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Mark explores the minds of visionary entrepreneurs who refuse to limit themselves to a single venture to learn how these trailblazers manage risks, innovate across industries, and turn ideas into impact.
Whether you’re scaling your first business or juggling several, this podcast is your ultimate guide to thriving as a parallel entrepreneur.
And my message to my team would be everything
that you're doing right now if you're not doing it tomorrow I will be thrilled
it won't be a problem that you're no longer valuable
anybody that can figure out how to eliminate a task or
you know don't do it anymore
cause it's no got no value or do it
in some automated way cause
now I can go tackle something else
Our guest today brings
clarity to a conversation that's often anything
but clear Shauna Sprague
is an AI strategist an architect a Ted X speaker
who spent more than 20 years leading
technology innovation across Fortune 500 companies
she specializes in helping organizations
take that first confident step into AI
not by selling hype
but by translating complex concepts into practical
accessible business action
Shauna has built automation
strategies across 49 business units
designed intelligent workflows created AI personas
and developed systems that save organizations
thousands of hours
and help teams work at the top of their skill set
where humans do their best work and AI handles the rest
Shauna speaks across the country
on AI automation and human centered innovation
and she's a passionate advocate for women in technology
inclusive design and lifelong STEM education
her work sits at the intersection of possibility
and practicality
which is exactly where most leaders need help
today's conversation
gets real about what AI can actually do
and what it can't
why resistance is normal and how simple automations
from sports calendars to email triage
can unlock hours of life and work
people did not know they could reclaim.
Let's get into it.
And I am very passionate about automating
things and making your life easier so you can use AI
to do all the mundane
things you don't really want to do
and do the things that are that need a human
and spend more time doing those
important things that really matter
hmm I love that I've I've heard conversations about AI
and some of them are just
inaccessible yeah quite frankly um
but I heard someone say it so well that I want AI
to wash the dishes
and walk the dog so that I can write songs and poetry
and the opposite seems to be happening a lot
but where are some areas specifically
and some of the things you're working on automation
that are
the walking the dog the the the washing the dishes
what are the mundane things that are that are getting
done so that we can actually see application versus
theory when it comes to this big AI conversation
well I'm a parent of a 12 year old and so
for any parent
just trying to manage the schedules a challenge
so I always
one of the biggest things that I always show parents
how to do is take a picture of that
sports schedule also the school schedule the calendar
with your phone load it into chat GPT
tell it to turn it into a table
and then load that into an RPA tool
which will put all those events
into your calendar in like seconds
I used to spend hours like
coordinating all this stuff and making it all match up
and then on top of that I also use it to
you know make my you
know it reminds me of things every day I get a daily digest
that says here are the meetings you have today
like here are the things you want to be looking out for
if you're if I'm meeting with somebody new
it gives me a little rundown from their LinkedIn profile
of here's a little bit about that person you know
has spent a few years in sales
and I used to manually do all that where I try to
Google people and figure out you know
the most I could about them now
AI does that for me and so it's another
step I don't have to take
as more time I can spend doing things I wanna do like
you know now I go for walks
in the morning and listen to my audio books and
spend more time with my family and walk the dog
I actually enjoy walking the dog so
but I do get I have not figured out a way for it to do my laundry
and I would really like that do the dishes
do the dishes or clean my house other than the Roomba
you know like that I can you know program there but
yeah we're getting there
you know I don't know that we're
anywhere near Judy Jetson style
you know where she's gonna run
around and do all that kind of stuff
but baby steps you know I love the idea
idea that you can just take a picture of something and load it into an
interpreter that would then put it in your calendar
I have an EA for that and at the same time I keep
working with my team to
like you don't have to do that anymore
let's do something
fun let's do something more actually
it's not that I outsource
that as much as I want them to outsource that as well
in their own life in my life
elsewhere in the organization right wow and and yet
sometimes there's this resistance to doing that totally
yeah there's always you know resistance
those are my favorite people to work with actually
because once you automate something for them
they're your champion
like they are once you get them on board
and people are like you got Karen on board like yeah
