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Hosted by Jared Correia, Legal Late Night is a weekly, pop culture-infused romp through the latest & greatest business management ideas and technology tips for lawyers, featuring engaging guests, and constructed in the format of an old school television variety show.
Jared Correia (00:00):
Hello everybody. We've got a show that promises to be at least mildly interesting for your listening and watching enjoyment. I'm your host Jared Correia. I'm the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting in the monologue. I'm just going to confirm my status is true Swifty and we're bypassing the counter program this week for two interviews instead. First up we've got Daleele Alison of Rooks dm. Then we've got Michelle Falanga, who is an Emmy winning voiceover actress. We get Emmy winners all the time on the show. Now let's get to perhaps our most important current topic for discovery. Taylor Swift's new album.
(00:45):
Here I am in the late night office. This is Legal Late Night Midnight's 3:00 AM edition. I was on a call with someone the other day and that person expressed borderline shock that I like Tara Swift. Now to paraphrase the Michael Jordan meme and I took that personally, I mean, first of all, how dare you? Second of all, how old do you think I actually am? Third of all, don't judge me like that. Presuming I wouldn't like pop music produced by female artists, my enjoyment of Sabrina Carpenter's catalog has been a subject of frequent conversation on this very podcast of late, so I feel like I need to reassert myself as a true swifty even though I'm number three in internal swifty rankings in my own home. Frankly, I'm surrounded by super fans even so I've been around since way before Travis Kelsey. Now the timing is fortuitous here.
(01:41):
As Taylor Swift released her 12th studio album on October 3rd of this year, my How Time Flies, that would be the triumphant life of a Showgirl. I've been listening to this album and thinking about it in the context of the Tate Discography. This might be recency bias, but this may be my favorite Taylor Swift album. I don't know, I'm trying to work it out. I think it might be the most solid of her albums from Start to Finish Track by track. I also feel strongly that she has benefited on this album from switching producers. The Jack Antonoff thing was getting a little stale, and this sounds much fresher in terms of what's come before the life of a showgirl. I feel like the last album, the Tortured Post Department was kind of a downer, especially in comparison to this album, which has a much sunnier tone.
(02:31):
Midnights from 2022 had a good number of standout tracks, but also a lot of songs I didn't like very much and it felt small in comparison to Folklore and evermore, the Double Album Pandemic collection, which is probably your greatest achievement as an artist and likely goes down as their masterpiece when all is said and done. But from a visceral perspective, I like all the songs on the life of a showgirl, but not all the songs on folklore evermore, even though I appreciate the achievement, I kind of tapped out for reputation and lover for a bit honestly. You see, I really like country music and I was a little bit salty that Taylor decided to abandon country music to pursue pop music. I understand why she did it, but in retrospect, lover is one of her great albums and Cruel Summer has just been this massive retrospective hit.
(03:18):
I didn't see that one coming. It's also another bright album in the way that the life of a showgirl is. Reputation was a massive departure when it came out. This was sort of for Bad Girl album and a response to tabloid and media coverage of her. I feel like every Pop Star has to have an album like this, and I feel like reputation has been rehabbed over time. At this point, I feel like all of Taylor Swift's first five albums are kind of iconic in their own right. Taylor Swift is a really staggering debut considering the maturity of the output. For someone who was releasing a record album at 16 years old, I couldn't even tie my shoes when I was 16. Fearless was an effective follow-up, and then Red Speak now in 1989 represent probably her most solid period, and this is our transition from country to pop and featured some massive hits as well as some underrated bangers.
(04:14):
Gun to my head. Speak now is probably my favorite Taylor Swift album as of today. Similarly, red is my favorite Taylor Swift song and there is an utterly astonishing live version of this song from the 2013 Country Music Awards featuring Allison Kraus, Vince Gill, Sam Bush, and Edgar Meyer, as well as Eric Darken introduced by Brad Paisley is well worth your time to go find it and watch it on YouTube where it's available in full as is one of the best live recordings ever. I'd listen to it more often, but it would make me too sad about losing country Taylor Swift. So while I ponder the place of the life as a showgirl in the Taylor Swift catalog, I do have a sense of my favorite songs on the album. Here's my list of the top tracks on life of a showgirl counting up from 12 to one with 12 being my least favorite though they're all good.
(05:07):
As I said, number 12, canceled all caps, my least favorite track on the album, this kind of like reputation error, swift and a little downbeat and janky pitchfork called this song a Swag List. Look what you made me do, which I think is pretty accurate. I do like the strings though the last 30 seconds of the song is the best part when it gets a little quicker in terms of lyric delivery, and I wish more of the song was like that. All in all, there are some good elements here that don't quite deliver a coherent hole. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that I couldn't give a fuck about celebrity disputes is this song is apparently about the Blake Lively Justin B thing. Whatever that is does nothing for me, but if you're looking for a better Blake Lively inspired song by Taylor Swift, check out Betty from Folklore with characters named after Lively Children with Ryan Reynolds, number 11.
(06:03):
Oh, polite. This thing is, I really want to hate this song because I don't like the lyrics at all. The song actually contains the words Life is a song, it ends when it ends. Come on, Taylor. This is your 12th studio album and you've been recording music for 20 plus years. A line like that should never leave the draft stage. This is lazy horse shit. Apparently this is Travis Kelsey's favorite song on the album, which is maybe why he plays football. The song is totally meaningless and silly, and yet it's another earworm that I can't stop singing. Curse you, Taylor Swift number 10, actually romantic. This is another pop culture thing that I don't understand. This is supposed to be the Charlie XCX disc track. Honestly, that's probably the wrong move by Charlie XC X. I don't even know that Tupac would've written this track about Taylor Swift at this point, but the savage move here is that Taylor is basically like, you're cute and I didn't even know you had beef with me, so let me be straight with you.
(07:03):
I couldn't pick Charlie X, the X out of a lineup and I couldn't name even one of her songs. I just thought this song was about a guy who Taylor was into who was a little bit kinky, a little bit nasty, and she was surprised that she liked it. I'm not a pervert, I swear the music is good. Right now we're getting into some of my favorite songs on the album. The Top nine are all really good in my opinion. Number nine, honey. This is one of only two tracks on the album that doesn't get his own Wikipedia page. The other is Eldes Daughter, which is sort of underrated. This is a pretty simplistic, lyrical conceit effectively the way you're in love with some of words that might be condescending in other instances take on different meanings. This isn't an insanely memorable song necessarily, and I have it marked as one of the weaker entries on the album.
