Building AI Readiness From the Ground Up with Jennifer Hufnagel

 Forget trying to keep up with ai. It's moving too fast. It's time to think differently about it. Welcome to the AI Readiness Project posted by Kyle Shaman and Anne Murphy. They're here to help you build the mindset to thrive in an AI driven world and prepare for what's next.

That's not Anne Murphy. That's not Ann Murphy at all.

Surprise. Hi Kelly.

Hi Kelly Camp. How are you?

I'm good. How are you Kyle?

I'm doing good. Ann couldn't be here today. You d you agreed to jump in. You're absolutely amazing. Thank you for doing that. Thank you. So why don't you tell the good folks, introduce yourself, tell us who you are.

Sure. And then we'll, we'll jump into this crazy madness and see if we're ready for AI this week.

Yes. Are we ready? Are we ready? I'm, I dunno if I'm ready. I've been doing it for a while. I am Kelly Camp and my company is called Source Camp with a K and I live in Dallas, Texas and I've been working with generative AI since the day it dropped, so almost three years now, but two and a half full-time as a career.

Yeah,

it's been a

crazy ride.

Beautiful. Yeah. You've been there. You, you and I have known each other. You know, prob probably since I started, you know, early on, uh, you know, talking about this stuff on, on TikTok and in the early days of the AI salon and, uh, yeah, from the, from the beginning, like once you, once you sort of got AI religion, you're like, I'm dropping everything and just I'm, I'm going all in on this.

And, uh, that's, that's exciting. What, what was it that, that. Made it clear to you that you just had to go all in on it. I know that's one of our questions for our guests. Mm-hmm. But like you in particular, like you did it so early, like so early. What, what was it about it?

You know, I, I'm just a very curious person, which I think is where most early adopters are kind of have to be.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. But

I happen to sign up. The very first day I got on, of course there was a lot of chat about it and right off the bat, and I got on and I kept asking it these really broad questions and getting horrible answers.

And

I thought, okay, this, this is not right. Like I'm doing something wrong or it's not right.

And I couldn't figure it out. So I looked online and I found an online course and I took that course and literally. In the first three sentences of the instructor talking, he gave us the first exercise to do, and my mind was blown. And I just kind of knew right then that the world is about to change radically.

Yeah. And I, I need to be on this, on this train.

You need to be on this train. Yeah. My, my thing has always been, I, I experienced this in the mid nineties with the web, but it was like, it was not, the world's going to change. It's like the world has changed. Right. But no one knows it yet. You know? Right. It's like, but in the case of chat, GBT, like a hundred million people knew it within six weeks.

Right. So it's fastest adoption of technology in history. So, so let's jump in here and I'll, I'll, I'll put you on the spot and, and have you go first. But, but let me ask you the question. How ready for AI are you this week? And like, like what's going on with you and gosh, what, what does being AI ready look like right now?

I think it just means at, again, being curious enough rather than fearful of it to just jump in and start. I think that's the most important thing. I do a lot of speaking and I tell my audiences, just get out of the stands and get on the track. Yeah. 'cause people are, people are going around the track while you're sitting in the stands and the longer you sit up there Yeah.

The further behind you're going to feel. Yeah. You may not actually be as behind as you think you are, but you're going to feel like you're really behind. And I think the sooner you can just get started and start playing with it, the more comfortable you're going to feel, the more it's going to make sense to you.

You're going to get a broader aspect of what these large language models are. So that's what I say is just, just start.

Yeah. Yeah. And what's, what's this week been like for you? Like what's, what's going on with your clients? What's going on with you? Are, are you feeling prepared? Like we always talk about that cycle of like feeling like you've got a clue, feeling clueless.

Like where, where are you on the, I've got, I've got it together cycle. It's a constant

hamster wheel, right. So even when I feel like I've got it together, it doesn't last very long in that space. But no, it's been, I would say the last three weeks something happened. I don't know if it's that we're getting close to, we're almost in the fourth quarter and people are starting to kind of flip out a little bit about that.

I don't know if everybody's back from summer vacation and school's back in and we're back to our regular. Uh, schedules, but the phone has been ringing off the wall, the email is going off, the pipeline is full, and clients and businesses are starting to reach me and saying, okay, what do we have to do to get started?

Or generally the question is, teach me ai. Right. Which is kind of a crazy question, and they don't understand what they're even asking. But I wanna say, well, you don't just call up your surgeon and say, I need heart surgery. Teach me how to repair a heart quick.

Yeah, yeah. Teach me surgery,

right?

Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, the, one of the challenges with AI is that people think it is the easy button and you can push a button in.

Remarkable things come out, right? Like, you can treat it like that,

right?

But you can't actually do good work like that, right? Yeah. And so, I. That's the, the thing that has struck me in the past two weeks, and it's like, I've known this, but there's something has shifted for me. So I, I haven't seen so much of the urgency you're seeing.

That's, that's, that's actually good to hear.

Mm-hmm.

What's, what's shifted for me is a realization. I think it started, I don't know, when I did this, I, I, about a month or six weeks ago, I did this, this five day back to basics course. Mm-hmm. And I realized that in five, one hour sessions, I, I could not actually say all that needed to be said to get someone to the start line.

Right.

That, that ai Right. Teach me ai. That AI has become so, uh, sophisticated and so multi-layered. Mm-hmm. Um, and so many different kinds of models, so many different kinds of tools and when you would use them, um. That it's, it's not a simple thing anymore. I think when, when you and I started, it was relatively, we were talking with Jennifer, our guest earlier, and she was saying, you know, she used to just know three tools, you know, mid Journey, SUNO and Chat GBT.

That was enough. Um, and, and for me that, that realization of even getting my head around what I need to know to be competent is a, is a really hard question just for me personally, much less what I would say to someone just getting started. So how do you do this? Like, you, you do this a lot, and I know Jennifer works with clients a lot, you know, when we bring her up, I think we can have a good kind of vamp around this.

But when, when you're starting with a client who, who is in the understanding of teach me ai, where do you start with them and you know, what's, what's been shifting in how they interact with you once they get their head around that this is different.

Right. I have learned to start really, really small and slow.

