The Digital Footprint

Overcoming Your “AI Analysis Paralysis” with Sarah Woodward

• Season 3 • Episode 26

Share episode

If you're worried about AI upending your industry, organization, or career – you are not alone.

Across the globe, business leaders, like you, are secretly stressing about how generative AI is going to impact their position in the market, their roles, and their teams.

But knowing how and where to introduce AI within your organization can be overwhelming, leaving many stuck in "AI analysis paralysis."

In this episode, Richard Simms chats with Sarah Woodward, founder of AI Growth Ops, an organization leading executives through AI transformation, about your biggest concerns, including:

  • The #1 place to start using generative AI (hint: It may not be content creation)
  • Making stronger business decisions about generative AI tools
  • Which jobs & roles are actually at risk of disruption
  • Getting your teams excited about adopting AI


Does your organization need help getting started with generative AI?


Stay Connected:

  • Need help launching or scaling a SaaS product? Let's talk

Want to bring a SaaS product to market, quickly?
Book a consultation: https://tyrannosaurustech.com/contact/

Connect with our cohosts Richard Simms & Carlos Gonzalez on Linkedin

Sarah Woodward:

For a lot of leaders, there is analysis paralysis to some extent because they recognize there is a whole lot of risk right with introducing generative AI especially, which you know, has some non predictable outcomes early, I just say hey, let's start small and look for moments of friction in your workflow and your process. We don't have to start with let's have a I now own our brand voice. That's not where to start, you know? But could AI own project operations could

Richard Simms:

welcome to the digital footprint podcast for leaders in healthcare, public health and education, who are looking to leverage technology to solve problems and make a big impact. In each episode, we interview innovators and entrepreneurs who are solving the most challenging problems facing these industries. Join us as we dig in to the colossal tasks involved in bringing a new digital product to life. Welcome to the digital footprint Hello and welcome to season three of the digital footprint presented by tyrannosaurs tech and award winning technology partner bringing SAS products to market and solving complex problems for clients, including helping them with their AI strategy. I'm your host Richard Sims, I'm thrilled to be back for a third season especially for this episode. Because today's topic is one nearly every business leader and owner is thinking about a lot of people are talking about it, some aren't as openly and it's all just AI you know, how's it gonna change things? Is it going to make my business obsolete? As an agency owner, this is a conversation that current clients and prospects are clearly asking us about and trying to navigate all the time. Even big players, you know, fortune 500 companies, household names, who I think objectively Are you know, crushing it like even they are wrestling with this. So it's pretty across the board. And even for us at trains horse tack, you know, we've always tried to be early adopters of AI as it's been evolving, but we've wrestled with it too, because it's all come on so fast. But here's the reality. New technology has always demanded businesses evolve how they operate or become irrelevant. So I definitely think the better question to ask is not will AI kill my business, but how can we evolve? How can we lean into it? How can we kind of future proof AI proof the business and the team and fortunately, our guests is here to help them navigate just that. So joining me today she is the founder of AI growth ops. An organization leading executives through AI transformation with strategic approaches that scale. She's a serial entrepreneur. For time growth marketer has a very impressive client portfolio including BMW Coca Cola, the Home Depot, the CDC, Porsche could go on and on a lot, a lot of great experience to draw from there. She has been named a mobile woman to watch by mobile marketer magazine, and one of five inspiring women in tech to watch in Atlanta. So please welcome to the show, Sarah Woodward. Thanks

Sarah Woodward:

so much, Richard. I'm so excited to be here. It's awesome to be able to jam on AI topics and really just talk about the practical applications and what we can expect. For

Richard Simms:

sure. I've been really looking forward to this conversation. And this kind of stemmed from us going back and forth a little bit in the comments on one of my posts, which was related to you know, how do you kind of AI proof your team and I do want to touch on that later. But I'm especially glad to have you on and you may not even remember this era, and I wouldn't blame you but we first met years and years ago. It was when you were with stable colonel, and we were just starting out. You were very supportive. Gave me a lot of good advice and then you oh actually referred to us, one of our very first clients. So I'll always be indebted I think they were too small for y'all but just right for us. Yeah, so

Sarah Woodward:

we're about board meeting for coffee I think Park and then when Inman Park maybe are in Exactly,

Richard Simms:

exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's been it's been a long time, but I'm glad to to come and pick back up the relationship. So let's switch gears because today's topic is incredibly timely Of course. So as an expert in the generative AI space, just to dive right into some of these topics we want to get into, like, what sentiments are you hearing out there? Right. I mean, people are excited people are freaked out, like, you know, what are you kind of coming across and where do you think that's stemming from as you're talking to a lot of businesses that are trying to figure out the direction they want to go with this stuff?

