Name: The unscripted take on culture
Uploaded: 2026-05-19T17:16:27.047Z
Duration: 59 min 52 s
Description: The unscripted take on culture

Transcript for "The unscripted take on culture": It's weird. Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode seven of Lights, Camera, Communicate. We have two Amirs joining us today. Amir, kick your other version off. We only need know how. Woosley Hub Studio one on there. Anyway oh, it's like it's our first show ever, but you know what? That was great. Somewhat fitting, Eric, because I'm a little salty. Talked about this on LinkedIn, that this is the first episode where I am not in studio with you. And I'm gonna a 100% blame airline prices, fuel costs, whatever it is, flights to and from Vegas were absolutely ridiculous. So we are doing this virtually. I hope I missed their end. of You you you are missed. There's there's actually two empty seats, the drum throne and the other interview seat. So, we're gonna have to we just have to do it again and get more people in. you did surprise me that because I thought you might be behind the drums today. And I was I'm gonna ask you a question, which was what's the drumming equivalent of Tickling the ivories. And so I'm curious for those of you that are in the chat, go in and help us come up with the drum version of Tipping the Ivory's. If you do not wanna get in trouble with HR, please do not Google this, because you might sum up some things that might get flagged by HR. So don't look for those things. Just help us come up with this is an AI free session. Just come up with what would be the drumming equivalent of tickling the ivories. We wanna know. How are you doing, Amer? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. I'm watching people come in and we've got the SF Bay area, which is where I'm from. So shout out to Ashley and we got Rhonda, from Chicago. Is that where it was? Nope. No. I. lost it. I'm good, man. I'm good. It's been a while since you and I got together and did this. Well, It's been last few months. we did in? March was live from transform where we commandeer the couch to conduct did. some interviews from. So, yeah, let's see. Becky, oh, Becky had to Google what tickling the ivory's meant? Come on. Come on, Becky. By the way, that that commandeering the couch, there's a really good message in there, which is just act like you belong. Guys, we didn't actually belong there. Nobody gave us permission to be on that couch running a live stream, but it worked out and everybody just kind of acted like we were there. We were supposed to be there. So Well, it's it's one of those situations where it's the it was definitely an ask forgiveness, not permission situation. yep. But again, you act it's one of the was that, there's that quote from the movie, The Paper, where walk anywhere confident in a clipboard, you can get anywhere in the world. That's kinda what we had. We just didn't have a clipboard for, us. I gotta give a shout out to to Johnny and Ali because they walked in with all the gear and security said, you're not supposed to be here. And they said, actually, we are. And they just started setting up. Right. There we go. There we go. And we had a great show. So was. fun. We had, assortment of guests there. This episode though, we thought we would take a step back from the video intensive part of the show and really spend some time talking about company culture. And so those are in the chat. We've got some great people joining. We've got, Anjum, they would land on the beat. That's pretty good. We've got Amy from Portland, Maine. We've got, we got Sioux Falls represented. We'll be in Sioux Falls for flyover festival coming up here at the August. Saint Simons Island, obviously, New York City. We got Canada showing up. Bay Area as you mentioned. So, yeah, Chicago, great group of people here. I want you to go into the chat and share this. When you think about whether this is the company you've worked for, you hear other companies talk about things, what's that one value that companies say they have that is just way overrated or perhaps even wildly unnecessary? I wanna have you go in there and jump into the chat and share with us what you think is those, like, unnecessary or overhyped values that you see from companies. And anytime we're talking about culture, there's one expert that I like going to. Unfortunately, they weren't able to be here today. No. That's not true. Anne Mellinger from BINC is joining us. Anne, why don't you join us here on stage? That was good. That was good, wasn't it? Yeah. I was hi, Good. Anne. It was good. It's a good thing I wasn't drinking my water because I woulda spit it right across the screen when you said that. Thanks, The. I I only wish we were recording the video from behind the backstage so we could see your reaction Yeah. at that point. Yep. It was was good. a spitting out water moment. Let's, let's go into some of these, values that we're seeing here. And I want you to weigh in on some of these they're Yeah. we're ethical. Yeah. That's Our employees are our most important. resource. We want you to bring your whole self to word, our people pillar, and why do companies do this? what does that even mean? Yeah. I mean, there's nothing more nothing more, you know, humanizing than to be told that you're an important resource to a company. Right? I mean, it's it's I I think a lot of times these words come come together. You can just picture a whole bunch of people in a room trying to come up with the right thing to say, And the more people that chime in, and then suddenly the CEO chimes in and everyone's afraid to, you know, dispute anything they say. And before you know it, you've got this horrible phrase or, you know, word salad of corporate jargon, and it's lost all meaning. And it's it's just so common. It's so common as we can see from all these. examples. Absolutely. Anne, why don't you talk to us a little bit more about about Banc and why you spend so much time working with organizations about culture? Sure. Absolutely. So Banc is a consultancy that advises companies all around culture. Not just the softer side of it, but, really, we view culture as a business tool and lever that can drive performance. And so our basically, our purpose is to help companies understand the culture that exists today and how to turn it into a lever for performance and to then build and sustain the systems and processes to make that a reality. You know, taking it from something that's sort of vague and talked about to something that is actually driving business outcomes. And so what you're trying to do is take it from those words on the wall that I could say a little bit of cliche from time to time we talk about, but how how are we adding meaning to that? How does it. actually make an impact on the business? Exactly. And I think for those of us that work in in internal communications, we've spent our, you know, careers trying to fight for, you know, the link between what we do and business success, and I really think that culture is that link. There are so many, you know, great data sources out there that show that companies with a strong culture financially outperform those that don't pay attention to culture. And so we really wanna help, you know, as many organizations as possible tap into that that value. It's something we can do. It's very feasible. It's just it requires the commitment and the effort. Mhmm. And for those that are in attending the session, if you go up into the top right where the chat is, you'll see docs. I don't know why it's called docs, but click into that. And the very last link, you'll see where you can take a survey and help Anne and the team out with their culture super. So, Anne, talk to us about what you and the team