric is the unit of value for which the customer is charged concerning the product (e.g., number of users, API transactions, gigabytes of data transferred, etc.). Ideally, the value metric and price metric should be correlated, meaning that the way customers derive value from your product should inform the units by which you charge.Outcome-Based PricingThe question of charging based on actual value delivered, like a CRM charging based on deals closed every month instead of the number of users, led to the discussion of outcome-based pricing. This model aligns the vendor with the customer's success, creating a 'pure' form of value-based pricing.While this approach is theoretically appealing, Balcauski explains it doesn't always work in practice. Exceptions include companies like Stripe, which directly participates in the payment flow and therefore aligns its success with its clients' success.Outcome-based pricing may not work well for companies outside the flow of the success metric. It can lead to complications in reporting and potential conflicts, given that what is considered 'success' may not be clearly defined or could be interpreted differently by different parties. Therefore, while enticing, outcome-based pricing requires careful implementation to avoid straining customer relationships.Bundling and Unbundling in Pricing Models**Bundling, Unbundling, and Usage-Based Pricing**Bundling and unbundling, while seemingly contrary, are not in tension with usage-based pricing. These concepts represent different dimensions of product packaging that can evolve independently. According to the Silicon Valley CEO Jim Clark, the only two ways to make money in business are bundling and unbundling.The history of the PC industry illustrates this with the evolution from monolithic providers like IBM to the unbundling of the operating system from the CPU architecture (as seen with the Wintel monopoly), and then back to bundling via Apple's integration of software and hardware. Dan highlights that such industry transformations often occur cyclically and are influenced by broader market trends rather than by single companies.The Nuances of Pricing MetricsPricing metrics, while essential for defining a product's price, can either aid or hinder a company's competitive positioning. The choice of pricing metric depends sign...

What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of chatting with Mike Rizzo, you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who’s done as much for the marketing Ops community.He got his start in marketing at California-based tech startups and eventually worked in b2b SaaS where he got his hands dirty in several martech toolsIn 2017, he founded MO Pros, a Slack channel dedicated to connecting with Marketing Operations ProfessionalsMike also took a short turn in the agency world where he was Director of Marketing Strategy for Client Accounts at Human, Orange County’s full-service Inbound Marketing Agency He then returned in-house and boomeranged back to one of his earliest startups to lead Community and Loyalty programsHe’s also the co-host of Ops Cast by MO Pros, a podcast for Marketing Ops Pros by Marketing Ops ProsLast year, Mike double down on the community he started and launched MarketingOps.com taking a community-led approach to building career resources that are purpose-built for MO ProsToday, his community counts more than 4,000 martech professionals and is one of the few communities I frequent on a daily basisMike, excited to have you on, not sure why it’s taken this long to chat with you.MO ProsRecently you shared that you don’t take any payroll from MarketingOps(.)com despite all the costs and time you pour into this venture. I was kind of shocked by this honestly. This isn’t just a podcast that you’re spending a few hours on every week. I imagine quite a bit more work and a lot more tech. Can you shine a light on everything that is MO Pros these days and is the revenue you are generating from it just re-invested into the community and paying your costs? What’s stopping you from going all-in on this project?"No Bullsh*t Demo" programI think one of the things that sets your community apart from both a user but also a sponsor/brand perspective is your "No Bullsh*t Demo" program. I’ve sat in on a few of these and for martech companies selling to marketers, this is one of the best ways to reach your ICP.Walk us through how you got this idea and if you’re seeing this more in other communities?MOPS-APALOOZA https://marketingops.com/mopsapalooza23/ You’ve got a big conference coming up in Nov later this year featuring big name speakers like Scott Brinker (Chiefmartec) and Juan Mendoza (TMW). I’d love to hear the story behind creating an in person event and how you went about it and getting big name speakers?I’ll give you the floor to pitch the conference to the audience. Why is this going to be different from other events we’ve been to? You know those events that cost a pretty penny only to get disappointed by talks and come back to your company with little insights and a few new business cards.What’s a certified marketing ops pro?Recently you ranted about take-home assignments in interview rounds and asked the community how we might find ways to prove the skills we have in MOps AHEAD of our next interview. You got a lot of interesting comments on your post. One thing I was surprised that no one commented about is how wildly different the role of MOps is at a startup as a 1 person MOPs team doing everything under the sun vs. at a big 50+ MOps team at a massive enterprise company. I’ve seen this first hand. Different skills and different types of humans… maybe there’s a cert for startup/smb/enterprise marketing ops proBased on the feedback you got, what’s your current thoughts on this, what’s a certified marketing ops pro?AI not replacing any marketers any time soonWe can’t get through a podcast