So What? Why? Who Cares? The Questions Most Marketing Gets Wrong with Doug Kimball

Michael welcomes Doug Kimball to discuss Doug’s new book, “So What, Why, Who Cares?”, a three-question framework Doug has used for 14+ years to improve messaging, positioning, storytelling, and strategic thinking. Doug shares how the framework originated from a tough critique by a former boss, how it helps teams move beyond clever but ineffective marketing, and why simple questions can be hard to answer without critical thinking, iteration, and real-world field testing with sales teams and customers. They discuss avoiding echo chambers, simplifying language, using the framework flexibly (including for presentations and audience targeting), and incorporating generative AI as a tool through better prompting—without replacing human judgment. Doug explains the book’s practical examples, templates, and QR-linked resources, and shares where to find it online.

Timestamps:
00:24  Welcome and Introductions
01:18  Doug Kimball Background
02:22. Origin of the Framework
04:08  Why Marketing Gets Complex
06:12 Answering the Questions Well
07:38  Book Structure and Examples
10:20  AI and Critical Thinking
13:07  Iteration and Field Testing
16:13  Escaping the Echo Chamber
19:43  Beyond Marketing Use Cases
21:15  Algorithms and Audience Targeting
25:28 Advice for Stuck Teams
27:25  Key Takeaways and Presentations
29:38  Bonus Question on Change
31:13 Where to Find the Book
31:56  Closing and Thanks

Connect with Doug:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougkimball/
https://sowhatwhywhocares.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Top Voice Podcast, where each week I sit down with leading voices in business leadership and transformation to unpack the issues that matter most. Together we explore fresh insights, bold ideas, and real-world stories from people shaping how we think about change, culture, and what's possible. Hello and welcome to the Top Voice podcast. I am excited today to be joined by Doug Kimball to talk about Doug's new book. It's the title of this episode, So What, Why, Who Cares? It's it's it's a great title for a book, and I'm excited to jump in. And it is March 24th, which means we're officially in spring. So everyone made it out of winter wherever you live. It's quite hot already where I live, so I'm not excited about that, but we're excited uh for the change of season. For those of you who are listening to the live stream, please do let us know where you're listening from. Uh, leave a comment in the chat, leave a question. We'd love to get to those. It's a great way to get to know our guest and expand our conversation. For those of you listening on your podcast platform, please be sure to subscribe. It's the best way to support the show. Um, Doug, it's wonderful to have you. It's been some time since we scheduled this. And after your very fret to Barcelona, which I'm jealous of, you're here now to talk to us all about your new book. So tell us who you are, tell us what you do, and tell us a little bit about your book before we dive in.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Sure, Michael, I appreciate uh first. Thank you for the opportunity. This is a lot of fun. I, you know, when you first reached out, it was an exciting conversation to have. Uh yeah. So, Doug Kimball, nice to meet all of you. Appreciate you taking some time to uh listen to Michael and myself. Uh, I've been in and around marketing for 20 plus years. I don't want to date myself too much. Um, main focus as I've looked back in my career has been on product marketing. Uh, officially, as a title, I would say product marketing for 16 plus years. As I look back at it, really probably doing it longer than that, just didn't have that title. Uh, so I've done everything from being a marketing manager to being a chief marketing officer, running global companies, uh, and everything in between. And so I've been very fortunate to do a lot in the field of product marketing, a lot in the field of marketing overall. And that's what led to me writing a book, which has been fun.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

And tell us a little bit about your book. I think if you've got a copy there, uh for those of us on the screen, make make sure you hold it up. So what? Why, who cares? It it's a great title. Tell us a little bit about the title itself and and and why that relates to the conversation we're having.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