I, I compare it to being in a swimming pool, the dark, murky waters of ai, and I never, ever will start somebody in the deep end. Mm-hmm. I think that's just the wrong approach. So I start very much in the shallow end, and really, I don't even approach it as ai first, I approach it as what is your problem with your business that you're trying to solve.

Mm-hmm.

Right. It's really about solving problems first and foremost. Yeah. And then once I do a diagnosis of their business and their bottlenecks and their challenges, then I can step back and say, okay, here's where I would recommend. We bring in AI and this is how we can do it, and these are the tools that we're going to need to make that happen.

But I can't really do anything until I diagnose their business. Just like a car mechanic. Yeah. Can't really fix your car until I. So I take a look under the hood.

Yeah. We had, we had this in the early days of the web, we had this all the time where people would come to us, you know, I need a website. We're like, why do you need a website?

Because my, I was golfing with my buddy and he's got a website. Oh, okay. That's not a reason to need a website. And I, and I, you know, again, I think AI's really seductive 'cause they know it can be efficient and they know they might need less employees and whatever it might be, I need a ai ai. But no, you don't need ai.

What you need is you need to run your business

and a plan, and have a plan strategy,

and then we can figure out how we apply AI to that. Right. In interesting and creative ways. How do you, um, one of the things I find fascinating, I feel like where a lot of people start with AI is on the efficiency side of the house.

Let's take what we currently do and make that more efficient. But then there's also the, you can do new and radical things with AI also. Where do you start in that balance and, and you know, how soon do you get, like, where, what's, what's your, what's your relationship with efficiency versus innovation with ai?

Well, I mean, that's where we go back to AI readiness because everybody thinks they want and need ai, but many, many people are not ready for it. Right? Yeah. They're still in that old school thinking. Yeah. So I recently had a company that came to me and said, um, we do job placement and we take, you know, we interview our clients and we write down everything they're saying and we fill out this form.

And I said, I can help you with that. Let's make it more efficient. And so, even though I was using AI to help their efficiency, they still wanted to use the same paper form that they were handwriting all their notes on.

Right.

They literally wanted me to upload their actual form and they weren't even sure they wanted it to be a digital form.

And so right there told

me we haven't even gotten to digital yet. Much less.

Yeah, you are not AI ready, I can tell you right now.

That's hilarious. We, you know, it's funny, I, very early on I had this, this, um, theory that, that you could start an agency, I was gonna call it the 10 X agency where you could do things 10 x faster, 10 x cheaper, 10 x better, something like that.

And I was saying that out loud to someone and they said, oh, well, why don't you put your money where your mouth is? And I said, what do you mean? And, and she, she was like, well, why don't you do that for me? And so I said, okay. So we met with her on a Friday, and then by Saturday at like two in the afternoon, we had done like three or four weeks worth of work, right?

Conceived something, came up with three different campaigns, did the creative, did the right. And then on Monday we showed her all of the stuff. And so, you know, she, she met on Friday, she gave us the requirements, and then on Monday we show her these three campaigns and she, like, it broke her brain because it, it wasn't that she couldn't see it, it was that.

The way all of our brains are wired, if is, if you have a kickoff meeting on a Friday, it will be at least three weeks until you have to deal with anything coming back at you. Right. And not only did we, we did, we came, came back not with just concepts, but with executions. So she's trying to get her head around, wait a minute, like, I don't even know what we talked about on Friday, and I'm supposed to be judging, you know, final creative here and she wasn't ready to do it.

And that, that actually struck me that mm-hmm. That just because you can do things more quickly or do things more innovative, if someone's not ready for it, they're not ready for it. Period. End of story.

Right. Right. And then, yes. That's one of my qualifiers too with new clients is if they're not already playing with it and already showing curiosity and interest in it.

Yeah.

I don't even really want to spend time talking about it because as I say, you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make 'em drink. Yeah. No. And if I could drag somebody to the AI trough kicking and screaming and fighting me, I, that's not my client. They're just already

Yeah. It, no, I, no, because it's, it's challenging enough if you wanna do it.

I mean, you, you and I are both curious, adventurous, entrepreneurial people, and it is, it's trying sometimes like that, it's that adaptability. One of the themes in, in these episodes for probably the past month or six weeks, almost every episode, someone's talking about adaptability being the new critical skill.

Mm-hmm.

And, and like, I get it. Like I, I am super adaptable. Like I, I thrive on change and chaos. Same. And, uh, and. And, and yet it's a lot like, it's, it's emotionally taxing to be like, okay, I've finally got my head around something. Oh no, I don't. It's different now.

Right? Right. Yes. How are you, how are

you dealing with that?

How are you dealing with the mental health side of, of I'm an expert now. I'm not.

I don't really allow myself to go there and dwell on it because I would be a mental mess if I did.

Yeah.

And I would talk myself out of everything that I've learned for the last two and a half years. Right. Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

So I really just don't dwell on it. I really do think about, oh wow. I really have come a long way and I try to recount my victories along the way. I also journal almost every day, and most of it is about ai. Like, here's what I learned and here's what I've played with and here's what I've tried. 'cause I just wanna document.

Of, I wanna look back in five

years. You're such a nerd.

I go, oh man. Month three. I was losing my mind and somehow I pulled myself outta it. Right?

Oh my goodness. That's hilarious.

But I think it will be fun to go back later and just see all of the, all of the changes that I'm going through technologically, but also emotionally.

Mm-hmm. And mentally. And I do try to write down, here's what I'm feeling today and here's what happened and this was really frustrating. Or, here's a little victory. Mm-hmm. You know, those victories unfortunately don't last too long because I'm off to the next three or four or five challenges. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But there's something in it that I love, and I see the potential that it, that's my fuel. It just keeps me going.

That's really good. That's really good.

What about you? Do you have a way that you're dealing emotionally, physically, mentally well?

I, I, I've, I have stumbled on something that I've, I've talked about, I've talked around the edges of for a while, and I, it's actually gonna be the thing, the one thing to pay attention to this week.

So I wanna tee this up and then have you respond to it. Um, and, and I think this is a path to dealing with it in a certain kind of way. So, so I'm working with a branding agency to, to work on a new book concept I'm working

for, and,

and we've been having trouble getting what I'm talking about to be more tangible.

