Marketers of Technology
00:19:18 · Jeremy Byars
[00:19:18] S0: Yeah. So the development team definitely leverages AI to help with their QA testing and also with their what the product team will help with their basically as much as they can with their story creation and everything that follows after that and the acceptance criteria and all that, AI helps. I don't know in-depth how deep they use it. For marketing, use it every day. I have a very small team. It's me and one other person. I use it for copy editing. It makes me feel a little bit it saddens me. Let's just say sometimes when I've got three English degrees and here I am still making mistakes in my copy and having Claude or ChatGPT point out the most basic of errors. But also I use it for idea generation, of course, and also use it for image generation because sometimes you got an image in your head and then you sketch it out or you try to go into Illustrator or Photoshop and try to mock it up and it's just garbage. I can send it through Gemini in particular, but also ChatGPT has come a long way and have that sort of mock up display in a few seconds. And it saves me a half a day or more of work if it's a really important image like that. They have a long way to go when it comes to vector illustrations, I get that. So I use a lot for graphic design as well, or at least the early stage designs, and then I go and put it, like I said, into Illustrator or InDesign or something like that. But also, we're a HubSpot company, so HubSpot has a very strong AI component. So we try to utilize as much as we can with HubSpot's Breeze intelligence. Now some of it I'm less than warm to because it's not, it still needs work. But... And they know that. I tell them that any chance I get. So, yeah. So anything that's adjacent there around, like I said, the Breeze AI component of HubSpot, we try and do as well.
00:21:10 · Andres Figuera
[00:21:10] S1: Okay. I know. I understand. And, yeah, it's pretty much what I feel everybody's using AI for, but I love that you're doing, like, graphic design and image creation, but this is something that I felt since the AI started its whole boom, and it's the fact that anybody can do anything because the barriers of entry towards these different skills that we didn't have before have been lowered, and therefore, you can meet a product designer or a graphic designer halfway there with your idea, at least in a more tangible way, what's called, delivered to them, and then they understand a lot better what you need from them, and they can tweak it out, make it a lot prettier, or use their graphic design knowledge to really just then revamp it in a proper way. But it's
00:21:48 · Jeremy Byars
[00:21:48] S0: I so think that's the key point. I think what you said is really important because a lot of people, and I have a big background in graphic design, but a lot of people just immediately just cast it off and say, you're taking a graphic designer job and that couldn't be further from the truth. I'm giving them more time to do more work and by them I mean me. So at the end of the day, it's not like we're not hiring a graphic designer here because we're using AI. It's I'm not spending as much time on graphic design because I'm using AI. And it necessarily make certain parts of the job any easier. That is a pretty big misnomer. In fact, you can, if you're not a decent prompt engineer, you can actually take more time using AI. So you've got to be really good about knowing how to prompt. Obviously asking it how you should prompt is a good cheat code that people still don't all know about. And at the end of the day, we've gotta quit reacting with sort of revulsion that, oh, someone's using AI for graphic design, and then they're just, I have no time for that person. And it's like, guys, if if we didn't, so many other things wouldn't get done. And at the end of the day, the finished product isn't gonna be AI generated most of the time. Sometimes it will if it's something silly. On LinkedIn, I have a very different personality than my CMO personality, I'll say. And on a regular basis, I'm seeing these flyers and banners and such that were clearly 100% created with AI. I'm in no way, shape, or form advocating for that. But I am advocating for being smart with it and really looking at how long is it going to take me to ideate on this? How long is it going to take me to put out a decent prototype, even if you want to look at it from development and product standpoint? My goodness, why would you take days to prototype something when AI can do it with your instruction in mere moments?
00:23:42 · Andres Figuera
[00:23:42] S1: In less than minutes. It's crazy. And something I love to do is that I'm sick and tired of the AI gaslighting me, saying everything's amazing, or when I'm prompted to do something, it gives me this is what you need. What I love to do is then ask it to critique itself, and to let me know what it thinks it did wrong, so that I get it to learn from what it's giving me, saying it's perfect, and then find the flaws in what you just did because it's not possible that it always tells me that it's going to be amazing.
00:24:08 · Jeremy Byars, Andres Figuera
[00:24:08] S0: Yeah, but here's the thing. We have those same conversations with our employees, right? Where it's like they come in piping hot about an idea or about a strategy, and you look at them and you say, okay, tell me what's wrong with what you just presented to me. And the amount of creativity that comes from that. Because a lot of times that idea was not theirs. Whether we mean to or not, we're pulling ideas from everywhere, right? So that same environment that birthed that idea for wherever it originally come from is not the environment that we're operating in. So when you stop someone down their tracks and you say, okay, hey, let's play devil's advocate. Tell me all the things wrong with that strategy or that idea. What we're saying, what you just mentioned about AI, it's no different than that. And I love that. I love being able to have it test itself, just as we should be doing ourselves. Even if you don't have an employee underneath you, or if you're not part of a team, if you're a company of one and you're an entrepreneur, you should be asking yourself that same thing. Okay, this is a great idea, but what's wrong with it? Where can where can I fall right on my face? [00:25:19] S1: Yeah. And that helps you then think a little bit more outside of the box and make sure the idea is tailored to work for everything that you might need it to because you can get a bit... What's it called? Hyperfocused if you feel it's so good that you don't even see the flaws in it because you're too close to it.
00:25:19 · Andres Figuera, Jeremy Byars
[00:25:19] S1: Yeah. And that helps you then think a little bit more outside of the box and make sure the idea is tailored to work for everything that you might need it to because you can get a bit... What's it called? Hyperfocused if you feel it's so good that you don't even see the flaws in it because you're too close to it. [00:25:32] S0: Yeah. And you're too eager. You're too excited about it. I run the risk of that all the time because I get super excited about stuff and it... And suddenly the blinders just automatically appear on [00:25:41] S1: the sides Me of my [00:25:43] S0: too, man. [00:25:44] S1: And Jeremy, I'm noticing we're almost here at time with the episode. But before I do finalize it, I did wanna give you the space for you to let me know if... And if anybody here is listening to us that's in The US, in local government, or in the utilities industry, or metering, what would be the best way for them to find out further about United Systems and see if it's a proper fit for what you guys are offering and what they need?