Sarah Woodward:

Yeah, sir. So I think there's a little bit of people being all over the place, right. So I think that, you know, we're in a bubble where people are talking about AI all the time. And so naturally, I kind of feel like I walk into a room. Maybe I don't need to do 101 In generative AI but the truth is, is we still do, there's a lot of companies, there's a lot of people who still haven't played with, you know, a Changi BT or something like that. And companies are trying to figure out how does this fit into our business strategy or our tech strategy? And so, I see a lot of different kinds of approaches, some of which are more on the practitioner level, who are a little nervous about what is the implication of AI? Could it potentially take my job or could it at least interfere with the thing is about my job I really love. And so that's a whole lot of where I spend my time is working with teams to make sure that we're not abstracting away the things that they love, right? And trying to think about what are all the things that we don't love in our jobs? And I think that for a lot of leaders, there is analysis paralysis to some extent, because they recognize there is a whole lot of risk right with introducing generative AI especially which you know, has some non predictable outcomes and you know, are really trying to think, Okay, how do we adopt these new technologies in responsible ways, or ways that makes sense within our existing tech stack? And really, how do we just onboard it in a way that people buy in as well as think through how this is going to impact their jobs? and whatnot? Yeah,

Richard Simms:

that's super interesting. And I, I kind of see it all over the map too. I think a lot of people are excited and then you kind of also sense the anxiety behind that. Of course, some people are truly scared and I think it is going to be an already is very disruptive. So that's not as irrational right. But I think that I think we're aligned in the mindset that like, if you lean into it, embrace it, see it as a tool that hopefully some of that fear can dissipate and you can really enjoy the benefits and to your point, like anything that drives efficiency, in theory, it should free up your time to do things that are more productive, like nor, you know, more stimulating, you know, really require more vision or problem solving, like kind of the higher level things that I think most folks ultimately want to do or move more into so going a little further on the question I originally asked one thing, I get a kick out of you know, and it's it's like this for other trends that have come along over the years. Maybe trends isn't the right word, but other innovations that have come along over the years, but then AI of course is like kind of the behemoth I think, right? Everyone's talking about it, as you said, I know a lot of people are really like ahead of the curve, but then everyone feels this compulsion to kind of like, really be on top of it say that it's now driving their business. It's like when you're out there and you really pull back the curtain. How many folks are just talking to talk, walking the walk? Like there's a lot of in between there? What's your read on where we really are because we're still so early in the scheme of things. I'd love to get your thoughts on that? Sure.

Sarah Woodward:

I think you know, organizations like yours and very tech forward organizations who have been involved in traditional AI for a long time. I think that there's still a lot of lip service to, hey, we have aI on board, but it's in our products, right? It's not necessarily generative. It's not being used by individuals and their daily tasks. And so I think that while they have really strong chops on the development side or the technology side, it's really the rest of the employee workforce that they have not invested in. And so how do you think about doing that and you know, I saw a funny meme this morning, that was like, I want AI to do my laundry and wash my dishes so that I can write and do art and not the not the other way around. I still love to write and so for the most part, I do not use AI to write because that's something that brings me a lot of joy and so where I see teams get a little bit stuck is trying to figure out where is that moment where we need to start introducing AI and a lot of it is really I just say, hey, let's start small and look for moments of friction in your workflow and your process. And having interdepartmental collaboration or communication. You know, we don't have to start with let's have aI now own our brand voice. That's not That's not where to start, you know, but could AI own project operations. It could could it rehab or product manager or project manager to actually be a thought leader as opposed to the guy who is backlog grooming and following up with Deb tasks and that sort of thing? So I think that where people are trying things is a little bit all over the place. Content Creation, of course, is the number one use case right now across industries. And I think that content operation should absolutely be one of the first use cases but I also think that just operations in general should be where we start because that makes that facilitates people being able to do their jobs more effectively, more productively, and really get back to the things that they enjoy doing, instead of worrying about, you know, did I fill out my timesheet or you know, have I, you know, adequately updated all of my stories today.

