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Join us on the Disruption Now podcast as we challenge the status quo and advocate for digital equity, ownership, and responsible technology.
machines are about precision
it's gonna give you the best precision
so but I think the greatest point you made is
the greatest superpower we have is actually
clarity of thought in the age of AI
but clarity of thought sounds like it's easy
but it's not right
it's like it's easy just say what you mean
and then when you start thinking about what you mean
you have to say did I really mean that
and you really go through it
so what I found helpful
and what we work with executives on
is going through that
and then showing how to actually use AI to do that
human beings as physical beings in a physical world
a lot of that
physical to digital interface is overlooked
in many cases and I think that's where designers
engineers developers
you need this cross functional team to work together
so that you're not missing one of those facets
the leaders of the company I was working at
put a lot of trust in me
to go and represent them in the field
and collect that kind of feedback
and bring it to the engineering team
and say how do we design and engineer a better product
and that was a very formative experience for me
cause what I Learned was
if you aren't interfacing with your real users
the nurse for example
and seeing how they interact with your product
then you miss major opportunities for insight
but it's tempting in this current environment
for people to think they can skip that experience right
to say well
we have enough data
we don't necessarily need the real human
human interaction on the ground
we just rely on artificial intelligence
we rely on data on the ground
but not necessarily we don't need to
to do that level of touch anymore
that's the argument
and when I think about prompt engineering
it's incredibly similar
but if you go through any kind of management
training course you'll find that
virtually every human struggles with delegation
we all think we can do it better
we all think we can do it faster
and we are asking AI to then take that over for us
that's right
welcome to this Russell now I'm your host and moderator
Rob Richardson with me is
is my friend he's a uh
the CEO of uh Kaleidoscope Innovation
they are a design engineering and development firm
all those things together
so they help develop
design and really bring things to life
from both being able to have prototypes
to being able to
do some of those complex things in engineering
but also making sure that there's actually real design
behind it as always though
before we get into the interview
I want to ask you to like and subscribe
if you're watching us on YouTube
if you're listening to us on on um podcast
wherever you listen to podcast please write a review
that's how more people learn about disruption
and our goal of course
is to make sure that technology is human centric
and accessible to all so
that's the reason why we're bringing in a leader
from a from a
from a firm that talks about design and engineering
and see what two is actually compliment each other
Ben get the heavy brother
thanks for having me well yeah
good to have you on so
you know I am
I really want to kind of get like what people know
how you got to this line of work
so what brought you to this path
how did how did you get on the path to colonoscopy
roller coaster story so
I'm a biomedical engineer by training
from the university of Cincinnati
and had an amazing co op experience
through UC's engineering program
and a big part of that was going out into the world
visiting hospitals
going into open heart surgeries and seeing how surgeons
nurses and scrub technicians
were interacting with our products
and this was just a world class experience
something I never expected as an engineering student
to have the opportunity in
and it was because the
and very often in at least in my training
we were taught to you know
think about the physician
think about the surgeon
as the real subject matter expert
well turns out
they don't often run this equipment that is in their
they might be the one who's
you know manipulating the tissue or sewing or using
the end effector of this device
but it's the nurse it's the scrub technician
it's everyone else in the room
who's actually running the equipment
so when it was time to look for an opportunity of
where do I want to take my career
I found Kaleidoscope Innovation
where they flipped that script
from what I was experienced in
where engineers were of course
a large part of the the project team
but they start with design
they start with industrial design
user experience design and importantly
design and market research yes
you have to be talking to the humans
who are on the other end of whatever
technology you're creating
and that's true in a surgical environment
it's true in a manufacturing environment
it's true for software technology
if you're not actually meeting your human user
where they're at
then there's a very good chance you engineer a product
that might technically work
but it doesn't solve their problem wow
because you've missed that human experience
and I think that's very tempting in this world
and we're gonna talk more
we obviously talk about AI a lot
but it's tempting in this current environment
for people to think they can skip that experience right
to say well we have enough data
we don't necessarily need the real human
human interaction on the ground
we just rely on artificial intelligence
we rely on data on the ground
but not necessarily
we don't need to to do that level of touch
anymore that's the argument right
what is your response to people when they say that
I think it's a natural inclination
