Name: Live from Transform!
Uploaded: 2026-03-24T21:16:05.504Z
Duration: 54 min 16 s
Description: Live from Transform!

Transcript for "Live from Transform!": Welcome everyone to lights, camera, communicate live from transform. I am Chuck Ghost here with my friend, Amer, as usual. Hi. We I'm realizing, Amer, we are now this is a year of first for us. The last episode, we had you behind the drums. We did. The fact that it's not here this time, though. That that would have been a bit much. Yeah. This time, we decided to go live not from your luxurious studio in Las Vegas. We are live from the Transform show here in Las Vegas. At the Wynn? At the Wynn. Lovely resort. But it's pretty cool that we're here, Amir, because two years ago, this is where we met. This is when the bromance began. This it it right right back there, actually. Right back there. Yeah. Right here. Yeah. So we thought we're both here in Vegas. We love Vegas for one. I live here. We met here. So why not bring lights, camera, communicate to the transform floor? Me being here as part of ecology yesterday, we did the very first x factor summit that was bringing the comms community to transform. I wanna congratulate you on that. I know you've been working on that for a while. I think it's something around five thousand days or something. Not not quite that much. Okay. We I've been working with the transform people for a couple years, but my wife, Kristen, reminded me that it goes back to 2019 Okay. That we first thought of the x factor. It took two thousand five hundred and eight days to make it happen. I knew there was a five in there. It was. And and the reason it's called the x factor is because we believe when it comes to employee experience, communications is that x factor. It's that big differentiator that ultimately determines does a company deliver a great employee experience or not. I totally agree with you. It's actually why I think this place is the right place to do it. Yep. Absolutely. Should we welcome our first guest? We should. We should. We've got a we've got a handful of awesome guests today. They're all waiting in the wings. Are. They're so many over here. There's so many I'm gonna Venmo them later. Okay. Sweet. Yep. Let's let's do that. Let's have our first guest, Matt Alder from Recording Futures podcast. Matt, coming in, join us on the couch. I feel like we need a feel like we need an official name. On for the couch? On for the couch. Well, we better be careful. Is this like a maybe like the therapy couch, the lights, camera, communicate therapy couch? The communication couch? I don't know. I don't know. X factor couch? Maybe the X factor couch. Maybe that's it. Matt, welcome to lights, camera, communicate. Well, thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. It is a very comfy couch. It is comfy couch. Yeah. Exactly. We we thought we would have you go first because you've clearly traveled the furthest to join us here. So tell us a bit more about where you're from and what you're up to. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I'm I'm here all the way from Scotland, which is which is quite a long way. So it's a it's a long old flight. And I am the producer and host of the recruiting feature podcast. I've been running the podcast for eleven years now. Amazing. And really kind of mapping the the the progress and the transformation of all things acquisition, but also all things talent and work, really. It's much broader than much broader than just the recruiting aspect of it. Now I noticed in your LinkedIn profile, you refer to yourself as a futurist. What does that look like in the talent acquisition space? Yeah. It's a really good question. I think that it is about helping people to make smart plans for the future. I think if anyone says that they can predict the future, particularly at the moment, they're they're lying because, you know, I don't think we've ever seen so much disruptive change and uncertainness and everything that's going on. But I think that teams can make it. Companies can certainly build visions for the future and think about how they how they achieve those. And a big part of that is understanding the the trends and everything that's kinda going on. So a big part of what I do and what I do on the podcast is really digging into what AI is doing in the talent space or whatever the right. It's been a long time, so whatever the technology of the day of the day is, but obviously, it's AI. Everything is AI at the moment. And really helping people understand the the implications, the changes it's making, finding great examples and use cases of of people doing interesting things with with new technologies. So this is called Transform. What have you picked up here so far? Yeah, I love this event. It's great. I picked up it's very busy and noisy. I'm podcasting here tomorrow and I'm working out how that's gonna work. I think it's it's great to come to events like this because you you see the you see the kind of the optimistic side of where technology can take us. So I've spoken to, you know, a few of the the CEOs or some of the vendors about their visions about what they're doing, And I think that it's great to see so many people here, CHROs, CPOs, just trying to understand what the implications are for HR about what's happening and how HR can transform over the next few years. And the content's great as well. It's I think it's very holistic. It's not hung up on just talking about technology. It's talking about everything. Yeah. So it's not a big, hey. This is AI and recruiting. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So so, yeah, it's it's great from that perspective. I mean, it's still still getting going. So, you know, interested to see what the next sort of day and a half is gonna is gonna bring. I'm I'm curious. So we were introduced by a mutual friend, Ginny Field, which we do our frequency podcast together. We're obviously very dialed into the role that AI is playing in comms, but I don't know that I have a good vision of what AI is playing in talent acquisition. So give me some layman's level of where AI is having the biggest impact. Sure. It's incredibly disruptive. There's thinking that actually in talent acquisition is perhaps ahead of some of the other areas in, you know, in HR, not in business as a whole, in HR. So lots of different things lots of different things are going on. If you talk to and look at the vendors who are here at events like this, the big thing that they're all pushing is AI interviewing, which sounds terrifying and and inhuman and all this sort of stuff. But actually, if you look at what's going on in recruiting at the moment, all the candidates are using AI to apply. So you can apply for lots of jobs very, very quickly with a perfect CV and a perfect application. And what that's doing is it's making us look at talent acquisition and say, well, why do we do it like this anyway? Is this the best way is this the best way to find out the right people to work for our organization? Interviewing is is part of that picture. It's helping to, you know, to screen people. But really, when it's done properly, it's helping to gather more information about someone at that very, very early stage of hiring funnel. One thing that none of these tools are doing, explicitly anyway, is making decisions about who should have a particular role. There are existing regulations and forthcoming regulations and all kinds of things going on around hiring and AI, so it's very much looking at