(07:48):
However, it does highlight how good Taylor is with lyrics. You can call me honey if you want because I'm the one you want. Just a nice simple turn of phrase that works really well in the song. Then the subtle instrumental changes across this song are really well done, including the Flute Interlude Late in the track. Even middling Taylor Swift tracks carry tremendous production value as this song builds over its length. Speaking of length number eight Wood. Yes, this song is about Travis Kelsey's dick. Hey, now don't at me. Wikipedia states the following. This song is about Kelsey's penis. I mean now I definitely didn't need to know about the potential length Girth white, et cetera of Travis Kelsey's member. However, I do like a fun pop song that sounds like a Jackson Five track and I'm okay with stupid song lyrics if they are very winking as they are here.
(08:45):
Also, I don't think Taylor Swift was like, Hey, I'm about to write Stairway to Heaven. Oops. I mean I've largely moved past the Taylor Swift Pop transition and this is a well-crafted top song. Would I prefer tracks like Mean instead? Sure, but whatever. This is a really good and catchy song. I'm not hating on it. Number seven, wishlist. This song features another excellent Taylor Swift sub-genre, which is internet culture is bullshit and I am fucking here for it. I can't wait until Tara Swift writes a song about ai. This is basically all about people trying to live lives focused on things they do and can post on Instagram, which is definitely the lamest possible way to live. This song specifically references the desire to acquire an Oscar on their bathroom floor, which is an illusion to Kate Winslet keeping an Academy Award in her bathroom so that her guests could practice giving speeches with it.
(09:42):
That's admittedly pretty great. Of course, it's difficult to engender philosophical disagreement with a sign that's like family is the most important thing. Hey, I agree. It's also another catchy pop tune. Speaking of wanting a spring break that was fucking lit with the video coming down from the internet. I think the good Lord every day that I went to college before smartphones existed, six eldest daughter, this track is sort of out of place on this album because it slows things down a little bit before getting into more pop fear. This kind of like your piano interlude. This sounds like a song that could have easily fit into the folklore evermore era. This is another set of lyrics that squarely addresses the internet as bullshit again. I love it. Warren Taylor plays off modern slang to address the importance of true love slash true loyalty. I think this is another Travis Kelsey love song since he was the youngest child in his family and she was the oldest child in hers.
(10:42):
It's just a peaceful quiet track, which also breaks up some of the heavier songs that appeared before it. Number five, father Figure People are calling this a George Michael tribute since this song shares a name with a 1987 hit by the singer and Michael is credited on the track, but really those songs are very different even as they share a title Chorus lyric and a similar melody. If this song was called something else, I would not have been able to guess the resemblance and people are saying that Taylor credited George Michael to avoid a potential lawsuit, which makes sense. This is one type of Taylor Swift song that I love, the prime example being the Man where she's like, if I was a dude, I would really be allowed to wreck shit. It's funny because it's true. Plus, we've got the tremendous line. I can make deals with the devil because my Dick's bigger.
(11:37):
This album has a lot of cock references on it, like a lot. I like how she's playing with gender roles here where she protects the family and makes herself sound like a mob boss. That's cool. This is also one of those artists Get back songs where vengeance is taken in lyric form against unscrupulous record labels and people that have done them wrong. In this case, this is about Big Machine which held the rights to tailor his masters for her early albums. We also recently discussed this on our Billy Joel Perfect albums podcast. He's got Great Wall of China written against his brother-in-law slash manager, stole all his money as well as the entertainer about the shift of the record industry. Alright, no penis stock four, Elizabeth Taylor. Now we're getting into the truly top shelf shit. These are like the four best tracks on the album by a wide margin, I think on an album that has a lot of good tracks.
(12:30):
I think that this song in the next three are all on the level where they could have been lead singles off the album. This song is just bumping. I was in North Carolina recently and I saw a restaurant called Portofinos, a picture of which I texted to my daughter to wish she responded. I was a true swifty. If you know, I shouldn't have to tell you. The chorus really shines on this one and it's peppered with Elizabeth Taylor references. This is One Might Imagine she's an iconic actress from Old Hollywood whom Taylor Swift is referenced before on songs. This is an observation on the fleeting nature of fame and beauty as it relates to perhaps the most famous showgirl ever, an actress who was considered the most beautiful woman in the world during her peak, a modern Helen of Troy in the cinematic Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor. Do you think it's Forever three, the Fate of Ophelia?
(13:22):
This was the lead single on the album. I have to say I was kind of concerned for the first post Travis Kelsey album. Taylor Swift has clearly found happiness in her personal life, but a lot of her dopest tracks are about how she hates her ex-boyfriends picture to burn all too well, dear John, et cetera, et cetera. It was kind of her thing, but if the fate of Ophelia is the kind of song she's going to produce in a stable relationship, this can work. We've got overt Shakespeare references, a thick baseline, one of her catchiest, little diddies, keep it 100 on the land, the sea, the sky that is just an all timer of an earworm and you've definitely seen the dance on TikTok, but what I like about the track is that while it's a love song ostensibly, it's still kind of dark in terms of the subject matter and the references.
(14:10):
Now, I can't wait until she has kids. Taylor Ross released an acoustic version of this song, subtitled Alone in My Tower, which is fantastic, and right up there with her tremendous acoustic rendition of Anti-Hero, which you should also definitely listen to. Number two, ruin the Friendship, which I was turning over in my mind as the number one song on this album. I love this song. I was immediately into it when I first listened through to the whole album. I was like, whoa. Like I was Joey Lawrence, this song and the next one I feel like I vibed with because there are strong country music elements in each. This song features a banjo guitar, for example. I bet you know that there was a banjo guitar, not a banjo and a guitar, a banjo guitar. The percussion is quite good and I like how the song leaves off.