and with these tools it becomes easier and easier
to not have to leave your desk
to design or engineer something to to
to write code but I think the fallacy there is
that when the rubber hits the road
and that person on the other end of you
the screen
or the person who's deploying your technology in their
their warehouse or wherever they might be
then you find the usability problems crop up
and we often talk about technology as
what efficiencies can it gain
what kind of optimization can it offer
but the reality is
if it's not usable if it's not intuitive
if it isn't actually solving a workflow issue
then you're not gonna have it be adopted
and so all of this optimization and efficiency
you've spent hundreds or thousands of hours creating
goes to waste because the people at the other end say
I've got other things to worry about
I can't I can't learn this new piece of equipment
or they've clearly
misunderstood how I operate in my environment
and I think we as as human beings
as physical beings in a physical world
a lot of that physical to digital interface
is overlooked in many cases
and I think that's where designers engineers
developers
you need this cross functional team to work together
so that you're not missing one of those facets
and if one of those legs of the stool comes off
the whole stool falls over
and I think your product
gets thrown on the heap of other products
that maybe it was interesting
but it never reached the level of adoption
to be meaningful exactly
and when people think about AI
you know
just really kind of honing in on a few things that
that you said here
it's very interesting because I've seen the fact that
alright if you might have this
let's go to one point you
you kind of talked about
if the customer is not satisfied right
what happens if you deploy an agent
you deploy a chatbot
whatever you want to say and your customer is angry
are you gonna say that was and
and the and the AI did something that wasn't correct
you can't say as a company well
that was my agent that wasn't really us it's like no
that's your technology
and so there will always be I think
you know we're seeing if you look
if you if you talk to the same mountains of the world
and those folks
they believe like this customer experience part can
you can get AI that
that AI is gonna take care of all of that
I don't think so that's one of my things
I'm I'm thinking that actually
people are still gonna wanna know and talk to people
especially when they have a problem right
and and and you're gonna have to like
navigate things that aren't obvious on the surface
so there will be the need to even if it's less humans
I'll be
need to be more intentional about how you're designing
something that actually is not human
and you got to still make sure you're looking at human
so I agree with you on that
so it's this kind of on what you just talked about too
so let me ask this question
you know there
there there was a study that came out from um
MIT recently
uh that said
95% of AI projects have actually been a failure
now they didn't give us the data site to it
I believe there's a lot of truth in that
based upon my knowledge of it
and it's why we focus a lot on AI
kind of change management
almost like a way to have people think about
the approach and design from the regular human way
but AI to human
and really kind of shaping a different way
you have to almost design a different
I think experience with your workplace
that's my theory I love the very real thoughts on this
95% of according to MIT
AI projects in the last year or so
have failed to see a real ROI
what's your thoughts from obviously a leader in a
in a large company
what do you see and what's your thoughts on that
it's a really good question
cause there's is as part of that MIT study
some questions I would have for them are
what are the goals the end points
how are they measuring the ROI's on these
cause I I also think we
as business leaders
have far too high of expectations for what these
very nascent relatively new tools are able to do
and I think we're also underestimating
how long of a cycle it might take
to see real results and um
depending on the application of AI
you can see some immediate results
when your data researcher
your your human centered design researcher
is able to crunch through a lot more
qualitative data quickly
and that means that she can spend
more time with the real users
interviewing them doing the human to human connection
allow the AI to take that workload
that's a pretty immediate response you can get
but as you start layering it into more and more complex
business models systems where we're expecting agents
AI agents
to come in and totally revolutionize things overnight
I think we also have to remember that
we're going to be beholden to the weakest link
in our systems so no matter how good the AI agent is
if the rest of your business systems are antiquated
or maybe your data is not structured
you're not on cloud your own human process
human managed processes aren't efficient
your agenic AI can only go so far
just as if if you recruited the world's best
operations leader into the team
they're not gonna fix things overnight
it's gonna take time
you're gonna have to change processes
and you're gonna realize that one
solution in one area isn't going to have
be the end all be all
you've got to raise the tide on all of your systems
and I think we see this in business processes
whether we're talking about a legal team
a finance team R&D you'll see it in product too
where if the the product is being launched into a
an environment that isn't quite ready for it
it means it's not solving an imminent problem yes
an imminent need right now
and I think this is where
we've got to make sure we're
investing into the right kinds of technologies