how they can make recruiting better and making it better could be incredibly disruptive and doing it very, very differently. So it's a really interesting time from that perspective. Now you were were at Transform, but I I basically think you now live in Vegas. Because prior to Transform, you were also at Unleash, which is another HR event, which they ran back to back this year. What what's been that Vegas experience for you? And you're still standing. You're still alert. I am just about. So this morning, I crossed over the seven day threshold, and I thought I was doing really well. And then when you when you go past seven days, I mean, you know, I live here. Seven days here is easy if you're off the strip. Yeah. Exactly. On the next strip, it's tough. So I kind of, like, got a bit of a Hunter Hunter S Thompson moment in my my head with the whole thing at the moment. But but, yeah, it was it it's the Vegas the Vegas exhaustion aside, it is actually really interesting to go to two conferences back to back to kinda see the differences and just get get immersed in it. I'm waving to my family in case they forgot what I look like because it's been it's been a while. But but, yeah, it's been really interesting to be able to have so many conversations in such a concentrated time. And they're also very different events as well, so there's a bit of variety there. Good. And then when it comes to AI in talent acquisition, where do you think it could have the biggest impact? But also where are you worried about maybe a bit of overreach on it? So the biggest problem at the moment is people are using it to kind of accelerate existing recruiting processes. And as I said, existing recruiting processes aren't aren't aren't giving us what we what we need. They're not fair. They don't get they don't guarantee that employers are getting the best talent. So there's a lot of AI tools being used to accelerate things that shouldn't that are kind of already already broken, if that if that makes sense. There are also a huge amount of entries coming into the into the market, different technologies. Some of them are absolutely fantastic, know, some of them not so much. And I think from a practitioner perspective, it's very difficult to understand what the tech market looks like and where you should be putting your attention. So that's part of it. I think the the risk that everyone talks about is the risk of bias in the in the in the you know, within the within the within the AI. Are are we pretending that humans aren't biased? This is exactly this is exactly my point because the what we're doing is we're holding machines to a higher standard than humans Right. Yeah. And not even noticing that we're doing it, which is a bit a bit weird. It's good that we're doing that in some ways because you can do things at AI at speed and scale that could be very, very damaging if, you know, bias isn't isn't taken into account. However, I think this should be a time that we really look at the the what humans do in this process and look at some of the biases that exist there. And that seems to be absent from this particular conversation, which I find quite bemusing because, you know, it's it's it's there for everyone to see. Do do you find most of what's happening with recruiting and AI being kind of rebuilt from the ground up or do you think people are just trying to apply technology to a a broken process process? So at the moment, people I think the vast majority of organizations are applying AI to what they have and, you know, getting mixed results from that. There are some organizations out there or areas of hiring within organizations where people are really trying to innovate, think differently, think about actually what does this technology allow us to do, and also what does it allow our recruiters to do that they've never been able to do before. So one example, at the moment, we've obviously got all these huge volume of applications coming in for many, many jobs. Traditionally, a recruiter might spend the the the the benchmark's always like, they they spend eight seconds looking at a resume or whatever whatever it is. But, you know, to be able to go through every resume in detail is difficult. What they might do is they're looking through a pile of 400 resumes. They find 10 excellent ones. That's their shortlist, then they stop, which means lots of people get who could be perfect for that job get rejected. What an AI can do is obviously go through all of that, you know, all of that data and give the recruiter the ability to, you know, to to kind of process much more, you know, process much more information. So I think that that that that augmenting thing is really is really important. Wanna talk to you about your your podcast. You said you've been doing it for eleven years. That's right. As a content creator, what have you gotten out of of staying active and and being a podcaster? Yeah. I mean, it's I started as a as a brief experiment for a few episodes, see what happens, and I think I'm just about to publish episode 700 and Oh my god. Congratulations. Like that. And it's actually more than that because there's there's episodes with no numbers. It's a long story. Yeah. It's fascinating. I love it's a real privilege to be able to do this because I do two episodes a week. I speak to, you know, everyone that the practitioners, thought leaders, vendors, and it just it's just great to get such a great view of the market because I suspect I'm the only person who's listened to every single interview that I've done. I'm not sure. Maybe there's maybe someone else someone out there can put me wrong. But it's just great to be able to have these conversations and to find out find out what people are doing, how they're reacting to stuff, and just trying to track progress track progress over time as well. Well, someone who's maybe produced, let's say, a 100 or so podcasts in their career. 700 plus. That is remarkable, man. Congratulations on that. I feel like we need to step up again. We do one every two months. Yeah. That's the two two it's two it's week. Yeah. Two week. That's that's that's pretty remarkable. What as we wrap this up, Matt, what are you particularly excited about? What's left on this transform schedule? We're midday on Tuesday. What are you excited for? Yeah. I'm just excited to watch it all pan out, actually. I don't have I don't kind of have a kind of a a list of everything that I'm gonna go and watch, but just I think what I like about this conference is you can just literally just walk around even this kind of expo room. Yep. And there are stages. There's things going on. There was some kind of crazy competition. They're like a DJing competition, but I think it was actually some AI and HR competition. So I just think kinda taking that all in and stumbling across fantastic content is great. I'm I'm podcasting for most of the day tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to some really, really interesting and great conversations. Matt, well, it's great having you. Thank you for joining us here at Lights and Camera Communicate. Hope you have a great rest of Transform, and I'll see you around the show. I assume you are leaving at some point, though. Yeah. I am. Yeah. Okay. I'm I'm flying home tomorrow night, if I can remember what that is. So, anyway well, thank you very much for having us. Thank you, man. We appreciate it. 700 episodes. I know. That is unbelievable. Ali, we need more cameras. Well, that's I think I'm excited for our next guest. She was, I think, maybe the first person to sign up for our X Factor Summit Oh, really? Yesterday. So she got to go through that. We're gonna talk to you a little bit more about that. Let's welcome Kristen Cook over to our our comms couch or lights, camera, communicate couch. We still haven't we we gotta workshop this. Yeah. We we should do we have anybody watching who could give us some suggestions on Ask the chat what this couch should be called. We're we're struggling, Kristen, with what to call our couch here. Oh, I wasn't prepared. It's some it's we don't know if it's somewhat therapeutic. Is it somewhat, like, is it the comms couch? We don't we don't really know. What brand? Couch. The comm, like a l m, like a play on words. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mean, the comm couch. Well, Kristen, thank you for joining us here for Lights, Gamer, Communicate. You're a comms leader at SoFi. That's right. This is your very first transform. Yes. Other than being maybe a little overstimulated Yes. What what has your experience been so far? It's been incredible. So I flew in on Sunday, was super excited to get here specifically yesterday, talk to you, and, iCology put together a great event for, employee communicators, employee engagement professionals. So that that's where I'm like, I've I'm coming off the high of day one and super excited about all of the breakout sessions for day two. Yep. And then what so from an education standpoint, where do you typically get your professional development? And what what was it about Transform that you're like, I that's worth investing in. That's worth checking out. Yeah. A lot of my professional development honestly comes from watching things like this on LinkedIn. So or, other webinars that vendors put on. So I was super excited to, a, be in person for an event, getting to breathe the same air and see the whites of people's eyes and build relationships. That's super important to me. You don't get that when you're on a webinar for an hour with strangers from all over the world. No offense to the people that are on the webinar now watching this event. No. I'm hoping that if we talk how great this is, that we'll get more of the people online here this the next day. So then and then really transform, it really came down to the idea of, an innovative forum to where I could I could definitely learn something and bring back to the organization. So Yeah. There's definitely other offerings, in the industry, but I was super excited to check this one out. Yeah. I know for me coming from a comms background, what drew me to Transform was it felt like there were conversations happening in the room that I wasn't normally privy to or I wasn't typically invited to. That's why I'm excited to see more communicators come to transform because you've been to add that comms voice to this employee experience conversation. I think so. I think so. That's exactly right. Especially so there's been a a big theme of AI this morning into tomorrow, And I think, employee communicators need to be a part of that conversation about how we're rolling out AI, how employees are using AI. We want them to feel empowered. We want them to feel equipped, and we want to make sure our communicators are a part of any sort of strategy of that rollout. Yep. Talk about how are you using it in your day to day life as a communicator. What role does AI play for you? Yeah. So I I would say a a daily user, for sure, both professionally and personally. Professionally, it definitely helps me with first drafts, and I've noticed that it helps me ideate. So I'm a team of one. Like, came from a larger team my last gig. So coming from a large team where I had, ideation and brainstorming sessions at the click you know, like, at at a Zoom call, basically, I could pull five people in and be like, is this is this right? Is am I on the right track? What's another way of thinking about this? AI can now help me brainstorm that. So, I can sit down with a tool and say, employee appreciation day is March 6. Here's what I'm thinking about. Help me come up with like, here are my channels, and help me come up with some really impactful ways to do that. They're gonna give me some lists, and I'm gonna be like, okay. That's gonna work. This is gonna work. I want more of this, less of this, and being able to prompt that. I've used that. It's been incredible to be able to bounce ideas off of and really, grow in my creativity. So I I have a question about the the industry you're in, specifically banking. Yes. It's I mean, in the most ways, it's kind of a dry industry. How do you make how do you make it fun and interesting? No. It's so true. Employees. It's so true. Well and I feel like it's kind of, like, my life's call because so just a little bit about me. My, I came from banking. My mom, was the first bank president in South Dakota. The for sorry. First First female bank president in South Dakota. Yes. I know. Shout out to Kathy. Yeah. So but, like, growing up, I was like, banking is boring. I used to it's funny because now we call it jargon, but I used to call it bank speak. I'm like, enough. I can't handle the bank speak. Interest rate What's some examples of bank speak? Like Oh, I was just talking about the interest rates in the market and wanting to get their appraisal done on their for their mortgage. Like, these are words that 12 year olds don't know. So It's like like rates for more interest. Right? Yes. Exactly. So now here I am working. This is my third bank that I've worked for, and I I do I consider it like my life's calling. How am I going to make, like, working for a bank not dry and boring? Now granted, SoFi is one of the most innovative, exciting banks there is to work for, so it it comes really easily at SoFi, because they they truly care about I mean, our number one company priority in 2026 is to become the best culture in the world. So, they truly care about their people, and so it makes it makes an easy job easier. So not not the best culture in banking. No. Yes. True. Above and beyond. Yeah. How do you how do you do that? What are they doing to do that? Yeah. I love this. So it's it's definitely we have employee listening is a huge part of it, and then executive visibility and accessibility, I think, is huge. So we just came off a a month where we our CEO sat down and did an ask me anything, which with 5,000 employees could have totally gone tons of ways. Yeah. And he did it with such transparency. I that that's not even part of my purview as a communicator at SoFi, but he did it with such transparency and authenticity. And he continues to get great scores on, like, Glassdoor ratings for CEOs because great. People just seem as a human. He's a he's he's a he's a high EQ human and just really appreciates people. Well, you know, we push employee generated content. Right? That's what we do. Yep. And we're seeing more and more executives wanna be in front of a camera and actually wanna tell an authentic story not only to the employees but to the customers. Yeah. So we got to see you guys are doing that. Absolutely. One way that we're using employee generated content, we have our employee engagement pulse survey coming up in April. And instead of getting, an executive on camera, I actually ended up finding three employees in the enterprise. And I was like Great. Tell me why other people should take this. And I they had all three perspectives. One, they really care about data. So he was like, well, if I care about data