like yeah I did like she's all about it like she's
then they want more and more and so
I like the robotic process automation tools
particularly for small businesses startups
you know it's a very low entry point
it's about $20 a month
you know so they they can come in and
they can you know I can show them how to build
and so as I'm building up teams
to do those things that's what I'm starting them out with
and then as they graduate into
needing a full blown agent
we can build those in langchain and langraph
and I can show them how to do that as well
and then
and my message to my team would be everything
that you're doing right now if you're not doing it tomorrow I will be thrilled
it won't be a problem that you're no longer valuable
anybody that can figure out how to eliminate a task or
you know don't do it anymore
cause it's no got no value or do it
in some automated way cause
now I can go tackle something else
it's really just like eliminate,
eliminate, eliminate, and keep elevating how does that
set how does
how how are people reacting to that in in real
like everyday you know when you go into a consulting
role
most people you know the instant reaction is you know
I guess they put their guard up you know but when you're teaching
them something I think that they're a little more
receptive but I like to think like
I always tell people I'm like look we're trying to get everybody
to work at the top of their skill set you know we
nobody's getting
you know you're not making any money when you're
done like doing data entry nobody is
like sales people specifically
I mean that's why they don't like to take notes
I never liked to do it when I was in sales either
you make money when you're talking to people
so I wanna eliminate everything I can
so that you can talk to people as much as possible
and focus on other things
and so you know being that human connection
and that's what we really want is to get everybody
working at the top of their skill level
you know and then learning new skills and upskilling
so I think that there's a big shift right now where I have a lot of people reaching out
wanting me to come and see if I can help upskill
do a day or two or a week class
and show them how to do better you know in
where they're at
you know we're not looking to eliminate jobs
you know we were looking for that augmentation
of all those things on your list that you just never got to
let's see if we can shrink that list down
you know I've I've heard a lot of conversations
that folks around what
what is AI and it's like well AI is
changing every single day that that ship
has not come to dock yet so
one of the more empowering
questions that I've heard asked related to AI is what
where do I start
so if someone were to ask you what's the first step
to get me down the path of AI what would you suggest
as a first step I would say if they um if they're your
first step they don't have any technology
or programming experience I would say zappier
it's a great tool it's very user friendly um
you know it automatically
you don't have to know how to connect to an API
you don't have to
you just connect to your Google click the Google button
so it's very plug and play click
and like get it all together and that's an RPA tool
robotic process automation
that will allow you to connect to your
Google your Gmail account
and have it answer your emails for you
which I have it doing and it even categorizes
my emails so it says as somebody a salesperson
if an email comes from a VIP like my daughter
I automatically get a Slack message saying
hey she just sent you an email or you know versus
no offense to sales people but if I get a sales
email I don't necessarily need the Slack message
she pointed to me twice when she said that
but with a nod of one wonder and awe yes yes
and also I'll ignore your emails yes
it's it's a love hate relationship with sales I get it
of course I find uh that
when when I do have more free time I am able to create
more for other people to do and and
really the only gating factor
for my creativity is that my organization's not big
enough or I don't have enough resources
here we've solved the resource issue
for 20 bucks a month yeah I mean and and literally
you could spend $500 a month and have a suite
of the most powerful software tools in the world
so resources aren't the issue anymore and creativity
now probably is it's like oh I have to unlearn
the things that I thought were valuable
I've automated that now what
I just feels like a a big gift for everybody
um I think so I mean I think I think it's a you know
wonderful opportunity I tell people all the time especially
like if you're looking to um upskill
or you know move into another role
in your organization
maybe you want to move into that technology role
here's your opportunity
trust me you're gonna be the hero in your organization if you come in and you're like
I used N8N and I you know built an agent
for you and now it's gonna do these things and
all these reports are gonna go automatically
I guarantee you you're gonna get some
attention there nobody's gonna
lay that person off and I like to make myself
very valuable my dad was a blue collar
guy worked on the assembly line at General Motors
and always said they never lay people off who are valuable
they'll find something for you to do so make yourself
valuable