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Conversations for Leaders & Teams
Welcome! Since 2020, the Conversations podcast has been dedicated to advancing leader and team excellence by exploring relevant topics that impact today's corporate, nonprofit, and faith organizations. Get social with us @belemleaders or visit belemleaders.org Check out Christian Coaching Magazine @christiancoachingmag on FB and Instagram, or christiancoachingmag.com
Conversations for Leaders & Teams
E79. Mastering Branding and Embracing AI: A Visionary Approach for Faith and Communication w/ Mark Dreistadt
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Mark Dreistadt, the visionary founder and CEO of Infinity Concepts, joins us for an discussion on mastering the art of branding and communication. Discover how Mark revolutionized branding within the Christian sector by fusing PR, media, advertising, and branding into a seamless agency model. Mark breaks down the concept of brand essence, offering a fresh perspective on how the collection of experiences people have with an organization shapes a robust brand identity. With compelling examples, he reveals the secrets to building a brand that resonates deeply and consistently with its audience.
As artificial intelligence shapes the future, and despite mixed perceptions and initial apprehensions, we uncover AI's transformative potential. Learn how AI can serve as a powerful ally, enhancing productivity without erasing jobs, and hear compelling examples from publishing to personal use. We stress the crucial role of a human touch in this tech-driven landscape and spotlight AI's promising impact in diverse fields, including medicine and AI to tailor tools to faith-based perspectives, as seen with "Quotes for Life," a site curating faith-driven content.
Drawing on experiences with organizations like the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, we discuss how AI can empower churches to enhance communication and expand their mission-driven efforts.
Connect with Mark @ https://www.infinityconcepts.com/
Until next time, keep doing great things!
Maximizing Organizational Potential Through Branding
Speaker 1All right . Well , hey there , and welcome to Conversations where today we have Mark Dreistat , and he is defined by both his passion and his remarkable talent to help leaders maximize the potential of their organizations . As one of America's leading experts in branding , marketing , fundraising and communication , mark's reputation for creating successful strategies is both well-known and remarkable . With his deep passion for Israel , he spearheaded a program for the state of Israel that resulted in record-breaking tourism . Mark provides fresh insights to challenging problems , bringing a blend of creativity and strategic thinking to every organization he serves . Welcome to the show , mark . How are you today ?
Speaker 2I'm wonderful and it's great to be with you . Thank you for the invitation to share this time together .
Speaker 1Absolutely . Where in the world are you coming to us from today ?
Speaker 2Today I'm coming to you from Pittsburgh . That's where our base is located , where my home is located , and we serve the entire world out of our offices in Pittsburgh . That's where our base is located , where my home is located , and we serve the entire world out of our offices in Pittsburgh .
Speaker 1Wonderful , and you have some changing of the seasons there . Oh , it's beautiful . This is beautiful .
Speaker 2Sometimes the fall goes very quickly , you know . It turns cold and then it rains and the leaves disappear very quickly . This year it's an absolutely stunning year for colors and this is the year of foliage here in Pittsburgh .
Speaker 1That's wonderful , I know . My daughter sent me a picture of two of my grandsons today before they were going to school and the background they're in upstate New York . The background was just gorgeous . It was all yellow . It was wonderful . I'm like , oh , I do love fall , we don't get much of it here in Florida .
Speaker 2I don't imagine .
Speaker 1But so glad you are here today . We're going to be talking about Infinity Concepts . We're going to be talking a little bit more about what you do , but can you share with us what your role is ?
Speaker 2I'm the founder and CEO of Infinity Concepts . We started this back in 2002 . The reasoning behind Infinity Concepts was that we would start a brand communications agency . That was something new at the time . In 2002 , in the Christian space , which is where we primarily operate , everything was siloed . There were PR agencies and media agencies and advertising agencies and branding agencies , and that was all separate agencies . And my thought was let's bring this together , because if the brand is developed correctly and if you have the right kind of understanding about what we call brand essence , then that brand essence can feed the fundraising , it can feed the marketing , it can feed the public relations , social media . All of those different channels can be fed through a properly expressed brand essence . And so we created a new company , infinity Concepts . That was a brand communications agency that brought all these disciplines together under one roof , intentionally so that the message could be consistent across all platforms .