these days without talking about something that’s on everyone’s minds, even if some of us have muted all those AI tech bros on Twitter… I don’t think you’d describe yourself as an AI critic or detractor but you’ve said in a few places that you don’t think AI will be replacing any marketing jobs any time soon.I think the key thing here is that you’re using the term “anytime soon” haha… that could be 3 months like it could be 5 years so you’re saving yourself from potential ridicule by not giving a fixed definition on your time horizon.But maybe we can spend a bit of time here because this is something we don’t totally agree on.AI not replacing community-focused rolesIn our 4 part series on AI, we had a deep dive into how to prepare and future proof your career, potentially exploring new areas of marketing that will be less likely to be impacted. One of those is community-focused roles, which you obviously know a thing or two about.What advice would you have for listeners who don’t have any or little experience with community and events to get some experience and potentially explore this area of speciality?Immersive, personalized events of the futureWe’re big sci-fi fans here on the podcast and love thinking about the speculative future. What are some of the areas that excite you the most about the future of community-led marketing? One that’s thrown around a lot – and likely only going to get even crazier with Apple’s Vision Pro announcement –  is VR and metaverse applications, curious what your thoughts are on: Immersive, personalized events. A future that involves more gamification and VR activations. Starting a fractional businessJon to free form this one – curiosity is a good theme – adventure – I’m very curious about how you choose what you go - what lessons you wish you could bring back to yourself 5-10 years ago…Last questionMike – you’re a founder and CEO, a podcaster, a community moderator, a community-led freelancer, a speaker, a conference organizer, a husband and father of two, a football fanatic… you have a lot going on… One question we ask all our guests is how do you remain happy and successful in your career? How do you find balance between all the things you’re working on while staying happy?—Intro music by Wowa via UnminusCover art created with Midjourney

What’s up folks, today we have a super fun conversation with Pratik Desai, Founder and Chief Architect at 1to1.Pratik’s a Rocket Scientist turned Martech personalization expertHe’s armed with a bachelor’s from Rutgers in Aerospace and Mechanical EngineeringHe got his start at Accenture in Technology Consulting and later J&J in consumer apps as a digital product managerHe later took a deep dive into Martech when he became Lead product manager at PVH focused on Salesforce Marketing productsThis led him to spend 3 years at Salesforce where he worked his way up to Personalization Practice Lead (Head of Delivery Services for Personalization)Most recently, Pratik started his own agency called 1to1 to focus on personalization strategy and implementation He also runs a weekly AI Discussion Group to help folks keep up with the fast changing landscape of Curation and Generative AIHe’s a well traveled, trivia loving full stack developerPratik, pumped to chat with you today, thanks for your time!From Aerospace and Sci-fi to martech and personalization Pratik, you have a degree in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering as well as your pilot license, is this all a backup plan for AI takeover and you naturally shift to space exploration and interplanetary marketing? 😆Pratik’s answer: Aerospace industry wasn’t as mainstream when I graduated and the lucrative Aerospace jobs were in defense. I struggled to see myself going down that route and…Accenture does a damn good job of recruiting engineers out of RutgersLuck is taking the opportunities as they present themselves….which really just set the tone for my career for the next 10 yearsThe pilot's license came after! After a few years of working in technology, I started to miss the thrills of aviation and decided to get a private pilot's license. The feeling of freedom you get when you start traveling is exponentially increased when you actually fly yourself there! What does aerospace and martech have in common? In preparation to transition to my next question we asked ChatGPT what martech and aerospace have in common, it said. Data-driven decision making: In both cases, the ability to collect, analyze, and make decisions based on data is critical.Technological advancements and innovation, specifically use of simulation and modeling tools: Both fields need to stay at the cutting edge of technology to be effective. Problem-solving and customer-centric approach: Both fields involve solving complex problems while keeping the user in mind. Integration: Whether it’s engines, avionics, control systems or landing gear or if it’s CRMs, CMSs, CDPs and MAPs… Both aerospace and martech involve the integration of multiple systems and components.Which one would you pick?Pratik’s answer: Studying engineering definitely sets you up for success in so many different industries. The problem-solving coupled with the data-centric decision making puts you on a path that really helps you excelBut the biggest parallel to getting things right would be integrations. In Aerospace Engineering, there are SO many systems that have to work together and if they don’t, the outcomes could be catastrophic. I can’t tell you the amount of MarTech implementations that I’ve been apart of where integrations don’t get enough love, for various reasons:The source or destination system is owned by a team that wasn’t informed of the transformationThe IT team has conflicting prioritiesETL transfers are easier, so we’ll start there - and it just never becomes priority to make things real-timeEtc Science fictionWe’re huge fans of science