So it's a framework that I've used for messaging for a good 14 or so years. Uh, former boss, Brashant, uh, kind of hammered it into me many, many moons ago as I was trying to create a competition killer kit presentation. And I put this together and I was very excited to share with him. I was going through that and all this uh you know the young misplaced enthusiasm. And he said, Stop. He said, Stop. This this is terrible. Uh, and so of course my feelings were oh wow, what did I do? He said, Take out a post-it note, and I've got the post-note. He said, Write down, so what, why, and who cares? Okay. And so he said, I want you to go through and run everything that you're saying on this PowerPoint through that as a filter. Okay, cool. Um, long story short, I've used that framework since then. Everything from I used it then to create uh a whole new corporate messaging that was used by over four, you know, present over 4,000 people, our CEO presented it. It just evolved from there. So it's a framework that has been helpful for me and the teams I've mentored to improve their technical messaging, to tell stories better, to create messaging that actually has an impact and is relevant and drives outcomes and most importantly, conversion. Uh, but it's not just a messaging framework, it's also a strategic thinking framework. So if you're wanting to put a new program in place or try this, I mean I'll literally go, well, so what? What why why is this important and and who is this going to impact? So that's that's really how it all came together.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

It's such a uh simple, and I don't mean that in a reductive way. It's such a simple set of questions. And yet I think we one of my favorite phrases, we overcomply a lot of things, uh, particularly marketing teams, no offense. We do it in a lot of ways, but I think there's uh sometimes an elegance that we try to drive into the way we go around messaging. Why, why, why do we do that? Why have we over-engineered some of these frameworks, do you think, over the course of the last several years in the marketing world?

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Uh wide variety of reasons. I think some of it is just that that drive and the need to differentiate. I mean, with you know, with everything be being able to share ideas instantly and immediately get feedback, and everybody's got a 10,000 opinions. We're always trying to find a way to stand out in the marketplace and to not just stand out but get you to go from hey, I notice you to uh, hey, I want to talk to you, I want to buy from you, I want to engage from you. Um, so we try to differentiate. And sometimes we fall back, and I've been guilty uh of using clever. You know, let's be really clever and cutesy and everything. And sometimes it's fun. I mean, you look at the Geico lizard, lizards have nothing to do with insurance, but you like them and they're fun. Right. Um, but you know, there's a time for clever and there's a time for the right engaging words, but really when it comes down to people want to have a story that they buy into so they get that emotional engagement, so they say, Yes, okay, this now resonates. So I think it's just been a struggle to just stand out in just a an ever-growing sea of, to your point, complexity. How do we stand out?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Yeah, that this has happened in my world in the change world quite a bit, where uh clever is such a good word for it. Everyone's trying to build a better mousetra. And I think particularly in the consulting world, I'll I'll pick on my profession a bit, where everyone's got to have an acronym or a framework or a three, four, five, six, seven-step process, whatever your process may be. And I think to your point, maybe they're all wrapped around these same essential elements. So, so before we get into more of your book, what what makes what makes these questions so simple to say or ask, but maybe so hard to answer?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Uh great, great question. Because fundamentally, they're not nothing in the framework or the book is anything groundbreaking. Like, wow, I've never heard the concept of so what. You're not supposed to say that about your own book. You're supposed to say it's revolutionary. It's amazing, best thing ever. Um, but I think it is that simplicity that makes it so appealing and so powerful. Because when we we make a message or we tell a story, put a framework or a concept out there, if we don't challenge it, then we're just going to assume it's going to be beneficial. We put all this effort into it, we got this pride, we send it out in the marketplace, and it just falls flat. If we don't challenge it with the kind of this, you know, a simplistic question of so what, why, and who cares or other frameworks, then we don't we don't really aren't being critical thinkers. Um, and we've this is where I think the value of that whole so what, why, who cares is it challenges you to go beyond just what I've said. What does that really mean? How is it going to impact? What's what change is that gonna create in somebody's life? And so that's why I think it is you know it it's it is simple on on the surface, but when you do it a few dozen, a hundred times and you start to realize that it can really draw out the power of what you're trying to say, that's when it becomes fun.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yeah. So let's talk about your book in the way it's maybe it's structured so people get interested in picking it up. Because I think one of the things that people may hear is, oh, there are these three easy questions to ask, but they're hard to answer. And maybe I think I'm answering it the right way. How does your book help help the marketing world go deeper and and solve the problem you just described, which is answering these questions with a lot of clarity and precision and and depth?

