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Ever Onward Podcast
The Ever Onward Podcast is your go-to business podcast, offering engaging discussions and diverse guests covering everything from business strategies to community issues. Join us at the executive table as we bring together industry leaders, experts, and visionaries for insightful conversations that go beyond the boardroom. Whether you're an entrepreneur or simply curious about business, our podcast provides a well-rounded experience, exploring a variety of topics that shape the business landscape and impact communities. Brought to you by Ahlquist.
Ever Onward Podcast
Building Trust in a Divided World with Jess Flynn | Ever Onward - Ep. 86
What does it take to build a thriving business while making a lasting impact on your community? Jess Flynn’s journey from reluctant Idaho transplant to respected PR agency CEO is a masterclass in authentic leadership.
As Founder and CEO of Red Sky, a Boise-based PR and marketing agency, Jess brings 25 years of journalism and PR expertise to a diverse portfolio of clients. She leads the agency’s reputation management and executive training programs, advising private- and public-sector leaders through high-stakes communications and crisis response. An Emmy Award-winning former broadcast journalist, she began her career after graduating from the University of Texas and eventually returned to Idaho to launch Red Sky in the middle of the 2008 recession.
Under her leadership, Red Sky has been named the Boise Chamber’s 2025 Small Business of the Year (under 10 employees) and built a team known for long-term loyalty, with staff tenures ranging from four to fifteen years. Jess credits this culture to surrounding herself with people who challenge her perspective—one of her guiding principles as a leader.
Her influence extends beyond business. She has served as a federal appointee to the National Women’s Business Council, led its Rural Subcommittee, and acted as an Honorary Commander of the Idaho Air National Guard. She currently serves as a Director of First Federal Bank and is President-Elect of the Women’s and Children’s Alliance.
In this episode, Jess reflects on the evolving media landscape, the growing need for trusted communications, and the double-edged sword of artificial intelligence in the industry. She shares her strategies for balancing business growth with authentic connection, creating cultures where people stay, and focusing energy on what truly matters.
Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned executive, or simply someone passionate about strengthening communities, Jess’s story offers practical strategies and an inspiring vision for leading with trust in today’s divided world.
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Today on the EverWild and Word podcast, we have Jess Flynn. She's the founder and CEO of Red Sky. Jess is everything to everyone and I'm so happy to get her on today. She's been the CEO of the PR and marketing agency Red Sky for years. She has 25 years of journalism and PR expertise. She's an Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist. But, most importantly, jess is a community leader, one of the pillars of the Treasure Valley community. She is involved in everything that has to do with our community and making it better. I'm really excited to have her on today and just hear words of wisdom and advice from her and learn more. You will love this podcast. Prior to Jess Flynn, I'll have an Alquist update with my partner Holt Haga hey Holt this week for our update. What I wanted to talk a little bit about is just how important relationships are the guys at D&B have been. Just you know, we become great partners with them on a lot of projects. So they came to us and wanted to go to Homedale. Yeah, now I know a guy like you.
Speaker 1:You live downtown boise. You go past 16th street just to come to work.
Speaker 2:You didn't know where homedale was yeah, I didn't know, I didn't. Well, if it doesn't have a golf course, don't qualify. It doesn't have a golf, the reason, I know so much about homedale.
Speaker 1:Is the the shooting place place is right?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, we went out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you drove by there, up through there, you drove through that yeah anyway, they came to us and we ended up, uh, doing working with john jackson, jackson's uh legacy, that's that's where, that's where his father had his first gas station, yeah. And so they wanted to do a new gas station out there, dmb wanted to do a new store out there, and then we all of a sudden had, you know, I turn it over to you and I'm like hey what the hell we can do with the rest of the site out here. Really yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it, it, it worked out, I think, within gosh. I think it was probably within two, two months, three months, we had the rest of the site locked down with letters of intent that we ultimately signed and and we're moving forward with groups and they're great groups- Can you talk about the groups or no? Yeah, so O'Reilly has got a. They took down about an acre there. Mcdonald's will be on the hard corner. Iccu will have a branch out there.
Speaker 1:I mean, what a great. I mean you think of Jackson's and those new tenants and then a DMV out there, yeah it's a great little project. It's a great project.
Speaker 2:It's a great project, can I tell?
Speaker 1:you a funny story. I haven't told you this story, I just thought of it. So I was up at. It was strange because I was up at an event in Coeur d'Alene at a hangar and I'm up there and it was about. It was a thing with Governor and it was a cool event to go to, but it had nothing to do with Homedale or what I'm going to talk about. And I had a lady kind of chase me down and she's like hey, I need to talk to you, you are changing my child's life. And I'm like, hmm, I'm up in Coeur d'Alene and I'm trying to like you know.
Speaker 2:You're just like, where is?
Speaker 1:this going to go? And when is this going to go? You're just like, where is this going to go? And she says I live in Holmdel. And do you know how excited my kids are?
Speaker 2:that they can go to McDonald's and get a Happy Meal. It puts things in perspective, right Hold?
Speaker 1:on Dang, you're welcome. You're welcome, I am not sure, from a nutritional, like macro like, just like brain health or whatever that french fries and chicken nuggets are the barriers to entry.
Speaker 2:For Now it's an everyday thing instead of every three days. But no, she's like think about it.
Speaker 1:They've never had anything like that close by yeah.
Speaker 2:And anyway, it was a funny story. I just started laughing so hard. You changed my life. You're probably thinking back with your ER days.
Speaker 1:You saved my life literally.
Speaker 2:It was chicken nuggets. Now it's chicken nuggets.