fiction on the podcast, so I’d be remiss not to take a short turn here. I made a big assumption here but based on your field of study I guessed that you are a sci-fi fan… I’d love to get your list of favorite science fiction books or movies but more importantly I’d love your take on the speculative future of personalization and what that looks like according to Pratik?I recently read All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai and in one of his alternate future timelines he describes a world where advertising isn’t just 1to1, it’s also tailored based on your mood that day, what you had for breakfast, events on your calendar next week. The protagonist’s big idea is to offer consumers a flat fee to opt out of ads completely, but it’s a big flop. In that world, consumers actually wanted hyper tailored ads.Pratik’s answer: First, I absolutely LOVE time travel stories. I think we, as a society, have learned so much about how the physical world works - it’s fascinating to see how movies/books start to build out the rules for things we don’t understand. With time travel, time dilation is a starting point - but then you’re really free to start building your own rules. Are we in a multiverse? A fixed timeline? A dynamic timeline? Some of my favorites in how they build out the rules and create logical consistencies: Primer, InterstellarThat being said, I TRULY agree that consumers crave hyper-personalization down to minute by minute desires - in my mind, the BIG question is whether or not you’re personalizing to remove friction and promote tailored discovery OR are you personalizing with the intent to misinform, and consequently influence outcomes. It’s SUCH a fine line and intent is crucial. My network and I have spent a lot of time thinking about this - to the point where we even had Y Combinators attention for a bit on a universal preference center. The rules of engagement are the problem because they’re so ambiguous:Where and when does personalization begin? What opt-in and opt-out ability exists without adding additional friction?How do you balance guiding and promoting discovery with the desire to change behaviors?How does a customer's willingness to accept personalization change from e-Commerce to media companies?What control, if any, does a customer have over their personalized journeys with you?At what point should you trigger customer awareness that personalization is or isn’t happening?The road to building and launching 1to1The human side of launching a martech agencyYou founded 1to1, your agency in Oct 2022, at the time of recording you’re about 9 months into the journey. You’ve already surpassed what? 35 personalization implementations!Talk to us about the human side of this journey so far, how have you managed all the sleepless nights, the mistakes and all the contract negotiations?Pratik’s answer: 1to1, to date, has managed 35 MCP implementations ranging from eCommerce to financial services to the streaming industryThe sleepless nights are real. In the beginning…. I was staying up worrying about where our work is coming from next. Now, I stay up worrying about how to fulfill the amount of work we’re partnering on. I’ve evolved to better sleepless nights I’ve made so many mistakes and I plan on making so many more. I think the beauty of working in MarTech is uniquely understanding the power of experimentation. I’ve learned SO much from all the mistakes I’ve made and tha...

Today, we are diving deep into a topic that's pertinent in our fast-paced, hyper-connected world… no not AI, taking a break from that haha - Talking about escapism, and the importance of disconnecting from work. On the show we like to balance the hard martech topics but also the human angle. This is an episode that feels quite timely. In a time where being 'always-on' is the norm, and our work Slack is just a ping away, it's crucial to understand the significance of stepping back. Escapism isn't just about dodging reality or ignoring responsibilities; it's about giving our minds the necessary break to recharge and rejuvenate. I’m a big fan of fiction and love sharing top TV show and book picks and always wanted to find an excuse to do this on the podcast so what better way to do it then an episode about the benefits of escapism and detaching from work. So stay tuned later in the episode for my fav TV shows and books.Here’s today’s main takeaway: When used properly, escapism through fictional narratives is an essential aspect of maintaining our mental health, enhancing our overall creativity and helping us become better humans. The irony of recording this episode on the weekend isn’t lost on me, but this is my hobby and we’re having our best month ever on the podcast so I wanted to keep the momentum going and continue giving JT a bit of a break. Here’s a quick outline of what I’ll cover today:Definitions, what is escapism, what is healthy, escapism and what’s the difference between meditationThe importance of disconnecting from work and how to successfully do thisWhat happens to your brain when you indulge in fictional narratives Strategies for healthy escapismMy top TV shows and my top booksHow to strike a balance and avoid over-reliance I’ll start off by confessing that I didn’t always think this (that escapism is an essential aspect of maintaining our mental health and enhancing our creativity). In my younger career, I fully embodied the idea that an hour spent on learning things that can’t help your career is an hour wasted. If I read a book, it was about business or marketing.If I was listening to a podcast, it was about marketing automation.If I was reading a blog or a newsletter, it was about martech.If I was watching Youtube videos it was Photoshop tutorials.While this is great and likely contributed to increased performance at work, it didn’t give my brain the break it needed to disconnect from work topics.Movies and TV