#CX 68: Balancing the Human Touch and Your Tech Touch w/ Stef Caldwell

WEBVTT 1 00:00:04.879 --> 00:00:08.869 When I think of how you kind of scale that human touch scale that really 2 00:00:09.150 --> 00:00:13.789 really carry a customer experience. So much of it is reliant on making the 3 00:00:13.910 --> 00:00:19.670 product a to a street. Hey, thanks for giving this episode of the 4 00:00:19.910 --> 00:00:23.500 CX series on BTB growth a play. You're going to be glad you did 5 00:00:23.539 --> 00:00:26.699 it. My name is Ethan bued I host the CX series here on the 6 00:00:26.739 --> 00:00:31.820 show. I host the customer experience podcast. I'm chief of angelist at bombomb. 7 00:00:31.899 --> 00:00:35.890 I do a ton of work around video communication and I wrote a book 8 00:00:35.929 --> 00:00:40.130 on it with my friend and CO author, Steve Passin Ellie, called rehumanize 9 00:00:40.170 --> 00:00:43.689 Your Business. Who you have here with you today is steph called well. 10 00:00:44.049 --> 00:00:49.409 She is a dynamic person with a great software company called Narrative Science. They're 11 00:00:49.409 --> 00:00:54.359 based in Chicago. For Narrative Science, Steph has built out the customer success 12 00:00:54.399 --> 00:00:59.560 approach for two different products, one of them a white glove service for larger 13 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:03.079 organizations, the other a little bit more of a self serve. So we 14 00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:07.750 talked about how to use tech to scale that human touch. How can you, 15 00:01:07.950 --> 00:01:11.430 at scale, still deliver as white glove a service as possible? We 16 00:01:11.590 --> 00:01:15.829 talked about a lot more. As I said, she's very dynamic. She 17 00:01:15.030 --> 00:01:19.540 builds community. On her own. She was doing community work with a narrative 18 00:01:19.579 --> 00:01:23.700 science. Since we recorded this conversation she's become head of sales of the West 19 00:01:23.780 --> 00:01:27.299 Coast for narrative science. So I think you'll learn a lot and in enjoy 20 00:01:27.379 --> 00:01:34.209 this episode just as I did. Here's Steph called well. Leveraging language as 21 00:01:34.250 --> 00:01:40.409 the interface between humans and technology, making analytics accessible to anyone and everyone, 22 00:01:41.010 --> 00:01:45.250 connecting your customers not just to your company but to one another. These are 23 00:01:45.290 --> 00:01:49.760 just a few themes intoday's conversation. Our guests passion is bringing humanity back to 24 00:01:49.920 --> 00:01:56.519 technology. Over the past several years she served in product management, business intelligence, 25 00:01:56.799 --> 00:02:01.189 business development, sales and customer success roles. She's currently the senior customer 26 00:02:01.230 --> 00:02:07.629 success leader and community architect at Narrative Science, a company I've really enjoyed getting 27 00:02:07.629 --> 00:02:10.469 to know over the past several months. Steph called well, welcome to the 28 00:02:10.550 --> 00:02:15.539 customer experience podcast. Thank you, what an intro. Good I'm glad you've 29 00:02:15.580 --> 00:02:19.180 glad you like that. Why are you feel welcome? And I really love 30 00:02:19.259 --> 00:02:21.819 the work that you're up to. And what do you call that? A 31 00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:24.060 passion, or would you call that your mission? I would say it's my 32 00:02:24.139 --> 00:02:30.569 mission. I think my mission in life is to bring humanity back to technology. 33 00:02:30.729 --> 00:02:34.009 Technology and uses so much of our lives in our day to day and 34 00:02:34.409 --> 00:02:37.250 the more personal we can make it and the more for us we can make 35 00:02:37.330 --> 00:02:38.969 it, I think the better off will all be. I love it. 36 00:02:39.050 --> 00:02:42.849 It's treating it as the tool that it is and means to an end, 37 00:02:43.409 --> 00:02:46.360 not the end in itself, and that it isn't service of us, which 38 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:51.000 is a copper role, I think. So, before we get going properly, 39 00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:53.919 you are in what I regard as the greatest city in America, Chicago, 40 00:02:54.719 --> 00:03:00.349 and the coronavirus pandemic is obviously affected all of us. What's the scene 41 00:03:00.349 --> 00:03:02.830 where you are? How's it affecting you or your team or your customers? 42 00:03:02.870 --> 00:03:07.150 kind of what's set the scene for us there? It's a great question. 43 00:03:07.189 --> 00:03:12.710 In Chicago specifically, I think right now we're, you know, under a 44 00:03:13.300 --> 00:03:17.180 shelter order, so everybody is working from home. The biggest impact, you 45 00:03:17.259 --> 00:03:22.180 know, I'm seeing in my day to day is just Internet stability, having 46 00:03:22.219 --> 00:03:27.289 a lot of calls similar to you know these. Sometimes things come crashing down. 47 00:03:27.849 --> 00:03:32.250 I would also say that from Narrative Sciences perspective, we are still operating 48 00:03:32.289 --> 00:03:36.969 business as usual or really fortunate and that our leadership team and, you know, 49 00:03:37.050 --> 00:03:40.090 everybody at the company was able to adapt really quickly. Our customers come 50 00:03:40.169 --> 00:03:45.240 from a variety of industries and so when I look at the book of business 51 00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:46.960 that I run and the book of business that other people on my team run, 52 00:03:47.319 --> 00:03:53.039 everybody is really being impacted differently. We have our healthcare customers who are, 53 00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:54.949 you know, I don't want to say thriving, because that's absolutely not 54 00:03:55.069 --> 00:03:58.870 the right word, but their business is really booming right now. And then 55 00:03:58.909 --> 00:04:03.110 we have people in auto and manufacturing and and their businesses are stronger. Their 56 00:04:03.189 --> 00:04:08.349 businesses are being tested and I am hopeful that everybody kind of comes out the 57 00:04:08.389 --> 00:04:11.500 end of this much stronger. A lot of that, you know, is 58 00:04:12.139 --> 00:04:15.019 just going to be in flux for the next foreseeable future. Yeah, good 59 00:04:15.060 --> 00:04:19.459 observation. Like you, we serve people in a wide variety of businesses and 60 00:04:19.540 --> 00:04:23.139 roles in industries. In the end, the effects, of course, or 61 00:04:23.339 --> 00:04:27.769 are very uneven, and and so I mean as bombomb were fortunate to be 62 00:04:27.930 --> 00:04:31.170 on the more on the healthcare side of things, where people are understanding more 63 00:04:31.209 --> 00:04:35.889 acutely than ever that time and distance are keeping them apart from people who matter 64 00:04:36.009 --> 00:04:39.600 most of their businesses. So when you can't do like a live zoom call 65 00:04:39.720 --> 00:04:43.759 like we're doing now, that recording and sending messages is kind of a nice 66 00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:48.319 human substitute, to use your language. So let's get into customer experience and 67 00:04:48.759 --> 00:04:53.230 all of the things that you've that you've been in. I love the variety 68 00:04:53.230 --> 00:04:55.910 of roles you've been and I'm looking forward to this conversation. But let's start 69 00:04:55.910 --> 00:04:58.550 with customer experience. When I say that, what does it mean to you? 70 00:04:59.550 --> 00:05:01.470 So I'm one of those people that I have to go back to the 71 00:05:01.550 --> 00:05:06.860 definitions of things often and I had to pull it for this conversation because I 72 00:05:06.939 --> 00:05:12.579 think it's really important that it's articulated well. So a customer, right, 73 00:05:12.579 --> 00:05:15.899 let's break it down into its parts, is a person organization that buys goods 74 00:05:15.939 --> 00:05:20.379 and services from store business and experiences practical contact and observation of facts or events. 