Managing Creatives & Elevating The Brand with Erik DiMauro

In this episode, co-hosts Douglas Duvall of Motif Media and Eric Wing of Darby Digital dive into the creative journey of Erik DiMauro, exploring his experiences as a creative director and freelance designer. The conversation spans topics from career development and creative challenges to the emerging role of AI in design and marketing.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/erik-dimauro-84842519/
https://www.fairmarkit.com/

Erik DiMauro's Career Journey and Early Experiences (0:00)
Challenges in Freelancing and Client Education (5:12)
Balancing Management and Creative Work (9:35)
AI Integration in Creative Work (9:49)
Impact of AI on SEO and Search Engines (39:34)
Personal Recommendations and Media Consumption (46:49)

📌 Topics Covered: 
Creative career progression, freelance design, creative direction, AI integration in creative work, SEO strategies, search engine evolution, balancing management and creative tasks, professional development, media consumption

📢 Key Takeaways: 
Scrappy mentality, human creativity, AI as tool, client education, flexible workflow, strategic thinking, continuous learning, creative problem-solving, technology adaptation

🚀 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for more insights into the world of creative professionals and those who work with them!

🔗 Connect with Us:

Douglas Duvall

motifmedia.com for high-end video production.

Eric Wing

withdarby.com for digital marketing and web development services.

Transcript

0:00

The risk of frustration on both sides, where your expectations might be different than theirs. So it's kind of like meeting them on that level. I think there's a component of Education. Welcome to Creative context where we're having conversations about creative professionals and the people who work with them. Today is a first. We have a guest, but we have Eric tomorrow with us, and I'm gonna have a little fun here. I had chat GPT, put together a little intro on you, did some oh boy, internet research of you. Eric currently serves as the Creative Director at fair market, a procurement automation platform where he leads visual branding and creative strategy initiatives. In addition to his role at fair market, Eric operates as a freelance designer under his own brand, Eric tomorrow design. He has collaborated with various companies, including those. Well, we don't have to go into that. So Derek design portfolio, Eric's design work spans from range styles and mediums. They reference the Puffin media logo. My old company had to bring that up. And education, Eric is an alumnus of Fitchburg State University, where he was recognized on the Dean's list, and they did not mention starting catcher for the Fitchburg Falcons. That out, I surmise some there's more detail in there, but it kind of hit a lot of pretty good you've optimized yourself pretty well for AI, right? Yeah. I mean, I guess it's Poland. I'm 10 plus years of yeah, having a portfolio online, yes. So let's, let's set aside the the chat GPT intro, just give us a walk through Eric, of getting you to where you are today and kind of the decisions along the way. Well, as Chad GBT said, graduated from Fitchburg State. From there, I worked at a small a small company called just for jeeps.com where there was, there was only about four of us, but I actually worked my brother, who was in charge of marketing. I started as an intern, got hired full time, and this is as a graphic designer, and along the way, because it was such a small company, we had the opportunity to, kind of, like, experiment with different mediums. We got to I decided I wanted to, like, try to make T shirts, so the owner, like, set me up in the back. This is, like in a car dealership, so we had, like, a lot of space, so I'd be up in the back, like a screen print, screen printer, and like all the different machines and tools and everything that he that he purchased for us to try it out. So yeah, got, got to learn screen printing and making custom T shirts and selling them for dress for jeeps.com but I would say it was kind of like a pretty big step for me, because it was the first time I actually, like, got into branding, and, like rebranding a company they had, like, an old logo that just didn't work on every application. So I pitched the idea to kind of rebrand the company. So that was kind of like my first, you know, experience doing that. And then from there, I got into a little bit more of the startup world. In Boston, I worked for a company called Pluralsight, where I was on the branding team, where that was, like a rebrand at a more massive scale, and that was probably around around 2015 so I was a little bit interesting. I had, like, the sort of, like smaller company, kind of rebranding experience. And then I moved into more of a mid, mid size, little bit of a larger company, where I got to see that done with art directors, creative directors, videographers, photographers, and how that kind of all comes together holistically as a brand. And then from there, moved on to freelancing, a little bit for agencies. I worked at Fidelity for a little bit, and then I moved on to Wayfair, where I was the manager, a design manager for the illustration team, and that was really just building out a team of illustrators that we could bring our own custom style into Wayfair, across not only Wayfair, but the sub brands that went along with that as well. And then from there. For last five years, I've been a creative director at fair market, which, like GPT said, as a procurement software company, and, yeah, pretty much run the gamut on all creative tasks there, whether it's directing, animation, illustration, design. I've designed the website. I've done that twice, created a logo, did everything from just a branding perspective, but also just any sort of creative initiative that we have. From your perspective, what do you feel is like something that's just like, totally not discussed enough. When it comes to someone working with creatives, or creatives working with someone, I would say a little bit of it is, or what I've run into a lot, especially from a freelance perspective, is sort of like taking, when you kind of take a chance on, like maybe a smaller customer or client who may not be as it might be interesting work to you as the freelancer, because you see the potential, but they might not necessarily