According to Fred

The musings of a marketer and tech geek.

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You’re Responsible for Your AI Literacy

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, understanding AI and its implications is more crucial than ever. During a recent vacation, a simple conversation about AI highlighted the urgent need for AI literacy.

The Importance of AI Literacy

I was recently on vacation down in the Turks and Caicos with my wife for some much-needed R&R. It was our 20th wedding anniversary trip, and the plan was to disconnect and just relax. During our time at our resort, we got into conversations with others who were there. One couple we met had kids roughly the same age as ours, and they lived in a city that I used to frequent with a past employer, so we had things to discuss. We ended up having lunch together one day, and the conversation led to AI and GenAI. My wife promptly rolled her eyes at me as our new acquaintances, who were in the banking industry, had some awareness of GenAI and ChatGPT, but had never really used it. After getting a look from my wife, I promised to show one thing and be done. So I whipped out my phone and opened ChatGPT to show him just what one of the sample prompts could do. It was a simple “Give me tips to overcome procrastination.” I clicked the prompt, the app started to write the response in real-time, and our new acquaintance had his mind blown.

This showed me, actually reminded me, that while I try hard to stay in tune with the latest and greatest in AI, not everyone is. AI literacy is a big deal and potentially a big problem if you do not take it into your own hands. Especially if workplaces and schools ban it.

Taking Control of Your AI Education

When something as big as Generative AI, and the advancement of AI in general, comes around, most people, companies, and those in positions of responsibility will take a “sit back and wait” approach. And for many valid reasons, it is a valid approach. It’s complicated. It has a lot of implications on how organizations and businesses work. For the education field, it has broader implications on how students learn, do homework, what is considered “cheating” and more.

But this isn’t the first time we’ve had a big technological change in our lives. Many of the same arguments being made today for the use of AI/GenAI were the same ones used when Google was introduced.

AI Will Become the New Normal

I wish I could tell you that all the good things that AI and Generative AI will provide us didn’t come with a dark side. The reality is that GenAI is introducing a whole slew of challenges from personal and corporate ethics to deep fakes and misinformation to hacking and cybersecurity to legal issues. While AI has been around for decades, that lonely day in September 2022 when Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and the OpenAI team launched ChatGPT for free and introduced a new way for the average human to interact with AI, Pandora’s box was opened and will never be shut again.

Since that day we now have a new way of working. A new way of learning. A new way of creating. A new way to engage with technology. For better or worse.

While GenAI will go through its own evolution from hype to questioning the value of it and the investments around continuing to develop GenAI it will become mainstream. In fact, Google, Apple and Meta are going to be the biggest players who will do it. And they are doing it now.

AI in Everyday Life – It is Here Thanks to Google, Apple and Meta

While I want you to better understand AI and GenAI specifically, companies like Google, Apple, and Meta are bringing it to you now. Today. To me, this is why you need to take your AI literacy seriously. You need to understand how each company is approaching GenAI and integrating it into your every day lives.

Apple is launching its new AI, called Apple Intelligence, with their next iPhone release in the fall of 2024. While Apple has been using AI in their phones for years, through features such as personalization, photo editing, video enhancements and more.

Google has been integrating AI into their platforms for years as well. Their latest foray is with an upgraded AI chatbot experience with the release of Gemini on Google phones. Gemini is also now featured in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides if you pay for their upgraded plans.

Google is also bringing GenAI to search results. While there has been some gaffes already in the outputs created, this will only improve over time and will change the way we engage with search and search results.

Meta is adding their own AI engines into Facebook, Instagram, Threads and What’s App. You will start to see “Ask Meta AI or Search” appear in the search bars of these apps.

The point is, these technology companies are bringing AI to you, today, and doing it in very consumer-friendly ways.

Resources to Get Started on Your AI Literacy Journey

Getting started to learn more about AI and GenAI is not challenging. There are lots of articles published daily on the topic. Here are some of my favorite resources to help you get started.

  • GenAI Tools – Here are some you can get started for free, or paid versions. Thre are many more than I list here, but these are good starting places.
    • ChatGPT – the one that started it all. I highly recommend trying the paid version for at least a month to see the difference. Can generate text, images, code and more.
    • Perplexity.ai – uses the Google API and pulls in more real-time content from the Internet in the response, with citations. With the paid version you can also access other models such as Claude.
    • Claude – a ChatGPT competitor, but more private in that it doesn’t have access to the Internet for anything after it has been trained. Claude maker, Cohere, prides itself on its take on security.
    • Adobe Firefly – generate images in a variety of formats and styles. Adobe claims it has trained Firefly on its own content, and thus, its images are commercially ready for use.
  • Podcasts – a list of my favorite AI podcasts
  • Free Education Resources – Check out some of these free resources from top companies and institutions
  • People to Follow – if you use social media, here are a few people to follow and even turn notifications on

Every journey begins with a step. Just one step. Take yours today so you can be better informed about the changes that are coming your way with GenAI.