I keep going, well, AI will change everything. That's not clear enough. And then, and then the most recent salvo I gave was, you know, your ideas will have 10 x the impact they had before. And they're like, no, it's, it's still esoteric and weird. So I was on a conversation, I dunno, a week or two ago with the editor there, and we're talking in circles and talking in circles, and he just, he was like, Nope, that's not clear.

It's not clear. I didn't know what he wanted. And at some point I just said, what's kind of like this? If you treat ai right? It's like you have a 10 person team. And he went, oh. That's it. That's it. He goes, that's it. That's the new name of your book. 10 person team.

Oh. And then he had me

on unpack it a little bit and, and what I got to here, here's how I've sort of processed that in the past two weeks.

We were talking before about all these tools and how do you keep track of all these tools and which one does what and all, all that sort of thing. What I'm realizing more and more is that our job, if we're dealing with AI, is to act like the producer, like, like like a music producer where your sole job is to be the holder of the vision and, and, and, and the arbiter of what's good, right?

So you, you say, okay, I wanna accomplish this thing in business, or I want to, you know, I wanna write this storybook for my kids, or whatever it is. But your job is to sort of sit in the center and hold the idea and the vision for the idea. And then ai, if you use it right, and prompt it, right? Rather than being like, oh, I need to learn all these tools.

It's more like, no, no, you, you need people that are gonna help you execute it. And AI can act like those people, right? So, so maybe initially I'm thinking about a business idea. I need a business strategist. Okay, well I'll have chat GPT, give me some ideas and I can bounce these ideas off the, the, it, it as a business strategist.

And then maybe I'm like, oh, that's really good. And then maybe now I'm like, I wonder if there's any businesses like this. You know what I kind of need, I kind of need a researcher. Oh, I know perplexity is good at research. Let me go over to perplexity and now I've got a researcher and now I've got a creative director, and now I've got a copywriter and now I've got a this and a that.

So rather than think about the tools and I have to learn all these tools. Mm-hmm. It's more like you as the holder I of the idea, if you are going to execute that idea at a world class level. Who would be the people that you would need to interact with. And then do you have AI tools that can serve those roles?

And if you do, great, and if not, you might need to bring in an actual person.

Right.

But, but I, but I think that we're moving into this place where, what gets talked about a lot is people's roles are gonna be replaced. Their job is gonna, you know, they're gonna be displaced. And, and I think that what's not being talked about is, but those people also now have this remarkable capability.

Mm-hmm. That is

them plus their team of 10, their 10 person team. If, if they learn to use it in this way, that can really amplify what they want to do and how they're gonna do it. I think a lot of people are gonna be forced into entrepreneurship. Um, just by the nature of this stuff, and the advantage is if you can put yourself in that producer role that you get to think about AI as in this augmented way.

So I'm curious, curious what your thoughts are with that.

Oh my gosh. So as you're saying this out loud, of course I've known this 'cause it's my background, but Yeah. Yeah. It really just hit home for me because my background is for 12 years I was a creative director for advertising agencies. Oh

yeah. There you go.

That's Yes. Next career. So that's your, your whole job was hold the, hold the vision for the project. Right?

Right. And my next career was in construction where I was a general contractor.

See, same exact thing.

And I knew that it was related to what I'm doing now, but you just kind of nailed it for me, is this is exactly what I've been doing my whole life is being that creative director or that producer or that general contractor that I don't, or the conductor

or the film director or, right.

It's, it's like the metaphors are out there. It it is, it's the, the holder of the vision or whatever. Yes.

So obviously when I'm remodeling homes, I don't know everything about plumbing. I couldn't go in and be the plumber or be the tile setter, but I have a working knowledge right. Of those roles enough that I know who to hire and if they're qualified

Yep.

And

how to oversee them and know if the job is done right or not.

Right. And, and you know, that we need, we need to move the sink from here to there and, you know, that's gonna take something to do, but it's possible

and I know that that guy can't do it, and I need that guy instead.

Yeah. Oh, that, that's the other piece.

Yeah. So, so one is being able to hold the vision and then one is having enough of the expertise of the, of the subcontractors in your case.

Mm-hmm.

Not just who's capable and not, but like, what's possible and not things like that. Right. So, so becoming, becoming one of these creative generalists, it gets talked about a lot that the creative generalist is gonna be the new kind of superpower position.

It, it starts to be it. It is a complicated role and it is a sophisticated role. I think this is also Kelly, why, um, you and I have talked about this a lot where Gen Xers seem to be doing really well with ai. And I think part of that is just if you've been on the planet long enough, like you've seen some stuff, right?

And so you can look at the output of an AI and go, no, that's not really good. Oh, that's actually really interesting. Right? And right. And you can integrate these different piece parts. So that's my new, that's my new thing is, is thinking of it less like tools and more like roles and like what roles, like where do I need support?

And then I think what that does is I might say, oh, well I could do this within chat GPT, but it's actually not world class at that. But I know this tool over here is like, it starts to allow you to, to. Not compromise as much on the solutions. Right. You know? Right. Because they're, yeah. It doesn't mean they can move the sink from one side of the room to the other.

Right, right. Well, funny enough, when I'm doing my speaking presentations, I always use the analogy of I have a toolbox, and within that toolbox I've got all these different tools. Mm-hmm. So chat, GPT is my Swiss Army knife. It's kind of my go-to tool. Oh, interesting. Writing. I go to Claude. If I need research, I go to perplexity.

So I have to have all these different tools because one tool's not going to cut it for every job. Mm-hmm. But I also have to have a working knowledge of each of those tools and what they're to be used for before I can reach in my toolbox and pull the right one out. Mm-hmm. And I think that's where a lot of the general public is just missing the boat so far.

Again, we're in these waves of knowledge, and I think that's the next wave for most people is, oh, I really do need to know more than just one tool, because one tool is not always going to give me the result that I need. For that particular situation. Yeah.

Well, it, I mean, it, it really is that, that per that perception, if you're on the outside of ai, it, it seems from the outside, like you push a button and out pops your remodeled apartment.

That's right. And No, no, they just made one call to Kelly and said, I wanna remodel my apartment. And then, you know, six weeks later it was done. But mm-hmm. If they weren't watching the process from their perspective, they just made a phone call and now their apartment's remodeled. Right, right.

And that dishwasher fits perfectly in that space, right?