Speaker 1:And I gave credit. I'm like, hey, I got a team that figured all this out, anyway. But at Home, dell, we're going to have our groundbreaking of the week in this podcast. Yeah, what a great community. I do need to say like, since we've been out there, like the, the city, the mayor, the people, the and this is no surprise you get a little bit into rural idaho. It is the heart and soul of our state. It's the most wonderful folks you've ever been around, and and this project is going to be beautiful. We're starting construction. All of it goes in at the same time and and it's, uh, it's already under construction we're starting site.
Speaker 1:Work out there already.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I went from never going to Homedale once in the last 10 years to like 10 times in the last couple months.
Speaker 1:And it's great to spend time out there and there's growth out there. It's beautiful People in the Traverse Valley? Maybe not. Well, first of all it's beautiful, but we're sprawling out that way unintentionally. But a lot of people you know you can still go out there and get some acreage and a lot going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're right on the river. It's beautiful, it is, and again back.
Speaker 1:Shout out to DMV. That community will change when you have someone like DMV. Come in and and and make, make something like this happen.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's going to be. It's another great project.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks everybody.
Speaker 1:Jess, thank you for coming on. This is like I'm excited I am excited as well.
Speaker 3:I'm sure this conversation is going to go in a lot of interesting directions.
Speaker 1:They always do. They always do. Thank you so much. You're an incredible person. I was talking to someone about you the other day and, anyway, you're kind of a community pillar and you're everywhere and have developed into the go-to for all things that matter for Boise. So the Treasure Valley, how does it feel?
Speaker 3:I feel like I'm blushing. We can probably see that on screen. I always tell people to figure out how to graciously accept compliments. So thank you for that and recognizing that, because it's important to me as a business owner and a leader to figure out what my role is in the community and where I can connect people, and so if that is what the perception is out there, then I'm doing my job and being successful.
Speaker 1:I would say back to you you're so authentic and genuinely about our community and our people and this place. That probably is where it comes from, at least when I mean, that would be the first word that would come out of my mouth. Has that always been natural for you?
Speaker 3:No, no, I would say, and this goes back to while I have now lived in Boise in Idaho, more than anywhere else, longer than anywhere else. I am not an Idaho native. I know that you talk about this a lot with your guests, but I was first dragged here kicking and screaming as a teenager for my senior year of high school from New York and then, after the start of my professional career, I chose to come back and I chose to stay, and then I eventually became an entrepreneur and I think it was truly about halfway through this entrepreneurial journey where I realized, okay, we don't truly exist in silos and for businesses and our employees to be successful, we have to figure out where our impact and connectivity is and how we can bring together people and ideas around, whether that's shared goals or shared values.
Speaker 1:Isn't it interesting, though, like doing the right, authentic thing, like if you gave a class, like, let's say, you went and taught at Boise State today, yeah, and you were with a room full of 50 inspiring entrepreneurs, and it was some business class, and you were saying what's the most important thing for you to develop a successful or in some business class, and you were saying what's the most important thing for you to develop a successful, profitable business? It probably would be if you could authentically connect to your heart and what you want and the people, and serve and do things. It's not going to be immediate, but for your brand, for who you are, for what you do, you'll look back and go. Well, it was what I liked doing, because I wanted to do it anyway, and it became. It's just interesting how that goes right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and it's this word authenticity, and how we live an authentic life. I feel that has probably been one of the biggest journeys I've been on in how much of myself do I show, whether it's to clients or to community, because, on one hand, you want to portray this confidence and conviction in what you're doing, but the authentic reality is as a small business owner, as somebody that cares about this place. There are things that concern me. There are definitely things that give me anxiety and keep me up at night, and it's that balance of how much do you transparently and authentically share and how much do you. So it's that how much do you cheerlead or how much are you a hard truth teller? And I think for I speak a lot to people that are starting out in businesses or thinking about partnerships or anything and I'm like there's a couple of things you really need to do.
Speaker 1:Do you enjoy the mentorship part of your life? I do. I do Because I know you do a lot of it.
Speaker 3:I do have a lot of conversations. It's kind of what fills my cup, that kind of spontaneous conversation of hey, here's what I did and here's the places that I could have done better, here's what I've learned along the way, and you take those learnings of mine and see how it applies to your life. And one of the things I tell people and I think this is for any business at any size is constantly communicating and thinking about what your idea of success is. Because I feel like every single business owner will say of course I want my business to be successful, but what success means to me versus what it means to you? But what success means to me versus what it means to you?
Speaker 3:You know, I've been in business with folks and success to them was providing financially for their family and for their retirement. Success to me has always been about creating a place where people can satisfy their ambitions and do great work and have an impact on community. But that may not always mean a certain profitability, right? So if you define and constantly look at what does it mean to be successful? Impact on community, but that may not always mean a certain profitability, right?
Speaker 1:So it's if you define and constantly look at what does it mean to be successful?
Speaker 1:It's that interesting, but profitability is there right, so you have to balance, as, like a CEO, and we'll get, we'll talk a little about your business, but that's the, isn't that? What makes it great, though, is you have to figure out hey, I have to. I have to be good at everything. I have to be good at branding, I have to be good at marketing myself, I have to be good at walking that line of being community involved, but not over the top, because I I serve everyone, and and I have to be profitable, and I have to be inspiring, and I have to mentor, and I have to make people that work for me attracted to work here and recruit and retain them, and it's that's entrepreneurship. It is, and it's tiring.
Speaker 1:You have to love it right.
Speaker 3:You have to love it. You have, you have to, you have to love it, and you also have to recognize where you can set up boundaries and say no because if you aren't energized and pulling energy from things, then you can't give to other people. How do you do?
Speaker 1:that I'm not good at it.
Speaker 3:We should have a club.