(15:01):
I'm really into the lyrical structure as well with the callback too. It was not an invitation, it was not inconvenient or it was not convenient, et cetera, which is a great way to set up the tone of regret and I have to say Taylor Swift writes the Catchiest song parts. I don't think anyone is better except maybe Paul McCartney. The intro to this song is so fucking great. Calling back to Speeding Down Road, I don't even know, but feel like I'm there. Honestly, the rest of the song could be complete garbage and I would still just listen to the intro segment on repeat. What's really cool is that this song is about a friend of Taylor's who died of a drug overdose when he was 21. That's not the cool part, and his mother has expressed the gratitude to Taylor for writing the song and keeping her son's memory alive, which is kind of a beautiful thing to be honest.
(15:48):
Number one, that leaves the title track the Life of a Showgirl. Yes, Sabrina Carpenter Supremacy continues on legal late night as she's a guest on this track, but in all seriousness, this is amazing swing here. It's just a sweeping work of art. I kind of wish Taylor Swift would've made this whole thing a concept album, but this kind of like a concept song where the narrator becomes a showgirl following in the footsteps of her hero. The outro is fantastic. Something like the end of the concept segment of Sergeant Peppers with the audio taken from the Errors tour and featuring Sabrina Ann Taylor. This is maybe the strongest song on the album from a lyrical perspective. She's really tightly written and Taylor drops a great line for Sabrina to sing the part where she shouts. That's not what showgirls get. They leave us for dead. This is why I don't sing.
(16:38):
But then there's this all time or when the narrators describes her life as a showgirl saying that, and all the headshot on the walls of the dance hall are the bitches of which I'd hurry up and die. That is fucking great. Put it on a t-shirt. Alas, the protagonist is already immortal. Instrumentally. This is probably also the strongest song on the album. It changes tempos a bunch has different segments, all of which flow smoothly from one end to the other and also features real instruments like another pedal steel guitar, which is used to great effect of note is that the or showgirl hails from Lennox, Massachusetts, which is where James Taylor has lived for years. Jt, after whom Taylor Swift was named. Next up, find out all about the life of a technology consultant, which is sure to be most glamorous. Yes, that's right. Next up, it's Daleele Alison of Rooks dm. He's got some hot tips on software adoption for your law firm.
(17:48):
Welcome back. I've effectively run out of things to say, which is awkward because this is a podcast, so I'm going to stare at our new goldfish, Tomas, for several minutes. You can see I'm staring angrily at our new goldfish, Tomas, because I'm not happy he's living with us and yes, his real name is Tomas. Now I'm just fucking kidding with you. I'm not going to do that. We're going to do an interview instead. Probably best that I bring someone on now. Right? Okay, here we go. Our guest today is Daleele Alison, the CEO at Rooks dm dle, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining the circus.
Daleele Alison (18:25):
Awesome. Thank you so much for having me today.
Jared Correia (18:28):
All right. I got to ask you, I'm always interested in brand names, Rooks, dm, what the fuck is that all about? Do you play a lot of chess?
Daleele Alison (18:39):
No, we do not.
Jared Correia (18:41):
Okay.
Daleele Alison (18:43):
We thought about making that part of our company name just because a lot of people thought it was part of the chess board, but actually it's pronounced, my parents are originally from Ethiopia and the native
Jared Correia (18:55):
Language there educated. Okay, this is great.
Daleele Alison (18:58):
So they speak Ammar, which is the language that they speak and Amek means to go far, and so we put that in our company name because we want it to help people go further, and so that's the whole meaning of what people pronounce it as rook or rooks, but it's really pronounced the rook.
Jared Correia (19:16):
Oh, that's great. That's amazing. Okay, now what's the DM part mean?
Daleele Alison (19:20):
So DM stands now for doing more, but previously to that we used to be called Rooks Digital Marketing, so we were very focused when we first started out, we were doing a lot of website related work and a lot of SEO and online ads and things of that nature, and this is when I was doing the business, and so that was the name of the company, and then we rebranded back in late 2019, it was some period of 18 to 19, we ended up rebranding to Rook dm,
Jared Correia (19:52):
Look at you, man, just like whatever acronym, whatever name. We'll just make it work.
Daleele Alison (19:57):
Yeah.
Jared Correia (19:59):
What do you do, tell the people? What does Rook DM do?
Daleele Alison (20:03):
Yeah, so team at Rooks, we help companies be able to run more efficiently. We help them be able to move forward a lot more productively using technology. So we are in the space of AI and automation. So you run a law firm, for example, if you're onboarding a new client, how do you do that as efficiently as possible? A lot of times what ends up happening is copy and pasting data between systems, having to chase down information from your clients, receiving a lot of data and documents via email. We'll work with firms to help them standardize or structure that process for data collection, and then we build automations around that. So now you can submit a form. Once you submit a form, we can create folders, store documents, add data into various systems across your, so you're not having to do all of those tasks manually.
Jared Correia (20:51):
So there's a few levels to that, I'm sure. And the first place you probably assist people, I would imagine is helping them to assess technology. And that probably happens on two levels, I'm assuming assessing internal technology they're already using and then looking at the stuff that they could be purchasing. So how do you go about that process and what do you see
Daleele Alison (21:12):
Exactly? Yeah, so that would fall under our advisory services. Typically what we do in that process is we'll work with the firm, kind of understand how they function. While there may be similarities, there's definitely nuances and certain preferences on how they operate that would impact their decision making as it relates to the technology. And then mostly what we look for from a business standpoint is, Hey, where do you think you're spending the most time that you could be more efficient? Where is your team spending in the most time that you think you could be more efficient? Identifying those? Sometimes we'll do interviews as well, depending on the size of the company across the different departments, and then our team will kind of come up with their findings of, Hey, this is everything that we heard. Here's some recommendations as it relates to ways you can use the existing technology. You have a little bit better ways you can build integrations or have systems talk to each other, and then here are some things that we would probably recommend you adding into your practice. And then usually we build a roadmap. So it's usually current state, future state, and the future state includes our recommendations based off of their goals and the challenges that they currently have that we could help them solve with the right technology.
Jared Correia (22:20):
I mean, that's cool. So you get pretty deep with these firms now, do you have people who want to bring you into their office environment or is this all done virtually at this point in time?
