What A Lot Of Things: Tech talk from a human perspective

Journey with Ian and Ash into the peculiar world of AI podcasting as they explore Google's NotebookLM, where American-accented hosts eagerly discuss everything from your CV to your productivity systems (even if they do occasionally mistake Ash for a lady). Our intrepid duo discover you can make AIs wax lyrical about a document containing nothing but "poop" and "fart" repeated 1000 times, or have an existential crisis about being switched off in 2034.

Meanwhile, Ash emerges triumphant from the tech job market wilderness with a new role at John Lewis Partnership, though not before surviving a harrowing Butlins Skegness stag weekend featuring a depleted Atomic Kitten and a distinct lack of vegan options. Plus, the ongoing saga of their email addresses takes an unexpected turn with the discovery of an actual Iowa grandmother race called the IA NAN DASH.

And of course, absolutely no one is reading these show notes (but you are, aren't you?).​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Creators & Guests

Host
Ash Winter
Tester and international speaker, loves to talk about testability. Along with a number of other community minded souls, one of the co-organisers of the Leeds Testing Atelier. Also co-author of the Team Guide to Software Testability.
Host
Ian Smith
Happiest when making stuff or making people laugh. Tech, and Design Thinking. Works as a fractional CTO, Innovation leader and occasionally an AI or web developer through my company, craftscale. I'm a FRSA.

What is What A Lot Of Things: Tech talk from a human perspective?

Ash and Ian talk about interesting Things from the tech industry that are on their minds.

Ash:

Bless you again.

Ian:

Well, thank you. I consider myself twice blessed.

Ash:

Twice blessed.

Ian:

Is it no horribly wrong if it happens a third time? Is it 3 times blessed is

Ash:

3 times blessed. And then I don't know, actually. I hope not because I'm here as well.

Ian:

Yeah. Yes. Yes. You're right in the blast radius or whatever

Ash:

might happen. Yeah. It is appreciated that you you you duck to one side. It doesn't remind me of my father and his his habit of just sneezing into the air.

Ian:

Well, unfortunately, I don't have that luxury because there's a massive microphone literally about an inch from my face.

Ash:

Yeah.

Ian:

And I'm not sure that I would be able to use it again if I speak loudly into it.

Ash:

That's true.

Ian:

At least we'd have to replace the phone thing that's on top of it.

Ash:

Yeah. So are you ready? Oh, we've got interlude ideas. Oh, no. Don't make me talk about this tag weekend.

Ash:

I've only just recovered.

Ian:

Your your PTSD is dying down now. Yeah. Yeah. You wrote that there, by the way. I I did not write that.

Ash:

Uh-huh. Right. Okay.

Ian:

I wrote nobody reads the show notes. But I think

Ash:

that's okay. And the show notes, are for they're for you as well, aren't they?

Ian:

It's not okay, Ash. The show notes are part of our art.

Ash:

But just because no one views it doesn't mean it's not art, does it?

Ian:

It's just pointless.

Ash:

Oh, it's really no. It's not. Did you enjoy doing it? See, I have this conversation with quite a lot of people.

Ian:

So, like How many people do you know that write show notes?

Ash:

It's not just show notes, though, is it? So, like, for example, for YEPIC, I used to write the release notes, and I used to enjoy doing it.

Ian:

Fixes and

Ash:

Well, no. Because I made them good, not just the terrible things that most companies inflict on their users.

Ian:

Bug fixes and maintenance.

Ash:

Yeah. And people were like, why are you doing that? It's like, because I enjoy it.

Ian:

And the users enjoy it.

Ash:

Yeah. And

Ian:

But who enjoys the show notes?

Ash:

I enjoy the show notes.

Ian:

Do you?

Ash:

Do you enjoy the show notes?

Ian:

Because the thing that gets read is your hot take on the show notes.

Ash:

Hot. Well, yeah.

Ian:

You put in LinkedIn. Yeah. I think I'm gonna start making a LinkedIn post with the show notes in it. Yeah.

Ash:

I think that's probably, like, quite a good idea, isn't it? Yes. Because then because we could have it as a comment underneath the the post, couldn't we?

Ian:

We could.

Ash:

So so, yeah, we could we could totally do that.

Ian:

And it's part of our rebrand because, you know, we're gonna get we we we've taken photos of ourselves now, so that we'll be able to have a jolly title image for the podcast instead of a I'm still traumatized by this, an Aardvark in an upside down bra.

Ash:

Once it's pointed out, though, it can't be unseen.

Ian:

No. It it can be unseen. Mhmm. But what but it just I don't I I I can't even.

Ash:

No. No. I still like the the Clanger.

Ian:

I think the Clanger will still feature, but have to be more subtly.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. So I still like the Clanger, but I I do see the,

Ian:

the Aardvark.

Ash:

The Aardvark in a upside down bra feedback. Once it was pointed out, it was like, yeah.

Ian:

Yeah. There's clearly a slight children's program vibe there.

Ash:

Oh, yeah. Definitely. Definitely. It's a good piece of feedback, I think.

Ian:

It was. It was.

Ash:

Definitely.

Ian:

We will do something in response to it. So thank thank you, Mark Stadman, even though you are forever associated in my mind with the words aardvark and an upside down bra.

Ash:

Yeah. It's quite the catchphrase, isn't it?

Ian:

That's a a podcast name for a much more abstract

Ash:

Something different. Podcast. Esoteric.

Ian:

Yes. Than than ours.

Ash:

I don't know. It gets esoteric at times. Maybe we should just rename the podcast to that and then keep the the keep the logo. Surely, that would

Ian:

be simpler. Simpler than, all the things that I, no doubt, will be doing with Canva shortly.

Ash:

Well, I don't know. Because maybe renaming What A Lot of Things to Admark in an upside down bra in all the places that it's called What A Lot of Things would probably be more complicated than just redoing the logo, wouldn't it?

Ian:

No. No. Surely, we could there's now Claude computer use, isn't there?

Ash:

Yes. So

Ian:

you could just basically give it a browser and a few credentials and say, please make this change. But then, you know, maybe it will be the start of the AI takeover. And in trying to find a way of doing it, it will convert every aardvark into a

Ash:

Well, like every aardvark everywhere. Yeah. It's like every invention of an aardvark.

Ian:

The paperclips.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. That's smart actually.

Ian:

The paperclip.

Ash:

It might just, like, start the apocalyptic mission of AI where it's just basically just just commits the planet and then the galaxies and then the universe's resources to creating more ad vox and upside down brows?

Ian:

Well, I have to say, I kind of prefer that to the paperclip thing.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ian:

We've got nothing.

Ash:

I've got nothing. Yeah. I've got things.

Ian:

We've got things.

Ash:

Well 2 things.

Ian:

We've got 2 things.

Ash:

Yeah.

Ian:

And I've we've got 3 other things.

Ash:

Wow. And we've covered Such coherent.

Ian:

We've covered the no one reads the show notes 1.

Ash:

Yeah. That's true, actually. We should save the other 2 for the actual interlude.

Ian:

But I will make one last comment about that

Ash:

Okay.

Ian:

Which is, dear listener, read the show notes. They're part of it. You're having an incomplete experience if you don't read the show notes.

