Craig: All right, welcome. Okay, welcome to the Smart Arts Podcast. This is episode three. today is our monthly one hour business round table. I'm Craig Edwards from Beam Automation and I'm joined by co-host Dan Sheen from the desk. Dan if you can wave, even though I won't pick it up because he's waving. Today we've got a sharp group of relaxed business operators in the room, and we're here for a relaxed, no fluff conversation. The idea is simple. We bring smart people together to share ideas, practical insights, wins, challenges, and the real lessons we've learned over time, including the expensive ones. No sales pitches, just honest chat about sales, systems, marketing, leadership, culture, tech, creative, admin operations, ever wherever the conversation's gonna go. And it's also whatever we can help move the needle right now. We'll kick off with some quick introductions around the room and then we'll to dive in today's topic as the main discussion. At the end, everyone's going to share their smart arts tip of the month. So grab a coffee, get comfortable, let's get into it. I'm just going to introduce my guests. today we have Liam Kelly from AI and Steve Palmer from the IQ Club. If you'd like to Liam, I'll kick off with you. Like to introduce yourself? Yeah, sure. Thanks, Craig. glad to be here too. Liam Kelly, Managing Director and Co-founder of a company called AI, AYI, which stands for achieving year on year intelligence. we help organizations renovate their operating models, leveraging AI at the core of their operations to achieve their desired business outcomes. So we enable this through two two elements of focus through a unique methodology, and that's through confidence building. And through the ability to control the AI as well. So that's that's and you know, use it in a more impactful way. Fantastic. Fantastic. And Steve? Steve Palmer, founder IQ Club. what do we do? That's a really interesting question. It just keeps changing as as things move. But you know, we started out as a networking group and then we realized that putting people in the room wasn't enough. And what we're doing now is I suppose we're building out an commercial ecosystem. and with with the goal of not only connecting people, but providing them outcome opportunities. Yeah, I love that. It's fantastic. Dan, I know you're the co-host, but feel free to introduce yourself. good morning, viewers, listeners. very exciting week ahead, Dan from the desk. With companies holistically to look at their sort of system architecture, data structure, just trying to get some business continuity, keep it simple. not a lot of tech jargon in there. Maybe in my explanation. But yeah, great podcast ahead. Really great to have Steve and Liam on and and excited to see where we go today. Yeah, fantastic. All right, so part of our format is to choose a particular topic. And for the listeners at home, we've sort of had a look under the curtain, we've sort of almost chosen our own topic for the day, but I'll I'll share it with everyone. So as we've done with previous podcasts, we've sort of outlined a few key topics under under the guise of business. So from anything from sales and selling to marketing and branding to innovation, tech and gadgets, business and structure. Creative ideas, governance, operations and productivity, finance, people and culture, legal, production and logistics, problem solving, compliance, administration, RD, mergers and acquisitions, time saving and productivity, future-proofing and direction, freedom, and customer service. So we had a bit of a chat earlier. So we've all come together and we're all going to talk about. couple of key topics around innovation and creative ideas. So we're gonna start there. And I suppose Liam being in the AI space and I just my mind just actually picked up your acronym. A Y I but yeah being innovation I suppose AI a buzzword for for good or bad reasons, but I'm keen to really hear your insights But more so where you're playing in today's AI space and where's that heading? Yeah, sure. I guess what I might do is start with a bit of history on the innovation topic, because the the word innovation can be taken in two two ways, in a positive way, but also in a negative way. And so this is why we've sort of landed on the on the term renovation as opposed to innovation. because it seems a lot more achievable, you know, sure for organizations. And where we've gone in the past, I've been in the AI space now for 10 years and was in the robotic process automation and early earlier days of AI adoption, which saw its you know, its challenges, to be quite honest. You know, it wasn't really ready for the market and there was a lot of vendors putting products out there that weren't really robust. You know, and then there was a lot of failures. So people were trying to innovate, but at the same time failing. And then, you know, I'd be waltzed in to to look under the hood and see what was happening and and try and unpack, you know, the problems that were going on. And it was really that we were overselling the innovation at the time, you know. And Is that is that is that mean like is that too many bodies in the room trying to do too much or is it just a a wayward plan that Because it's innovation, no one really knows where it's going or what had what's Yeah, I think people were trying to solve a problem for sure, you know, the problem in the market. I I talked maybe specifically about the the document reading capabilities that were, you know, ten years ago were all the all the rage you know, coupled up by robotic process automation, which was quite rules based and robust. Yep. but the coupling of this, you know, AI trying to read, you know, handwriting and on all these different other things was was seeing low, you know, thresholds in terms of processing. That OCR sort sort of stuff was it? Yeah, yeah. Optical character recognition. It wasn't a hundred percent accurate, but yeah. Yeah, correct. It still isn't a hundred percent. but obviously the AI model supporting them now around, you know, probabilistic nature. supporting it is has improved it out outstandingly now. but that that was a that was a good, you know, reflection that I took. And I went into that role at a point in time in my career to sort of say, okay, I really want to learn about AI because I saw it as the the thing that's going to change the human condition. And sure surely enough it's it's emerging that way. And and yeah, from there it was It was a game of, you know, just learning under the hood, the good, the bad, and the ugly, really understanding what what was done wrong, what was oversold versus undersold in terms of capability, and learning from that, because my background has been in business transformation