Speaker 1Yeah , Now can you identify for us what brand essence means to you ?
Speaker 2Yes , brand essence is . You know , brand means different things to different people . So a lot of people think a brand is the logo or the color scheme or the palette or the fonts . To us , that's just an expression of an existing , a brand that exists . A brand is a collection of experiences people have with an organization . I'll say that again . A brand is a collection of experiences people have with an organization . I'll say that again A brand is a collection of experiences people have with an organization and the brand essence is the definition of the experience that we want people to have with the organization . So , by clarifying the brand essence , defining what that set of experiences should be like , what you provide to them , what their takeaway should be , it gives you guidance into how you need to communicate and how you need to make internal and external decisions . It guides all of that Once you understand that you're building an experience base and then you guide that set of experiences through the brand essence .
Speaker 1And that's beautiful , that's very elegant , it sounds elegant . Brand essence I have never heard that before , actually , but it makes total sense to me .
Speaker 2We break it down into different components . So your brand services is one piece of that . What are the things that you do ? What do you offer ? That's very practical . We have brand personality , because you can have the same set of services with a company that has a different personality . It's a whole different experience .
Speaker 2So we have brand essence is defined by brand services , brand personality . We have distinctives . Every brand has a set of distinctives , something that makes you different and unique from anybody else in your field . That sets you apart . And then we do something that we call the the brand benefits . It's not anything that you do , but it's what people take away . What do they experience ? What's the impact of the services ? Personality and distinctives , what in people's lives ? And then we put all that together and then we turn that into a brand promise and those five components together make up the brand essence expression . Out of that then you come up with okay , so how do we communicate that ? What's the right color palette , what's the right font , what's the right logo ? All of that flows out of that . But you define the brand essence first .
Speaker 1It's beautiful . Thank you for going a little bit deeper into that . I think that's important for people to understand , because branding- .
Speaker 2It's a radical concept .
Speaker 2It can be a tricky space for sure , I think , when you develop an understanding that a brand is not something that you just design , but it's rather a set of experiences over time , it's anchors you're building into people's emotions and thoughts and experiences . That's what builds a brand , and so every organization is building a brand every day , and if you don't guide that experience , then you don't know necessarily what people's brands might be . They may have . You know , what do they think of when they think of you ? And oftentimes I use an example of coffee . I'm a coffee drinker . I have my coffee cup right here , and so I'm a coffee drinker , and I have been since I was a kid .
Speaker 2Okay , there we go , and I like coffee in all kinds of coffee . I like espresso , I like lattes , I like Turkish coffee , I like Italian coffee , I like coffee . I just do . But if I had a cup and I put some coffee in it and then I put a little tea with it , and then I put some Pepsi with it , and then I put some 7-Up with it , then I put some iced tea with it , then I put some lemon juice with it and I put some orange juice with it , what do I have ? Do I still have coffee ?
Speaker 2No , it's this crazy mess of different flavors that you're not quite sure even what it tastes like . Well , when you don't define your brand essence correctly , that's the experience people have with the organization . They taste one time and say , oh , it's coffee , I like coffee . And the next time it tastes like Pepsi . And so , wait a minute , how come that's different . And the next time it tastes like orange juice , and so , wait a minute , that's not what I thought this was . And so you have brand confusion . Wait a minute , that's not what I thought this was . And so you have brand confusion .
Speaker 2But by creating a brand essence that is clear , concise , memorable , you begin to define that consistent experience . So it's coffee , coffee , coffee , coffee , coffee . And the great part about that is not everybody's going to like coffee , but that's okay . My wife does not like coffee . She barely tolerates the smell of coffee because I love it , and that's okay . My wife does not like coffee . She barely tolerates the smell of coffee because I love it , and that's okay . We know she likes tea , I like coffee , so that's a choice that can be made . So when an organization is consistent , people can choose I love that organization or I don't love that organization . But when it's a conflated mixture of flavors and experiences , people just kind of shun . Would you taste the concoction I put in my cup ? Of course not .
