Ronnie Russell discusses AI and how to succeed in business

This episode of the Inside Killeen podcast features Ronnie Russell, a well-known Killeen resident and the president and CEO of the Innovation Black Chamber of Commerce, discussing AI and how to succeed in business. The conversation explores innovation, access and what it means to "make it" in the current business climate. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to the Inside Clean Podcast brought to you by KDH News. I'm your host, Kevin Lumini, and I'm joined today by our co-host, Dalen Che, who is going to be a regular co-host, as well as Hamida Botchwe, who is also joining us as a co-host, but she will still be manning the technical producing side of things. And today, our guest is Ronnie Russell, who is part of the Innovation Black Chamber of Commerce. You are the CEO and president, is that correct? Yes, sir. All right, awesome. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about how you came to Kaleen and how you got started.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Wow, that's a whole story within itself. Because I never wanted to come to Texas, like at all. I was stationed in Hawaii. I started Hawaii's first tattoo magazine. The magazine was doing real well. It went international, the third issue. And I was like, why would I leave this, you know, island and come to Texas? And I was actually placed on orders three times before I got here. But once I got here, I think it was the best decision to let go because I had told my mom I'll I'll know what I am supposed to do on the other side. Because there's no reason why I come on orders, my orders get denied. Come on orders, more orders get denied. I was like, I'm done. Let me see what it is. And being here has has definitely been a blessing. Sounds great.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Sir, and can you tell me a little bit about the Innovation Black Chamber of Commerce and how that was founded?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Actually, it started in Belton. A lot of people don't know. The chamber of the Innovation Black Chamber of Commerce was started in Belton, Texas, inside of the church, Shiloh, pastored by Dr. Claudette Morgan Scott. We were up in her upper room, and nine of us got together. Myself, Miss Anjanette Wilkerson, Dr. Scott, Ebony Todd, Tavares Bethel, Andy Williams, Secret Odom, and we were all like, okay, what are we going to start? Because we fall an hour between two other Black Chambers. You have the Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce, and you have the Syntex African American Chamber of Commerce and Waco, but we didn't have that economic ecosystem here. And we was like, well, let's start it. Because other chambers, like they've had successors, they had presidents, they had all these people before them, but we have really like had to start it from scratch. So when they say get it out the mud, like we actually started something that that no one really held our hand with. They gave us insight, and that's where it started. It actually started in Belton, not clean.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Yes, sir. And when one thing that the innovation does very well is always staying ahead and also know what's going on in the business place. And that's why we're here on this podcast today to talk about the success in business. In your mind right now, what is success looking like in the workplace?

SPEAKER_01 3:19

I mean, I'll I would I was I would use innovation because you have pre-COVID and post-COVID. The way business was done and ran and adjusted and developed post pre-COVID, totally different than how it is now. So post-COVID business is a lot faster, it's a lot leaner, is it's a lot more tech heavy, and technology is is is is is greater at our fingertips now than what it was pre-COVID. So if businesses understand how important being in a digital era is, then they will be able to figure things out a lot faster and move at a lot more quicker rate because you have to learn it in order for you to execute it at the speed of where you are.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Yes, sir. And what digital platforms, though it creates opportunities, could you also say it just creates noise?

SPEAKER_01 4:24

I think you have to look at what is noise. You have noise and you have sound. Noise could be a disruption. Sound can be music. Sound is is developed as what you comprehend. That's music, that's a car. Noise is like we have to understand that what we create as success sounds like what we make it to be. So I I think like when they say the sweet sound of victory, that's because you made it that way.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Yes, sir. And to dive into the analytic side of digital platforms. We see a lot of businesses right now, they post, try to get that word out, but then it comes down to the analytics if they truly succeed or not. Like how many followers do we need to get monetized, how many likes, subscribes, and then comments, even shares, reposts.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

So people have to understand there's a difference between posting and marketing. Posting is that you post it. You post it and you hopefully it does whatever it is that you desired it to do. Marketing is you put in ad dollars, something you put on the back end of Facebook ads manager, TikTok ads manager, Snapchat Ads Manager, that's marketing. Posting wise, you have to understand like who is your actual avatar? Like, who is the audience that you actually are trying to go after that actually resonates with your product? Because not everybody's gonna come into your restaurant. Just like not everyone is going to want you to take pictures for them. Not everybody is gonna want you to provide services for you. So you have to understand like who's your avatar? Is it a male between 16 and 35? Is it a female between 21 and 48? Like, are they married? Are they employed? Are they unemployed? Like, those are the things that we have to understand when we're posting. Like, does the language resonate with your actual avatar? Because you can have 300 followers and you can have 30,000 followers. I'd rather have 300 followers that are buying clients than 30,000 people. That's nosy. They're just there to see what you're doing, that's there to tear down what you're not doing well. I'd rather have the audience of people that are actually transitioning into customers.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Yes, sir. And then on other technologies, one of the biggest ones, I've even talked to you about this on the side, AI.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