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The Power of Grit and Determination

Now that sports is coming back I’m watching my beloved Chicago Blackhawks fight their way through the shortened season and into the playoffs. I don’t know how far they will go, but they are far from the favorite to win. Just to get into the actual playoffs they had to beat a no. 5 seed. And they did. It was a classic 12/5 upset.

What I love about sports in the playoffs is that teams who are not supposed to be there, the underdogs, get scrappy. They get creative. They get gritty and have determination to prove that they belong in the fight. And with the right motivation from their coaches and each other they can do amazing things. They can pull off upsets. They can prove the naysayers wrong. They do belong. They do deserve to hoist the cup.

Everyone has Grit and Determination

Grit and determination is not just for athletes. For just as many cinderella sports teams that you read a headline about, I’ve seen way more stories on LinkedIn about individuals finding new jobs. They are sharing their metrics too. 150 days out of a job. 130 jobs applied for. 29 interviews. 3 ghosting by recruiters. 3 job offers. 1 new wonderful employer.

courage and resolve; strength of character.

definition of grit

I’ve personally never been in that position except maybe when I graduated college and was looking for my first job. I have certainly been fortunate. But these individuals are grinding it out. They are not only finding grit and determination to find a new job, in many cases they are finding better jobs. They are pivoting into something they really love or want to do.

firmness of purpose; resoluteness.

definition of determination

Everyone has or can have a situation that requires focus, embracing new behaviors, fixing bad habits, or changing your destiny. What I’ve determined is that it is a state of mind. To be courageous is a state of mind. To have resolve is a state of mind. And to get in that state of mind sometimes means you have to accept things you normally wouldn’t.

Embrace the Suck

I think one of the hardest parts of any situation that you come across that is unpleasant or unexpected is to take a minute to assess your situation, then just “embrace the suck.” What do I mean by that?

On one hand you can fight the situation ahead of you. You can pretend it isn’t as bad as it is. You can lie to yourself that it is “temporary” or “will just last <insert X period of time here>. Or you can grab the preverbal bull by the horns and embrace the fact that you are in a situation that you’d prefer not to be in.

That could be a project you’ve been given. It could be a job loss. It could be a personal situation. When you embrace the suck it is amazing how your attitude can change to focus on getting the task/project done and change your situation. To dig in and believe that you accomplish the goal or fix the problem. That takes grit. That takes determination. You embrace the suck and make plans and execute to make it better.

Back to my beloved Chicago Blackhawks. As of writing this we are down 0-2 in the first round of the playoffs with the Las Vegas Knights. We went to overtime in Game 2 and lost by one point. Every point is a battle. The players on both teams are grinding it out every line change (hockey term for a group of players who go on and off the ice together in rotations). It will take teamwork, grit and determination to advance to the next round. What’s the next round of your playoffs? Are you willing to go the extra effort to grind it out?

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As a Holiday Shopper, I Miss Toys ‘R’ Us

I didn’t want to grow up. I wanted to be a Toys ‘R’ Us kid for life.  Even as I got older, I still enjoyed going into “the” toy store.  I took my kids.  They’d ask me every time we passed by one, “Dad, can we go to Toys ‘R’ Us?”  And many times, we did.  We didn’t always buy something, but we went in.  Why?  Not to tease my kids, but to spark their imagination.  No other store had the sheer volume of toys, and that was special.  

Toy Shopping is Tough This Year

Maybe it is just me, or maybe it is just the sign of the times, but toy shopping in 2018 is tough.   Asking our children for ideas for Christmas, and not just for ourselves to give them as gifts, but for family members as well is like asking them if they want to go to the dentist or clean their room.  It is like pulling teeth or a chore.  They don’t want to do it.  Please, flip through this Target catalog and circle what you want.  Let’s get on Amazon and search for toys.  “There isn’t anything I want.”  “I can’t find anything.”  “Why don’t they have more video games?”  We’ve heard every excuse.  My wife has even resorted to dragging them TO Target and browse the toy aisles to no avail.  It’s just not the same. 

No other store, short of an actual Lego store, could you find so many sets from different series, than a Toys ‘R’ Us.  No other store could you just wander and find a new style of toy that might catch an interest.  That’s not to say Target isn’t picking up the slack for a lack of a local Toys ‘R’ Us, but it’s not the same.  And Target isn’t the only one trying to cash in.    