75 00:05:20.810 --> 00:05:25.529 And so my definition, when I put those things back together in my 76 00:05:25.649 --> 00:05:30.250 own way, is it's how a person who buys goods or services from a 77 00:05:30.370 --> 00:05:34.569 business or, thinking about it, honestly interprets the events of those interactions with 78 00:05:34.689 --> 00:05:40.480 that business. So it's subjective. It's their perception, but ultimately it's the 79 00:05:40.519 --> 00:05:44.000 interpretation of the events or the interactions are having with the people that are in 80 00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:47.480 your company. Really Great. I love that you went to some literal definitions 81 00:05:47.600 --> 00:05:49.990 and then put them back together in a practical way, and I think the 82 00:05:50.149 --> 00:05:55.310 consequence of that is, you know, the thoughts and the feelings that were 83 00:05:55.310 --> 00:06:00.509 left with interaction by interaction. So because of your experience and customer success and 84 00:06:00.629 --> 00:06:02.670 some people you know what I want. I've spoken with some people about customer 85 00:06:02.709 --> 00:06:06.899 experience. They see it as likes this evolution or functionally, from an organizational 86 00:06:06.980 --> 00:06:13.220 standpoint and arm of what was, or still is a CS or a customer 87 00:06:13.300 --> 00:06:17.300 success organization. How do you think about customer success in particular, which I 88 00:06:17.420 --> 00:06:19.930 you know, I think of that as a highly organizational term, where is 89 00:06:19.930 --> 00:06:24.930 customer experience may or may not be. How do you think about customer success 90 00:06:25.290 --> 00:06:30.050 and maybe customer success relative to Cx? Yeah, so I think always, 91 00:06:30.050 --> 00:06:33.920 always I'm trying to put the hat of the customer on and write my perspective 92 00:06:34.040 --> 00:06:39.959 doesn't actually matter on customer experience versus customer success. It's their experience that matters, 93 00:06:40.399 --> 00:06:44.480 and so going back again to the definitions. My you know, definition 94 00:06:44.600 --> 00:06:47.149 of success from the dictionary is the accomplishment of a name or purpose, and 95 00:06:47.310 --> 00:06:51.949 so my definition and of customer success is how a person who again buys goods 96 00:06:51.949 --> 00:06:57.550 or services from a business, perceives the outcomes of those interactions. So to 97 00:06:57.709 --> 00:07:01.819 me, customer success is outcome based. It's the perception of an outcome when 98 00:07:01.860 --> 00:07:05.899 interacting with and that you know, this external party and customer experience is really 99 00:07:05.980 --> 00:07:09.620 the journey and the to go hand in hand, right, because you can't 100 00:07:09.620 --> 00:07:13.899 have an outcome without a journey and ultimately what we want to deliver is outcome. 101 00:07:14.060 --> 00:07:18.610 So the two are are very much aligned, even though they're not synonymous. 102 00:07:18.649 --> 00:07:21.410 Yeah, and you can't, you really can't, pull them apart. 103 00:07:21.490 --> 00:07:28.129 And what I heard when you started into that was essentially, I'm going to 104 00:07:28.209 --> 00:07:30.480 really dumb it down, but like the customer doesn't care. Right, you 105 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:34.399 want their outcome and they want to achieve it in a in a predictable or 106 00:07:34.439 --> 00:07:41.360 quick or enjoyable journey. Yeah, yeah, it's just the journey to the 107 00:07:41.399 --> 00:07:44.430 outcome. I like to think of it again from the customer angle, is 108 00:07:44.829 --> 00:07:47.269 customer experiences. Wow, that was a great conversation. I really enjoyed my 109 00:07:47.430 --> 00:07:53.189 time with that company and and success is wow, that was a great conversation. 110 00:07:53.269 --> 00:07:56.709 I understand the impact this will have, is having, or will continue 111 00:07:56.750 --> 00:08:00.259 to have on my business. Yeah, so similar but different. Yeah, 112 00:08:00.300 --> 00:08:05.660 or I can't wait to brag to my peers or superior about this outcome that 113 00:08:05.740 --> 00:08:09.939 we were able to achieve. EXACTI by this this relationship that I enjoy with 114 00:08:09.019 --> 00:08:13.850 this brand or this company. So, for people who aren't familiar, tell 115 00:08:13.889 --> 00:08:16.769 us a little bit about narrative science, like who are your customers? You 116 00:08:16.810 --> 00:08:18.850 already did a little bit of that, but tell us you know who are 117 00:08:18.850 --> 00:08:22.649 your customers and what are you solving for them? Yeah, I like to 118 00:08:22.730 --> 00:08:26.240 say that we're a company that that exists to help other companies realize their potential. 119 00:08:26.639 --> 00:08:31.040 So we do that through data storytelling software. But essentially the premise of 120 00:08:31.079 --> 00:08:35.399 our business is data is hard. Interpreting that data is time consuming and oftentimes 121 00:08:35.519 --> 00:08:39.600 the result of that is more confusion than answers. So we have software that 122 00:08:39.679 --> 00:08:43.590 translates that data and too, objective, fact based data stories which can be 123 00:08:43.669 --> 00:08:48.389 read and understood by anyone and are, you know, I call them new 124 00:08:48.590 --> 00:08:52.629 age analytics tools. Help companies in both enterprise as well as commercial markets, 125 00:08:52.669 --> 00:08:56.019 get on the same page and stay on the same page as it pertains to 126 00:08:56.059 --> 00:09:00.980 their businesses most critical data. More importantly, I think it helps them actually 127 00:09:01.059 --> 00:09:05.139 use that data to make critical business decisions just in time on any device and 128 00:09:05.220 --> 00:09:09.250 then keep moving forward. Ultimately, it's how do we help people push their 129 00:09:09.330 --> 00:09:13.250 missions forward? That's our mission, and so, you know, I think 130 00:09:13.250 --> 00:09:18.450 a lot of people. I think what separates a lot of effective business leaders 131 00:09:18.490 --> 00:09:20.409 from others is that you know, if they all have the same data, 132 00:09:20.529 --> 00:09:24.320 that some of them do a better job of making meaning out of it and 133 00:09:24.440 --> 00:09:28.240 making decisions out of it. So you assist in that process. Yeah, 134 00:09:28.480 --> 00:09:31.440 I oftentimes say, you know, we produce data literacy at scale. As 135 00:09:31.480 --> 00:09:35.799 long as you can read and understand information presented to you in language, which 136 00:09:35.799 --> 00:09:39.750 can happen audibly, by the way, then you can actually leverage data to 137 00:09:39.789 --> 00:09:45.110 make decisions when you use our software. Awesome. Let's go a step deeper. 138 00:09:45.149 --> 00:09:46.710 You have two mean products right now. One of them is called quill, 139 00:09:46.830 --> 00:09:50.110 and that was the one that existed earlier, and lexio is the newer 140 00:09:50.230 --> 00:09:56.779 of the to the customers are different, the experiences different and and you've served 141 00:09:56.860 --> 00:10:01.259 in CS in support of customers of both products. So maybe just draw that 142 00:10:01.379 --> 00:10:07.289 line a little bit and how you, as a CS practitioner, experience them 143 00:10:07.370 --> 00:10:11.009 differently as well. Great questions. So quill is, what I will say, 144 00:10:11.330 --> 00:10:16.090 is an analytics tool, the data storytelling tool that is does designed to 145 00:10:16.289 --> 00:10:20.840 retrofit existing business intelligence solutions. So if you have a tableau or a click 146 00:10:20.919 --> 00:10:26.639 or a power Bi and you, like many organizations, kind of hovering at 147 00:10:26.639 --> 00:10:31.159 about thirty percent adoption of those tools and you want to get maximum return on 148 00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:33.639 investment for your investment in those tools, that's where our solution comes in. 149 00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:39.669 So we can kind of scale the insight through language across all of those systems, 150 00:10:39.870 --> 00:10:41.470 and we do that a lot of times in the enterprise with quill, 151 00:10:41.509 --> 00:10:46.110 because those those large companies have made these big bets on these business intelligence solutions. 152 00:10:46.909 --> 00:10:52.659 Where Lexeo fits in is it's a smart alternative to traditional business intelligence. 