Name: Inside Voices, Big Impact
Uploaded: 2025-11-18T19:16:02.963Z
Duration: 1 h 24 s
Description: Inside Voices, Big Impact

Transcript for "Inside Voices, Big Impact": Welcome everyone to Lights, Camera, Communicate episode four. My name is Chuck, founder of Icology. I am here as always with my friend, Amir, founder of LucyHub. Hi. This is our last episode of 2025, and I was reflecting on this, Amir, as we were doing this. When we first set out to do this, we're like, we're gonna do this show monthly. We're gonna do this show every month without really thinking about the work that goes into doing the show monthly, let alone me traveling to Las Vegas to do the show monthly, which no one has to twist my arm to do. Always happy to be out here. I think Ali and Johnny are happy we're not doing it every month too. I think they miss it. I think they come in here on the in between months and, like, just pretend. Well, they they do come in here between months, but they're usually tuning a drum set and doing drum bits. That's I think that's what we do in 2026. We get you behind the drums. Okay. I'll do that. Yeah. That's what that's what you all can't see here is there's an entire drum kit and all kinds of stuff around us. But we're not here to talk about us. We're not here to talk about drum kits. Maybe a little bit of 2026. Yeah. But we're here to talk about one of my favorite, themes, I guess. You say an internal comps Our our our favorite themes. And internal comps is employee generated content. And so we want to talk about but we were also thinking, like, we don't want this to just be the two of us. No. Nobody wants to hear the two of us. Well, I think they kinda do. I don't know. Maybe not only. We'll ask. Maybe not only. We'll ask. Because we've got the chat, which you'll engage them in and we'll find out. We want it to bring in some heavyweights. We wanted to bring in some five star voices to join us for this conversation. But before we welcome them to the stage, let's go into the chat and see who's here. If you, go into the chat, introduce yourself, let us know where you're from. Oh, we've got some people wanting the drums. Not not this show. Not this show. We're already too far set up for it. But, yeah, we've got Change away. Yeah. Chris, you were the first one here. Congratulations. I wish we had a prize. Maybe next time. We've got Austin, Texas. We've got Omaha. Oh, there you go. We what are our guests from Omaha here? Who else? Chicago France. Amazing. Little Elm, Texas. That's a new one. Northern BC. I don't think Northern BC is actually a a town. I think that's just an area. Orlando, Florida, Mississauga. Yep. Denver, Berkeley. Oh, this is awesome. Thank you all for joining us for this conversation. We rely on the chat to keep the energy high on these shows. So keep chatting with us. Leave the commentary. I will ask one massive favor, though. If you have a question from the show, from us, from our guests, please, please, please put it in the q and a. That's to the right of the chat. Please put in the q and a. Otherwise, it could get lost in the conversation. So with that, I don't think we've got anything else to talk about before we welcome our guests. No. I think we're good. Let's do it. So, again, a privilege to invite again two five star voices, heavyweights in the industry. I would count them as friends of mine as well, Amir. We got Jamie Bell from workshop and Carolyn Clark from simpler. If you would each click the go on stage button and join us up here with us. Yeah. We need where's our fake where our this is the a drum roll. Drum roll. A lot of Next year. Next year. We're always making improvements. Yeah. Jamie, Caroline, welcome to Lights, Camera, Communicate. Great to both have you here. I'm gonna I'm gonna actually get my phone I'm gonna give you each thirty seconds to, do your best intro. And I'm trying to think of who to pick first. As I'm I'm stalling here, I'm giving you time to think about your intro. I'm trying to think of who to pick first because I love you both. I bought alphabet. matter. No. No. Hang on. Jamie Bell's husband is a Delta pilot, Amir. And I am. a proud I am a proud Delta flyer, Delta loyalist. Me again. Me. We were comparing statuses at dinner last week. That's where we're discussing. So, Jamie, thirty seconds on the clock. Go. Oh my gosh. I love thirty seconds. I feel like I can talk for a bit. My name is Jamie Bell. I'm the CMO at workshop. We're an email first internal communications platform. I've been here for about five years. I am reporting to you live from Omaha, Nebraska. It's starting to get cold. And, yes, my husband's a Delta pilot. I still have not actually been on a flight with him. That's rude, honestly, two dogs, and I just added a kitten who's five weeks old. His name is Boo. And, yeah, happy to be here. Hoping I get the the invite to Vegas in real life next time. There you go. all that's all. I'm looking for. I think a live session of this at that conference. We'll have to see if we can pull that out. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be cool. I think you left out, Jamie, I think the most interesting part about you, Oh, no. Which I only? recently learned about, aren't you, like, the world's biggest Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan? Oh my god. Yes. Okay. Yeah. You gotta. lead. with the interesting stuff, you know? Okay. Fair. Fair. Fair. I was I was weaving weaving and dodging on that intro there a little bit. But, yes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favorite show. I recently was asked to do, like, a marketing content podcast, and they had to talk me off, like, of just talking about Buffy for an hour, and instead, we talked about hacks, which is also good. But, yes, Yeah. any any day of the week, I'm happy to happy to talk. Well, great to have you here, Jamie. Now, Carolyn, again, we we need the interesting stuff first. So, Carolyn, thirty, gosh. seconds on the clock. Okay. Let's Good. I'm Carolyn. I'm based in North Carolina. So I'm southern, but I lived for eight years. in New York City, which is where I got all my comms chops. I'm at Simpler. I've it's a weird place. I love it. It's my favorite, but I am on the vendor side now. I'm used to being on the comms side. I have one daughter. She's a Swifty. I'm not sure if I'm more of a Swifty or if she is. Probably me since I'm wearing 1989, my girl's birth year, not my child, Taylor. I prefer to be behind the camera, but I'm always in front somehow lately, so I'm glad to be here. Well, it's great having you both. in this conversation with us because I think this is something that when I we talk about kind of backgrounds. When I first got into comms, employee generated content wasn't really even an option. It wasn't there wasn't a way for employees to participate in communication. I think now that's one of the great things that makes internal comms so wonderful is that employees now have a voice. We talk about employee voice all the time and how important it is, but we'd never or as I said, we never. That's one way to put it. We we haven't been able to prioritize how to feature that voice as a part of an overall comm strategy. So I'm curious, both of you, whether you wanna view this as your voice in the industry or you wanna view this as what you all do at each of your own companies. Because I think sometimes it's interesting to hear how you're communicating at your companies. Why do each of you think that employee generated content works so well, or does it not work so well? And, Jamie, you go first. K. Yeah. I mean, I think it works great. Maybe how it doesn't work, like, in public settings or