Speaker 2So , people just say I'm keeping , yeah , I'm hands off , and so oftentimes people have great organizations and they're doing wonderful things , but because the brand experience is so confused , they never have the growth or the impact that they could have . That's why we believe our work is so important .
Speaker 2It is important and I love that it's a collaborative , like that one-stop shop type of organization , which is yeah , and we've and you know , in the beginning , when we did that , we were sort of accused of being , you know , a mile wide and an inch deep , but we really aren't . We brought experts in each of these areas into our team , and so we we're . We may be a mile wide , but we're a mile deep as well .
Speaker 1One of those areas is research , yes , and I would love to talk a little bit about that and how that fits in to the work that you do .
Speaker 2One of the things that we do is we have a saying around here that we say that we are helping our clients effectively communicate with an ever-changing culture . That's one of our principles to help our clients effectively communicate with an ever-changing culture . That's one of our principles to help our clients effectively communicate with an ever-changing culture . And so if that's the case , then we have to understand the culture that we're trying to communicate to . Most of our work is communicating to the Christian community . We represent ministries , nonprofits , businesses , corporations and even governments present ministries , nonprofits , businesses , corporations and even governments , but they're trying to communicate to the Christian marketplace . That's what our niche is . And so if we're going to do our job well , we have to understand the evolving Christian marketplace , and it does evolve and it is evolving . And so three years ago , we started a series of research projects that has resulted in us coming up with new research reports . This year we've had extra reports . About every other month we're coming up with a new one . Typically it's about quarterly . We would release a research report on a topic and we try to find things nobody has thought to ask yet or have asked things in different ways than everyone has asked . So we've had reports on .
Speaker 2You know what about evangelicals in public policy ? How do you know what are evangelicals doing ? How do they feel ? You know , because if you hear this in the news , it would seem like evangelicals a monolithic group that is , you know , conservative , white , republican . But that's not the case at all . Racially , there's a mix . There are liberals , moderates and conservatives within the evangelical ranks , and their views on public policy are very different . So we researched that .
Speaker 2Provided that , what do evangelicals think about Israel ? We researched that . How do they make a decision about who they support and who makes the decision about where they give the gift ? And all of those kinds of things are things we've researched , and one of the things we researched recently was artificial intelligence , and that came out of a conversation with my own staff where they were kind of dubious what do we do with this artificial intelligence ? Do we use it ? Do we not use it ? If we use it , how do we use it ? And so we had a robust conversation and out of that we of course created our own artificial intelligence policy for how we use it as an agency . It's a research tool for us , it's a drafting tool for us , but it's not a final document tool ever , and so we have certain parameters that we use it .
Speaker 2But we thought let's find out what evangelicals are thinking about artificial
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence
Speaker 2intelligence . It's pervasive . We're seeing it more and more and you're going to see it more and more as it filters into the marketplace in a pervasive manner and when we took the survey , only about 20% of the people we surveyed knew very much about artificial intelligence . Most people knew a little bit or had heard a little bit . Didn't feel like they were well informed , but about 20% had strong actually 22% had strong opinions about AI and how it was used , and about 25% of the people generally felt AI was positive . About 28% felt it was neutral , but 38% had a negative view of AI and weren't quite sure whether they were for it or not , and about 9% didn't have enough information to give an opinion . But it began to take us down a road to learn a little bit more about AI , how it's used and what evangelicals feel about it .
Speaker 1Yeah , and what's interesting at least what I found is the people who have that negative view of it or lens , if you will that are coming up on your data . What we've found is that they just haven't tried it . They haven't you know , they haven't been exposed to it enough , or they've only heard the negative that's happening . You know it's going to take away like in the coaching it's going to take away . You know your job as a coach and all these different things , but I think the more that people step in and start using it , it can be very effective and I love that . You know you said it's not a final . You know you use it as a draft , you know , for you know the final piece that you're putting out , and I love that because that aligns with how we are as well .
Speaker 2Yeah , and you know , artificial intelligence is not sentient . Let's start there . It doesn't have its own thoughts . It's a collection of data that can be rapidly accessed Large language model is what they call it and it has amazing data that it can pull together very quickly for research purposes . It's very good for that . But it doesn't think on its own , but it is very much driven by the prompts and the requests that you put into it . And so what we found is the more that people use it , the more comfortable they become with it . The more people know about it , the more positively they feel about it . And I think we're going to find with AI that it's going to go the way of some other technologies that have evolved over the years .