at Bank are doing and what this research is. Yeah. Absolutely. So we just recently launched the culture at work study, which is a survey to look at how organizations, do define and sustain culture within their organizations. There are a lot of great tools out there for companies to look at their own culture, but there's not a lot out there that looks across different companies. And so that's what really this was about. We wanted to create a piece of research that the entire industry can benefit from of really looking at what does culture look like today, what are some of the gaps that exist to help our people, communicators, HR leaders, those of us that are, you know, looking after culture within our organizations, to come armed to the conversation with, okay, here's what we know to be true within our organization. Here's based on this research what we know to be true across organizations, and to really use that combination of research about your own company and research that's more broad to make a change. That's really the idea behind it. It's been in the field for a couple of weeks now, and the data that we're getting back so far has been really rich and fascinating. It does close tomorrow, so we are hoping to get, you know, a few more insights from from folks in there. And and one of the other things that I'll say is people are I I know that time is precious and setting aside fifteen minutes to participate in a survey can be tricky, but I'll say one of the things I've been hearing is that the actual exercise of completing the survey is really helpful to give yourself a moment of reflection on how are we doing, how am I thinking about culture. So it's kind of a nice win win. You get to learn something about yourself and contribute to this body of Now, Anne, right at the very beginning, you said there are tools to help you I remember what verb you. use, establish, gauge, measure, culture. What what are some of those tools? Yeah. Absolutely. I mean and a lot of times we talk about it as operationalizing culture. Right? It's not something that you talk about. It's not something that you culture is not what leaders say it is. It's what employees experience. And so if you're really trying to hone in on their experience, then you have to look at what are those different touch points where they are actually living and experiencing your culture. A lot of that does sit in sort of the, you know, what we traditionally consider the HR realm. Right? What are they seeing in orientation, in onboarding, in performance management? What are we measuring and rewarding people on? And also all the work that sits in our world in internal communication. That's another way to really operationalize culture, whether that's what your leaders are talking about, what what they're show you're showing in your communications matter, and certainly what you're, you know, what you're showing through video. I I love the fact that we're kind of looking at it through the lens of video, not to be punny, But, you know, that's certainly another way that you're sending signals about what's important, what your cold what your ideal culture is, and how you're trying to, you know, move the organization to get to that point. One of the coolest use cases I've seen of video is exactly that. We had a couple of clients do it now where the the leadership actually sends a, a question out to the employees and ask them about what their view of culture is or what their core values are, and then have them get recorded on on screen and then stitch it together and share it with the executive team to show that there's usually a gap between what leadership thinks and what the employees think those things are. Now the I love that. part you gave, Anne, if if if Omer had been behind the drums, he could have done a quick little put, on, shh, that would have been. really good. Too bad. wanna challenge opportunity. you on something. I wanna challenge you. on something, Anne. Bring it on. You talk about operationalizing culture. Yes. That's that sounds a little, like, word salady here. Does it? are what are we what does that mean? Like, how let's add some meaning to that. What does that mean to operationalize culture? Absolutely. It means that you're actually thinking about culture in the same way companies think about things like innovation or you know, that's something that they can say, okay. We need more innovation within this company. What are the things that we're gonna do? What are the programs, the systems, the processes that we're gonna put in place to make sure that innovation is happening at all levels and all functions across our organization? And what we're saying is you have to think about culture in the same way. You have to think about what are the systems, what are the processes, what are the words that we're saying, what are the things that we're demonstrating, what are the things that we're showing are important to us day in and day out. So when I say operationalize, that's what I mean. You have to look at the various systems and processes that are either confirming or denying what you say matters. If you say that, you know, you want a, culture of accountability, you want people to take ownership over things, but then you have systems in place that feel very big brother, that feel very punitive, that feel like I'm watching over you. That distinction between what you say you want and what people actually experience is hugely detrimental to culture. And so when we say operationalize, we mean you have to look at what are the things today that you're doing and not doing from a systems and process perspective that are aligning your organization with the culture you say that you wanna have. And how because I think that can be a challenge across really large organizations. It's one thing if you're in a company of 50 people and that leadership team, if you, have people in the office, you see those people all the time. I think it's easy to get a read on that. How can leaders, if they're the ones that really have to be in charge of operationalizing this, Yes, how do. they get a feel for what needs to be done when you've got thousands of employees spread across so many different locations and even regions of the world that might have their own unique cultures? Yeah. It's a great question, and it's definitely one that we see. And it's probably the thing that keeps most organizations from moving forward. Exactly what you said, Chuck. It just feels so big, so overwhelming, and my belief has always been a 10% improvement is better than none. And so that's the first thing that I would say is, like, okay. Yes. It's complicated, and steering an organization of ten, twenty, 30,000 employees across the globe is not gonna be an easy task, but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't try. And so one of the first things is you really need to make sure that you have alignment at the top around what is the culture that we want to achieve, and then you can actually look at, okay, but where are we today? That's the very first thing. I don't think a lot of companies take time to do that. They might think, oh, yeah. We have a clear picture. It's written. It's our people pillar or whatever. But really to sit down with your senior leadership team and really talk about, do we have a clear picture on who it is that we wanna be, the culture that we strive to have, and where we are today versus where we wanna go? That's the very first starting point before you get into, yes, you gotta look at the systems, you gotta look at the channels, you gotta look at the what are the messages that we're sending, but if you don't have that alignment at the top, nothing else matters. Do you think that's a key area where leaders fail? Is