Richard Simms:

I love what you're sharing and I have like so many thoughts I don't even know like where to begin. So I'll try not to go on and on but I think that I just been using the age old. How do you eat an elephant like one bite at a time? That analysis paralysis is very real. And we're certainly seeing that in people that are holding off or they're frozen and I think people kind of get fixated on the really big picture. really innovative use cases of AI or like, are thinking about Wow, how does this change our entire business strategy? And like maybe those are healthy questions to ask, but they probably are but I think you have to just start small, with less intimidating implementations and also that can help the team grasp what's possible and see it as a tool that aids them rather than a threat. And yeah, I mean, I think when it comes to my content creation, too, I know one thing that we have, you know, beat the drum on social media or on LinkedIn rather than some of our posts is that it is a tool but you are still responsible. For the deliverable, right. So things like content creation, like if you're using AI, great, but the attitude needs to be like this is a tool that helps me whatever like come up with the first draft or play with the verbiage that I want to use. But if you don't take responsibility for the output and really aren't using this tooling to do better work, then I think you're kind of missing the point, right? I really want to caution people to like, see it as a silver bullet shortcut that you don't have to still really take ownership of the quality of what they're doing.

Sarah Woodward:

I build a lot of automated workflows for clients. And so we're imagining how do we map out a process? How do we think about mental models of your employees who are working that process right? And just thinking about okay, well, we're opportunities to facilitate some of that passing of information, right? So for instance, one of the pieces that most recently that I've been automating for a lot of creative teams is simply task delegation. So if I create some sort of, let's say a Trello card that is about a design task, it alerts the entire design team in Slack. Someone can raise their hand and say, I got that, you know, and then that automatically updates Trello for instance, and assigns that person to a card and then you know assigns a deadline it communicates back to the account team. What's happening right? And so there's no there's no I stole the joy out of my job piece to that. It's really just how did I steal away the you know, the tediousness of okay, let me go ask this designer what's on their plate or let me ask this designer we can just automate some of these pieces, right? And so what I really like is just thinking about, how do we create you know, it's like an empathy map for our own people. So I feel like as leaders, it's definitely our jobs to make sure that we're creating environments where our employees can thrive. And so thinking about okay, what makes their day to day life better? And so that's what I'm helping, you know, helping organizations do is let's just start with one piece. Let's start with what is like an immediate point of pain that we can solve that doesn't require us to know every AI tool out there or every automation tool out there. Let's just think about how can I recognize that there's a decision to make in a workflow, let it make that decision, and push forward and then has clear moments where we're breaking that automation, having a moment where a human has to come in and say, Oh, I have a solid first draft here. Let me finish it up with maybe an executive quote or maybe we have a proprietary process or graphic that I think would go great in this blog piece. And let me just play with the language a little bit to sound more like it's in our voice. So I think that there's ways that we can do it without sort of sacrificing the human piece, as well as you know, not putting out stuff that sounds super robotic. There is an employer here in Atlanta, who early in this sort of hype cycle, laid off a lot of their senior content team. And they said, Hey, we're just gonna automate all of this. And it was terrible and said, Hi, Ted. Didn't you know it wasn't in the brand voice it didn't speak to personas, it didn't understand benefits and value prop and everything. And so when they went back to hire those same content, people guess whose hourly rates were significantly higher, you know, so, like, don't make dumb decisions because we're betting on this, you know, futuristic thing I think of core adjacent transformational innovation. What can we do today that affects our core business, either from a process standpoint and efficiency standpoint, productivity, before we think about, well, how do we then go sell this because if we don't understand internally, how it impacts people, how they have to change their mental model, how they have to adopt new technology, because we've all seen people five $100 million Salesforce stack and that no one uses it to its fullest advantage, right. Like, how do we think about doing this more intelligently? Yeah,