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Yeah, it's it's not easy, it's not complicated. But what you get from from me and from the book and from my experience and the stories is examples, real life examples and flow and guidance on how to get there. Because again, just saying so what, I can challenge you and say, Michael, you're doing a podcast, so what? But if we don't have experience in saying, well, by doing so, I'm now creating a better communication vehicle for those who have LinkedIn top voices to share their stories. See, that's how it goes. But I do that because I've been doing this again 14 plus years, training people and teaching people. Um, and when I wrote the book, most of it just flowed out because it was just history and things I've done. As I've taken teams through it, I've gone through and said, Well, no, it's not like that, it's like this. The book gives you though that guidance, examples, flows, challenges you to think about how you say things a bit differently. I use a lot of real life examples. I've got an image of an ATM that I went to and it had on the ATM screen a little thing that said, This uses the Monax 8600 processor to do. I'm like, who cares? But that was clearly a message that somebody put out there that had no bearing on 90% of the population using it. So that's that's what people get from the book. And there's templates that are associated with the book that you can get through the QR codes in there that walk you through doing this. Nobody's gonna be an expert at this the first time you did it. I wasn't again. When I took my presentation back to my boss the second time, it was better. He definitely said it was better, but you forgot this, you need to think about these things. So it's it's giving you kind of the advantage of having all that knowledge bottled up in a book with some templates and some frameworks to shortcut.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yeah. One of the things that you're you're reminding me of, I think, particularly as as as I get older, maybe as we get older, we're we're in a we're, you know, we're on the back nine, let's just call it that. Is the power of expertise in depth and the stories that you can tell on simple questions. The questions seem simple, but the depth of your experience and being able to interpret a moment, a story, a narrative, recall an example, is the power of expertise. And this is reminding me now and leading me into a conversation about AI because marketing, I think, is every day I see a tweet or a a post about marketing teams are done for your marketing team is gonna be one person, Claude Plus SEO is gonna change the game forever. And there's a lot of easy buttons being touted. Just push this button and you'll you'll you'll get everything answered. Uh A, do you address AI in the book? And B, what what is this moment doing to these maybe simple questions that require more nuance?

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Yeah, no, I definitely talk about AI in the book, although I'm only I really dedicated a single chapter to it for a number of reasons. I wanted the book to primarily be focusing on what you do to improve messaging, positioning, and storytelling to help drive results for sales teams and marketing teams, etc. So I didn't want to become an AI book for that reason. And by the time I finished writing it, it would have changed dramatically what was out there. What was said, I look at it now, there's probably some things I would tweak. So, yeah, I do talk about AI. I give some examples on effective prompting, which again, to your point and experience, I've gotten very good at doing good prompting. I still still see people using prompts just to be like, how do I, as opposed to giving that. So, but that's where that same messaging framework and strategic thought pattern comes into play, is by using the same so what, why, who cares framework to how you approach generative AI and question building makes a big difference from the output. So that's that. And how do I look at incorporating AI into what I do or what we do from a messaging standpoint? It's a tool. I mean, you use it as a tool, adapt to it, adopt it, bring it into how you use this, but it does not replace that. It does not replace the critical thinking abilities that we as humans have to really say, when I say so what? I don't just answer the question. Again, we're not just answering the question, we're putting thought behind that to say, what does this really mean? Because I'm a human talking to humans. Genitive AI is is amazing what it does. It's I'm still getting a little nervous by some things, but it cannot talk human to a human the same way I can by looking at your facial responses to the comments, the not things you'll do said. That's where we just we are different. So um, to me, it's a combination. You've got to use the intellect that we have, but why not use the tools as a part of that process?