153 00:10:52.700 --> 00:11:00.379 It is a new age business intelligence platform that takes your data automatically turns it 154 00:11:00.500 --> 00:11:05.169 into written stories that seem as if they were written by a human or your 155 00:11:05.210 --> 00:11:07.850 best analyst. A lot of our customers like to say that lexio is is 156 00:11:07.889 --> 00:11:11.649 kind of the sales ops person that they didn't need to hire, or, 157 00:11:11.929 --> 00:11:13.730 you know, the business APPs person, they didn't need to hire. Those 158 00:11:13.889 --> 00:11:20.039 two delivery models, enterprise versus commercial market, are very different. Right with 159 00:11:20.279 --> 00:11:24.840 enterprise it is is very white glove approach, and with commercial market you have 160 00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:26.559 to think about scale. You have to think about how do you take this 161 00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:31.200 customer experience that used to be very, very human when you're delivering with a 162 00:11:31.240 --> 00:11:35.629 white glove model and scale that so that you can touch thousands of companies but 163 00:11:35.750 --> 00:11:39.509 make them feel special in every touch point. So what have you specially in 164 00:11:39.629 --> 00:11:43.710 the see US role? What are some things that you took care to do 165 00:11:43.909 --> 00:11:46.500 or some hard less since you've learned along the way of creating a more scaled 166 00:11:46.539 --> 00:11:52.179 experienced, it still feels, you know, relatively personal and relatively human. 167 00:11:52.139 --> 00:11:54.899 I would like to say that I'm definitely still on the journey. Lexio is 168 00:11:54.980 --> 00:12:00.740 still fairly new in market, but I'm really fortunate in that where I got 169 00:12:00.899 --> 00:12:03.529 my cs and Cx, or cut my cs teeth, if you will, 170 00:12:05.169 --> 00:12:07.929 was with this white glove enterprise experience where you can know, and you have 171 00:12:09.090 --> 00:12:13.250 to know, every detail and every nuance to a person's business. You pull 172 00:12:13.330 --> 00:12:16.240 in resources, you get ahead of issues, because you can lean on those 173 00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:20.159 personal relationships. You understand the outcomes that they're seeking, what that means for 174 00:12:20.200 --> 00:12:22.919 their business and what that means for them personally. You have to just always 175 00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:26.399 be listening, always be iterating and always be in lock step with your executive 176 00:12:26.399 --> 00:12:31.549 stakeholders as well as your team and project people. So then I'm fortunate in 177 00:12:31.669 --> 00:12:35.429 that I get to adapt what I learned, where I could be very personal, 178 00:12:35.870 --> 00:12:41.149 into a more scalable model. So I guess when I think of how 179 00:12:41.309 --> 00:12:46.059 you kind of scale that human touch skill that really really carry the customer experience, 180 00:12:46.740 --> 00:12:50.740 so much of it is reliant on making the product a to a street 181 00:12:50.139 --> 00:12:56.460 and that means you have to be far more collaborative. That means that you 182 00:12:56.580 --> 00:13:01.090 have to be in lock step with marketing and sales and CS and product and 183 00:13:01.570 --> 00:13:07.049 constantly thinking about how you can infuse some of those things that you would be 184 00:13:07.169 --> 00:13:11.009 doing if you had that one to one personal touch with every customer into the 185 00:13:11.090 --> 00:13:16.639 product itself. And and in addition to that, I'm again the person that 186 00:13:16.840 --> 00:13:20.039 is bringing humanity back to technology. I don't think that there is ever going 187 00:13:20.039 --> 00:13:26.240 to be a replacement for facetoface, for literally showing the faces of your brand 188 00:13:26.600 --> 00:13:28.789 to the people that are interacting with it so they know that even if they 189 00:13:28.830 --> 00:13:33.509 are getting a more scaled product, something that is a little bit more tech 190 00:13:33.590 --> 00:13:37.870 touch and automated, that there's actual humans who actually care behind all of those 191 00:13:37.950 --> 00:13:41.500 touch points. So I think ultimately it takes a lot of collaboration, it 192 00:13:41.659 --> 00:13:46.620 takes a lot of advocacy to the product team to ensure that they're implementing those 193 00:13:46.820 --> 00:13:52.700 bidirectional communication functions in the in the tool itself, and ultimately it's just a 194 00:13:52.740 --> 00:13:56.090 lot more collaboration. You need to put it in the system and allow your 195 00:13:56.129 --> 00:13:58.370 customers to really play a key role in iterating with you, even at scale. 196 00:14:00.370 --> 00:14:03.889 Love it. I think that the to w street language, you know, 197 00:14:03.090 --> 00:14:09.409 obviously for me implies of consistent feedback loop and then touching all of the 198 00:14:09.490 --> 00:14:13.919 multiple teams who all understand the customers a little bit differently, which kind of 199 00:14:13.960 --> 00:14:16.559 teas up where I want to go next. But before we do go, 200 00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:20.720 is there anything in particular that you all do at narrative science to make sure 201 00:14:20.879 --> 00:14:26.909 that sales perspective is understood by marketing, is understood by CS, is understood 202 00:14:26.909 --> 00:14:33.549 by product and all vice versa? Yeah, so we actually just recently implemented 203 00:14:33.590 --> 00:14:35.710 a new framework that's working really, really well for us. So we have 204 00:14:35.950 --> 00:14:41.299 our boots on the ground team, representative of every every function, and that 205 00:14:41.379 --> 00:14:43.860 meets on a weekly basis. That's focused on the next three months for customers. 206 00:14:43.899 --> 00:14:48.820 So it's very tactical problem solving and the Voice of the customers extremely present 207 00:14:48.860 --> 00:14:52.009 at that table. Then we have we call that our h one teams. 208 00:14:52.049 --> 00:14:54.889 Then we have our hto team, which is kind of one level up from 209 00:14:54.889 --> 00:14:58.330 their people, that are thinking a little bit more strategically, thinking about, 210 00:14:58.370 --> 00:15:01.409 you know, where the product is going over the next one year, and 211 00:15:01.450 --> 00:15:05.090 they're meeting on a weekly basis to continue kind of moving the ball forward there. 212 00:15:05.370 --> 00:15:09.879 And then there's cross collaboration between those two groups. And then finally, 213 00:15:09.919 --> 00:15:11.679 we have our h three team, which is really our executive team. They're 214 00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:16.000 thinking about things like could we hire to make these things possible? What kind 215 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:18.919 of financing do we need to take on as a company to continue moving our 216 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:22.750 mission forward? How can we have relationships at the analysts and the you know, 217 00:15:22.870 --> 00:15:26.389 the press so that we can get the word out at scale? So 218 00:15:28.110 --> 00:15:33.190 across these different buckets you have different levels of decisionmaking, but all are moving 219 00:15:33.230 --> 00:15:35.820 in lock step towards this greater mission, which is, you know, pushing 220 00:15:35.860 --> 00:15:39.779 narrative science forward in the next three months, six months, one year, 221 00:15:39.940 --> 00:15:43.659 five years and beyond. Nice. I'm glad I ask that follow up. 222 00:15:43.700 --> 00:15:46.740 There where I wanted to go, which is also in the same conversation of 223 00:15:46.860 --> 00:15:52.450 like cross function. Different people have different will just generically call them data input. 224 00:15:52.570 --> 00:15:56.649 Some of its qualitative data, because some of these roles are very customer 225 00:15:56.730 --> 00:15:58.970 facing. Sales and see us in particular tend to be very customer facing. 226 00:16:00.330 --> 00:16:03.730 There might be some marketing rules, product marketing that's doing a lot of customer 227 00:16:03.809 --> 00:16:08.000 conversation. And then also in those same seats, but especially in product, 228 00:16:08.159 --> 00:16:12.399 to debut tons of this product data, product eat, product usage data. 229 00:16:12.679 --> 00:16:17.919 Of course you can append tons of additional third party data on top of any 230 00:16:17.960 --> 00:16:21.990 other data. How do you think about the blend of kind of that, 231 00:16:22.230 --> 00:16:27.029 the the quantitative stuff in the qualitative stuff like that, the real customer words 232 00:16:27.070 --> 00:16:33.419 and thoughts and experiences and behaviors, against all the easily measurable and quantifiable pieces? 