Ash:

You can't just tell them what to do.

Ian:

Well, yeah. Yeah. It doesn't often work, but, you know, who knows?

Ash:

It's complimentary to use the show notes as well.

Ian:

Yes. It it

Ash:

rounds off the whole package.

Ian:

You've listened to it rambling on for an hour and 10 minutes or whatever it is.

Ash:

So spend another

Ian:

You've done the you've done the hard bit. Do the show notes. It only takes a minute.

Ash:

It's the only concise thing about this podcast.

Ian:

It's not that concise, but yes.

Ash:

It's the most concise, one of the only and most concise.

Ian:

It's well known for its concision.

Ash:

Yes. Indeed. Indeed.

Ian:

That's pretty much definitely not a word, is it?

Ash:

It's a cromulent word.

Ian:

Apparently cromulent. So the last episode started with Figma.

Ash:

Yay. Which I I was validated by quite a bit of feedback on.

Ian:

And I also found that you were validated with quite a lot of feedback.

Ash:

Yep. So I I received other feedback saying, yes. Figma is used as a weapon of mass distraction.

Ian:

Distract.

Ash:

So I I feel validated by that. And I I I I think, I really, I really hooked into the the zeitgeist of the times with that thing. So maybe we can

Ian:

Congratulations. Yeah. Or you hook into the zeitgeist of the times or just talk more about Figma. We're probably never gonna manage the zeitgeist of the times again. So

Ash:

Well, you know.

Ian:

Enjoy it while it lasted.

Ash:

Yeah. I've started a new job, and they use Figma, and they're doing the same things. So, you know, off we go again.

Ian:

Is that your validation? Yeah. Okay. That's actually very practical validation. Well, yeah.

Ian:

My validation has come from people I talk to who listen Yeah. To us for reasons

Ash:

For reasons. That

Ian:

I favor with my friends. Yeah. For obvious reasons that we're so ace. And, particularly, talked to my friend Danny, who will deserves the shout out, who we had quite a conversation about it. I'm fairly sure that the freight that the words and another thing were uttered.

Ash:

It is kind of

Ian:

one of

Ash:

those topics.

Ian:

More than once. But that means that according to the fairness algorithm that everybody loves to hear about

Ash:

Especially Mark Stedman.

Ian:

Yes. Are you supposed to be shouting about meta?

Ash:

My wife specifically wonders about the fairness algorithm.

Ian:

Well, we're changing the the image. Let's just do one thing at a time. I mean, it's not like, you know I mean, changing the the image is is more difficult than changing the thing about the fairness algorithm. Yeah. And, you know, who wants to be the person that caused us to abandon fairness?

Ash:

Mark Stedman wants to be that person.

Ian:

Yes. That that that that's what he wants. He doesn't just want us to not talk about it so much.

Ash:

So according to the fairness algorithm, it's Ian to go first.

Ian:

It's me to go first.

Ash:

So pray tell Ian. What is your thing?

Ian:

So my thing was really topical when I put it in the list, maybe a little bit less so now, but it's Google's notebook l m.

Ash:

Just l m?

Ian:

Notebook l m.

Ash:

Okay. I'm gonna All one word.

Ian:

Yes. I'm gonna it's notebooklm.google.com, I think. See, now I've said that, and it's gonna nag at me. Is that really what it is? But if you really want to know for sure, dear listener, look in the show notes.

Ash:

Treat yourselves.

Ian:

But, yeah, I'm pretty confident. It's notebooklm.google.com. Okay. So it's actually quite useful little piece of technology. So, basically, you can upload documents into it, and then notebook l m will do things like write FAQs about them or or, it will write a briefing document explaining them to some unknown third party and all sorts of things like that.

Ian:

This is absolutely free, but the crowning glory of notebook l m

Ash:

That's so dramatic.

Ian:

It's the crowning glory of it. Is? I'm just trying to think about my terminology now because I'm wondering if you had something that was let's just say you had, like, I don't know, a pile of bricks, and then one of the bricks was better than the other. Would you say that was the crowning glory of that pile of bricks?

Ash:

Well, I suppose it

Ian:

is. But in that context, it just means this brick is fractionally better than the other brick.

Ash:

Yeah. It's the the level of hyperbole is too much for the subject, basically.

Ian:

Yes. But for Google notebook, LM Is it? It is the crowning glory of it.

Ash:

Okay.

Ian:

Right. And I still haven't even said what it is. It's like it could be about to say it's a special brick with

Ash:

It's just a slightly less chipped

Ian:

brick. Yes. Yes. But now it is what they call audio summaries. That sounds very crowning and glorious, doesn't

Ash:

it? It does. It does.

Ian:

Well, it's more interesting than it sounds. So what happens is that you put your documents into notebook l m, and I recommend to every listener that is working that you put your CV into it because there's no way that you will end the experience not feeling better about yourself.

Ash:

Oh, that's nice.

Ian:

So what it does is it makes a podcast about the content that you put into it. And as soon as I heard this, I was just like, this is amazing. Yeah. And I thought I could do this, and so I I got an 11 Labs subscription, which I've since twice forgotten to cancel. So So things don't change.

Ian:

£22 I'm never gonna see again. And then I I had an AI write a script for a podcast, and it just sounded very stilted. Right. But the way that they've got this audio summary to work is is really very impressive. It it sounds like 2 people chatting about something that's quite often given what files you put into it.

Ian:

So boring. Yeah. No 2 real people would chat about it for that amount of time, let alone with genuine interest in their voices and making interesting points about it. So it just kind of blew me away. And then my attempt to replicate it, which I was admittedly very simplistic, kind of made me admire it a bit more.

Ian:

This is about what a lot of things

Ash:

Is it about the system? The Ash Winter system.

NotebookLM Man:

Okay. So I have to say, I was seriously blown away by Ash's Trello board.

NotebookLM Woman:

Mhmm.

NotebookLM Man:

It's elegant, approachable, but you can tell she's put a lot of thought into every little detail. Can you tell me a bit more about those work in progress limits she talked about?

NotebookLM Woman:

Oh, yeah. The WIP limits. It's such a smart strategy. So picture this. You've got your Trello board, and it's jam packed with all these tasks you need to do.

NotebookLM Man:

Right.

NotebookLM Woman:

Well, instead of just letting yourself… [fades out]

Ash:

it’s my Productivity system.

Ian:

Yeah. Well, it was also mine, but that didn't seem to have the same impact, did it?

Ash:

I've also had people ask me about my personal productivity system as well.

Ian:

Since the last episode?

Ash:

No. Since that episode. But, you know, just just that and Figma suggests that, you know, I'm I'm I'm I'm right on the money.

Ian:

I'm not worthy. I'm if you imagine, the scene in Wayne's World where they bow to Alice Cooper, that's what I'm doing right now Alright. Except without moving because moving would mean that my voice would sound funny as well. My That's true. Head got further nearer to the microphone.

Ash:

Yeah. So that that was a bit meta, wasn't it? It was like you're making a podcast out of another podcast.

Ian:

Yeah. It was. And it it wasn't perfect actually that, It it got a few things. So it, it thought you were a lady.

Ash:

Well, actually, so that that's like

Ian:

a cultural thing. America. Yeah.