Daleele Alison (22:30):
Yeah, mostly virtually everything that we do. A lot of whiteboarding sessions as well too. The beautiful thing about technology is you can do all of this virtually, and it's more, I wouldn't say I guess, cost effective because you don't have to pay for travel, get people there and things of that nature from our end. But yeah, most of the work that we do is virtually.
Jared Correia (22:48):
Are you still finding firms using physical shit like servers and that kind of thing? Or are people mostly on the cloud at this point and just looking at different cloud tools?
Daleele Alison (22:58):
Yeah, majority. I mean obviously that's usually a prereq in terms of working with us. That might be the first thing that we look at as, Hey, are you on the cloud? If not, what's the hesitation there? Can we get you onto the cloud? But yeah, most people are leveraging cloud solutions. Some still have a server as a backup or one of the things that we see is some of the programs that they run still require a server and they just happen to have
Jared Correia (23:22):
It
Daleele Alison (23:22):
In their office. But no, most firms are paperless,
Jared Correia (23:26):
Thank God. Right. So when somebody wants to acquire new software, stuff they don't have already or stuff that's going to replace things they already have, how does that differ in terms of process? How do you guide them into that? Because I think one of the issues is sometimes people know what they want and sometimes they know the attributes of what they want, but they don't know where they reside.
Daleele Alison (23:51):
So our process, so we have a philosophy more like process first, technology second. A lot of times what people try to do or what we've seen from our experience is looking at technology is like the magic bullet that's going to solve all problems. And sometimes that's not the case. Wait,
Jared Correia (24:07):
That's not
Daleele Alison (24:08):
True. It can solve a lot of problems and then it becomes frustrating. Even we're seeing it with AI now of, hey, this is not really working, but then goes, Hey, did you train your user accordingly? Are you asking the right questions? Are you prompting the solution to be able to give you the responses that you're looking for? Does it have access to the right data to be able to give you those responses? So it's pretty nuanced as it relates to solving their challenges. So that's why we work with them to understand, hey, what is it that you're actually trying to solve? And then based off of that, is there a technology that will allow you to solve that and what would be the most ideal piece of technology to do that? And it's somewhat nuanced because you're using a lot of different technology tools a lot of times, and so you're trying to bolt all these things on. One thing that we always say, so we're Microsoft Partners, a lot of the work that we do is built on or integrated with Microsoft, so we always are looking at, hey, is there anything in the Microsoft world that you can leverage that would make your lives easier as well too? There's a lot of stuff in the Microsoft world, tons. Yeah,
Jared Correia (25:15):
I'm always, when I talk to people, I think they're always surprised at just how much stuff is in Microsoft 365 in particular with all the various tools that are accessible. So do you want to give me a quick rundown on some of the stuff that's underutilized? You wouldn't have to go deep on this. I just had somebody on a few weeks back, a few months back who had worked from Microsoft and no longer does. So we can talk shit about Microsoft now, but what do you like that you don't think people are aware of?
Daleele Alison (25:48):
A few different ones. Simple One obviously is document repository. Some people are still using another third party tool. There may be a reason for that, but obviously SharePoint allows you to
Jared Correia (26:00):
Not a good one.
Daleele Alison (26:02):
SharePoint's not a good one, or the other ones are not good ones.
Jared Correia (26:04):
No, I never understood why people use a separate document storage tool because they don't usually have a reason for doing it.
Daleele Alison (26:15):
And usually it's, Hey, we decided to use this because the other people are using it, or we ended up setting it up, so now we don't want to transfer into or migrate over to SharePoint, some fear or uncertainty around that. So that's where we kind of navigate them through that whole process. But SharePoint, low hanging Fruit, the other one is Microsoft Teams, so people still think Teams is only a virtual meeting platform over the years. A lot of people have understood and understand what it can do, but you can do collaboration, communication, so moving a little bit more away from email into Teams channels, so you can segment conversations based off certain things within the teams channel. There's a files tab where you can access your SharePoint documents, which those live on the cloud as well too. You can do add-ons, teams has AI meeting notes and recaps that you can leverage as well too. So that's a big one. And then now obviously everyone is looking into ai, so copilot is part of the whole Microsoft Suite. And the nice thing about copilot is Word, Excel, PowerPoint are all Microsoft tools and if you leverage copilot within it, it just makes it easier to get the things that you need within those types of tools because it's a Microsoft product too.
Jared Correia (27:27):
I fucking hate teams, but everybody already knows that I can't stand teams. But anyway, I don't want to muddy the waters. Microsoft ai, what do you find people are doing with it? What do they want to do with it? Are they just using Copilot or are they going the full route and doing 365 enterprise with copilot effectively built in?
Daleele Alison (27:49):
Yeah, so combination of things. So we're working with clients all across the board. There's other tools as well too. Not to get too technical, but Microsoft has no go for it. Technical has a suite of tools called, so Microsoft Power Platform is like a suite of applications. So there's Power bi, which people are familiar with reporting,
Jared Correia (28:08):
Not a lot of lawyers, but that's a good tool. Yeah,
Daleele Alison (28:11):
Yeah. Reporting visualization, power Automate is another big one. So if you wanted to create workflow automations, you can do that using power Automate power apps. So if we want it to create a custom application, we can do that and it's known as low-code, no-code solution. So we can do it a lot more cost effective as it relates to building a custom app and integrating it with other third party systems and then having your internal team be able to interact with it. And then the other one is Power Pages. So if we want it to do portals or websites for example, we can leverage Power Pages to do that. So that's another underutilized tool as part of the suite. But to answer your question copilot two different ways. We're seeing it as just out of the box as I was mentioning. So draft me an email, create me content is comparable to chat, GPT, Claude Gemini. So it has access to the web data points, but then it also has, if there's a work and a web tab, are you using copilot by chance or no?
Jared Correia (29:11):
Of course I'm using copilot.
Daleele Alison (29:13):
Okay, come on now. Alright, so I was just trying to figure out, because some people don't know the difference. So the work one is really nice because then it has access to the data within the Microsoft environment. So then you can ask it much more targeted question. So for example, if I went up to prep for this meeting, I can go in and say, Hey, give me my previous communications from Jared. I don't want to butcher your last name, but I would prompt it to give me information.