Speaker 2When radio was the rage and television came out , everybody thought television was going to take away radio and radio was going to fade into non-existence . But it didn't . It just created a new audience with a new set of skills , a new venue for viewership , and it opened up new jobs that hadn't existed before . When computers came out again , people were not so sure about that . I mean , you know , what do we need computers in our homes for ? Well , now we have multiple computers in almost every home and you know it's become a way of life Now . It hasn't taken us away from any , it just expands our view , and that's what I think is happening with our Felicia Tosh . It may eliminate certain kinds of work , but it opens up completely new categories of opportunity and I think the net outcome of that is a gain and an improvement , I think , in the quality .
Speaker 2I recently met with a bunch of publishers Christian publishers and we were talking about using artificial intelligence and how they might use it , and so they are using it for proofreadings texts at least first draft proofreading Always have a final person go over it at the end , but first draft proofreading it's much speedier , much quicker . They use it even for drafting some documents . They'll oftentimes write a letter and run it through AI and see if they can improve upon it and use that , but it's always not used for final . There's always a final human touch and we need to do that because it is a collection of data and data is only as good as the source data and , frankly , we don't always know where the source data is coming from and it may or may not be correct , and we've certainly found what appears to be making up facts but actually pulling facts from unreliable sources , and so you always have to fact check , you have to make sure that what what you're producing is accurate , and then it's always good to to to kind of give it that human walk through and redo it on the with a , with a human touch . So it's a real human document , but it provides so much insight and resource .
Speaker 2I think you and I were talking the other day and I talked about that someone was going on a trip overseas and I wanted to help them because they'd never done that before . So I went online and I asked them In fact they were going to Israel and I said someone's going to Israel on a two-week trip . This is the time of the year . What do they need to pack ? It created a packing list for us . I made one or two changes and sent it off and it was ready to go .
Speaker 2Oftentimes we'll use that for helping draft press releases . We don't use it for the final , but we can put the bullet points in . It gives us kind of a format , highlights the best parts , and then we can draft around that outline . I've even in the process of using it for writing outlines for books not writing the book . But for here's a bunch of data . If we're going to write a book about this , how would we outline it ? It can draft an outline for us . That becomes then the framework you use to actually write the contents of the book . So it becomes a very interesting tool that can be used . It becomes a very interesting tool that can be used and you know , I think most evangelicals at least feel that immediately . It's a positive thing for medicine , it's a positive thing for better productivity and better efficiency . So that's kind of a no-brainer . Everybody kind of sees that's immediately a benefit . The pivot point is sort of what about what's going to happen with jobs ? That's why I say I think maybe some jobs might be eliminated , but there's going to be new jobs created that I think are going to be greater and higher paying and more opportunity . But then where they're split , here's where the event outputs are split .
Speaker 2Public safety , now , if you think about autodriving cars that's artificial intelligence , right . Well , how do people feel about that ? Some people say , hey , I'm looking forward to that day I don't have to drive . Other people say , I'm never going to get in a car that doesn't have a driver . So they're divided about that . What about the economy . Well , how is AI going to impact our economic picture , our own creativity ? How is AI going to impact our economic picture , our own creativity ? As humans ? Are we going to get lazy depending on AI ? Several companies that are exploring biblically-based AI models , as opposed to the generically-based AI models that are out in the public now . I think this is all fascinating and absolutely fabulous , as long as we keep technology where technology belongs as a tool in our toolbox and not a replacement for our values and our own thoughts and creativity .
Speaker 1Right , because God created us with brains and minds and that creativity . We don't ever want to , you know , lose that , but I do believe that . You know . I think about somebody who thinks that they aren't creative , but maybe they're popping something in and then that's prompting them for something more . You know how to add to it and that can be a creative piece for a person who thinks that , well , I can't do this , I need to rely on whatever you know , the chat GPTs or word heroes or whatever it is that they're using .
Speaker 1But , yeah , I think it's fascinating , but you said something there about biblically based AI models . What can you say about that ?