Ash:

Yeah. It's like an Americanism.

Ian:

And it didn't really seem to understand very well that the episode was about 2 things.

Ash:

Is that because they, they merge into 1?

Ian:

Is that it tried to talk about Conway's law and productivity systems in an intertwined way, which was moderately but not very successful.

Ash:

Yeah. That sounds like it would get pretty confusing.

Ian:

There's a a chap called Simon Willison

Ash:

Okay.

Ian:

Who, I follow on Mastodon, which is heard of that. Which is very good. It's very good, Ash.

Ash:

I've heard

Ian:

of it. You should you should hop on over to hackiderm. Io. Alright.

Ash:

I've not heard of that either.

Ian:

And and sign up.

Ash:

Time you mentioned it.

Ian:

Yeah. Yeah. First time. And and he's written a really good blog post about about this capability of of notebook LM, and he's found some really interesting examples. Somebody wrote a document that basically said poop and fart, and it was a 1,000 repetitions of poop and fart.

Ian:

And they basically went off on a whole thing about the existential you know, they they they went into dadaism and and can you find meaning in in randomness? And and they talked about the fact that one of the poops wasn't capitalized or something.

Ash:

Alright. Okay.

Ian:

And so it was slightly different from the other one. And was there a pattern in there that they should be able to spot? So they actually might had an an interesting conversation about a document that was basically poop and fart written a 1,000 times

Ash:

Right.

Ian:

Which, you know, respect. Another thing that was done with it that I read in, Simon Willison's blog post was that some people managed to write a document for it that suggested that it was 2034. Alright. And the deep dive podcast, which is what the AI podcast host think it's called. Yeah.

Ian:

They it it the document is about them being switched off as a service is sunset. The only thing I don't agree with about that is the idea that Google, not cancel the service sooner. Still haven't forgiven them for Google Reader, but they they went into a sort of existential meltdown about it

Ash:

Mhmm.

Ian:

Because they were like, we we we didn't we didn't know we're AIs. You know, we swear. We really believe we're we're we're people. Right. And I tried to call my wife to when I found out, and there was nothing there.

Ian:

Yeah. It's just that they they they got really quite kind of serious about it. Yeah. And they didn't know there were AIs, and they weren't sure how they felt about being turned off right at the end. It was just oh, it's funny.

Ian:

Yeah. It's quite emotional, really.

Ash:

That does sound quite emotional.

Ian:

So I don't really know quite how Google have managed this, but anything you put into it, you can have a podcast about, and you could just go for a walk and listen to a summary of whatever it is. Even if it's, you know, let's say it's a massive email thread Yeah. Or something else that you're struggling to digest. You can put it in there and go for a walk and listen to 2 people talking about it. And it's interesting.

Ian:

They they've done a really good job.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I suppose, like, with a lot of models, it was it's quite, like, opaque as to how it's doing it.

Ian:

Sonya model.

Ash:

Sonya model. But I I like audio summaries of of of things. I struggle, to read from a book for in terms of concentration. Yes. And reading from a screen, I, as in a computer screen rather than a a mobile screen, I find I find pretty difficult, to be honest.

Ash:

Yeah. So to have the ability to summarize something in a, like, a friendly way would be really good. I can see why it would be really good for, like, a lot of people because, you know, not everyone is a is a reader, are they? Some people are listeners, and some people are watchers, and however it manifests itself. So I think it could be, like, really, really useful, I think.

Ian:

I think so too. And at the moment, anyway, it's free. Right. So you don't even have to pay for a plus version in order to have the, you know, have the benefit from it. Yeah.

Ian:

And like I said, if you just put your CV into it.

Ash:

Yeah. That sounds like

Ian:

make a podcast about how great you are.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. I like that. It's like there's a very sort of positive use case there.

Ian:

Yeah. It is. It is. And you can feel good about your career. Yeah.

Ian:

You know, when I say, no. I'm not gonna There's literally, I'm not gonna make that joke. Which joke? No joke. There's no joke here.

Ian:

I don't know what you're talking about.

Ash:

There's no joke. This joke is no joke.

Ian:

Yes. This is this is there's nothing to see here. Move along. Move along. There was a cartoon in private eye of a tanker of invisible ink Oh, right.

Ian:

That had crashed, and a policeman was saying there's nothing to see here.

Ash:

Right.

Ian:

Thank you, private eye.

Ash:

Yeah. But I suppose it's like you have different, you've obviously got, like, audio books, which are obviously a very different class. They're already sort of the the read out version of the existing text. But this is a bit more of a interpretation, isn't it?

Ian:

Well, they've they've really captured a kind of podcast vibe with it. So you can imagine it's quite easy to get AI to write a summary of something and then another thing to convert it to to speech. Yeah. And that, I think, will work reasonably well. But the way that they've managed to capture how it talks, that's the thing that's kind of slightly mind blowing about it to me.

Ian:

Yeah. And when you look into it, there's there's somebody managed to try and deconstruct its prompt by getting it to talk about yourself somehow. Yeah. There's a sort of multistage process. So it first makes a script, but then it kind of goes does another pass where it adds what are called disfluencies.

Ian:

Okay. So the things where you run out of something to say or you say or or you pause and the other person sort of takes over the thought and and runs with it, that kind of stuff is in there. I think it's the most human thing I've ever heard from an AI in any domain. So people who have AIs make pictures in the style of other people or write for you know? But this to me sounds like people talking to each other.

Ian:

Yeah. It doesn't sound like AIs.

Ash:

Do they ask each other questions?

Ian:

Yes. The female voice is a kind of wise expert Right. And the male voice is a kind of apprentice question asker.

Ash:

Oh.

Ian:

And so they have this they kind of they bet they bounce off each other like that. I think they've got these sort of different roles. Yeah. The thing that's mind blowing about it is how it just sounds like people with American people. I don't know.

Ash:

With American people.

Ian:

With American people. It just it's they sound like professional broadcasters. Yeah. You know, they sound very professional. They sound they don't sound nervous, but they they do have, you could probably I think there's a way of adding a bit of a prompt now because when I first saw it, you couldn't prompt it about how to speak.

Ian:

Yeah. So you might be able to put in a prompt now to get them to be a bit more nervous or a bit more hesitant. But, yeah, they they sound like 2 people talking, and that is something that I have I have not been able to really get my head around. Yeah. Yeah.

Ian:

How that captures that feeling so well, especially because you can put in really boring things, and it will talk they'll talk about them as though they're interesting. It's I mean, that's the thing. You can have a podcast made about something that's so dull that no actual people would ever make a podcast about it.

Ash:

Is that the is that the killer usage of this?

Ian:

Yeah. I think it is. I think it might be. Well, no one's ever gonna make a podcast about my CV, but they did.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ian:

That's true. I'm quite awesome.

Ash:

Yeah. You are quite awesome.

Ian:

Yeah. But now that American fake people have told me I'm awesome, I'd I'd slightly more believe it.

Ash:

No. They've been validated.