yep. And I know the organization cares about data. Like, this is the data that is needed to create the employee experience that you care about. So What I think is awesome about this is you got the peers to actually have that conversation and not an executive, which is gonna go way further. Yeah. I'll let you know how it performs. Yeah. Please do. I wanna I wanna be very selfish and and spend a little more time talking about the x factor summit Okay. That we did yesterday. Something really magical happened in that room yesterday, and I haven't quite exactly figured out what it was. But what was beneficial for you being at the summit yesterday? Yeah. So I think you gave homework ahead of time. You you sent an email out, and you said everyone come with a problem. And I wasn't expecting You're like, I have no problems. I know. Not not that I have no problems, but I was like, oh, I have homework. So thinking about it it made me under like, think about something that I would, like, need to solve. So what you did is you sat down and you said, here's our problem. We're gonna define it, and you were we were all very granular. You called it a mad lib. We were all, like, put in our problem with our audience, and here are our constraints and our time. You made it time bound and all of it. And I think specifically, even my problem aside, what I'm excited about is is I was given a framework that I can now take, not only use for myself going forward when I have a problem, but I'm very excited to coach other leaders in our organization. Okay. So you have a problem. Let's go through this nine step rubric. And by the end of it, we're gonna get something that's not not, like, not only solvable, but it's going to continue to, like, exponentially, serve others. And I love that. Now what what I both enjoyed and didn't enjoy about yesterday, Amir, you weren't in the room? No. I was I was asleep. Is that people in the room were helping me solve my problem Yes. And the answers I was coming up with, I was oftentimes being challenged on. People are like, are you sure it's that? Are you you taught you said this before. That sounds different than this. And I think what you just shared around being able to do that with leaders Mhmm. To get to the root, get to the issue, I really do think that framework can help guide a conversation and hold people accountable in a good way Yes. For helping whether it's an opportunity to fix, a problem to solve, whatever it is, it it gets you there. And I and what I liked about it was too was, like, what are you gonna do to start? What's the because I see so often people go to conferences and events, and they sat through some amazing sessions, but there's they don't know what to do with it. And we at least know people that are in that room, they know there's something they can do when they get back. And the accountability. Right? Yep. He like, Chuck was like, not only what are your steps to get started, but he paired us off. He was like, you're with you, and you are each other's accountability partners. It was. It was amazing. No. I would say that actually was not my idea. Oh. There were two people in the room that said, we're gonna be each other's accountability partners. I was like, you know what? We're gonna give everybody an accountability partner in here and match people up because that's also about building that connection. Yeah. That was I think that's something when Amir and I, when we joined, we met at Transform two years ago. Yeah. When we think about the connections that can happen in events like this, you never know why it might end up surfacing. And you earlier said I wanted to be out seeing people. I always tell my team, when you go out, good things happen. Right? Last night's dinner was a good example. The the pre party was a good example. Just walking the show floor. We did do some learning too. It was not just all about dinners and parties. You did. Yeah. Was you. That was me. It was all about eating. Yeah. And then what are you excited for the rest of the show? Like, what is there is there is there a particular session, a topic? Like, what do you wanna get out of your investment here? So I I mentioned the AI. Everything I cannot find a session that doesn't have those two letters in the session. Yeah. Right? I don't I'm I love a theme. So, like, I'm good with a theme. Like, we can have a theme. But Wait a minute. I heard you last night at dinner, I heard you just say, you don't do theme birthday parties anymore. Not at the birthdays. My capacity. I don't put on a theme. Yeah. Sorry to my children. You'll participate. Yeah. I'll participate in a theme. So if the theme is AI, alright. I'm on board. And then what I love is the track. They have a leading on the edge track. And so as an adviser to our leadership at SoFi, I I want to be where the conversations are that will help my leaders Yeah. Lead their teams. And so and, like so I'm all about the employee experience, really, at the end of the day, a true employee champion, and that means that I'm able to advise leaders on how to manage and lead their teams through this transformation. You you talked about that you're a daily user both professionally and personally with with AI. I would label myself the same. Yes. Do you feel any guilt at all using it, or do you feel like it's giving you something of a superpower? I think I used to. I used to struggle with, especially, drafts, like, first drafts, and where certainly voice would change. I'd be like, I didn't mean that word. Let's choose that word. There was some guilt. It felt like plagiarism, like, or something, like Yeah. Akin to that. I think that was, like, a year ago, though. Now I and especially, I think because SoFi is so tech forward, I feel empowered by my organization to use the technology available to me. We're a Google organization, so I'm very Jim and I are very friendly. So yep. That that p word, plagiarism Oh. For communicators is a is a dicey one. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. And especially for internal communicators because we're not called on to cite our sources. It's just it's write the thing, make sure it's accurate. Like, there's certainly there's ethics involved in it. Yep. But do do I have to say at the bottom of of of Internet post written by Gemini or, like Right. With help from Gemini? So this is What what about from a policy and governance standpoint? Does SoFi have that, or or would you welcome that type of Yeah. I think as long as it's consistent. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I think, we definitely have guidance around Gemini use. Is that your corporate tool? Is that the one that Yeah. Okay. Yep. And I know we we also have a chat GBT license, but I use Gemini at work almost exclusively. So yep. I like to write, and so I it's not just the guilt. I want my work to be my work. And so I had to try to find ways to actually use AI so it's not writing an article for me. But I'll work on a paragraph, and then I'll kinda go back and forth and go to another one. And it takes me a lot longer. Maybe I just feel like I'm doing it myself. I don't know. But I I just don't unlike you, I feel guilty if I put it out there. I just think it's funny when you're there are especially communicators who are like, well, I don't want it to write for me. Well, then don't ask it to. Okay. That's not gonna do it with help without you. I said, I have it help me do the things that I can't do Mhmm. Which is where I feel like it gives me the superpower to do things that I would have never been able to accomplish before. Yes. And and that's exactly right. So it's a capacity thing. So when you when you have these teams of one and two people at comms departments, you know, it's okay. How can we use AI to be a multiplier, you know, instead of we're not gonna use it to be a divider. I love it. Yep. Thank you for joining us here, not just at Lights Camera Communicate, but also at Transform. Love having too. Love having ecology members here at Transform. We're growing that year over year. X Factor was a big success. I look forward to seeing you and your accountability partner Yes. Getting through Shout out to Jill. Shout out to Jill. And, yeah, have a great rest of the time here. Guys so much. Yep. Thank you, Kristen. So are you my accountability partner? I think we I think in a weird way, I think we are. I think yeah. Yeah. I didn't I didn't realize that till just now. I think I need one or Probably do. Two or three probably. You might you need you need a lot of help. We got two right there. Alright. So we had Johnny. We had Matt here earlier from the more content creation side. We have Kristen here from the communication side. Next, we're gonna have from the HR side. The transform used to be called transform HR. It is now just transform. Interesting. It does bring a broader mostly HR audience, but, obviously, there's a lot of roles in HR. But those are also expanding quite a bit. But we are gonna bring on a VP of HR now, Elena Rellano. Elena, join us. I wish we could have, like, a we need an applause machine or something. Yeah. Ali, can we Johnny, can we work on that? An applause machine? Like an applause button? Yeah. They're they're clapping, but there's no mic. So everybody's clapping for you, Elena. Oh, she can't hear us right now. We're we were just saying we need to have, like, an applause machine when we welcome somebody on. Not that you could have heard it, but we could have heard it. And it would have sounded it would sounded really good. Could have heard it. Three times as welcome. Yeah. Well, we're actually looking for a name for the couch. So help us workshop maybe a little bit of what to call our our lights, camera, communicate couch here. Right now, we're we have the comm couch. Ali, any anybody In the chat. Chat, give us any suggestions on a Friends Cafe. Nope. Nobody yet. Come on. Come on, attendees. Yeah. Elena, thank you so much for joining us. I know you've been to transformers before. What does this count for you? How many have you been to? This is my second time. Second time? Okay. So last year was your first. Oh. What was it that brought you back for another year? Everything. This year Was it was it Busta Rhymes? Oh. It wasn't. Last year, you know, I came at the recommendation of friends, and I was overwhelmed by the connections that I made, by the speakers, by the vendors, by everything that I learned. And so this time, when I registered from the day I registered to the day I was here, I was a kid waiting to go back to camp and see my friends again. I saw that yesterday. I you're you were excited about it. Deal. And it's day two, and I'm ready for day three. I think my energy levels just keep rising. What did you do yesterday during the pre conference, Jeff? Where did you spend your time? I had breakfast with friends just kinda getting together really quick before we get separated into 13 different rooms. Right? Because we all want to learn everything at the same time. And so I did that. I did my catch up first, and then I was ready to dive into sessions. You hear, Hora? Did you come here with something a specific theme in mind or just open to exploring everything? Yeah. I wanted to see where do I stand in my relationship with AI and where am I in the engagement. And I have to say that some of the sessions made me feel like, yes. I'm doing everything correctly, and some of the sessions were like, oh my god. I'm actually very far. I have to do some catch up to do. So we talked to Christian before this about how AI is playing an impact more from the communication side. You know, communicators are we're now trying to take over transform, trying to bring more communicators here. Yeah. But I don't know they have a good view on how AI is impacting HR leadership. So what is your day to day use of it like? Yeah. I you know, I've never used data before as much as I used it with AI because it takes a lot of, you know, manpower to to to clean up the data, to to utilize it. Also, you know, I I didn't know how to gauge the sentiment in my communication with employees. Am I too harsh? Am I too direct? And AI is really helping put a mirror to that. And what else? I mean, I feel like at this point, Chad GPT has become my confidante, but I don't know who's that is. The sentiment is a good one because I do that a lot. I I sometimes just happen to be very matter of fact. And Oh. Like, hey. Is this a little too much? You know? Yeah. And they'll tell you. I also love that that ChatGPT is open to to to learning from me too. So for example, there's this principle that I like. It's called the pyramid principle and where, you know, you you send an email with your ask. You know? I need $5 because I need an apple because I'm hungry because I had a long day versus, like, hey, Omar. I had a long day. I'm hungry. I need an apple. Give me $5. Right? So, like, everything that I've learned in the past and I've utilized, I actually fed into AI and say, okay. This is what I want to continue to do it, so please learn from me as much as I learned from you. Yeah. No. This is you'd I'm not looking for specific data figures, obviously, but what is the data that you're using? What is the data you're looking at? How is AI helping you? Yeah. So for example, in the past, me being the small team of HR, I had a lot of employees come to me with a lot of questions. And then I decided to build an employee portal where, a, it saves me a little bit of time because then they go there and look for the questions. And then but then I can see how active they are on every page, how long they stay on every page. So I understand their interest a little bit more without me directly sending out surveys and asking them. Right? So it's a really good peek into their behavior. The first line of support. You have analytics into it near the second line of support. Yes. Yes. And now I have time and and ability and more inspiration to do other things for our employees. Right? The employee portal is there. I understand their behavior and what they need more of, and then I just keep adding to it. So I love that looking at especially you're looking at the the data side. The survey stuff is so flawed, but behavioral data is undefeated. Like, people might say, we never do this. We never do that. But the behavioral data, we did click on this. We did do that. That is true. That's huge to be able to evaluate the employee behaviors and actions on these things. And, you know, we have a great company, and the majority of our people are, you know, some you know, engineers that are, like, on more on the introverted side. And I think for them to come out and actually say something they need and want, it takes a lot of steps before that, and it's a big effort. So being able to just speak into their brain without having to push them with the courage to come forward, it's great. So what what are you finding out? What what do they need and want? What are the things that from the employee experience side, what is it that they are interested