Jared Correia (29:40):
Oh, please do. Okay, now I'm going to make you pronounce my last name. How do you think it's pronounced ria? Oh boy, that is very bad. Very bad. Okay. Korea, like the country. Okay, this is great. This will be educational for everybody. There are probably people out there who's like, how do you say this asshole's last name now. Alright, so let's talk a little bit about the customization part of it because some people are comfortable like, Hey, I'm going to get into new software, I'm just going to use it out of the box. And do you find that that's the case with most of the people you work with, or do people want you to come in and build out an instance in the software effectively for them? Yeah,
Daleele Alison (30:17):
It's a combination. So we do a lot of work with small to mid-size teams, and a lot of it is some of it's just like training and workshop of, Hey, how can we leverage this tool in our workflow? And if you're, I dunno, on the operation side versus the sales side, it's going to be different in terms of the usage for it, like the answers you're trying to get. So usually training and workshopping is one thing, and then for the customization, it's figuring out what is the best use of the technology that will effectively give you a return on investment because obviously you want to be mindful of your resources, your time and executing or implementing these solutions require both of those. So it's figuring out, hey, where are we going to get the most bang for our buck if we will, or what's the most value add in terms of how we can implement this if we want it to customize it?
(31:07):
So one good use case is if you're going through a lot of hiring right now and onboarding new team members, or maybe it's not a lot, but you're doing one person every six months or every quarter or something like that, then that would be a good time to build a custom agent around your SOPs. So instead of them having to go look at all of the massive documents that you have, they can just ask an agent and then that agent would be customized to the information that you've given it on your SOPs. So then they would know, hey, if I'm going to go open a new account or if I'm onboarding, these are the steps associated with it. Or if there's a nuance and something that they're working on, they can just ask the agent to give them an answer versus having to scroll through a bunch of documents.
Jared Correia (31:48):
Do you find that people are coming to you with customization suggestions or do you feel like you need to prompt them and kind of guide them?
Daleele Alison (31:57):
That's a good question. I think it's a combination now because everyone is so exposed to AI and it's very hot, so people are spending quite a bit of time doing their own due diligence and research. So they're coming I think as a combination of like, Hey, we saw our other colleague or we saw another firm is leveraging it in this way. We were considering doing it as well too. Right.
Jared Correia (32:22):
Yeah. Now in terms of the firms you work with, what do you do with respect to maintenance? Do people want to keep you on or is it more like, Hey, if something comes up, we'll give you a call?
Daleele Alison (32:33):
So the only maintenance that we do is if we build something custom, then we can support it on an ongoing basis. We're not like a traditional IT provider, what's known as a managed service provider. So we don't do the day-to-day help desk support network monitoring, it's all around, Hey, we built these automations or we built this custom app and now you need someone to maintain it. That's where we provide the support on an ongoing basis. And it could be two flavors, it could be, hey, they have someone internal will be like level one support and then they can have us as a resource or we can be the first point of contact as it relates to supporting those solutions that they're
Jared Correia (33:06):
Implementing. What do you see lawyers doing in terms of intake
Daleele Alison (33:11):
Now?
Jared Correia (33:12):
Are they building stuff and Microsoft, are they using third party softwares? And then I feel like that's a place where you really need to think about customizing the pipeline. What are your thoughts on that?
Daleele Alison (33:23):
Yeah, intake is a really good one. So what we're doing is leveraging online forms. So there's a lot of online form tools out there. Jot form is pretty popular as well too. So jot form, you can do a lot of conditional logic. You can ensure that the data is the type of data point you're trying to collect. And then from there, what you can also do as well too is since you're using the form, it's structured in a way that we know theoretically what attachments are being provided. So you can add the attachments, so the form, and then once the form is submitted, we can run workflow automation that says, Hey, this form came in, or this field came in from the form, we know it's the license field. For example, take that attachment, rename it based off of who submitted the form, and then store that document into that person's folder. So that would be low hanging fruit, and you can do it one of two ways. If some firms are resistant or they don't want their clients to do all that work, so that's perfectly fine, you can just have your internal staff use that as a tool to process the data that's coming in. On the intake side of things,
Jared Correia (34:28):
This all sounds reasonable and structured. Why is it that attorneys always keep fucking up their technology,
Daleele Alison (34:38):
This combination? I think some of them have it right because they're diligent about asking the right questions. But I think it goes back with anything else is if you're not spending day in and day out your time focusing on implementing technology solutions, it could be a little bit harder to get the answers either quicker. So some things might just take longer to get implemented, so then you don't have your technology pieces in place or knowing which things to implement, kind of getting scaled up on the knowledge standpoint side of things makes it harder to have all that knowledge when you're trying to run a practice, work on matters, but also implement these tools that help you run more efficiently.
Jared Correia (35:18):
Alright, last question for you. So if I'm a law firm and I'm like, okay, I need to get my shit together in terms of technology, how do I go about finding a consultant to help me with that?
Daleele Alison (35:28):
Chad, GBT or some AI is usually a good place to start. Lucky you. Hey, perplexity, perhaps. Yeah, so you can always go into there and just prompt it. Hey, I'm looking for a local IT consultant that helps with automation, AI or helping me work more efficiently would probably be something I would say ask your other colleagues. There are certain people that work in certain segments as it relates to technology for your firm. So if they have a good understanding of the type of tools that you use, they have partnerships, they have integrations that they may have already built. For example, we've worked on Clio, so we have some things that we've built on Clio that make it a little bit more advantage across the different types of firms that we work with. So
Jared Correia (36:12):
Delio, thank you. This was truly a delay. I learned a lot. Thank you for coming on.
Daleele Alison (36:17):
Thank you for having me, and thank you for telling me the appropriate name or appropriate pronunciation of your last name.
Jared Correia (36:24):
Same. We taught each other a lot today. Speaking of which, we'll be back in a moment with Michelle Langa, an Emmy-winning voice actor and il. I want you to know if I mispronounced that name, I want Michelle to know if that name was mispronounced. That's on you because you told me how to say it.