to meet us where we're at in our
whether it's a business
or an industry that we're trying to serve
and making sure that we manage those expectations too
so I I think
we're in this point of
not quite the trough of disillusionment
regarding the technology
but we're realizing what should
how should we manage our own expectations
and what kind of investments are gonna be needed
to really see meaningful outcomes
I think that's well stated
when when we talk to folks about AI
it's a lot of what you said and there
they there's a rush to implement the technology
without really understanding how to do it correctly
right so we like to say there's there's
there's there's four p's
you get to before you ever get to the t
which is the technology
and this is even more so for AI because AI
I believe at it is potential and it and it
and it can do this
and there are some firms that do this
but most do not
it really changes how you work and create together
help you do better collective intelligence
but to do that to your point
it takes four things No. 1 people
it still takes people right
and you have to educate your
your internal staff
and then you have to also inform your constituents
like where your customers
whoever those people are
now customers originally say they don't like AI
but I think you build better trust
when you educate people about how it's helping them
what you're going through and why you're doing this
right but a lot of companies didn't do that
No. 2 processes
you've already got through that right
number three problem set
you said that right making a narrow specific problem
don't try to apply AI to everything
and the only thing that was missing from what
you're saying that
from what you talked about is policy right
which is extremely important with AI
going back to people
if your people aren't educated on actually AI
digital literacy I have to say that
cause everybody before I get to policy
everybody in your team needs to have a level of AI
digital literacy uh
prompting it still matters
it's a team sport
and how you prompt can get you 2 x versus 10 x
and then when you get to the next level
I'm like let me go down this really quick
in order to actually do an agent right
you have to know how to first time
because the idea of an agent is
it has to do that over and over again
so you better know
get very clear on what you're trying to do
but the last part policy like
you are essentially raising a thinking individual here
that will go off and make decisions
and you need to rub it in your philosophies
you need to have ethical guidelines
despite the fact that
the US doesn't have any guidelines
that doesn't matter
you some states do and more importantly
you as an organization hopefully have some guidelines
right and that needs to be built into the process
but I think there was a rush with AI
everybody saw oh my gosh
we can do this this how quickly can we replace people
and there was no real thought to actually
how to go about this process
in a way that had meaningful return
so I I think that's all and
and a
just speaking from a place of kaleidoscope innovation
we almost exclusively
work in highly regulated industries
where we're talking medical devices pharmaceutical
aviation and aerospace industrial
energy sector kinds of projects
big engineering projects and
and even when you get into people's homes
with consumer electronics
consumer packaged goods
there's a level of expectation that
that brand that someone is bringing into their home
is trustworthy and the expectation on us
as product designers and product developers
is that we're going to only apply tools
that allow us to develop them in trustworthy ways
and there's an element of intellectual property law yep
of course including there
there's an element of verifiability and explainability
I spent my the
let me explain a little bit of this
we will understand yeah
the client script team well
I'm not an expert in this
I spent the morning yesterday with Doctor Kelly
Cohen's lab here at UC yes
um in fuzzy systems
explainability meaning AI not as a black box right
but that you can zoom in and say
as an algorithm is sorting data
maybe it's it's breast cancer biopsies
maybe it's a cybersecurity data
you can quickly understand
why did the algorithm put this data
piece into this bucket
and you can see how it's weighting
across different measures
so it's explainable to us as humans
it's always explainable to the machine
cause it can parse thousands of rules all at in
in a split second exactly
we can't and so
when we are having to explain this to lawmakers
or to regulators to the FDA or to the
the human who's trying to use the system
maybe it's a manufacturing operator
we have to be able to explain
here's why the algorithm chose
to make this certain decision
exactly is that
so you talked about data literacy
or digital literacy and prompt engineering and so on
and I think there's an interesting
human education element that comes into play here
cause when
when I think about my own prompt engineering skills
or lack thereof I often am
reminded that one of the things I struggle with
as a leader always have is delegation
how do I describe a task
how do I trust another person to execute this task
how much how much boundary do I give
how many rules and how much autonomy do I give
and when I think about prompt engineering
it's incredibly similar
but if you go through any kind of management training
course you'll find that
virtually every human struggles with delegation
we all think we can do it better
we all think we can do it faster
and we are asking AI to then take that over for us
that's right
so I think not only is there a technical element of
how do I get this algorithm to provide
the outcome that I expect of it
and do I understand the outcome that it's given