233 00:16:33.460 --> 00:16:37.259 I think about this every single day, literally every single day I look 234 00:16:37.299 --> 00:16:44.100 at the data behind how my customers are using our platforms and so does the 235 00:16:44.139 --> 00:16:47.610 rest of the organization. One of our key metrics as a business is, 236 00:16:47.889 --> 00:16:49.570 you know, weekly active, monthly active, and then we want to see 237 00:16:49.649 --> 00:16:53.450 within those weekly active and monthly active users, how they're navigating our platform. 238 00:16:53.490 --> 00:16:57.450 Are they engaging with new features or existing features? And all of that is 239 00:16:57.649 --> 00:17:03.080 is translated, luckily for us, into Lexio reports that are so easy to 240 00:17:03.120 --> 00:17:07.640 read and understand that I constantly get questions from executives from marketing, from product. 241 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:11.440 I don't understand why haven't these customers use this new feature yet? And 242 00:17:11.640 --> 00:17:15.950 so, to your point, you have to have the qualitative and the quantitative 243 00:17:17.230 --> 00:17:21.390 and I think covid is actually a really interesting angle to respond to this question 244 00:17:21.549 --> 00:17:25.549 because, look, we've got customers in pretty much every industry and we know 245 00:17:25.829 --> 00:17:30.700 that their businesses are challenged and being tested and they have to adapt. And 246 00:17:30.900 --> 00:17:36.019 what that means to the product data that I can see is their usage right 247 00:17:36.180 --> 00:17:41.900 now is volatile, extremely volatile, more than it's ever been. And if 248 00:17:41.940 --> 00:17:44.730 you just looked at that, as you know, senior leader in our company 249 00:17:44.769 --> 00:17:47.529 or somebody in marketing or somebody in product, you would say, I don't 250 00:17:47.569 --> 00:17:52.009 understand it looks like things are changing here. If you didn't know. If 251 00:17:52.049 --> 00:17:53.609 you lived in a vacuum and had no idea that covid was a thing, 252 00:17:53.690 --> 00:17:57.680 that the entire world was responding to you right now, you would be alarmed 253 00:17:57.799 --> 00:18:03.319 right looking at that data. But that's where the anecdote comes in, right. 254 00:18:03.480 --> 00:18:07.160 I know that this is still a strategic comparative for company A. I 255 00:18:07.319 --> 00:18:10.640 know that this actually has been tabled for company B, and I know this 256 00:18:10.839 --> 00:18:14.549 because we have these outreach we have, you know, these bidirectional kind of 257 00:18:14.589 --> 00:18:21.230 communication mechanisms that allow us to couple the qualitative, the narrative about how their 258 00:18:21.269 --> 00:18:25.509 industry is responding or how this company is responding to Covid, and the quantitative 259 00:18:25.869 --> 00:18:30.299 what that means in terms of their interaction with our product. And so what 260 00:18:30.460 --> 00:18:33.579 I do specifically to bridge this gap for my team, because it's it's all 261 00:18:33.619 --> 00:18:38.619 about communication at the end of the day, is every week I'm producing reports 262 00:18:38.859 --> 00:18:44.650 based on how the customers are using the software. Every month I do a 263 00:18:45.250 --> 00:18:48.450 thirty day look back looking at kind of my calendar as well as other kind 264 00:18:48.490 --> 00:18:52.369 of strategic conversations we had across the board with those customers, and we tie 265 00:18:52.410 --> 00:18:57.519 all that together in an anecdotal kind of look back that responds to both the 266 00:18:57.519 --> 00:19:00.640 data but then also supports why the data is the way that it is, 267 00:19:00.720 --> 00:19:04.799 so people can have that whole or understanding of what our customers are doing and 268 00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:08.640 how, how anything is really impacting their business and where our product fits in 269 00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:12.990 and all that really good. I love to look back in particular just to 270 00:19:14.109 --> 00:19:21.069 provide that context that's missing from the raw material itself. Obviously you're in a 271 00:19:21.150 --> 00:19:25.380 position that that we are at bombomb and that you use your own product as 272 00:19:25.500 --> 00:19:29.339 part of your own business flow. How does Lexio Plug into that for you? 273 00:19:30.539 --> 00:19:33.900 Hm, I'm excited to into this. So for me, the data 274 00:19:34.019 --> 00:19:38.369 that I exist in is both sales force and mix panel. So from a 275 00:19:38.450 --> 00:19:42.730 sales force perspective, I'm using Lexeo to understand, you know, what is 276 00:19:42.769 --> 00:19:47.130 happening in the narrative science pipeline as well as in our bookings, so that 277 00:19:47.210 --> 00:19:49.529 I understand, you know, what capacity is going to be for on boarding 278 00:19:49.569 --> 00:19:53.519 customers and making sure that they get the experience that they are so deserving of. 279 00:19:55.160 --> 00:19:57.519 And then from a mixed panel perspective, we've got that hooked into our 280 00:19:57.559 --> 00:20:02.920 products so we can see kind of step by step how any individual or company 281 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:07.349 is really using our platform. Obviously that informs our business in so many ways. 282 00:20:07.670 --> 00:20:11.190 One, you know, is this customer getting value out of the system? 283 00:20:11.869 --> 00:20:15.549 Does that mean that they are, you know, likely to renew or 284 00:20:15.589 --> 00:20:19.390 unlikely to renew? But, more importantly, when we look at that usage, 285 00:20:19.509 --> 00:20:22.299 how can we innovate in the direction? They need us too if they 286 00:20:22.339 --> 00:20:26.259 are going to be that great customer, and how do we decide not to 287 00:20:26.460 --> 00:20:30.460 innovate for those customers that we know are actually what we'd consider healthy churn? 288 00:20:30.819 --> 00:20:36.609 And I think you know healthy churn is is important for product and cus to 289 00:20:36.690 --> 00:20:40.609 really be aligned on, because you can't you can't be everything to everyone. 290 00:20:40.890 --> 00:20:42.809 You'll be nothing to know one if you if you take that approach. So 291 00:20:42.890 --> 00:20:47.490 we have to really be in lock step. They're looking at the the usage 292 00:20:47.890 --> 00:20:49.680 through mix panel, through Lexio, so that we can be really smart about 293 00:20:49.720 --> 00:20:53.079 where we innovate. Love it in of course, you obviously need to push 294 00:20:53.119 --> 00:20:56.960 that back up to sales and marketing so that they have a very clear view 295 00:20:56.079 --> 00:21:00.119 of who they should maybe. You know, how did we attract these these 296 00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:04.470 healthy churn events in the first place and how did we sell into them? 297 00:21:04.589 --> 00:21:07.029 And, you know, how can we prevent that in the future. So 298 00:21:07.750 --> 00:21:11.950 really good. Let's transition to community. Obviously, at some point in the 299 00:21:12.109 --> 00:21:17.190 age three, H two, reach one team or all of them. This, 300 00:21:17.430 --> 00:21:22.420 the value of community, probably came up. You either self selected or 301 00:21:22.579 --> 00:21:26.819 were hand selected to lead the charge. How did that conversation come up at 302 00:21:26.819 --> 00:21:30.539 narrative science just around community, and then how did you jump at it? 303 00:21:30.180 --> 00:21:36.130 Yeah, so I like to think that narrative sciences is again this next generation 304 00:21:36.250 --> 00:21:38.690 business intelligence company, and you know, I mentioned this early. We have 305 00:21:38.769 --> 00:21:42.730 tools that retrofit existing business intelligence, that we have lexio, which is kind 306 00:21:42.769 --> 00:21:47.359 of the smart alternative. It is this next gend business intelligence. But what 307 00:21:47.519 --> 00:21:52.039 that means when you're doing something that's on the bleeding edge of innovation is that 308 00:21:52.599 --> 00:21:57.559 not everybody's ready for it and traditional methods of marketing just don't necessarily work, 309 00:21:57.599 --> 00:22:02.309 because we're not selling a commodity, we're selling something that most people have not 310 00:22:02.430 --> 00:22:06.910 ever heard of. So I like to think about this is, you know, 311 00:22:07.029 --> 00:22:10.230 when Uber first came to market, people thought that I was crazy because 312 00:22:10.230 --> 00:22:12.190 I wanted to get in a stranger's car and have them drive around the city, 313 00:22:12.509 --> 00:22:15.779 and when air BNB came to market, people thought I was crazy because 314 00:22:15.940 --> 00:22:19.059 I was so eager to sleep in a stranger's bed and in their home. 315 00:22:21.220 --> 00:22:23.900 And you look around now and and these are just commonplace right everybody takes an 316 00:22:23.940 --> 00:22:27.819 new births. It's likely the preference for most people. Same thing with AIRBNB. 