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I be DAM: Rethinking Creativity

• Adrian Franks • Season 1 • Episode 4

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The podcast takes listeners on a journey through the transformative changes in AI, retail technology, and digital art. We discuss how Deep Seek is revolutionizing the AI landscape, CVS’s endeavors to innovate retail practices, and The Met's integration of blockchain technology to enhance art engagement. 

• Deep Seek's cost-efficient large language model challenges traditional AI approaches 
• CVS tests smartphone unlocking technology to improve shopping experiences 
• Innovations may raise privacy concerns in retail 
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art gamifies art interaction with Web3 technology 
• Bridging creativity and technology in digital asset management is essential 
• Emphasizes the proactive role of consumers and creatives in tech adoption

You've been tuned in to Graphite Radio, where creativity meets culture. Part of the Kaffeine Audio Network and proudly distributed by Pepper Labs. Thanks for joining us on this journey of ideas, art, and innovation. Be sure to subscribe and stay connected for more stories that shape the world we create. Until next time, keep sketching your vision into reality.

Speaker 1:

This is. This is this is Graphite Radio. So what's going on, good people?

Speaker 2:

This is your boy, ad, your conductor instructor, here to take you through a new episode of Graphite Pro. A couple of topics we're going to jump in today. We're going to talk a couple of things around deep seat versus AI. We're going to talk about CVS testing phones that can unlock products at the store. We're also going to talk about the world of art and how the Metropolitan Museum is using Web3, ooh, that old word to kind of bring back like blockchain and NFTs and you know this idea of, like, digital art that can be somewhat gamified. So let's jump right in. So let's talk about Deep Seek versus AI.

Speaker 2:

As you know, deep Seek, owned by a Chinese hedge fund High Flyer, recently dropped a fireball on the innovation when it comes to large language models around AI. Now, outside of these massive shorts that happens to be dealing with the stock, the new thing, even like some of these other large language models, these guys really figure out a way to, you know, more or less, take the technology and innovate and actually disrupt what's going on with ai. Now, you know that ai for like the last, more so generative ai for like the last, I would say, two years give or take have now been using a lot of resources. What has been like developers definitely the chips for nvidia and more so the biggest resource it is well, energy and money. Right, this little small company out of china. They basically figure out how to make their large language model work equally as better, if not better, using not even a third of the cost, like a fraction of the cost. I think ChatGPT use about like maybe like five, or spend about five billion dollars a year, give or take, to just run their models. And let's keep it real, those models are nice, they're very good, they can render imagery, they can render like text, they can have conversational use cases.

Speaker 2:

When it comes to ai, these things can study documents like it's really good. But these guys figure out a way to do the more or less the same thing at the fraction on the cost, the time actually spent to actually generate that, and even their biggest approach to is now making their thing open source, whereas most of the ai that we come to like love and know has been mostly closed source. So it's time to kind of check out. I think we haven't seen the last of it, supposedly, I don't know, but they're saying that they really haven't validated these guys, I guess, information or the papers or the research papers to actually, I guess, get credence to how they approach making this large-length model. But either case, it has disrupted, like the ai technology and sector here in america, like in ways I guess, none of us seen coming, you know, especially when it comes to, like, the tech stocks around energy definitely around like the chips with nvidia. Maybe these guys are using the NVIDIA chips, who knows? But you know, just keep your eye out for this company called DeepSeek. I think it's cool because now we have competition. Competition is great, it's good for innovation, and now I do feel like that this DeepSeek approach is going to I don't know, it's going to allow AI to be a little bit more democratic and be in the hands of more people. This is something I've always been a big advocate for. When it comes to technology, open source is just a better approach. Now I know Meta is actually doing open source with their AI, with their large-language model, but it seems that these guys came in through a monkey wrench into all of this and now it's just calling a bunch of disruptions. So let's check it out, see what happened and definitely is worthy of a look.

Speaker 2:

Now let's dive right into the lane of mobile technology and retail cbs, one of the nation's largest drug stores. They're testing this really cool effort of allowing, like right now, just iPhone users I'm sure it's going to, you know, expand to like Android users but they're allowing users to unlock the product to the cabinets to retrieve items from the shelves. Now, if you know anything about the CVS, especially here in New York, I'm going to say probably other places too that they've been doing some kind of weird since like 2020. They've basically been locking up all the damn products. Right, that's the weirdest thing. You go into CVS, you see all the products from like shampoo to deodorant, to medicines, obviously, and even like I don't know, just toiletries, behind a locked cabinet and you have to like ring the bell. They got to come over, they got to unlock it. Maybe something you don't want a lot of people to know is that you're getting, but nonetheless, you got to get somebody to come and get this item for you, which is probably going to add more your time spent inside the drugstore.