understand the value or understand even like the process. So a lot of it, I think there's a component of of education, because in my in my opinion, like it's fun to help out these smaller customers and these smaller clients, especially when they have fun ideas and they have cool ideas. But I think there's also sort of, like, the the risk of frustration on both sides, where you know your expectations might be different than theirs. So it's kind of like meeting them on that level. I feel like it's talked about here and there, but for me, it's something that I run into a lot, especially lately, when I do want to, kind of like branch away from, you know, more of the marketing and brand design, and I do want to get into something that's a little bit more fun, and that's where I sort of tap into the freelance aspect of things. But, yeah, I'd say that's kind of one area that I've noticed lately with with fair market. By the way, I love that. Site Design, super original. Yeah. So, great job, I guess. How do you when you're working within how do you find that you with fair market, your the flexibility to bring your freelance kind of mindset into more of a company structure? And I know that if I'm if I'm remembering correctly, you were part of the original team that started that company, right? So maybe, maybe talk about how you were able to influence but now you're working within a team. It's sort of like a, you know, startup meets freelance, meets structure, yeah, no. I mean, you kind of nailed it. I mean, it's, it's taking that mentality into especially when I started, there was only, I think, 25 people at fair market. So everything is like, you got to get everything done. It's pretty scrappy. And you don't have a lot of, like, money for outside resources either, especially at that point, those tasks, they're just going to sit there and not get done. You kind of just have to figure out a way to get them done. One of the first project I did is when we kind of, like, even before this, the current website you're seeing, there was an older, an older site that I refreshed, and that's when we kind of brought in, you know, a new logo, you know, a whole new visual design and brand design. And that was something that, like, had to sort of take a step back and realize that, like, okay, no one else is going to help me. I just have to start getting this stuff done. So I just started churning out web pages, churning out copy, churning out, you know, illustrations, and in calling on some people that I worked with at Wayfair to help with, like, animation, and hopefully that they could, you know, do it a little bit cheaper than what they thought they'd be, hopefully with the ask that, you know, there'd be more work coming, you know, in the future that would sort of like repay them for that. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's really just like, it's having that sort of scrappy mentality in the beginning. And what's been nice about fair market too, is that as we've grown, you know, we've been able to do some, you know, be we've expanded the budget a little bit where you can hire, you know, some outside resources. Like, you know, we have two or three animators that I work with who are extremely talented. Obviously, I work with motif media for video. And, you know, we have other, you know, services too. Like, you know, we have a good copywriter as well. So there's people that help out with these things, but it definitely in the in the beginning stages, you know, you had to find out. You had to kind of rely on your own ability, which I think is, like, you know, the key to freelancing, yeah. And I just have one other follow up to that, I guess I'm curious about, because this show really talks about the relationship between client hiring, creative, professional, creative professional hiring the client. What with what you just described? It sounds like you, you're kind of going back and forth over that fence. You're you're hiring, and also your, I guess, how has that experience been for you? It's kind of the first time I ever really had done it, where I got to, I got to be the one who was sort of, like assessing, you know, who we worked with, on on, on the who to bring in, which was actually like, you know, in a sense, it. It was the same. It gave me a different perspective, kind of like, I think what you're alluding to is, like, how people view me as a freelancer, and how do I position myself? And I've learned a lot, especially from the people that I work with. Most of them are full time freelance, or this is like, the majority of what they do. So just like asking them questions too, on how they brand themselves, and even just like seeing it a little bit through how I found them, and a lot of that is like I would just like, scour Instagram or Behance or, you know, dribble, and then in kind of, just like I have, like, majority of time, I have a very specific vision for what I'm looking for, so I can sort of pinpoint, you know, where I'm searching, but I would say it's opened my eyes up to like, you know, don't sell yourself shortly, put yourself out there in a lot of different mediums, because people, there are people, especially like me, who want very specific things that people are doing out there, especially from like, an animation perspective, for instance, right, right. Nowhere to hide when it's early on, right, exactly, right. You're the only one. You're the only one people's calling. Yeah, it's on you at the end of the day. That's kind of true. I worked at a small place where essentially that was the case, like, there's, there's no other videographer, it's just you, and you're the only person they're calling. There's no, there's no ducking out earlier, you know, you know, taking out, taking a long lunch, if you do, you're just working until midnight. Yeah, that's the thing, right? It's like, it's still the case now. It's like, it's, you're just putting it off. Eventually, it's, it comes on, that comes down to you at the end of the day. So, but I think that's what I like about it, too. Like, there's no, like, pass on the buck. You have to do. You have to dive in yourself and like, I think it make, ultimately makes the work better, because you have to put the time and energy into, like, researching and figuring out yourself. Would you say you have an advantage of finding top tier talent, like animators or whoever, because you kind of speak the