for the last 25 years. I've been focused on change management and effective change from an organizational perspective, but also from people, process and technology, always tying those three. elements together and looking through that lens as to where is where are the weak points or the risk points and how do we strengthen those elements. And that's where what we've done over the last five years in particularly in running our own business is is assist organizations in renovating their operating model, looking through a lens of a of an X, we call it an X-ray, taking a snapshot of the business, and then looking about looking at what you can do with technology, but also seeking to find the the best technologies, the most robust technologies and might might not be the the most well known technologies vendors in the in the in the market, but they're certainly the world's best, you know, in terms of their actual robustness and trust that you can put in them. So we looked at the architectural stack that was needed, you know, to be to be really robust. How can you using Stephen what I don't know Stephen Covey's claim, but it was certainly in one in one of his books. it was around the trim tab principle, which is you the trim tab on a on a rudder on a ship is a thing that actually turns a ship around. Yes. And so looking for the trim tab that's gonna, you know, make a make a a demonstrable impact on an organization, looking for the smallest amount of architecture you can actually adopt in order to, you know, simplify. your actual operating model going forward. And that's that's where we've sort of come to now, just on your question before, Craig, in terms of what we've come to now is really trying to really, you know, make it simple as as possible for any organization, pass on our knowledge to organizations. and that's our goal is to actually democratize knowledge, you know, in this space. and in terms of I suppose innovation in itself. I in and in and I suppose in your space and I'll Steve, I'll get to you in a minute as well. In terms of I suppose innovating something, is it in your in your experience, has it has that been based on market need or is it based on someone's crazy idea going, Hey, that we we should develop this thing that you can pump a lot of data in it and all of a sudden it spits it out in two seconds, you know? Yeah, it's it it might start Depends on the audience. Sometimes the product companies are thinking about the the latter, but obviously the customers are usually thinking about the former. Right. So they're thinking about the business problem and how do I solve this business problem? You know, so I've been 60 years in in you know in operations. I'm using Excel right throughout my business. I've got some systems that underlie underpinning that, but you know, and we've seen this time and time again, you know, the overuse of Excel and Word and other tools, you know, as business applications, you know, within the organizations. And then that that gets them into a a bind from a productivity standpoint, right? So then what you got to do is unpack that bind and and then and then it looks like a more innovative operating model to the client. but in in all honesty it's a renovation, you know, the steps that you take then to actually move the shift the needle on your on your operating model and your business outcomes, you know. Sure. Yeah. And and Steve, I suppose I'll throw the question to you because yours yours is an interesting space. And I suppose yours is probably more human led than technology led. But you've had to pivot, you've had to shift in you know, in in different ways since since you start I think you started the IQ Club before COVID, didn't you? Steve. Yeah, I yeah, we started well I was a digital we we ran a digital agency for seven years. And a lot of people but what was your premise of starting the IQ Club to now? And then I'd like to get to what you're doing from an innovation perspective because I I know you are and I'd like to get talk about act on and stuff like that. So I wanna I wanna hear that journey in terms of Obviously the idea the initial idea of hey, let's start the IQ club to now where it's going in more of the act on Well, we started when we came out of the the digital agency, it was about telling the world about some of the great things that people in finance, who were traditionally very conservative people, yeah about what they did. there was one gentleman that I always referred back to and he after work would go on teach kids how to how to use money, how to spend how to save money and manage it. And but no one knew about it. so we went through the lockdowns and when we came out the other side, everybody was just glad to catch up. Yep. Because you know it was we're all at home, slightly depressed. I know it it wasn't something that I enjoyed. But then what's happened over the last number of years with, I mean, there's been established players that are always they've been there for a long time and they're good size organizations. And then we've got up and comers that are coming through, and younger people are taking up let's call it the networking sector. But then there comes a time when you go, you know, what makes you special? and I always remember people saying. Look, if you just look at your competitors and and improve it by one percent, then you'll get business. And I I never ever wanted to look at my competitors. And so what's happened is that we did a survey about 18 months, it'd be two years ago now. And what are some of the frustrations and the problems out there? And and one of the frustrations was outcome. How do we get outcome? How do I communicate? How can others be accountable to what I do and how can I be accountable to them and outcome. So then what happens is that's when we've created a product that changes business development. so you've developed a product or I suppose more so looking at there's there's a bit of a gap in the market because I think you're right. Like Everybody was getting used to that whole networking scene, which is literally just to rock up, shake a few hands, throw a few business cards and then walk away going, What was that about? Or yeah, I may I may I I've met some cool people, but I don't know well whether ever I'll actually do business again. So I think looking at it with an outcome lens, and I'd probably like to unpack that a bit further, but that's that's a Yeah, you you've obviously you've you've found a you've identified and gone there's a bit there's a bit of a need there or there's a bit missing to the networking scene or s or something. And funny story while you're doing that, Craig, is that you and I met many years ago at a networking event. That's right. and it was it