Everyone is Trying to Capitalize on the Toys ‘R’ Us Void

This weekend I was in Home Depot getting some items for a project I was going to make for a holiday gift.  As I walked in the main entrance I was not only greeted with the normal light bulbs or grills or even holiday ornaments.  I was presented with a kids bicycle!  Wait, what?!  Then I saw a bunch of temporary displays in the aisle with coloring books, drones, kids floor mats for cars to drive on, and more.  Moving through the aisles I saw more of these next to end-caps.  Every open space in my normal spacious home improvement big box was now filled with non-home improvement items.  Here is just a fraction of what I saw.  

Not your normal home improvement items.  

Now, Home Depot isn’t the first store to try to edge into the toy space, even when Toys ‘R’ Us was around.   Kohl’s has been doing it for years, with a small space, and then getting larger around the holiday.  For them, it is also bleeding into electronics and now the strategic partnership with Amazon to have their in-store experience certainly has helped them move beyond the department store retailer they were known for.  

Amazon Can’t Fill the Void

No matter how you slice it, Amazon isn’t the answer to everything.  The convenience of the e-commerce giant can’t fill the experience of flipping through a catalog and imagining playing with a toy.  It can’t let you hold the box, shake it, flip it over to read the back, and imagine it in your toy room.  It can’t show you, up close and personal, the entire collection in a setting, right next to each other ready for you to dream about having them all.  Nope, you can just swipe through a few photos, play a video (maybe) and see if it has good reviews or not.  And to boot, not every cool toy is sold on Amazon.   

As a parent, yes, Amazon is great.  I buy a product or ten and it shows up on my doorstep two days later.  Or I need a last minute gift and I can’t get out to shop.  Yep, it fills that void perfectly.  Gift wrapped?  Yes, please.  Click, click, boom.   Call me old fashion, but there is just something about walking through a store and browsing.  That “discovery” process is not the same when you are clicking/swiping/tapping through screen after screen.   

Don’t Call it a Comeback…Yet

So while we have entered the first real holiday season without a physical Toys ‘R’ Us store, it doesn’t mean Geoffrey the Giraffe and the brand is absent.  After hedge fund investors decided to retain the name for a future endeavor, Kroger and the Geoffrey company (the subsidiary who owns the IP) brought Toys ‘R’ Us pop-ups to 600 Kroger grocery stores.   I haven’t personally experienced one of these, but at least for some kids, the Giraffe is back!  

It is just a start and nobody knows what it will really take to get back in the game.  With all their physical stores sold and leases taken over during the liquidation, there is still a long road ahead for Geoffrey the Giraffe and the iconic Toys ‘R’ Us brand as a retailer.  Compound that with the fact that staple toy makers like Mattel and Hasbro have been forced to cut new distribution deals with other outlets, it won’t be easy to bring everyone back together.  So what opportunity lies ahead? 

Even if Toys ‘R’ Us Makes a Come Back It Shouldn’t be the Same

There will be case study after case study written on where Toys ‘R’ Us went wrong.  How it didn’t innovate enough for the in-store experience.  How they could have dominated the toy industry and shopping experience.  Now’s the opportunity.  What makes a kid today different than a kid of my generation?  In some ways, a lot!  In other ways, not much is different.  Sure we have more advanced technology to make gaming systems amazing.  We have robotic dogs that you can interact with your voice.  But, we still have kids that want a stuffed animal.  We still have our imagination.  We still have senses that need stimulation and engagement.  And that’s where Toys ‘R’ Us can shine.  Bring a new experience to the store.  Host gaming competitions.  Host build-offs.  Bring S.T.E.M. classes in-store to teach kids how to build the next inventions.  Robotics coding classes.  Turn your store into a playground for the mind and soul!  The opportunities are endless than to just be a “toy store.” 

Just don’t forget to be a “toy store” that allow kids to pick up boxes, flip them over, see a set all put together.  Let them discover and be a kid.  

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My Love-Hate Relationship with Facebook

Unless you’ve been under a rock the last few days, you probably know about the recent Facebook news about the data breach/violation via Cambridge Analytica.  I had a brief discussion with my friend Ross Quintana on Facebook Live the other night too, but I, unfortunately, didn’t have time to really dig into the topics that have been on my mind around this whole incident.  I’m not going to lie, I struggle with Facebook.  We have a love/hate relationship and this incident with Cambridge Analytica is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things like data privacy, internet companies revenue models, the ignorance of “free” services, and possible regulation of the Internet.  Just to name a few.

I have drafted a post that I never published citing that I uninstalled the Facebook app from my phone about a month ago.  And I did.  But, I reinstalled it during a recent business trip where I wanted to share more content with my friends and family while gone and Facebook was the medium to do it.  And frankly, that pissed me off.

via GIPHY

Facebook Stopped Being Relevant

You see, Facebook has become a place where I don’t like to spend time, but I need to spend time for some valid reasons.  Let’s start with why I deleted the app a month ago.

I used to really enjoy catching up on activities my friends, co-workers, and family were doing.  We used Facebook as a platform to connect.  Wow, I feel like I could be an employee right now.  “We are here to connect the world.”