language of creatives, as opposed to a marketing director who's trying to get an animator who maybe doesn't, maybe has never stepped in a creative like, sat down and drawn an illustration. Like, where you have like, do you feel like that sort of gives you a leg up to get top tier talent, 1,000% I also think they trust your opinion. When you reach out to them, like, I think they know right away, like, all right, I'm gonna have a better experience working with a creative director as opposed to a marketing director. And I'm not putting that down, and in a lot of ways, I'm a marketing director as well. I do a lot of marketing activities, but at the same time, I think it's just like a credibility thing, where they know that you understand the process and that it's probably going to go smooth. And that's really where my job comes into play. Is making sure that they're equipped with a great brief. I'm communicative, I stay on top of the work. And then that makes, you know, it makes them, it makes their job easier in their experience. And then they want to work for you. You know, it's not like, they're like, they get your email, like, should I take this, take this job? Or not? They're probably a little bit more excited about it. But, yeah, no, I think, like, I've noticed, especially, you know, in the probably the last like six or seven years, when I worked more with marketing folks, it's few and far in between when someone in marketing has like, a vision for their design, you know, a lot, and that's where I think, like, that's where I think the stress of, I, you know, love to stress the importance of hiring, you know, a creative director, because, like, part of your job is to is to have, like, not only vision, but to have, like, A taste in, like, the foresight to, like, where's this brand gonna go in four years, right? So, right, what's something a marketing team or something of the same does the same function, but under a different name, what would you kind of recommend to them to help them sort of communicate better and engage better with creative professionals, almost, in a sense, I'm like, get on their level, you know, get it. Step into their shoes a little bit. A lot of the times, like they don't have, they don't know, especially like at fair market, not a lot of people know about procurement, you know, you have to give them that education. And that's where your job, that's where the hard work comes in for you, is like, how do I explain the project, explain what we do, so that I'm setting them up for success? And not only that, but so, you know, everyone looks good in the same in the process. Because if, if I bring in someone who misses that comes down on me, and then, you know, potentially, it just becomes something where you just want to make sure everyone's on the same page. So I think, like, if, if you're a marketing team, it's educating yourself a little bit on you know, what is the process? There's plenty of people to reach out with who will give you that advice as well. And I'd say especially, I've noticed in the design community, especially like post COVID, everyone's so friendly and willing to open up, especially since Zoom is now a thing. Yeah. People hop on Zoom and just like, chat with you. I've talked with a bunch of creative directors who I've just reached out to, just to try to learn from, and they've all said, you know, they've they've all agreed to it, and some have done it like, two or three or four times. So I'd say, like, maybe even just like, chatting with someone who's in the industry, just to get a sense of, like, how to communicate better with with a creative professional could definitely help out. You touched on some themes we talk about a lot here over the last 17 weeks, yeah, especially around being on the same page and trying to speak the same language and getting kind of everybody aligned, it's definitely something we kind of circle back to a lot, yeah, what comes to mind there too is, you know, because this the subject matter of the show, also kind of points at the customer, the person hiring, the professionals. And what comes to mind with what you're talking about, Eric, is, you know, for for some companies, that may be advantageous for for them to start with speaking with a creative director, start with speaking with a marketing strategist, right? And then through that process, build the team or hire the agency or whatnot. Because what we're finding is the client doesn't the client's the marketing manager in your example, right? Yeah, they know that they need some stuff done. They don't know entirely how to articulate that or how to build the team. And so I guess, I guess, what are your What are your thoughts on that comparison, and what you're because, like I said, you're kind of, you're now, you are the client and you're all but you're also the creative professional on in these situations. Sorry, I might have missed, I think I misinterpreted a question. Can you just repeat it, just like, just like your your experience with kind of being that bridge, but also with your background being kind of centered around being the creative director that that that is that bridge versus the creative professional, that's kind of relying on that from the client that you may work in your freelance side, yeah. And I think that a good example of it too, and it just kind of popped in my head is, in the last couple years, I worked with a lot of people, sort of, like, on the product and engineering side of things too, who, you know, work with designers, and they'll work, you know, they know that, sort of, like, they'll need some some help from a product design perspective. A lot of those people who have moved on to have, like, reached back out. I think this is a great example of kind of what we're talking about. They'd be like, Hey, can you reach out someone in your network? We need this done. And then they sort of, like, asked me for my opinion on, like, you know, who would be a good fit for it. But also, like, do you think this is a good like, do you think this is a good strategy? Do you think this is a good idea to bring this person in? So I think there is that aspect of, like, going back to again communication, just like reaching out to your network to make sure a lot of times, too, it's a gut check as whether or not you even need it as well. And I think, like a lot of times, knowing when to bring in a creative professional, whether