was a weird circumstance that put us back together. and you know, the rest is history. But Steve, but going back to I suppose, yeah, you've come out of COVID and you're starting to develop this new IQ club, I don't really refer as a networking thing. I think it's just more than that. It's that that whole connectivity and outcome and think tank sort of scenario. But now you've started to dabble and explore a new way of even networking even further. So I suppose explain that to the group and the audience. Well, you know, if I'm I really love this country and I really love this state. And I want to be a part of That growth that happens. So it's a little bit of a selfish need, really. There's some really great people out there that do some wonderful things, and no one knows about it. Once again, it probably comes back to that thing about people that just do and don't get the accolades for it. Same thing. But in this case, it's not just individuals, but it's companies and very successful companies as well. But you'll never ever hear about it. But what we thought was. There are all these, how do we access these companies? We've got members that that's their client. How can I introduce my members to that client? And how can we do so in a professional way without, you know, in the old days it was cold clawing. So, but how can we do something to I mean, that's what I used to do when I first got in sales in the late 90s. Yeah. So what we thought was Who influences those people at that end? And so we what we thought was let's go and approach the associations because associations are no different to you and I. They're just larger organisations. And all they do, they have their heads down, and they forget that their members need to talk to their clients too. So what we thought was, well, let's go and talk to the associations and bring the entire supply chain together. Let's help their members achieve something that maybe their association would like a hand with. So that's what we've done. And that enables us to be able to bring our members into that conversation too. So I'd hate to say win-win, but it really is. It's if we start different conversations, people are going to get different outcomes, but you've got to get them in the room. But yeah, that's that that's really good. But I suppose coming back to the topic of innovation creativity. How did Acton come to be? Like what was the was it a vision? Was it a an angel that came in the night? We did that survey I mentioned. And I was frustrated because I'm thinking, you know, these are good people. These really are good people. And I'd like to serve them as best I can. Yeah. There's got to be a way to be able to give them that outcome that they want. In our industry, Craig? Yep. What people what organizations traditionally do is they will flit around the edges, they'll they'll bring people together for a drink and and that's nice. They'll go and do advocacy because it's easier for an organization, association, or a peak body to have that difficult conversation with a politician and put them their head on the block rather than putting their own head on the block. So what I thought was a better way to do it is if I can approach this outcome. issue the results that the leads the the signed clients if I can approach that in a different way does that does that solve their problem and so that's I I I was frustrated one day and I I heard this word Texas Hold'em I don't know anything about Texas Holdem so I thought well what do you want me to do? Do you want me to create a game out of this? I mean, really, we are in the game of life businesses a game. So it really does follow along that line. So what we did was we just created it from there. So just on that, just on that part, can you explain to the listeners what Acton is in like one or two minutes? Acton is a it's a business methodology, a business development methodology. And what it does is it Create one of the it creates permissions, it gives you leverage to be able to ask challenging questions that you would otherwise never have the opportunity to. It's about it has a game board, game cards, and you use game these game cards to uncover opportunities. And it's as simple as if I could put you in a in a room with or at a table with four other people. In 30 minutes you can get outcomes like you. Yeah, that I'm really surprised about. That's that's exactly what it is. Yeah, so in terms of come back to innovation and the problem it's solving, I suppose one of those big problems it's solving is that literally that issue where you walk into the room and going, I've got no idea who to talk to, I don't know who's connected to who, I don't know what I'm gonna get out of this, is am I wasting my time? whereas you're just Hey, let's just cut to the chase. Let's play a game and let's walk away with something. Absolutely. We we use a framework, it's context, need, request. The challenge in in in traditional networking is we all and we've all done it before. We go to into a room, somebody says, What do you do? And I say, I'm Steve and I'm an accountant. Well, that's the end of the conversation because the other person's thinking, Well, I know 300 of those people. What makes you any different? And so now you're on the back foot. And this is why we went and created the Simon Cynic. You know, what what's your why? And we all flitted around the edges and created something, as I understand it's Simon Cynic's situation was created for multinationals, not for assault practitioners. So but the the the point here is that act on goes to the next level, which is not not only the context, we've already discovered that. Who are you and what do you do? The next one is the need. So what's your priority right now? What's on your mind? And then from there the request, which is, how can you help me? Or other as others will be sitting at the table going, okay, so that's your need. So how can we help you? What are you looking for? And so it could be the CEO that sits down and says, Hey, look, we're growing our team at the moment and we've got a HR company, but it's not working out for us. Can anybody make a recommendation? That that's a need and a request. Yeah, and I suppose Liam, that would sort of be the same for you. It's like what's the outcome? You know, you're you've got the knowledge and the now s and the skills and background of of the tools and and how to build it. I suppose you're going in is well, what are we building? You know, what what is the outcome? What's the is that the sort of approach that you take? it's a hundred percent of the approach that we actually take. It's all we care about is outcomes. Yeah. And so when we're, you know, redesigning a renovation, if you like, of an organization, we're just