Speaker 2:

Now I think the cdo of the ceo is actually saying that this is actually reducing a lot of people buying you know products. Now, well, that's kind of like a no-duh. So what they've been testing now is allowing certain people to more or less unlock what you want, probably using QR codes or NFC or you know, kind of like you know technology to more or less just get the items you want. Now the problem I see with this is that they already know what you're doing and what you're spending when it comes to the items in the store. You're probably using the loyalty points to, you know, obviously, transact as you cash out, but now they're going to know what you're getting before you buy it. So it feels a little odd that maybe this goes in a little bit into the realm of privacy issues, but nonetheless, this is their way of uh, I don't know just trying to reduce friction.

Speaker 2:

I guess the biggest way to reduce friction in the retail story is to well, not lock up everything. I think, um, we just see how this kind of plays out. I know that, um, amazon is I guess that's they the new retailer. You want to look at it. So, I don't know, maybe these guys are gonna, you know, try to solve this issue to compete with Amazon, because I personally feel like, if I have to constantly go into the store and use a phone to unlock a locker to get a product. Hey, I might as well just order it online. So we'll see what happens with these guys. But, hey, good luck to you, cvs.

Speaker 2:

So we're going to get into the last thing, when it comes to the news, the Metropolitan Museum of Arts. They're now using Web3. I mean, that's like I guess an old term, right, I mean, even though it was kind of invented, I guess, a couple of years ago, but nonetheless, they're using Web3 in this blockchain. Yeah, another I guess old term. It's amazing how things just doesn't age3 in this blockchain. Yeah, another I guess old term. It's amazing how things just doesn't age well in this digital world.

Speaker 2:

To, uh, more, let's get people to well, interact with art, definitely historic art, in the form of like a game. Now, what they're doing is they're using, like, uh, this thing called art links, which they're kind of calling as the first blockchain based web game, like, okay, that is so not true, but whatever these players allow, you know, they explore connections between like 140 works from the museum and collections that earn them like NFTs, badges and rewards. It's basically gamifying, the whole experience. Now, this has been developed in like partnership with this lab called TRR Labs, this game more or less offer, like these weekly challenges, that highlights art, movements, material, almost like symbols, while introducing players to the blockchain and artistic like potential. The more you interact with this game, the more you can gamify it.

Speaker 2:

But it seems that they're using blockchain technology to authenticate true art. Now I get it. Blockchain is. It sounds cool. It definitely works well with crypto. So I mean, nfts are still a thing. Right, it's a non-fungible token. So, technically, crypto, blockchain or any kind of like Bitcoin is technically NFT. So I think they're using this to more or less trying to engage people to look at the Metropolitan Museum as like innovation hub. Right, I mean, these guys have been around for a while and it seemed to be more open to using technology to engage your audience, because, at the end of the day, I mean, the goal is to get people into the Metropolitan Museum to view art. But this is a great way, potentially, to engage people prior to visiting New York or, more so, engaged the brand, I guess, before you even decide to take a trip and go to the Metropolitan. So we'll check this out and see where it goes. Maybe there's a good use case now for, I guess, the blockchain again when it comes to brands and, you know, maybe people's personal possessions. So we'll see how this plays out. All right, so let's get into the graphite tool of the day.

Speaker 2:

I want to talk to you guys about design and content systems and specifically when it comes to, like, ai and management. So you know, I started my career as a designer, working for a lot of different places. One was the Yellow Pages. Right, I was a what they call a directory artist or a directory designer back then, and we use this thing called UDAX I think it stands for Universal Design, ad Content right, it was basically the sizes that you saw in the Yellow Pages. You had the TQPs, you had the squares, you had the half pages and the whole pages. Right Now, that same principle started to be applied on the web principle started to be applied on the web. So then I kind of moved from one of you know working at the yellow pages as an intern to you know, actually doing things for the internet. So, as I was getting more into like doing things for the internet, I started those in those same sizes kind of applied online. So where it's going to be, the drop down, I think, the banner, what they call it, the billboard at the top, then you have the skyscraper, which was the side banner, then have the square banner. Then you had like a bunch of different banner ads. Right Went from doing things from the yellow pages to now doing things more so for online websites and commerce sites that people can see banner ads right, definitely working at an ad agency and even some of the dot coms.

Speaker 2:

Now, all of that said, each one of those different ways of producing an ad, right, whether it's a print ad or a digital ad it required this thing called a DAM, which is a digital assets manager, and a lot of us. We use this DAM to manage assets, whether it's going to be scan photography back in the day, photography we would actually shoot with a great photographer, whether doing stills or somebody doing some motion video or people producing actual commercials into the audio and vo or whatever. But this damn would like literally manage everything for the brand. Definitely a lot of things around the brand assets logos, funds and literally everything right. Just imagine, like a your own closet of just digital assets to produce creative things, whether it's going to be posters, ads well, anything visual right?