(36:41):
That's fair. I wanted to pronounce it Michelle. I was thinking about Regina Phalange from Friends, which was Phoebe's pseudonym. Anyway, that's next. Caught you in a second. Welcome back everybody. It's the counter program. It's a podcast. Within a podcast is a conversational space where we can address usually unrelated topics that I want to explore at a greater depth with my guests. Expect no rhyme and very little reason. Hi, welcome back everybody. We've got sort of an unusual segment today in that we're just going to do a totally different interview with someone new. That's right. We've got two guests for the price of one on legal late night tonight, which makes the price still zero. I guess we don't charge anybody to listen to the podcast. So let's bring in Michelle Falanga, who is a voiceover actress. Michelle, thank you very much for coming in today. How are you?
Michelle Falanga (37:42):
Thank you. I'm good. How are you
Jared Correia (37:44):
Now? You didn't just wander into the recording today. This was somewhat planned, so we just talked to il. So can you tell me what is your connection with him?
Michelle Falanga (37:55):
To il?
Jared Correia (37:56):
Yes.
Michelle Falanga (37:58):
Well, he's just such a good guy, but I am blessed to have him be, he's now, he's part of my family. He is married to my godchild, my niece, and so I guess he's my brother-in-law is, what do you call that one? It's by marriage.
Jared Correia (38:17):
I don't even know he's related to you. Oh
Michelle Falanga (38:19):
No. He'd be my nephew. I
Jared Correia (38:21):
Nephew in-law. That's not good. I
Michelle Falanga (38:23):
Made it up
Jared Correia (38:24):
If that's the thing. That's what he is.
Michelle Falanga (38:26):
That's right. And he's just a good guy.
Jared Correia (38:28):
The question is, does he behave himself during the holidays?
Michelle Falanga (38:32):
He does. He's just like salt of the earth. Good guy.
Jared Correia (38:39):
Can you show us your Emmy?
Michelle Falanga (38:41):
Yes, I brought it in. I don't usually have it. People ask and I'm like, it's out there. Well, you can't hang anything. This is all soft. People are like, you should have it behind you. I'm like, I'm
Jared Correia (38:52):
Not going to do that. Well look at that. That's glorious.
Michelle Falanga (38:55):
It's very heavy.
Jared Correia (38:56):
Is it? What do you think the weight on that thing is?
Michelle Falanga (39:00):
I don't know, like six pounds.
Jared Correia (39:03):
Oh my gosh. That's the real deal.
Michelle Falanga (39:07):
Yeah, I'm trying to gauge what, yeah, it was a bucket list thing. It was a bucket list for me.
Jared Correia (39:14):
Now what did you win that for?
Michelle Falanga (39:16):
It was for a commercial. It was in 2020. It was for a commercial called The Legend. And then, so what was really cool is what happens is voice talent. Often they don't get Emmys because the production group, like the writer and the person who filmed it and all the different people in music, they all put their names on, but they don't tend to include the voice talent. And this producer included me and so therefore I also got it as part of the creative team that created this spot. That's awesome. So that was a blessing. Yeah, yeah. And they said my name, they actually said my name on the stage when he went, I wasn't there. It was during COVID, but
Jared Correia (39:59):
Oh
Michelle Falanga (39:59):
Yeah, yeah.
Jared Correia (40:00):
My name was, if I had an Emmy, I'd probably go to Starbucks and just randomly put it down and I was ordering. You do stuff like
Michelle Falanga (40:08):
That. Yeah, I'm not going to, no, I don't do that. Nobody does.
Jared Correia (40:12):
Do you polish it regularly? Is my,
Michelle Falanga (40:14):
I don't. You don't? No, I have a table. I have a tellie too. I dunno if you know what that is, but
Jared Correia (40:19):
No. What's a telly?
Michelle Falanga (40:20):
It's like another kind of award. Similar. So I have it on this, I have it in my little studio in my room just to kind of remind me of how hard I've worked.
Jared Correia (40:32):
Alright, so people haven't figured it out yet. You're a voiceover actress among other things, and you are speaking to us from a sound studio or you've been committed to an asylum. I know one of those things
Michelle Falanga (40:43):
Is happening. I know people say that all the time. I in a, it's called a studio, bricks studio. It's all soft padded room. I live in a padded room, but this one's made of their newer one. It's made of recycled materials, so it doesn't have as much off gassing stuff of chemicals and stuff, so that's good. But yeah, I live in this room.
Jared Correia (41:08):
How does one get into voiceover acting?
Michelle Falanga (41:12):
I mean, there's so many ways I kind of fell into it. I always had a full-time job and I was an actor, meaning, and I fell into that too, but I did murder mysteries and improv shows on the weekends. So your actors are also your wait staff, that sort of thing. And we serve in the food and we're doing an improv show.
Jared Correia (41:32):
Look at my screenplay, that kind of thing.
Michelle Falanga (41:37):
It's always wild. I did that for 20 something years. Wow. 23 years or so. Every Friday and Saturday night, all different characters. Literally hundreds of people coming to get dinner in a show, like a live board game of Clue in a mansion. Or
(41:52):
We did a mob one in the north end of Boston for a while in this Italian restaurant. Just crazy, crazy stuff. And there's a premise, but then in general, it's all improv for the most part. I mean, there's some scripting, but most of it's you have to make up as you go and that is the best thing to qualify you to become a voice. Improv is a really great thing to do before becoming voiceover. So I got into voiceover because I was like, oh, I do all these characters. I want to do animation. But at the time, this was way back, they didn't have, you couldn't do animation from where I live. You had to be in la.
Jared Correia (42:31):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Michelle Falanga (42:32):
It wasn't a thing. And then I started getting hired from my regular voice, so it was kind of an accident. I wouldn't have gotten into voiceover to do regular stuff. And then I got laid off from a full-time job I was at in 2013 and I just jumped in full time, which yeah.
Jared Correia (42:49):
How do you get the voiceover parts? Do you audition? Do people contact you from work they've seen you perform? It's a
Michelle Falanga (42:57):
Mixture. No, no, no. It's a mixture. There's sites that you can pay to be on, they're called pay to pay-to-play sites. So you pay to be on a site that kind of filters auditions to you. So I'm on two different sites like that and I'll get 20 auditions a day from both of those and I audition. And so people hear you and so there's that way. Then it's like direct marketing. It's a lot. To do this job, it's like 85 to 90% everything else to record for 10% of your time. It's like marketing and you do everything. You do everything.