shows were the exception though. If I watched a movie it was sometimes a documentary about consumerism or psychology but movies were where I got my main dose of fiction. I grew up an avid movie buff and watched all the classics and most of IMDB’s top 250 movies of all time. I didn’t grow up in a household with workaholic parents but they did love their work. My dad, specifically a photographer and video editor, spent a lot of his down time watching youtube videos and tutorials following industry tech and other photographers. He’s definitely a source for instilling this growth mindset in me. But what he also did was read a lot of books. Some non fiction biographies, but lots, lots of fiction. John Sandford, Ian Rankin, Peter James. I guess it kind of instilled this idea that you can be amazing at your craft, but still indulge in fiction.I’ve had several jobs that you could describe as high expectation, high pressure. I remember when the shift to remote work began a few years back. Working from home was initially exciting. No commuting, being in the comfort of my own space, it sounded amazing. But soon, the boundaries between my work life and personal life began to fade. My home was my office, and my office was my home. I found myself answering Slack messages on the couch and at dinner time and checking email campaign reports late into the night.The expectation to almost always be online to answer questions for teammates that work in different time zones was real. Reflecting back, my health took a hit, my personal relationships suffered and my anxiety grew.Some days were always more stressful than others, but I think aside from learning to build boundaries and deleting Slack on my phone, one of my coping mechanisms and what inspired my ability to separate work from home was the ability to disconnect, mainly through fiction.DefinitionsI should’ve started with this disclaimer, I’m not a psychologist or a counselor. I do work for a startup conquering addiction that employs a large group of clinicians and counselors, but I’m not an expert. I’m not saying, watching movies and reading books and ignoring your life responsibilities is the key to managing stress. It’s worth unpacking the positive and negative lights of escapism.  Let’s start with defining the concept of escapism. What is escapism?The common definition of escapism is a psychological concept where a person distances themselves from the realities of life, often as a coping mechanism to alleviate stress. This disengagement from reality can take on various forms, including immersive experiences in music, books, movies, video games, or other hobbies. I like to think of escapism less as an escape from reality and more as the ability to seek solace in alternative realities to give you a different perspective on your current reality instead of just focusing on the unpleasant or mundane aspects of everyday life and work. It’s a way of stepping outside of yourself, so to speak, to get distractions or find relief from real life. Healthy escapismMore simply, escapism is temporarily diverting your attention from the routine of daily life. That’s what many refer to as healthy escapism. Healthy escapism isn't about avoiding reality, but taking necessary breaks to recharge. These breaks diving into fiction stimulate different areas of the brain, promoting overall mental well-being. But remember, the key is balance. All forms of escapism can be beneficial when used mindfully and in moderation.Escapism vs mindfulnessThere are several psychologists who perceive escapism negatively. Often thought of as a way to avoid responsibilities. Excessive escapism could cause individuals to become increasingly disconnected from reality. It can become a crutch that inhibits personal growth and problem-solving, and in extreme cases, it can escalate into addictive behaviors. It’s worth calling this out. Some even argue that escapism is the opposite of mindfulness (source).While it's true that escapism can be a diversion from facing reality and seemingly at odds with mindfulness, it doesn't have to be seen in such a negative light. Engaging in a good book, video game, or movie, can provide a needed break from reality, which is not only healthy but necessary in managing stress. It gives us time to recharge and provides a mental buffer to deal with life and work.I’ll make the case more i...

What’s up folks, today we’re joined by Bobby Tichy, he’s Co-Founder and Chief Solutions Officer at Stitch. Bobby’s a highly respected Martech veteran having spent over a decade working in technical roles for some of the biggest names in martech:He spent a combined 6.5 years working on the Professional services teams at arguably 2 of the most well known companies in martech, Salesforce and Marketo where he was able to lead and support countless implementation projects for some of the biggest brands in the world.At Salesforce he focused on Marketing Cloud technical and functional architecture. At Marketo he focused on project and program management.In 2016, he left the in-house world and jumped to the agency side of martech working at Lev (a premier Salesforce consultancy) for 6+ years where he focused on Marketing and Enterprise architecture solutions. He also co-founded the In the Clouds Podcast, a show about Salesforce Marketing Cloud.Last year, after Lev was acquired by Cognizant, he co-founded Stitch leading their solutions team. Stitch is a new martech consultancy that specializes in Segment and Braze tech stacks.Bobby’s an expert in all things marketing technology architecture, customer data platforms, customer journeys and Dachshund dogs as the proud dog dad of 3. Bobby, welcome to the show, pumped to chat today.In-house vs agencyI’d love to start by getting your take on agency vs in-house, pros and cons and maybe get the inside scoop on going from SF to arch-nemesis Marketo a few years ago?I think