The way it's changed the game. Yeah. And we're talking about more than just Canva, ChatGPT, we're talking about Cloud Notebook LM Base 44. Yeah. And you've been able, you even, I believe it was last week, you went out and spoke about that event. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

I'm I'm not. I'm just gonna be me. If you're saying you know AI and you only use ChatGPT, you don't know AI. You don't, you know the Hollywood. The Hollywood call sign is ChatGPT. The actual company is OpenAI. ChatGPT has become the household name that people live by it and stand by it. But what happens is they're missing out on other opportunities that that are bigger, bad, or faster, because ChatGPT doesn't own anything. That's why when you see the image generator, the image generator is coming from a Google VEO because that's Google's product. Chat doesn't have a product, chat has chat channels. So in the data that they own, just like when chat first started, they say they were only able to give you information up until this particular date. That's because they don't own the data. Google owns the data. Copilot, which is MM, which is MSN, they own the data because people have been querying inside of their toolbars for years. So that data has been collected. So now they're able to use, you know, under the SaaS, the software as a service. I will sell you this software to make your product faster. So I think when people are using AI, understand the history behind it, understand how well you use it, might be better with a different product, which I call marrying platforms. Like I can create something on Canva, but I may export that on Canva, throw that through Google Gemini, take it out of Google Gemini, throw it into Claude because Claude has the best word generator because the way they built Claude was built off of books, built off of publishers, stuff like that. So it's gonna give you the best wordsmith coming out of Claude. But when you are an AI practitioner like myself, you're gonna know these things. You're gonna be able to be the conduit of information because you've studied what works and what can be worked on better.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah, we've actually discussed like AI like pretty at length in this podcast. And I guess I always sort of came off as some somewhat of like the more skeptical of us. And I guess maybe maybe that's based on a misunderstanding that I had of like how AI actually works. It's very possible. I'm definitely not saying anything like that. But when it but what do you see our in in the city of Kalean as being some of the potential like issues with using AI as part of your business model? Is there some kind of like I mean I mean, is there something unique about Kale even like more generally speaking, is there something unique about the city of Kaleen that kind of makes like the environment for business sort of difficult?

SPEAKER_01 10:12

I think what happens, people jump on bandwagons and they run with it. Just like when you start to see people that create menus, and all the menus are starting to look the same. All of it is in a sepia tone, place that don't look like the place that you're purchasing, the same, the same color wheel, like the hex, like like everybody used the same hex code. And it's all coming out light brown and high, like it's all kind of the same. Right. And because what happens is I would love to have more AI practitioners because we're able to increase the knowledge base of the people that are actually doing it. Just because you create it, that doesn't mean it's gonna work for you. You created it, your target audience don't like it. So they're not more, they're less prone to purchase your product because they're gonna say, oh, that's AI. And they're walking away from it. So I think, you know, from what you have begun to learn about AI, you're beginning to understand it is just a tool. It's not your replacement, but it's your enhancement. It's just a tool. Just like you have people who write poetry will tear down people who use AI, or people that are journalists who would tear down the system of artificial intelligence, but you've been using artificial intelligence since you've been doing a word doc that had the red squiggly line. It's been artificial intelligence. But if you're type, if you're texting and it corrected your your TEH and it corrected a THE, that's already has always been artificial intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Right. And you know, um you've seen me at like some of these clean council meetings. And every time I'm at these clean council meetings, I'm always using an application called Otter. Yeah. And otter, I didn't realize until recently, was a was a version of some kind of version of AI. It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

It's a transcriber.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

I think a lot of people don't realize, they don't have a problem with AI. They have a problem with generative AI.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

And that's my issue. I don't like generative AI. But artificial intelligence, I don't really have a problem with.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

So generative AI. What's your problem with generative AI? Generative AI?