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Yeah. You're you're bringing up something for me that I think is important in the AI experience, which is we tend to ask a question once and we get an answer, and then we're like, wait, that was great. Now let me move on to the next question. And what I hear you describing in your framework and in the the maybe the art side of answering these questions is it's rarely the first answer that you get is the one you go with. There's an iterative experience here. So how did talk to us about that that piece of that? So so what? Why? Who cares? I go through a pass and I answer those questions. How do I know I'm right? How do I know I need to do it again? That that seems to be something that maybe the average marketer or somebody like me who's not a marketer doesn't really know the threshold for.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

First thing I always tell people to slow down. Uh we have this, you know, because everything is so tightly time-bound and we've got to, well, AI can do this so quickly. Let's just say we're using the framework, run through it, do it again. Go back and polish it again. Um, so instead of being in a hurry to use the framework or to get to the to get to the end goal, think through the process of what it is you're answering, why you're getting these kinds of answers, why the flow is going that way. And again, the the framework doesn't give you the message, it gives you the the concepts to deliver and develop the message from there. So if I'm going to to make this most effective, so I go through, I create my message, I've got my answers. Now I got to field test it. Now I got to work with my sales teams or my pre-sales teams, customer success, and say, hey, here's I want to talk with this new feature, this new functionality, this outcome we're trying to develop. Does this resonate? Does this make sense? Because I can have one of the best sounding presentations in the world. And if the sales team goes out there, it just it flops, I didn't do a good job. So I'm really big on field testing things, um, whether I'm talking to the sales teams or I'm at a trade show. I mean, I have I've experimented with things like that at trade shows before where I'll come up with a wild hair idea, a way of communicating that, try it in front of a trade show conversation, and you know, if you get the head nod, okay, good. This is leading in the right direction. How do I polish that? So for me, using the framework and the outputs from that and iterating through it, reiterating through that, is a way to just constantly improve and polish that. Messaging isn't a one and done thing. We don't finish it, launch it, and never come back to it. And again, that's where the power of AI comes in is you can go back and run these different tests and improve things on a regular basis. But that's where, again, going through and asking the right questions, and more than once asking the right questions again sharpens it and tightens it. And then having somebody else validate that. Talk to another marketer, talk to another salesperson, talk to somebody who doesn't understand your product at all, and then say, what does this make you feel? When you hear me say this, what does it make you feel?