Harnessing AI for Church Ministry
Speaker 2Well , you know every again , an AI is simply a large language model . It's what you feed into it , so they fed a lot of data . So if you take the public airwaves , the public web , and you feed data from the public web into a model , it's not necessarily going to be biased toward a Christian worldview or a biblical worldview . And so , in fact , we've seen that we're in the process of creating a new website that will be released in January , called Quotes for Life , and this is going to have hundreds of thousands of quotes and we've used AI to help us cultivate additional information . So you might have a quote and then we'll have a paraphrase of that quote , we'll have a poem that relates to the quote , it's going to have scripture references that tie to that quote , an outline for a Bible study and questions to use and how you can use that quote in a presentation . So it's all this data that AI helped us create .
Speaker 2Well , as we were doing that , we and curating it because , again , we just use it for research but we don't use it for finals .
Speaker 2So , as we're curating , we're saying , oh wait a minute , this particular worldview , their interpretation of this quote , is not consistent with our biblical worldview . It's very humanistic or it's very liberal in its viewpoint , much outside of biblical context , and so we've had to be careful of that . And there are a couple of companies now that are doing models where they are actually feeding in either biblical content or they're feeding in doctrinal content . There was one that I know that's particularly a specific denomination that they're putting in their denominational content to see what the outputs do , and in fact they're finding , when they do that , that of course the output then is flavored by that resource , and so they're finding much more biblically accurate models . And there's other companies that are doing similar kinds of things . To come , maybe even months to come , we're going to see more happening on biblically based AI models that would be even more robust and more helpful for those in the evangelical or Christian space .
Speaker 1Yeah , wow . What were you surprised about in your research here on AI ?
Speaker 2Is there anything that and I was surprised that I guess I'm farther down the road . I was surprised . So many people 80% of evangelicals said they don't know very much about it and I guess that was surprising for me because I'm in the space and I've been in it for a couple of years and it's something that I'm aware of and using and all that . So that was kind of a surprise . But then when I talked to some professionals in the space , like the publishers , I was surprised to see how many of them were already embracing it . So it is being embraced , it is growing . I think there's 69% of evangelicals we surveyed said that they are concerned about what AI could do . And there is a danger with AI and I think that's something we also need to mention here . It's a great tool , great opportunity , great positive outcomes . Dangerous because AI can also create deep fakes , videos and photos and can be used to imitate other people and so forth . So there are some dangers to it . In fact , 70% of the evangelicals feel like there are some potential dangers and some spots we need to be careful of , and I think that's worthy of noting . I don't know that surprised me , but it was worthy of noting . I think my greatest surprise was , just as pervasive as it is , how little we know about it . It's all around us but yet we don't know that much , and I think it's important that we begin to learn and understand the model , understand what it does and what it doesn't do , how it works , how it doesn't work , just so that we can make a choice . Then Some people may choose I don't ever want to use AI , I want to stay out of the AI space , and that's a fair choice .
Speaker 2Others may say I want to use it for limited purposes . That's also a fair choice . Some people say I want to go deep end of the pool and I really want to use AI for a fair choice . Some people say I want to go deep end of the pool and I really want to use AI for a lot of things , and that's also a fair choice . But as long as you do that understanding the nature of the tool , its positives , its benefits , its limitations and its dangers . So that's sort of what I came away with , and I do think it has even impact for the church . Yes , so that's sort of what I came away with , and I do think it has even impact for the church . Churches can begin to use some AI tools to I think , improve some of their communication and strategies as well .
Speaker 1What might ?
Speaker 2that look like there would be some ways that churches could use to provide additional resources . Ai can help generate additional resources that are very clearly targeted for specific audiences . I remember let me backstep on this just a little bit I remember a few years ago about 10 years ago now we started working with what was then Cancer Treatment Centers of America and they're now City of Hope . Cancer Treatment Centers of America wanted to start an outreach to the Christian community , and so they engaged us to help them do that , and I did a survey back then . I surveyed about 100 pastors and asked them several different questions , and one of them I asked was what are the things you counsel people about when it comes to health ? And cancer was the number one response counsel people . But I said about . The three things were money , relationships and sickness were the three broad categories , and so I asked them so when you're counseling people about finances , do you have resources ? And they said , oh yeah , lots of resources out there for that . When you're counseling people about relationships , do you have resources ? They said , oh yeah , lots of resources .