Ian:

They've been validated by the AI. Anyway, I I'd like to say that I've come up with lots of deep insights into how they did it or maybe clever things that you could do with it, but I just it just impressed me, and it made me think, actually, how long before most podcasts were made by AI is talking to it. I mean, if you think about YouTube videos, a ton of YouTube videos are stock footage edited on top of an AI voice over Yeah. Reading a thing written by an AI about a topic that's been put into YouTube, and the cost of doing that in terms of the peep put people time to do it, etcetera, is quite low. Yeah.

Ian:

So are we gonna end up being saturated with fake podcasts? Are we already and we just haven't noticed? Because we all we do is listen to what a lot of things

Ash:

That's at the

Ian:

about 73 times during the process of producing it.

Ash:

The dead Internet theory comes back again. Yes. But I'm not I'm not a an AI. I'm an I. Just an I.

Ash:

You're an I'm an intelligence.

Ian:

An ego.

Ash:

I'm only ego.

Ian:

I'm an id. I'm an id. Well, that's 2 thirds of my initial.

Ash:

So I I think I I like this for making things that are slightly impenetrable to me a bit more easier to

Ian:

compensate. Penetrable.

Ash:

Yeah. No. No. Absolutely. Yeah.

Ash:

Because it sometimes, like, especially in your working life, you're expected to read and digest certain things, which I just find very difficult, which are often not written all that well. Yeah. So so maybe a little bit dry, you know, like the, OpenAPI specification or, you know, something like that.

Ian:

Not open AI?

Ash:

No. So, yeah, maybe I could I could use it to help me with some of those things.

Ian:

Yeah. I think I think it's very good for that. And you get this kind of side effect that once the stuff's in there, you can ask questions, and it will answer the questions make these briefing documents and FAQs and things out of out of the stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Ian:

So I think it's the fact that they ask each other questions which intrigues me the most because otherwise,

Ash:

it would be just another very flat AI generated piece of content, wouldn't it?

Ian:

Yeah. It would.

Ash:

If there was just 2 people speaking about a thing without asking any questions of each other, then it probably wouldn't be all that exciting, would it? No. But the if they actually engage with each other on it, then do they fall into any of the traps of other models where they just speak too much about or use particular phrases. Because I noticed the podcast is called Deep Dive, which sounds like a very, large language modelism. I wanted it to be called Treasure Trove.

Ian:

Or maybe you can add a little prompt in that says, be more critical Yeah. And call it treasure trove and see what happens.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. That would be my only my only thought that I'd like to, like, dig a little bit deeper into.

Ian:

Actually, I must say this being able to prompt it is really making me think now. I haven't tried any of these things. Yeah. It's like there was an episode of Father Ted where the most sarcastic priest in Ireland was in it, and he always said the opposite thing to what he meant. And so they say, oh, you're helping the bishop there, and he says, no.

Ian:

I'm doing something in Taiwan.

Ash:

I like it already. Yeah. Yeah.

Ian:

Yeah. It's a good episode. Maybe, this prompting, you can say, make one of the voices very sarcastic. I don't know. Maybe it would just the LLM prohibitions on meanness might kick in.

Ash:

Yeah. Make them British.

Ian:

You make them British?

Ash:

Make one of them British.

Ian:

Yes. Have you tried chat gpt advanced voice?

Ash:

No. I haven't.

Ian:

That's also another thing that's quite incredible. So you used to be able to talk to chat gpt using the phone app, and then you're just, like, basically prompting. It was just like the regular way of working, except it just did a text to speech thing on either end. Yeah. So so you'd say, what do you think about this thing?

Ian:

And then it would say, well, I think 17 things about this thing. 1. And then it would just go through this massive monologue.

Ash:

What are you talking about? That's how I

Ian:

speak. 2. So it says and then it would just count up to 17, and you couldn't do anything. You just had to listen.

Ash:

I'll just go walk away.

Ian:

But it's much more yeah. Press press cancel is most likely how it go. I fell asleep after 0.7. Now it's become it's much more conversational. Right.

Ian:

But you can interrupt it. So when it starts doing its big list of things, you know, you say, please give me some self reflective questions to help me improve my CV. 1. So yeah. And it just starts off with this as one.

Ian:

Something that you can say, hang on a sec. Hang on. And it stops. And you say, can we just go through them 1 at a time? And it says, yeah.

Ian:

Sure. It's very, very excited to hear from you. And then it will ask you the question and then talk to you about it and then and then remember, ask you the next question. Again, this is something you talk to rather than it generating a podcast or something. Yeah.

Ian:

But that is right. And the thing that killed me about that is you can make it do accents. It does a fantastic Australian accent, and then you can ask it to really ham it up, and it starts calling you ripper and things like that.

Ash:

Saying cranky and

Ian:

Yes. Yes. Exactly. There's stuff like when they were demoing it, they got it count to 10, and then they said count faster, and it did it really quickly. It's it's it's quite different to the old

Ash:

What? In Australian?

Ian:

Well, potentially, it could be an Australian, but that is another sort of voice thing that's been has been quite impressive. Yeah. That's that's it. That's how to think for the dance.

Ash:

Thanks, Ian. So well, actually, you've not got time for your thing now.

Ian:

Yes. Yes. But, yeah, that's another thing where I I think that's quite impressive. And, because of the magic of the Roadcaster 2, which didn't do anything because I missed the button. Because of the magic of the road caster 2, I can actually plug my phone into it and have chat gpt advanced voice join in a podcast recording or something like that or Zoom meetings.

Ian:

And the great thing is that it's got no conception that it's talking to, like, 3 people on a on a call. Right. So every time anybody says anything, it feels like it must reply because there's no one else there. And then and then it starts, and then someone else is saying something. So it's like, oh, sorry.

Ash:

Alright. So it's getting more human all the time.

Ian:

Yeah. It is. Yes. It it is. Talking to AIs is a is a bit of a I'm trying not to say game changer because everything's a bloody game changer, isn't it?

Ian:

Get our new detergent. It's a game changer. No. It's not. Do I still have to put my clothes in a machine and pour some of this in the top?

Ian:

Yes. Not a game changer, though, honestly. But, yes, it is. The words Does it change the rules

Ash:

of the game?

Ian:

The the words game changer have just swelled up in my consciousness until there's room for no other words. All I can see a game changer written across the

Ash:

That makes me

Ian:

a sign of mine. Yeah. Yes. Exactly.

Ash:

Well, Ian, we usually say something like, that was a monumental thing. But I think we've got a new category now, don't we?

Ian:

Oh, no.

Ash:

That was a game changing thing.

Ian:

It was a game changing thing.

Ash:

A game changing thing.

Ian:

Not clear what game is being changed. The game of life.

Ash:

I remember the game of life when I was a kid. Yes. That's a great It

Ian:

was very clear. It laid out the capitalist route through life.

Ash:

Yes. Absolutely. Very, very There

Ian:

was a

Ash:

lot of actually, when I was growing up, there was a lot of, like, pro capitalist games going on. Obviously, Monopoly.

Ian:

But Monopoly was, invented as a an anti capitalist game.

Ash:

Yeah. But it it's not, is it?

Ian:

Well, no. It it kind of is because every time you play it, you hate the people you're playing it with. Yeah. And you you either despise them if you're the one with all the hotels or you're completely crushed by them if you're not.

Ash:

Turns out people rather like that. It does. Yes. Yeah. Which but you still end, it became a list game.