that's in house or whether that's hiring them, it's a big decision a lot of time. It takes a lot of time away from your team as a marketing team or product team, and also, you know, you don't want to bring them into a position where, you know it's a little bit too early, where you're not setting them up for success, or you're kind of like wasting time on both sides because you're just not ready. So yeah, that's kind of like another, another thing I've noticed as well, yes, yeah, the timing, the timing of it, and understanding the scope what's trying to be accomplished. Because, you know, sometimes we'll come into, we'll come into a situation, and we're hired to do, you know, exercise, a but in order to get there, we have to a lot of times the we is me, we have to create the path to it right. The path doesn't exist yet. And that is a, sometimes a hidden component of the work that we do to get the project or get to client or the company to the point where we can now start doing the actual work, that first step is, oftentimes, it's hidden, but also, if it can be tempting to skip it too, definitely, and that's where you mentioned earlier, the frustration on both parties and in like, why isn't this sinking the way that we thought it would sink? And it's, it's skipping over that, that initial bridge, what needs to be thought about who needs to be, where, etc. So yeah, thanks for thanks for the insight on that. Yeah, I'd say a lot of times too, like the the initiatives, too, of a marketing human, and I know, because I'm on a small one, they do happen quick, whereas, like, one day you're brainstorming, then all sudden, it's like, oh, we should. Do this, and then it's like, all of a sudden, it's happening so much more quicker than you would anticipate it. So sometimes, like, there's not always that opportunity. So I think, like giving them a little bit of a great grace period as well, like sometimes marketing teams, or whoever it may be, or a founder, they're excited about an idea. I think a lot of times, like, from your point of view as a creative professional, too. It's you're kind of like you're doing a little bit more of the digging to help them, like, help their thoughts materialize, if that makes sense, yeah, even them kind of like taking a step back a little bit. And I think that's, that's another thing that I've noticed as a freelancer a lot of times. Like, I'm excited too, so I'll just, like, want to jump in, and I have to kind of tell myself, like, All right, take a step back, ask the questions, or, like, do the research beforehand, as your role sort of changed over time. Do you you're still, you're still, like, getting into Illustrator, and you're still kind of in that seat as well, right? Oh, yeah, it's, like, it's, you know, probably the definition like a manager Doer still, like, I have to manage, you know, the process in, you know, I've always had at least one person who I'm managing as well on the team. So, you know, it's wearing multiple hats. It's also, like, that's, it's wearing that sort of like strategy hat, but it's also wearing the, oh, I have to get this, this done hat as well. So definitely tough to tough to balance, but at the same time, I think that's why I enjoy, like working at fair market so much is that, I guess you do both, and a lot of times too. It's like with the the speed, sometimes you do get a little more creative freedom, because you'll have to come up with an idea quickly. And as long as your your thinking is is sound, you know, you can get the buy in, and you put a little bit of time into that presentation to get presentation to get buy in for the idea, a lot of times, you'll be able to get something done that can be pretty interesting or pretty fun for you, something we talk about a lot. Do you have trouble, sort of switching mindset from doing to managing? Or do you is that something that's not an issue for you. I don't know who could ever say it's easy. Like, I find that the hardest part, especially when you're in, like, you know, there's some days where I'm in, like, a lot of meetings, and then, like, oh, I have to design an ebook or something where it's like, I gotta completely and it's a do in like, three days. Oh, I have to start doing this right now. So, yeah, yeah, it's tough to, like, switch that brain on, especially, again, the speed and the deadline of things, especially now, I think the pressure is on the creative more than ever, especially with chatgpt wearing down our necks, of like, getting things done as quickly as possible, and not pushing the deadlines back and making sure that, like our reasoning is sound, and the reason why we made certain design decisions is is sound and it's it's tough to balance, but I definitely yeah. I mean, in short, yeah, I find it extremely hard, extremely difficult. So one quick follow up, and then I think we'll switch into AI, because I've had conversations with both of you about, is there something you do to help switch from like, all right, you've been in meetings all morning now, I got to switch into design mode. We've talked about some things here. Just curious to get your unbiased take before we kind of chime in about what we do. Normally, what I'll do, I've noticed, like, I mean, luckily I live in a neighborhood that's pretty like, there's some good, like, streets to walk through. It's pretty light, it's not it's not busy. So normally, what I'll try to do is just like, take a good, like, 1520 minute walk before I'm about to get it. It kind of like resets my brain a little bit. It makes me it also gives me time to not be in front of a screen. It gives me time to think about what the task is I'm about to dive into. And then I usually feel like, once I have that 15 to 20 minute break of, like, moving my body and getting outside, I'm normally a little bit more prepared to get, like, engaged with the creative work. Yeah, that's something. I mean, obviously that's if time allows. It's always not possible, but that's what I found has helped me. But I'm, yeah, curious to hear what you guys think, or what you guys do walk definitely is high on both our lists, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're cut on the same cloth. Yeah, walk. Walk is a big one. But in general, what I tell people is to create a gap, just create some sort of separation, mindset wise. And so maybe that's a nap. It could be just going for lunch, you know. But. It, but, yeah, it's, it's