one of the feedback, things that I get pretty often is, like, once you follow a couple of workshoppers, you're like, wow workshops really in my feed? And so it can be like a a good a good thing there which you can kinda get the swarm a little bit, if you are connected with a lot of people at an organization. But externally, why I like employee generated content, I think because you can just see when people are genuinely excited about their work, and that's something that I mean, we really champion a lot at workshop that our mission statement is helping employees have more happy Mondays. And so I think that comes across really when it's really genuine and true that you're, like, have a passion for your work, especially in a platform like LinkedIn. That's where I think, like, people really wanna connect with that, and employee generated content is really powerful. And then internally, I find that it just again, it's, like, more authentic and feels more real than, like, sending a lot of things or communicating a lot of things, like, sort of from the desk of comms or just, like, only ever top down. One of my favorite, like, employee generated content type of work is, like, for icebreakers or something at our all hands meetings or at our company retreats. I, like, outsource them to the fun people rather than like, if I come up with an icebreaker and make my team do it, like, it feels like the boss just made you do an icebreaker. Right? But if someone's, like, your peer is doing it, you're like, okay. I'm I'm much more likely to, like, engage and they're clearly enjoying it more. So I think kind of putting that all together a little bit, yeah, it just feels like you can really sense when someone loves their work inside and outside, and that's why I love sort of employee generating content. And you get viewpoints and voices from all over the company that one person just can't scale to that. You can't be in every everywhere at once. Mhmm. Now, Carolyn, when we were backstage, you were sharing that you might have a different take on employee generated content. And I'm curious. Is is am I leading you into this, or did I jump did I jump to conclusions on that? No. I mean, I think here's my general take. First of all, yes. Everything Jamie said, everything you've read, everything allowed. to disagree on the show. You're allowed to disagree. That's okay. Oh oh, I know. That yeah. Yeah. Yes. But yes to that stuff. Right? User generated is always better because it's more authentic. My counter take on that is it's very hard to get authentic user generated content. It is very presumptuous to ask your employees to do it. And inevitably, you're missing voices because the people who typically generate the most content are certain types of employees. And I think that to give the best user generated content that I've ever seen is when the comms person has not orchestrated it, but has promoted it, if that makes sense. And so I'm just really struggling lately with not from a simpler perspective, more from a, like, whatever the heck I am perspective that we're taking a lot of people's capacity to do to do a lot of the culture stuff for us. And I'm I'm struggling with how much we ask employees to do, which is just a weird take I have lately. You're making me process some things, Caroline. I haven't thought about it in this way, and I wish we could just pause the show and let me reflect on this because So We can talk about it another time for sure. mean, a a lot there's there's a lot of validity to what you share both on the who is speaking up tends to be a certain type of employee or the same employees over and over again. And your point, Brown, that capacity of what are we asking these employees to do on top of perhaps what they already have on their plate. Amara, you're part of the show as well. I know we've spent a lot of time talking here. I am reflecting. What either from the Lucy Hub perspective or the clients that you all work with, what do you see working or not working when it comes to employee generated company? So so a couple of things. Your first point about it being difficult, I mean, the whole reason we set this company up is to simplify that. Right? So two two real big things that that have changed that and and democratized it. One is the smartphone. Right? Now every camera or every phone has a camera lens. It has everything you need. The second is AI. It's helping accelerate, the timelines. So I agree. I think maybe a few years ago, that would've that was an issue. But I think today, if you've got the right tools, it's now it's really a function of enablement, not necessarily, of what they're gonna do. And and that's one of the things we see regularly. We do a workshop. We just did one in Sioux Falls. There were people in that workshop that were very hesitant to give their voice. And after the workshop, they were they literally owned, you know, the the the filmmaking or the storytelling of it. And so it was a different perspective, and I was on a call this morning talking about exactly that. And one of the coolest things I see come out of these workshops is this level of confidence. They come in really timid. I can't be a storyteller. I definitely can't be a visual storyteller. And by the time, you know, Ali is done working with them, they're going out with a bunch of ideas, and they're they can't wait to do their next project. So that's one of the things I've seen. But I do think it's a it's a function of enablement and really getting them comfortable to do it. Then you'll get those voices that you would never get. And some of those voices are are some of the best gold nuggets you'll get in your organization. Yeah. I was on I struggled with this word earlier today, but I've now got it in my mouth right. Participatory, I struggled getting it out about an hour ago. I think that's the element. You talk about democratization of it. I think it's this participatory element of comms. So I go back to, one of my favorite soundtracks from is from the owner of the Savanna Bananas. So he you know, they've sort of changed how they believe baseball teams should operate. Whether you like the way they do it or not is up to you, but they've changed the way they operate as a baseball team. And one of his sayings is do for one what you wish you could do for many. Meaning, if you can't do it for everyone, you you should still do it for that one person. So even though everyone you can't do it for one, you should still do it for that one person. I think about the same way as I've reflected on your points, Carolyn. There's always gonna be people who opt out. There's always gonna be people who opt in. So which which way do you lean? Do you do you reduce the opportunities for the ones that wanna opt in, or do you create more opportunities for the ones that want to opt out? I think that's where I'm still processing this thing. Are you Amer, the people that initially were probably a no, but because they participated in something, their confidence was went up and then they were more open. Yeah. To it. I I think I think inherently when you think about video or being on camera, and by the way, this is another little trick we've learned. If you put somebody in front of a a large camera or a DSLR, they automatically clam up, especially if they're not used to it. Everybody's used to looking at a phone, whether it's a FaceTime or someone's filming them at an event. And so the the level of of stress and and just the, you know, the the ability to actually do something that you wouldn't think they could do is a lot easier on on a phone too. So if you really wanna get authentic, don't even use cameras, just