not, truly establishing this is what we want versus kind of this is what we have? absolutely. There was just this week, the Harvard Business Review published a whole article about the importance of alignment, and I love it. It's it it was like it spoke to my soul, because I'm a nerd like that. But, you know, it really I think there's a lot of companies that where they'll have agreement at the top or, you know, the CEO will say something and everyone will nod their head, and it's like, great. We got it. Let's go. Boom. And, you know, to take the time to actually look in the mirror and think about, but are we truly aligned? Are are we saying, yes. I'm on board. And then going and demonstrating something in my behavior, my decisions that conflicts with that. So really taking the time to slow down and look take a good hard look in the mirror and figure out, are we clear and are we aligned? I I think very few companies take the time to do that. Very, very few. Yeah. You're you're getting some nerd support in the chat, from, Chris. from Chris. I appreciate that. challenge to you, Chris, is if we're all nerds, is anyone a nerd? I think that's one of the challenges we have here. Is anyone really in or is this gonna be establishing who's the who's the nerdiest? I think what's what's interesting is we each get to work with companies at different levels to see different parts of the organization. So, Amir, with the work that, like, Lucy have does with clients, what do you see them doing well when it comes to translating that culture in the video, and what do you see them not doing well? I I think one of the things that resonates with me, and as you said, it's one thing for them to basically look at what they wanna do and actually execute it across the organization. We have the same problems just trying to get this whole idea of employee generated content going. Right? But, we're actually trying to do this across not just comms teams now, but we have a couple of clients who are that this is literally a culture thing they're playing with. And what we're seeing is they're putting it on the employees mostly to say, what do you what do you think this is and what do you think it should be? Which I love because now they're getting real feedback from their their employees, not sitting in a boardroom with a with people and just making a decision. So it's one of the use cases we've seen of of video that we never expected, which is has nothing to do with social, has nothing to do with LinkedIn. It's how do we stitch together stories that we could share internally on what people's, expectations of this are versus what they're seeing and how they could fix it. So that's how we're seeing video be used in this particular case, but I keep going back to saying it's one thing to wanna do it. It's another to actually get it adopted across an organization. Mhmm. Well, I think that's one thing too. Are employees seeing their reality? Are they seeing, you know, is what people, like, told what to see when you see something else. I go back to my days at Rolls Royce where we had our like vision video, I think it was called. And it was this romantic music and scenic things of fields and planes through the sky. And the theme of the from this movie Rudy was like the background music to it. Employees hated that video. They hated that video because of what it symbolized. They knew where it came from, which was the COO, who was not well liked, who was a big Notre Dame fan, who insisted that their Rudy song be in there and wanted it to have this aesthetic. And employees recognized that was not for us. Like, that was for them, but he thought it was a different perspective. So I think, Anne, how how do you bridge that gap between what leaders say something is or should be versus what employees are simply experiencing on a daily, if not even hourly basis? Yeah. I mean, I love that you brought that example in, and I was just reading something, about this idea of aesthetic force. And, and and Zane is kinda talking about it too about, like, inspiring. You know, video is such a such a it has such a potential to be inspiring, and I think that companies have shied away from that a little bit because of there have been so many crappy examples like the one you gave of, like, abusing the idea of, like, we're trying to evoke an emotion. We're trying to give people have chills down their arms through visuals, and that can be really difficult. And it can also backfire horrifically if it's not aligned with what employees actually want. And so I think that, you know, what I love about a lot of the work that Amer's team enables is this idea of bringing together both employee generated video because that is very real and very grounded in their reality with while still making it emotive and aesthetically pleasing and inspiring. You know, bringing those two together, I think, is is really important. And it goes back to you know, I said the starting point is you've gotta make sure that you have a clear picture that leaders are aligned around what is the culture you're trying to create. And then you really need to understand, but where are employees with that today? And I think with anything, whether it's a video or, you know, a culture narrative or any sort of communication around your culture, it needs to be 80% grounded in the reality today. It can be a little bit aspirational. I always want companies to aspire to do better, but if you're, like, conveying a culture that is, you know, far beyond who you are today, yeah, it's worse than not saying anything at all. People just their BS detectors go off and they're like, yeah, this is lame. So, you know, I think it's a it's a real art between, you know, identifying where you are today, pushing a little bit to be, like, that 20% aspirational, and then creating something that really reflects that reality and where you're going. It's an. art. Amer, how what are some of the customers you've worked with? You don't have to name names, or if. you can name names, great. If not, that's fine too. Who have been successful at at getting stories, getting content from employees. Because as Zane said, that that can be a challenge, but also that it can be an opportunity because, typically, this is an audience that hasn't been able to be a part of any sort of creative process. They've just been there to kinda do the job. Now they get. to participate for the first time, which I think also says something about the cultures. How do companies start to crack into that? So, by the way, I I would tell you that, it's not becoming difficult. It's always been difficult to get that happen. One of the main reasons is permission. Most companies, Yes. don't give permission to their to their employees to to basically think freely and do this stuff and post it. And, Jamie Bell had a great presentation. I forget which conference it was at where she talked about the, Sherwin Williams guy who had, like, 1,400,000 followers, was mixing paint, was doing a great job promoting this brand, and he got fired for it. So I think one of the things you have to do is is is give permission so these people can actually talk about what they wanna talk about, not just what you want them to talk about. I think the second piece is really enablement because everyone not everyone is comfortable in front of a in front of a camera. We actually push the value of a phone for that reason. We say, look, with a phone, everybody's used to having a phone in front of their face, not necessarily a camera. You put a camera in front of somebody's face and they typically clam up. You put a phone in their face and they just feel like they're talking to their friends. So enablement is really important and permission is is really important. And then I