very difficult for the from my experience anyway, it's very difficult for my best work to come out when I'm switching from analytical brain to to creative brain, right, picking up a phone call, going back into analytical consultative brain, like it's, possible, right? We do it. But I think we probably have all read those headlines about how you're never actually multitasking, like you can really only do one thing at once, right? And so when we think we're multitasking, we're just burning ourselves out. And so the best work likely, you know, a string of days without having those gaps between the the mindset can really take it up, to take a toll. So, but, yeah, I'm right with you. With the walk. I had to do that couple of walks. Yes, yesterday was a two walk day. No, I normally do that. I usually do like, one in the afternoon, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, yeah, just kind of like, yeah, give me that. Give me that little reset, especially depending on, like, where, you know, where my meetings are set up throughout the day. Also find that, like, a lot of the times, if I can push back a meeting in order to get creative work done, I'll do that. Like, if it's not a mission critical call, then in the person's Okay, who I set up with a lot of times, like, I have reoccurring meetings, and if, like, the agenda is not too packed, I'm like, can we move into tomorrow? Or can I move it to a day where I don't have as many meetings? Yeah, so I can have a little bit more focused time, something Eric wing recommended as, like, going someplace out. It's like a change of scenery. I've had a lot of success with that recently, because I was, I was having issues with it, like switching from meetings, meetings, meetings to all right now I have to get stuff done and like, it was just, it was really hard to switch gears. But like, getting up and going to a cafe, or even sometimes going home, like just to just to break it up, definitely, definitely helped. Yeah, so now, yeah, AI, you know, it's the hot button to pick. We usually touch on it at least once a week. Eric wing just had a presentation on it last week. How is it kind of trickled into your world? How do you use it? Just give me your Give me your general thoughts. Spiel on it. Where do I begin? Right? Yeah, I feel like I have this conversation with someone in some context every single day lately, for at least the last past, since probably last October. I definitely see it as a tool. It definitely has some, some benefits to getting some, you know, some smaller, some smaller tasks done. I still don't really see necessarily, the use cases for, like, larger creative initiatives to get done. I still don't really feel like I trust it yet for that, but I do know in terms of a lot of times just to create, like an outline for something, or using it as a research tool, that's usually what I've used it. I've used it the most for, yeah, you know, like creating an outline for sometimes, like, well, a lot of content that we have to get done, and we have, we only have five people on the team, so a lot of times, like, it will cross my plate. Like, if we're to create a blog, it's creating an outline, and that outline I can then kind of fix up and send over to our writer to then write the blog. So that's kind of like an example of how I'd use it example, or just to kind of give, like, a couple different options for sometimes, for like, a social post, like, we'll have, like, you know, we'll get, we'll enter in what we write, and then sometimes we'll have it, kind of like, rewrite it or rephrase it to try to give, you, know, just like, get a different spin on it, or something like that. That's really primarily where I've used it, or at least right now, this is actually kind of funny. A lot of times, too, people will send me screenshots to like and I'll have to take that text and put it into, like, a presentation or something else, and I'll just use it to, like, extract the text so I can copy paste it. That's something that saved me a ton of time. Honestly, I do that, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's kind of like a funny use case, but yeah, I mean, I would say that's where it's kind of trickled in. I think especially now when you work in a tech company, that's all everyone pushes and talks about. So I try to stay on top of it. I like, I enjoy learning about it, and I enjoy seeing like, potentially, where it could help us out. But I'm still kind of like holding on to the idea that, like, truly great creative works only going to be done by a human being, and we can use it in the process if we want. Especially. We want a little bit more control, especially for short staffed control the creative process. I talked to someone in my family as a as a screenwriter, and there was all obviously, like the the, you know, the AI, you know, strike, and the writer strike kind of had to do with AI. I talked to her last Christmas about it, and she kind of brought up a good idea too, that a lot of people in like, Hollywood are talking about using it as, just like, part of the process, that if you're, like, an indie filmmaker or someone that's on a smaller team, using it to have a little bit more creative control, where you don't have the budget. So I I didn't mind that mentality and that attitude, and I think I've tried to use that in the same sense of, like, Okay, I'm essentially on a smaller team than most you know, companies have, where can I use it to maybe help, help out a little bit during the process, you know, like, whether that might be, like, getting a couple edits on, like a script that we're writing for, like an animation or, like a Video, something like that, where I still feel like I'm gonna have to intervene and I'm gonna have to direct it and I'm gonna have to edit it afterwards, but at least it will kind of help out while we don't have the those hands on the team right now to kind of help out. So kind of a long way to answer, but that's good. Yeah. We call it keeping the human in the loop. That's the big piece of it. Uh, don't skip that human part. People know too. It's like, you can clearly tell when, like, people are just lazy with it, and they just plug it in and then they just chip it out. Like, you know it's, you can tell by the amount of colons and semi colon M dashes, yeah, a lot of just, like, list things out. Like, a lot. It's just like, you just, know, a lot of