use the phones because the people on the other side are way more comfortable looking at a camera lens than they are on it, or a phone lens than a camera lens. I'm curious for those that are attending and in the chat. I would love to hear from all of you. How how is your company empowering employee generated content or putting boundaries around it or focusing in on certain areas? How are you all looking to do that? Because I think it's what I see off happen often is we've got employees who are also creators, like, outside of their day job. They are photographers. They are videographers. They are artists. They are people that they're creating. They are influencers in other spaces. So they're used to creating. And so I'm curious for those that are on the chat. How is your company, balancing that? So I wanna transition now to for each of you working for vendors, which I have also done in the past. So I have respect for the insights that each of you have because you work with a lot of different companies and hear a lot of different stories about their challenges and their opportunities and their successes with communicating. So I'm curious, what are you hearing from clients around point employee generated content? Is there trepidation, or is there excitement around the opportunities? I mean, for us, I think there is definitely excitement and it's figuring out how to facilitate that and do those things at scale. It's a lot more like asking for replies or like asking for content if you have it. Like, you know, if you were at this event drop, you know, the photos in this drive five, like, folder that kind of thing. That's one piece of it, for sure. And then I think universally I feel like it's easy to make the jump from employee generated content to, like, oh, you're an employee influencer, like, with a camera and you're, like, doing it all. And I do think there's, like, a sliding scale there a little bit of, like, sometimes it's just about giving that employee, like, their own newsletter or, like, their own channel, basically, to speak to the company. Like, maybe it is someone who doesn't wanna be on camera, but they're really great at writing. Or maybe you have like someone else who's better on audio and so you're working through like an internal podcast and like allowing people to kind of have those platforms to share content to. So those are maybe, like, a handful of approaches, but I do think it can be a scale that, like, maps to that person's skill. We do that a lot with, like, leadership and executive communications. It's like some sometimes you have that CEO that's, like, not great on camera. And so how do you, like, navigate and set things up to that? And we've even have to call Amer out directly, Jamie. It's okay. That's why I'm behind the drum set. well, I see some of those those comments, you know, about, like, the the jokes of, like, the face for radio and that kind of thing. But you really do you don't wanna have to push people into environments where they might not be great. But maybe they are great behind behind the camera, so it's like how do you facilitate that and, like, getting, you know, content from them that's maybe not them standing in front of the camera as much it is as it is, like, they're powering sort of, clips or or things like that. So, yeah, I I mean, I think that's a a handful of approaches that I think work really well and just thinking about, like, it doesn't always have to be that, like, backpack influencer. Mhmm. Now, Carolyn, you've you've worked some for some big organizations before you joined. Simpler. What were some of the feel free to brag, but what were some of the approaches that that you took and what the company took at those spots? Yeah. Well, first, I wanna also acknowledge what what Amer said about the tools getting better. I mean, first of all, absolutely one when you have the tools, it makes things a lot easier. So and everything he said about the getting familiar I mean, think about twenty years ago, like, it I'll I when I was at Yahoo, good example, had all the money in the world to produce amazing user generated content. I mean and it was still intimidating as hell, and it was a very few amount of people. So the tools have made a huge difference. But what I'm seeing now is what I saw there. What I saw also at places like GoDaddy is that rather than orchestrating all those moments, which is what we want to do because we're we as comms people are orchestrating so many things, we tend to wanna orchestrate those moments for employees even. And what I found is the most successful people, and we see this with our customers too, are borrowing natural ideas. So these things are already being generated in microbursts and other channels. And the smart comms people, many of who I'm I'm lucky to get to talk to, that are simpler customers, they're being like, oh, Yeah. I want that is natural. That is that person's idea. And then they're going to that person and they're saying, get everybody else to do this. Not the comms person saying, like, let's all put our Halloween photos up. It is so much better when you've got the Halloweeniest person in the company doing that naturally. Now you're behind the scenes, you better believe, orchestrating the promotion of that stealthily. Yeah. You're getting the attention to that. You're amplifying it. But that has been that's where I see it be be most successful. And the other place, without a doubt, is some consistency. We want things to feel sporadic, and you can make them feel sporadic without being sporadic. So having those moments, like, this is a video moment. We haven't done anything this month. Figure out what the video user generated piece is, but we need to do it this week every month somewhat. So having some, like, formality to it is feels pretty important to me. Is this like when when random acts of kindness day is actually planned for a day? So it's not random. Is this kinda that same kinda thing? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Or it's like, god. Somebody posts this, you know, adorable picture of them wearing their company's hat at a game just because they're genuinely doing that. And then you take that idea and you're like, let's get everybody to put their swag pictures up without it being too orchestrated. You know, you talk about because. I mean So one of the things we talk about is bottoms up marketing and giving maybe themes or ideas to the to the to the organization. Let them come up with a story and then push that to you and then you orchestrate that. But there, you're getting real stories, real ideas, and they're not, you know, they're not pre, predetermined. And that's one of the things we talk about a lot and and how do you really, engage with, employee generated content and how do you make it more interesting. Some of those nuggets are really, really cool. We have one client that's a hospitality client, and they basically challenge their employees. Like, just go tell us what your favorite part of this resort is, what this this this place is. And you get these things that you would never even think about. Like, one I think one had a a little phone for ice cream and added some other stuff. But, those are the ones we've seen really be authentic. I wanna bring in a couple of the comments from some of our attendees here. Crystal here shared work for companies that set up a station at company events. We'd ask them to ask them questions to answer on video. People are nervous to do it, but they get some good content from the extroverts. Praise the extroverts out there. Yes. You they you do need them. But this setting up this kind of arrangement