and why but am I even explaining myself well enough
and am I delegating the right things
and I think in in management training courses too
you're often talking about
just because you can pass something along
doesn't mean you should
and just because you're the best person to work on
something doesn't mean
you should be the only person who works on it
and so what are we asking of artificial intelligence
to parse through for us
we've got to be really careful that we don't give
away all of our judgment and our nuance
because we bring a lot of
our brains
are incredibly good synthesizers of the world
and if we offload all of that onto these systems
then I think we really lose a lot of the humanity
and therefore
a lot of the value that could be coming out of
these potential solutions yeah
there's that you know I don't to your point
even if we tried to offload our nuance
I don't think we could
because machines think differently from humans
and always will
it doesn't mean we can't train it to understand
how we think
I think there's a there's a power with that
but there's always gonna be some level of nuance
machines are about precision
it's gonna give you the best precision
so but I think the greatest point you made is
the greatest superpower we have is actually
clarity of thought in the age of AI
but clarity of thought sounds like it's easy
but it's not right it's like it's easy
just say what you mean
and then when you start thinking about what you mean
you have to say did I really mean that
and you really go through it
so what I found helpful and what we work
with executives on is going through that
and then showing how to actually use AI to do that
right cause there are actually systems and prompts
you can put together
already to help you go through and think clearly
so whenever we go whenever I go through a prompt
I have a series of actual
other prompts to help plan and execute
yeah right
before I ever do that most powerful statements it okay
you may know this already
but I'll tell you just in case for the audience
one of the most powerful statements you can do with any
uh LLM and AI is at the end of your prompt
because AI is biased almost like humans
towards what you say at the very beginning
and then at the very end
that's what it really remembers
so I uh
you always if you do this at the end of your prompt
you'll have much better precise your prompts
ask me any clarifying questions
until you're 95% certain of how to complete the task
that one thing will then start'cause
then they'll start asking all these questions
that help you get clear on thought
you can do that and then you can take it further
I won't go down the rabbit hole
but you can basically have these kind of already props
because humans are better
kind of talking through things right
we have our own love language
AI has its own love language too
it knows how to speak to itself
so you need to use prompts to talk back to it
to help you get a better response
so most people understand that we have to get
like you said
clarity of thought on what the hell we want first
and then we have to understand
how to communicate that back to AI
and operationalize that
that's the part I think that people miss and they
cause we're we're bad at getting clarity of thought
as you said we're bad at delegating
so now we have to become better at that
if we actually master that
the technology becomes relatively easy
so I've a lot let's uh
let's talk a little bit about kind of this um
friction that we're kind of having with AI
and specifically with designers
when we're talking to designers nowadays
and folks that are designing experiences and products
who touch on this a little bit
but how do you differentiate
so it's actually a quality designer now and who isn't
because we have tools that obviously can fake the funk
it can put out things that look like they put
effort into it
but they don't necessarily have that nuance
and you can't necessarily tell by a product or work
or maybe you can
how do you go with designers to really look at that
and really I would say this for workers overall like
cause you can probably have people have their resume
you might get 10 I don't know how many
resumes you get there probably a lot more than you see
how do you differentiate that
and know that this is a quality
person
that understands the qualities that are important to
a kaleidoscope
which whatever that is design critical thinking
how do you measure that given
it's so difficult when people can just produce
something that looks like it's pristine yeah
it's a it's a good question cause it's um
my wife works in education
and I often hear about kind of the
I'll describe it as an arms race of yeah
how do you stay ahead of the students who are using AI
and it it sounds like how do you stay ahead of
you know 20 years ago had well
the kids with these graphing calculators yeah
before that it's what about the slide rule
and so there's always gonna be these new technologies
and it's gonna help I think students or any
any professionals create better create faster
and so certainly there's an element when
when we're looking at take a designer as an example
we we hire industrial design graphic design
user experience design design research
really exceptional professionals
across the experience band too
some are in school
there are co op students and our interns
some are new grads some have 15
20 30 years of experience and of course
you expect to see different kind of work
from each of those chores
so one of the questions we often ask is
does this
make sense for where this person's at in their career
don't expect
one output from a group that they're not in
and sometimes there's the obvious stuff like oh
there's you know seven fingers on that hand yeah yeah
