Digital & Dirt
00:00:04 · Ian Dallimore, Monica Ellingson
[00:00:04] S0: I'm Ian Dallimore, and this is Digital and Dirt. Alright. Welcome back, guys. My next guest, she is an avid tennis player who's looking to learn to play golf. What a interesting pivot. She's a native Atlantean. She has two grown children, one at Georgia Tech where she went to grad school, executive partner and sports entertainment practice lead, IBM Consulting, Monica Ellingson. Good to see you. [00:00:33] S1: Good. Thanks for having me. [00:00:35] S0: You know what I love having worked for the Braves and lived in Atlanta briefly early on in my career is that people that are from Atlanta, which it seems like there's like 1% that actually are from there, You guys hold on to it, and I love the passion behind that. [00:00:50] S1: Yeah. No. It's, I've definitely seen it evolve over time. I mean, I just recently was in the the neighborhood where I grew up, and it probably was a corner that I was standing on, I don't know, a thousand times, you know, as a child, and I'm like, where am I? That's crazy. Oh my gosh. It's completely different from what it was. You know? [00:01:09] S0: Yeah. Sidebar, I I was telling you, I worked for the Atlanta Braves briefly and then actually worked for the huge beach and water park resort in North Atlanta, Lake Lanier Islands, which was... I know it's also gone through. Ironically, yeah, a couple of years ago, I actually spoke at the Georgia Ad Conference or something, and it was there. And I was like, oh my gosh, this brings me back to my internship when I was like 19. So not a a bad place to live at all.
00:01:09 · Ian Dallimore, Monica Ellingson
[00:01:09] S0: Yeah. Sidebar, I I was telling you, I worked for the Atlanta Braves briefly and then actually worked for the huge beach and water park resort in North Atlanta, Lake Lanier Islands, which was... I know it's also gone through. Ironically, yeah, a couple of years ago, I actually spoke at the Georgia Ad Conference or something, and it was there. And I was like, oh my gosh, this brings me back to my internship when I was like 19. So not a a bad place to live at all. [00:01:38] S1: Yeah. Yeah. It's great. [00:01:39] S0: So yeah. So you and I met, we met at the sports marketing conference or media post in Deer Valley. We've had quite a few guests on from there. And I personally thought that was... We've been going to MediaPost for three years and six or seven events. And by far, your presentation included was the biggest knowledgeable takeaway. And it was the biggest knowledge sharing that I've seen at one of those events in a very long time. So I'm excited about this conversation. [00:02:07] S1: Well, thank you very much. It was a great event. So Yeah. Met a lot a lot of great people there. [00:02:12] S0: Yeah. And I know we're gonna go deep into this, but you've been extremely busy from the US Open. Sounds like you you up and moved your residency for a couple of weeks in in New York. But before we get there, let's let's start out. So you obviously went to Georgia Tech as well. I love that your son's following in your footsteps was daughter Yeah. Along [00:02:32] S1: my daughter, actually. Yeah.
00:02:32 · Monica Ellingson, Ian Dallimore
[00:02:32] S1: my daughter, actually. Yeah. [00:02:34] S0: Oh, I love it. So is she headed down the same career path or just same school? [00:02:39] S1: She's studying industrial engineering. So, I mean, still similar in terms of, you know, always always, you know, passionate about math and science growing up and, you know, pivoted layer. I'm kind of a right... Left brain type of person, so, you know, technology comes to me easily. But, you know, I'm also very focused on really the user experience side of, you know, digital media, of course, sports fan experiences. And when I was at Georgia Tech, I started and it was actually a brand new program at that time focused on information architecture. Now it's called the Digital Media Program at at Georgia Tech. So... Yeah. Yeah. She's in a similar parallel path. [00:03:22] S0: Yeah. I love it. And what a... What an amazing... I spend my nights now, like, when my kids go to sleep deep into, like, ChatGPT and a few other LLMs. And just I've gone deep down the rabbit hole of space and atoms and what the new world of AI is going to look like in the next ten years. And it's, you know, not a bad field that your daughter's headed down. I point in telling that story somewhere to your daughter, my kids are much younger and they're 14 and 12. And I'm like, this is the path where you need to go because this is where the world is headed. So even if you have 5% of the knowledge, you're going to be ahead of most people.
00:03:22 · Ian Dallimore, Monica Ellingson
[00:03:22] S0: Yeah. I love it. And what a... What an amazing... I spend my nights now, like, when my kids go to sleep deep into, like, ChatGPT and a few other LLMs. And just I've gone deep down the rabbit hole of space and atoms and what the new world of AI is going to look like in the next ten years. And it's, you know, not a bad field that your daughter's headed down. I point in telling that story somewhere to your daughter, my kids are much younger and they're 14 and 12. And I'm like, this is the path where you need to go because this is where the world is headed. So even if you have 5% of the knowledge, you're going to be ahead of most people. [00:03:59] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I mean, it's... I'm, you know, telling everyone now it's... You know, I'm I'm really focused on AI and in terms of, you know, how we can, you know, create personalized fan experiences and call down a massive volume of data to create those experiences. But, you know, on the flip side, in terms of, you know, working with my team and, you know, we have the full gamut of people from designers and developers to project managers. And I'm like, AI needs to be a fundamental part of your day to day life and encouraging people to create proofs of concepts because you can do it so quickly now. If you have an idea, see if you can make it come to life, you know, using these tools that are available to us now. So it's it's incredible.
00:03:59 · Monica Ellingson, Ian Dallimore
[00:03:59] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I mean, it's... I'm, you know, telling everyone now it's... You know, I'm I'm really focused on AI and in terms of, you know, how we can, you know, create personalized fan experiences and call down a massive volume of data to create those experiences. But, you know, on the flip side, in terms of, you know, working with my team and, you know, we have the full gamut of people from designers and developers to project managers. And I'm like, AI needs to be a fundamental part of your day to day life and encouraging people to create proofs of concepts because you can do it so quickly now. If you have an idea, see if you can make it come to life, you know, using these tools that are available to us now. So it's it's incredible. [00:04:48] S0: Yeah. And so was for you... So your primary focus in the early days was around media and entertainment was the early days of your career was You had mentioned, and I did a deep dive into you and deeper than your presentation, and I'll label you as a futurist. It seems like you're always ahead of the time. Maybe you surround yourself with brilliant people as well, which it sounds like- Definitely. [00:05:10] S1: I can't take credit. [00:05:12] S0: Yeah. No. I... I'm in the same situation. But if... What what was that moment where you really saw like, okay, this is where I want to pivot my career over from media and entertainment? And I would argue you're still in media and entertainment. It's just your focus shifted. What... When was that moment? And it seems like you've always had that mindset as well.
00:05:12 · Ian Dallimore, Monica Ellingson
[00:05:12] S0: Yeah. No. I... I'm in the same situation. But if... What what was that moment where you really saw like, okay, this is where I want to pivot my career over from media and entertainment? And I would argue you're still in media and entertainment. It's just your focus shifted. What... When was that moment? And it seems like you've always had that mindset as well. [00:05:31] S1: Well, I think I've almost always been in in media entertainment in some capacity, and I've really, you know, been able to just feel creatively alive in that space and, you know, thinking about how you can... You know, very, very early in my career, I was actually involved in creating, you know, digital experiences for, you know, professional education and then later on even for education and educational games, actually, I was focused on early on. And, you know, how do you take something that is often a difficult concept and, you know, make it into something entertaining and fun and visually captivating? And that's something that has always really grabbed my my creative energy and just my passion as a whole. And, you know, then later on, it evolves so that I put that energy into, you know, creating experiences for sports fans.