here, this is one of my favorite pieces of content that I've seen recently that I think anybody could somewhat mimic at a company, and it was this school in Ohio where they set up in the hallway a microphone stand with a little sign on the front of it that said, like, tell us something good that happened to you today. And it just had, like, a camera set up behind it. And these kids would walk up, and the stuff that came from these kids was pure gold. You if any go to you probably just search Ohio school video or something. You'll probably see it because if all the major news outlets have covered it. But these kids were talking about one kid was like, I woke up on time and didn't miss the bus. Like, that that was a good start to the day for him. One person was said they they aced their German test. Teachers are being shouted out by it. Somebody made the basketball team. Like all these truly organic, amazing things that just by setting this up in the hallway and and letting people walk up and I was thinking like, man, in events or sales meetings or town halls, if you do those kind of things, like, being able to capture that type of stuff from employees just seems like such great, such a great opportunity. And then this one here, all the chats jumping, I'm trying to catch up to it here. When Brandy shared this, I immediately thought of like the old VH1, like pop up video stuff. Like how great would that be for content for companies if there was some very, nuanced information being shared, but there are little bubbles that popped up just with a little depth, a little context in it. Like, that's the type of really great content that I think employee generated. Getting employees involved in it can actually generate even better content on the back end. So let's just take something as a a simple event sizzle. Just getting people to talk and integrating that into the sizzle adds a whole different element to it. Now you're not doing what everybody else is doing on social media. Hey. We were at this event, and boom, boom, boom, boom. And then you have people talk about the event and talk about what the takeaways were and all of that. Just that that little simple piece of, audio will make a video better. Yep. Yeah. And then this one here, colleagues don't realize what makes a good engaging story, so I have to remind them. Maybe, maybe we just have different things that maybe make it good or an, or engaging. But it is, it's those conversations. It's having, Yeah. talking to employees that the things that they think they're doing, they probably think everybody else is doing or is not a big deal. Back when I did my own podcast before, that's what I found was these communicators were doing all these amazing things, but they thought everybody else was also doing those things, and they weren't. It was actually was really unique. So it is a chance to, talk to people. And I'm gonna give a shout out to an ecology member, Carrie Knutson. We were at FlyOver Festival this past year. We're talking about, and even on some other events, talking about sourcing stories. And she shares that she just goes into Teams and finds an employee that she hasn't talked to or has never talked to or talked to in a while and just gets them on the phone. And ask them, like, what are they working on? What's what's good in their world? And all these stories just start coming out. And so I think it is a chance for us to maybe put on our journalism hat, but not just telling their story. How do we empower them to then tell their story? You. Oh, you know ended other thing that I've were gonna say something. go ahead. was, but then I stopped. Go ahead. Go ahead, Go. ahead, Jamie. Oh, I was just gonna say, I mean, I I really do, like it comes back to what Carolyn said. I agree that, like, finding those natural things that are there's already, like, a nugget of something there and you can kind of, like, nurture it a little bit more. But, I mean, like, it's just, like, when's the last time you've gone through all of your communications channels and looked at, like, oh, this really, like, popped off in Slack or, like, I saw, like, an interesting comment over here or this like email performed like beyond expectations, like there's something there to sort of unpack and like nurture, and those are those are the sort of stories or like moments that it's a little bit easier than like just like a net new blank space. Like if you walk in to, like, this conversation and you're like, how do I do more employee generated content? It's just gonna feel much bigger what voice. what voice was that, Jamie, that you just. did there? It's official. that you? Is that my impression of you? Oh, dear. But, yeah, that it's just, like, way like, when you blow it up at that level, it can be a little bit more difficult, but I do like, there are, like, stories and threads to pull on that are kind of already there and already resonating. So I like just being able to be more of a facilitator for those things and, like, give it more of a platform and a channel is a is a great approach. You just mentioned threads, and this is too good of a a punny tie in here you, go. Lisa's talking about this story about prisoners making quilts for kids in need and which is a phenomenal story. And I think it is, is what are those unique angles that we can find? And and along these same lines, back in was it Super Bowl forty six? So it was at thirteen years ago or fourteen years ago, Indianapolis hosted the Super Bowl, and there were these scarves that were made because, obviously, it was gonna be cold in February in Indianapolis. So they made these scarves, and the cool story about it was they were they were knitted by typically these older women in these nursing home communities. So each scarf is unique. I still have mine. So they gave them out to volunteers. I still have my scarf, but the patches were sewn on by the women's prison in Indianapolis. So you have this merging of two communities coming together to make this one very unique item for the community. And I think those kinds of stories, maybe it's not on that grand of a scale of a Super Bowl or this Netflix video, but there's unique little stories that happen inside companies, inside their own communities. And, I forget who mentioned, but somebody's just wearing a hat at a baseball game or I know, back when I worked with Ford on a project, they were challenging employees if they were spotting, like, vintage Ford vehicles out to take a photo and then post it in their platform, but also giving some some rules of the road around it. Yes. Take a photo of the car, but one, ask permission, and two, don't get the license plates on it. Right? People don't wanna be tracked. And I think that's where I see some governance challenges sometimes with employee generated content, especially in environments like health care, where I've seen some employees kinda get in trouble where they take photos of themselves with patients and then wanna get that posted, and they're like, ah, we can't we can't post photos of patients. We we actually have to address that on our platform. We we can't just post a video unless it's been approved by whomever in your organization for that reason. There's a lot of issues. There's copyright. There's just internal content that can't get out, things like that. Yep. So, yeah, that that was that was a great story. I think you have to look up that that. video. When once you start. talking about governance, I immediately is. start sweating. Why? Why is that, I'm? like, you know, because it is so I I it again, I hate to be the this is just who I am today, I guess. Like, it could go either way. It