Speaker 2I said when you're counseling people about cancer , do you have resources ? And they said there's not a thing out there , and that was a need that we stepped into 10 years ago to try to meet that need . But you know , today it would be a different model , because now you can say I'm facing this and I'm dealing with my faith , you can put those as a church . You could put some of that information into a query and you could generate actually a resource that could be helpful to cancer patients or their caregivers . That was generated with research that would have taken you weeks to produce normally can be generated in just a few minutes .
Speaker 2It's really quite fascinating what can be done there , and so I think it broadens the scope of resources that a church can offer . I do think there are ways that it can increase personalization . People may like or not like that , but AI can sometimes recognize people and their behaviors and then interact with them in different ways based on that . So it can increase personalization for church ministry . So there's a number of different ways it can be used . We'll see where it evolves .
Speaker 1Yeah , and how many people are actually open to that ? Because I think that the part of that what you said in the beginning about the 38% negatively look at AI really .
Speaker 1how open is somebody to the opportunities that it provides and I think if you have such a stronghold , or in a mindset where we're going to continue to do things how we've always done them and not are open to them , I think that that could be why they won't use it . However , I think that people have the expectation moving forward Now that everybody can have it . You don't even have to pay for it , you just have to have a connection that I think that the tides are going to be turning . More people are going to be able to have their hands on it and be able to utilize that .
Speaker 1Yeah , so I think that number is going to go up .
Speaker 2Oh , I think so too , and I think it's going to take just time and experience for people to determine where all can we use this resource and where should we not use this resource . I'm sure there will be , again , the good and bad side to both of this , but , like every tool , every tool can be used for good . It can be used for good , it can be used for bad , and I think the opportunities that AI provides , when managed properly , when used within appropriate constraints and guidelines I think the upside of that is opportunities that can be followed and used in the AI space .
Speaker 1Yes , Well , mark , this has been a fantastic conversation . I appreciate you bringing your research and what you're doing at Infinity Concepts . I would love for people to be able to point it to you . So where can people find you and the research ? If it's different , if it's different places , or you tell us Well , infinityconceptscom is our website , so everything is on infinityconceptscom .
Speaker 2If you go to forward slash resources , I believe that's the correct link to get to the reports . If you click on forward slash resources , you'll see there's a list of several different resources and research is one of the dropdowns . Click on that and there's probably 20 different research reports there that are available for free . For free , absolutely for free . Yeah , this is free research that we provide . This is free research that we provide . We do the research to serve our clients better and then we release that research for others to glean from . So it's there , it's available . Our latest report is what Do Evangelicals Believe About Sin and what is sin and what is not sin in the evangelical mindset . So it's fascinating . That would be another very interesting conversation .
Speaker 1Well , thanks again . I'd love to give you just one last word . What do you want to leave the audience with ? It could be about your organization , about artificial intelligence , anything you want to say .
Speaker 2I'm going to give you the last word before I wave goodbye you want to say I'm going to give you the last word before I wave goodbye .
Elevating Christian Brand Communication
Speaker 2Sure , I started Infinity Concepts because , back in the early 2000s , I was concerned about poor communication in the Christian space . So many organizations , so many businesses were communicating so poorly about the calling God had placed on their life and they were using the tools that were in the marketplace so poorly . I felt like I wanted to make a difference . We wanted to become strategic partners with organizations so that we could help them express their brand clearly , correctly , concisely , and then use every tool available to leverage that brand and optimize its impact . So , whether it's a humanitarian aid ministry , whether it's a church , whether it's a broadcast ministry , whether it's , as I said , even a corporation that wants to reach the Christian community , for whatever focus they might have , we believe that's an important thing to do and that messaging needs to be first class . It needs to be clear , it needs to be concise , it needs to be memorable .
Speaker 1Well , there you have it , folks . Mark Drystep from Infinity Concepts , check them out . And , mark , until next time . You keep doing great things and we'll see you soon okay , thank you .