looking, okay, what are the strat strategic objectives of the organization? How do we take them? How do we simplify their model? how do we take give them confidence and control? Yeah. and I think all the things that Steve's been talking about, and I I just love what you've done with this gamifying of this, you know, psychology coming together. And and that's what really our focus is if you think about technology. Technology's there, right? It's it's I can so I can sort of say, you know, from an architectural perspective, it's a fairly done deal. I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of confusion out in the market, yes, there's a lot of noise out in the market, but from a from a technology perspective, we've we've we've pretty much nailed that element. So what's left? It's the people element, you know, that is really And and what we've identified is, you know, s like seven anxieties that exist around confidence and seven anxieties that exist around control. Yeah. Right. So they're the elements that we actually focus on and you weave that focus on the humans in with your delivery, which is typical IT type project. You know, this is not a typical IT project. It's all about renovating your op operating model. So therefore, where do you need to start that journey? Right. And for us it's it the the common thing that we see companies falling into is the trap of outsourcing accountability to those that don't really have the accountability for the operating model, right? They might have accountability for certain deliverables within the the organization, but they don't have the accountability for the end outcomes. And that's that's where it's gotta be the leadership accountability that takes accountability for those things. So we focus largely on those things but but also educating, you know, and informing and becoming consciously competent, you know, over time. because most of most of the world at the moment in the AI story are uncon unconsciously incompetent or consciously incompetent to a large degree, right? And don't know how to that's why with you know this the stats are ninety-five percent of you know AI deployments aren't scaling. You know, and there's good reason for that. That's why we went back to what's the source of this problem, you know, and understanding it's really the psychology around the the problem and truly understanding that. Yeah, well Dan's got a good methodology in terms of systems architecture. Dan, I'll I suppose go into your methodology of how you deal with that. Yeah, it really is simple. And and I think interestingly, my system's really simple. What do you do? How do you do it and how do you want to do it? That's it. and it's people focused. And and I think the resounding message I'm hearing simplify the process. we're singing from the same hymn book here. It's people focused. So how do we help people do it better and simpler and give them back time? Because we're eliminating all that confusion and chaos. And focus on the you know, you said democracy, the democratizing information, which is which is really, really important. So if we look at a common and a really simple problem in in networking and the innovation in networking is getting people into the room, they still have to meet and talk and be comfortable. And if you remove that element as Steve identified and simplify, all right, let's get to the next step. All right, so everyone needs to talk and let's work out what you need to talk about. And then give them that safe, really simple, people-focused, outcome-focused tool that then facilitates in a safe environment, in where where this where everyone gives each other permission to talk very directly. removing that human element of being uncomfortable or nervous and actually seeing someone else say how can how does that help me? I need this empowering them to say to an introvert perhaps versus the extrovert will just ask. Yeah I love I love your approach, Steve, in terms of under the guise of gamifying networking, you know, because trying to get people in the rooms hard enough as it is. Trying to get people to talk to each other is hard and hard enough as it is and engage with each other. So and rather sort of you being the I suppose the the chief MC all the time saying you stay in there and you say that and you'll you're using a a game as a way to I suppose open that door and start conversations in a very quick succession because Games fun, you know, you it doesn't take too much to learn a game. and it it brings interaction like within seconds, people start interacting. So how I suppose in terms of how you evolve that from your initial thought of gamifying networking into what it is today, you've got a sample there, haven't you? Of what the cards are? There we go. I won't go to the detail of how what the game works. I I for people watching, I want you to reach out to Steve and he can show you how act on works. But I suppose what we're trying to do is is get into your mind in terms of that inception idea to now, that's obviously it's it's real, it's live. Like and we've you you, me and and Dan have I suppose worked in the background of trying to bring this to life. where is your sort of thought patterns? gone from what it was originally to to to inception now. man, it's it it's really interesting. and and and when I look back at the journey, it's no different to any product that you launch. You think it's this and then all of a sudden it it pops up over here and said it started as an apple but now it's an orange. Yeah, that's right. I I didn't even realize until someone told me months afterwards that this is sort of like speed networking. I said, well, actually, it it's not like a mosh pit, which is what speed networking is like. It's more structured, but but that's the terminology the market knows. so we've changed it from being a game, because it is a game, but I only just when you're out of the game, you don't like when you're out of the industry, you forget about the terminologies. I was a sales rep, you know, 25, 30 years ago. Today we've got fancy names for it, but people know it is. business development. So that's what it is. It's a business development methodology. So those are the terminologies that we've had to push through. That's is a topic in itself, I reckon. Terminology. And we can all everyone in this room or on this on this chat today can struggle with terminology. And I'm saying we struggle with it. It's our audience struggles with it. Yes. yeah. That's Like to think that they're salespeople, but they are. They still are. But I think that one of the key things about our industry is that when AI, when Lamb's industry becomes more commonplace, and as we sit at home in our pajamas and only work three days a