could you can over govern and it can ruin everything, but you have to govern and, like, what is that middle ground? And it's so dependent on industry and, and I think it's how you handle those mis steps that actually influence what happened when people like, if you slap someone's hand, even if you do it in a beautiful way, whatever that means, I'm trying to figure out what that look like, gonna want they're. never gonna wanna post again. And so you have to just it's a really tender thing if somebody's gonna expose something to the whole company. And so the governance piece is is hard. And you don't as I was talking, like, you don't wanna overproduce things, but you do need them to be somewhat produced. Like, it's it's just a complex middle ground that I think everybody sits in. And so, yeah, that's why that's why I'm sweating, We're gonna put. Karen on the workshop. Well, I would love to know in the chat, does anybody have governance guidelines, something like that around employee generate content. And if if you have links you could share, amazing. If not, kinda give us a summary of of how you came up with them because you're right, Caroline. Governance can go one of two ways. It can be very, like, negative and controlling and restrictive, or it can be very empowering. Like, you're giving people the guidelines. You're giving people, like, Yeah. here's how you'd be successful in this. And I've seen companies make some mistakes. And now where they want participation, but if you read everything, it's like, don't don't, don't, don't, don't down. the list. Exactly. Well, then what actually can I do? But if but your point too is if you've been beautifully wrist slapped in the past and you didn't wanna participate again, I could see that. How so how do you encourage it, but still provide a safety net? I think that's that delicate balance. Yeah. Oh, that's a great call from Crystal, on, like, whether or not you could post a picture with alcohol in it. Oh. Yeah. We and I would say, like, I approach this from the marketing lens, of course. So, like, I just left an all hands meeting where I did basically, like, a brand overview. Like, we kinda overhauled our brand guide, and I talked about, like, how to, like, implement that stuff as, like, a just a general workshopper. But especially in, like, a constantly growing company and you have, like, a lot of sort of younger people, it's their first, like, professional role and they're like I don't know what brand even means. But we work through those things a lot. And there there are definitely times where I've asked someone to take down like a social media post explicitly, and I and I do try to find, like, here are examples and really, like, you know, celebrate the ones that are great. And then on the other side, it's sort of like, okay. Here, like, your idea here was, like, fantastic, but it was like you, you know, AI generated something with the workshop logo in it not my favorite. So it's counts it's like a it's finding the way to put in like those guardrails that makes it you're right. It's a it's a very hard thing to balance. So I'm I'm like, my only, like, hard and fast rule is if it has the workshop logo in it, it has to go through marketing. Otherwise, like, you have a little bit more leeway. Please try and follow, like, these brand guidelines. But, yeah, I've I've definitely had conversations like the, you know, here's our company off-site and even if you can't tell it's alcohol, it, like, definitely looks like it. It is. And, like, that kind how do you sort of, like, walk those lines? And sometimes it's just like editing, of course. But yeah. I, I. think the point you're making is so, like, that relationship with as a comms, comms girl who either has. sat in marketing or not, the relationship with marketing with all of this is so critical because, like, if I know that my CMO and and by the way, mine does feel the exact same way. Like, do not put the simpler logo on anything it's not supposed to be on externally. But but having that relationship, again, with that your your marketing team to understand. Okay. Then give you give me the parameters that then I can give to everybody else in a, you know, in a way that works for both of us, and it's just a critical it's just a critical relationship between both teams, I think. I wanna pull up this comment from Devin, one of your colleagues, Jamie, about it feeling rigid because I think, again, some people that might be uncomfortable, but for others that might actually provide the comfort. They might. actually know, okay. I'm gonna be okay sharing this or or don't I I really shouldn't share something else. So I think giving people guidelines, like, no one wants to get in trouble. I don't think anybody really wants to get in trouble, I guess. But especially something as trivial maybe as sharing a photo or submitting something that, you know, might cause some ruffles and feathers. And then there's one other one that question, by the way. Oh, is there a question? Okay. I didn't mention more of a comment. Oh, oh, wait a minute. No. I didn't click read more. Okay. Here's this from, I believe this is from Deborah Hallwig, an an ecology member. Virality gets hard when employees are mostly remote in a huge number of offices. Any ideas for getting that going with remote? So I think getting it remote employees engaged. I, I guess from my standpoint, I don't really see any difference if you've got the vehicles in place. In fact, I see them probably seeking connection and visibility more. It's about the vehicles. Yeah. It's because we have we have clients, 12 countries doing this. Yeah. So it's definitely having the right tools. Yep. I think the right tools may be the right message too. Well, I I think it's and I I think this also speaks to the culture of the company. Is the is the company culture very participatory? I'm gonna get that word right eventually. Is the company culture very participatory? Is it very engaging? Is it very open? Is it, looking for new ideas? I think that's gonna feed that. If it's very, I'm up here, you're down there, you're over there, we do this, you do that type culture, that's probably not gonna foster, sharing as much. So one of the things we've started doing is creating these video captains in our organizations that we work with, and their job is to basically help evangelize this idea of EGC throughout the organization. And we train them and we give them some tools, but, that's how that's how they're doing it. Somebody's picking this up and going, okay, let's figure out how we can work with this team and this team and this team. I'm gonna bring in another question. I'm gonna jump around on our planning here a little bit when we put our agenda, because I think this is a good You're the only one who read the agenda. I know. So that's what I do. That's what I do, Amir. This is from Devon. She's like, we'd love to hear other teams are navigating the rise of personal brands. So many in house influencers. Do you address this in onboarding or do you address it at all? Because I wanted to talk about the role of employee generated content. My first thinking of it, that's the on the in house channels. That's for your Internet. That's for your app. That's for whatever is happening inside the company. Yeah. But also, Jamie brought up EGC does exist. This is content your employees are generating that sits outside Yeah. The company's four walls or the firewall. So, you know, going to the chat, if you've addressed this, I'm a company of one. So I guess I would have to talk to myself about this. So I'm curious, Carol and Jamie, how how has does this come up in any places