Yeah,

exactly. Ex, exactly. Right. And, and so I think that's, that's people's perception of AI right now is it really is that simple. Like, I just call it up and it's gonna, it's gonna do all this stuff. And the reality is that we are, we are GCs right now. We're general contractors. Totally.

Totally. And I'm so right up my alley with all of this.

I can, I mean, for two and a half years now, I just keep thinking, oh my gosh, these are all the things I've been doing my whole career. Yeah. Just in a completely different way now. But it's the same skill sets and it's the same task that I'm performing every day, is knowing who to call and. What they need to do and having oversight and hiring and firing the right people and yeah, making sure that the job is done well and explaining it to my clients.

Right? Yeah. 'cause they don't really wanna learn how to remodel. They just want me to come in and Yeah. Do it for them.

Well, and that's, listen, I think, you know, back to AI readiness and who's gonna be working and who's not gonna be working, just because AI can do all these things and there are people like you that are willing to, to figure all that stuff out.

There are also gonna be people out there that are just like, I just want it to work. I don't wanna learn it. I don't feel like learning all this stuff. I don't learn about, I don't want to think about it that way. I'm gonna call up Kelly Cam 'cause I know she'll get it done. Right? So. Mm-hmm. So, you know, that's a choice people have to make, right?

If you're in a position where you can just bring people in to do it, great. But there's a huge opportunity there if you want to be one of those people that becomes a trusted single source.

Mm-hmm.

Um, then, then I, I, I think there's big opportunity there. Like I said, I think, I think a lot of people are gonna be forced into, you know, figuring out how to make, how to make money with chat GPT quite frankly, you know?

I think so too, but again, I think they're not thinking of it. It in the right way yet because they still see it as a magic button or an easy button and nobody really wants to work. That's what I hear a lot. I have to do all that. Like I'm just trying to teach people how to prompt better and I always talk about the context, you know, give it more context upfront, do all the work upfront and then on the back end it's going to perform much better for you.

And they're like, oh, I have to tell it all that.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Okay. People, we still have to work. It's not going to, we're not the Jetsons. It's not, you're just gonna do all the work for us. We still have to get in there. It's just different work. And I think it's fun work personally, but

not everybody's.

Yeah, no,

it's, it's, yeah, exactly. No, I, I find it incredibly inspiring and empowering and all that sort of stuff. So, speaking of which, let's, uh, let's, let's shift gears here. We'll bring up Jennifer, 'cause I wanna talk about this and, and, and really unpack the conversation here. 'cause I think we're, we're, we're onto something good here.

Um, but before we move on, so I want to talk about, um, uh, three things before we bring Jennifer up. So the first is she leads ai. So this is Ann Murphy's group and couldn't be here today. Um, but if you are a woman and you are trying to figure this AI stuff out, being in communities. Hugely important. And Anne has created this remarkable community.

They've got a big create conference coming in, up, up in October. Um, she's got a subscription area of, of the, uh, organization. She's got a consulting area of the organization. There's, there's lots of connection here, but there's lots of opportunity here as well. So if you have not checked out, she leads ai, please go do that.

Mm-hmm. Um, similarly, the AI Salon, this is a group that Kelly, you've been a part of really since the beginning. This is a, a, um, a, a community that I started, uh, with photographer Leah Fasten the week after chat, GPT came out. I actually just found our email. I sent her the email the week before chat, GPT came out.

Oh my gosh,

should, we should start this group. And our first meeting was the week after. So, so, yeah. So this is, I I guess I knew it was coming. I was like, some something's coming, like, we should, we should jump on this. But, but anyway, it's a, it's a remarkable group. We also have within the salon a group called the AI Salon Master.

Uh, which is people that are, um, kind of jumping in and doing remarkable things. And in fact, I am co-facilitating with Cindy Kon starting, uh, very shortly, a prototyping club. And what we're prototyping is building mini courses. So over the course of four weeks, people are gonna come out the other side with a mini course completely developed and all that sort of stuff.

So I'm super excited about that. Yes, I'm very excited

about

that. Yeah. That's available to Mastermind members. So if you haven't checked out the Mastermind, go do that. And then the final thing is this, this podcast exists because we put together the AI readiness training program, which was a spinoff of AI Fest of Us where what we learned after hearing 34 different people speak was that no one was talking about the tools.

They were all talking about their mindset and how they think about AI and how they frame it and things like that. And so we turned that into the AI readiness training program. So if you go to, are you Ready for ai.com? Check that out. I'm, I'm super pleased with that course. And, and, uh, you'll get a certificate at the end of it, which you can put on LinkedIn, which you should do and all that sort of stuff.

Um, so with that, I am excited to, to bring up on stage, uh, Jennifer Huff Nagel. Jennifer, how are you? Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Hello. Welcome. Oh, I think you guys have frozen.

Oh, nope. I'm good. We're good here. Can you hear us?

Oh, I can hear you, but you're frozen on my screen, but Hello. I know what you look like.

Exactly. Well, hopefully we'll unlock soon and, and you can still hear us, but, but Hello? Oh, there we

go. Yay.

Okay, beautiful. So, so catch us up. Tell us who you are, introduce the good people to who you are, what you're up to, what you want us to know. And then just sort of based on, I know you were backstage listening to what we were going on about it.

I, I can't wait to hear your ideas about. Where you are with AI these days.

Wonderful. Well, I took a lot of notes. I'm a bit old school.

Ah, I actually is that paper? I've heard of that.

It's called a sticky note. We have them here in Canada and I'm not sure if we have the out of the border anymore, but Yes.

Well, what's interesting, so I have a business degree in entrepreneurship and I never wanted to be my own boss, so I immediately went to work for a software company and became a business analyst before e-learning was really, you know, the term e-learning was out there. Um, and what that really allowed me to do was.

Be able to, I think both, you know, both you and Kelly were speaking about understanding operations and workflow and business and process. That is really what I think is needed today, uh, in AI as well, especially from the adoption and implementation and certainly the readiness. I remember Bugzilla, so Kyle, you probably remember Bugzilla.