SPEAKER_03 12:23

Specifically, when people say AI art, I don't think it's art, but when people use it just in their art, I just don't like it personally.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

So I understand your personal side of it. Art is based on the foundation of what? Creativity. Right. So, and the basic foundation of your creativity that generates that particular image is based on how well you prompt. That prompt comes from your idea and what you naturally have. Like, because you're a natural, you're naturally creative, you might create better imagery than somebody else. Because because you're a natural wordsmith, your adjectives are going to be different from someone else who don't know the adjectives that'll change how this image is created. So you're actually probably great at it because the way you write.

SPEAKER_03 13:26

Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

I don't know. I don't really play with it too much.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Yeah.

unknown 13:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

It was very interesting because I saw like a article from like I forget where it's from exactly, but it was an author who wanted to see how AI did against like very famous like writers and in terms of what people preferred. And the people actually preferred the AI, but on the other hand, it did sort I did read what some of the authors had written, and it seemed sort of like they were phoning it in. So I mean, maybe there's a little bit of uh underestimation going on here, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Yeah. Does it always have to be a human in the loop? And I think when you take out the human aspect, then that's where fear sets in, and that's where the dislike comes in because those who don't understand that a human has to be in a loop is going to feel like that's the rage against the machine. Like it doesn't have to be rage against the machine. It's just understand like someone had to learn it in order for them to actually teach it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yeah, it makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Yes, sir. And I think with everything that's going on with digital platforms, including AI, once you learn how to master these things and incorporate into your business, you're now building your own fast-paced environment.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Yeah. You'll never master it. You'll never master it. That's that's why it's an AI practitioner. Like it's practicing. Like the prompt you used last month will change how you do the next following month. Because before prompting was just a paragraph. Now there's something called a super prompt, which is way more advanced than just create something that makes the red dog bark in the yellow snow next to the elephant with the green hat. The superprompt changes all of that. It changes how the outcome is going to be because you understand now the super prompt. So it's it's changing. So it's it's a practitioner. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Yeah. You have had the AI Icon Conference and then also the AI boot camp that has explained these on bigger platforms, but you also have business services where you explain this on a one-on-one basis, if need be. Tell me about the business services and why it's important.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

The business services, we're about to extract some things, which you'll see in the near future, because I have to turn the presentation in like about Monday, COB. I got the email. So within the chamber itself, we have AI boot camps. We've been doing AI boot camps since 2022. We were doing it way before an AM or a Temple College, like we were doing it way before they were doing it, because you know, we were early adopters and forward thinkers. So we wanted to make sure, one, that there was no AI divide, like there is a digital divide or a wealth gap and stuff like that. So we want to make sure that we close those things. So we created the AI boot camp, which is every quarter. We started with ChatGPT like everybody else, but then when we start to learn that there was more platforms, like we got a database with over like 600 some different AI platforms and it's growing. So with the AI boot camps that we have, which led into the conference, but we also teach the social media audit. We do all of that as well as we have business services, but we're going to track the business services out because with business services, we don't just need resources anymore. I can give you a trifold and I can give you a flyer and tell you, hey, there's a job fair coming up, blah, blah, blah. But I'm not giving you any services. So you're not, you're less prepared than what you were when you came in and heard about these resources. So actually sitting down with you and doing your business formation, actually sitting down with you and building out your marketing plan, actually sitting down with you and opening up your laptop and showing you how to use these particular tools, that's business services. It's it's it's less about the conversation, but more about the actualization. Can we actively take you from I don't know to the aha moment? That's where the business services take you. And and and businesses need more of it. I mean, yeah, I'm a you know, chamber president, there's other chambers around here, but there are more businesses that are not chamber members than there are of businesses that are chamber members. So we have to close those gaps to where services have to be rendered because if the value that I bring to this person that's not a member now becomes valuable because I presented value to you, and that can be converted into membership. So sometimes you got to understand this this person just needs help. Give them those resources, and then it becomes resourceful because now they know where they got the information from.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

Yes, sir. Goes back to when my mentor used to tell me it's learn the language of business.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

100%.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

Yes, sir. Yeah. And outside of digital platforms, you've also taught simple startups from entrepreneurial nonprofit, 501c3, and 501c6, and an even large business expansion and even just working from home digitally. Yeah. So can you tell me, well, I know IBCC has AI consultants. How'd that come about?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Value. Sometimes you got to understand what's the value proposition. The value proposition is can I provide this resource to this person that can take what I learned and can do it without them physically being in my presence? That's adding value to it. So having AI consultants, which of course I'm one of them, having AI consultants allow people to be as comfortable with AI because you're getting it from someone you can tangibly reach out and touch. It's not something that you've seen somebody on social media who's never been to the state, who's never been to the city, but you can't call them like you can someone who's here. So developing those AI consultants really expedited the process of how people learn artificial intelligence because it's coming from a direct source that they can reach out and touch.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

Yes, sir. And whether it's a new business owner or current business owner, what's the common gap that you see?