SPEAKER_01 16:10

So it's interesting to me because I think, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say a quiet part out loud, maybe that I think marketing teams, if if if I've heard a criticism of marketing teams, is that they can get maybe a little internally focused and high-minded in their description of features, benefits, why people should care. And it becomes a little echo chamber of really smart people doing good work, but that doesn't relate maybe to the real world. I'm it not always, but I've heard this. You're nodding, so I think I'm close to a stereotype that I've heard at times. What you're describing is a much more market-facing customer interactive experience that requires a lot of experimentation. How does that how does that fit with maybe this stereotype? And are we doing that enough? Is it happening and we're just not seeing it? Is it something that teams need to do more of? I'm just wondering where that where that balance is.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yeah, and I think it's still happening. I mean, I I you know, I and I'm and I'm gonna throw myself in the sword and say I'm guilty of this as well. And I'll use a best example is one of my least favorite phrases is AI powered, AI enabled, AI, you know, fill in the gap. And I've got plenty of anecdotes around that. But in the last few months, I've actually stepped back and realized that just because Doug doesn't like the phrase AI enabled, blah, blah, blah, blah, doesn't mean it doesn't occasionally still resonate with the right potential audience and buyer. So that's where you're going back to your term of echo chamber. We do get caught up in saying some of the same things all the time. And you know, does that sound good? That sounds good, cool. We're all we're all aligned in this little room. Well, then when it leaves the room, that's when the the rubber hits the road. But it also requires, I think, a bit of self-humility and awareness to say, maybe it's something that Doug doesn't like and is going to work in the real world. So you have to be both be critical of what you're saying, but also your own personal scheme of how you you know you view the world to take it out there. So yeah, main marketing teams, we're still we're still doing that, but that's why I at least I, and that's why I try to put into my book and my concepts is I try to approach all this with kind of like a childlike enthusiasm of just you know, I think if you talk to me about data and enterprise, you know, I've done enterprise SaaS stuff for 20 years, yeah. I know it pretty well, but I'm also always learning. And so I think that is another key part of this, is that the framework, while simplistic in nature, makes you think a bit differently and challenges you to think outside what you've normally done and always responded to and get you out of that out of that echo chamber to say, what if we did it like this? So hopefully that answered your question.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Yeah, yeah, it it did. And I think there's a there's there's an attachment problem here at times as well, which is we happens in more than marketing, we get attached to our ideas. And even in the face of new information, it becomes very difficult for us to let go of that idea because we're attached to it. We came up with it, we think it's clever, we understand it, whatever it may be. And I think you're encouraging teams to be more open, maybe less ego-driven and more aware that new information is it's really not about you. It's about the customer, it's about who's receiving the information. I think that's just such a good reminder. There's another dimension here that you know, this isn't just about product marketing, I would imagine. I mean, these questions are universal in a lot of ways. They go well beyond my my chief marketing officer, my best friend who's doing does all this work with me. He asked me all the time, he's like, so what? And I was like, Well, what you know, what do you mean, so what? What's the so what? And and I I'm guilty of the same thing. So, how can someone who's not a marketer get something out of this framework in your book?

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Uh great question because I think that's one of those things. As I finish the book up, I realized how much I use this in a non-product marketing way at the same time. Yeah, I do, I challenge things that I do in life, I challenge my teams to think, you know, if you want to put a new win-loss program in place, for example. Um, so what? What is this gonna do for us and for our teams? If we want to make a financial change to how we forecast our models, well, so so what? What's gonna happen as a result of doing so? So you don't have to be a product marketer to to enjoy the book. Please buy it. Um but I think anybody who, and again, it's it does talk about Martin. It if you want to challenge how you respond to a market need, so that could be a salesperson, a customer success person, product managers, all those people, anybody who has something they want to say to the world, if you want to be a storyteller, it's it's a great framework, it's a great book to look at.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Yeah. So there's another side of this. Let's talk about the the receiving end of the framework for a moment, because I think in a world of heavy social media influencer-based marketing that is all around the algorithm, that is uh that's a tidal wave of information and feedback that we get as consumers that can make it hard. It's sort of designing the who cares for us in real time. Every time we click a button, we're we're building our own confirmation bias into our own algorithm. How do we contend with that? Because you're describing a what I would call it maybe a traditional. That's probably not the right word, but a traditional, we've got a market, we've got a thing, we want to take that thing and get it in front of people, and therefore we Need to answer these three questions. That's hugely important stuff. But I mean, look at what's happened in the AI wars between Claude and Chat GPT and OpenClaw and Perplexity. They're all using a different strategy, which is let's let the algorithm determine how we get customers to come to us and they decide the who cares piece. How do we deal with that? Because it feels like a whole different dimension.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