Richard Simms:

excellent points. And then I think that instance you're referencing where they like let go of all the senior you know, a content creator folks like, there's obviously a disconnect for a lot of folks, even though this stuff is moving very fast, like where things really are right now. And I think that's true across the board. And like, maybe we'll talk about this later in the conversation for us. Like for engineering, for example. We've been using, you know, GitHub, copilot and all this stuff for a long time, and it's hugely helpful. I think, you know, it will continue to be really impactful with engineers and particular types of more repetitive tasks or more just rudimentary kind of, you know, junior level stuff, but obviously, for now, and I think for the foreseeable future, like you need folks that understand how these different systems tie in together, you know, really like how leveraging all these various services and products that make a actual functional, robust product, not just churning out lines of code. And then I think even more importantly, good engineering is great, but it's really about do you understand your users? Do you understand the market? Is their product market fit? Like, what's the landscape? Are these pain points significant enough that they justify spin? It's like all those fundamentals. Even if you get an AI that you can press a button, and that turns out an app like that doesn't solve making it a viable business play. So I think the cart gets a little ahead of the horse in some of the thinking on this stuff, I think, but you know, that's largely just because the fervor is like so strong right now too.

Sarah Woodward:

Yeah, I agree. I think certainly people ask about hey, what's what's the potential detriment to my job, right. And I don't remember the exact numbers but I was watching a developer talk about how there's actually not enough. The font you know, like the metal elements in the world to create the processors needed to replace all developers like, there is not enough minerals in the earth to be able to do that. So congratulations, y'all are safe. But you know the amount of processing power that is required to do this, I mean, the amount of water that is used in order to process things I think that we all have to look at AI can't just be the thing we slap on everything because there's also a sustainability aspect to it. And so like where is it going to? have the most impact? And to your point? What is the market actually want from us? I think that often we get really in love with our solutions and our products without really asking our customers. Hey, did you even want this thing? Yeah, so like Home Depot is doing something really cool where they're testing using generative AI on their website. And it I heard a CMO talking about this and she you know, Molly batten and she's saying, you know, you can now imagine yourself in your own kitchen. What would it look like if we re skinned it in? French provincial, or a modern aesthetic or whatever. And so those are the type of use cases you would imagine that you know, a home depot.com shopper would be very interested in right like, let me imagine this bear paints on the wall or whatever. So I think that we're starting to see more companies come out with useful applications that people want. But I think right now, internally is still where the opportunity lies. I think something like 80% of workers will have been using the attack GPT whether or not they are allowed to write and so how do you make sure that you're protecting your employee, you know, your customers, your IP? Well, you've got to recognize that this is happening regardless whether or not you want it to. And so how do you make sure that people have safe environments where they can play or they can experiment? These are especially in an agency bottle, our you know, our teams are the ones who are really thinking about, in a way innovative new ways to touch customers and sort of clients right. And so I think they're the ones who are going to have more of a voice more of opinion. More data to be able to say, Look, these are some of the use cases we need to be testing because they would make our lives easier, and they would make our clients lives easier as well.

Richard Simms:

Yeah, very true. I think a lot of folks are like using chat GTP in their day to day. Let's say I'd like a large enterprise and there's no guardrails. And on one hand, I don't I don't fault them, right. Like I'm encouraging people to kind of lean in and embrace it. But of course, there's a lot of risk there. I mean, there's potentially proprietary information they should not be inputting. Obviously, there's like bias they might not be accounting for and, you know, all kinds of issues. So, it's gonna be very interesting. Seeing how companies try to wrangle that and like, even you know, this is maybe going to be a picture but like in the education system, it's like, that's a big question. Of course, like, to what extent are, you know, I'm not talking like young kids, but like kids in school, like when are they going to start learning that this is like at their disposal and how to use it properly and responsibly. And, you know, that friction, however that continues to evolve is going to be wild, I think,