this this bracket doesn't line
there's nothing holding it up
but that's the easy stuff to to look through
the harder pieces when we do a portfolio review
or we put an engineer through a skills test
and we actually have them live
create something for us you're looking for process
you're looking for how do they think
what is their philosophy
what is their curiosity are they asking good questions
that's usually a lot better of a determinant than
are they able to click the mouse and
you know
manage through these screens in CAD or something to
to make a design and if
I often think about some of the
world's famous designers and architects and creators
and you see them sketch something up and you're like
I'm about to watch an artist at work and it's the most
yeah simple diagram and you know
line drawings and clearly
obviously they're not putting a lot of time in it right
but what we value in that person is not necessarily
their technical ability to draw a perfect circle
a computer can do that
what we're asking that person to do is
how do I apply my skills as a designer
to think about what problems the world needs solved
and ask the right questions to get me to a reasonable
practical solution to solve that problem
so it's a lot more about the soft skills
it's a lot more about the mindset
the tenacity the curiosity than it is
how good are they with this computer program
these days yeah
I think that's I think that's great
when you think about I
AI and the opportunities this brings
obviously mass produced information
the challenge it brings to an employer
and folks like yourself
is that you can get flooded with all of these resumes
and things that look like they're legit right
so I think the answer to that is
you know you have to
you have to replace artificial intelligence
with something that can never be artificial
right like it in person
like you can't you can't fake that right
we can't fake what we're doing here
you can't fake in real life
you can't fake
it's so much right
especially
against people that know how to ask and probe questions
right so I think it's those in real life experiences
how they know how to interact with people
how they know
do they know how if you ask them an open ended question
you know what are your
what values that shaped you
and they have trouble formulating an answer
you know that okay
maybe they can't think on their feet
these are things that like you can't fake right
so I and I've
I think there's a lot of struggle
particularly in the latest generation
and I want to be too critical of them
because I think they've they've been handed
the situation they've been handed with
with with a lot of Gen z's
it's the fact that they're the first
kind of digitally native whole
kind of a generation that's grown up from internet
from right when they got out the crib
it's right now
and there's a lot of great things to that
and that they're more digitally native
but I I think there is some struggle to face to face
in person overall right
I'm making a generalization
met lots of great people in the generation
but I overall
as a just observation
every generation has its own challenges that
you know millennials have
Gen Xers have baby boomers have
I feel like Gen z's are
are having this kind of work interaction
how do you what
how do you advise
what do you look for in your new emerging workers right
and Gen z's and what advice would you give
those who are just starting
like take yourself back to young Ben
what advice would you give him
what advice might you ignore for kind of
people that are just kind of coming into the workforce
in this kind of very rapidly transitioning time
that's a such a hard question to answer
I I'm a millennial
and so I often like my hair bristles when I'm like
attacked as millennials are killing
the mortgage economy or something
or we eat too much avocado toast
I'm careful I'm careful about putting that on
you know a Gen Z generation too
but I I think the point is
is accurate of
each generation is gonna have its own
proclivities or tendencies
and that's going to
interface with the preceding and following generations
absolutely in unexpected ways
so I think the
the best piece of advice I would have given myself is
um it's advice I got from my dad
so it's not even my own it's pay attention
look at the people around you
how are they acting how do they carry themselves
who are people you respect
whether they're like you or not
and I think even better if they're not like you
and they challenge your expectation of what is
how do I carry myself in this world
and how do I uplift people around me
and emulate that
to the extent that it feels comfortable to you
you still gotta be yourself and I think with with Gen Z
I'm careful about making predictions broad predictions
but if if they are more comfortable
interacting with each other in digital ways
than our generations are that will work for them
when they are the primary generation in the workforce
but it will take some time
for that to become the normal
and there will still be boomers
and Xers and millennials who are like
back in my day
we had face to face meetings
and so what I would encourage them to do is
break out of your comfort zone a little bit
have some empathy with us millennials
who don't quite understand
but at the same time
look at what is working really well right now
in your workplace and
and find ways to navigate that
which might make you a little bit uncomfortable
and I think we owe it to them too to do the same
and it's all about this whole theme of empathy
I think perfuses everything
whether you're designing a product
or you're designing a workplace
you have to create a culture that is evolutionary
by nature
and I'm a firm believer that a company's culture
or an organization's culture will change