week, those people again get lonely and they, you know, potentially already are. Those are the people that came out of the lockdowns and said, Hey, I want to be a part of something. Those people are going to gravitate to us the more we use AI. Yeah, but I'm going back to my point about terminology. Like I know back in the day, even in the print days, you'd have all these, you know, WYSIWYG and all that sort of stuff. And and you're all in your customers going, What the hell? Even today, like 'cause Dan and I are in the CRM space and I still talk to industries you know, thirty, forty, fifty year old businesses are real quite successful at what they do. And you and you say, We do CRM automation and they go, What's a CRM? Yeah. It's literally you come from another planet. And I'm sure Liam, you probably Yeah. Yeah, that's that's definitely I've I've suffered that myself. I mean I've I've been, you know, guilty as charge on many an occasion, you know, in to talking in strategic and AI terms and this, that and the other, and then then, you know, you get the rug pulled from here and say, hey, we're just down here. You know, we're just trying to I think you know the call what I'm talking about, Craig. and I cop that a fair bit, you know, that you've got to come to down to where the reality is actually occurring and and and that's and again that's where the renovation starts, not the innovation, you know, so so much. so yeah. I've always worked, Liam, from the perspective that if you can't explain it to the bloke that signs the check and and more often than not they would not know tech jargon, you know, from it from anything, but you're not getting paid. If you can't explain that story, so storytelling and outcome focus is a really big Part of our comms line. And that's, you know, if we're talking innovation is what we're really on about. And from our perspective, and and it's communication, how to communicate that new idea. and we're we've just implemented as an SOP a glossary creation at the start of an engagement. We've got our standard terms we use, but then specific terms that a company uses internally versus the language we use. Now, if we're not using the same language and I'm saying widget A and they're saying widget one. Yeah. And now wait a second, which one's which? But we've already got a widget one. It's just something different. Yeah. And and that's where I like I've I've actually spent the last two weeks on the the issue of terminology, Craig. And that's that's around because I've been documenting our methodology. and you know, it's the the the methodology is I would sort of call it modern change management, right? Because there hasn't been a model really for change management that's needed with that takes AI and you know operating model renovation into consideration. there's been elements around it. and you can throw bits and pieces at it, but there's never been a single methodology that actually does that. Teaching that to people, I go back to the I always go back to the idiots guides. Yeah. Yeah, that I honestly they're the best written books I've ever read. they're still around, the idiots' guides for Windows and yeah, stuff like that. Yeah, I've been writing them. Because I realize my own guilt, you know, and so I reflect on myself and I go back to okay, I'm not doing this right. You know, I've got to really simplify this for people so that the people can take the journey. And you know, the IT is there. It's it's it's done and dusted, you know. it's it's more about how do the people make the journey and that's why we focus on anxiety. And Steve, there you go. There's an instant book for you, The Idiot Sky to Networking. But yeah, I suppose look, in I suppose innovation in its purest form is how can we do things better? And I think, you know, Steve, you're doing it, Liam, you're doing it, Dan, you're doing it, even I I'm doing it. So my being 25 plus years in I suppose in the brand and marketing space and even today, a lot of the stuff out there is absolute rubbish. And and it's very it's very two dimensional. It's even with the Advent of AI, which I don't think that's gonna work very well for marketing and marketing agencies, but agencies are doing it now, even businesses, they're just shoving AI imagery and content out there, thinking that's just that's just gonna make my buyer instantly buy. It it cheapens the brand, it it comes off very inauthentic. People are starting to sh see through the veil of AI and not so much from a technological standpoint but just the use of of imagery and people starting to see through the that it's fake you know people are looking people as AI gets more common and the bottom feeders come into the conversation and try and educate there's gonna be a back there is a black backlash now people want more They do, they do. So so if you were to start a podcast right now, that would probably be a good idea. Hence here we are. And if I had a newspaper to show that I was real, I'd hold up the newspaper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that that's that's everything you're saying there, Craig, is absolutely right. And it's what I was talking about about ten years ago. Everyone was leaping into the the shining lights. Yes. You know, but really when you when you script it all back where you could only really again not innovate but renovate, you know, somewhat, you know, and and only don't think that you can take on the world with with this this thing in in a in a marketing sense because humans are humans, right? That's right. Yeah. And and humans are part of, you know, I suppose with marketing, some some businesses and and sometimes even agencies just think there's Marketing it's its own thing, but it's not. It's it's part of a buying process through through the customer and the customer journey. So you've got to have that authenticity. You've got to communicate, you've got to resonate, you've got to try and connect with your audience, you know. And AI can't do that. It's just, yeah, it can put some pretty pictures up and look how good it's it's redrawn or re-rendered this image, or it's turned this image into a video and blah, blah, blah. From a visual standpoint, you think amazing, you know. But would would does that make me actually go out and and buy that product or connect with that person or you know, have a meeting with that business or salesperson? No. It's just it's just an image at the end of the day, it's just an image on the page, you know. Yeah. And and some of the stuff that I see is literally a great fancy image, and it's literally saying buy now, but Hang on, I don't even know who you are. I don't know your story. I don't know how you can help me yet. You're just shoving shoving me a fancy great picture or