Speaker 2:

Well, a lot of those dams have more or less been digitized over the last I don't know 30, 40 years or so, but within the last, I would say, 15, 10 to 15 years. A lot of these dams have more or less been automated Because, if you think about it, you know, some people would say that a dam is a place where your creator would go to die, right? So if you think about a dam of today, it has to do a couple of different things. It has to be something that manage itself, right? Maybe AI can kind of do those things. It has to be something that look at these big creative teams across the globe. They're no longer concentrated in like one area, right? You got teams that are working in multiple time zones, multiple countries, multiple geolocations. So being able to manage these things is quite important too.

Speaker 2:

Also, dams now have to be more than just, you know, something that's going to manage, I guess, digital assets, but it has to manage content you know, which is obviously gonna be like a CMS or content management system. It also got to manage a design system, and a lot of design systems are being used for like digital products, where it's gonna be, you know, a website or a mobile app, or like a kiosk or whatever anything digital right, whether it's gonna be a desktop app or some kind of enterprise app that can be used on a tablet, right? So, across all those different touch points, you got to think about like a DAM or some type of asset management system that's going to have to manage CMSs, design systems or even just the assets themselves, right? Take it as an example. Apple has this thing called a human interface guidelines. They have their way of approaching all of their different digital products with the iPhone, laptop, ipad or even things you see in CarPlay. All those digital channels more or less use a lot of the same components that users are going to use. So when you go from one product to the next, you just kind of instantly know how to use it, just because of the components are kind of familiar. So now we're in this new world that a digital asset manager is going to have to do everything about that. Now how do you get over this hump of really understanding how to apply new technologies to like digital asset managers? So I got a couple of different points that's going to help us get through that.

Speaker 2:

Point. Number one I think we have to get over the fear of technology, especially when it comes to managing our work right. I know a lot of people don't like this AI word, but let's keep it real right. Ai is nothing new. It's been around since I don't know, probably since World War II. We use AI a lower grade of it. Nothing new about AI in general. I mean even your map that you use to navigate everything. It uses some type of like machine learning AI. But I think the biggest thing is we kind of have to get over this fear of technology, especially when it comes to like applying it to our work. It's here I think the best thing we could do is figure out how to use it right, figure out how to be more productive. If nothing else, just show your manager that you're willing to learn right. So I think that's point number one.

Speaker 2:

Point number two these digital asset managers. They need to kind of evolve to create a workflow. I think in today's world, this digital asset management workflow, I think a lot of it's going to have to be evolved to the point where we're going to be more collaborative about all these different assets. Is there a way to look at what's currently not being used in the dam? Can we sunset it? Can we archive it a little bit better in a manner that doesn't really kill it off but it can be searchable and found, maybe later if you need it. Is there a way that we can show each other which components or assets are being used the most? Can we use AI to even iterate on some of the assets in the DAO? If you're thinking about like some type of retail skew or whether it's gonna be a product or some type of you know image of a product, could we use a smart dam to look at that product and give you three different versions of it that can be used for like a website or like some kind of social channel or even some kind of like on a home advertising promotional thing? So I think that's how we kind of have to look at like point number two, by evolving how the digital asset management works when it comes to workflows.

Speaker 2:

Point number three is that intersection with big tech, creativity and marketing. All these brands, all these different companies are more or less going to have a marketing department because, at the end of the day've got to have somebody that can go out and capture people's attention, especially in an attention economy, to talk about the product or services that you may offer. Is there a better way that we can interact with marketing using tech. I know certain giants like AWS. They're using software as a service when it comes to collaboration with companies and even using this, obviously, with their ad agency. It really shaped this whole consumer experience with the strategy team, with the design team, with the creative team and even with the account team, right. So is there like a better way that we can even just have big tech more or less optimize the overall creative process?

Speaker 2:

Now I think the next point I want to kind of talk about is there a better way to bridge the gap between creativity and technology? You know I know I used to run these kind of like creative morning sessions at some of my old gigs that we would more or less have a lot of people from the studio to really talk about the different capabilities. Some people would talk about like visual data visualization and design. Some people would talk about like visual data visualization and design. Some people will talk about like blockchain and how it applies to I don't know, like retail and even like a liquor brand. Other people talked about more or less design thinking and how it could be used to. You know, come up with the best strategies to guide the creativity.