in? Yeah. There were some resources. They were, like, very deep in the employee portal that I had to bring up to quick links because they kept you know, instead of doing four clicks, now they're doing one click. They're rising. There's announcements that I made in the past that were more blended better than the others, you know, so that tells me what they like. It's great. We have a have an HR VP doing human factors. Right. Oh, That's that's fantastic. No. I saw I was snooping you on LinkedIn a little bit, and you'll see that. You'll see that was snooping on you. Saw that you're a Transform ambassador. Yes. Talk talk to me a little bit more what that is and and why that was important to you. Yeah. So me and Ahmed Mohindra, we are two of the ambassadors for the Transform chapter in Boston. And he got selected, and I I I tagged along with him. So and it's been an amazing journey. We are complementing each other. And but we have we both have a very strong network of people that we brought together. We so far had a couple of socials. And what I love the most about our chapter, and I think it happened by accident, but I'm really happy it happened, that we brought together a group a group of givers. Because if we ease drop on conversations people are having at our socials, it's all about what can I do for you? How can I elevate your business? Who can I connect you with versus, you know, sometimes people go to socials with the with the message being, what can I get, and who can I meet to elevate myself? And so we're slowly fostering this giver's environment. I'm very happy about it. That really is the power of community. That is if you give more than you take, that community just continues to build over time. And you're you're you're slowly you're slowly attracting the the right type of people. Right? Because there's a lot of there's a lot of people, but only a few are really. That's a good point. Now the this show is called Lights, Camera, Communicates. So we spend a lot of time talking about video Uh-huh. And especially inside the company's four walls. What role does video play for you in HR? Where do you think it gives has its best strengths or the skills, or how does it deliver the most? You know, we are a cybersecurity firm, so we work with a lot of classified information. There's no video, and there's no recording. How about that. But there but there has to be some stuff around benefits or culture or anything like that with video, I would imagine. I can't say that we're using oh, well, so one one one way that I like to use it is that instead of having a a step of process, I just screen share. Like, I record my screen, and I say click here. Click here. So I think that's easier to follow than now. YouTube video watching Google plus TV. So that's probably the extent to which I used a video, but I love to do walkie talkies on LinkedIn. Right? Like, sharing my thoughts while I walk and talk. Yep. I feel like I have a buddy right next to me and say, I'm now looking at you, telling you what to do, but I'm I'm bringing you along so I can be a partner. Yeah. Love that. What are you what have you enjoyed so far? What are you excited for the rest of Transform? Oh, I just wish it was five days, and I know that's a lot of Las Vegas. A lot of Vegas. That's a lot of pressure. Yeah. I mean, last year, I I really I I walked away with meaningful relationships. And what I mean about this is that people that are from different states, which that's kind of a bummer. Right? Because then Yeah. You don't see them in person again, but we talk every day. We email every day, and now I saw them here. And so, again, this second year, I've built even more connection. And I have a couple of tips, and I don't know if this sounds creepy or not. But if you talk to a person and you really, really love to what they say, after you're done with that conversation, tell your child GPT some notes, and they can summarize that we have a memory that is short sometimes. Right? And we forget, but it's a good reminder. Then I go back to Boston, I watch, and I said, okay. And then I think, okay. I need to reconnect with Chuck. I need to reconnect with others. So I'm I'm looking forward to more connections like that. That's actually a great tip. Almost think it was like a like a diary, a journal that you're just continually adding notes to, like, in the moment. That's really good. And, you know, so we met two years ago at Transform. We met last year at Transform, and there's there's other people here that were part of that whole group. So this idea of community of givers I don't wanna quite call it a studio audience, but there's something of a there's a little bit of a eating lunch. But Townsquare audience? Of them there are are here. Nope. He's eating lunch too. Yeah. Yeah. So so some of them are are part of the audience. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, Elena, it was great having you join us here today. We appreciate you taking the time. Have a great rest of Transform. Bust Your Rhymes will be really fun. Trust me. It'll be a good time. Be there. I had this I fun last last year, and I'll be here to dance again with you guys this year. Thank you. Thank you so much, Elena. Thank you. Yeah. I was wondering about with with especially with HR compliance and all those things, some of the challenges Well, we we with AI. We but we do a lot of video for HR. Yeah. A lot of employee stories Okay. I wonder what videos What style onboarding videos. Yep. Yeah. I mean, that there are problems that they need to solve, and and they're small, small teams. So we do do a lot of that. Yep. Absolutely. Alright. We've got one more guest. Gonna have to join us. I don't wanna say last, but not least, but he is last. No. But he's not least. Preston Lewis, please join us. Here on Can we do this alphabetically? I don't know. I didn't know think about that. I just know that I just know that Preston's pretty patient. He'll wait around for us to You want you wanna hear a crazy a crazy story about Preston and me? Oh, it depends on what was this from last night, or is it okay? No. No. This is goes way back. We went to the same high school That is pretty crazy. Few years apart. That is pretty crazy. And then we ran into each other here at San Francisco. I don't remember which conference it was. I think it was here. And then it was San Francisco. Yeah. So transform has brought a lot of things really for us. It really has. A lot. And you are Preston, you are quite the veteran of transform. How many there have been seven. How many have you attended? Thank you for sharing that there's been seven, so I wasn't sure. But it sounds like five of seven Okay. Five of the last six. Well, that's amazing. This is one of those conversations, if you will, that is can't miss in in my perspective. Yeah. What what what's what what's the can't miss part? As cliche as it sounds, it is the people in the community. Yeah. I mean, there's That is pretty cliche, Preston. Yeah. That's pretty I had to go there because it's true. You know, sometimes it's that obvious. And to be able to walk the halls and not just because of all the great technology vendors and other vendors that are here selling really cool stuff. You know, the the backing up, the reason why I came the first time was to learn. And what you can learn as quickly as we all can learn it, not just in rooms like this big expo hall, but in the sessions, and then the people that are sharing. You know, there are people that we go from, oh, look at