think finding people who are excited about doing this, and there are plenty in the organizations. And what what happens is you typically find those people and they start kind of snowballing this whole idea of employee generated content. And I'll give you a great example. We had a client that, had a great use case for our product, went department by department and said, how are you doing x? So, for example, go to facilities. How are you saving the company money at facilities? And interviewed, you know, but didn't didn't even interview. They just held a phone and they did something and talked about how they were saving money. That came into us. We stitched together as a a video. I think they took the top 10 and pushed it out to the entire organization. Then they went to another department and did the same thing. Well, these videos were coming out regularly, and as people were seeing them, they were inspired to do better and better. So towards the end of this whole campaign, you had complete skits being done on how they're, you know, managing contracts or how they're dealing with facilities or how they're dealing with comms. So we saw it go from just one conversation on a phone like this to an entire skit and and a presentation. It kind of snowballed, but it started with, you know, giving them permission to speak freely and then getting that story out to everybody, and it literally just kind of ended up having a life of its own. And that's what we typically see. We typically see adoption in one group that's really eager to do this, and then that leads to some of the other groups. Now having said that, there are some people who just don't wanna be on camera. They just don't even wanna participate, and you're not gonna get past that. Yeah. I didn't anticipate this, but I think it's interesting. We've we've started talking about employees as creators versus just being part of the creative process. So. I'd. love to know in the chat for those that work at companies, do you have policies, guidelines, something like that for employees that say, yes. Please go do these things on sort of on your own channels versus creating content as part of a company channel? Because I think those are also different culture aspects. And what does it say to about a culture that says like the Sherwin Williams? I think there was even an IKEA example one time where an employee was creating content around, like, IKEA hacking, like, buy this piece, buy this piece, Yeah. and they're trying to create this piece, and they got fired Yeah. as a result of encouraging that. What does that say about cultures that don't permit that type of activity? Yeah. I mean, I think that how we approach video is it's a signal of culture. I mean, that's exactly what we're what we're getting to is, you know, the way that the company uses video. And I think if companies again, it's like if you say that you wanna that you respect all viewpoints, that employees are your most important resource, whatever, well, then give them then you should give them a platform to communicate with you. And I love this idea of really shifting the perspective away from video as a way to talk at employees, but to actually see video as a way to listen to employees. And it's not just about us reporting out on things. I think it's a it's a really powerful listening tool. It's a way to get sentiment data, without doing a survey. It's a great way to get, Yeah. you know, to see how people are are doing and feeling. And I think to, view it that way makes it even more powerful and exciting. And it's also it is a great way of, you know, of using AI. You know, there I know that's a lot of what LucyHub does, but, you know, you you put your camera you everyone has a camera in their hands. You invite people to contribute date to contribute video, which becomes data that you can, you know, through the power of AI, analyze and get a lot of really rich insights about your people from. And I think it's, you know, I think more companies thinking about it that way is it's really exciting to me. Mhmm. So Amy just back up a really good point. oh, good. Yeah. Let's I'm Eric. you wanna was gonna bring that up. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so a big part of what we do and a big part of, you know, I say, I say the the whole AI boom gave creators, tools and it gave it gave the enterprise extreme challenges. One of them is what Amy just said. And so one of the things that's really important to look at is governance and and workflows that actually help protect you against that. Amy, it's a big problem with everybody. And so one of the things we've done is we literally have an approval workflow where you can't release a video unless whomever is involved, compliance, marketing, comms, whoever's involved actually signs off on that video. And that's a way to do video at scale without, you know, having having a an organization that's f FDA or SEC regulated, be worried about employee stories. And I I think you used an interesting word there, or that I don't think a lot of people I think this, you would think that would be very restrictive. Right? FDA, SEC, all of those things. But he also said it's there's protections that are built in. I think if you approach this from a, hey. We're we're trying to protect you in the business versus saying don't do these things versus here's what you can do and stay safe and protect. Even even that little shift in language could simply make a difference. And I'm probably getting into the semantics of it. But I think even saying, like, this is to protect you, this is to protect the business. There's a lot of things that, you know, employees have to sign off on that they're a part of. So I think there's, there's always a way to make it happen. Well, I'm going to go back and research, and this is, I doubt it's still going on, but I think there's a great example of it. And this was with seven Eleven and this might be seven, eight years ago now by this time. There was a delivery driver at this particular seven Eleven store that would take a little extra time and do these crazy in cap displays. And not just around holidays, they would get very creative with these in cab displays and then started sharing them internally. Well, that then became this person started to become a little bit of a mini celebrity inside seven eleven that then spurred some competition and some challenges, but also it demonstrated how it increased sales at the store. Mhmm. That, yes, by spending this little bit of extra time doing this one thing, it actually lifted sales a percentage far beyond. And so I think it's how do you connect that video that showcases some of the culture to then business results? Because that's the thing that's hard to hard argue against. So so we saw that with that particular case I was telling you about. What we saw is two things. We saw a competition. Things were getting better, like, the the production value got better and better and better every month, but they were actually sharing actual results from department to department. And what's really cool about that is when you have large organizations, distributed organizations, for for example, we work with banks. They have branches. Some of these branches, those teams do really, really well selling a specific product or or or some something with customer service. How do you get that across to, you know, the other 50 or a 100 branches? How do you get this idea of what they're doing in a manufacturing facility across to five other facilities? So we saw both of those in these cases, and it was really cool. And we've had two customers do it very successfully, and it it does exactly what you said, Chuck, which is it breeds competition, and it shows the performance and the value