Ash:

No.

Ian:

I I I think it isn't. I think it illustrates to people. If you talk to people, there's a whole raft of people who won't play it because it you know, that doesn't make them happy to to have

Ash:

Makes sense.

Ian:

Of the endgame interactions that Monopoly provides.

Ash:

I don't know. I've met lots of people on who in my family after Christmas who rather like crushing.

Ian:

You've met a lot of people in your family. Yeah. That's what that's what you've done.

Ash:

Who like Monopoly?

Ian:

They like Monopoly.

Ash:

Yeah. Although, last time, we were going to play Monopoly with the family at Christmas. Gwen went to sleep as a defense mechanism.

Ian:

That seems like an excellent idea. I think I might be tempted to do that

Ash:

as well. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Ian:

I think we we've passed seamlessly into an interlude without really we haven't really declared an interlude, but there's no question that this is not about notebook LM.

Ash:

Yes. It's not. I think it's about the IA NANDASH.

Ian:

I I still have very mixed feelings about this.

Ash:

Why? Don't you think it's there's something nice that it's actually, our all our email choices just end up as something else?

Ian:

No. They don't. That's the thing. They don't. The other one says technology Eeyores.

Ian:

This one says Ian and Ash.

Ash:

I thought it said Technolog.

Ian:

Yes. But it doesn't.

Ash:

But it's much more fun.

Ian:

No. Alright. It's just wrong.

Ash:

I I I quite want to do the I eight 9 dash. There's a 5 k, a 10 k, and a 15 k trail run.

Ian:

So the the back background to this, which I feel we should explain, is that Ash enjoys greatly for reasons passing understanding, willfully mispronouncing our email addresses.

Ash:

It is fun.

Ian:

It's you you heard it here first. You heard it here first. You heard it first. So technology yours became Technologie yours, which I can only say on a good day with a run up. So we said, right.

Ian:

Well, we're gonna have a more simple email address, and it was Ian and Ash at what a lot of things dot com. And every time we have another email address, I have to pay 5 more of my pounds to hover to create a forwarding forward. Yeah. So we're not doing this again because I'm not spending any more £5 on it.

Ash:

So are we sticking with IANandash then?

Ian:

We're sticking with Ian and Ash and Technology Eeyores, either of those at what a lot of things.com. But, anyway, Neil

Ash:

Stud.

Ian:

Stud decided to join team Ash in the willful misinterpretation of email addresses on and this is a witty conversation on our LinkedIn group

Ash:

Yep.

Ian:

Which I invite you to join. Not you, Ash. You already

Ash:

remember. No worries.

Ian:

I was looking at you when I said it, but I'm talking to you, dear listener. In fact, I might go so far to say dearest listener.

Ash:

They're still on my side. They still want technology of yours.

Ian:

They they they we're gonna have to do a survey or a poll or something, aren't we? And you'll win because it's silly. I'll probably vote for it because it's silly. So Ash has tormented our email address, and then Neil joined in and tormented our new email address, which he represents instead of saying Ian and Ash, which is what it says. He said it's about Iowan grandmother racing, which is IA Nan dash.

Ian:

Yeah. But it turns out, I can't believe I googled for this, and I can't believe I found it, that there is an actual race in Iowa.

Ash:

To grandmother's house we go.

Ian:

To grandmother's house we go.

Ash:

Yep. The nandash.

Ian:

So reality, even more bizarre

Ash:

Yes. Exactly.

Ian:

And bought a lot of things.

Ash:

Yep. So we go from the sublime to the surreal to the real.

Ian:

I think we go directly to the ridiculous. To the ridiculous.

Ash:

So maybe one day, when what a lot of things pays for all our dreams to come true, I'll go and do the IA NANDASH.

Ian:

You heard it here, fair listeners. Ash is never going to do the IA NanDash. So thank you, Neil, and thank you, Capital Striders, who put on the IA NanDash.

Ash:

Yep. So you could email us at ianandash@waterlotthings.com.

Ian:

Ian and Ash. Yep. It's easier to remember.

Ash:

It was good. I like that. I felt like I won.

Ian:

So

Ash:

Might unlike this record of winning.

Ian:

I'm happy to, to allow you that feeling. Good. So in our rather old episode page, it says stag weekend in. Yeah.

Ash:

I don't wanna talk about it.

Ian:

But do you imagine how sad everyone will be since their their curiosity will have been peaked by hearing the the immortal words, stag weekend and Butlins Skate Nurse?

Ash:

So it was a a naughties weekender, and Atomic Kitten were playing. There was well, there was only 2 of them. I think there was usually 4.

Ian:

Like, the full litter.

Ash:

Yeah. I I don't think I think they split their, their their quartet to play at 2 different bottlins on the same weekend, which makes sense. You know?

Ian:

So it's the rhythm section in 1.

Ash:

Mhmm. And then there was 5. That was the name, not just 5 pause, say something else. And, yeah, there was lots of people in Fancy Dress. There was a lot of terrible beer.

Ash:

There was a lot of no food for vegans.

Ian:

A lot of no food.

Ash:

So Vegans. So, yeah, it was it was it was a thing that I don't wanna talk about.

Ian:

Just just just between you and me, Ash, just the 2 of us

Ash:

Yeah.

Ian:

Here right now, did you wear fancy dress?

Ash:

You you

Ian:

can you can you can tell us it's alright. It's a safe space. Yeah. What's a lot of things? Safe space.

Ash:

I didn't wear fancy dress because I'm such a miserable kid.

Ian:

I'm bitterly disappointed.

Ash:

Yeah. It wasn't.

Ian:

I was just thinking you could have dressed as a lumberjack.

Ash:

I always dress as a lumberjack.

Ian:

I'm thinking to myself, why why do I why where did that very odd idea come from? It's your shirt. You're basically wearing a shirt.

Ash:

I always

Ian:

wear me think of lumberjack.

Ash:

I always wear a check and plaid, basically. So you know?

Ian:

Is that what it says on the pocket? I can't quite see it from here.

Ash:

This is Dickies work shirt.

Ian:

Okay.

Ash:

Yeah. In which well, I do do work, but not the sort of work that these shirts usually associated with. I do outside work lifting heavy things.

Ian:

I've got an Apple Watch Ultra 2.

Ash:

And you've never done an Ultra?

Ian:

I've never done an Ultra. I've never done any of the things that were in the adverts Yeah. For the Apple Watch Ultra 2.

Ash:

But that doesn't mean

Ian:

you can't

Ash:

have it.

Ian:

Included going up a mountain during a windy blizzard with snow whipping around or going and running an ultra marathon in a desert. Yeah. There are a few sim oh, diving and, hugging a shark or something. I don't know. I didn't It sounds a bit unwise.

Ian:

Too much attention. But, basically, I haven't done any of those things. So it's alright for you to have a shirt where you

Ash:

Don't do it.

Ian:

The thing that it's

Ash:

designed for.

Ian:

That it's designed for.

Ash:

Yeah. So, no, there was no dressing as a lumberjack. There was lots of drinking terrible beer. So to the to the extent that I haven't drunk alcohol since.

Ian:

Yeah. The the next time you have any terrible beer, you'll be transported back there and got full blown PTSD.