video in front of my face, thinking all of a sudden I'm I'm gonna buy from you, you know. And I suppose, Steve, this probably also comes back to networking, you know. you're trying to leverage that I suppose act on, but it's it's all it is, it's that it's that connector, isn't it? It's that it is literally that connector from someone walking in in the room who doesn't know anyone and to you know business person a to business person b let's shake hands and and talk you know you yeah you're right and like you say Craig one of the things that I remember a gentleman told me John Canfield told me he says you know there's no reason why we can't just build trust just like that and move forward. And and I think that that's one of the big challenges with One on ones is an example just to just to go down that track. And this is our reasoning is one on ones. You you drive across town, you waste a lot of time, you've got petrol, parking, you've got to buy the coffee, maybe. Yep. And and then you sit down for an hour and and maybe hopefully something will come from the conversation. And we've all done this. And then three years later, maybe they'll call. Maybe they'll call the you know in a month's time, but it it doesn't work that way. We still use the same way of doing things as we did back in the 80s and the 90s, and it just hasn't changed. What AI has done is it's made us question our time. And if we if if I can put somebody at a table and in half an hour they can get outcome from it because they're pitching their knee to four other people and they get an outcome from it. And they've just saved, you know, four one-on-ones and and copy in all the other stuff that goes with it. So I I think that's really important. Our industry comes to the game that AI is already playing regarding efficiency. Yeah, time's a big thing. Well, we we we we're in the game of trying to shave time and and create efficiency. And I I know Dan is too. it's funny how we're in this sort of ultra-tech world nowadays, but time is now become a commodity, you know. It's yeah. And everyone's still time poor. We've got all these great tools and technology and things around us, but we're all still time poor. Yeah, we have a four-letter word for that. What's that? Busy. Yeah, true. We've got more busy. so I've got an interesting idea and it's it's stemmed off everything we've been talking about and and connecting information, connecting people and and Your networking is people connecting and getting together, but but from an innovation and renovation idea, networking information. So we had used to have all these standalone tools. You had your Excel spreadsheet that Liam was talking about earlier. Amazing. Excel was revolutionary and changed the world, you know. Forty years later, people are still using it, but that's not the point. We had all these different tools that didn't talk and then APIs enabled them to talk. There's an innovation, a revolution moving forward. And then, you know, AI, ML, machine learning, all these LLM sort of under the umbrella of AI is now in the forefront. and you have companies that amazing companies, anthropic Realize that if they can't connect into the other tools in the market that aren't you know theirs, then they're dead in the water. Their product is standalone. An anthropic designed MCP model context protocol that allows us to now network just like the APIs did, all these different tools. So you can go from your CRM out to Claude back into your CRM. into your marketing out and and actually pull all these things together so so actually that business continuity is the innovation never before have you been able to actually connect everything from start to finish without having to pull it out here you know walk it across here plug it in there double enter it even you know with with the the document scanning the OCR yeah, I think that's that's I think that's what we're so I know you Dan and I, you you and I talk a lot, and I think that's sort of what we're seeing now is is that we've gone through this whole evolution and revolution of all since you know, I suppose DOS came out. You know, and all of a sudden with all this new software is just compounded and compounded and compounded, and we've got all these different all these different large and small micros. systems and softwares and widgets or whatever like that. And now companies are going, geez, that doesn't talk to this and this should talk to that. And how do I move that data over here? Liam, I suppose going back to your term of renovation, you're really renovating things to, you know, looking at all these multi, you know, different garages and multi-story buildings and little houses and how do we connect them all? You're almost like the you're almost like the person who Who's like the town planner trying to build all the roads and how do how do we connect them all up? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's that's you know, if you go back to the term renovation again, it's it it sets the mindset in the right frame because what do you need what do you do when you're renovating a house? You want to look at the stumps first, right? So how do you stump the house? You stump it with a solid foundation, data foundation. so that's where we went looking. the world's greatest, you know, and again using that trim tab principle, how do we how do we just get the data connected so that we can exploit the data and simplify the actual operating model? You know, because if you think about it not just from an analytics standpoint, but from a process flows perspective, sitting on that foundation, then you've got you've cracked the code on cor corporatizing AI or, you know, company Talking in SMB terms, company, cut company, company wide AI adoption. And so we've been proponents of saying, you know, and because we've seen this in the last 10 years, of you know, bot sprawl and these sorts of things happening in organizations. Worked with one organization that 5,000 bots inside of thought in beside this organization, right? Wow, really. Can you imagine that headache of managing that architecture? and Going back to Dan's point, the business continuity issue, right? Because that's the main issue. And if you what we've seen in our X-ray services is the art of the possible could actually deliver 70% straight through processing throughout the entire company. But what do you need to think about then? Then you need to think about, well, can I trust the AI to be doing what it needs to be doing? And that's the the control and the confidence side of it that comes through. So again, we come back to this, all of these human elements that sort of say, okay, well. You get you get the most efficient data foundation in place that you can start to