no matter what the question is
is it evolving into something you want it to be
and that's where it comes to values in my mind
principles not so much how do we
how do we have meetings with each other
but at the core
what do I believe about our relationship
am I humble do I have the humility to believe
you have something to offer
that I don't know
and vice versa are you collaborative with me
are we both tenacious and wanting to solve this problem
and if we hold these common values
then we'll find a way to work together
the the rest is just blocking and tackling of
how do you structure a company's common practices
so this is the a very long answer
it's not really an answer
cause I don't know the it's
it feels
like the generational problem that we'll always have
but I I think as
as humans
we've got to be comfortable with ourselves and
and then be observant of how do we fit into the world
yeah
and how can we shape it in ways that are beneficial
I feel the one thing that is different in this time
this is not any generation
this is all generations are affected by this
there's
we've talked about the great opportunities with AI
I believe one of the greatest challenges
is really how we interact together
specifically on social media right
because that algorithm goal is singular
how do we we get engagement
it doesn't ask how do we do it in an empathetic way
it doesn't ask how does it affect society
it doesn't ask how does it affect relationships
so I believe
it feels like empathy
is more challenging now than it has been right
because of not that human beings don't have empathy
we do
we also have all the other problems human beings have
right and the current environment within interaction
which is still a lot of social media
whether we accept it or not
it's just true
is that you are incentivized towards outrage
you are incentivized to do things
and to participate in things that reconfirm
not empathy for understanding different perspectives
but reinforcing that you are always right
so my question to that is
in this climate of how do we not lose empathy
given the state of the current climate
how do you as a leader and you are a leader
how do you try to reinforce that all the time
with this new kind of challenge
human beings have always done crazy things
have always challenged people
have always done things that are not
helpful to human beings this is
we've also done great things
what's new is there wasn't like it
something outside of humans
driving humans to do things against each other
so given that how do you kind of balance this
in terms of not losing empathy
with the more and more advancement in technology
in terms of algorithms in a single word
I think it's exposure and in a business like ours
like Clive Scope Innovation
where we've got to create something
by bringing a lot of very different people
different backgrounds different educational experiences
different life experiences
together to make something net new
it's all about friction
they have to be exposed to each other
I think one of the things
things that righteous outrage thrives on is division
there has to be an other group
and it's even better
if you don't really know who that other group is
of course
cause then it's so much easier to just say I'm right
they're wrong clearly
uh I have the right view of the world
that's a lot harder to do
when you actually go and spend time with
absolutely or those people
and I think that's true
kind of regardless of what the conflict is
if it's ideological political educational
even just simple things in our world
we face small problems
I call them small problems you know
project management time
it's a lot easier to say that person's unreasonable
I'm correct but when you actually get in a room
and you understand why they think
their version of the timeline is correct
and yours is incorrect
you find out there's a lot more gray in between
and you can work through that
but you have to in some cases
force this exposure
because it is very easy to stay behind
it is the
the computer screen and just send off a quick terse
maybe rude email or something
it's a lot harder to do that sitting face to face
now that's not always practical either
you know our companies are global we're in Cincinnati
we have an office in Boston Dallas
Seattle our clients are all over the world
that's easier said than done
and so you have to find what are the proxies for that
yeah and I
I actually think one of the great
outcomes of Covid is the use
great and painful is the use of video conference yeah
because it's while it's exhausting
sitting in front of a camera all day long
you can actually read
a little bit more information about this person
in their body language absolutely
you can read how they're responding to your
your comments and that that is very helpful in a
in a creative business like our own
I agree
where our engineers have to really understand the
the nuances of the manufacturer's perspective uh
maybe around the other side of the world
and I also think
coming back to the generational differences
we talked about
Gen Z or the digital natives might be our saviors
because we are the ones who
my generation the kids who
whose families maybe got computers when they were 10
or 15 or 20 right
and we have to figure this out
and we're making a lot of mistakes
the people who grow up with this
it's like breathing to them and
and I see even in my own family
a lot more skepticism in the younger
especially Jenna especially Jenna also
they question a lot more
whereas you know
my older relatives God love them
they're like hey
did you see this can you believe it
and I'm like
I don't know that one passes the sniff test like
but you know back in my day
we use snopes to figure out if something's real and