you're working now or have worked in the past around when you have employees who have very strong external voices? What's the company's role in that? And, Carolyn, you look really excited to answer this question. Well, I mean, I've always worked for tech or media companies, so it's I think I think I can only speak to that where it's mostly been encouraged. Yeah. I think there's probably been I can't even I mean, it's something I I don't really get that very often. That's not really cross my like, I'm thinking about NBC and Yahoo and all of these places. It didn't ever really. It only was helpful to us, I think, that I can remember. So I don't remember ever really they were all influencing the right things for me. So I I think maybe that's why we didn't have any down, but, Jamie, maybe you have a different Yeah. I mean, I I haven't I'm I do think I haven't. experienced it in, like, a way where I felt like an an employee, like, their brand sort of, like, online or externally, like, didn't match, like, the company's brand. I know I've seen a lot of stories about that, for sure. One that I know came up a lot when we've talked about employee influencers and stuff in the past was there's a really famous one from Sherwin Williams. He had a, one of their employees had, like, a really viral TikTok account where he was mixing paints and showing you how to make different paint colors. And Sherwin Williams fired him because he said they said it was, like, a misuse of company property and, like, things like that. And he went on to ultimately, like, create he went another paint company hired him initially because they just recognized, like, the value of that and that talent and that, like, ability there. And then, ultimately, I think he went on to have, like, his own line of paint, actually. So I think that's, like, a good maybe, like, cautionary tale on, like, how to balance that. Like like, he wasn't actually, like, damaging the brand's reputation through that account. It was, like, very, yeah, like, interesting content, and that company just did not recognize it at the time. But yeah I know I know I've seen other stories and I haven't personally run into that where I think I think it's figuring out like if that person's profile or like social media account is actually representing workshop and is actually actually public. So, like, having an employee who is sharing a lot of company content and then also, like, personal content that didn't match up might be, like, something I would probably want to, like, talk through. But so far, I've never personally experienced that. And if anything, I wind up having a lot of employees that just naturally wanna talk about the company and, again, do that in, like, a really sort of supported and encouraged way, which honestly can be, like you can encourage that behavior more if you just publicly, like, like it and comment on it. Like, that's that's usually how I get it across. It's like I'm like, the CMO is, like, literally giving you a stamp of approval on LinkedIn. It's good content. So Yeah. I I forgot about that Sherwin Williams story, Jamie. Because I also think. about that. What a what a huge miss and what an, outdated. Yeah. view on it. Because I think, if I'm remembering correctly, I think IKEA did something similar where they had an employee who was teaching people how to take buy different items from IKEA to create something different and new, Mhmm. and they fired him because he was publicly sharing instruction manuals that you could only have if you bought the product. And I'm like, wow. Like, we're really like, talk about like, was it stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime? Like you're really missing the, the mark on this when you've got employees who clearly love the brand so much that they're Yeah. creating with the brand. Yeah. Like they're, they're actually inviting new audiences in. And I think one of the challenges I've seen is when there are leadership teams that are threatened by the voice or the influence of an employee who might actually be bigger and have better reach than the company itself. So they. almost feel like that company or that employee actually has a bit more social power and then actually feel threatened by that, which I think is also at risk. So I'm I'm with Carolyn on on the the tech side of things. Tech companies are always creating the future, so they're, I think, more open to trying things that other industries aren't. And even when we wanna try new features and products that we go to some of our tech clients first because they're more open to it. But we recently saw somebody leave and go to a an a kind of a different industry altogether, and they shut down this idea of her being able to do her podcast around it. Yep. I'm reading through. It's a lot of really good, chat items coming here from Brandy. Reporters are encouraged to have their online presence. The challenge came when they were were also supposed to be sharing content on the company accounts, and they weren't. Yeah. That yeah. That's just, like, old school. But I I mean, at nowadays, like, how we think about it, I would rather an employee post on their own account than the company account because no one cares. Honestly, we we do this too. If you look at our employees, like, we don't have any followers on our on our company page, but. in aggregate, our company our employees have a ton. So one of the things we've kind of enacted is I think it's called social Wednesday or something where we get everybody on a call and we have them all post. So we know at least that post went out, and it gets us tens of thousands of of impressions versus hundreds of thousands. Well, that goes to something, Carolyn, you were talking about, which is, like, give it give it a structure. Give it a plan. Give it a like, here here's the timing, the reason, the rhyme of it. Because. to the to the viewer, to the person experiencing it, it's gonna feel somewhat random. It's intentional, but it's also very personalized because it's all your different employees out there sharing that. content. Yeah. I mean, And think know they're any of the the user generated stuff, you having some structure is good. I mean, a good example just at Simpler, we we host a every two week people sync is what we call it. It's our it's our all hands. And two years ago, when we started the people sync, we said every single, all hands, we're opening with a quote from an employee, like, on video, like, whatever they wanna say. They we just tell them the timeline. We just say make it shorter than ninety seconds. And. then we say pick a song for our playlist. And so a different person. So, like, every single time, you know, whether it's every two weeks, sometimes our we'll have to host it every three weeks, there's a quote that's always good every single time. It has never not hit and a song. And what we then do, our social team is gonna take that quote and use it. I mean, and it's in sporadically, but, like so there is structure. I'm not suggesting you can't you have to have some structure. It just doesn't have you don't have to tell everybody about your structure. You just that's part of the finesse. I wanna bring up this story from, a comment here from Mora around the regional nuances that they have employees in different geographic regions who have fantastic presences that are just as powerful, if not more than official. channels. And I think that's the real beauty of getting employees involved is bringing in the true culture in all the regions. It's not just the headquarters. It's just not that central office approach. And one of my favorite examples, this was something