Speaker 1:What ends up happening with me and I watch it happen, like last night. I got home late and I was just dragging ass, I mean it just was like.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And, unfortunately for me, it's usually my family or whoever it's my people that are closest to me. It's the end of the day, and then it's ultimately when I get home where it's just empty. How do you keep it up? And just so that you have what you need to deliver to everyone in your life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have worked hard to get better at disconnecting at certain points. In some ways, our hyperconnected society and being able to work from anywhere else is so wonderful, but it's also so terrible because there is no turning something off.
Speaker 2:And in my business.
Speaker 3:We are there for clients at their time of need, which means I answer the call no matter when it rings. For clients at their time of need, which means I answer the call no matter when it rings. But there are things that energize me and help my brain do different things, and that's a lot of hands-on activities. I did a presentation.
Speaker 3:Remember when we had Ignite Boise back in the day. One of it was why I think every business owner should make sausage, because I grind meat and make sausage and do things physically. I am a sporadic crafter and bad artist, so I will cross stitch inappropriate cross stitch things with curse words I may have to get you one, tommy. So I try to do things that are away from technology, that connect my creative side with my hands. That's so important. I also try to do things that make me uncomfortable, that I don't know a lot about. I was in Twin Falls yesterday because I serve on a community bank board and while monthly, going to Twin for this very important role takes time out of my business, it also frees my brain from what I'm typically thinking about, to think about things in a very different way from a financial system way.
Speaker 3:So, diversity, the diversity of experiences. For sure, I imagine we'll say the D word a lot, because I am a huge believer in get outside your bubble, do things that are different, surround yourself with artists and creatives and people that view the world differently. That is energizing to me.
Speaker 1:Uh, I'm going to go back Tell me about your move from New York here, kicking and string, screaming, yeah, yeah. Was it a relocation for your, your folks, what, what, what. What was the reason to come to Boise, idaho?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was born and raised in a town called Poughkeepsie, new York, in the.
Speaker 3:Hudson River Valley, just about an hour and a half north of New York City. I'm of Irish and Italian roots, out of Queens, and two of my step-parents and my dad all worked for IBM. So I lived in a true company town which I don't think there's many that exist nowadays when I was growing up, where they had their own country club for IBM. Like everything we did was tied to that company did their first layoffs in the early 90s. My stepfather at the time chose to take the buyout and look for a new job, and he found and was recruited to a job running an engineering line at a company here in Boise, idaho, and this was the summer before my senior year of high school.
Speaker 1:Wow, what a tough time to tell your kid they were moving to Idaho.
Speaker 3:I was not a happy kid. I didn't know anything about Idaho, admittedly, couldn't even find it on a map Right, and so moved here and it was probably the best thing for me. There's an author that I love, brene Brown, and I believe she's the first one that said you know, don't clear the path for your kids. Prepare your kids for the path.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 3:How do you think about building resilience in kids? And, as much as I was probably a complete brat to my parents at the time, it taught me kind of this resilience and starting over. And how do you connect with people that you have nothing in common with? And Boise and Boise High was a great place for a transplant to go. It was really interesting. I still have some longtime friends, just had our 30th high school reunion and there are still people that I connect with.
Speaker 3:But I was here a year and I was like I need to get out. I need to go someplace where people don't look like me. I need to go far away, to need to go someplace where people don't look like me. I need to go far away to a big school and a big city. And so I left Boise. But there's one thing I forgot about my move to Boise that I always think about now. My mom and I were here our first week and we're walking in downtown Boise. These people kept passing us. I'm like why are they all smiling at us? We don't know them. What do they want from us? My mom was like they do that here, they're just friendly.
Speaker 2:They do that here.
Speaker 3:I thought it was ridiculous, but I'm now one of those people that smiles at complete strangers on the street, says hello. Just lost that edge.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, that's great. And so then, where'd you go to school?
Speaker 3:Went to. Oh wow, that's great. And so then, where'd you go to school? Went to the university of texas at austin.
Speaker 1:So I'm a longhorn. That's great.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that yeah, I have strong opinions about football and you're gonna be good this year. Yeah, yeah, I'm hoping. I'm hoping we'll get to the championship. And yeah, I went there for journalism my whole life. I'd been very curious. I got into journalism in high school. Even in elementary school I was writing and just wanted to, wanted to know things before anybody else and wanted to tell stories. And I went there and I originally wanted to be a foreign correspondent or a documentary producer and fell into news producing so the individuals that are behind the camera that help put together the newscasts and stuff like that. And yeah, started my career working in Austin, texas, a pretty large market, and was there for a couple of years and then got recruited to Pittsburgh. So I moved to Pittsburgh. Both places I moved sight unseen because you know that first pushed me off.
Speaker 1:Did you like?
Speaker 3:Pittsburgh. I loved Pittsburgh. Yeah, it was a great town. It's interesting it frequently tops, like Austin, some of these great kind of innovation and transformation places, and it is completely both in the way that they've transformed their downtown but just the way they've welcomed entrepreneurs there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had a really good friend there in emergency medicine, so when I was, anyway, I got snowed in there for like a week and it was awesome. It was just awesome. And before that I mean, if you would have said Pittsburgh, but it was, it was really fun. So how long were you there?
Speaker 3:I was there almost exactly two years and then at the ripe old age, I think I was 23 or 24. I thought I know everything there is to know about news. I should be in management, and there's times I wish I still had that confidence and surety of youth. I'm like I can do this. And so my family had stayed in Boise. My sister and her husband had moved back to Boise to start their law careers and I thought, well, let's go someplace comfortable to work in management and then I'll move on, because in media you move markets. So I came back in 2000.
Speaker 1:And which media company?