Speaker 2:

So is there a better way to kind of bridge the gap and creativity and technology? I always think it is, so you know something to kind of consider with that as well. Now, that's a weird thing. When it comes to conspiracy theories, I usually try not to get into those type of open discussions because it's just an endless loop of just everything. You're just not going to get anywhere. But I do think debunking a lot of conspiracies in general when it comes to like technology, especially with like internal groups, is always a better approach. Having informative conversations that can be backed by your data or maybe some things from news articles or just reliable sources, it's probably a better way to go. I mean, I know a lot of people are going to be a little edgy about ai and the machines are coming to kill us. So it's this weird thing around like, I guess, the Terminator approach. Nonetheless, I do think debunking any kind of conspiracy theory always helps, right? I've been more or less in this technology design space and creative space definitely since like the late 90s. But to have it in like us designing web pages and I must say the biggest conspiracy around any of these things is that people think it's going to be a fad, or people think it's just going to take a job. Now, what I've noticed, like always, the people who learn how to use the latest technology will always be the people who will obtain a job, be like a symptomatic expert. So, yeah, I do think debunking conspiracy theories is probably a better way to go right. Have a conversation, just talk.

Speaker 2:

I think the last point I want to have here is talking about the future of software as a service in the creative industry. I really want to talk about. Creativity can be turned into a service because it technically is, but it's also different types of services that can more or less be I wouldn't say automated, but it can be different types of services that can more or less be I wouldn't say automated, but it can be more or less automated in the sense that you know things can be repeatable. You don't have to start all over again every time you want to do something net, new. Now think about that.

Speaker 2:

There are a lot of people out here that these different tools that we're using where there's Adobe, figma or Miro or Canva or whatever they're all trying to figure out the best way to, you know, optimize the creative process. So I think the biggest thing we can do is look at these tools. Is there a way that we can just see them purely as that and the biggest thing that allows us to do is to think about the problem more than anything? I would always say, when it comes to design and creativity, the more you can think about something and then let the execution be 10% in the process, I think, the better. Right, you spend a lot of time coming up with these beautiful comps or this really cool, I guess campaign or this big out-of-home thing that just looks cool, but if it doesn't really resonate with your end user or your audience, then that's really a lot of wasted time. So if we can use these creative tools that are like software as a service, then I think we can spend more time actually thinking about the product, right, Putting more thought into it, like actually collaborating and being more human when it comes to, like, solving design problems and creative problems. So, software as a service.

Speaker 2:

When it comes to creative industry, now I'll leave you with this last. I wouldn't say a point, but it's always a service. When it comes to creative industry, now I'll leave you with this last. I wouldn't say a point, but it's more of an observation just know that there are a lot of different um, can I put this? There are a lot of different people having these behind the door.

Speaker 2:

I guess meetings and rightfully so these meetings, you know, more or less thought about behind closed doors first, before they're made public. But nonetheless, you know there are decisions being made and I think the best thing one could do is to always just, you know, stay proactive, learn about the latest technology, learn about the latest trends, learn about the latest trends when it comes to culture and ideas. You know, be more on a proactive when it comes to your career or your thoughts, or just being just a well-rounded, creative and just a design professional. So the more that you can like arm yourself with knowledge maybe take a class on some different things, get some certifications the better Right. You know nobody wants to just be replaced by a human or AI or a human who knows this technology. I think the more that you can arm yourself by just being proactive with your learnings and just overall, connecting with the right people and even finding the right mentorship, the better right. So these closed door meetings at some point will be made public, and a lot of these meetings are made by people who look just like me and you. It could be your friends, it could be your boss, it could be your neighbor, but nonetheless, just stay proactive. And you know the old saying you stay ready, you don't have to get ready. So that's the Pro Tools tips for today.

Speaker 2:

All right, good peoples, I'm about to get out of here. I hope you guys enjoyed this latest episode of Graphite Pro Radio. Let me know your thoughts. We are constantly improving the product and just try to iterate the best we can and just hoping you guys are enjoying everything about the podcast and the show. Feel free to you know, like, subscribe and share this pod with everybody you know and the crew, and just getting the word out there. I want this to just be a really beautiful thing for the community. Also, me and a couple of my guys from the Ad Bros podcast decided we was going to bring the podcast back. So cool, you'll be seeing something soon. We're going to be rolling out new episodes, recently got back together to do some recording. We're going to make this thing a little bit more fresh and bring back some of these points of views when it comes to like insights and culture. So be on the lookout for the Ad Bros podcast Now streaming on the Caffeine Network. And, as I always say, stay cool, stay creative, be human Peace.

Speaker 1:

You've been tuned in to Graphite Radio, where creativity meets culture, Part of the Caffeine Audio Network and proudly distributed by Pepper Labs. Thanks for joining us on this journey of ideas, art and innovation. Be sure to subscribe and stay connected for more stories that shape the world we create. Until next time, keep sketching your vision into reality.