Um, you know, that's, that's how old I am. And I fell into learning and development and I've had this beautiful career, almost 25 years of, of building every single type of train you can think of, from software to safety, to customer service, to sales. I've worked at some incredible companies. 1-800-GOT-JUNK when we went from 30 to 300 franchises and grew globally, Hootsuite, um, you name it.

en, you know, I worked at the: 2010

I'm from Vancouver Island originally from a small little fishing village called Soula, actually. And I thought, oh gosh, do I need to move back? And, uh, it was a bit of a struggle for about five years. And I did a bunch of different jobs and roles and every single training job on the island I've probably worked at, there were very few in learning and development.

Chachi Petit came out in, uh,: 2023

I need to pay attention and we'll talk about the story in a moment. Um, but I thought, hmm. I need to, I need to incorporate this. And then guess what? People started asking me to build AI training for them, so,

mm-hmm.

Wow. That's great. That's fantastic. Mm-hmm. And, and what, what's, so since you've, you've been doing it that long, you know, similar to Kelly, I'm, I'm curious, and I'm curious if there's, if, if national borders matter here at all, but I'm curious, you know, what have been the major phases and where do you think we are?

Like, you know, from, from the early days to like, what's changed? Where are we now?

To be honest, I don't think a lot has changed, Kyle. I feel like in Canada especially, our level of digital adoption is very, very low. And our level of AI adoption is even lower. Um, during the pandemic, we, uh, created, I co-created a program called DER three to help businesses get digital, and that was a Vancouver Island initiative.

And then we rolled it out throughout Bridge Columbia and that, and that really spawned some of the major projects and funding through the provincial and federal government five years later. And so what I'm seeing now, and probably Kelly, you're seeing the same thing, is businesses aren't ready to, they weren't ready to get digital, uh, and now they're not, certainly not ready to adopt ai, especially thinking and coming with an AI first mindset and, and turning everything on their head to say, how would you start today?

An AI first mindset that's, that's quite a jump. So I feel like we're still in the very early stages, especially in more rural and remote communities as I live now on Vancouver Island. Hmm.

Right. Yeah. I have a group of, um, manufacturers in East Texas, small town, east Texas. There are a lot of gentlemen out there who started businesses out of their garages, but now they're multimillion dollar companies.

They're shipping product all over the world. I went out and spoke to them starting a year ago about generative ai and they absolutely were not ready to hear it, to talk about it, to think about it. It just was too moving too fast and going too far and too short of a time period. So I just planted the seeds, you know, I kind of left it alone.

I, they see me occasionally 'cause I've got family out that way, but. It definitely is a thing. I mean, as, as fast as things have happened, and Kyle and I and you all see the progression ourselves because we're in it every day, but I think the general public has no idea how much has happened in two and a half, three years and how fast it's moving.

I still hear people saying, when it slows down and settles down, then I'll jump in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, I used to, I'll have to admit, I used to worry a little bit about that too. Like, oh, they're all just gonna wait and I've wasted my time learning all this stuff 24 7, and they're just gonna be able to step in and just do it.

And now of course, I'm realizing that no nothing has been wasted and it's not ever going to settle down enough for people just to jump in and know it. So I think there's a long road ahead of all of us. I think so

too. Do you both feel like you're an AI pusher? Someone called me that the other day. They said, you're an AI pusher.

I thought, oh gosh. Oh, okay. Well, if I'm gonna push something, sure.

I, I don't know. I like to think of myself more like a liberator than a pusher. You know, I, I, I see, I see AI as a tool for self-expression ultimately, and I think business is ultimately about self-expression. I think it's an incredibly empowering tool, but, but for people that don't understand it, you know, I, I think it, I think it does come across like that and it's, you know, Jennifer, I'm curious what your thoughts are.

One, one of the things I've always thought is I feel like, you know, when you do those weekend self-help programs like Tony Robbins or whatever, and you come back after the weekend all high and excited and you try to talk to people about it. And they look at you like you're weird 'cause you're using all this weird language and you were depressed on Friday and now you're like ready to change the world.

And they're like, uh, I'm good. Leave me alone. You know? I feel like kind of like that with ai. Can you talk to, especially being, I, I love what you said about, you know, in Canada you're not super digitally, you know, adopted and a AI even less so. Can you just talk about a couple of specific stories of people that maybe started there and have come along and like, how did you get 'em there?

I, it really starts with, I see it in three buckets. Uh, AI awareness, AI readiness, and AI adoption. So I always start with AI literacy. Mm-hmm. Which, as a learning and development specialist, I am thrilled that there is a new tool out there, and I've completely pivoted my consultancy. Yes. People still ask me to build training and do consulting and, and these sorts of things, but it's, it's AI focused.

So we start with AI literacy, and I really feel like with I, I work with manufacturing companies, Kelly as well. I. I did, uh, uh, I just completed a training, initial set of training with a large one here in Canada. We say large, 250, uh, people. That's large for us. Um, and when I ask them how, you know, what's gone on in the last four to six weeks, I get I too busy.

Um, I maybe use it once a day and ask a question. I'm not really sure how it fits into my role. So I feel like we still need to start with AI literacy, whether that's, um, you know, chatt, Claude, you know, if we have to co-pilot, but then we have to handhold them and, and that bring them along in the, in the, um, you know, the, we borrow a change management term AI community of practice.

So I feel Kyle, when we handhold a little bit more and we meet people where they're at, then their adoption starts to increase. Mm-hmm. But I haven't seen anyone take it over the line yet. Um, I had a client yesterday say, Jennifer, I didn't even budget for AI training this year. But I will next year. Um, do I need more than one tool?

Uh, you know, there's, there's a, uh, people don't have a lot of e expenditure and they're not budgeting. I said, absolutely, you need to budget for training. Probably one or two tools. You'll likely have an AI tool that, you know, will be manufacturing focused at some point. These things have to be in your budgets.

So it's, it's, it's been a little bit of a pull. Mm-hmm. If that makes sense.

Yeah. How are you, if, if we've got a tool that's such so general, right? AI can kind of do anything. How do, how do you narrow the focus? You know, you said early on you, it was just three tools and that was relatively easy, but how do you narrow your focus about what you talk about, what you teach, what you spend time on?

Well, it's interesting the three tools, yes, but I still use chat. EBT. Honestly, that is the easiest place to start. Mm-hmm. They have a free model. You can turn off the training model. The UI is great. We have to meet people where they're at and find their AI aha moment. And sometimes that's personal. Um, and it's not necessarily from a business perspective.