Speaker 3:I was at Channel 6, so. Kivi, and I was the executive producer there for four years.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah. So I want to get to what you do now. So talk me through the birth of Red Sky.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So instead of moving out of this market, I decided, wow, I really like this place. Like so many people that come here either a trailing spouse for a job, or maybe they graduate college and they think I'm going to go somewhere else I really wanted to stay and I had met my longtime partner and he's a Boise City fireman and that's a job for life, and he wasn't moving. So decided, well, how can I make this work but do something different? So storytelling.
Speaker 3:So I got into public relations in 2004. And I worked for a local agency the one PR agency in town at the time Scott Perrin and Associates, if you remember them. And after about two years there, one of our biggest clients hired me to be doing PR in-house and that was Tamarack Resort. Oh, wow. So worked for Tamarack until a time when some of us were saying, hey, there needs to be a strategic PR agency in this town that really looks at PR in this broader way and integrates with advertising and marketing. But it is a true business strategy. Why don't we start something? And there was three other folks who'd been doing PR and business way longer than I had and I said that would be interesting. And in 2008, if you recall, it was a challenging time in the economy and a challenging time in development.
Speaker 1:It's nice to be around someone that remembers that. It seems like I've had a lot of young guests I'm like. Well, there was this thing called the Great Recession.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, oh, I remember it well and in some ways and you hear all these anecdotes about like the best time to start a business. We wound up, my job essentially disappeared at Tamarack. So while we'd been talking academically about starting a PR agency, we did it in a week to stand up. Red Sky and I looked back and we actually incorporated on February 29th 2008.
Speaker 3:I don't know if doing it on a leap day helps at all. But yeah, so we started and there were originally four founders and I am the sole remaining founder and CEO. So 17 years in business and lots of ups and downs in the economy since then.
Speaker 1:And have done a tremendous I mean your body of work. Is it strange for you when you reflect now, over 17 years, what kind of emotions and what thoughts do you have?
Speaker 3:It seems both long and very short. I look back and I think about it. I mean we've had over 50 folks that have worked for us throughout this time. You know, currently the tenure of folks that are with us are from four to 15 years, so we have long term employees.
Speaker 3:I'm proud, I will have to say, from a competitive side At one point, the people that would kind of leave and go on to other things, and sometimes competitive agencies my competitive side would get all riled up.
Speaker 3:But now I'm like if they gained the skills and the confidence and the desire to start and run their own businesses, that is a credit to what we had at Red Sky and I take great pride in seeing a lot of former colleagues who have started their own successful businesses yes, in comms, but other places, and so I take a lot of former colleagues who have started their own successful businesses yes, in comms, but other places, and so I take a lot of pride in that and that. The other thing that I really love is when people come up to me and say, through the trainings or through the work that we've done with you, in speaking and sharing our story or in doing interviews, I've gained this confidence in how I engage in the world and tell my story. So to have that kind of those seeds of impact, it's very rewarding, it is extremely rewarding. I love to hear that.
Speaker 1:Did you always, and I've been thinking about what to ask you. But you're very good at connecting people. You're very good at confidence and relationships. I've seen you do your thing. Was it always natural? Was it kind of like a God-given hey, this is what I do? Or have you had to develop that?
Speaker 3:Yes, and yes I would say the curiosity factor has always been there. I like to say I'm voraciously curious. That's why journalism, it seemed, came as a natural first career, because that ability to ask questions, to listen and ask even deeper questions has always been something that gives me great satisfaction. And then, kind of that next phase that came as Red Sky kind of grew, probably about five years in, was this realization that the true value that our clients saw was when we could connect businesses, individuals and ideas together to create something even better, take them outside of their silo. And I've often said that it's not six degrees, it's two degrees of separation in Boise and Idaho, even as we grow. It's the same way, and I think there's such a value in how we can feel so apart in technology if people can help connect us. And so that is, yes, something that we do with our clients, but also in my personal life. I love when people that come from perhaps disparate backgrounds can recognize they have some sort of common interest, common ground, common conversation to have.
Speaker 1:You're good at it. What is the most important quality, do you think, in someone starting a business here, for whatever reason? I get the privilege and I think it is an honor to have people come in and say, hey, will you mentor me, will you help me? And I take it seriously. I often sometimes my assistant will say what the heck are you doing? And I'm like I will always make time for it. But. But I get asked that question Like what, what if? As you're starting out, what are the qualities that you should either have, naturally and even and I like how you said yes and yes. So you may have them, but your strengths can become stronger and your weaknesses or blind spots can be discovered and then improved upon. But what are the qualities you would suggest to young entrepreneurs out there listening that would make a difference over the long haul in their careers to have a successful Red Sky?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do think self-awareness in those. It was interesting we were talking about on a panel recently soft skills and April Armson from Micron, the chief people officer, was moderating the panel and she's like we don't call them soft skills, we call them power skills, and I love that because I think there may be technical things that people feel they must have in order to run a business. I have a journalism degree. I don't have an MBA. I failed my stats course in college when I tried to get a minor in business.
Speaker 3:Like that part of running a business does not come naturally to me. I have to work hard at it. The parts that I feel sometimes are glossed over are those power skills of okay, you have to have self-awareness, you have to have empathy and understanding that phrase it's not personal, it's business. That's not true. Everything is personal Because every decision you make impacts an individual, not just you, but the people that may be partnering or working with you. I, by my very nature, am a paranoid pragmatist. I wake up every morning and I think about possibly the worst things that can happen and I try to prepare for them.
Speaker 1:That gives me comfort, I think that's why that's a hell of a way to live, jess. Okay, I'm trying to be more positive.
Speaker 3:But it's pragmatism, it's not pessimism. It's, you know, like, what are the challenges that I might face? Yeah, but I think that you need to surround yourself with people that are almost the opposite of you.