317 00:22:27.980 --> 00:22:32.289 We love to travel and love to travel like locals by staying and people's 318 00:22:32.289 --> 00:22:37.329 homes, but when those things first came to market you didn't have community. 319 00:22:37.690 --> 00:22:40.730 And so you look around now, though, and there are all these people 320 00:22:40.769 --> 00:22:42.769 that are really evangelists for it, and that's how those companies move their missions 321 00:22:42.849 --> 00:22:48.799 forward. It takes time to transition an entire industry from the old world to 322 00:22:48.839 --> 00:22:52.319 the new and it takes time to garner enough of a following of evangelist who 323 00:22:52.319 --> 00:22:56.359 are willing to build with you and iterate with you, because it's not going 324 00:22:56.400 --> 00:23:00.109 to be perfect when you're trying to redefine something that everybody is kind of clutched 325 00:23:00.150 --> 00:23:03.869 to and and defined in their own way. So you have to find these 326 00:23:03.109 --> 00:23:07.589 people, literally, individuals who are willing to stick it out with you, 327 00:23:07.829 --> 00:23:11.509 people that want to see you be successful because it means their success. It 328 00:23:11.630 --> 00:23:15.579 means something that they meet in their lives now and they are willing to then 329 00:23:15.660 --> 00:23:18.940 build it with you. So that's really what was the impetus to building a 330 00:23:19.059 --> 00:23:25.019 community at narrative science. Is there are people surrounding our brand ecosystem. Who 331 00:23:25.019 --> 00:23:30.289 are these evangelists for us, and how do we curate and have meaningful conversations 332 00:23:30.410 --> 00:23:33.210 with them so that they can help us push our mission forward? So that's 333 00:23:33.210 --> 00:23:37.609 what we're doing. We're building up our community of advocates. These are people 334 00:23:37.650 --> 00:23:41.410 that want to rewrite tomorrow and do that with us, people that believe in 335 00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:45.200 this new way and this future that's possible because of companies like narrative science, 336 00:23:45.519 --> 00:23:48.880 and so we're again very early on in our journey here. We're starting to 337 00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:52.039 lay the bricks for our community. But we're doing that with things like really 338 00:23:52.039 --> 00:23:57.230 exciting events, both virtually and then, hopefully post covid in person offline event. 339 00:23:57.750 --> 00:24:00.549 We actually have one coming up at the end of April for anybody that 340 00:24:00.710 --> 00:24:04.309 is interested in joining. Will have thought leaders from the analytic space, people 341 00:24:04.349 --> 00:24:08.150 like Donald Farmer, farmer CPO at click keynote in the event, as well 342 00:24:08.190 --> 00:24:11.859 as a lot of other innovators again, but the goal of those types of 343 00:24:11.940 --> 00:24:15.819 conversations being bring people to the table and talk about how we're innovating and how 344 00:24:15.859 --> 00:24:21.779 we're rewriting the tomorrows of each of our respective industries. Yes, so many 345 00:24:21.779 --> 00:24:26.210 important themes in there. I find it difficult, especially the way you set 346 00:24:26.250 --> 00:24:30.970 up the response there. I find it difficult to pull kind of category or 347 00:24:30.089 --> 00:24:36.650 category design away from community and community building. The common thread there is, 348 00:24:37.450 --> 00:24:42.000 you know, this bidirectional conversation, not just company, your brand to customer, 349 00:24:42.119 --> 00:24:47.799 but customer to customer as well, that it's not really a sales conversation 350 00:24:48.240 --> 00:24:53.430 or a product conversation or a price point, contract terms conversation. It's a 351 00:24:55.269 --> 00:24:57.109 you know what are, why are we all doing this together? What problem 352 00:24:57.109 --> 00:25:00.869 are we solving? How is this unique, etc. And so that's great. 353 00:25:00.910 --> 00:25:06.910 I think my curiosity is of Youan obviously, I mean I understand why, 354 00:25:06.990 --> 00:25:10.099 but I'd love to hear like the process of all right, we're doing 355 00:25:10.140 --> 00:25:12.460 community. Someone needs to leave this charge where you like, we need to 356 00:25:12.460 --> 00:25:15.180 build community and I need to leave this charge. Or did you know? 357 00:25:15.259 --> 00:25:18.900 How did this come up internally? I know, and I'm asking really on 358 00:25:18.980 --> 00:25:22.210 behalf of the listener who, you know, like customer experience and like so 359 00:25:22.289 --> 00:25:26.410 many other things, it's happening, whether or not you're intentional about it. 360 00:25:26.890 --> 00:25:32.529 The you know you're either missing the opportunity or someone is unwittingly creating some degree 361 00:25:32.609 --> 00:25:36.720 of community, or you're very intentional about it. So you all are obviously 362 00:25:36.799 --> 00:25:40.279 very intentional about it at this point. But what was that kind of awakening 363 00:25:40.359 --> 00:25:45.880 internally? I would say the awakening for me was actually work that I do 364 00:25:47.400 --> 00:25:49.750 on the side of narrative science. So I built a company called manifest that 365 00:25:49.829 --> 00:25:56.630 we can we can talk further about, but what manifest was was a community 366 00:25:56.710 --> 00:26:02.029 for ambitious women in Chicago to connect and share their experiences to collectively move forward. 367 00:26:02.029 --> 00:26:07.500 And as we started building that community, we started having those individuals request 368 00:26:07.619 --> 00:26:11.099 products from manifest, and so then we started building products to address those needs. 369 00:26:11.460 --> 00:26:17.460 And when I realized that you could do that same process but the inverse, 370 00:26:17.740 --> 00:26:19.970 at Narrative Science, I started advocating for it. I was like, 371 00:26:21.130 --> 00:26:23.730 we have people that are infatuated with our brand but don't have a buying use 372 00:26:23.809 --> 00:26:27.049 case right now. How do we stay connected with them? We've people that 373 00:26:27.089 --> 00:26:32.730 are purchasing this and are infatuated with it and they want to spread the word. 374 00:26:32.769 --> 00:26:36.599 How do we give them opportunities to do that? So to your point, 375 00:26:37.160 --> 00:26:41.319 when our topic is a category. It's ever more important that we bring 376 00:26:41.359 --> 00:26:45.440 all the people that are interested in that from all the different angles, whether 377 00:26:45.319 --> 00:26:52.069 they're user or their inn ai kind of visionary, to have those conversations, 378 00:26:52.109 --> 00:26:56.029 because conversations result in ideas. IDEAS result in products. Products result in revenue, 379 00:26:56.349 --> 00:27:00.109 and when narrative science can make more revenue, we can bring our mission 380 00:27:00.109 --> 00:27:03.420 to more people. So that's that's kind of why I raised my hand for 381 00:27:03.539 --> 00:27:07.819 community, started advocating for it, got other people on board with this idea 382 00:27:07.900 --> 00:27:11.259 that this could really bring people together and help us move our mission forward, 383 00:27:11.259 --> 00:27:15.220 and so now we are being very intentional about how we roll that out. 384 00:27:15.970 --> 00:27:18.410 Yeah, I imagine in a culture. Again, I have some exposure to 385 00:27:18.569 --> 00:27:22.369 several of your team members. I have visited before and spend some time with 386 00:27:22.490 --> 00:27:26.329 some of your folks in person, and so I can't imagine that it was 387 00:27:26.410 --> 00:27:30.680 a difficult lift. I don't imagine you're like rolling a boulder up a hill 388 00:27:30.720 --> 00:27:33.160 