And until somebody finds that AI has that ai aha moment. They can't necessarily move to next. So to be honest, most of my training focus is generative ai and I use chatt unless I'm asked to build copilot, cloud perplexity or something else. I'm a terrible writer. So I really gravitated to generative AI from a, um, large language model perspective.

Mm-hmm. I don't do a lot in suno or midjourney. I don't even know if I still have, uh, you know, my username and password. That's not really my gem. So that's where I focus because I think it's the easiest. It allows you to do things like write the SOPs that you need to improve your communications, help with your workflows.

It allows you to do more, um, less, especially if your time's dropped from a money, money, it was, uh, money, resources. There's another, the triangle, money, time, resources. I think that's what it's,

yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's, um, it's. I ha So I haven't done more than that. Yes. We work in, we do automations and things like that.

From the consulting hat, from, from the training hat. It's generative ai and it's Chad CPT. Mm-hmm. It's a Swiss Army knife, like Kelly says. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Um, Kelly, what are your, what are your thoughts in terms of, uh, of, you know, where, where you are in Dallas, what, what you're seeing with adoption?

Where, where do you think there's, there's overlap that we can explore here?

I think there's suddenly, just in the last, I mean definitely the last six months, maybe even the last two months, I've seen a real upswing in interest. Mm-hmm. A lot of people are talking about it now. I mean, a year ago nobody was even talking about it.

And Kyle would encourage me and others, um, coming to the live every night, get out there and be weird and keep talking about it even though people are looking at you sideways. And trust me, I had. Friends that would walk up to me and go, oh, you're talking about ai, and turn around and walk the other way because you're so sick of me talking about it.

Be the weirdo. I was the weirdo, but at least people are talking about it now. I hear a lot more in the media about it, but it's almost gone, the swung the other far end because now everyone's an expert in chat, GPT, because oh, they read their emails with it, right? So I'm finding that, okay, how do I separate myself from all of the other people who've been using it for six months and say they're experts when I've been using it two and a half years, and I feel.

Least like an expert. Um, I mean, some days I wake up and feel like, what am I doing? I, I don't feel like I've ever even used this before. Um, because it's moving so quickly and it's changing so fast, but at least people are having conversations about it. They're not looking at me like they wanna run away from the conversation anymore.

So that's, that's great. But there is just a lot of misinformation about what it is and what it can do and how to use it and, you know, good use cases and prompting and just all the things. There's, there's a lot to it. Um, Kyle and I were talking a little bit earlier that I have people say, teach me ai. And I say, you're like going to your heart surgeon saying, Hey, I've got a heart problem.

Teach me how to operate on myself real quick.

Yeah, real quick.

A little, a little bit more complex than that.

How, how are you dealing with that overwhelm and keeping up with things and, and managing the conversation with people where, who, who may or may not be ready to talk about it or think they're an expert but aren't?

How are you, how are you managing all that personally,

Kelly, or me?

Oh, Jennifer.

Oh. Um, it does feel overwhelming. Absolutely. And, um, I, I think it's important that, like I said, we're picking a lane and, and not getting, so when people talk about tools, they say, Jennifer, what's the best tool? They asked me before, what was the best learning management, the C-R-M-E-R-P, you name it, we would go out, we would do our requirements, we would speak to vendors, we would work on, you know, implementation and training.

Now I say there's an AI for that. There are over 40,000 tools. So what Kelly's pointing, we started the problem. What's the problem that you're trying to solve?

Yep.

And then we look at current state. Yes. We want to think about if we started our business today with an AI first mindset, what would that look like?

But we still need to document current state. Most, most businesses have never mapped their customer journey. Mm-hmm. Most have never mapped their financial journey. I'll give you an example. I'm working with a window installer and um, one of the women, she's, you know, in her, uh, yeah, probably in her early twenties, and, uh, she has an admin role.

So she gets the CAD drawings of houses, uh, of the houses, and she manually with a highlighter counts all of the windows, marks it on a, met like a printout sheet of all the different windows. Is it open left or right, and all of the different terms. Casement and Pella. I know a little bit about Windows because I worked at METAL for many years, but, um, not on front lines in the head office.

And I've built training, so I sort of know a little bit, but he said, walk me like, let's sit down for an hour and walk me through your process. And I said, well, let's try and upload the CAD to chat GBT. Six months ago it couldn't do it. Let's see what it does now. So we did that and we worked together on a prompt.

We got, you know, the output looking, and she said, this is incredible. So now she's saving herself about an hour. But what we also found out was that sometimes the CAD drawings have a summary of windows and sometimes it doesn't. So I'm not an expert. I said, why do you get plans that look like this versus plans that look like that?

She said, oh, the builders just send it to me. Said, okay. So I said, I'm pretty sure in CAD it's probably a setting when you export to PDF summary of window. She said, really? Why don't you just ask them for that?

Turn, turn that setting on.

She said, I never thought that I could, or I never knew that you could.

So sometimes it's a digital or just a thinking through the process, um, versus AI has to come in and save the day as this, as this magic pill. So I think it's really about thinking about your workflows, what problems that you're trying to solve as well. And that's that readiness piece.

Mm-hmm.

Most people part the basement, so now they're, you know, multimillion dollar and they, they don't have contracts or policy or procedures.

I see that all the time.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I think that's so, so important. The, uh. A lot of times the answer is not ai. It might be like, oh, just pop it over in Photoshop and take that logo out, or whatever it is. It's like, oh, you can do, you know, you don't have to use AI just because it's sexy. Right. You know, it doesn't solve the problem.

Or, or, or even if it does solve the problem, you might not need the Maserati to, to solve the right, the turn on the setting in your CAD program problem. That's, that's awesome.

Yeah. And I really like Kelly, what you said about the AI suitcase. And you do need tools. We'll probably need a CLO and perplexity a couple of the, you know, and we'll likely need to learn a little bit about agents and, and automations.

Although they say agents are gonna build automation, so don't go and learn N eight NII

thought what really?

Um, but in the suitcase, I think there are a lot of things, um, I'm hearing more and more people are curious now, which is great, but I'm hearing I'm too old. I'm not technical enough. I don't have time.