do things within weeks as opposed to months or years, you know, in terms of getting that data access right, then we're we're starting to s at least move ourselves towards solid ground, you know, and then we look up the stack from there. Can I can I just go, Craig? Can I ask the question of Liam? I I love that terminology, the renovation, because and it what it does is it conjures up the idea that I can still get my house renovated while still functioning inside the house. And I think that's really smart because innovation and AI is a bridge too far for people. And we've seen many companies that have been innovators and done too much. I'm always surprised at how Tesla, Elon Musk has made Tesla work because he could have just bought out an electric car, but then he was all Autonomous systems and gold wing doors and all the sort of, and then let's put your iPad on the dash, and it's just crazy stuff. Why did he do all of that? Traditionally, he should have failed, but he hasn't. So, but most do in that. But what you're talking about here is something that renovation makes people feel comfortable. Correct. I'm just wondering, innovation in what I'm doing is Sort of when I think of innovation and what I'm doing, it's sort of like I'm cleaning house, I'm I'm I'm cleaning up the mess in our industry, I'm I'm making it accountable. We're not putting it under the rug. You know, the outcome piece is as I was saying before, when they talk about advocacy, that's sort of putting it under the rug and not answering the needs of the of association members. So how can when you look from the outside in, how do you see that renovation and innovation looks what the terminologies associated with what I'm doing. I honestly think that what you what what you've what came to me when you were speaking about and Craig was speaking about the the the gamification of this thing is that you've really taken a r it's an you could say it's an innovative look at you know the blockers or the anxieties again, I go back to the human element, the anxieties that humans have in getting together. Am I going to get anything out of this? Is this just a talk fest? how do I how do I engage? One of the biggest things in networking, I think, and I think you've cracked the code on this, maybe knowingly or unknowingly, is this gamification side of things actually lowers the ego in the room, you know? hundred percent. So so if you can bring everyone on a on a level playing field and feel comfortable and remove those anxieties to actually talk to one another through this gamification, I think I think you've you've renovated the psychology, you know, of the networking element. And that's that's what sort of came to me when when you guys were talking about it. I asked sorry, Dan, I asked that because I met up with a gentleman. Who's Peter Presto, one of our members, and we were talking about how we can create an end-to-end product and make it sellable. and he said, Steve, what you need to realize is as an innovator, the people that turn up to these events that you're doing, the to play act on, are actually innovators themselves. You're not talking to the mainstream, the conservatives, you're talking to the innovators, maybe the young or the edgy and and that's why our marketing has sort of reflected that. And but I didn't realise that. And and I suppose until you're in that journey and somebody mentions that to you, you don't figure it out unless you've done it before. Yeah. But I suppose this is where in terms of the the the innovators of the world, and Dan uses this methodology and we talked about it before, simplicity. Steve. has come up with this this really I believe it's a bit of a genius idea of how to approach networking from a different methodology or a different mechanism. But again it's simple. And I think that's what wins. correct me if I'm wrong, Lem, I don't know, you know, with the they I've heard I've heard the terms, you know, well they say simplicity scales, complexity fails. Yeah. You know, and I think coming back to tying in Obviously, there's technology, there's AI under that sort of guise, but also there's always got to be that human element, you know. So, and I think in nature, humans are simple, but they've got this complex technology. But with then how do we build a conduit to make make it simple for humans, but still use technology to do all the complex stuff, you know? Yeah. Yeah, no, I love I love that. And that's that goes back to that. I've always, you know, since I read the book twenty, twenty or five odd years ago, it was around that prudent tab. You know, how do you just do the the the the smartest thing possible and the minimalistic thing possible to actually keep heading in that direction? And I think of I think of our methodology and all of the work we've put into it over last five years as the Google Maps to AI adoption, you know. I mean that's simple as it is. I mean at that point A, I just want to get to point B. And this is what I want point B to look like and how I want it to behave. And the other thing, going back to what we were talking about before. was looking at the human element is removing that anxiety, you've got to look through the lens of of asset leverage. You know, what are my digital assets and how do I flog those? But how do I extract the the human capacity and actually and you because I think you you talked about it before, Craig, it people don't have time to for their for the to actually apply, you know, a systematic way of even growing their their their organizations. Now that you've unleashed this human capacity and creativity, you know, in this VQ and and IQ, how do you actually, you know, take advantage of that, you know, going forward? And that's something that we've we've actually built a model for, right? To to actually be able to do that. Yeah. I mean, and Apple do it really well. I mean, they're they're the I suppose not I wouldn't call them as, you know, down outright innovators. They sort of are, but a lot of the stuff they've just They've simplified. You know, MP3 players were around before iPods. They just simplified it, you know, and made the made the user interface simple. You know, they're they're I think their core part of their brand ethos is about simplicity and and just making it so easy to just to pick up, you know. I mean when my daughter was two years old, she had an iPad and bang, you know, she's already playing with it because it was so simple and intuitive to use. So I think coming back to, you know, Steve's way of gamifying networking. Simple. Brilliant. Dan's in the same place. You know, he's dealing with complex systems architecture. But how do you simplify it that the the either the decision maker or the managing director can talk in