to get this thing going, but I can imagine that some people listening are 389 00:27:33.240 --> 00:27:38.839 probably in organizations where it's probably a greater challenge. Let's talk about manifest for 390 00:27:38.880 --> 00:27:44.869 a few minutes. So what was the spark? They're like you founded it? 391 00:27:45.990 --> 00:27:48.789 What were you trying to solve and what is it about? I'm going 392 00:27:48.829 --> 00:27:52.670 to answer that. One thing that I just want to share your listeners because 393 00:27:52.670 --> 00:27:56.509 I think this tactical vice could be really helpful for anybody trying to build community 394 00:27:56.509 --> 00:28:00.819 or grow community. To respond to what you'd said, it was pretty easy 395 00:28:00.819 --> 00:28:03.740 at narrative science, I think everybody we have a very visionary leadership team. 396 00:28:04.220 --> 00:28:08.940 They recognized how valuable community could be to us. But community is so big 397 00:28:10.099 --> 00:28:12.930 and broad that you have to break it down to really really tacked elements and 398 00:28:14.210 --> 00:28:18.890 start having just many evidence of traction to start building towards something that's much broader, 399 00:28:18.930 --> 00:28:22.769 which is, you know, community. Now at narrative science, where 400 00:28:22.809 --> 00:28:26.440 we started was just social media. How do we get our community at narrative 401 00:28:26.440 --> 00:28:32.759 science together to help share our mission? And then it turned into executive round 402 00:28:32.759 --> 00:28:36.640 tables. How do we gather tend like minded people right, super tangible and 403 00:28:36.799 --> 00:28:41.750 get them to start co creating by having conversation? And now we're looking at 404 00:28:41.789 --> 00:28:45.430 bigger skill things like our data storytelling some at that's coming up. So to 405 00:28:45.509 --> 00:28:48.950 anybody listening kind of considering, how do we start? Start Small, start 406 00:28:48.990 --> 00:28:52.910 really tactical, get people on board, start showing that early traction and then 407 00:28:52.950 --> 00:28:56.180 ultimately, you know, kind of grow of all, evolve and graduate to 408 00:28:56.579 --> 00:29:02.859 bigger community efforts. We don't have to like implement a community software is don't 409 00:29:02.940 --> 00:29:07.579 right away today. You don't need the eighty point plan exactly as some momentum 410 00:29:07.900 --> 00:29:10.369 in and your point, there are a lot of different ways to go about 411 00:29:10.410 --> 00:29:12.450 it, a lot of models you could probably look at. I would guess 412 00:29:12.490 --> 00:29:17.009 it. There are tons of videos and blog posts available about building community. 413 00:29:17.730 --> 00:29:19.210 Actually brings to mind a number of people and I can think about a bunch 414 00:29:19.210 --> 00:29:22.890 of people on Linkedin that are considered intantly talking about some of the practical things 415 00:29:22.930 --> 00:29:26.960 here. I only follow up to that and then we'll go to manifest sure 416 00:29:27.240 --> 00:29:33.279 is. When you brought those ten people together, was it simply for conversation 417 00:29:33.559 --> 00:29:37.079 Sake, and I'm asking this kind of from a personal point of view, 418 00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:41.470 like my tendency in a lot of situations is not to give myself permission in 419 00:29:41.069 --> 00:29:48.990 a work context, I'm air quoting, to simply go into something for Discovery 420 00:29:48.190 --> 00:29:52.900 Sake? Where you looking to produce anything out of it or document anything out 421 00:29:52.900 --> 00:29:56.299 of it? Or was it let's just bring people together and have a conversation. 422 00:29:56.420 --> 00:30:00.619 Yeah, again, for us it's all about solving the customers problems. 423 00:30:00.660 --> 00:30:03.339 So at the executive round table we did, it was industry leaders who have 424 00:30:03.660 --> 00:30:10.009 questions and they want to share their knowledge and collect other people's knowledge that they 425 00:30:10.049 --> 00:30:15.009 can problem solve in their businesses. And obviously, when you are the magnet 426 00:30:15.089 --> 00:30:18.210 for that conversation, when you are central to that conversation, people problem solve 427 00:30:18.329 --> 00:30:23.319 around the thing that you exist to be and to create. So I would 428 00:30:23.359 --> 00:30:30.079 say it was more conversational, but definitely with the intention of helping people problem 429 00:30:30.200 --> 00:30:33.039 solve and and move their companies forward as a result, as an outcome of 430 00:30:33.119 --> 00:30:37.309 the conversation. Yeah, I really like the way you position that, that 431 00:30:37.950 --> 00:30:40.509 they could have gotten together on their own, but it makes so much more 432 00:30:40.509 --> 00:30:44.029 sense for you to bring them together because you are the common point of connection, 433 00:30:44.509 --> 00:30:48.150 even though it's going to go in a variety of directions. So Chicago, 434 00:30:48.190 --> 00:30:52.660 ambitious women. Yeah, and manifest. That's a good tea up. 435 00:30:55.299 --> 00:30:59.900 So manifest really came about as a result of me hitting a really low point 436 00:30:59.900 --> 00:31:03.970 in my career after graduating college. I poured myself into my work, as 437 00:31:04.089 --> 00:31:08.049 a lot of ambitious women do. I had no identity other than who I 438 00:31:08.250 --> 00:31:11.410 was at the office. And a few years ago I was going through a 439 00:31:11.569 --> 00:31:15.410 career transition and I had raised my hand for a role that was definitely a 440 00:31:15.569 --> 00:31:19.839 reach. It would have been my first step into a managerial role, and 441 00:31:21.759 --> 00:31:26.119 by that I mean it would have given me experience in managing people, and 442 00:31:26.839 --> 00:31:29.920 I mean I thought for sure I can do this right, I manage a 443 00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:33.549 household, I can lead a team, I do public speaking to audiences five 444 00:31:33.589 --> 00:31:37.150 thousand or more people. But but technically speaking, you're right, I don't 445 00:31:37.190 --> 00:31:41.670 have manager realial experience. And so we didn't get the job. And in 446 00:31:41.829 --> 00:31:45.990 that moment my world came crashing down because I had agency up until that. 447 00:31:45.069 --> 00:31:49.140 I gotten every job I ever wanted, and so I wallowed and self pity 448 00:31:49.299 --> 00:31:53.779 for a few months. I'm anopolized dinner table conversations one moment of time and 449 00:31:55.619 --> 00:31:59.579 and then I realized in in having those conversations that I wasn't the only one. 450 00:32:00.019 --> 00:32:05.289 There was ambitious women all around me and they had experienced very similar to 451 00:32:05.329 --> 00:32:08.089 letdowns. And I think for women as a gender, there's this narrative that 452 00:32:08.170 --> 00:32:12.490 everyone has to be a boss or be a boss Babe and or killing ourselves 453 00:32:12.529 --> 00:32:15.599 at work and statistically it's just not getting us very far. So ween and 454 00:32:15.680 --> 00:32:20.720 Dot Org says that women hold thirty eight percent of middle management positions, thirty 455 00:32:20.799 --> 00:32:23.599 percent of VP positions, twenty one percent of executive positions, and the numbers 456 00:32:23.640 --> 00:32:28.279 are on the rise. But conventional wisdom would tell you that women hit a 457 00:32:28.359 --> 00:32:32.109 glass ceiling and in reality, the biggest obstacle that women face is the first 458 00:32:32.349 --> 00:32:37.349 step up. That step that I missed is what they call the broken wrong, 459 00:32:37.789 --> 00:32:40.789 and this broken wrong results in more women getting stuck at entry level, 460 00:32:42.029 --> 00:32:45.980 fewer women becoming managers and, as a result, there's a significantly fewer women 461 00:32:45.059 --> 00:32:51.259 that ultimately advanced to the higher levels. So what I learned from this experience, 462 00:32:51.299 --> 00:32:53.220 kind of the fallout, was two things. Women need more space to 463 00:32:53.259 --> 00:32:58.609 support each other and swap ideas and best practices across industries. We have women 464 00:32:58.650 --> 00:33:00.809 in tech, we have women in manufacturing, but we don't have women, 465 00:33:01.250 --> 00:33:07.490 ambitious women. And then the second is as a gender, we need to 466 00:33:07.890 --> 00:33:13.240 diversify what makes us feel