And that's where you know, writing a book, and when you get done, you realize, oh, I could have added this. It's not a linear process. You don't have to go, so what? Answer that, why, answer that, then who cares? To your point on social media, you know, what I've often done when I do my posts is I try to start off with a who cares. So I might say, product marketers or people living in this, I'll start off with a focus on who I want to catch the attention of. So now I'm hitting that who cares, then I put everything else in there. And so to me, that's part of just understanding how the algorithm responds, is they want to focus on an audience because they're they're trying to capture that audience. And I think that's how we need to look at that. Is again when we're telling a story, if I walk in to tell a product marketing story in a room full of engineers, I'll probably get a lot of glazed eyes. Yeah. So I've got to understand who I'm focusing on for my audience as I do that storytelling. But I and I use the analogy a lot, it's like a really good movie trailer. A really good movie trailer to me is a great example of so why, why, who cares, in whichever order you like, because it gives you enough to go, hmm, that's intriguing. You know, it's exciting, or completely turns you off because you're the wrong audience. And that's you know, that's that's part of what happens. But that's what we should be doing with this, and what it's whether it's an algorithm perspective or messaging or the external audiences, what is it I'm trying to intrigue you with in order to go do and take action for? Knowing that if I don't do it, I might miss out.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah. As you were saying that, the movie trailer is such a good example. I love movie trailers, so I it's it's a really good example of a 90-second, if that storytelling arc that can answer these questions. So I'm gonna remember that one. It also seems to me that we could use these questions in reverse, which is and I know they're not linear in the sense of how they could be used, but I could look at if I'm thinking in an entrepreneur in an entrepreneurial way, I could say, well, hey, who cares right now about a thing? And then I could say, well, why do they care about it? So what are we going to do about it? And that could be a way of finding opportunity in a in a market where you're sort of going backwards through, you know, some might call it a market needs assessment, a customer needs assessment. But it seems like you could you could use this in a pretty flexible manner.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Yeah, no, very well said. And then that's if I'm targeting, I want to target founders of you know, an AI cybersecurity company. Now you start off with who is this res who is this going to resonate with? And then, okay, why is this important to them? And why isn't what's and you can go in every order you want to, but uh to your point, that that targeting is so critically important because you want to tell this the right story to the right person with the right pain points and the right solution at the right time.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Yeah. The fact that I came up with that, I'm gonna give myself a junior marketing certification on the spot. So this is my this that's that's my little change moment for the day. Uh Doug, we are we are getting close to time. These conversations go so fast. Uh, a couple last questions. So for a team that's maybe feeling stuck, in addition to buying your book, which I encourage everyone to do, and maybe their messaging isn't resonating, maybe they're feeling like they've tried everything, maybe they've even used a framework like this and are not getting results. What what do you I know it's context specific on what the problem is, but but maybe for a team that's I don't know, doing it the old way or over-complexifying, whatever you want to do, what how do you what kind of recommendations do you give to teams that are just feeling stuck?

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah, I talk about this in the book and my frameworks and my my presentations, but it really just is really focus on simplifying, take the clever out of it and go back to what is it we're trying to accomplish? And going back to our previous chat, who are we trying to target this to? And just make it simple. I mean, I talk about keep it simple, stupid. It's it's so important because and going back to what we said at the very beginning is we're trying to differentiate in a very crowded and noisy market. And Lord, I've said those terms way too many times, I'm sure you have as well. But it is the truth. I mean, it is a crowded and noisy market, Gen AI makes it harder. So sometimes you can stand out by being simple, and sometimes just being making those little simple changes using small words instead of trying to be like sound so smart and clever. Oh, and when you step back and you know get out of that echo chamber you mentioned earlier and just simplify things, it's amazing how you're like, oh, and then you start to branch. So just go back to the basics, get that message foundation, get it nice and clear and consistent in the beginning. Then you can add, I'll say complexity, you can add detail to that, but get that foundation right first. And you know, can you tell it to your 80, your 80-year-old grandmother and her go, I kind of get it. Then you're on the right path.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes less is more, I think is what you're saying. Less is more. And so, and so so Doug, we've talked about a lot here from frameworks to AI. If you had to summarize maybe two to three things in addition to simplification that you want teams to take away from this conversation about so what, why, who cares, and your book. What do you want to leave the audience with here as we wrap up?