and I think there's a healthy skepticism that
that young folk are coming up with
and I think that's gonna be good for all of society
that's well said that's well said
I and I agree
and I think we
all generations can learn from each other
right there's something that we can learn
you know Gen Z wants to sometimes general speaking
wants to be remote all the time
and I think there's a lot there's some uh
power to that but there's also
we have to also figure out a way to connect uh
because it's the only way
and there are things that
if you're gonna have a remote first culture
you have to then do things even more intentional
to get to know your coworkers right
it still doesn't replace us
having to figure out what's driving you
is the culture going in the right direction
and you still gotta figure out like if you're a leader
this is something
I didn't really start appreciating till recently
you have to also understand
the nature and the psychology of your people
and the feeling of the culture
and that only you can only get that
by connecting with them and listening to them
and so it can't always be in person
but if it's not
you have to be even more intentional right
there are ways to do that
but it's actually sometimes even more work
as we talked about earlier with AI
like if you just put stuff out there
you'll you'll get a whole bunch of stuff
but it won't maximize so
you have to be more intentional with what you're saying
and what you're doing it's the same thing
I think when you talk about a remote culture
it's like it's a it's the same extension okay
couple of rapid fire questions okay
alright let's go alright
uh this is a tough one
what's one important truth you have
that a lot of people disagree with you on
that people disagree with me on
I don't know this is tough Rob
a lot of people in Cincinnati will agree with me
but I think
the university of Cincinnati is one of the greatest
institutions in the state
I I think the collaboration
the Midwest Openness Midwest Con
as an example of what can happen in the city
where you're getting policymakers academics
industry folks technologists
and futurists all together
wanting to solve problems together
and then having the grassroots willpower to do it
I travel a lot for work I get to meet people all over
it's a special kind of culture that we've got here
in the the Cincinnati region
sorry to say
I don't know that so Ohio would agree right
but I think Cincinnati would at least
be with me on this one well
I I'll say this
what I think of important truth you have
knowing you that many people might not agree with
is that empathy can still be effective
you answer it better than I yeah right
cause I know you right it's like you
a lot of people think that like
empathy is something that cannot work
you have to be you just have to be cruel
and that's what it takes to get ahead and just
just be like mindless to
and just be driven only by like what's best right now
and you don't seem to be that type of leader
and so like
I think that feels like that's what it for you
that's an important truth that you definitely have
attitude to that
which is many people might agree with me on this
that I genuinely believe most people are good
yeah and you always hear the quote
laws only work for law abiding as citizens
well look
look how many people are law abiding
how many people actually want to go and help that world
and maybe that's that culture
I was speaking to about Cincinnati
but that's I genuinely believe
that's rooted in our desire
to want to leave the world a little bit better
and not purely be extractive
we're empathetic to the people who are around us
and who are coming after us
and I hope more and more people believe that
I I know there's people who don't
but I choose to believe that
the world is generally slanted that way
I believe that the world is slanted towards
the direction we bend it
so that that's my yeah bias or belief
so I would say that when you have an empathetic leader
leading people tend to be more empathetic
if you have a non empathetic leader
people tend and culture
and what kind of systems are they building too
because you have empathetic people
working in a a a discriminatory or harmful system
and no matter how hard they rail against it
unless that system's redesigned
it's it's an uphill battle
that's it because and because the
the science has shown that we as individuals
as human beings we're also tribal
and so we our brain gets redirected and re
and reprogrammed to the people that's around us
the most right
so if you are a person that seeks to hold these values
the most important thing you can do that has values
where you want to be empathetic
you better be around empathetic people
or you will lose your empathy
like this is what people don't understand
like who you surround yourself with
the environment you put yourself in
the systems we put in place
determine the direction of our mind
our life and our character yeah
and that's still always that's been principally true
since the beginning of time
and I still think that remains true
midwestcon
what are you looking forward to most with midwestcon
we're glad to have you uh uh
Cloud Scope as a second year sponsor again
what are you looking forward to again
forward to last year it was it was a catalyst for us
it it's this disparate
special group of people who are artists
their policymakers their technologists
and they genuinely want to share meaningful ideas
together
what I really loved about Midwest Con last year was
I had virtually no small talk
it's like the the more not small talk
my worst fear at a conference like alright
I gotta make small talk for three days straight
at Midwest Con
it's deep conversations about how are you
how are you seeing change happen in your world
and is that make you hopeful or fearful