successful. We can't be just defined by our work. 467 00:33:13.880 --> 00:33:17.640 And so what is manifest doing? We are rewriting the definition of success 468 00:33:17.640 --> 00:33:21.839 for ambitious young women. We believe that you should diversify your life in the 469 00:33:21.960 --> 00:33:25.000 same way you diversify your investments, and we believe that success can be realized 470 00:33:25.119 --> 00:33:29.710 in any end or all of those domains. You can be a Badass at 471 00:33:29.750 --> 00:33:30.869 work, you can have a side hustle, you can be a great mom, 472 00:33:30.990 --> 00:33:34.150 you can write a book, you can be a Yoga Guru, you 473 00:33:34.190 --> 00:33:37.630 can be all of these things, as long as you just follow what lights 474 00:33:37.670 --> 00:33:42.140 you up inside and what makes you feel personally successful. It doesn't have to 475 00:33:42.220 --> 00:33:45.059 be defined by who you are at the office. So so we exist to 476 00:33:45.140 --> 00:33:47.819 provide a space from vicious women to connect, not compete, to share, 477 00:33:49.099 --> 00:33:52.500 not compare, and to move forward together. We believe in leveraging the collective 478 00:33:52.539 --> 00:33:57.250 knowledge and networks of our community to help propel women forward in any area of 479 00:33:57.329 --> 00:34:00.690 their life. Love it. I love the diversity, or I guess, 480 00:34:00.730 --> 00:34:05.650 the the whole ism of the view of a successful life, as well as 481 00:34:05.849 --> 00:34:09.360 the whole ism of women from any industry or any background. I think there's 482 00:34:09.360 --> 00:34:14.440 probably a lot more interesting learning and a lot more interesting conversations as a consequence 483 00:34:14.480 --> 00:34:15.760 of that. You know, it is it is. I've had a lot 484 00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:21.159 of conversations with people women in tech is obviously a thing and that's really helpfulcase. 485 00:34:21.159 --> 00:34:22.960 There's plenty of diversity within tech, as you well know. I'm just 486 00:34:23.119 --> 00:34:27.989 talking about the you know, the six or seven kind of disciplines you've been 487 00:34:28.030 --> 00:34:30.550 in in your career already within it, within a tech and business context, 488 00:34:30.710 --> 00:34:35.710 but I think opening that up even wider probably is interesting. Did this start 489 00:34:35.750 --> 00:34:42.179 primarily digitally or facetoface? So it started facetoface, very similar to the community 490 00:34:42.219 --> 00:34:45.019 work that we're doing at narrative science. My theory was if we could pull 491 00:34:45.179 --> 00:34:50.619 ten women together and a facetoface setting and give them vegas roles. What happens 492 00:34:50.659 --> 00:34:57.929 your stays here, then we could authentically facilitate conversation around topics that are otherwise 493 00:34:57.969 --> 00:35:00.809 tabooed to talk about with strangers. What are you most proud of you know? 494 00:35:00.289 --> 00:35:04.849 What do you most excited about in your life? What are you struggling 495 00:35:04.889 --> 00:35:07.800 with the most? What are you missing in your life? And allowing them 496 00:35:07.920 --> 00:35:14.960 to answer that question from any dimension of who they are was really really powerful, 497 00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:16.760 because you have women that lean into the career conversation, you have women 498 00:35:16.800 --> 00:35:22.670 that lean into their challenges and their relationships or their marriages or the running households 499 00:35:22.030 --> 00:35:25.190 and ultimately, you know, everybody is kind of dealing with the same thing. 500 00:35:25.550 --> 00:35:30.469 Despite you know where where those challenges and obstacles are coming from. It's 501 00:35:30.510 --> 00:35:35.510 really good for folks who have enjoyed this conversation so far and I assume that 502 00:35:35.510 --> 00:35:38.059 if you're with us at this point you have found this really interesting and valuable. 503 00:35:38.579 --> 00:35:42.019 You know, we've touched on a lot of themes that are consistent on 504 00:35:42.099 --> 00:35:45.579 the show and if you visit bombombcom slash podcast, of course you can search 505 00:35:45.659 --> 00:35:51.210 the customer experience and Itunes or wherever you prefer, apple podcast or Google podcasts, 506 00:35:51.650 --> 00:35:53.849 Google play, spotify or if you prefer to listen and find a lot 507 00:35:53.889 --> 00:35:58.809 more conversations that are about this balance of human and tech. A lot of 508 00:35:58.969 --> 00:36:01.730 CS thought leaders, of course, sales and marketing and leadership as well. 509 00:36:02.210 --> 00:36:07.679 And and Steph, you've just had a really cool career to date. I'm 510 00:36:07.760 --> 00:36:12.199 excited for where you're going to go over the next decade in kind of touching 511 00:36:12.239 --> 00:36:15.440 a lot of those different lines. What what are maybe one or two things 512 00:36:15.480 --> 00:36:19.630 that have surprised you to your in your journey to date, having been in 513 00:36:19.869 --> 00:36:23.269 sales and Biz, devl rolls and you know, obviously interfacing with product and 514 00:36:24.190 --> 00:36:30.989 building kind of CS functions that didn't exist and now pioneering community like what are 515 00:36:30.030 --> 00:36:32.500 one or two things that may be surprised you along the way? Or maybe 516 00:36:32.539 --> 00:36:37.699 something you picked up in a manifest conversation or maybe a question you were asked 517 00:36:37.739 --> 00:36:42.380 in a manifest setting that you provided an answer and you just discovered something about 518 00:36:42.539 --> 00:36:46.889 yourself. I think the biggest surprise for me in my professional career has been 519 00:36:47.690 --> 00:36:52.610 that there's just not a playbook, that everything is just adapting to your environment 520 00:36:52.650 --> 00:36:59.769 and taking and pulling from every air of your life frameworks that work. I 521 00:36:59.929 --> 00:37:02.440 definitely thought in my come up that one day somebody's going to hand me a 522 00:37:02.480 --> 00:37:06.000 playbook and say this is how you do see us, or this is how 523 00:37:06.079 --> 00:37:08.599 you do sales or this is how you do marketing, whatever it was. 524 00:37:09.159 --> 00:37:14.400 And and there are playbooks, right, but but everybody is responsible for adapting 525 00:37:14.440 --> 00:37:16.309 all the playbooks into something that works for them and works for their business. 526 00:37:16.869 --> 00:37:23.389 And so at manifest we're kind of building playbooks for life or pulling from different 527 00:37:24.110 --> 00:37:29.989 thought leaders like I love Lulu Lemon has this incredible goal setting program. Michael 528 00:37:29.989 --> 00:37:34.219 Hiatt also has an incredible goal setting program, James Clear, atomic cabots, 529 00:37:34.460 --> 00:37:37.500 Charles Douheg, the power of habit, and we're compiling a playbook for life. 530 00:37:37.980 --> 00:37:43.699 So biggest surprise was that playbooks did, in our already exist. The 531 00:37:43.739 --> 00:37:45.809 perfect playbook the end. I'll be all for any person trying to do anything. 532 00:37:46.329 --> 00:37:51.929 The biggest, most exciting thing is is how you adapt those playbooks, 533 00:37:51.969 --> 00:37:55.730 how you have conversations like these and and then those result and ideas and new 534 00:37:55.730 --> 00:38:00.079 playbooks to help you kind of move your your company's mission forward or you're on 535 00:38:00.159 --> 00:38:02.920 mission forward. I love it. It really blends kind of where we were 536 00:38:04.079 --> 00:38:07.559 several minutes ago with qualitative and quantitative. You know, the playbook is essentially 537 00:38:07.599 --> 00:38:10.679 a rule set. You know, as your is it. If then's kind 538 00:38:10.760 --> 00:38:15.070 of a set of guidelines or a set of like written things, but you 539 00:38:15.190 --> 00:38:17.670 know it when it intersects with the real world and real situations, that they 540 00:38:17.710 --> 00:38:22.150 need to be flexed and adapted and you keep what works and and ditch what 541 00:38:22.309 --> 00:38:24.829 doesn't. It's some love. It really good response there. Before I let 542 00:38:24.909 --> 00:38:28.780 you go stuff, I'm going to ask you for a couple things want. 543 00:38:28.900 --> 00:38:34.019 This is just your opportunity to show some appreciation for a person and a company, 544 00:38:34.139 --> 00:38:37.219 so a person