Speaker 1:So I need, I do.
Speaker 3:Right, that's big. And it can't be. Yes, people, it may feel nice to have people around you that think everything you say is wonderful, but you need those folks that are going to question and challenge you, whether they are an advisory board or a mentor, somebody that challenges your thinking and your decisions so that your thinking and decisions are made better by it, even if you stand in your own convictions.
Speaker 1:That is so. I'm so glad you're bringing that up. I think about and I say this to anyone who asks me but, like Ryan, cleverley is kind of my right hand but he is opposite in every way, yin to yang right, half glass empty. This is why it won't work. He's the accountant, he's the numbers guy, he's the, he's the wait a minute guy. And I think of of how many times that, that tension, if I didn't have that in my life, what trouble I would have got in. And just like the, it's just a. That's growth. You want to surround yourself with people smarter than you and that challenge what you do, I mean, and that's not intuitive to some people. No, you gotta get, you gotta get secure with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there were two things. When I was reflecting back when we celebrated our 10th anniversary, there were a couple of things that I wrote down, and one of them was just because it's not how I would do, it doesn't mean it's wrong. You're growing kind of almost beyond that startup and management role and trying to be a leader. It is that, as you're delegating to those that you hire you partner with, is recognizing and trying to. We all have ego, but trying to take some of that out and be like this is perhaps another way to do it. It's not how I would do it. And then walking into every conversation, even with those you disagree with, even with those that may be at a lower level than you in experience, and appreciating that they know something I do not. Every single person knows something.
Speaker 1:You- do not Beautifully put. Beautifully put, I think that's the. I mean, those are the things that you probably mature into. Yeah, yeah, because when you start and, frankly, when you get going and you're starting a business and you don't have room for error, yeah, yeah, because when you start, and and and and, frankly, when you get going and you're starting a business and you don't have room for error and you want to control everything because you have to, because it has to succeed Right, and then, as you, as you age, and you think, hey, I'm going to have to start trusting, and I think it's a process, um, I think I'm getting better at it.
Speaker 3:Um think, I think and hope I am as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I wonder. I want to shift topics a little bit. If you think of media PR, what you're an expert at, and you think of how much it's changed in your 17 years and how it continues to just evolve, I mean it's, it's on this, it's on this rocket ship that who knows where it's going. It's probably. I mean, this is a. This is a shameless plug. I'm going to give you one, but it's probably more important than ever for companies to have trusted people out front like you helping them navigate this world, cause it is such a it's, it's so different, yeah, that that trusted advisory role, that strategic communications role, you helping them navigate this world, because it is such a it's.
Speaker 3:It's so different, yeah, that that trusted advisory role, that strategic communications role, um, I used to get so angry when people be like, oh, why would you pay for that? I'm like you pay for lawyers, you pay for accountants, you pay for these outside professionals, yeah, to bolster what you have in house. It's the same with comms, most of the time it's cleaning up the shit that happens.
Speaker 1:So it's like why wouldn't you pay for it to try to help?
Speaker 3:on the front.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like you're going to pay for it one way or another and I think, too, having having folks that can kind of keep their heads up and be looking forward, because so much of being in a business you are handling the day to day in the weeds. So since the communication landscape has gone through multiple iterations of like these earthquake transformations, starting in 2008 was kind of the advent of social media becoming something that businesses were actually like wait, is this something that we should do? I think back. I was on Twitter in 2008. And we had this whole Boise Twitter community and it was this fabulous place where you would connect with folks that you would have no otherwise reason to ever know and then you would meet in real life and it was this very congenial, interesting place to be. I do miss that quite a lot because it is kind of a hellscape right now in certain parts of social media it's half bots and who knows what right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I would say at that time there was this fear, like there is with every technology, that oh my God, we're not going to need any PR, marketing or advertising agencies because we can do it all ourselves. And I think there was that brief bit of fear where businesses were going to oh God, they're going to just take it all in-house. And that's not what happened. We have this real interest in technology and how do we use it and like the pendulum goes one way and then it settles back into. We still need strategy, we still need intentionality, we still need planning and goals and thoughts and understanding of what does this democratization of communication mean for me, my business, my brand, like I used to tout it, was the greatest thing ever because you could be a broadcaster, you could be a newspaper publisher, you had these tools at your disposal. Now, what we're seeing is this fragmentation of the media landscape, as in there is no one source of news that I turn to for all my needs. I do what I call triangulation.
Speaker 1:I work very hard to get out.
Speaker 3:You have to right Because otherwise you don't know what to believe anymore Exactly. And this crisis of trust what are the entities that people turn to trust? What are the industries, what are these iconic places and we think about? Back in the day, we used to have great high trust in government, we used to in media and all of these things have you found?
Speaker 1:your customers coming to you and having you help them with their communication so that their own customers trust them. Yeah, I mean I know that sounds crazy, but I just had one of our healthcare CEOs on and within healthcare. I would have never in a million years in my life one of the beautiful things. There were a lot of always challenging things about being in an ER and healthcare but you never got questioned, you never like it would have never come up. Are you telling me the truth or your intentions there? Or is this about billing and I've thought about like just that? I mean, healthcare is not trusted anymore.
Speaker 3:It's not there. I'm trying to think back to. Every year Edelman, which is this global company, puts out the Edelman trust barometer, where it's looking at and assessing where trust lies in institutions and everything has fallen off the cliff.
Speaker 3:So all institutions, all institutions have taken a dip. At one point it was that businesses are more trusted, as in business leaders, what they would say. Their employees would trust them more, the consumers would trust them. But everything is on this downward slide and, yes, our clients do come to us with. How are we trying to reach directly to people and make sure they trust what is coming out of our mouths and our information? And a lot of times we're getting to. How do we establish a one source of truth location for everything that you have to say? How do we make it easy for people to understand? How do we also give them the credible backup information so if they are in that triangulation mode, they know it is not just your marketing speak, it is also backed up by data and information.