Jared Correia (43:38):
Yeah. Okay. So basically you're running your own solo business really.
Michelle Falanga (43:42):
You're a solopreneur, you're completely running your, not even sort of, that's what you're doing,
Jared Correia (43:47):
That's actually what's happening. Yeah,
Michelle Falanga (43:52):
I do everything. I do my accounting. I do my reach outs, I do marketing. I do my creative. I design my website, everything from soup to nuts, and I do the engineering of my recording. I do all my own engineering of my projects. I have to learn that. I don't love that. That's not my favorite thing to do. But I like to perform. I like to be able to just do the voice, but that's a tiny percentage of my time.
Jared Correia (44:17):
Your website is crazy. Just so much stuff on there. There's some terms I'd never heard before.
Michelle Falanga (44:23):
What
Jared Correia (44:24):
So goosebump work? What is that?
Michelle Falanga (44:29):
No, it's not. See, I hope that's not confusing to people. It just means that I do,
Jared Correia (44:34):
I'm just an idiot about this. I know literally nothing about this space.
Michelle Falanga (44:39):
When somebody sings and they say, oh, you gave me goosebumps. You gave me goofies or whatever.
Jared Correia (44:44):
It
Michelle Falanga (44:44):
Touched my heart.
Jared Correia (44:45):
Yeah, okay.
Michelle Falanga (44:46):
It means that I am able to evoke emotion in someone. I do all kinds of projects, but I definitely do a lot of things that make somebody feel something.
Jared Correia (44:59):
What are your favorite types of projects to do? Is there a favorite character you've voiced?
Michelle Falanga (45:05):
I've only done a little bit of the video game stuff. Mostly I've done, I'm just narrating something. I fell in. I don't know if you've ever heard of Drum Corps? Do you know what that is?
Jared Correia (45:15):
I know what generally speaking, I think I know what that is, but I don't know if there's a niche thing within Drum Corps.
Michelle Falanga (45:21):
Well, about over 10 years ago, I was reached out to by a drum corps troop that was doing a world competition in a stadium, and they tend to have a storyline and they're amazing. The music director, they compose, they compose music, they have choreography and the whole thing. It's like a drum line kind of thing on this huge stadium. And I did my first drum show and now I've done 35 of them since then. I became the Voice of Drum Corps and no,
Jared Correia (45:57):
You're like the Michael Buffer of the Drum people.
Michelle Falanga (45:59):
This is great. It's the coolest. It's the coolest thing because, and I have a sampler on my website of some of them, but that first show, they panned out and you could hear your voice fill a stadium, and then you could see people in the audience getting emotional, like tearing up, because the monologue that I was reading was about the last moments of the s last seconds of your life flashing before you,
Jared Correia (46:23):
Oh my God. It got really dark here all of a sudden,
Michelle Falanga (46:25):
Right? No, but it was like, and you could feel goosebump work and you could see people feeling that emotion of that storytelling in the stadium. It was the coolest thing. And they don't pay a ton, but they're my favorite kinds of, I love stuff like that. I feel like I'm making a difference a little bit and telling a story.
Jared Correia (46:47):
So as somebody, I know you do other stuff, we'll get into that, but as somebody who does voice work, do you have favorite voice actors who are not you?
Michelle Falanga (47:01):
Again, I fell into this, unlike some people who they spent their whole life, they wanted to be a voice
Jared Correia (47:05):
Out.
Michelle Falanga (47:05):
I feel there's
Jared Correia (47:06):
People who are like, I want to do this. Right?
Michelle Falanga (47:08):
They know all the big people. I don't know. You could tell me names and I'm like, I know my friends. I know the people I'm, I'm such a dork. But they'll be like, well, and I'm like, I'm sorry, I don't, it's not like I was like, I'm going to become a voice. It wasn't like that. So I meanly. I know people
Jared Correia (47:24):
Now. I don't know now. So you're safe.
Michelle Falanga (47:26):
Yeah. Well, I know people a bit now just from being in the industry and taking classes and all that stuff. But no, I never was like, I want to be like blah, blah, blah.
Jared Correia (47:37):
I always wanted to be the voice of optimist Prime. That would've been amazing. It transforms. But that was my dream, which is it's been crushed and now I'm doing this podcast.
Michelle Falanga (47:46):
I'll, right, it's close. It's close enough.
Jared Correia (47:49):
Not really.
Michelle Falanga (47:50):
You're like, no, it's this close. Yeah, no,
Jared Correia (47:55):
I'm interested in, so as someone who does this type of work, what are your thoughts on the AI piece of this?
Michelle Falanga (48:02):
I was just talking. Yeah, that's hard. To be honest. It's definitely affecting our industry.
(48:09):
I was saying, I feel like my hope is that the robots, they don't have a backstory and a life experience to have that. I do a lot of that emotional stuff, and I'm hoping a robot can't be emotional, but I don't know they're getting really good. But I am hoping that it's not a passing phase. Obviously there's good uses for ai, but my creative people like me, my industry, the people who do the writing, the people who do the film work and the visuals, these are all creative, brilliant people. And I would hate for that to all be, to me, I think AI should be used to do your laundry or something you don't want to do. Not to take away creativity. And I'm hoping that how farm to table is, everybody wants the best, whatever that maybe that voiceover using a human will become like we used a human voice as farm to table. That's exclusive. That's the best. Everybody uses ai, but I have some companies, I had a company that I had worked with. I used to do work for them all the time, regular work for them, and I hadn't gotten anything in a year. And I was like, that's weird. I'm going to reach out. Did something happen? And they were like, oh no. About a year ago, we replaced all our voices with AI voices. We only use ai. And I was like,
Jared Correia (49:34):
Wow. Yeah, I don't like any of this.
Michelle Falanga (49:36):
I said, well, if you ever need human again, I'm here and good luck with that. But you're going to have people that just because it's cheaper. But I don't know,
Jared Correia (49:45):
We're so screwed as a society
Michelle Falanga (49:48):
When I get that. It's like a gut punch. You're just really
Jared Correia (49:51):
Now, is anyone in the industry asked to provide voices for AI tools? Is that a thing?