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Are we talking AI just in general? Just in general. So I'll talk for-profit and non-profit. I'll separate the two. So for the for-profit, you have the products and services. You have businesses who have products who do not have professional images of their products. But yet they'll take a photo with their phone. I mean, great, you can use the Android. Android is great with photos. But when you start to post your things on social media and it doesn't look as professional as you would like it to be, and you're okay with that mediocre visual aid for someone you want to be your customer or client, you just possibly separated yourself from your next client or separated yourself from your next customer. That's because there is a branding issue. Not looking at how well can I make my product look to make someone say, I want to go buy that. I want to put myself in that room with the services that's being offered. The service-based business, the message of what they offer doesn't really transcend or translate to the person who might need what they have to offer. They'll read a paragraph and be like, what does that mean? Or they'll blend their Facebook page with their personal stuff. So now it's it it doesn't translate a lot. Like, who are you today? Are you are you flipping plates now? Or do you have a restaurant? Like, what are you really doing? So I think the the the the I don't want to call it a problem because it's not. The shortcomings is branding and messaging. If we can do a better job at messaging, then our branding is going to be better because we want it to look better for the person who comes after them. Because there's three things I want to say, and I'm and and I think we're all understanding. So you have the three Cs of customer acquisition. You have the customer to client and clientele. The customer is someone you just met. They didn't break no bread. You just had a great conversation with them. The client is someone who has purchased something that you have or who has took services from you. That means they can be the voice and the mouthpiece for you. And the clientele is people that are always coming, those revolving customer. Those are the people that go out and get more customers for you because you offer them a service. So we have to understand those three C's: customer, client, and clientele. And you can figure out what you need to do and figure out who is actually really just the customer. You see, and they don't do, they don't buy nothing from you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Yes, sir. And I think that goes back to what you're saying about marketing, just knowing just the basics of it.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

You know, I'm blessed to be in school learning these things. But then I also look at people who are also my age, who want to do those things. And like you said, can take a photo of the Android, post it, not look as professional, but it's contentment that starts to become that problem.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

100%.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

But when you want to become the real deal, you have to have necessary investments. Yeah. And then marketing, which is one of my majors, you have to really have a plan. Go, let's go back to digital platforms. You have to know how many followers do I want by the end of this month. Yeah. When I post this video or real story, how many likes should it have? Yeah. Who should be looking at it? What should this post do? Yeah. Because there's having fun with it and then there's making money off of it, which you've said we've said many times in off-market conversations. Did you have anything, Kevin?

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Oh, well, you know, I was kind of wondering when it comes to the city of Kleen, like, do you think that this is a really good place to run a run a business?

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Of course it is. We got the numbers. Because you have residents who live in Temple will come and open up a business in Kleen. You have residents who live in Cole will come and open up a business in Kleen because of the amount of traffic, the amount, the cyclic community that we live in, the transit community that we live in, people will come and open up more business in Kleen. But now you got to look at where what area is best suited for my type of business.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Yeah, downtown obviously is a huge focus of city politics.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

I think what happens with downtown, some people just follow trends. Like, do you really have a downtown focus? Or are you following the trend of people that was before you? Because if you look at you split 14, everything that's forward of 14 has a different aesthetics, totally different. But then when you turn around and look to the rare 14, meaning this side, if you turn around, like the aesthetics is different.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

It's very different.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Yeah. I mean, you know, it's kind of like, I mean, we were talking about AI before and stuff like that, but I'm but in practical terms, like I think a lot of people who live in the city and probably elsewhere are kind of like worried about their jobs. You know? Nah. I think, no, I think, I think they are.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Like, I mean, I think that's the scuttle butt. That's the that's the rumor. So I think what happens with that is you have a skills gap. That's what happens with that. You have a skills gap. Because if you as a journalist and I'm teaching you how to use these tools, you're now future-proofing your job because you have a you have a new set of skills that can enhance what you already know. You have to have a foundation of a foundation and experience that you have that no other journalist in this area has. So now with the enhancement of technology at whatever level, whether it's generative or whether it's it's not. So now that's what makes you different. That still goes back into the human in the loop because it's still Kevin, but Kevin now has an enhancement to himself. So your job is is secured based on the skills that you bring to the table.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Yeah, no, I mean I think you're 100% correct. But I guess I'm just talking about the perception from like people that do like run businesses of what you know, people are always trying to like find a way to like like make things more affordable for themselves, which is completely understandable, but you know, I mean I g I guess the I guess like the problem is that when people don't necessarily see like people as uh valuable to to their to their particular business. And I think that that's like that touches a lot of different fields, you know?