the, the easiest way to think about agency versus in-house is when I was at Salesforce and Marketo, you’re really just focused on the specific problem as it relates to the technology. So that might be implementing, you know, Salesforce, Marketing Cloud or implementing Marketo for a particular customer. But when we’re on the consulting side or the consultancy side, you’re really more focused on that customer. So what problem are we trying to solve? It’s much more about business problems and outcomes than it is technology problems and outcomes.That’s probably the best way to think about it. Or at least the the biggest delineation that I’ve seen over the years, which the consulting side is so much more fun and so much more complex. It has each has its own challenges.On the SF to Marketo switch, I think I I was so naive at that point I had no clue that it was like moving to their arch nemesis. Now it would be like going from Braze to Iterable or you know something along those lines. And it was interesting because I even remember at the time, once I got to Marketo, there were all these kind of rumblings. You never know if they were founded or not. But you know when Exact Target got acquired by Salesforce, was it, you know, who are the other bidders? And I don’t know if you ever listened to the Acquired Podcast, but there’s an episode of Acquired on Exact Target and Scott Dorsey goes through like that whole process. Which is pretty neat. And then he mentions the SEC filings, they actually have to disclose, they don’t disclose the actual companies, but you can kind of deduce who the other bidders were. It’s kind of neat to go through.But anyway when I got to Marketo, there was like all this conversation about Salesforce because the Salesforce and Marketo integration (at the time) was market leading as far as market automation platforms were concerned and the Exact Target and Salesforce integration was not all that great at the time. Now obviously that’s totally flipped, but at the time it was interesting because I remember my first two projects on Marketo and Salesforce, I would kind of throw Exact Target under the bus a little bit with the horrible integration they had with Salesforce even though they were part of the same company. But I I had no idea to your point kind of like the political elements of my switch at the time.Switching platform expertise, from SFMC to Marketo to BrazeSo you went from SFMC to Marketo before going back to a SFMC focused agency but now you’ve left both platforms and at Stitch you guys focus on Segment + Braze. Did you play around with Braze before joining?(At Lev) we had a couple of large enterprise media entertainment customers that were leveraging both Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Braze and so they would use SFMC for journey orchestration and e-mail and then Braze for mobile because it’s the mobile capabilities were so much better. The UI is a little bit better too, especially for marketers. And so that was our first introduction to that platform and then as as we were leaving Lev and trying to figure out what we were going to do next.Everyone that we talked to, people from Movable Inc, people from Salesforce, you know sales leaders there and other people in the Martech ecosystem, all of them were saying like Braze was really where a lot of the marketers were going because it combined a lot of what we all loved about Martech, which was the advanced use cases, the power of the data. But combined all that with better usability, more real time, better mobile capability. So it just seemed like a perfect marriage of what we had experience in, but then also what was up and coming?How would you differentiate the companies that use Braze versus Marketo or SFMC?These are broad strokes, so they’re not specific or like universal comments. But I think the number one thing that we’ve seen for folks who are using Braze is those teams are typically more innovative and fast moving where they’re relying on marketers to build out campaigns and be in the tool every day and where they they understand. I think the other area of that too is they have the best understanding of their data. So what’s really awesome about Braze is this, this real time or event based architecture but also the the ability to to layer in some of those things.One thing that we always came up against whether it was at Marketo or Salesforce Marketing Cloud was we don’t want to bring in all of our PII into the platform. And so you started to see like Movable Inc does a really good job of this, of being able to combine multiple different data sets and then just put to like push out a piece of content or copy that is personalized. But Movable Inc doesn’t require that PII, It’s just based on these integrations that are happening in real time and with Braze we can do something very similar right where I can call out to my Snowflake instance at the time of an e-mail send and I don’t have to bring that PII into the platform, but I can still populate the PII and the e-mail. So these things that are are really fast-paced and moving.I think the area where Marketo is great is on the B2B side. We always saw a lot of customers migrate off of Marketo to whether it was SFMC or Braze because they’re trying to use it for B2C campaigns or for high volume campaigns.Implementating Marketo at TeslaThe one example I always like to use, and this is years ago, but I was on the team that was implementing Tesla at Marketo back in I think it was 2015 and they were launching their Model 3 and it took Marketo about 8 hours to send about 2,000,000 emails. And so obviously I’m sure that’s changed, you know being seven years ago, but at the time was a big deal. It took forever, right? And especially coming from Exact Target, which was this unbelievable sending engine. I couldn’t believe it took that long. So suffice to say that was a bit of an e...