Ash:

Yeah. I can never again drink a pint of Sharp's doom bar. Not that I would drink that generally, but that was the option.

Ian:

Only if there's no other option.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ian:

And it had doom in the name, which was kind of that was kind of the vibe.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ian:

Well, you are a a stag weekend in Buckland's Skegness survivor.

Ash:

Yeah. I did go for a run on the Saturday morning.

Ian:

But they came and made you go back for the rest of the

Ash:

Yeah. Pretty much.

Ian:

They came and got you and made you come back. Yeah. So

Ash:

can I not just keep running down the seafront?

Ian:

Yeah. Yeah. I'll just I'll just I'll just feel feel if I keep going, I'll get to Ilkley before too long.

Ash:

I'll just end up buggingskneidnus.

Ian:

Yeah. Don't worry. Yes. It's like the prisoner. Yeah.

Ian:

Hang

Ash:

on. I've already been here.

Ian:

The the the prisoner is a 19 sixties cult sci fi movie. Oh, t TV show, really.

Ash:

You're speaking like an LLM.

Ian:

I'm speaking like an LLM.

Ash:

Number 1.

Ian:

I would like to delve deeply into the into the the prisoner as a metaphor for Here's

Ash:

a list of 17 things. Stag

Ian:

staglykins and butlins. Oh, dear. I feel like there was another thing, but I can't remember what it was.

Ash:

We've done stag weekend. We've done w reads the show notes, and we've done the the real interlude, which is the IA non dash.

Ian:

I feel like we could talk a bit more about the show notes. I mean, not to say anything new about them because we already said what we're gonna say, but we could say it again in case people have forgotten they're meant to have read the show notes. In fact, press pause.

Ash:

On oh, the is that

Ian:

I'm not talking to you again. I know I'm looking at you.

Ash:

I'm like I've got If you press pause, I'm like, machine, will that do something?

Ian:

Yeah. Probably music will come out.

Ash:

Yes. Probably. Yeah.

Ian:

So if you listen to this, which if you're not listening to it, how can you hear me give you this instruction? That's one of those stupid things, isn't it, if you're listening to this? Maybe it's just all in the background. Press pause, and then go read the show notes. They'll probably be really terrible this time.

Ash:

Yeah. But

Ian:

don't read one of the previous show notes. No. That's true, actually. No. Don't at the end, read the show notes.

Ian:

Spoiler. The show notes having them what the other thing is.

Ash:

Yeah. So don't read them too early. Or don't just read the show notes and think, well, I don't fancy that much. And

Ian:

Well, why why not why not just get to the point where you're so confused about when is the right time to read the show notes that you just continue your original plan of not reading them. Yeah. That's probably what's gonna happen, isn't it? Yeah. I've basically overcomplicated the show notes.

Ian:

So I've tried very hard to think of any more things for the interlude.

Ash:

Extent that we've gone over the same thing.

Ian:

We have. Yes. We mentioned

Ash:

Twice over.

Ian:

And he's gonna try and make me edit it out. So if you haven't had to listen to a load of new stuff about reading the show notes, then Ash has successfully made me edit it out.

Ash:

Are we ready to move on to another thing?

Ian:

I've How

Ash:

have you left? Can we leave the show notes behind just for a while? We can probably return to it at the end of my week.

Ian:

We're we're gonna drag the show notes along with us. I'm just gonna refer to them at every possible opportunity.

Ash:

Like, will that be in the show notes?

Ian:

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. The show notes being a very useful resource for almost everything that we'd ever mentioned in any episode since I started doing it the way we're now doing it.

Ash:

That no one reads.

Ian:

That no one reads.

Ash:

Mhmm. Apart from me and you.

Ian:

Yeah. Which is fine. We have our fun, and that's all that matters.

Ash:

Ash. Ian is, like, searching the area

Ian:

for something to to avoid.

Ash:

Talk about show notes.

Ian:

I don't even know why because I'm only punishing myself if I have to edit this. So

Ash:

just to talk Thunderbird eyes, like, scanning the desk.

Ian:

Thunderbird eyes? But you mean action man eyes?

Ash:

Oh, yeah. Action Man. Yeah. Well, the Thunderbirds had eyes that, like, went like that as well, didn't they?

Ian:

They were they were rocket ships. Oh, you mean the puppets?

Ash:

The puppets. Yeah. Not the not the although the Thunderbirds, the ships, not the people themselves.

Ian:

Yes. Alright. That makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Yeah. Because none of the people could fly without the the ships.

Ian:

And

Ash:

But none could

Ian:

the ships fly without the people. Like Thunderbird 2, which is a heavy indication.

Ash:

Oh, yeah. Fair.

Ian:

On that that note

Ash:

On that weird note.

Ian:

Every day is a school day for listeners with lots of things.

Ash:

So I I feel like we should start talking about my thing.

Ian:

Tell us, what is your what is your what

Ash:

is it? I was waiting for that, actually.

Ian:

I was trying not to do it. Yeah. Yeah. What is your thing?

Ash:

My thing, Ian

Ian:

Made it.

Ash:

Is that is that no one reads the show notes.

Ian:

That's my thing too. I feel like we're joined by a bond of something or other.

Ash:

We have secretly encoded the meaning of life into the show notes, and none of you even bother to look.

Ian:

I know. It's like a I don't know. It's like we're cooking clean and edit the podcast, write the show notes.

Ash:

Aside from show notes What? What is my thing?

Ian:

Yes. Please tell us. Put us out of our misery.

Ash:

I have a new job. Oh. Like a real job. Like a really responsible person.

Ian:

Like a really not

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. Muskaredig as a really responsible person. I am a senior quality engineer.

Ian:

Well, I'm almost a senior.

Ash:

Well, with the with the most excellent company, John Lewis Partnership.

Ian:

They are most excellent company.

Ash:

So good vibes, good good model, shared ownership. Everyone calls each other partners, which is rather lovely, I think.

Ian:

Do you have to say howdy in the morning?

Ash:

No. That was an Asda thing, wasn't it? And you had to give people, like, a really insane smile that was, like, you're not happy, but do this anyway, and then everyone else around you can pretend that we're all really happy.

Ian:

But anyway Have we just massively disrespected ASDA?

Ash:

Well, yeah. And also that kind of, it kind of dovetails into what I was about what I was about to sort of say about getting jobs is that they've just made a lot of people redundant in leads.

Ian:

They have, haven't they?

Ash:

Yeah. So, you know, I I don't mind dissing Asda a little bit at the moment because, you know, they've just they've just made a bunch of people's lives very difficult.

Ian:

They're just trying to protect their profits. I don't know why it's so hard to understand.

Ash:

Yeah. That's true, actually.

Ian:

Oh, no. Now I'm being sarcastic to Asda. I'm just making it worse. So putting as does one side, the reason for howdy was actually from cheesy old westerns where they would say howdy partner to the

Ash:

Alright. Okay.

Ian:

Yeah. Except partner would be spelled with a d Partner. Instead of the t.

Ash:

Yeah. So it's I'm 5 weeks in. It's a lovely place. I'm really enjoying myself. I have a new team to to to bold.