this amazing person speaking at a conference to, you know, this year it was, hey, Preston. Can you grab some photos? Now I wanna go back to two years ago when I first attended. You and I had talked about the opportunities that were here for communicators. Mhmm. You were part of our x factor summit yesterday. I would love to hear from you. What do you think the opportunities are for communicators to attend Transform going forward? Because it's too late now. The event's already going on. So if you're not here, you're not here. Come next year. But for next year, what do you think those opportunities are? Well, you know, if you hear something five times, you should probably start listening. And when you when you go to each of these sessions and you hear mostly HR leaders, but a lot of technology vendor leaders, a lot of different leaders and practitioners continuously reference more effective communications will lead to higher levels of employee engagement. Yes. We need to influence attraction and retention. All of those priorities that we know we are also driving as communicators. Yeah. And then you look around the room and it's like, where are the communicators at? Right. You know? That was my sentiment was I felt like the sessions I attended talked around communications and never about it, but that wasn't a fault of the speakers. That's just not what they did. No. So any of the details where the devil is wasn't there. And so that's what I you and I we talked about the last couple years is how do we get the comms community to now become a part of this bigger conversation. Yesterday at lunch, which is, you know, you, overheard at transform. Know? Like, available hashtag overheard at next podcast. I heard two people introducing themselves that just met in line and because, oh, where do you work? Great. I'm an HR leader at this company. He's like, oh, yeah. What's going on at your company? So much change in HR. You know, we we now are responsible for we have a brand person. We have our, you know, employer brand work. We are now what are you most excited about was the question. You know, we have our internal communications team is now in our HR team. This is new. This is just me hearing somebody Right. Again, there's many examples of that. Yeah. I remember last year, was at breakfast, and what I love about this event is the level of people that attend. Mhmm. So I sat at breakfast next to a CHRO. We're just chatting, mentioned what I do. And she's like, oh, yeah. I just now inherited our internal comms team. So that was one of the things we talked about there. You're hearing that a lot more, by the way. Yeah. I heard it at at the other party too. That's what we're saying. It's like, there there's now this I don't know. I would call it a a trend, but it is something I'm I'm seeing where people are identifying that. I don't like the being a part of that conversation because ultimately, it doesn't really matter where internal comms reports. You want the strong leadership that's part of it. But I think from a partnership standpoint for comms, this is a much better investment to grow your career than to stay siloed in a comms event. And and HR is is about the the human part of all of this. Is it? Are we sure about that? To be. It's it's supposed to be. Right? That's why I think comms being part of it is a is a good thing. Right. Maybe it makes it a little more human. Right. Maybe. Right? Maybe. Well, I think that as HR as a function, as a practice, and a discipline is is evolving, People leaders, HR leaders in particular, are looking for how can we most effectively influence the experience that people have in our organization. And, you know, communicators are in the business of understanding all the most effective ways to influence and reach people. And, you know, I I would hate to use words like land grab as an organization is evolving because it's not that, but it is, you know, having it is important for that HR leader to have a strategic understanding of, well, which capabilities do I need to be able to directly influence? And I think that's a lot of why we see a lot of internal comps teams either, you know, currently sit or, you know, soon to be sitting in HR. I think there's an opportunity ultimately for a bunch of knowledge sharing. So when I mentioned to the x factor event yesterday Yeah. That next year, I would love to build a comms track. And I got challenged on that because they're like, well, that sounds like you're not wanting to have communicators be a part of the bigger conversation. I'm like, no. I actually want HR leaders to attend the comms track. Yeah. Because I think that's we're seeing them inherit more communication responsibilities. We had an x factor summit attendee yesterday. He's a very small team, director of people and culture. And he shared, like, internal comms falls under him. He is not by trade a communicator, so he attended the x factor to try to pick up some skills. And I think that's where we don't have to take a step back and and just listen to everybody. We can be a part of that teaching community and actually teach HR the value of comms. And I think it's also important to acknowledge that what's driving this pace of change, if you will, in terms of structurally and and and roles for communication teams is the technology that's here. Yep. We can't ignore that. You know, I started coming here for a variety of reasons, as I said, but it was also to learn, okay. Well, if this point solution does that and this and this HRIS does that and this ATS does that, as a comms tech geek Yeah. You know, well, which integration layer makes the most sense? And of these vendors, which ones are going remain open enough with those integrations so that they can, you know, maintain relevancy, frankly. Because what we're seeing now is there's so many different places for people to search for information and the the the the trusted front doors that may or may not exist. Yep. You know, a lot of the vendors are fighting for that attention and and that positioning in in the marketplace. I think that's the that's the part that I think communicators miss out on so much is the knowledge that exists inside some of these tech providers and these tech builders is unmatched because they're helping hundreds of companies solve the same problem. And so they know they've been through this so many times in environments, but yet we're fearful like, oh, they're just trying to sell. Well, of course, they are. Yeah. But they're also trying to help you solve a problem because they don't help you solve it. They're not gonna stick around for very long. No. You know, we collect the data at the end of every year, and, actually, we share with our customers on what type of content is being used, what kind of content's working, what's not working, all of that. Because we see it across all the customers. So you're you're spot on. Yeah. And I just realized that's how we all met. You were looking for tech. You met me. You brought Kristen over. Kristen brought you over, and that's how we all met at at Transform two years ago. And and, yes, and Transform is as I look around the exhibit hall, it is very tech heavy Yeah. But I think for all the right reasons. And I would love to see more comms tech here because there are tech providers here that are solving problems that I didn't know existed Mhmm. Because I'm not in that HR seat. And the comms tech vendors are more relevant now. Oh, absolutely. As of, I don't know, two years ago maybe? Yeah. We can