lists, yeah, yeah, you did touch on it. Sorry to cut you off. You did touch on it. Eric, where you're a tech company, and, like, AI, is kind of built into the product you guys deliver to people. Is there any sort of push from, like, your top to be like, Hey, let's, let's automate some of this stuff. Or definitely, you're still the captain. Okay, I would say, I would say it's not like a mandate, yeah, but I'd say it's kind of like sipping your own Kool Aid a lot of times, like when you're selling to a company a product that has AI, some of the things that we've read and we've done, like a survey in our industry is that AI adoption is hard. A lot of people don't trust it, especially when you're dealing with something like procurement, where there's, like, a lot of rules, a lot of regulation involved, like, these are big companies making large purchases that AI adoption is, like, they're a little hesitant, like, whether it's from the top or just like people who do their day to day jobs. And I think it's kind of like, everything we're describing, you know, I think, I think we're, we're still feeling like we need to have human intervention, even if we're going to use it, it's just like, what, what's the scale of how we're using it, I guess, like, you know, or like, what's the context and how we're using it? But, no, like, there's not a mandate, but I think, like, if there's a way that we can use it where it makes sense, like we definitely, we try to, yeah, and that's really on my end, you know, we're using AI for a lot of marketing, marketing, like lead gen, but like machine building, right? Like automations from someone submits a contact form. What happens after that, right? And how do we we were already doing automations for clients. Now we can plug a brain into it, which just it expands even further what we're able to offer for for our work, but, but, yeah, it's, you know, in a directly, directly affected us, the the talk that I gave the other day. You know, I started it out, sort of like my history with technology, up to the point of AI, and it's just, it's really, it's really something when we started, started my business back in, oh, eight, and, you know, that was kind of like the beginning of a lot of what we experience now on the internet, right? A lot of the main tools that we're using so but when AI struck, it was like, it was awesome and scary at the same time. For a business like mine, we're like, we're a majority of our recurring revenue comes from SEO and content related services, right? But we've weathered that storm well, and you know, we've, we've been able to adopt AI to a degree where it makes sense for our business. We're not, we're not just putting our SEO clients through through AI and calling it, calling it a day, but we're using it for smart things like you mentioned, like the research side of it, maybe keyword research or competition research, and some of that stuff, which saves so much time, you know, does but, but we probably, in the early days, we probably there's one client in particular, I think left us because they're like, we're just gonna use chat GPT to write all our blog articles. And we've, I've been only because, I think it was because of aI have got, I still go and take a peek at their performance, and I'm expecting a. Phone call back from them any day. No, it's not the be all, end all, at the end of the day, it's really not, I think, to your point, I think now we're getting the point where the hype, hopefully, it's kind of like, on the decline a little bit. And I say hopefully, as in, like, people now know how to utilize it as a company, and they know that it's not going to, like, replace all of this work that needs to be done, but it can definitely help speed things up, which, to me, is like, that's the goal, right? I mean, it's like, it's, it's to get more stuff done so that we can focus on more strategic stuff. Yeah, you know that we actually want to work on and not doing the daily grind of, like, the day to day, kind of like, boring tasks. We can do things that we actually care about exactly, exactly. And last, last thought on this. So do you use anything outside of chat GPT? I only use it because we had a, we had a company account, you know. So I had, like a seat for chat GPT. I have tried, um, what is it? Anthropic? Is that the only Claude? Yeah, I just tried Claude, but I've kind of just gone back to chat GBT, because I've kind of like, used it the most, and I guess, like, I guess it was just because I'm more comfortable like, in that platform. But no, I haven't used any of like, I haven't used mid journey or any of those things for pretty anti image creation for AI, at least right now. Yeah, I still think that it's in the infancy the image part of it, as long as, or, I will say, from a headshot standpoint, agreed, it's a little scary, as long as the arms are not part of it, so you get these, like six finger bands. But like, from here up. It's scarily good, yeah, but yeah. Otherwise, I stay away from the image generations as well. I will say, just for you may already be doing this. I know Doug, we've talked about this a little bit before, but I think sort of a unsung aspect of AI is the for report analysis. You know, we can put 567, reports in there with a really strong prompt, and save hours worth of analysis, and put a whole presentation together for a human to then look at, of course, but that's something that that was probably our first, first way that we adopted it internally at the agency level, was we spent so much time before analyzing PPC campaigns, and now, and now, we can identify trends a lot faster. So you know this, for anyone listening, that's that's always a good use case. It's not just for my point, I guess, is it's not just for spitting out a bunch of content. It can really do a lot of interesting things. I use otter.otter.ai which people can use it for a lot of different things, but I use it to transcribe. I've used it. I've used that too. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, transcribe videos and audio files where I chat GPT might be able to do that. No, I tried it with chat chip too. So actually Doug, the video we worked on, I used it to transcribe the video to then, like, give you, like, a written script of it. I used otter, yeah, for that. Literally everything I export just about, I upload a mp three version of it to get the transcription, yep. And then with that transcription, you can, like, build out an out outline, time coded outline of the video, right? So a minute in they talk about this, two minutes in, like, for this podcast, we do that. Yeah, that's awesome. So it's things like that. And then a feature I do is on YouTube, you can pull transcriptions of like, say it's like a two hour long video, and then you can just plug that right into chat and be like, Give me the key topics and that sort of thing, beautiful, uh, awesome, which is a huge time saver. Sometimes I hadn't had none of that. Yeah, I'd be, I'd be interested to see, like, where it it goes, especially with like, these sort of, like, low code websites. Like, I'd love to, like, create, you know, like pages in figma, and then, like, be able to, like, hit a button and it just, like, codes it for you. Like, that'd be awesome. Like, there's things like that. Yeah, I'm all for it, you know, especially for these, like, I kind of mentioned smaller companies. I love freelancer for smaller companies because, like, you know, they usually have fun ideas. There's usually less, like, kind of red tape. But I would love to, like, I think that especially, would help, you know, these smaller companies create, you know, better looking, better functioning, especially from, like, you know, Eric of like, an SEO value, yeah. So I potentially, like, can see some, you know, some ways that AI could help out there. It'd be interesting to see, like, kind of where that goes, yeah. I think it can be cool. Yeah. Now I get my mind spinning, like, figma, press a button, generate the. Would be amazing. Or there's a new model function in chat. Let me see here. It's like, you know how you can change the models? Yeah, yeah. So what is it? Oh, three mini Hi, great at coding and logic. Oh, yeah, yeah, I saw that one, yeah. So, I mean, I don't, I don't code, so I know nothing about that, but maybe the same, we're probably pissing off a lot of coders. Welcome, yeah, still, still need a human, but maybe a few of them. But well, and that SEO we talk about this as well as the SEO geo kind of, they kind of come together now because a lot of people are using chat as a search engine. I've heard about it here. I I don't use Google nearly as much as I used to. I still use it, but like, I kind of use chat to search things. Yeah, and kind of cuts through a lot depending I feel like it, I've tested, like, we talked about this. I was looking for a very specific product. I'm doing a renovation at my house. I was looking for a very specific plumbing product. I put it in chat first, it gave me something, like, instantly, and I'm like, I gotta double check, yeah, so I googled it, and did, you know, 1520 minutes and I got to the same place. So I've tested it, and if it's anything I have any sort of question about, like, any sort of uncertainty, I double, kind of double check with Google. But like, I can't think of an instance where it wasn't, I didn't get to the same spot, you know, like and saving you 510 minutes sometimes. Now it's a really good that's a really good point. I feel like I've read about that too, where, especially, you know, from an SEO perspective. I mean, a lot of times too, I feel like I'll just look, if I Google search, I usually do, just look at like, the AI generated, like, search result? Yeah, I'll expand upon that. I mean, it's, I mean, Eric, yeah, probably a question for a different time. I'd be interested to see how that's, like, affecting SEO. No, it's affecting a big time. But it was recently at a conference, and somebody was was speaking to the very, this very point, about Google specifically, and how Google is handling AI. And of course, it's all about Gemini and intent based searching now, like your keywords is not one for one, for what Google's look is actually producing. It's what it Google thinks that you wanted bitten. But she was like, Yeah, Google's Google recently announced that they're, you know, the their approval rating, or whatever is, is is up 30% or user, user satisfaction. That's what it was. And, and I'm like, I'm like, Yeah, well, of course it is, because now people don't have to click the websites like, they just get the answer fed to them, right? So, so it's this weird transitionary period that we're in right now where search engines are trying to find to mean, to hold on to their their value. You know, it's Gen what was it? Gen Y? They it's, there's a rapport. Gen Y now is uses Tiktok search more than Google search. I read that as well. Yeah, that, yeah, GPT. So it'll be interesting to see Google START squirming here a little bit, I think, because at the end of the day, what is it like? $19 billion in ad revenue every year, or something like that. So that's why they're gripping to things like Gemini, because it keeps you around those ads. You don't go, don't go off to a website. So anyway, yeah, it's, it's been fascinating. It's giving me a lot to talk and write about lately. I'll definitely hit you up after this. I'm intrigued as well. Yeah, there's, I'll give you a little breadcrumb to check out, but it's something called latent Web. There's there. It's sort of the the underbelly stuff that AI sees that Google Search doesn't see. It just doesn't have the power. So, you know, latent web. And there's another one, I think it's called like ghost or something. But there's, there's four levels of information that AI sees, versus Google and search engines. They really were just seeing that top level. So that's where things start getting interesting. Because when you think that you know Coke is going to come up for what is the best soft drink in the world, what AI may actually pull up is the controversy around sugar, controversy around Coca Cola as a brand for Google, you could hide that stuff in Google before with PR, right? Ai, you're gonna have to retrain the AI. So that's the that's really what we're starting to see, yeah, but Yeah, happy, that's garage. Yeah. Chat more about that with you, yeah? Because searchable internet, like you literally just said it, Eric, it's like an iceberg, right? The searchable internet is just the tip, right? Yeah, that's like this, yeah. It's like, you can, you know, stack everything at the top that you want people to see. Like, to Eric's point, yeah, everything you don't the the vast majority of the internet is unsearchable by search engines like Google. So like, if AI is able to sort of go beneath the water and see the