Speaker 1:My mind's buzzing as you're saying all this, Because I'm just thinking through the complexities in today's world of running and I know you represent big businesses, medium, small and probably a little different for each one of them, but all of them have to tackle what you just said. And now there is kind of this marketing brand strategy. That is super important. That, and then there's also the and how do you create one source of truth for what you're saying and how people verify and and garnish truth in who you are, whether you're a real estate company or a hospital or a whatever. It is right. Yeah, it's more complicated than it's ever been.
Speaker 3:More complicated than it's ever been and unfortunately, I would say that AI, while I found it.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to talk to you about this. Oh gosh, this is my next thing. I said it, I brought it in.
Speaker 3:It is more complicated now and it will increasingly get more complicated. And it's this interesting tension of we have more ways to reach people than ever before Yay and oh God, we have more ways to reach people than ever before. And it's really trying to do the research to understand and identify who are you trying to reach, what are you trying to influence them to think or do, and how do you figure out, how to measure it All right let's get into it then. Okay.
Speaker 1:The role of AI, like so when I just had the healthcare CEO on. There's certainly some very positive things about AI, yes, how it's going to make us more efficient. You know and I walked him through an example of just charting and follow-up and integration of research and tools and for patient care, all of those sort of things.
Speaker 1:But if you think of the negatives, I mean I don't even know where this thing's heading because it's happening so quickly. Jess, it's frightening how and listen, as an old guy that's still trying to figure it out I mean we're using it a lot. We're using it for contracts, we're using it for press releases, we're using it for we're. We're just starting to use it more because it's become pretty dang efficient. But where's it going? And and what do we need to be worried about? And, um, what does the next three to five years look like?
Speaker 3:well, I guess the easiest way I can say where we are right now is everybody started playing in the playground and nobody set up the rules for it. Oh, I like that right. So everyone's all over and there's this excitement to it. And then there's bits and pieces that are coming out. When we see these horrible things, like whatever happened on x the other day with some of the content that was going out from Grok, and we are seeing hallucinations. And you mentioned a press release I early on put in, you know, okay, testing it out, write this, and it had a completely different CEO than me about.
Speaker 2:Red.
Speaker 3:Sky.
Speaker 1:I'm like, where are you getting that from?
Speaker 3:So we are at a place where there's probably read really well like I will say there's some language, but yes, but it's a good like.
Speaker 1:It's a good point. Like you're depending on who's producing the ai and there's different sources for that and what data it gets it's going to, in my opinion, I think it's going to erode this whole belief system even more. Like, okay, do I believe this it's going to cause people. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it's a good thing that we're going to need to verify, but I don't know.
Speaker 3:And that's part of it. I have appreciated seeing in some of the platforms I use Claude a lot just because of the structure of it works better for our creative industry and I appreciate when they're sourcing and sometime I'll double check on the source. I'll click over to the sourcing and be like that is the wrong extrapolation from that. You positioned this, not like that source was.
Speaker 1:So it's interesting to You're arguing with a machine.
Speaker 3:You're arguing with a machine, I know.
Speaker 1:Crazy where we are.
Speaker 3:I have so many thoughts about robots.
Speaker 1:This is not like in the old days. You would say, hey, two physicians looking at a study and saying, well, you're using, you are literally yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, and I talked to Claude. Well, I will have to show you afterwards. In preparing for this, yeah, we put in the transcripts of probably the past year of podcasts, put in kind of my bio, and asked our tool to kind of assess the key topics and just the general framework and then potential questions and areas that I should prep and focus on.
Speaker 1:This is fascinating.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so, from an efficiency standpoint, it takes us to kind of… how did it do?
Speaker 1:It did pretty well.
Speaker 3:It gave you some. You know it takes us to come. How did it do? It did pretty well, it gave you some. You know I'll have to. I was pulling it up.
Speaker 2:I'm like oh, I'll have to read this to Tommy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it was pretty interesting, but just kind of pulling out the themes and the leadership themes and things that, yes, could I have gotten to it, of course, but it would have taken me probably three to four hours.
Speaker 1:I am so glad you did this and I can't wait to see it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting. So, going back to where things are going, I think the cat is out of the bag of this tool and so many people are coming up with different applications for it. I think, legally, the legal system needs to catch up with it, because it's not like right now unless something's changed in the past month that I don't know about you can necessarily copyright outputs of AI. We're seeing things out there where there are AI bots and entities that are creating content that looks like news that is factually inaccurate about, say, some of our clients, and trying to get to the bottom of that to correct it is challenging.
Speaker 3:I had never thought of that either, and that's some of the dangers of it, right, and I would also say some of the dangers that we're starting to hear bits and pieces about is just like the algorithm. So maybe I'll just start talking about corgis, and I am sure my phone is listening. On an Instagram, I'll start to see corgis all the time or I get stuck in a particular algorithm.
Speaker 1:I didn't even know what that was until last week. I do now and my mind is blown. All these gentlemen do.
Speaker 3:The algorithm on Instagram feeds you a certain thing. My concern, and that I think we are seeing with AI, is that how you're using AI is going to feed you back your own worldview.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, why wouldn't it?
Speaker 3:Right, and so, just like we need to triangulate and be more media literate because we get sucked into a specific algorithm and worldview, that is one of the dangers of AI, of making sure that you are truly sourcing and bringing things in, let alone all the environmental and energy usage of AI.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about that.