Sarah Woodward:

absolutely. You know, I see a lot, especially at the collegiate level encouragement to use this. I mean, you have to and you're preparing people for the workforce, right? So they need to understand how to use it. But then there's a lot of reactiveness, too. And so I think Ethan Maalik, for instance, who I know a lot of us love and follow. He is a professor at Wharton and an AI researcher is even said that most of these AI detection platforms are terrible and not accurate at all. And so students are getting flagged for cheating when they're not really cheating, right? Yeah. And there's a ways to go before we're gonna be at a place where we can really rely more intently, I think on these things. For me, healthcare is a space that I'm very concerned about because we already know historically, that patient outcomes using AI can be bad. There are definitely populations that there's not enough data because they have been underserved, sick, you know, historically. And so, because of the way the models are built, AI will predict that they don't need as much care well. It's because they haven't had enough access to care. And so, you know, I think that there's a lot of things where, you know, you could automate charting for instance, or, you know, dictation median with it. But when it comes to predictive models, I mean, I'm not ready to be part of that. Because I'm not ready to hold that responsibility. So I do like working with my marketing teams and my operation teams and sales teams, because these are very minimum risk kind of use cases. And I think that we've got a lot of work to do before we can get to those higher risk cases on or at least much smarter people than I need to be lady those charges, right.

Richard Simms:

No, I like that. I mean, I feel like with a lot of new tech and AI being a perfect example, like yes, my impulse is to look for like the low hanging fruit and kind of filter out some of the noise that you have to be thinking of like the biggest sweeping innovation to do it. Right.

Sarah Woodward:

We'll get there. Right? I

Richard Simms:

mean, I think it's just got to be one step at a time like anything

Sarah Woodward:

else. No one learns to fly a plane who knew how to ride a bike

Richard Simms:

and go yeah, good to know. You know, I heard someone say and we've kind of adopted this. It's like, AI isn't going to take your job but someone who knows how to use AI to do your role better might and I think like for now, that's kind of a good way to think about it.

Sarah Woodward:

It is it is much like no one none of us can do our jobs without you know, simple desktop machine or whatever. Yeah, it's gonna get to the point where we can't do our jobs without AI. You know, and the thing is, is we rely on AI every single day without realizing it. You know, as soon as I use Google Maps, I'm using AI as soon as I use predictive text, I'm using AI, you know, so we're already interesting it it's just now we have this generative interface where we don't need a developer to talk specifically to AI. Right. This is now a level playing field. But I do talk to a lot of people is don't forget your 1520 years of experience in your domain space when you get to this chat window because if you're thinking about a product roadmap, you still have to intimately know who your user is. You have to have personas. You have to have user flows, you need to have done your research, right. We're not relying on AI to do all of that work for us. Now it helps us identify where gaps in our understanding is for sure. But you still have to bring that knowledge and that rigor to the process even even if AI is now part of the picture.

Richard Simms:

Yeah, yeah, totally. So a little bit bit of a pivot here. But again, going back to kind of what got us back in touch on LinkedIn, just talking about I kind of use the term AI proofing your employees. Right. And I know what I was speaking to specifically, we've been doing an ongoing series internally, just based on communication skills. And so I think that for us we have always kind of taken pride on just a differentiator, being really good communication, educating clients along the way, being very careful with expectation setting and, you know, a lot of our folks being more technical, they've never had any kind of formal training and you know, just how do you ask good open ended questions like how do you handle difficult conversations, like how do you build rapport and that's been really fun and good for us? Like I think it helps our business. It should give us a competitive edge because all of our folks are client facing in some capacity. And then I think just you know, positioning folks for future career growth. Beyond tyrannosaurs tech, like I just believe that a lot of those soft skills and kind of being able to like, synthesize, bring people together communicated well, problem solve, I think is going to become more relevant if anything, so I'm kind of curious your your thoughts on that kind of expanding from there? Because I, I know that was something that we were both curious about, I think yeah.