that's had a positive impact on your life or career, 545 00:38:37.460 --> 00:38:40.260 and then give a shout out to a company or a brand that you really 546 00:38:40.300 --> 00:38:45.489 respect for the experience they deliver for you as a customer. I have to 547 00:38:45.530 --> 00:38:50.690 go out of my way to shout out a woman named Cathie Slunsky. She 548 00:38:51.050 --> 00:38:54.250 is, I think, chief product officer now at Neighborhoodscom and the reason why 549 00:38:54.250 --> 00:38:59.079 I want to shout her out is I didn't know that product management was a 550 00:38:59.239 --> 00:39:02.320 career path for women in tech when I was I was coming up and she 551 00:39:02.519 --> 00:39:07.320 showed me how applicable product management was, a skill set that could be adapted 552 00:39:07.400 --> 00:39:12.590 in the future to any role, marketing, sales, customer success otherwise, 553 00:39:13.030 --> 00:39:16.150 and she really gave me, you know, in my my mind and elevator 554 00:39:16.190 --> 00:39:21.550 ride to upleveling my career in a way that I wouldn't have if she hadn't 555 00:39:21.550 --> 00:39:24.340 pulled me into product I think there's there's people in your life that they see 556 00:39:24.340 --> 00:39:30.059 you for the unique and talented individual you are and they say you do this, 557 00:39:30.380 --> 00:39:31.940 do more of this, lean into that, because that's what makes you 558 00:39:31.980 --> 00:39:35.500 special, and she was the first person that did that for me in my 559 00:39:35.579 --> 00:39:37.809 career and I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't have the career that I have, 560 00:39:38.130 --> 00:39:40.769 I wouldn't have the confidence of the gumption that I have without her. 561 00:39:40.929 --> 00:39:45.849 So major shout out to Cathy. And then also I would be I would 562 00:39:45.849 --> 00:39:47.489 be sad if I didn't have the opportunity to shout out the leadership team at 563 00:39:47.489 --> 00:39:52.849 narrative science. I worked for tremendous managers there and and you know, Narrative 564 00:39:52.849 --> 00:39:54.960 Sciences is where I'm making my career and so I'm really, really grateful for 565 00:39:55.320 --> 00:40:00.800 the folks on that team as well. Awesome. How about a besides narrative 566 00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:05.119 science? Than another company, your brand that you really appreciate? Oh yeah, 567 00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:07.670 sweet green. My colleagues are all going to laugh. They know how 568 00:40:07.750 --> 00:40:13.030 much I love sweet green, but to me, going back to customer success 569 00:40:13.070 --> 00:40:17.590 customer experience, Sweet Green has the ultimate customer journey. You can be I'm 570 00:40:17.630 --> 00:40:21.460 a person that orders it a lot for lunch. You can order directly through 571 00:40:21.460 --> 00:40:22.539 their APP, you walk into the store, you grab your salad, you 572 00:40:22.579 --> 00:40:27.380 can leave the office and be back to the Office for a conference call in 573 00:40:27.500 --> 00:40:30.739 three minutes, and oftentimes what that means is, you know, they mess 574 00:40:30.780 --> 00:40:34.619 up from time to time you grab the wrong salad or or your salad is 575 00:40:34.659 --> 00:40:37.369 not made perfect. But any time you need to you just go in their 576 00:40:37.369 --> 00:40:40.050 APP, you chat support and they are one of those companies that's like, 577 00:40:40.329 --> 00:40:44.730 you're right, let's fix it. They get it fixed immediately, and I 578 00:40:44.809 --> 00:40:47.849 think that that is just the ultimate customer outcome. Is You have an obstacle 579 00:40:49.050 --> 00:40:52.119 that you're facing together, the company does the right thing by you and they 580 00:40:52.239 --> 00:40:55.440 create this evangelist, this advocate, because now I'm standing on this podcast talking 581 00:40:55.480 --> 00:40:59.760 about sweet green on the salads that I love from them. So shout out 582 00:40:59.760 --> 00:41:02.119 sweet green. That's awesome. I have enjoyed that experience myself, not the 583 00:41:02.199 --> 00:41:05.949 ordering side of it, but I did get with your Cmo, cassidy, 584 00:41:05.949 --> 00:41:08.630 I was able to go downstairs, walk next door, pull it off the 585 00:41:08.750 --> 00:41:13.909 shelf and enjoy just an awesome salad. So good call there stuff. This 586 00:41:13.989 --> 00:41:16.670 has been a pleasure. I really appreciate what you're up to. Appreciate what 587 00:41:16.789 --> 00:41:20.500 I called your passion but turns out to be your mission. I don't know 588 00:41:20.619 --> 00:41:24.420 how separable or inseparable those are, but I really appreciate what you're up to 589 00:41:24.500 --> 00:41:28.699 and how you approach in view your work in the world in general. If 590 00:41:28.739 --> 00:41:31.889 people want to follow up with you personally or with manifest or with narrative science, 591 00:41:31.929 --> 00:41:36.250 who are some places that you might send people? Yeah, I think 592 00:41:36.329 --> 00:41:39.530 the most collective places my Linkedin, so you can find me stuff called well. 593 00:41:39.809 --> 00:41:45.369 I spell stuff with an F. otherwise follow me on instagram at by 594 00:41:45.650 --> 00:41:52.000 stuff called well or manifest hercom. Just a quick kind of drop. We 595 00:41:52.119 --> 00:41:57.519 will be announcing our book coming out in July, manifest her, the ambitious 596 00:41:57.559 --> 00:42:01.309 woman's guide to getting unstuck, navigating the ambiguity of your post prescribed life and 597 00:42:01.349 --> 00:42:07.030 manifesting your biggest dreams. So if anybody listening is kind of feeling like me 598 00:42:07.230 --> 00:42:10.150 when I started manifest, hopefully it's an incredible resource for you. But definitely 599 00:42:10.190 --> 00:42:15.230 open to any conversation with any person that is inspired by this conversation and also 600 00:42:15.309 --> 00:42:17.300 thank you so much for the opportunity. Yeah, thank you. I will 601 00:42:17.340 --> 00:42:22.980 drop links again at Bombombcom podcast. We do right up, so we grab 602 00:42:22.099 --> 00:42:25.820 some video clips, we do embed the full audio and I always make sure 603 00:42:27.059 --> 00:42:30.769 to have links to all the things that we talked about. I might even 604 00:42:30.809 --> 00:42:32.530 round up some of those books that you pointed to and some of those some 605 00:42:32.650 --> 00:42:37.329 of those other resources. So, yeah, I really enjoyed it so much. 606 00:42:37.329 --> 00:42:38.610 Again, continued success to you. I hope you have a great rest 607 00:42:38.650 --> 00:42:42.849 of your day and I appreciate your time here in the conversation. Thank you 608 00:42:42.889 --> 00:42:46.519 so much. This has been awesome. Hey, I hope this succeeded your 609 00:42:46.559 --> 00:42:51.840 expectation. I would love to know what you think about the CX series here 610 00:42:51.920 --> 00:42:57.000 on B Tob Growth. Email me, Ethan etch an at Bombombcom or hit 611 00:42:57.039 --> 00:43:00.510 me up on Linkedin. It's just Ethan Butte. Last name is spelled bee 612 00:43:00.070 --> 00:43:04.150 ute. And if you want to learn more, if, for example, 613 00:43:04.269 --> 00:43:07.909 this episode, if you want to see four or five video clips with staff, 614 00:43:07.949 --> 00:43:09.349 if you want to get links to some of the things we talked about, 615 00:43:09.630 --> 00:43:14.300 including manifest, the community she built, I've got all of that set 616 00:43:14.340 --> 00:43:22.340 up at Bombombcom podcast. It's bomb Bombcom podcast. Thanks again for listening to 617 00:43:22.420 --> 00:43:30.530 the CX series here on B Tob Growth. One of the things we've learned 618 00:43:30.570 --> 00:43:35.250 about podcast audience growth is that word of mouth works. It works really, 619 00:43:35.329 --> 00:43:37.489 really well actually. So if you love this show, it would be awesome 620 00:43:37.489 --> 00:43:42.079 if you texted a friend to tell them about it and if you send me 621 00:43:42.119 --> 00:43:45.800 a text with a screenshot of the text you sent to your friend Metta. 622 00:43:45.960 --> 00:43:49.440 I know I'll send you a copy of my book content base networking, how 623 00:43:49.519 --> 00:43:52.039 to instantly connect with anyone. You want to know my cell phone numbers. 624 00:43:52.079 --> 00:43:57.070 Four hundred seven, four nine hundred three hund and three, two eight. 625 00:43:57.510 --> 00:44:01.750 Happy texting. I