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Yeah. And and I think with that, I think that's where the moment, not just leaders, not just business owners, not just entrepreneurs, but people. Like, let's see where am I at in this process. Like, how much do I really know? Or how much do I just have no clue or no idea? So there need to be, I mean, if we got to do it, we'll do it. There need to be the state of AI in the city of Queen. Like, just have that town hall. What's the state of AI? Because eventually, five to seven years from now, there are going to be the people who refuse to learn new sets and new developments. There's gonna be a large skill gap. Now, you didn't get let go be because AI replaced you. You refuse to learn it. You refuse, like when you're looking at LinkedIn now, or you're looking at indeed, like there are job descriptions that are looking for certain things and for people that do these certain things. So when case in point, when Google, the internet came out, when the Dewey Decimal system, when the library started stopped doing certain things, like those were shifts. Like the librarian that used to put all the cards in that thing, he or she is no longer needed because we don't need to do that anymore. There's a whole digital database that's for that. Now that person who knows how to query, that person who knows how to build it, that person who builds the digital database for the library, his job is secured. That person who said, Well, no, I like to write where the books are, aisle seven, book 35, row B, whatever. That's the person who's no longer there because that person widened the the skills gap, but the person who wanted the skill, that's the person that's still there.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Yeah, it's very interesting.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

I think my next question would be now is with going back to the five and 10 years, how important will these skills be as we start to learn more? I'm gonna rephrase it. Do you think the foundation will be lost in the next five and ten years as we progress? Foundation of what? Foundations of just business itself, learning how to do your own startup or in our cases being journalists, learning AP style, how everything should be written, knowing that style as technology starts to progress.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Nah, there's gonna be new foundation. Like there's gonna be a teal, like till in the ground. Like there's gonna be new foundations there, just like there's gonna be new job descriptions, just like there's gonna be new product. Like it might be a whole different digital board. Now, it doesn't take away from the person who made that. The person who makes that now makes bigger, better, faster digital boards. So I think the foundation is gonna change just like the outcome and the output is gonna change based on how much is put into it.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

So, in other words, building something that matters that it's better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

There's always gonna have to be an enhancement, but who's going to enhance it? The person who refused or the person who's seen past where it was presently? That's why innovation has to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

Yes, sir. Well, thank you for being here, Mr. Russell. Is there anything else that you would like to add before we close out? Nah. I mean, we we all got work to do.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

And I think the work that we do has to be meaningful. Because the work we don't do now, someone's gonna be affected by it. The work that we do do, those are the things that's gonna change the lives of the people that come after you.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

Yes, sir. I think my last question, just going back to the business services. Can you just tell me a little bit about the demographics of startup businesses?

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Oh lord, a lot of cosmetology. You know, a lot of barbers and salons and everybody think they can cook. Just because you cook, that don't mean you need a brick and mortar restaurant. You might need to start in food truck. There's gonna be a lot more digital businesses that are gonna be at home. There's gonna be a whole lot more of those, but majority of it's retail, a lot of retail, a lot of culinary, culinary and a lot of cosmetology.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Yes, sir. And do you see Colleen? Because we are a big service-based area. Yeah. Could you see us moving out of that traditional role of doing services?

SPEAKER_01 32:12

I would say yes. I would I would give that maybe seven years from now, there's gonna be different tools that's gonna be used. Like there's gonna be data centers that's coming. I sat in a couple of meetings with those. And once you bring in, you know, a big retail, those who make like warehouse jobs who make the retail, so there's gonna be a good mix. Because right now, cleans the city of rooftops. Yes, sir. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

All right. Well, innovation was the first word of uh the innovation by Chamber of Commerce uh from the president and CEO, Ronnie Russell. And I really appreciate you being on to talk about business and AI and all that stuff. I mean, it was very interesting. I think uh we all got something out of it. All right, well, this has been the Inside Clean podcast brought to you by KDH News. Uh I'm Kevin Limity, Dalen Che is co-host, and Hamida Botra is co-host and producer. Thanks a lot, and have a good day.