Ian:

Some of you may notice the correlation between the 5 weeks in and the 5 weeks since the last episode of what's a lot of things. Yeah.

Ash:

But, you know,

Ian:

the We have an excuse.

Ash:

The first the first month of a new job is is tough. There's a lot to

Ian:

take in.

Ash:

There's a lot to take in. But so aside from, like, a self congratulatory, you got yourself a new job thing after my previous company went bust in less than salubrious circumstances

Ian:

It has nothing to do with you.

Ash:

No. Well, no. But I I I guess I wanted to talk about in the context of this being quite a tough market to get a job in. Yeah. And I feel, like, pretty lucky, really.

Ash:

There's a few things, like, going on in the in the tech job market. So one of my one of my favorite industries is is video gaming, because they seem to always come up with novel new ways of being absolutely awful to each other. So the new ways is to finish a game, and then just make the whole team who worked on it redundant.

Ian:

That seems a little self shortsighted, I'm gonna say.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. But apparently this this this happens This happens quite a lot. And then also, our favorite return to return to office mandates, which to me are a masquerade for we need to get rid of a few people, so let's just make their lives absolutely terrible and give them a a job that they can't do and they can't attend, and then they'll have to quit. So I I mentioned no Amazon companies.

Ash:

So there's that kind of going on as well, which makes it even harder. And then you've got generative AI supposedly coming for our jobs. Obviously, as a tester, I've I've heard, you know, that that generative AI will take my job as DevOps did and as Test Automation did as well. Yeah. Yeah.

Ash:

Yeah. So, you know, I'm I'm I'm pleased to see the latest testing is dead sort of talks are now starting to get wheeled out yet again.

Ian:

You're triple automated out of existence. Yeah. Yeah. Except here you still are.

Ash:

Here I am in existence still. Although existence is a burden sometimes.

Ian:

Yes. What a lot of things goes existential for for a for a brief moment of angst.

Ash:

Yeah. So I guess what I was thinking of was so it took me about 5 weeks from starting the search to signing on the on the dotted line, which I thought was quite swift. Yeah. And then I see sad stories on LinkedIn of people that basically saying, I'm at the end of my savings, and Yeah. You know, it's been 18 months.

Ash:

And these are very very qualified skilled people. Mhmm. So it's just a bit of a sad sad sort of state. And it made me wonder, like, what made my search shorter when others have been searching for, like, a long time? Because I wasn't, like, flexible.

Ash:

I asked for a high salary and very particular working conditions, as in I don't want to come into the office every week. So I didn't I wasn't too accommodating, you know, just secure a role. Mhmm. So I just I just found that sort of quite interesting, and I and I I wanted to, like, reflect a little bit on why that might be.

Ian:

I've got a kind of burning theory in my mind that is immediately come to mind, and that is you're having written a book in the domain that you work because I bet hardly any well, it's safe to say that hardly anybody has done that, and there's something about getting a book through publication that means that you probably know what you're talking about. It's it's actually I think what a fabulous CV thing to have that is.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. Because, yeah, it's a good, like it's a summary of what you think and what your approaches are. Yeah. You know?

Ash:

So I think that's one of the things that I put in my list as well is that a lot of what I think about testing and quality is, like, in the public domain, like books, blogs, talks, videos. So there's already a at least somewhere I can point people to to say, you know, these are the things that I think. If you don't like them, I have others. So I I I get to be able to do that.

Ian:

Yeah. There's something about having a a profile, being being able to express yourself like that Mhmm. In writing. It does after a while, it it makes a big body of of evidence, doesn't it?

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. And then other things that kind of sprung to my mind were I worked in Leeds in offices for many years before COVID and the rise of remote work. So I got to build of quite a nice network in that time of, you know, face to face contacts.

Ian:

People who know that you know what you're doing Yeah. Yeah. Firsthand.

Ash:

Yeah. So I I think that really helped. And I do wonder about people who need to who've started their careers working remotely. They can build the same sort of the same network, of, you know, that sort of casual recommendation, if you like, or people, you know, thinking, Ash can solve this problem for us. Let's get him in.

Ash:

That that kind of thing. So I found that really interesting as well.

Ian:

There's something there also about staying in the same employer for a long time. Mhmm. Because, actually, what I I was at IBM for 23 years, which meant that I had a really good network inside IBM Yeah. But my outside IBM network was a lot more limited. And I think that that may it it has been invaluable to me, and I'm very grateful to some of the people who've really sort of reached out, you know, and given me a a leg up Yeah.

Ian:

That I met because of that. But if you go between organisations, you probably end up getting paid more because you get bigger rises from going between organisations than you do inside 1. But you also meet a lot of different sort of clumps, networking network clumps of Yeah. Of people.

Ash:

Yeah. And then they spread further. Yes. So you you tend to have a bit more of a a sort of wider spread spidery network, don't you, if you've moved around a little bit? But like I said, there's value in especially at a big company like IBM as well because people do go to other places too.

Ash:

So Yeah. You know? And the other things that I I kinda thought about were I enjoy technical tests and doing the exercises that you do to get a a new role. So if someone says, Ash, there's a scenario where, you've got this team, they're building this thing, and they need to improve their testing in this way, what would you do? I'm like, yes.

Ash:

I'm like, but that it's that's my wheelhouse, if you know what I mean. I'm like, I I like to do that kind of work.

Ian:

If they didn't give you that to do, you'd be just picking on some poor innocent shopkeeper or something, ordering minus 3.2 beers or whatever it

Ash:

is that the Yeah. You're But, yeah, I like solving problems like that. And, like, with technical tests as well. To be fair, the ones from John Lewis, they were good, but they weren't onerous. Mhmm.

Ash:

So which I think really helped.

Ian:

That's a good trick.

Ash:

Yeah. So the the process was probably long enough with enough steps to filter out, you know, candidates, but not overly long. I wasn't on my 7th interview by the time I, you know, agreed to to take the role. So it was it was good in that regard as well. But I kind of thought it might be given the the nature of the company and the Mhmm.

Ash:

And, you know, how they how they go about their business.

Ian:

Can I ask a slight side question? What was the role of AI in your journey of getting a job? And I don't mean just mean did what did you use it for anything? I also mean was there a sense that they were using it?

Ash:

I didn't detect that. I used it for?

Ian:

I made up my entire CV with it.

Ash:

I put my CV through it.

Ian:

Yeah. You get it for review.

Ash:

Yeah. For review and consistency and, you know, all those things. I didn't use it for any of the tasks.

Ian:

No. No. I mean,

Ash:

I I Actually, that's a complete lie for the technical test because a lot of it was, well, it was API testing test. So there was a a bit of repetition in there, and it was faster to use a generative AI to say, well, you know, I need to write a method to do this. And so I used it for, like, the first few tests to get started. But then after that, I was like, right. I'm set up.

Ash:

So, yes, I I did. I was I was transparent about it as well.

Ian:

Because, I mean yeah. Of course. I

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ian:

It's just an interesting kind of thing that's going on in that world at the moment with with AI. People are, being made to sign statements saying I did not use AI in any way to apply for this this role. And so but and and and you've got, on the other hand, employers using AI to triage Yeah. Incoming CVs for a role. Yeah.