start drawing this line where a lot of the other vendors that may consider themselves, you know, core HR tech in terms of stack are now realizing that, you know, our technology or our platform is only good as the people that can find it. Right. You know, only as good as the data that's being integrated. They're all all of these leaders know the value of insights that they can pull from data integrated across multiple platforms. So that's faster, better, cheaper now. Yep. And they're looking for ways to maintain that attention. Yep. And, hopefully and then we are seeing it. The comms tech is becoming more integrated. Yeah. The comm communications technology vendors are more open to connectors and integrations. I think it's really important. Other than the ecology president's club, is taking place tonight, just Tuesday night during Transform. Deal. Other than that because we were we called it that because communicators don't get to get to attend a president's club. So we created a president's club for communicators to come to. Other than that, Preston Uh-huh. What are you looking forward to the rest of the time here at Transform? Let's see. I'll just look at the schedule right after this. Of course, we got some more vendor stuff to do today, but, Charter is an organization that I look to for some really great insights and data. Subscriber? To Charter? Oh, great. Yeah. So they're they're doing an event, and then I know what they're doing like they always do is bring together the right people at the right time to have a great conversation this evening. So we go in there. Obviously, can't wait for the president's club. That's gonna be a lot of fun for a variety of reasons. And then, of course, we're gonna continue through sessions tomorrow, and I do have a shopping list. You know, part of what we do and what I do at Siegel Bend is to help organizations shop for tech. And, you know, our unbiased kind of decision framework as we call it is important to keep updated. And so I I do have some specific things that when it quiets that when it's little quieter here tomorrow, I'll I'll walk through each of the exhibits. I've got some meetings lined up to, you know, tune in to the latest. You know, where we should reposition some of these vendors amongst all the options. Yeah. I I love that you take that approach because I challenge communicators. Look at it from the marketing side. Marketers know, like, what all the different platforms are out there, what's good, what's not good. Commerce people tend to, at times, accept what they're given, kinda have to feel like they have to live with it and don't take the time to learn about, oh, that company does that really well, or I didn't know you could do that with this platform. I love that you take that approach, and I would love to see the comms community take something similar of just staying up to speed. Feel like we should bring him back on the next episode and do, like, the best of show and have you fun. Highlight all of it. That'd be great. Be good. That would be good. Well, thank you, Preston, for joining us for this episode of Lights, Camera, and Communicate. We appreciate your time. We'll see you tonight at Ecology President's Club and out and about the rest of the show. Sounds great. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Preston. Thank you. Are you gonna have awards at this No. We don't VIP thing. We get asked about that with Ecology that about doing awards, and we're not anti awards. There's just other people that do awards. So we don't feel like if if there's somebody else already doing it, we don't feel like we need to also do awards. Just just a good time. Well, we we are truly about community. That's what ecology is about, and it is not about my voice or Kristen's voice. It is about celebrating all the voices in the community. And that's what made the x factor so great is that, of course, there were nonmembers who were there. Anybody could sign up and attend. But the number of ecology members that came out to support what, Elena talked about with the giving and the taking. Just gonna say. Yeah. The ecology community is filled with givers. Yeah. And we felt that yesterday at the x factor summit. We feel it today in interactions around here. I And think that's a big part of actually what drew us to transform is the investment in the attendee experience. When you are here, you feel taken care of. Yeah. You don't feel like corners were cut or all that's not very nice or all that lunch dunk or whatever. It's it's a very comfortable place to be. I also love, selfishly, that this event is in Vegas. You like you love Vegas? I do love Vegas. I love that it's here. Yep. And, also, it brings some for some people, I think Kristen, who were earlier guests, this was her first ever trip Yeah. To Vegas, and we get to help usher that in for her. And shape it so it's a good experience because Absolutely. Vegas could go either way. Right? Well, it goes lots of ways. All are good experiences. They're just maybe not all that that that are the best experiences out there. This has been a lot of fun. It has. You know? I Ali and Johnny who are sitting behind all of this gear aren't gonna like hearing this. We should do pop up lights, camera. Are we okay? Just pick a random casino or a I think they're gonna shut us off. Yeah. I think keep them. I I think he's gonna unplug us. Let me know let me know what you guys where's the audience? Let me know what you guys think about that pop up lights camera. It it was actually we we we didn't end up in the spot that we thought, but we ended up in the spot that worked best. And if you can see behind us as we've been talking to people, the amount of activity interaction these people behind the camera aren't part of our group. I feel like they're kind of part of our group. They are. Yeah. They are. Yeah. We need to talk to Transform about what what can we do next year with something like this where we can do little, like, pop up interviews throughout the day. And we can actually go look for people and just Right. Absolutely. In. Yeah. You have, like, a roaming camera, like like, Amir on the street. No. We've got that. We've got several roaming cameras. That part, we've got covered. Yeah. Absolutely. Alright. Awesome. So do we have anybody who has any questions before we roll out? Any commentary? Left. Yep. Can't here. Nope. Nope. Maybe. I'm sure whatever it was, it was very insightful. Yeah. Probably was. Oh. Couch names. We have comms couch sit down. Okay. Comms couch conversations. Oh, conversations is good. Okay. We have a Kristen Hancock photobomb. Oh, when did that happen? Dan says people want to belong and have community. Absolutely. Yep. And Katie says, great episode. Love hearing from different guests. Definitely think you should do more pop ups. There we go. Well, whatever Katie wants, Katie gets. Johnny, get let's get a travel rig together. I I here's what I'm gonna leave it with. I really liked Elena's statement about being givers Yes. And not takers, and I think that's kinda how we should end this Absolutely. Show today. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you all for joining us at this episode of Lights, Camera, and Communicate. We will be back in we haven't even set the next date. Can do that. Can we pop up? I mean pop up in Cabo? I don't know. It's we escalate things pretty quickly. It's your budget, man. Yeah. Thanks, everybody, for joining us at this episode of LightsCamer communicate. We appreciate it. Bye. Thanks.