of what they're doing. But I also think it's it's a healthy competition. It's. a. Oh, it's. a rising tide approach. Yeah. And I remember I I shared that seven Eleven story with with Big Lots, rest in peace, no longer a company, but at the time they were then encouraging their sales associates to share sales tips and some. of their own. And, and again, that lifted everybody else up by simply sharing the stories truly from the front line, which I think, again, I think empowering those stories demonstrated what the culture was about. It wasn't just what came from above. It was. no. We have the ability to influence the business no matter the level we are at an organization. Exactly. And I think it's so interesting when you contrast that on the other end of the spectrum with companies that are like, no. We're gonna use actors in our culture videos. Yeah. We we have we actually have a client right now who's, you know, who's who's actually going down that path. And it's it's, you know, you you you think about what is the culture that we're conveying. Again, we're talking about how do you operationalize culture. It's through these practices. What is our practice around video? Is it to use our own people? Is it to give them the freedom, the platform to invite them to participate, or is it to rely on actors where there's no risk? We've eliminated any risk. And is that, you know, is that truly the way that we wanna go? It's a it's a tough question for a lot of, Anne, let's say Bink was gonna do a culture. video. Mhmm. Would you hire actors? No. Definitely not. Okay. So what did you say to this client who said we're gonna, we're gonna hire actors? I mean, again, they are in a it a lot of times, it's they're in a highly regulated space. They're in a, you know, they're in they're they're limited by policy. And, you know, the question again I go back to is what's better? Is it better to do something or nothing at all? And, ultimately, you know, if we can come up with a strategy and an approach that is going to be better than doing nothing at all, then I can get behind that. But you really have to ask that hard question of, you know, is this going to be helpful or hurtful? Because a lot of times, things that are are too glossy, too slick, too externally focused can do more harm than good. Yeah. I'm I'm trying to put my employee hat on there and thinking if there is a video and I guess if you're a big enough company, you may not know if the people in that video are employees or not. You're it's, it's probably. impossible. But. even if you've got a hint Mhmm. that those aren't your peers, I'm trying to think of how that would reflect on me. I'm like, man, they they don't even want us Mhmm. in this video. But yet there's they still wanna highlight us, but not feature us Right. in the video. I also think when you talk about the the polished stuff, and let's get into that a little bit. And I. like. to use this example and I'll, I'll spare the company name, but there was a massive national tragedy that took place and they wanted to commemorate the one year anniversary, which took place at their location that this happened. The CEO of the company did this very polished scripted. He was up on his penthouse office floor. You could see the skyline behind him, suited up, gave this perfect speech about commemorating the one year. That was one video example. There's another video example that showed the COO of the local location sitting on the corner of his desk, button down shirts, sleeves rolled up, papers scattered on the desk, water bottle in the corner, just talked about what what he went through. Yeah. Both of those videos were shared on that anniversary, and you can pretty easily guess which one got the highest engagement. It was the one with the guy with the sleeves rolled up sitting on the corner of his desk. What was interesting though, and I think this is always a tricky word, both of those videos were authentic. Mhmm. Yeah. One felt more authentic to the way people wanted to feel, but both videos were authentic to who that person was. So how do you counsel people. on Yeah. authenticity when that is a it's a. tricky situation? Oh, sure. And, I mean, how you you have to this goes back to some really basic communications fundamentals of, you know, thinking of each leader that you have in the organization and what is truly the best channel for them. Video is not the best channel for every CEO. Yep. You know? We wouldn't we we certainly wouldn't counsel that. And so I think some of it is taking a step back and thinking, again, what are we trying to convey? What is the best way to convey this? Of all the different channels that are available to us, video is a great one. It's very emotive. It's a great way to bring stories to life, but it's not always the best, for every, you know, for every message that we're trying to send out. So I think that, you know, in some cases, it's it's not even a question of culture. It's just a question of, like, communication ability and, you know, what what but I think what I really love about what you're saying is, yeah, these are both authentic. It's not just about striving for authenticity because sometimes authenticity is still gonna is not gonna land well. And so at the end of the day, we do need to think about what are we actually trying to inspire here? What are what are the feelings that we're trying to emote with this with this piece of, you know, communication, and is this really the best way to do it? And I think if I hadn't met both of those individuals, I would have said, oh, the sleeves rolled up, guy. That's the authentic video. That's the real. one. But having met. both, I'm like, nope. That CEO, that's him. That's. the authentic him. That may not be what employees wanted or needed at that time, but that video was ripe with. authenticity. That just might have been the feeling that they were wanting. I wanna pull. in just, the setting? Was it just the setting check that it was just polished and the other one was just can see he was? reading off. a teleprompter. Everything was perfectly worded. That that was him. But that that that was the that was the authentic self for him. Yeah. By the way, there's some good data about authenticity and conversion. I think it's about eight x higher than a branded piece of content. So we'd have to dig it up. Maybe Marty can dig up the number and put it in the chat, but it's a really big number as far as conversion goes. Yeah. wanna pull in this, comment from Zane. Previous company, Hide In Acura was very handsome and apparently distractingly handsome that I became a conversation on the video. Zane, did the views increase dramatically for that video? Is that was just on looped play for some people on a secondary screen? Like, I don't know what what happened there, but again, I guess that could happen with an internal person as well. I don't know. But anyway, I thought that was a funny situation views increased, can happen. but, the message got lost. So, Anne, I'm curious with with, like, this clients that you work with and someone's like, hey. We we need kind of this about us video. We wanna create. a video that shares, like, who we are as a company. Not what we do, but what we're about. Yeah. Yeah. Where do you get started on something like that? Yeah. It's a great question. I think the the one of the most important things is sort of, again, I sound a little bit like a broken record, but is really making sure that you have a clear, consistent definition of what is the culture that you're trying to achieve. And that it's, you know, a lot of times, especially if you are an organization that's going to open things up and to invite, you know, generated user generated content, which we certainly support, you do