Sarah Woodward:

It's all about how you set your people up for success. Right. And so having been through a few different tech agencies, right, you have a lot of incredibly smart people who maybe have never been in that consultant role before, or they have not actually been part of, say, company strategy, or at least a product strategy. Right. And so getting more people up to speed to your point about understanding what are real business problems that we're trying to solve. So it's not that I need to create an app using React Native, that's not the solution, right? There is a problem. And the solution is that we facilitated something right? Yeah. And so getting folks that think in those terms, I think is really critical because when you are talking to the technology lead with this unit lead, or even a C suite of a potential customer. They want that reassurance that you've been in their shoes and it's not it's not reasonable that every member of our team will have led a business unit, for instance, right, or created a company strategy, but building that empathy for why we're doing things. One thing I learned early on when you know working with development teams, often when you're looking at timing and costs and whatnot, the answer becomes It depends. No client can sign off on it depends and so how do we make sure we put ourselves in those shoes? And you know, one of the things you just mentioned was facilitation and company that I was in at 352. That is one of the big, big skill building pieces that every one was exposed to because facilitation of what discipline you're in what industry you're in. Bringing people together to solve problems is a critical skill. And even if you like to talk to people, that does not mean you're a facilitator. And so how do you make sure that ideas from every corner of your organization are you know, being pulled out right and how do you watch for body language cues about someone who might have something to say but don't feel comfortable saying in this space, for sure, or or being able to reframe our problem in a way that it gets people thinking about a solution in a different way. And you know, I have actually encouraged a few friends who are in the middle of career pivots, to use their chat GPT or their clod three as a sparring partner to teach them how to be better facilitators, right, you know, and so, hey, chat, JpT act like you are a buyer of this thing, and how long the process be able to communicate to them as we unpack a problem or start to brainstorm solutions. And so I think just exposure and intentionality on how information gets solved, you know, one of the things that I've seen with one of my clients is there is a brilliant content person who is a prompt engineering wizard and they can get the best content out of AI. The other eight people on their team don't have that ability. So you can't scale that knowledge with just one person right? It has to become something that infiltrates the entire organization or at least an entire team where people are often sharing information you know, so like setting up you know, when I do when I do onboarding programs, part of it is what are we doing lunch and learns, what are we doing donuts and slack to talk about projects that we're working on, or this cool thing I just learned and just did. I led a workshop a few weeks ago, maybe about a month ago, and I was prepping for it and creating some video of just walking them through some of the capabilities of Tai Chi btw for instance, and all of a sudden it is creating visual graphs and whatnot with out me prompting it and that happened to be the weekend that they rolled that that out just prior to you know, four o or whatever. And so I get excited about this. And so I don't have a coworker immediately that I could be like, Look what I just learned, you know, but it's I do have a group of buddies that we're all AI explorers together. And so I immediately share, like, Look at this cool new feature, you know, so I think that there is this excitement right now about learning. I know, post COVID I needed something mentally stimulated Yeah. And so as I built the company with a co founder, I started using a lot of automation and AI to actually grow our company. And then I thought, You know what, this is actually more fun in the day to day than honestly dealing with a lot of executives who are in analysis paralysis. So I sort of pivoted my journey toward people who really just like, want to get started and want to fix some problems. And they know AI has the potential to do that. So like, let's go, let's just figure out a small use case and let's go and maybe not spend eight to 12 months talk.

Richard Simms:

Right, right. Right. Yeah. There's my heartache. No, I think that's great. And it's it's like anything else it's you know, I don't know there's this huge like, expanse of really the majority of people and businesses that are outside of the really big glamorous tech companies like this. That's where there's so much room for improvement and helping people making them more productive, hopefully, like helping them focus on the work they enjoy doing. And so, yeah, I think like right now that's probably a pretty underserved segment.

Sarah Woodward:

I agree. I talked to one leader who's in charge of an innovation team has lots of developers under him. He said, Hey, our teams are using GitHub co pilots are crank things out a whole lot faster. You know, and so we talked a lot about you know, peer reviewing and and how do you make sure there are bugs in the system? And you know, his point of view was like, any build I get from a junior developer is gonna have bugs. It just is and so why would I expect AI to perform any better than that? You know, and so it's like, but if, say a junior developer can all of a sudden do so much more than they could before and build things that they never see? How much more engaged are they in their job, and the projects we're working on? Like they're excited and so I just I'm seeing that everywhere. Whether or not it's marketing works with the lady last year who just said you were making me love marketing again. Like, that's awesome. I worked with a team yesterday who after showing them how we could automate away quite a few of their major ad bed headaches, they were just like, giving us hope. And I'm like, you know, in marketing, even tag, we don't generally get those type of accolades, so I will take them.