It has to be perfect. And I'm like, AI has no age limit. You do not have to be technical. It doesn't matter how old you are. I think of my dad, if he was still alive, he was a logger and a fisherman. I would, this is a in your palm of your hand, PhD level, you know, information and, and you can learn how you learn.

So as an educator, I get excited and I'm, I absolutely could show my dad how to talk into chat, bt, et cetera, to do something. It was always building and tinkering. He would've loved it. But you need to people where they're at. Mm-hmm.

Right.

And usually that's personal, not business. And then they start to get it.

Beautiful. I love it. Alright, so, so let's shift gears a bit. So, so we're gonna ask you three questions. We ask, we ask all of our guests these three questions. I love them. I think they're, they're quite revealing and, and, uh, I'm excited to hear yours. So, so question number one is. What was the tipping point where you knew you had to go all in on ai?

It sounds like it was early on with chat GPT unit, but I'm curious, you know, what your aha moment was. What was your, as we call Kevin McAllister moment where, where you knew you had to go all in and like what's it been like since?

Sure. Um, aha moment was my first prompt. I was working on creating a HR workshop.

And I was creatively tapped out from creating learning activities. It's in the afternoon and I'm going, oh my gosh, I just can't come up with this. So I had gotten in, I think we had to wait list and I got in. I said, okay, I'm going to try this. So my first prompt was something like, I'm an expert instructional designer and trainer.

I am building an HR workshop. Here are my three learning outcomes. I need three learning activities per learning outcome, following Bloom's Taxonomy and Adult Learning best practices. I just like verbal talk at that point, but I just, I didn't know what I was doing, and it immediately came out with three high quality learning activities per learning outcome, and I thought, oh my gosh, this is incredible.

Then I thought, holy bleep and bleep, this is coming from my job. The second prompt was create me a workplace bullying policy. I just threw something. I was like, what? Oh, so I needed to, I knew I needed to pivot, and then a few months or that, the next month I was invited to an AI Mastermind by Future Lab, and I thought, I don't really know what this is, but Okay.

And there were 20, 25 of us learning AI for the next six months together, and it became certified as a trainer through there. And then I was just being asked, oh, you know, ai, can you build a training program? Like, absolutely, I can build a training program on ladder safety, if you like. I just happened to have, you know, a specialty in software, so, and it's been so busy.

I'm going on a trip for my birthday in 10 days today I'll be on a plane and I, you know, and I, I needed, I, I, everyone's like, oh, did you have a fun summer? I said, even when I was camping, I'm working. It has been probably similar to Kelly emails. Phone's ringing off the hook, which is a great problem to have, but it can also be a little bit like, okay, and Kylie, you and I were speaking about it before, like how do you keep on top of it?

Do you come, do you just go offline for two weeks and come back? I, I don't know how that's gonna feel.

Yeah, I don't,

yeah, I don't, yeah, yeah. When you're in it all the time, it feels overwhelming. I, you know, stepping away from it, what did I do? I did something, I stepped away for three or four days and when I came back, it, it wasn't that I felt more overwhelmed, it was like, I just, like, how do I spin the flywheel back up, you know?

And, uh, so, so that'll be fascinating. Um, and I think

also, yeah, go ahead. Oh, sorry. One more thing. I think also, uh, you know, you get 11 different emails, you know, you can create a custom GBT or an automation to, you know, summarize these things. But it's almost like if I miss that podcast from last week, it's almost irrelevant because this week's podcasts gonna be updated anyway.

Yeah. So do we even really need to go back and listen? I don't know. We'll,

I don't think so. Listen, I think that, you know, I, I think AI is gonna be as ubiquitous as internet connectivity is, right? So it's like, mm-hmm. We, we don't talk about internet con connectivity as you know, you said earlier, Kelly, like, teach me ai, like teach me internet, right?

Like, we don't say that anymore 'cause it's everywhere. So I think that's where we're headed. And, and I think it does come down to, you know, what's, what's the business problem we're trying to solve? But in the meantime, if we're gonna be on the front end of this, this spear, we, we do have to understand what's possible, right?

And that's, that's something I think we need to deal with. So to that end, question number two. Um, based on your area of expertise, and I, I think especially with the training background, what are, what are, what is a trend, let's just call it a trend. Mm-hmm. What's a trend right now that you're paying the most attention to and why?

Well, I think it's the adoption piece, especially when I do, you know, let's say a basic three hour generative AI training. We do an ask me anything four to six weeks later, and I, I'm finding the low usage. I'm too busy, feels like another tool to learn. So I'm focusing a lot on the change management and adoption piece.

And it's almost like I, I knew this, we always used to include it in our training, uh, you know, packages and consulting packages, and now I'm going back to that. So I'm helping them create their AI community of practice, you know, sharing use cases, working individually, like with the one woman to. Work through her individual, you know, a problem that took her the longest to try and, and see what we could do.

And so I'm, I find that I'm leading that more because I've done, uh, built a lot of training the trainers. I can then find that AI champion, that AI nerd. And also, you know, in part we don't have enough AI practitioners, whatever fancy term you wanna call it, in the world. So we almost have to homegrown them from the company itself.

And that's where I think, you know, I'm a Gen Xer as well. I think we are prime, we understand workflow, we understand operations. We have a lot of subject matter expertise. You add a little bit of, of AI knowledge and literacy. Wow. That's just gonna be incredible. So I'm paying a lot of attention, more attention, I should say, on adoption.

I just thought everyone would be using it every day and they would see the benefits, but we have to keep it more consistent.

Yeah, that's good. What are the, what are the, who are the people that you're seeing within organizations that are what, like what are the attributes of people that are adopting this in a way that you're like, ah, that's it.

Like, are you seeing commonality across disciplines of who's good at this versus who's not?

I think it's, uh, curiosity. You have to come with a natural curiosity.

Yeah.

I think you have to have a little bit of risk taking. Um, and so those are the two people. And then also people with learning disabilities that have maybe never been shared or known.

And now they're like, don't take this tool away from me. So there's a little bit of a shame of using it, but it's making them rock stars, because if you're a dyslexic, you can write better.

Mm-hmm.

And so, so I'm, those are the types of that I'm seeing. You have to bring this curiosity, have a little bit of risk, and sometimes it's.