Speaker 3:I have a dear colleague that challenges my way of thinking a lot and her concern with AI that I've started to read and see more about and you're starting to see it in tech publications as well is the massive amount of energy that is used every time you engage with AI and these data centers that are going up and just beyond a typical Google search just the processing energy and water that is used. And I try to be very responsible with thinking okay, do I need to use AI for that truly, or is there an amount of processing that is truly effective and efficient for my business that I should use it for? But I think all of us are like this is a cool new tool, let's play around with it and don't think about what that's meaning for how we're feeding that engine.
Speaker 1:It's frightening.
Speaker 3:Something to keep you up at night.
Speaker 1:I was in Moscow looking at a project last week and I was having lunch with a very, very smart guy. Oh, I could have just sat there for a long time with this guy and he went off on this long soliloquy on revolutions in American history and just the content was fascinating because it was really fun to hear his take on every one of them that happened. And then he looked at me and he said this revolution will be unlike any other in the fact of what it means to everyday society winners, losers, how we approach it, the legal consequences, the practical social construct consequences. And he went into this and I mean I just sat there listening the whole time and I just sat back in my chair and thought, oh wow, I don't. I mean, I just think we're so, we're just trying to understand what it is.
Speaker 1:And, um, you know, I think we'll figure it out. We're hopefully. I don't know if we figure it out, I'm really I go on deep dives. I get I'm weird, I'm just weird Cause I will get stuck on something and then I will go deep and right now I've studied like five years ago I went deeply into kind of the Idaho native American, I mean Indian culture yeah.
Speaker 1:After I ran for governor I visited them all and I'm like, I'm going to really like, so I did like a Chief Joseph thing for like a year and a half and I did like, so I but.
Speaker 1:I have never gone back, another layer, to the ancient, ancient Native American tribes in America and the history of those tribes, to how you got so, those thousands of years of how you got from those tribes up to what we consider, yeah, the native american tribes here in our history. That that I, that I understood really well. Anyway, that's where I'm stuck right now. But when you sit and think about what has happened in world history over time to populations, um, how we always seem to find a way to destroy each other, we are getting deep right now, but no, I think this is.
Speaker 1:I know. But you sit and think about it and you're like, wow, yeah, and I will tell you, it only took the introduction of horses to change nomadic, agricultural-based, hundreds-of-year tribal relationships of these ancient American Indian tribes to warrior tribes over hundreds of years. Yeah, to then them killing each other, to then us coming and massacring all of them, like you look at how that happened over hundreds of years and then you think about introduction of AI. Yeah, it probably will destroy us, because we're good at destroying each other.
Speaker 2:We are I mean we just it's really sad.
Speaker 1:And one other irony that came up to me. I don't know why we're getting on this, but this is because I was reading this last night. But it also has always been one of the greatest ironies that, like at the same time we're fighting for civil rights and freeing the slaves, at the exact same time we came and massacred the Indians the same generals.
Speaker 3:The hypocrisy of it all, yeah, the hypocrisy of it all, yeah, and kind of going back to two points, that you made that and let's call it technology, whether it is the wheel or whether it is horses. It's interesting there have been these graphs done about the time for a mass adoption oh yeah and just our speed and mass adoption of technologies that are having the same impact is exponential.
Speaker 1:This is dell's point. At lunch up there he's like every one of these, like take refrigeration, which completely changed the way agriculture was spread. Take the industrial revolution, the automobile whatever they were long, the horse, the whatever. And all of a sudden we had iphone boom. We have internet boom. We have ai.
Speaker 3:It's just going to go faster and and we're really maladapted at quick change in taking care of people and like yeah what the implications are, and because you had those generations to get used to that, yeah, whereas we are doing things almost in a microgenerational timeframe. To your point about just this shock about civilizations, I had the privilege to go to Egypt and the Nile a couple of years ago. How was that? I was never on a book like that, so what's your theory?
Speaker 1:I can't wait. No, oh, come on, jess, tell me what you think.
Speaker 3:We had an Egyptologist tour guide and when we were at the Pyramids of Giza and she was talking and just the engineering feat, I would assume with your brain and your work you would have so many thoughts. But I just was sitting there and she's like how do you think it was done? And I start to raise my hand. She's like you cannot say aliens. And I put my hand back down because it is just Are you sure?
Speaker 1:I Are you sure? I think. I mean, I don't know. We look back in history and sometimes we don't respect the intelligence and the complexity of those that came before us. But the new LIDAR stuff that's out. Have you gone down this rabbit hole? I have not gone down this rabbit hole yet.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's your next rabbit hole but to see kind of what's in.
Speaker 1:If you go on the new LIDAR stuff of what's under it all, it will blow your mind.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just standing there, I was almost in tears.
Speaker 1:I need to go there. Did you feel safe?
Speaker 3:We did go with a group, so we were in a protected bubble. Being in Cairo and the bigger cities is definitely a different experience. That's that kind of getting outside your comfort zone type of thing. But yeah, we did, I probably am never going to get there.
Speaker 1:I am just this stage of my life. I just want to go to McCall. Honestly, I don't even want to go to Disneyland. I don't even want to go anywhere in America anymore, let alone like I just don't want to ever. I just want to watch it on TV. I don't know, my family gives me such a hard time. They want to go to Europe, they want to go see the world.
Speaker 3:I'm like, ah and go places that you're out of your comfort zone. That's kind of the thing I'm like. I've been to Japan. That is so different. It was so different. It was at the start of COVID. We were skiing and the world was kind of shutting down as we were getting ready to come home, and it's just so different. Every time you travel, it alters the way that your brain sees the world and sees the people that you interact with on a daily basis. It gives you a broader context. I'm a big proponent of travel, and not even just if you can't travel all over the world, then like travel outside your bubble I gotta bring you back to, because I really there's a few I there's.