need to have some sort of anchoring narrative for everything you would come back to. So that's often where we'll start is what is the culture that you're trying to achieve? What are the foundations of that culture, whether that's your mission, your vision, your values, your strategic priorities? Really making sure that that story is there so that at even if you are whether it's going to be, you know, one or two leaders or, you know, a ton of stock footage or animated words or user generated video, whatever it's going to be, it all needs to have a common theme and a common anchor. So a lot of times, the place that we say is to start is through, you know, a clear, consistent narrative. And if you had to choose between, non employee actors and just words on the screen, which would you choose? Gosh. That's I'm gonna give the classic consulting answer, which is it depends, because I would need to know a lot more about why you're going that direction, what is this video for, who is the audience, before I could answer that. But, you know, I think there's a lot you can do a lot with with animation now. You know? You can do a lot. You can convey a lot. Again, it's like you can tell a really emotive story through words that are brought to life through music and animation can actually go a long way. Again, if it's if it's authentic, if it's aligned with who you are, and if it, you know, matches what employees are experiencing today. No. I'm gonna go think it's a hard and fast rule. I. don't think it's a hard and fast rule. into the unscripted part of this. Amer, I'm gonna throw you a wild one. Let's talk. about it. And as I it. mentioned that I mentioned that Rudy theme song in the, Rolls Royce video that turned everybody off. How do you advise clients on the music? But also, let's talk about the legalities of bringing music in, because I think that can be a huge lift to a video Yeah. Yeah. I I, actually recently had a client ask for a Maroon five. song and then an Eminem song, and, I told them that would be higher than their entire subscription for the year with us. So, I would I would advise against posting your favorite songs if you're gonna do it on social. So so for example, some people, use a lot of Instagram and TikTok. What I would do is actually use the song as a scratch track, but when you put it on social media, sync it to the actual song that they have licensed. That way, it's legal to use. So basically, sync it and then and just pull pull them off. That's what one thing I would suggest. I would just say use royalty free music. It's just easier. And most of those contracts, like the ones we have, are are, you know, in perpetuity as long as you don't disassemble the video and reuse that clip or reuse that, audio file. But how how do you begin? even picking? Yeah. Yeah. What's there? good royalty? I was wondering if there's good royalty free music. I mean, it's it's hard to find. There? is. Yeah. I'll find out who our subscriptions are are through, and I'll send them, like, send them your way. I I think so we have we have a couple of ways we do this. We let you either upload a sample video that or sample audio that you wanna use. And And if it's copyrighted, we won't use it. We'll just use it as inspiration. The the the M and M story was funny because she's like, but I really want M and M or M and M like. And we actually went and found something that was very similar, very close that worked and thematically, and we put it in and it was royalty free. So that's that's one way to do it. I think the the other way is just to tell you know, we've we've done thousands of videos. It's just to say, hey. Like, we have a place where you can put notes that says, I want, you know, upbeat jazz for this video, and we'll go find you upbeat jazz. Or I want, you know, driving rock and roll, and we'll go find them driving rock and roll. And sometimes they'll ask for something and see if this doesn't work at all. And, you know, we have we have a team that sometimes will push back. So you sure this is what you want? Well, not I'd never thought about it in this way. And I would love to know in the chat for people that that work at companies. We we know there's stock photos that companies use, and there's hopefully like stock video that you've created that you've got of your people or your locations. You've got custom fonts that you use. You've got your brand colors that you use. Are people using their own sounds? Like, do companies have their own stock audio that you use that's like, this is this is our music? Are companies doing that? Ali, I'm gonna ask you this because you do yeah. She's giving me a thumbs up. Yes. They do. Yeah. I wondered about that because I wondered then, is that just then you become into you come into this with, like, hey. This is our recruitment videos. These are the songs we pull from from our leadership videos. So And then what. if that consistency becomes relatable for employees because be part of the brand. to know Right? The brand doesn't just have to be colors and and. fonts. There's no reason why it's not music. Yeah. I mean, Yeah. every everybody knows the ESPN intro. Right? Yeah. For the Netflix sound. Yeah. coming. on. I would love go into the chat. Let me know. I would love to know if if your company has stock sounds, whether music, sound effects, whatever that you use, that that becomes your go to. Because I can imagine I forget. Was it Netflix or HBO? I forget. They talked about the development of some of those sounds is no different than the design of visuals Oh, I believe it. them. Yeah. Yeah. Because, again, it's this idea of aesthetic force of what are the thing what are the different tools that you can use to evoke a certain emotion in people? And, certainly, sound is one of them. We have to consider that as one of the one of the senses. I I love it. Yeah. I'll tell you where we see it a lot, and Ali probably sees way more than this, but I see it in in the finished products is the out the, the the outro. What is that called, Ali? The the, yeah, the bumper at the end card. We have a handful of clients who actually have the specific little kinda like the Netflix thing on the app on the ending that just, kind of brands them. Mhmm. I'm curious about Amy's comment here about her dog being terrified of the Netflix sound. I have. never heard that is fascinating. I have never heard of that before. Employees shrinking. Here we go. Could count. That would that that would. be an interesting sound. That would be an interesting sound Yeah. to pull in for. it. Absolutely. So what when you think about all these different videos, what does it say to you, Anne, when a company what does it say about their culture if they are very video intensive? If it's not. not so much we need a video for everything, because that's. a different problem. But. if they're but if they understand the role that video plays with culture, what does that say to you? Well, what I like the the question that I think it's all of this is raising is, like, do companies actually need a culture video, or is it that we have a our video strategy, our collection of videos actually taken together tells you a story of our culture. You know, we have we might have videos from our talent acquisition team that show you a day in the life of these different jobs. We might have a video that, you know, gives you the history of our company, which is a part of our culture. We might have videos of leaders talking about, you know, their aspirations and their strategic, you know, goals for the company. And those things kind of together really tell a story of culture more than a thirty second video that says our culture is blah blah blah blah blah. So I think that, you know, that's where this conversation is