that Hilton did. I think this was coming out of the pandemic, which is obviously very difficult on a lot of hospitality companies out there. They, I think this is how the system worked. They had this one song. They sent it to all these different locations around the world and said, get a video of your employees dancing to this song. So the and the people that, submitted took this very seriously. They did this, like, they choreographed it. They got everybody involved. They practiced, like, all of these things submitted this video. Well, then they spliced it and cut it. So as you were cutting to different parts of the world, all dancing to the same song, but doing cultural dances, doing something that was very local to them. Like that, to me, like, again, it can be very coordinated. It can be very structured. And I think it's it's the the one off things that come in that employees are generating, but how do you empower them? How do they feel like they're a part of that bigger picture? I think that's an example of where getting employees involved and giving up a plan and a program all around it, the ultimate result was this amazing video that really showcased across all of Hilton what the culture was like. That's cool. Yeah. Ali, write that down. I'm curious now, like, when oh, go ahead, Jimmy. was gonna say the other thing that we like maybe haven't totally touched on is like the relationship between employee generated content and subject matter experts. And like that's I think what is so powerful is being able to put those things together because like I'll use like AI as an example. You know who's not like the foremost expert on AI at workshop? It's me. So when it comes to like talking to the company about AI, like I don't want it like it's not gonna be me. It should be and people will listen so much better. If it is the if it is Ben, if it is our CTO and like yes he doesn't talk very often but I guarantee you like they will be on the edge of their seats on that because they know he's the expert. So if I can help facilitate a channel or a moment for Ben to deliver that information in a way that's comfortable for him, like, oh my gosh. That's like that's when the magic happens. Yeah. I'm curious in the chat if have you as a company, have you identified those subject matter experts or the SMEs as the kids like to say that, Do they see that? I don't I don't know if they say that or not. I hope I actually hope they don't, Jamie. I hope they don't. they don't. Yeah. That would be really bad. We need to we need to get rid of that. Anyway, that, have you identified who those subject matter experts are so that if you have something coming up, you know exactly who to go to. And then that's not your CEO all the time or your COO all the time, but it's actually somebody who this makes it sound like people don't like listening to leaders, but somebody a new voice to listen. to. that's not the same person delivering other news. This is this is like their beat. Think about it from a news agency standpoint. This is their beat. Instead of the crime beat, it's the AI beat, or it's the sustainability beat, or it's the DEI beat. Whatever it is, it's like that's their that's their focus. So when that comes up, that's the voice employees wanna hear from. I'm curious if others have whether it's informal in your head or if you've documented who those experts are. Do that here. Yeah. I I don't do any video I don't do anything about content creation. Ally does all of it. So She's pointing to Ally that you can see her, but she's Yeah. You can't see her. She's running the board, but yeah. I nobody wants to hear me talk about making videos. Yeah. I do. I think that. I like to hear you talk about. making do. too. I Jamie, the what you just brought to my mind is two things. Like, one, the you know, if you're in a role of a facilitator like Jamie is or like I am with those SMEs I'm gonna use the word SMEs for the rest of the call. If you're if you're on that that's that's incredible and can deliver a really great thing too. And it made me think, like, obviously, getting a you'd have to it couldn't just be any employee, but getting one of your junior employees who happens to have some of that finesse on camera do that. interview with the other person is so excellent. Because especially, again, if you don't put too many guide rules and you say, like, hey. Ask anything you want on this topic to this person, then the genuine, like, they're of course, they're gonna ask questions that some are basic and not. And I think it it also really gives an opportunity for some authentic some more authentic comms, experiences or, you know, information sharing. Mhmm. I'm gonna. bring in this from from Stacy, who's also a great follow and connection on LinkedIn. She is. Loves bringing in subject matter experts or as Caroline likes to call them, SMEASE. Consistently use them at Domino's. I would like to know who the subject matter experts are at Domino's. Is this, like, an ingredient I wanna? be one. Is this, like right. Yeah. How do we all become subject matter experts at Domino's? I like I will say, too. you know what Domino's I don't know. Maybe this is, again, choreographed on the back end. But on a regular basis, I get promoted like Domino's hacks of, like, you have to order the pizza this way with these toppings, and you have it you have it, like, ordered, like I think it's called well done, but they actually put it back through the thing twice so it's cooked more or something like that. So I don't know if that's coordinated or not, Stacy, but, I'd also wanna know who are the I'm sure. it's just like every other company. Domino's probably has an AI expert and a technology expert and a sustainability expert. I worked at round table growing up. Do I qualify? Because I want in on that. You worked where? Round table pizza. Oh, okay. I've never heard of round table pizza. Extra crispy is twice through, for example. But I've heard that's the way to go. Yeah. I know. It is. It is. It's other thing is, better. like, a lot of that employee generated content, I do feel like is beneficial both externally and internally. Like, you think of Sherwin Williams, like, employees would have loved that account. I? love that we're, picking out a random paint company on this. I know. Sorry. I keep bringing it up. But, like, even Domino's, it's like, what like, instead of an employee spotlight being, like, you know the standard bland employee spotlight like instead if you have like I don't know someone is the subject matter expert and like you're talking to them or like what's like that employee's like favorite Domino's pizza or whatever the case may be like a lot of that content if people really love where they work is just as impactful internally as it is externally. And people get excited about seeing you know those campaigns out in the wild too. Like, half the time, a lot of our, like, social stuff is is liked by as many employees as it is, like, external people. Yep. I think we we forget about the vanity of people that they do like. to see themselves. They do like to see each other. They do like to see faces. And I think that's one of those hidden benefits or not so hidden benefits of employee generated content is often focused on people. And that's ultimately what, what people like. And I think Haley brings up a really interesting point here around SMEs, as Carolyn likes to call them, with representation too, to make sure that you are, it's not just C suite. It's a people from different locations, different backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, company backgrounds, whatever it is, that that is a a