Speaker 1:I still have a lot more. I wanted to ask you, but. But I want to get back to our community. Yes, Um, it's changing rapidly. Um get asked all the time. I mean we're, we're seen as the problem now. There was a good back in the day when we did eighth and main right.
Speaker 1:It was like, oh, this is so wonderful. You know you're doing this wonderful stuff and that ended now, because now you're like, you're a developer, right. So we're in the middle of a lot of things. We're in the middle of a lot of things right now and I get asked all the time how do we keep Idaho, idaho, how do we keep our values, how do we keep our heritage, how do we keep this wonderful place that we have? At the same time, you have meta, you have micron, you have micron v2. Now, yeah, you've got, uh, you know you got. We're discovered like it's not stopping now. And you know, you talk to people that are coming from out of state and I'd come here too. Yeah, it's not stopping, but what's your take on our, our little community? Um, what, what we be worried about? How we stay connected, how do we deal with some of the crazy stuff that's happening in the legislature? Yeah, how do we?
Speaker 3:A couple things.
Speaker 3:Some of the my biggest concerns are this ongoing division and fragmentation, where people don't feel they can sit down and talk to each other, even about things that shouldn't cause rancor and division.
Speaker 3:I have to say you had an elected official on recently that is a friend of mine from years ago and I saw her recently and I said I mean, I'd always agree with the way that you vote, yeah, but I always appreciate how you explain your thinking and why you voted that way. Last year I helped put together a panel that Superintendent Critchfield sat on and somebody that I knew came to it and she was sitting there with her arms folded and she was watching. And after the panel, I'm like what do you think she's like? I was prepared to hate her even more, but I got to admit I like her and she is reasonable and I'm like, yeah, yeah, why would you think the worst? And so I feel like continuing to stay away from the online rage and the snap judgments and have conversations is key. I think people need to vote. I think people need to vote in the primary. I think people need to continue to.
Speaker 1:Amen, I mean, that's when things happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that there is a danger of people completely opting out. Now I will say a bright, shining light that I saw, that I want to keep pointing to and highlighting is how thousands upon thousands of people rallied around public lands.
Speaker 1:That was cool.
Speaker 3:People across all different backgrounds and political beliefs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it brought people together. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we just saw, I think a whole bunch of our legislators wrote to our congressional delegation thanking them for their work. And that is the power of people in action and that's the way our democracy should work, both on the side of people of all walks of life realizing they have a shared common value, voicing that and our elected officials listening.
Speaker 1:I agree, and I think my worry because we're kind of in the thick of it, whether we want to be or not, I don't know why we are sometimes Sometimes I'm like, why am I in the middle of this? But I think in an ever increasingly noisy world like noisy, noisy that is built to divide us and built to feed, like it's built to divide us in every single way, and monetization of that divide is what's really behind it all, so that's dividing us. Then you have this other bucket of distraction, just distraction. So don't forget the divisiveness. Just figure the distraction of our world right now. And then this idea of, well, I'm just going to give up, kind of those three things.
Speaker 1:And then underneath it all is we're just disconnected to each other, as we probably have been in a lot of ways, and then we have these elections that matter, and so it's a big problem. It's a big problem and I think it's going to take authentic people that can get through the noise. And I'm not saying picking sides here, I'm just saying you want people that can get through the noise and and I'm just not even saying which, I'm not saying picking sides here, I'm just saying you want people that are critically thinking, that love this place, yeah, that want what's good for everybody, yeah, helping us make decisions for our people and not the no, not not the, not the headlines, and and it worries me a lot, and I and I'm, and I'm really just I'm more grateful than ever for people that, of whatever their political background, who really care about my town.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And our people and my family that are serving and it's so refreshing to be I don't even care politically we start talking about stuff. But if you care and you're a critical thinker and you're in this because of we get together and all of a sudden we're like this, we can start talking and we disagree on a few things. Where I disagree with people is the people that are in it, for you know who said this best? We had Paul Ryan come to our thing a couple years ago our kerosene thing and he just is like, with the change in the way the media works, there's people that are just not in it for the right reason.
Speaker 1:No, and that is locally. Yeah, it's statewide, it's national wide and it's you just got to be careful because that's that's part of our problem. But I don't, I don't know the solutions, but I I really appreciate the fact that you're in it to win it and and and you make it, you make it a point to make a difference. Um, out there, um, it's separate from your business, it's it's just part of who you are.
Speaker 3:So well, I appreciate that by way way too fast.
Speaker 1:What else? Uh any closing comments.
Speaker 3:I would say in your point, like there are so many things to get distracted about. There are so many things to get triggered by. There are so many things to get distracted about. There are so many things to get triggered by, there are so many things to get angry over. And what I've tried to do and that I encourage others to do and it is an ongoing process is identify the things that matter the most to you and put those energies there.
Speaker 3:I'm not going to be somebody that's out at a protest or organizing a phone tree or whatever, but I'm going to be the person that I want to be at the table where the decisions and conversations are being made. So, as much as I can connect into that and have influence through those conversations, that's where I'm going to be. And what are the things that I believe greatly in? That we should be welcoming to all diverse opinions, that more people should be at the table to make us better, that you should care about your neighbor, and so if there are different ways that, outside of my business, I can help with that by helping people speak more effectively or with impact, I'm going to do it. And so there are so many things and so much doom scrolling that I think we need to guard that energy and our sanity in a way that we can feel like we're having an impact.
Speaker 1:Amen, thanks for all you do, thanks for your leadership, your friendship coming on today.
Speaker 3:Thank you for your impactful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but uh, you're a, you are a pillar of our community. It's awesome, it's awesome to talk to you. Thank you Well.
Speaker 3:Tommy, thank you.