What’s up everyone,If you haven’t checked out our previous 3 episodes in our AI series you might want to before this episode, we give you a lot of context around some of the events that have happened and will shape the conversation today.So basicallyHow fast could AI change or replace marketing jobs?How marketers can stay informed and become AI fluentExploring new paths to future-proof your marketing career in the age of AIToday we’re diving into specific tools… there’s a lot of noise out there right now.What tools you should play around withIn TMW #107 | ChatGPT and the artificial marketer, Juan Mendoza explains that“...generative AI tools are already everywhere. From text generation to video and audio production, to image creation, there’s a thriving industry of technologies taking small slices out of our creative talents, packaging them up, and selling them as a SaaS product on a recurring revenue model. If you’re wanting to stay relevant five years from now in the marketing technology industry, you’re probably going to have to learn some of these platforms. In 2010 we used to say: “there’s an app for that”. In 2023, we will be saying: “there’s an AI for that.””OutlineHere are some of the topics for this third AI episode:Key AI technology definitions and how to differentiate real AI tools vs all the noise out thereDeep dive into toolsContent marketing toolsEmail and marketing automation toolsPredictive analytics toolsText to presentation and pitch deck tools3D animation tools for product marketersSales and outreach toolsText to website creator toolsAd and social creative toolsAutoGPT and AI agentsAnd a bunch of other tools like conversational search engines, 1-1 convos with celebrities and an even longer list of honorable mentions Here’s today’s main takeaway:The key to future proofing your marketing career with the ever changing AI landscape is to stay curious, get your hands dirty and experiment fearlessly: Fill out some forms, spin up free trials, get on wait lists, and give new AI tools a chance. It's only by actually getting your hands dirty that you'll discover which tools truly work for you and which are just part of the ever growing sea of gimmicky AI tools.Definition of tech termsI’ll be using some of these terms throughout my analysis of some of these tools so here’s a primer explaining the three most common AI technologies used for marketing applications: MLMachine Learning): ML is a way to teach computers to learn by themselves, without having to be programmed for every task. They learn from examples and data patterns to make predictions or decisions. Applications include segmentation, predictive analytics and propensity models. NLPNatural Language Processing: NLP is a subset of ML and focuses on enabling computers to understand, interpret, and generate human language. Includes sentiment analysis, machine translation, named entity recognition, text summarization, and more. NLP techniques usually helps computers understand and communicate with humans using everyday language. GNNGraph Neural Network: GNN also a subset of ML is a type of neural network that aims to handle graph-structured data, data organized like a network or web of connected points. Applications include analyzing relationships between different things like users in a social network or users in your database or recommending additional products based on past purchase history. Real AI vs noisePart of the reason AI gets a really bad rep, especially in martech, is that anything that’s built on if statements or simple Javascript logic gets called AI. There’s still plenty of AI startups that shout about their proprietary AI when it’s probably just a few decision trees and a few interns running spreadsheets.Now though, you have an even bigger bucket of noise that’s essentially “slight tweak on Chat-GPT”. Developing AI that was comparable to human performance was a challenging feat prior to GPT's arrival. To achieve this level of sophistication, a company would have had to:make a substantial investment, amounting to millions of dollarsdeveloping its own algorithmsperforming extensive data cleanupBut it’s so easy now because GPT is so good out of the box. Allen Cheng puts it simply. Starting a new AI venture can be achieved by simply assembling a few elements: a product developed on GPT-4's user-friendly APIa website, and a marketing campaign. This is why we’re seeing hundreds of AI tolls pop up every week.A lot of these GPT-based products are pretty much indistinguishable from one another. Maybe a handful  have a significant advantage over others but most are gimmicky. And over the next few months, every tool is going to be integrating ChatGPT features inside their products in the hopes of making it stickier.The threat of GPT-nThe part that I find trickiest and the most discouraging about building anything on top of GPT is that any progress you make on fine tuning GPT-4 will totally be wiped out by GPT-5 or GPT-n… Kind of like we talked about in a previous episode with all the tools GPT’s plugins killed. So let’s cut through the noise and dive into legit AI tools, the ones you should be playing with and experimenting. Content marketing toolsCopy.ai and Jasperhttps://copy.ai/ https://jasper.ai/ AI text generators are very common these days, the two most popular tools, especially for marketers are Copy.ai and Jasper. Both allow you to bypass the initial stage of writing where you face a blank page. The promise of these tools is that they help you in generating ideas, saving time on brainstorming and drafting, and ensuring a consistent production flow, freeing you to focus on higher-level strategic tasks, original research, and connecting with your audience.I’ve played around with both Jasper and Copy.ai before ChatGPT came out… and they were super unique. But both Copy.ai and Jasper are built on top of GPT, they essentially rent usage of the platform. So they built a pretty nice UI on top of GPT… but now that ChatGPT came out, I’m sure they’ve seen a drop in usage. Plus GPT-4 is 3 times more expensive.They still offer marketing specific value though and can get you up to speed faster than using CGPT in the form of templates, prompts and workflows. Both are super powerful, you could make a case that Jasper outshin...