really getting me shifting. And I'm curious too from from the two of you and in the chat too. Do people feel like there's a place for a culture video, or is it that our videos demonstrate our culture when taken together collectively? I think it's the latter, and and I we have clients that do it incredibly well, especially the day in the life stories. We have a a few clients that have that have successfully executed this, you know, employee story for internal use, and, it's some of the most viewed videos on their internal networks. It's it's pretty impressive how they've used that to build a culture, for hiring, actually. It's it's HR organizations that are that are now doing it. It started in comms and shifted to HR, and it's become some of their best recruiting tools. But it's it's highlighted the culture through the employees across multiple, countries. It's it's a really I think that's the way to do it, not here's a video about our culture. Right. Yeah. On an upcoming episode, we're gonna have a gentleman named Rocky Walls join us. One to talk more about how to conduct really great video interviews, but I know a part of that in this day in the life of videos, he always like, what what's the goal? Af what do we want people to see, feel, do after watching this video? So no one company that he does these videos for in the day in the life of it is purely about encouraging employees to take international assignments. So he goes abroad and interviews employees who have taken assignments in a country to share this is what life is like here. And it's a little bit of, like, all the fuzz warm fuzzies around it about, like, this is what it's good, but it also shows some of the challenges that they have. in getting people to to encourage that. So his his thing is always like, what's the goal? What would people think, feel, or do after this? I actually feel there's a there's room for all of it. I think there is a video that's sort of about us and who we are as a company that doesn't lean into the what we do, but more the why we do it and who. we are. And I wonder if because of all the very unfortunate DEI backlash that we see out there, has that taken a bit of a backseat where companies aren't as, announced with this is who we are as an organization, and this is what we believe in for fear of someone being like, well, you shouldn't believe in that. That's not what we're here for. So I wonder if there's been a retreat from that because of some of that anti culture, anti DEI stuff out there. I think to an extent, and I think some of it, you know, Jeff was asking if we're seeing an increase of day in life videos being used recruitment. I mean, I think in general right now, there's just an unfortunate contraction across the board. You know, companies are not investing the same way they used to in hiring, you know, in recruitment. They're not they're not putting money, you know, aside to create recruitment videos, whether they're day in the life event or anything else. I think there has been a general just because of, you know, the the challenges of the last couple of years, I think there has been a general contraction around, you know, just approaching any of this work, talking about culture, talking about why this is a great, why this is a great place to work, talking about why we do what we do, not what we do to your point, Chuck. I think that there has been an unfortunate trend in that direction, and and I think a lot of that is geopolitical and economical, unfortunately. Mhmm. Yeah. And I wanna add to that. You're you're a 100% right. So two years ago, we had a ton of it happening. A lot of recruitment videos being done. One of the shifts I'm seeing, and I just did a did a a LinkedIn post on this about I I call it your employees are sitting on gold. One of the things I'm really gonna push our clients to do, because I've seen it done successfully a few times now, is they're taking the knowledge that these employees have and sharing it across the organization departmentally. And it's been a really, really cool use case and incredibly valuable because you've got these employees that might have been there ten, fifteen years, twenties, that wealth of knowledge about the organization. And if they leave, it's all gone. And so they're trying to capture those pieces and and build a library and share them and use it as part of the onboarding. The other really cool use case I'm seeing is using, employees to actually create the onboarding videos to make them interesting. So we we've had a few clients do this thing where they're like, follow me on your first day of work, you know. And, I think we've had about three of them do it, and it's really it's a really great way to get somebody's first day going without having to watch these boring onboarding videos on this is what you do here. This is I mean, so much so to the point where, hey, this is my favorite meal in the cafeteria. You know, things like that. I think the the word that I was looking for before that was escaping me or something about rocky walls was propaganda. Like, how how how do you create videos that don't feel like propaganda or should these be propaganda? I mean, no. Definitely not. You know, based on the definition of propaganda, no. And I think when you do when you do try to, you know, you know, when you try to go that route of really inspiring an emotional response, if it's not grounded in reality, it's like the ick factor goes way up. So I think it's a matter of there's a lot of bravery that's required here. You have to be brave about are we willing to be bold? Are we willing to kind of push the limits in terms of creating and inspiring some sort of emotional reaction? We're humans. We're emotional we're emotional beings. Like, we wanna be moved. We wanna be inspired. We wanna have those chills down our arms. But if you're going to try to tap into that emotion with me and toy with my feelings and you're gonna do it in a way that is so antithetical to what I'm experiencing, you're you were better off doing nothing at all. So I you know, it's like it's it's an opportunity to to step up, but it's also, unfortunately, the op it's the reason why a lot of companies shy away from it, and they end up doing something pretty boring and stale and using words like integrity and, you know, back to the very beginning of the conversation. It's why it kinda ends up being watered down. I think because I wanted to I wanted to look at this because we all internalize things like what a definition of propaganda is in. Yeah. Information, especially of biased nature used to promote a particular cause or point of view. That feels a little bit like some company stuff that gets put, out there sometimes. I think we could have a whole other conversation about is communication propaganda. That would be a really interesting one. You know? Are we in the business of mind control? That's definitely another, that's definitely another interesting point for for conversation. Yeah. I would love to know on the chat because I I think the easy answer is to say no. Of course not. Yeah. But we all know that we've put things out in a certain way to influence a certain feeling or position. Yeah. We might not be comfortable with that word, but is it a version of it? I don't know. Go into the chat. Let us know what y'all think about it. I I know what you're all gonna say you think, but I wanna be really take a step back. What role do we play in any. sort of company, we as internal communicators, we are trying to inspire people to know, feel, and do propaganda? things. That is the truth of what we are trying to do. We are trying to get them to know things, to feel things, and to do things, and there is certainly a, you know, a moral, you know, code that underlies