Michelle Falanga (50:00):
For sure. You can get your voice cloned and then offer that as well. You could use my voice or you could use my AI clone. I don't have that, but I do. This is different than that, but I do a lot of ai. How do you describe it? Something where it's like a virtual experience. I actually have a sampler on my website that shows this too, and it's bringing you through a virtual reality experience, but they want a voice. I get hired a lot for sounding like Scarlet Johansson and her really that movie? Oh, yes, definitely. She's got a warmth in her voice and a gravel. I have a natural gravel and a warmth, but she still sounds like a little bit of a robot, but like a warm robot. And I can do that. So those samples that are on that sampler on my website are not an AI clone. They're me modulating my voice. I actually do this when, and I actually can square off my words and sound like a robot, but that's a human robot, like a warm
Jared Correia (51:03):
Robot. See, I was just going to be like, do the voice. But now I'm like, you shouldn't do that because anybody could pinch this and steal it.
Michelle Falanga (51:11):
No, it's like, all right. Yeah.
Jared Correia (51:13):
So you also do other stuff. You are a children's book author as well, right?
Michelle Falanga (51:20):
Yeah.
Jared Correia (51:20):
Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Michelle Falanga (51:23):
I've always kind of been a writer in the sense that I've always written poetry and short stories, and I've written a few murder mystery things that actually got performed, but I dunno, around the same time when I went close to when I got laid off, I always wanted to write a children's book. One kind of came out of me one day. I literally wrote the whole thing during a lunch break in an email. And then of course, it took three years to get it, whatever. But I wrote the actual whole story in a lunch break. But then, then I eventually found an illustrator and worked with her, and then she illustrated it all, and then I self-published it. But yeah, it was on the bucket list, and I'm proud of it because kind of about kindness, it's kind of about bullying, but in a roundabout way, it's not like overboard. It's more about being true to who you are and acceptance and kindness and good messages that we need
Jared Correia (52:24):
In this world. What's the name of the book?
Michelle Falanga (52:25):
It's called The Amazing Monster.
Jared Correia (52:28):
We certainly need more kindness in the world, for sure.
Michelle Falanga (52:31):
Yeah.
Jared Correia (52:31):
So
Michelle Falanga (52:32):
Yeah.
Jared Correia (52:33):
Last thing I want to ask you about is I saw that you also host or had hosted a podcast on voiceover work. Is that still going on? How can people access that?
Michelle Falanga (52:44):
It's called Real Talk Tuesdays with Jess and Shell, and it's me and this colleague and other voice talent. That was a bucket list too. I've always, I love, I love the idea of co-hosting. Now. I don't want to be just me. I want to have a banter with somebody and do a cohosting.
Jared Correia (53:01):
That's so funny. I hate having a co-host. Anyway, go ahead. I'm just a selfish asshole.
Michelle Falanga (53:07):
Oh, okay. There you go. No, I love that banter. And then it's not as much pressure on me. I can just,
Daleele Alison (53:13):
Oh, sure.
Michelle Falanga (53:14):
So anyway, so I reached out to Jess and I was like, let's do this. And so we did it and we did it for a year. And then we've done a few pop-up ones. It was a lot of work to make
Jared Correia (53:28):
Sure once a week you hear everybody, podcasts are hard. You're welcome.
Michelle Falanga (53:30):
So hard. And we weren't making any money on it, but it was so much fun to do. And we interviewed some amazing people, and that
Jared Correia (53:38):
Covered a little bit of voiceover stuff. You got into how the industry works a little bit.
Michelle Falanga (53:42):
It was about voiceover, but it also talked about other things. We talked about things that are relative to all fields, like imposter syndrome, manifestation. I talked about my dream board and how I manifested certain things, and that's a really good episode. But I did have one on gear. Even though gear's not my thing. We interviewed people. It was just a really, really fun experience. I'm glad I did it. And people are like, Hey, when are you going to have another episode? I'm like, I just can't commit to once a week. We were doing, that was a lot
Daleele Alison (54:12):
A for
Michelle Falanga (54:12):
A whole year's,
Jared Correia (54:13):
A lot. It's a
Michelle Falanga (54:14):
Once a week producing it and getting it.
Jared Correia (54:17):
But
Michelle Falanga (54:17):
I loved it.
Jared Correia (54:18):
If it wasn't for the Speedballs, I would not podcasts at all.
Michelle Falanga (54:22):
Really?
Jared Correia (54:23):
Yeah. No, no. I'm all right. I'm doing fine.
Michelle Falanga (54:28):
If somebody out there wants a co-host and they want to do the whole production of it, I will be a co-host. It was doing all the editing and stuff that I was just like, I can't do this. It's too much time.
Jared Correia (54:38):
I've heard that stuff away from my work. I've heard. Right, Evan? So if anybody's out there looking for a co-host, you got one.
Michelle Falanga (54:46):
Call me. Call me
Jared Correia (54:48):
Michelle. Thank you. This is a lot of fun. I learned a lot personally.
Michelle Falanga (54:51):
Thank
Jared Correia (54:51):
You for taking the time.
Michelle Falanga (54:52):
There you go. Of course.
Jared Correia (54:54):
All we'll have to talk again. Save time, take care.
Michelle Falanga (54:56):
Sounds good. All right, bye.
Jared Correia (54:58):
Thanks for our guests, Daleele Alison of Rooks dm. To learn more about Al and Rooks dm, visit rooks dm.com. That's R-O-O-K-S-D-M rooks dm.com and Michelle Falanga. To learn more about Michelle and her work, visit michelle langa.com. That's Michelle with two Ls Falanga, F-A-L-A-N-G-A. Michelle Falanga.com. Now, because I'll always be a nineties kid coming back, stronger than a nineties trend, but whose true passion is burning CDs for anyone who would listen. I'm now just doing the modern version of that, which is creating Spotify playlists for every podcast episodes that I record where the songs are tangentially related to an episode topic. This week's playlist is more Taylor Swift for that ass. That's right, it's some more of my favorite Tailor tracks is sponsored by Sun butter crunchy sunflower butter. No way, it's not. But seriously, why can't I find the crunchy version on the store shelves? I'm allergic to peanuts. Can I have this one thing? Join us next time when I reach around.