Richard Simms:

So I think a lot of our conversation today is spot on that like a lot of these jobs, you know, they're just not that they're just getting eliminated, like they're changing. You know, you're gonna be able to like, kind of hand off certain aspects that are more repetitive or tedious. But I think for a good number of jobs, you can see how like a lot of that will be gobbled up by AI. And in some spaces and maybe in the future, like kind of across the board. What I've been thinking about is like, how do you grow leaders in that new landscape because I think a lot of great leaders really cut their teeth on like, starting kind of at the bottom and like understanding all the ins and outs and they have this like really broad context and have really directly experienced like, the pain and touched all these little business operations. And if all of that's kind of abstracted away, it's just going to look very different for like how that really broad perspective comes up for leaders that ultimately are very young now but are going to be moving into those positions. You know, have you thought much about that? And I just I don't know what that looks like.

Sarah Woodward:

All right. So yes, some of the teams I worked with on was a PR agency and PR you start with a lot of grunt work, which is things like building media with reporters and editors to reach out to well guess what, you do not have to do that anymore at all. Like there are programs all day long, and frankly, there have been for a little while. But some of the benefits you get as someone who's going through that is you start to understand who is really going to be interested in my story based on their beat who writes about this topic, right? And so, a lot of that manual research does really feed into your point of view around what do I need to be good at what do I need to understand what context is critical for doing my job in the right way? And so I'll just be honest, the answer is I don't really know. I think we're early in but the things that don't change about growing capable, good leaders is building empathy. It is getting out of employees way to let them figure things out, give them safe space, you know, without a lot of risks. So making sure that they have the freedom, to be creative, to be innovative to think so what if there is a world where we're not doing as much grunt work as juniors and we are given room to actually think and maybe research case studies or maybe read books, having forbid you had time on the clock to read a business book, right or learn a new skill, you know, so I think that all those soft skills are going to be even more increasingly important, as we have to talk to employees about how AI helps them evolve their careers, how it evolves, our internal processes, how it evolves tasks, it's really just going to be continuing to lead lead people, regardless of what their actual tasks look like and how you actually develop your chops over time. I'll be interested to see, you know how those things change. I think that higher ed and, and honestly, secondary education is going to eventually start preparing us for those things. And so what do new ways of learning do to impact future workforce?

Richard Simms:

Right, well, that's a great take, and I think this feels like a perfect place to wrap it up. So hopefully, we've given our listeners some clarity and strategies that they can think about hopefully move towards implementation. Definitely want to thank you, Sarah. Again. Sarah Woodward, founder of AI growth ops. Really appreciate you taking the time. I'm really glad we had this conversation.

Sarah Woodward:

Me too. It's great to catch up and I love what you guys are doing. And I think that this is an awesome platform for just, you know, educating more people about different things that are coming in are in our industry. And so AI is a big one, and people need to be up on what's happening. So this is a grower able to help do that.

Richard Simms:

Awesome. Well, thank you again. And if your organization needs Sara's help navigating your AI transformation strategy, you can book a call with her via her LinkedIn page. Be sure to follow her on LinkedIn. She's got great stuff coming out again. That's how we reconnected leading up to this conversation. And we want to hear from you your thoughts. Do you agree disagree with any of the points that we brought up today? Let me know on LinkedIn I'm at Richard L. Sims si NMS. And thank you again for joining us on the digital footprint. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts. And if you need help with your next big tech project, whether that's bringing a new SAS product to market scaling an existing product, go over to tyrannosaurs tech.com Check us out and we'd love to sync up anytime. So thanks again, Sarah. This has been a lot of fun.

Sarah Woodward:

Richard. Appreciate the time. Thanks,

Richard Simms:

All right. Bye bye.