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And my message to my team would be everything

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that you're doing right now if you're not doing it tomorrow I will be thrilled

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it won't be a problem that you're no longer valuable

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anybody that can figure out how to eliminate a task or

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you know don't do it anymore

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cause it's no got no value or do it

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in some automated way cause

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now I can go tackle something else

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Our guest today brings

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clarity to a conversation that's often anything

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but clear Shauna Sprague

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is an AI strategist an architect a Ted X speaker

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who spent more than 20 years leading

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technology innovation across Fortune 500 companies

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she specializes in helping organizations

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take that first confident step into AI

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not by selling hype

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but by translating complex concepts into practical

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accessible business action

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Shauna has built automation

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strategies across 49 business units

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designed intelligent workflows created AI personas

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and developed systems that save organizations

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thousands of hours

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and help teams work at the top of their skill set

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where humans do their best work and AI handles the rest

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Shauna speaks across the country

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on AI automation and human centered innovation

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and she's a passionate advocate for women in technology

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inclusive design and lifelong STEM education

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her work sits at the intersection of possibility

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and practicality

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which is exactly where most leaders need help

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today's conversation

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gets real about what AI can actually do

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and what it can't

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why resistance is normal and how simple automations

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from sports calendars to email triage

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can unlock hours of life and work

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people did not know they could reclaim.

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Let's get into it.

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And I am very passionate about automating

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things and making your life easier so you can use AI

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to do all the mundane

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things you don't really want to do

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and do the things that are that need a human

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and spend more time doing those

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important things that really matter

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hmm I love that I've I've heard conversations about AI

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and some of them are just

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inaccessible yeah quite frankly um

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but I heard someone say it so well that I want AI

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to wash the dishes

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and walk the dog so that I can write songs and poetry

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and the opposite seems to be happening a lot

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but where are some areas specifically

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and some of the things you're working on automation

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that are

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the walking the dog the the the washing the dishes

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what are the mundane things that are that are getting

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done so that we can actually see application versus

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theory when it comes to this big AI conversation

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well I'm a parent of a 12 year old and so

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for any parent

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just trying to manage the schedules a challenge

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so I always

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one of the biggest things that I always show parents

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how to do is take a picture of that

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sports schedule also the school schedule the calendar

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with your phone load it into chat GPT

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tell it to turn it into a table

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and then load that into an RPA tool

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which will put all those events

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into your calendar in like seconds

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I used to spend hours like

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coordinating all this stuff and making it all match up

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and then on top of that I also use it to 

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you know make my you

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know it reminds me of things every day I get a daily digest

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that says here are the meetings you have today

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like here are the things you want to be looking out for

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if you're if I'm meeting with somebody new

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it gives me a little rundown from their LinkedIn profile

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of here's a little bit about that person you know

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has spent a few years in sales

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and I used to manually do all that where I try to

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Google people and figure out you know

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the most I could about them now

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AI does that for me and so it's another

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step I don't have to take

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as more time I can spend doing things I wanna do like

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you know now I go for walks

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in the morning and listen to my audio books and

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spend more time with my family and walk the dog

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I actually enjoy walking the dog so 

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but I do get I have not figured out a way for it to do my laundry

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 and I would really like that do the dishes

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do the dishes or clean my house other than the Roomba

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you know like that I can you know program there but

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yeah we're getting there 

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you know I don't know that we're

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anywhere near Judy Jetson style

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you know where she's gonna run

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around and do all that kind of stuff

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but baby steps you know I love the idea

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idea that you can just take a picture of something and load it into an

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interpreter that would then put it in your calendar

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I have an EA for that and at the same time I keep

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working with my team to

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like you don't have to do that anymore

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let's do something

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fun let's do something more actually

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it's not that I outsource

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that as much as I want them to outsource that as well

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in their own life in my life

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elsewhere in the organization right wow and and yet

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sometimes there's this resistance to doing that totally

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yeah there's always you know resistance

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those are my favorite people to work with actually

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because once you automate something for them

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they're your champion

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like they are once you get them on board

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and people are like you got Karen on board like yeah

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like yeah I did like she's all about it like she's

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then they want more and more and so

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I like the robotic process automation tools

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particularly for small businesses startups