What’s up folks. This is part 3 of our deep dive into AI impacts on marketing jobs.I want to start off by apologizing that this episode might be a bit rusty, I’m attempting to record this while fully sleep deprived thanks to a 1 week old newborn at home haha Our daughter arrived nice and early and, yeah it’s been a wild change in sleeping patterns haha.In our first episode we introduced the topic and covered how fast AI could replace marketing jobs and what the transition might look like. In episode 2 we covered ways marketers can stay up to date with the latest advancements in AI.  Next up, 3. Practical changes and new areas marketers can invest in (today)4. Find the top AI marketing tools and filter out the noiseHere’s today’s main takeaway: AI is already disrupting martech but in 5-10 years our jobs are likely going to look very different. Now is the time to figure out if you need to make changes to your current area of speciality in order to future proof your career. Ask yourself if you should double down on additional areas like data and API services, getting closer to product and customers or starting to learn about ethics and data privacy.Today we’ll help you reflect on different options to investigate as you navigate through this future landscape and what job titles of the future might be in store for marketers.Here’s a quick outline of some of the new marketing areas to potentially focus on that might future proof your career if AI becomes as big as some are predictingOutlineAI tech implementation, find ways to use AI and automate tasksData and API services, exposing data from your business to let AI assistants leverage themGetting closer to product and customers, deeply understanding customers is always going to be something hard for AI to replicateCopywriting, generative AI is great at creating the familiar but can’t yet create the newEthics, privacy and responsibility, AI is really bad at displaying the POVs of underrepresented groupsAnd a look into the future at emerging tech, trying to guess some future job titles for marketersI have to admit, what spurred this whole AI series and what led to my diving into the rabbit hole was a genuine fear, or at least serious contemplation about whether I needed to focus on new marketing areas or pivot in some case.New marketing areas to focus onYeah it’s a totally valid question and probably something a lot of marketers are wondering. Phil you had a great episode previously (part 2) that covered how we can stay informed… let’s chat about what you can do practically about your current situation or at least start thinking about career transition strategies. Some of you listening or reading today are probably already in a really nice spot. Our podcast mission is to future proof the humans behind the tech and if you’re already working with marketing tech you’re in a really nice position to continue the shift towards additional AI and automation. We talked a bit about this in the first part of our series – but I think that AI developments represent that same type of shift that we’ve seen in the past. The change always seems bigger when you look back historically, but living through these developments are step functions not quantum leaps.Still – it bears repeating – the pace of change in AI is far faster than other emerging tech we’ve seen in the past. I think while the tech is moving blazingly fast, there is already considerable pressure to throttle development. One thing that is highlighted in that Goldman Sachs fear report about Millions of jobs being replaced by AI is that despite losing millions of jobs, AI may also mean new jobs and a productivity boom.The report cited that 60% of workers are in occupations that did not exist 80 years ago. Think about aht for a second. I think that all you have to do to see how fast things are going is to pay attention to the developments coming out of ChatGPT. I’ve used it a bit and it’s mind blowing what you can do with it. I asked it to design a workout plan for me based on my age and fitness factors. I specifically told it that I couldn’t be sore or too tired while I ramped up - I chase 4 young kids at home, after all. The plan it designed is solid.I think the bigger factor isn’t how to apply this tech, it’s how quickly will use cases become common place. It’s easy to think of an AI reading all your docs and chat logs and then operating as a support chatbot – but how fast are teams going to move on this type of work? What type of engineering is required by the existing team to get this in place? Why do we assume they’ll automatically lose their jobs? Is it possible the extra efficiency can free up time to be spent on higher order tasks? Have you met a support team that isn’t overrun with requests and also have big ideas on how to improve customer success? There’s a process to tech adoption, and I think it has as much to do with confidence in the tools, concerns around ethics/privacy, and actually figuring out how to implement this stuff.Every week there’s like hundreds of new AI tools coming out. We’ll talk in our next episode about some of those tools but obviously the first new marketing area to focus on is AI tech implementation.While the tech is new, the process of adoption is as old as time itself.AI tech implementationThis might actually not be that new in fact. Scott Brinker recently surveyed martech folks and the most popular task in this role is to research and recommend new tools. Some of those new tools are just going to be predominantly AI driven.https://twitter.com/chiefmartec/status/1647291680788283394?s=20 Most of the Twitter bros are in two buckets right now:AI is going to replace every jobAI won’t replace your job… BUT Someone who uses AI will replace your job if you fail to integrate it.I think it benefits a lot of people on social media to stoke fears to generate buzz – and while there’s some truth to that, sure, one could also make an argument that AI could unlock an economic golden age.The question isn’t about the technology – it’s about human nature.As an individual contributor, I think AI will feel like a super power. There is no doubt that there is an opportunity out there for tech savvy marketers to use AI to level up and accelerate their own work. I think it’s fair to say we’ll see general adoption and benefits as well. Let’s unpack this.Peep lays it out nicely here, a nice niche for marketers is Ops folks who continue to find ways to use AI to automate t...