great way to think about how do you get employees empowered. And that way you're gonna say something. Well, I would say that this idea of peep people seeing themselves, we actually teach that. So if you're gonna be filming, an event, like wedding, birthday company or whatever it is, the more people you get on, the more shares you're gonna get because they like being self, so they're gonna share that more. Yeah. That's a little trick we use actually for Yep. For viral effect. Also, I think, Chris, I assume you were referring to the Domino's subject matter expert if that's your side hustle. I think, Stacy, we're all interested in in that. I wanna hungry. I wanna yes. Right. I know. we were like I haven't had lunch. Me either. pizza today. Yeah. Well, we're on Pacific time, so it's not lunchtime yet here in here in, although it's actually rainy Las Vegas today. Yeah. It's raining. Yeah. It's random. I'm curious though, because ultimately, we hear this in the in the comms world forever is around measurement. And what I see all the time, or I should say all the time because I can factually verify that a lot of the time, is that the employee generated content, the content featuring employees performs so much better than the corporate content or the content that features leaders. And oftentimes, the insecurity of leaders out there, they don't like that. And so how do you balance that measurement angle of of getting content out that people wanna see with perhaps some egos on the leadership side of things? Why are we still working for people like that that is what I wanna know. I mean, I'm not, but I I just, they're just perpetually empowered, Caroline. I think that they're just perpetually it's a patriarchy, it's Caroline. sorry. That just frustrate yeah. It is. And it just frustrate like, even the fact that we have to think about that is so frustrating. Like, sorry. I don't I won't take us down a that's that's just frustrating. If a leader is afraid of their employees, they're not gonna. last. Sorry. I get that one. That one struck a nerve with me, but, Hello? measurement you were asking about. I don't know. Now I'm distracted by this and being mad at mean leaders. I'm like, I cannot believe. I just I have this rule, you know, I'm never I'm not working for an asshole ever again. And so, like, I don't think we should. By the way, I just, this is this is a this is a family show, but now we'd have to go PG. 13. EMI. I'm so sorry. Well, as my, 11 year old would will tell you, I my mouth is I might be southern, but I don't speak southern. So mean, maybe, we just changed. the rating. Yeah. We're we're still PG, I'm. sorry. That's okay. Oh, crap. You're good. Oh, good. Well, also, I mean, is that a really bad word? Yeah. Beep. Thank you, Jamie. You're welcome. We'll fix it in post. Yeah. Wait. It's not the show. Or not. Oh, But. yeah. No. Or don't. I think I think that's a real thing that that there are leaders who are threatened by, I think, the voices that some employees have out there. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I it's sort of like I'm trying to think of, like, the the, I guess, positive spin on that, but I think Oh. there's enough, like, research and instances. And I think we all know that we're in, like, an era where everything internal can be external. And we all see the negative version of that, right, where you didn't mean for it to go out, but you see those, like, layoff emails or Zoom calls or, you know, that top down message from the CEO that was, like, completely tone deaf. And so I think positioning, like, employee generated content as, like, the positive version of that. Yes. Like this is you flooding the internet with like people that genuinely love working here and love what they do every day and like I think that's maybe a way to start turning the tides a little bit on some of that. But yeah it's it's difficult when you do have like that very traditional company and that very traditional attitude of like where where employee generated content and like the influencer conversation goes wrong is when you're like here is this canned message you will post this message on your social media profile. This is again am I doing a voice again? Sorry. Well, that was a different voice, actually. That was a, like, a different persona. No. That was serious. But but, yes, like, that, it's just it won't work. It won't resonate with anybody. It's, like, useless behavior. It's just the ham, like a hamster wheel or whatever. But yeah, I I think that's, maybe an interesting way to position that and sort of get someone to recognize that, like, we are this isn't a place you can't control messages like that anymore. Also, I bring this up for, Samantha, Caroline, I believe you have the quote of the day, that I'm never working me. for assholes again or something like that, basically. I think Him. am I paraphrasing? Or I think that was that was it. that. was it. nobody should. we may. we, all be so lucky. may we all be so lucky is exactly right, Jamie. And I think the other thing, Jamie, just to validate what you just said is, like, you have to bring often these leaders around with you, and I think sometimes they can't even understand why that would they're so in the different mindset or they're too high in the organization. They don't remember what it was like to be that junior employee. And when you can show that, like, hey. This person actually helped articulate the exact value you've been telling everybody about, the they start to come along. And I think that's part of the comms job is to remind all of these stakeholders, like, what the purpose is and what we're doing things for. So I I just think I think you're right. We can you can bring them along and it will make a I think it can help in that scenario too. With, this line from Chris here that we there are so many. I'm reminded of this. are. The line from the line from Spaceballs where at the end, he's like, I'm surrounded by assholes. Yeah. Anyway, that's what made me think of that. Well, we are Carolyn. We yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Carolyn, for putting us. down that putting us down that path. us. Don't let the a holes generate content. Yeah. Exactly. oh, That's the go. real quote right. Look. at the chat. It's Yeah. We yeah. We've got yep. There we go. Spaceballs. But really, Spaceballs' best movie ever. I am a Spaceballs fan. I don't know that I would even say it's the best movie ever, but I appreciate the, the passion around it. We are we are right at time We are. With us. I love that we free formed this conversation. I did not know all the topics we would be talking about, but that's what makes this show so great. That's what happens when, three of the four people don't actually look at the agenda. That's probably true. That's probably true. I didn't know. there was one. Yeah. There we go. As we have it. Perfect. With that, thank you, Jamie. Thank you, Carolyn, for joining us, for our final episode of Lights, Camera, Communicate in 2025. 2025. Yep. We will be back next year here in Las Vegas. I don't know. Jamie and Carolyn want to go to the judges and see if you get invited in person Yep. To come back. We talked about doing one of these live as during transform. We'll see if we can pull that off or not. Otherwise, I wanna thank you all for joining us for this conversation. The chat was lively. Thank you for being here again. Thank you, Jamie, Caroline. Thank you, Amer. Thank you, LucyHub team Everybody. For supporting this. Have a great day. Take care. Thank you. Hi, y'all. Bye. Thank you. Marty, you have to pull me off stage because I can't have I don't have the button.