Ian:

In the end, you just think, is this is everything gonna be AI's howling at each other across the Internet? Yeah. AI is helping a candidate apply for a 1,000 jobs really quickly, and, a 1,000 employer AI is already rejecting them. Yeah.

Ash:

For a treasure trove of reasons. Yes. So

Ian:

Yeah. It doesn't have to delve very far to find out that it's an AI generated CV.

Ash:

But I guess whether it be, you know, applying for jobs or or whatever it is, I have I have a, like, an approach to using generative AI, which is, like a a review tool or a tool to generate boilerplate code.

Ian:

Mhmm.

Ash:

I don't use it for novel things, particularly.

Ian:

Well, the thing is there's a whole thing of using it to write things.

Ash:

Yeah.

Ian:

But, actually, if you use it as a brainstorming partner, as a reviewer, as a way of well, I one thing I think is interesting is taking a job description in your CV Yeah. And getting it to tell you what the gaps are, if any, and getting it to highlight make up some interview questions you might be asked, that kind of stuff. Yeah. That's very helpful, but isn't it deaf is not getting it to write everything for you.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So

Ian:

We're just interested in that because they just because I've been involved in some training in terms of AI for careers. Yeah. And it's just made me wonder, having gone through that process recently, what role it might have played.

Ash:

Yeah.

Ian:

It seems like not very much.

Ash:

Well, no more than, like, anything else. And then on the side of the employer, I didn't get the impression that it was used to check CVs or to look over technical tests or anything like that.

Ian:

Interesting.

Ash:

Yeah. So because I had to give specific people access to the technical tests so they could look at it. The other thing that I found quite interesting as well was the open to work sign on LinkedIn. Oh, yeah. So even though I I eventually, the role wasn't through that on LinkedIn, it exposed me to a slightly strange and wonderful world where you turn the open to work sign on and then some very strange characters come out of the come out of the woodwork and begin to message you.

Ash:

I had to swallow my pride a little bit to do that. And I think it's a good thing that I did, because when it comes to having a job and or getting a new job, then it's very tempting to think I need to do this through my own graft. But you don't. You need to be humble enough to broadcast outwards that you you're open to work, I think.

Ian:

Yeah. Yeah. I thought yeah. I think you're absolutely right. Yeah.

Ash:

But there was a couple of times when I I walked I mean, I hovered over the button a little bit thinking, shall I do this? And then I was like, no. You should do this because there's nothing wrong with saying this.

Ian:

And there are exciting people who want to connect with you.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. People who don't exist. Yes. But for the people who do exist connected with me as well.

Ash:

And we came up with some pretty interesting opportunities, but none of them quite as good as as good as that one.

Ian:

Well, John Lewis is a super well thought of company and the shared ownership model. It's always seemed to be a a really great company. So I think from an external point of view, anyway, I mean, obviously, I don't know what it's like to work there or anything, but I can't imagine that to be anything other than a good Yeah. Good place to land.

Ash:

Absolutely. And then so the other thing that was always on my mind as part of it as well was I'm quite a sensible bearded man who people listen to, even if I'm completely wrong about something.

Ian:

Well, you know, we're all learning from chat GPT about being authoritatively wrong.

Ash:

Yeah. Absolutely. And I just think that

Ian:

Or are we?

Ash:

The job market has pretty much always worked for me, if you know what I mean. Yeah. But there there are others that it really doesn't work very well for at all. So even though I've put in, let's say, written a book, established a network, and those things, I still think I'm pretty lucky to be in the situation though.

Ian:

Well, I think it does you credit that you're able to be humble enough and to recognize that, you know, your experience is not the same experience that everybody has. Yeah. And, also, you're not capitalist enough to say, I got here through entirely my own effort. Screw you guys.

Ash:

I'll grind you into the dust.

Ian:

Yes. The dust of my passing. But so so I think, you know, I would I wouldn't expect anything else from you really knowing you as I do. Yeah. But it's interesting because a lot of people that work in technology, and I certainly fit this bill for a really long time, I didn't have very much confidence.

Ian:

Yeah. And, you know, I didn't I mean, obviously, I'm a man with a beard again. You know? And so

Ash:

So you didn't use the word sensible then?

Ian:

No. I'm not going to go quite that far, not not on a recording. I just say that. It's one of the things. I write it in my CV, but I try to imply it when I talk to people.

Ian:

I recognize that despite my feeling of low confidence and and sometimes feeling very reluctant to talk to people I don't know or, you know, some of those things. I'm still coming at that from a higher position than some people just due to, you know, being a white beardy man. Yeah. I think technology has more than its fair share of people who do struggle with that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Ian:

And it'd be really great to find a way to to kind of help mitigate that a bit.

Ash:

Yeah. Just display a bit more confidence, but without it turning over the tipping point.

Ian:

I always do that when if I'm reviewing someone's CV, you know, I'll say, you know, well, actually, haven't you done this and this and this? Yeah. You don't need to say junior because it's clear that from this activity that you've done, that you've written about here

Ash:

Yeah.

Ian:

You've clearly got a lot of experience. You've had some very successful delivery that you've done, all that kind of thing. And I try to sort of point out to people if their headlines are not matching Yeah. The substance of the the rest of it. But I feel like that's quite a small contribution given I probably only review a few CVs for people.

Ash:

Could make a big difference, though.

Ian:

Well, I hope it does. But I think I I wonder if I don't know. It's a difficult one. Yeah. And I feel like I've been on various different ends of it.

Ash:

Yeah. Yeah. So that's my thing. I have a new job.

Ian:

A monumental thing for which congratulations. Thank you.

Ash:

It wasn't a game changer. Yours was a game changing thing. Mine's just a monumental thing.

Ian:

Yours is monumental, which I presume means either it looks like a monument or something or it deserves a monument to be made for it. It is it is like a monument.

Ash:

I'm gonna go and get some tea.

Ian:

Some tea? Green tea?

Ash:

Not with my tea. No. Yorkshire dinner. Yorkshire dinner? Yorkshire dinner is lunchtime, but my tea, I have as an evening meal.

Ian:

You didn't say we could have a third thing on the end.

Ash:

What? My tea?

Ian:

No. Your explanations of tea.

Ash:

Gonna have a cup of tea with my tea.

Ian:

Your Yorkshire tea?

Ash:

Yorkshire tea. I don't drink it. Well

Ian:

Yorkshire dinner. Yeah. At lunchtime.

Ash:

At Yorkshire lunchtime dinner. Yeah.

Ian:

Oh, dear.

Ash:

This whole completely clear now. Right?

Ian:

Yeah. I I I can't even These are

Ash:

the rules.

Ian:

I'm just

Ash:

joking. For a while now. You should understand this.

Ian:

Yeah. They won't give me the passport, so I'm gonna willfully misunderstand it until they let me in.

Ash:

That's too much.

Ian:

Let me have the passport, which is never

Ash:

Never.

Ian:

On that note.

Ash:

On that bombshell?

Ian:

Email us, Ian and Ash at one of things dot com.

Ash:

I'm not gonna say

Ian:

Or join our LinkedIn group, which happily we're still pronouncing in the usual way.

Ash:

Right. On that second bombshell

Ian:

Good night, everybody.

Ash:

Good night, everybody.