What’s up folks. This is part 2 of our deep dive into AI impacts on marketing jobs.In our last episode we introduced the topic and covered how fast AI could replace marketing jobs and what the transition might look like. It's not like our jobs are gonna vanish overnight, but the shift is happening faster than many of us realize. AI's no longer just a loosely backed buzzword; it's doing things today that we used to think were impossible. So, as marketers, we've gotta take this tech seriously.Next up, 2. Staying informed and keeping up with changes (today)3. Practical ways marketers can adapt for the AI-driven economy4. Find the top AI marketing tools and filter out the noiseOutlineHere are some of the topics for this second episode:Staying informed, who to follow, courses to check outIn person events and networkingExploring new sources of incomeHere’s today’s main takeaway: The impact of AI on the job market is difficult to predict in 5 years let alone 10. The only way to future proof your career and position yourself to thrive in an increasingly AI-driven economy is by staying informed and developing new skills. We’re going to double down on some of these in today’s episode.Commentary/question on shiny object syndrome vs being an early adopter.As a marketer, it’s our job to stay modern - it’s true of any job, but marketing is on the next levelWe self propel change and create our own reasons to change things up. We suffer a bit from herd mentality as well – I think we tend to rush the new trend, be it TikTok or ChatGPT and choose saturation instead of considerationI don’t think the value of being an early adopter is being “first;” rather, it’s giving yourself time to immerse yourself and begin to master the topicTo learn a topic, you simply can’t read 5 blog posts and master it; I firmly believe you need to get hands-on experienceShiny object - Try to make a buck, dispose of poor performer, invest in top performers; easily distracted by next objectEarly adopter - thoughtful approach to seeing new technology as part of wider trend; has playbook or process for learning and evaluating new tech, How marketers can stay informed and become AI fluentStaying up-to-date on the latest developments in AI and AGI is probably the top thing you can do as a marketer. Understanding capabilities as they are released or even pre-released. This allows you to get a leg up on others and see the potential impact on your company, industry and even job market as a whole. My goals would be to understand how AI works, its potential, and limitations. Most marketers don’t have a great grasp on this at all. Invest in learning about AI, ML, deep learning, and related tech. Ultimately try to arm yourself with knowledge to position yourself as a marketing expert in leveraging AI tools to drive revenue.I think you and are very similar in our approach to this: learn from smart people, and then jump in and experiment and get hands-on experience. Phil, your research process is always fire: who are the smart people you’re learning from? People and blogs to followThere’s waaay smarter people that are tracking this stuff. Not all of these have a marketing lens but they often cover marketing aspects. These are my favorite folks to follow.We’ll have links to all of their twitter accounts and their newsletters or podcasts in our show notes. Ed Gilhttps://twitter.com/eladgil https://blog.eladgil.com/ Ed is an awesome follow on Twitter, he’s an investor and advisor in some of the most well known tech companies like Airbnb, Coinbase, Instacart, OpenDoor, Pinterest, Square, Stripe and others. He worked at Google and Twitter after his company Mixer Labs was acquired. Aside from AI he’s highly in touch with everything tech and startups. He doesn’t post super often but he has a solid blog and he’s the co-host of No Priors podcast that features long form chats with the leading engineers, researchers and founders in AI. Ben Tossell (tuh-sell)https://twitter.com/bentossellhttps://bensbites.co/ Ben’s the Founder and CEO of Makerpad, one of the top sites to learn and work on no-code tools. He currently works at Zapier, focusing on AI after they acquired Makerpad last year. Before that he led Community at Product Hunt and later AngelList when they acquired Product Hunt in 2016. He runs one of the most popular AI newsletters called Ben’s Bites, it’s easily been my favorite daily way to stay up-to-date with the latest AI happenings. Sarah Guohttps://twitter.com/saranormous https://linktr.ee/nopriors Sarah’s a startup investor and the founder of Conviction, an early-stage VC firm specialized in AI startups. She made waves in SF during her time at Greylock, a top VC firm in the Valley, where she became their youngest general partner. She’s the other co-host of No Priors podcast alongside Ed Gil. She has an extensive network, and her close association with Andrew Ng (ing), the co-founder and leader of Google Brain, persuaded her that a "deep learning revolution was coming".Natasha Mascarenhashttps://twitter.com/nmasc_ https://pod.link/equity Natasha is a senior tech reporter at TechCrunch covering startups and AI and is the co-host of the Equity podcast. She wrote a super interesting article that summarized the discussions that took place during the Cerebral Valley Summit earlier this month. Ben Parrhttps://twitter.com/benparr https://benparr.substack.com/ Ben Parr is a seasoned tech industry analyst, he’s a journalist, author, investor, founder, and operator. Known for being Editor at Mashable and journalist at CNET, he’s also the co-founder of Octane AI, developing AI products for ecommerce.His long time column The Social Analyst covers the intersection of technology, particularly AI, and its effect on society. He’s highly entertaining on Twitter and doesn’t shy away from predictions and hot takes like recently when he pleaded that people stop saying GPT-4 can’t replace their jobs, he says “Yes, it can. It's only a matter of time”. So obviously on the AI enthusiast train. Shawn @swyx Wang