iceberg and its hole, like what, I guess, yeah, watch out world. So that's yeah, to maintain some maintain value with our with our accounts, is to start transitioning the strategy to include some of these sort of future proofing things. You know, sort of the last note on it, Google is now paying Reddit 60 million a year to crawl the subreddit threads and to index all of that. So now we have, now we're putting Reddit into our SEO strategies with clients so that we can get out ahead of that. So it's just wild. You know, SEO isn't dead, but it has become significantly more complicated on top of already being complicated. So I was gonna, I was gonna say my little experience, I find it pretty hard. And, yeah, it's funny. You mentioned Reddit, though, because I I use Reddit too. If I to search things, if I think it's like a nuanced topic I got, I'll search Reddit versus Google, yep, anytime, or at least, like, add it to the search so the search term just so it specifically goes to Reddit Exactly. Well, we're gonna bring this conversation to a close today. Typically, Eric, we talk about a piece of content we sort of enjoyed over the last week, or audio book, movie, whatever. Is there anything you've been jamming on and enjoying? I'm probably the only nerd here. It was like a letterbox account from my from my movie tracking. I normally would, you know, I have letterbox. Oh, do you Yeah, to follow you. All right, cool. Let me I'm gonna I even know about this, but I'm in Doug, missing out. I No, I mean, honestly, I probably, like everyone I watched, you know, severance, white lotus, we finished those ones up. I did, just recently watch a complete unknown, the Bob Doan documentary, or not documentary. But, you know, biopic, it is, yeah, it loved it. Thought it was awesome. Love severance, too, obviously, yeah, that's pretty much, yeah, that's pretty much, what I've been what I've been watching lately, or what I've watched lately. And it's, it's, it's also baseball season now, so I'm getting into the socks. So that takes up some viewing time as well. Did Did you watch the Bob Dylan biopic? Probably from 2008 seven different people played Bob Dylan like Cate Blanchett, Christian bill. I remember when it came out. I've seen bits and pieces of but I've never sat down and watched the whole watch the whole movie. It's like, has there been, there's been a lot of bio pics about Bob Dylan. He's got a big story to tell. Was Tim Chalamet Dylan enough for you. I haven't seen it. I thought he was good. Yeah, I had no I had no qualms about his his performance. A King is that. Did you see that that was fun? I don't even know who he was to that movie. That was, yeah, no, I thought it was awesome. I mean, it was, you know, no, I thought, I thought it was great. I mean, it was walk the lines for, like, my, you know, other favorite, favorite movie. So, obviously, you know, who? Why am I blanking on the director now, who did it, but same direction home the documentary, the same guy who did walk a line, did, oh yeah, get a complete unknown. Yeah, the same like, same vibe, same style. I really like just I enjoyed it. Do you enjoy anything this past week, Eric? Not this past week, necessarily, but Eric just brought it to mind with letterbox. I created the letterbox account when I was when I was down in Tampa for that conference. And I've been going down this, this, this rabbit hole of David Lynch work ever since his passing. And so I watched eraser head on the big screen. Wow, that, that movie, I got to tell you, that was unlike anything that you will ever see, full volume. Oh my god, the most like abrasive movie I've ever sat through. So abrasive. Everything about it, but, but, but a masterpiece at the same time. And so, so, yeah, I've just been going down this Dave. Lynch rabbit hole a little bit. Did you watch Twin Peaks? Yeah, did you watch the, like, new season they did a few years ago? No, I didn't see that any other I started. I remember I started, and I never loved it. It was tough. I I just the first two seasons, yeah, like, amazing. I, I don't know. Was it for me? I like, hit or miss with David Lynch, honestly? Yeah, it is quite a quite a range there. Yeah, like, I liked Mulholland Drive and stuff, and I tried to watch like, Lost Highway last year, and which wasn't bad. But there's always, yeah, I know I feel like, as a creative person, you got to pretend like you love them. But I think there's, I think no, but I think tough, yeah, I think that it, it doesn't, it's not watching his stuff is not like massaging the brain at all, like there's no logic, a lot of it, and a lot of like incomplete loops, like thought loops, or it just doesn't add up. And I think that can really mess with someone's mind. Blue Velvet was another one too. I rewatched that. I think last year I was just like, I think, I think I watched it when I was 25 or something like that was awesome. Then every watch, I was like, I don't know, yeah, yeah. Holland drive is that way for me? I like, yeah. I think that it's yeah, I to go back. I watched that maybe every like you, like Nick you said, like every five years or so, I'll go back and watch that one to see if I can understand it a little bit better. But yeah, it is one of those movies that just sticks with you, though, and you kind of keep coming back to it. It's got, like, an orbit, yeah, definitely, no matter how hard you kind of Yeah, back to it. I'm like, Man, how many people it is like over the top, behind the car shot, they're just like following the I feel like everyone. I feel like everyone does that shot now, yeah, yeah. What about you, Mr. Doug, so actually, I videoed your presentation last week. Eric and I also videoed the person that spoke after you. Yep, and she referenced the audiobook, or book Getting Things Done by David Allen and James Fallows. I downloaded it that day, and I've haven't stopped listening to it since. Let's get some good stuff in it. Highly recommend. I've just been feeling overwhelmed with everything going on, and this just kind of helps you put perspective on everything and organize it and just get it done. So, very nice. Highly recommend. Very nice. Yeah, well, you can find us. Creative context.net, creative context, underscore on Instagram and creative context, podcast on YouTube. Thanks for stopping by everybody. Thank you, Eric, for stopping in, and we'll see you all next week. Awesome. Thanks for having me. You