You either have a DD or some sort of dyslexia or some, some sort of learning disability that now this tool is making you, uh, you're, you're a little bit more empowered. Um, I also think it has to start from the top. Culture always starts top to down. Uh, and so I work with a lot of C-suite to not necessarily convince them about ai, they're curious, um, but to get them all on the same page, speaking about the same language, really leading from a, an empowerment and an, uh, upskilling.

Yes, some jobs may change, but, um, but not this is, we're not laying off 4,000 people like Salesforce did a couple of days ago. This is about empowerment, and it has to start from the top down. Because your people are scared. That's what I, they're scared. Mm-hmm. Yeah. What

are, what are you seeing in the, in the C-suite, what would you say is a percentage of C-suites that jump in and use it versus just think they can delegate it away?

I am not sure if I'm seeing that they want to delegate it away. I think the split for me that I'm seeing is 50% probably are really excited. No, that's, let me, let me think about that. Probably 25% are really excited and curious and probably using it and they found it on their own. Probably 50% are, I'm not really sure.

I'm a little scared. What about the data? I don't know about this. And then 25% are, you know, have a cell phone, maybe may, you know, struggle with email. So that's probably what I'm seeing. I haven't

That's interesting.

Heard yet, or seen, or at least they're not sharing with me that they just wanna delegate this.

Every time I do a session that is, you know, more of a strategy level, I always say bold statements like do you have a strategic plan? If they say yes, I say, throw that out the window, put AI in it. We're like, what? We just spent thousands of dollars. You cannot spend thousands of dollars. You can spend a little less.

And, and then we go into, well, what does that look like for the rest of your team? Now we have, you know, now they're being asked for it because they hear that, you know, this level got training. And they're like, what? I want training too. So now they're being asked for it. Hmm.

They, their employees

are asking for it now, which is great.

Yeah. I have to think about, that's a good question. Thanks Kyle.

All right. Last question. Last last official question. Sure. Um, and this is, this is totally self-serving, so, so go with us here. What does AI readiness mean to you? And then what would you say to someone who is maybe on the other, on the sidelines right now, thinking about stepping on the field?

I think that AI readiness means to me, and I take it from a, a business lens. So it's me slash what's going on in the organization. I think it's about that they, businesses need to get their businesses ready. Um, they need to look at their data and find out where all of their data is. They have to clean their data.

Don't get me started about dirty data. I could talk about that for an hour. Um, you know, they have to have an online presence. Nobody really knows what's happening with SEO ai, E-I-E-I-O or whatever you wanna call it. I have, you know, a businesses say I need to rebrand my entire website. I said, well, well, large language models don't really care about the color.

Oh, that's funny. So they care about the content. I am not a marketing expert, so I think from a business side, like they need to get some of their ducks in a row. And then the advice is just to start, just like Kelly said, I have a slide that says just start. And if it's as simple as don't Google for two weeks and use something like Chachi BT or Claude, and it's as simple as that, I usually ask, what was the last thing you Googled or what was the last thing you're procrastinated on?

And then I, I think also on this advice is find a community. You know, when I found she leads AI in, I, I came to AI Festivus, I don't even remember how I got into ai. I found maybe I saw something you posted Kyle or somebody shared something and I was like, what is this? It was Christmas. I'm going this. And then I found Ann and she leads AI and it's been incredible.

But one of the things that she also said is Find your local people. She said, why don't, so I have an AI Chats and Bites lunch that we go every month and we geek out and we talk about ai. Somebody. We have a 77, we have 25. We have cybersecurity, ai, startups, developers, remote workers for large, you know, companies in the us.

It's fantastic. So I think that's another thing. Start and then find your online and in-person community.

Yeah. Love it. Love it. Um, fantastic. Well, well, Jennifer, thank you so much. This has been absolutely awesome. Really appreciate you coming here and doing this and sharing your wisdom. Final thoughts, Kelly?

Gosh. Um, I, I have to second finding a community because there is no way I could have learned what I've learned and come as far as I have on my own. I mean, not even, not even a fraction of a percent. So I think community just keeps us sane in all of this because there's just so much to absorb and to learn, and there's no way that one person can do it on their own.

So, um, we all feel very insecure about it. I think. Um, I think that's universal and feeling overwhelmed and exhausted and passionate and going down the rabbit holes and just to find a community of others that reinforce that it's okay, this is actually pretty normal to go through this. Mm-hmm. Uh, I think is incredibly helpful.

And it just. It just gives you kind of a, not a shortcut to learning, but it sure does open up a lot of different platforms to learn about and in one time if you're in community. So that's what I've gotten the most out of. Um, being in Kyle's community, for example, is just all the amazing people that are part of that community and they all have different interests, so they're all talking about different aspects of ai and that gives me such a well-rounded overall knowledge about what's going on that I feel I can share with my clients as well.

Yeah.

That's great,

Jennifer. Yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say the quote alone, we can do so little together. We can do so much is my favorite quote from Helen Heller. Yeah. You know, this is, we're all on this learning journey together. There are very few experts and we have to learn from each other. And that's why I think a community of practice internally at an organization online, in person for yourself, and you know, the AI salon is fantastic for that, Kyle.

And you're bringing together people to learn. And it's okay if you don't know what you don't 'cause you don't know what you don't know. No,

don't, don't know. We don't know. That's, you know, my, my, uh, selfish interest in starting it was surround myself with people that know more than I do, which is, you know, and it's, and and what, what you learn is we're all trying to figure it out.

So what, final thing, wrap us up, Jennifer. Tell us, what do you want the people to know? How can they reach you? Uh, you know, what do, what do you, what do you, uh, what do you want 'em to know?

Wonderful. Uh, you can reach us@hofnagelconsulting.ca. I do work individually with businesses. We, uh, I have a monthly workshop, whether it's Advanced Chat, GPT, we have an automations, uh, you know, the chat GPT Edge.

And um, yeah, that's just what I want people to know. I really feel people do, people do business with who they know, like, and trust. And I really like what you said, Kelly, about some people aren't ready. So that's probably what I've also learned in the last year is my clients aren't ones that I have to pull along.

They have to come with that curiosity and, and a little bit of that mindset first. So yeah, come check us out and if it works. Great.

Beautiful. Well, thank you so much. Thank you both. Thanks Kelly for jumping in. Thank you, Jennifer. Great to see you. Thanks.

Thank you, Jennifer.