What it has turned into today, with algorithm changes, ads, friends and family publishing the most inane, irrelevant crap (I don’t care which answer you picked on this “thing from my childhood that isn’t around anymore” posts) it drives me insane.  It is an endless scroll of just junk.  I’ve clearly clicked “Like” on too many pages of interest (Runners World, please….you don’t need to post 18 times a day, I promise) where if it isn’t crap from my friends and family, it is just published content from these pages.  My thumb is getting cramps just flipping through irrelevant stuff to find the one or two pieces of gold that I care about.

via GIPHY

I’m pretty sure my friends and family are indeed publishing stuff I care about.  Facebook just doesn’t seem to want to show it to me anymore.

Why I Can’t Just “Quit”

I really wish I could.  Just export all my data and “let go” of Facebook.  However, I can’t.  I can’t because there are valuable reasons and tools that Facebook offers to connect communities together.  Specifically, I run a private running group and I’m a leader/contributor to my son’s Cub Scout Pack and we use Facebook Groups and Pages to communicate and recruit.  In addition to all of that, my company has several pages where I need to be an admin.  If I were to quit I’d be taking myself out of some key responsibilities that I’m currently assigned to.

To be fair, these tools work.  We have the engagement we want and it continues to grow, so we are getting value.  It is a positive thing.

We’ve Created Our Own Mess

If we want to put a blame on why Facebook has become so important to many of us (and as a Nation) we have no further to look than in the mirror.  As a culture and society, we are creatures of habit, greed, narcissism, empathy, and followers (and leaders).  Facebook started as something exclusive.  Then it grew to be where all the “cool kids” hung out.  They opened up the walled garden because they know they could profit with more users, more data, more opportunity for advertising.  Then the people came and we ate it up like a hot fudge sundae.  We got the dopamine hits when we got a “like”.  Then we got “love, laugh, ha ha, WOW!” and more.  We just can’t stop.  It’s “free”, so, share with the world and maybe we will go “viral” and get more attention.

Look, folks, Facebook is a melting pot of all that is good and bad with the world.  It connects communities, it profits from our “licensing” of our data and information so they can create hyper-targeted ads for companies.  We are feeding the beast because we can’t quit.  Sigh.

I’m Going to Stop Here

So this is where I’m going to stop.  I have several other thoughts on all of this, with the topics mentioned above.  However, I’m going to try to record some of these thoughts with video and then publish those as my medium of discussion.  What are your thoughts?  Let’s discuss below.

 

 

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Mining for Personalization: How Far is Too Far?

How far are companies willing to go with technology to mine data and gain insights to deliver personalization to us?

I was in a conversation last week at work and somehow we got on the topic of voice and other “creepy” examples we see or interpret that leads to ads appearing on our devices. One example given was a co-worker was in her office with our summer intern at the time and was discussing a purchase she made on her computer on Amazon. The next day our intern stated that she started seeing ads for that same item on her Facebook feed. Two different users, different devices, not even an item the intern would have purchased, but ads are showing up now on her computer.  This wasn’t the first time I had a conversation like this where ads would start to appear based on verbal conversations.

The conversation went further with someone else stating that they read Facebook was experimenting with analyzing the dust patterns on your photos from your cell phone lens to match people who are or are not connected and other data mining like Geo, proximity to each other, behavior patterns, etc. Now, Facebook isn’t actually doing this, but the idea that using location data or even dust to identify people who may show up in the “you may know” area, it does get creepy when you think about it.  (NOTE: Facebook does neither, but not without admitted experimentation. See link above.)

We’ve heard the stories of apps using the microphone to listen in on conversations and TV shows for ad targeting. How far are tech companies willing to go to mine your data, behavior, and other attributes to deliver personalized, content, experiences, or in many cases just ad targeting?  Farther than many of us realize.

Let’s be clear, if the dust analyzing freaks you out, you are uploading photos to a “free” service in which I’m confident somewhere in their Terms of Use states they can do this. You agree to those terms every time you use the app or website. A nice reminder of what “free” means in the age of the Internet. So when we are willingly providing data to a third party, how can we not expect them to mine this data to experiment and possibly deliver more value to you?  It’s a fine line of value vs. trust.

Even as a marketer, I myself feel there is a limit we need to adhere to. I’m right there with the next marketer who wants as targeted of an audience as possible. We all want the Segment of One. To get there, it will take a lot of technology and analyzing data points. But dust specs on a smartphone lens from a photo that was uploaded? Seems a little too far to me.

So how far are we willing to go?  How desperately do we need data, attributes, behaviors to map to get that customer?  Are we willing to play the “everyone just clicks accept” to get the app or use the site?  How much are we willing to build then break trust with our customers to get to the segment of one?