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you know it's a very low entry point

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it's about $20 a month 

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you know so they they can come in and

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they can you know I can show them how to build

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and so as I'm building up teams

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to do those things that's what I'm starting them out with

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and then as they graduate into

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needing a full blown agent

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we can build those in langchain and langraph

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and I can show them how to do that as well

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and then

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and my message to my team would be everything

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that you're doing right now if you're not doing it tomorrow I will be thrilled

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it won't be a problem that you're no longer valuable

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anybody that can figure out how to eliminate a task or

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you know don't do it anymore

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cause it's no got no value or do it

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in some automated way cause

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now I can go tackle something else

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it's really just like eliminate,

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eliminate, eliminate, and keep elevating how does that

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set how does

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how how are people reacting to that in in real

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like everyday you know when you go into a consulting

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role

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most people you know the instant reaction is you know

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I guess they put their guard up you know but when you're teaching

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them something I think that they're a little more

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receptive but I like to think like

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I always tell people I'm like look we're trying to get everybody

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to work at the top of their skill set you know we

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nobody's getting

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you know you're not making any money when you're

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done like doing data entry nobody is

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like sales people specifically

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I mean that's why they don't like to take notes

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I never liked to do it when I was in sales either

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you make money when you're talking to people

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so I wanna eliminate everything I can

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so that you can talk to people as much as possible

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and focus on other things

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and so you know being that human connection

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and that's what we really want is to get everybody

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working at the top of their skill level

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you know and then learning new skills and upskilling

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so I think that there's a big shift right now where I have a lot of people reaching out

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wanting me to come and see if I can help upskill

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do a day or two or a week class

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and show them how to do better you know in

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where they're at

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you know we're not looking to eliminate jobs 

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you know we were looking for that augmentation

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of all those things on your list that you just never got to

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let's see if we can shrink that list down

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you know I've I've heard a lot of conversations

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that folks around what

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what is AI and it's like well AI is

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changing every single day that that ship

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has not come to dock yet so

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one of the more empowering

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questions that I've heard asked related to AI is what

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where do I start

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so if someone were to ask you what's the first step

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to get me down the path of AI what would you suggest

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as a first step I would say if they um if they're your

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first step they don't have any technology

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or programming experience I would say zappier

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it's a great tool it's very user friendly um

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you know it automatically

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you don't have to know how to connect to an API

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you don't have to

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you just connect to your Google click the Google button

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so it's very plug and play click

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and like get it all together and that's an RPA tool

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robotic process automation

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that will allow you to connect to your

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Google your Gmail account

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and have it answer your emails for you

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which I have it doing and it even categorizes

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my emails so it says as somebody a salesperson

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if an email comes from a VIP like my daughter

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I automatically get a Slack message saying

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hey she just sent you an email or you know versus

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no offense to sales people but if I get a sales

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email I don't necessarily need the Slack message

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she pointed to me twice when she said that

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but with a nod of one wonder and awe yes yes

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and also I'll ignore your emails yes

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it's it's a love hate relationship with sales I get it

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of course I find uh that

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when when I do have more free time I am able to create

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more for other people to do and and

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really the only gating factor

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for my creativity is that my organization's not big

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enough or I don't have enough resources

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here we've solved the resource issue

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for 20 bucks a month yeah I mean and and literally

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you could spend $500 a month and have a suite

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of the most powerful software tools in the world

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so resources aren't the issue anymore and creativity

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now probably is it's like oh I have to unlearn

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the things that I thought were valuable

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I've automated that now what

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I just feels like a a big gift for everybody

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um I think so I mean I think I think it's a you know

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wonderful opportunity I tell people all the time especially

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like if you're looking to um upskill

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or you know move into another role

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in your organization

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maybe you want to move into that technology role

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here's your opportunity

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trust me you're gonna be the hero in your organization if you come in and you're like

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I used N8N  and I you know built an agent

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for you and now it's gonna do these things and

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all these reports are gonna go automatically

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I guarantee you you're gonna get some

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attention there nobody's gonna

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lay that person off and I like to make myself

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very valuable my dad was a blue collar

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guy worked on the assembly line at General Motors

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and always said they never lay people off who are valuable

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they'll find something for you to do so make yourself

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valuable