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Um, one area I didn't bring into, but I think it's also critically important since we talk about audience, is I also use this as a way to do presentations. And the reason I bring up presentations is we in marketing tend to be a little over um over crazy on presentations. And I'm I've been guilty, you know, all these decks. Use it as a way to analyze what you put in front of your audience, and that's a big thing. So whether it's presentations, messaging, collateral, blogs, etc., what are we trying to get our audience to say yes to? What is it we're trying to make them remove the pain from? Those are the things that I stick out. Basically, going back to your movie trailer, that's fun. But if you look at when you bought something expensive or maybe frivolous, what was you're trying to change in your life to make things better and look at those as the drivers behind it?

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Yeah. I it's such a great reminder of being aware, I think, internally for all of us about our choices. So many things we do are autonomic. For some of what you do every day is habit. And it's about uh uh uh Mark in the chat here left a comment keep all keep it simple silly. He's being very politically correct on the traditional acronym of the KISS. Uh, and so I appreciate that PG13 version of that. It's I'm being funny, but I appreciate that, Mark, because it's true.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

And we go ahead. In my book, originally I had Keep It Simple Silly listed out there. They'd said, let's just take change it to keep it simple. I'm like, well, yeah, okay, but no. Yeah, I don't I don't usually say keep it simple, stupid in most of my conversations.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

I think we've moved beyond that, I guess. But the timeless the recommendation is timeless. Yeah. Uh Doug, this has really been great. Uh, and I think before we give you a chance to summarize where we can find your book and where to follow you, as you know, we have a closing tradition on this podcast, which is uh to ask a bonus question that was left by the previous guest. Uh I take it you know Mark. He's now saying hey, hey, in the chat. I don't know if you know him or I don't I haven't so smaller, so I probably have. Yeah, he looks like another top voice. So Mark, we'll have to have you on the show. Um so your bonus question, these always line up because I think it's really, really uh appropriate. So uh the question that's less that's left for you is and it's so perfect, is so in this time of rapid change and transformation, what is the one thing that you anticipate will stay consistent?

SPEAKER_00 30:19

I touched on it a little bit, but I firmly believe it is that the need and the importance of human critical thinking, life experience, and all those things that make up who we are as a person, as a community, as a social engagement, um, that's not gonna that shouldn't, and that shouldn't, that's not going away because we we are human beings, as I said, talking to human beings, selling to human beings, being in a community with human beings. Nothing can replace that. We can add to it and augment it, but I think that what makes us fundamentally people and humans, that's that shouldn't, that's not gonna go away.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Love it. I love it. It's such a great reminder, and I think we say it more and more, which is I think is wonderful because it reminds us that to stay grounded in who we are and and where we are. Doug, where where can we find your book and where can we follow you uh both to get your book but also to stay up with the latest and greatest that you're sharing with everyone?

unknown 31:19

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Yeah, I'm on I'm on Amazon. So just go to Amazon, so what, why who cares? And the print version, the Kindle versions are out there. Um if you forget that, so what why who cares.com. That's my uh my actual website. Uh thank you, lovable, for helping me with that one. Uh, and I'm on LinkedIn, uh, LinkedIn.com slash Doug Kimball or Kimbal Doug. I'll have to look at nothing it's Doug Kimball. I'll I'll put the links out there, but uh best thing to do is just check me out on Amazon or so and or so what why who cares.com. And I've share articles and thoughts and thought leadership on that as well, just to add to the resources.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Love it. We will be sure to include all those links in the show notes so everybody uh can get there. And from a fellow first-time author to another one, uh congratulations. It's a it's a great journey. As I've said to people, writing a book is is what I've heard is like running a marathon, which is you you moan and groan all the way through it, and the minute you're done, you say, When's the next one? And so we'll be looking forward to reading this one and your next one, I'm sure. Uh, for those of you that tuned in today, uh Mark and others, thank you for tuning in live. We always love to get some interaction. And for those of you that are listening on your favorite podcast platform, thanks for being a part of the top voice community. And we'll see you next week. Thank you very much.