all of that. But, yeah, I love Jeff's point, the sunshine pump. Like, again, the more that you abuse that role and responsibility and you just are trying to get people to know, feel, and do things that are so far away from where they are today, the more it's going to backfire. I'm gonna use I'm gonna use Jeff's sunshine pump to see put that in there like Gemini and see what image it creates. Talking about company communications and the sunshine pump. I'm gonna put that on LinkedIn afterward. I'm gonna see what because I never heard that term before, Jeff. I I'm here. I I like it. It's funny because I think we're honest with ourselves. We've all been a part of the sunshine pump. If you think about if you've. been a part of mergers and acquisitions or layoffs or restructures, whatever fancy word you would use to talk about it, we've always talked about the positive stuff and everybody kinda wants to leave the negative off to the side or let people figure it out on their own. Yeah. Go back to my notes here. So I think we have covered everything. Oh, here's well, let's let's wrap up with this one. I'm a get to each of you on this. What's the what's the call to action for this? When we get that see, hear, do, want, like, what what is the when it comes to culture, what are we ultimately trying to do with with video content? It's a great question. I mean, I think what. we're really trying to do again, I just came across the term this week of aesthetic force and it really resonated with me. I think we are that again. aesthetic force. Aesthetic force. it is this idea. I heard it I read about it in in Brene Brown's book, which she credited to a different researcher who's written about this topic of aesthetic force. And, really, again, it's sort of like a Ken Burns documentary makes you feel something. Whether or not you even care. about this particular topic, it makes you feel something. And that is the business that we're all in in communications is to get people to feel something. And so I think my, you know, my challenge to companies would be increasingly, can you be a little more bold? Can you be a little bit more brave in terms of inspiring your people to feel something? That that's not an invitation to go so far to the under other end of the spectrum of propaganda and and, you know, overpromising and under delivering, but can you push yourself to be a little more bold to lean into the power of aesthetic force, whether it's in video or another communications channel? I'm adding was gonna say my buzzword, yeah. I am too. sheet there, Anne. That's pretty good. I like Zane, this is a really good summary of it. This would. have been, this could have been the title of, of our session, dude. Amer, what were you gonna add? I was gonna say, tickling the ivories, but but in all seriousness, I think authenticity for us is what we see. Right? Which show show your organization and your environment for what it really is, not not what you think people are gonna perceive it to be. And and that maybe goes back to this whole idea of propaganda, but I think it's authenticity and permission are the two words that I've kind of been living by lately. Yep. Yeah. I I see the ones that are are doing the best. I and you mentioned it, which is a word we should all be focused on, which is creativity. And not just thinking about it from an information standpoint, but from also a little bit of entertainment standpoint. Yep. How can we have fun? Now, again, this has gotta be aligned with your culture. Yes. There's a little bit of time where it's fun to do a little shock and catch people off guard and do something a little bit differently, but most of the time, it's gotta feel like it's a part of who you are. But I think having a little bit of fun because video lends itself in a way that type of content and other formats simply do not. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I and I love what Ellen is saying about, you know, giving employees choice and agency, is really important. You know, you can really empower people by saying, we here's a here's a channel. We want you to help populate this channel and really empowering them with that. But I think the other side of that is you need to give them some guardrails and you need to give them some something to ground in, whether it is that narrative, whether it is these are our mission, vision, values. What is the what is the anchor that we need to anchor to in this? Because I think actually people can be more creative and feel a bigger sense a greater sense of freedom to create when they understand what are we what's the framework within which we are creating. So I think that that it's it's all about kinda striking that right balance. We could do an entire another session about storytelling and culture. and the importance. Absolutely. of that show and tell. And I think that's where people see these vision statements, mission statements, and we all internalize them very differently. But when we see, like, oh, this is what they mean Mhmm. by that. I use this example of a past company I worked for. One of their one of our, value statements was act like owners. Right. To me, that meant act like an owner was you take the red eye flight, you check out early, you, grab Panda Express instead of going out for dinner. Like that's what it means to act like an owner. Other people like no owners, you book business class. You stay. at the Four Seasons, not the Hampton Inn. So even something that a phrase like that, but showing what the value means, that is, I think, really well done through video. Absolutely. Absolutely. There's a there's a bass player here in Vegas at Denny that I I play with, and he's got these great day in the life of a bass player videos. He's got his three sixty. I mean and and maybe think of it, Chuck, because he literally goes from a gig to Panda Express to his next gig, you know. And and and you. get to see the authenticity of what this guy's days are like, and and they're very well done on video. Yeah. I think it'd be really cool to see let a company empower employees to share their own day in the life of versus, hey. You're gonna go do this video with us, and we're gonna show everybody what your day looks like instead of you sharing with us what your day looks like. I think just that little subtle shift makes a little difference in story time. I will tell you this. I'm seeing more interesting videos come in come out of organizations that are for internal use only than the LinkedIn content that's being posted or the social content that's being posted. And it's for the internal organization. It's just way cooler, way more interesting, and just, I think, a really great use case of video that I don't think more most people have really thought about. Mhmm. Yeah. Well, we are right at time. Before we say our thank yous. Please go into the docs link at the top. If you haven't clicked and saved in your browser the survey that Anne and the bing team are doing, please take that survey. It's just fifteen minutes of your time. As Anne mentioned, you learn a lot going through that process to do it. Thank you, Anne, for joining Amer and I for this edition of Lights, Camera, Communicate. It's been great having you here. And we promise we will get you in the studio so we can put you behind the drums. That's, right. can. intro that right. to us, which means I get to go back to Vegas, which. I will not be salty about. Thank you again, the team at Lucy Hub, for putting this on, hosting us. Everybody have a great week. We'll communicate when our next one is. We think it's probably gonna be in mid July with Rocky Walls. When we get that scheduled, we'll let everyone know. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everyone. Bye, everyone.