and what can we do about that
and I love that there's this element of
what can we do about that
it's very action oriented
you're getting city leaders industry leaders students
faculty all together
and I think that's really meaningful
so this year I I'm looking forward to learning
last year I'm not an AI expert by any means
I'm a person who uses artificial intelligence
I'm I'm fortunate enough to be surrounded by many
deep experts in AI in our business and in Infosys
people who are creating these technologies
so I'm showing up to these conferences to both learn
what is the new theories
new academic approaches that are really exciting
I just wanna learn and then how how can we apply this
and that's the translation that I love about midwestcon
and what do we need to do
coming back to our previous question
what do we need to do as citizens and
and lawmakers
to build systems that enable this for good
and that we're creating
environments where innovation can happen
but it can happen responsibly and explainably as well
absolutely OK
couple of real rapid fire questions for kaleidoscope
what does success look like
five years from now for kaleidoscope
I I tell our folks at kaleidoscope
that my mission is to create kaleidoscope into
the best product development company in the world
aspirational we're we're we're not there yet
we're a lot bigger better
stronger than we were 10 years ago
but five years from now I wanna look back
and be very proud of the intentional decisions
we made to make ourselves better
and that might mean more technically rigorous
it might mean more ethically rigorous
having
really high quality people continue to join our firm
and stay for five 10
15 20 years
there's a lot of old timers at the company
that
I'm super proud that we've built this firm together
and want to see a new generation
take many of these rains
and form it into something that they want it to be
so yes I still want us to make incredible products
that solve problems for people
save lives make life more delightful
make it more efficient make it more um
sustainable for our humanity
but I also want it to be something
that our people are very proud of
alright uh
so final questions that are similar
you can just answer back and play in the sentence
what's the one thing AI
will certainly change the next 5 years
AI will change our relationship with Microsoft Excel
without a doubt it that it was a very specific answer
I mean it's it's very good at data analysis
it's very good at turning
qualitative data into quantitative data
and then giving you outputs of that
and there's a lot of folks I'm an engineer
I use Excel all the time
our finance team lives and breathes Excel
but um in a lot of the corporate world
runs on Microsoft Excel it's a great product
but I also think it's limiting in the knowledge
base that people have with it
and it becomes a a really one dimensional tool
and the reason I say this kind of tongue in cheek is
it's also the part that people don't necessarily
love about their job some people do yeah
Emily in our accounting department
she's got a whole mug that's about Microsoft Excel
she's gonna love she loves working in the tool right
but for everyone else
it's a necessary step to really get the answer
that they're looking for
and I think conversational or agentic AI
using Excel as one example
is gonna change the way we interact with the
the corporate tools at our disposal
and I think it will allow us to move much more quickly
through those tools as long as we can explain it
one of the reasons Excel is
the backbone of corporate America
is that it's highly explainable verifiable
validatable incredibly robust tool
and we've got to get AI to to get to that level
and I and I think it will in the next five years
and I and you've got some good points about
you know how people use data
some don't just need to get the answer
um and for their lives it'll be easier
I do think how our work is done
is sometimes tied to our identity
and I think that's one of the challenges
that we work people through
because I believe
the one thing that's going to change
is the nature of work in general
I still think like people are saying like oh
they're coming for cleaners
you should just go be working construction
like I love working construction working construction
you should do it
we have many more people in construction
but if you're saying that
you think that engineering is not gonna matter
design is not gonna matter
my prediction in the next five years is
good designers and good engineers are even
gonna be even more critical
I actually don't think AI even when it gets to Adi
if it gets to that
we'll be able to fairly replace that level of just you
there'll be some level of nuance
and there'll be some chaos
if you will
that's created because when you can do things so fast
there will be things you don't predict
I guarantee it like
I just I think we're just gonna make
the courses people take in ethics and philosophy
and what we would have called the humanities
a few years ago it makes it that much more absolutely
I I agree and thank you you ask great questions
and I appreciate that your
your brain works at a different level than mine
I wouldn't say that yeah
these are the things I wrestle with in
in working at a place like Kaiser
we've got a lot of deep thinkers and yeah
people who are really good technicians
and people who are really lofty futurists
and I'm between the two
and we need all of that together
yeah
and I think that's something that AI won't ever change
is you need both yeah
I'm excited for the future
I'm optimistic about it we're optimistic too
we need more leaders like you
Ben Kahn CEO of kaleidoscope
as always thank you
and I appreciate you brother
appreciate it thanks Rob thank you