a simple language but also make their team use it in a much more simplified way, you know? And that's I think that's innovative in in itself, just trying to take something that's so complex into some sort of simplified form. Dan, absolutely. Simplifying something though, and and I he i it's resounding in in in everything you guys are saying, Liam and and Steve. the mastery of actually understanding the process allows you to simplify it. If you don't truly understand it. which is the way most businesses work. Everyone knows their little bit of a process. If we look at in nerdy, and I'll keep it short, but if we process mapped, someone having to find and book a networking session through to arriving there, getting there, and we made a giant process map of all the steps involved in them making a meeting, catching up with someone, swapping cards, putting it in, you and No, Steve's game is just turn up, I'll do the rest. It's really interesting. When we were just going through this discovery phase, Craig, I asked Chad, I said, Explain act on to me like I'm a five-year-old. And it's and it placed me in a little group with two or three other kids. And it used and and I said marbles, think about marbles. But what we did get to was AFL cards, right? So we just changed marbles for AFL cards. So imagine three kids sitting around, you know, eight-year-olds. Hey, I've got a and and one says, I've got a DECOS. And I don't know anything about AFL, but this is what it called up. And I know a couple of names. So I've got a DECOS, and the other one says, Well, I've got, I want that DECOS, but I've got a Dusty Martin and whoever, think of somebody else, right? And I'll trade these two for that one. That's what I want, right? Kids are really good at that. They don't, there's no inhibitions, there's no ego. It's just that I want that. And the other one says, Well, I'm happy to be able to trade you for that. But as we get older, we go from the the request to hey, this is what I do. It's like this is my ego, you know. Yeah, that's great, mate. You know, when you're going through lockdowns and you're not that person, who are you? You know? And so that's really. being part of the education process as well. We just did a how to video in anticipation for our CPA Australia event we're having in July. And the video's four minutes, but it's more about philosophy or how to or how to get your brain ready, turn it from a a left into a right brain opportunity. But the actual game itself, the two segments that we have would be no longer than. 90 seconds on how to play the game. it's it's been a really interesting journey for us to be able to discover that as well. No, it's brilliant. Liam, if you get a chance to, you know, get along to one of Steve's act on events, I reckon for sure. They're they're quite powerful. All right. Well, we're gonna we're gonna wrap it up. I mean, we've we've we've covered actually a lot of you know, a lot of ground and lot of topics, even under the guise of innovation and creativity today. And we could have yeah kept kept going. But I suppose just to wrap it all up, keep either keeping on topic or or something around what you're working on now, if you can all share one sort of smart tip for the month for our audience, that would be awesome just to to to wrap up on. And yeah, Steve, I'll start with you. okay. Well, I think that the the thing here is let's come back to the point about AI. It's accelerated our lives so fast. Businesses can we can be in a in our in our own own home office and we can operate like we're you know we've got 10 staff and we can look much bigger. the the thing is networking. Traditional networking hasn't changed since the eighties and nineties. Now there's an opportunity to be able to do that. What you could do in eight eight let's say if you ran across town, spent eight hours and eight meetings, you can do in one session in one hour, and you can get a better result. That's it, that's what I'd leave you with. Yep. It's a game changer. Liam. the tip from mine is if you're starting Starting the app on the AI journey as an organization is going back to what I was saying before, actually, was you know, leaders need to take accountability for their operating model and the outcomes in their business. So don't look to outsource your leadership in that regard, because this is a big, big change to the organization. Whilst you can renovate and take the leap, you've got to be thinking about what the future looks like and the accountability that you need to take for that for that change. it's not something you can actually outsource to others. So that's probably the one takeaway I've had through, you know, the years of seeing the good, the bad and the ugly in this space. And and yeah, go well. Awesome, awesome. And Dan. innovating is exciting. have a plan of what you want to achieve, what you think you we where you think you want to be. explore, understand tools and the marketplace before you bring them into work. So it could kind of sandbox it. But even more important than than having fun and exploring that new world is fundamentals. Fundamentals don't change. If your data structure's crap. AI can't help you. so get you understand the way your data sits in the organization and you can do amazing things. Yeah, great. I'm gonna leave with connectivity. And what I mean by that is we've talked about technology connectivity, but I'm actually gonna leave with more human connectivity. Steve's touched on this with his act on game. Liam's talked on this about change management and and trying to bring everyone together and evolve with whatever that innovation piece is. And Dan's obviously talked about connectivity around, you know, different tools, different systems, but making sure that everyone's part of that, depending on what department they're in, we've all got to be connected. And I think that's key. I think that's just even from with a my marketing and even sales hat on, you know, we've all got to connect at a human level. So The point I'm trying to drive home is that connectivity with humans as opposed to just connectivity with tech. Tech's always gonna be there. We're gonna evolve tech and we're gonna improve it, all that sort of stuff. But I think we just can't lose that connectivity amongst humans. otherwise we're all just gonna get lost and and tech just gonna rule our lives, which is not gonna, you know, drive anything really. So anyway, I'll wrap up. thanks Liam, thanks Steve, and obviously thanks Dan for being on today. We've talked about a lot of different things and it's been really super exciting and and fun. we'll wrap up for today and we'll see you again very, very soon. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Cheers. Cheers. Thanks, guys.