James Carman: Welcome to the Forward Slash Podcast, where we lean into the future of IT by inviting fellow thought leaders, innovators, and problem solvers to slash through its complexity. I'm your host, James Carmen, and today we're talking to Kendra Ramirez. Kendra has been building bots since 2018, back when AI still made most business leaders' eyes glaze over. Kendra Ramirez didn't wait for the rest of us to catch up. She's now CEO of KR Digital, co-host of Cincy AI, the tri-state's largest AI community. And she's given more than two hundred fifty talks on AI, which is either evangelism or a very demanding hobby. She's a global clawed ambassador and has spent fifteen plus years in tech doing one thing consistently, helping people navigate change before they're ready for it. Kendra, welcome to the forward slash.
Kendra: ⁓ thank you so much, James.
James Carman: And ⁓ Cincy AI, so when we say tri save, so Kendra and I are from the Cincinnati area. So we have like, you know, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana. ⁓ we I I've been attending her meetup that she organizes with her her ⁓ co founder, Helen. ⁓ it's an awesome, awesome meetup, such a great community. Everybody's so helpful. It's that it's that Midwest charm, all just bottled up in one room every every month. It's it's so fantastic. So thank thank you, thank you for all the work you do there. Absolutely.
Kendra: ⁓ we appreciate it. We appreciate it just it's super fun to to be together and we have such a collaborative community.
James Carman: Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's very helpful. They're like, I know you do the cool thing you do is a lot, you know, people who are looking for a job can get up and kind of say, Hey, here's what I'm into. And and it's it's a networking, it's connecting. It's it's it's a great, it's a great meetup. I love it. I think we're gonna have another show maybe where you and Helen we might talk about how did that even come to be and how can you do that in your your city. I'm I'm looking forward to that one because that's I think that's really important. So but today we're here to talk about you. You've been doing AI since 2018. What so How did you get into AI way back when?
Kendra: Yeah. I I I'm just a technology nerd. I'm constantly beta testing things, pushing all the buttons. And ⁓ I just fell in love with with technology. ⁓ growing up, school was hard for me. I don't read and learn from a book, like a read. I just don't learn from a book. And I've learned that it's really an opportunity to get my hands on something and learn through that process. And so just fell in love with it, started ⁓ in data center world ⁓ with ⁓ technical recruiting and then technical sales and just continued to evolve and it was just out of need. We were ⁓ with our clients at the time, we're with social media and they're like, hey, we're getting all this inbox stuff, we can't stay on top of it. You know, could you help? And I'm like, I ⁓ let's figure this out. So I went and looked for some tools and and then we just started adding in more AI tools and that's where we are today. Like just continue to evolve and listen to client needs and and grow with them.
James Carman: So you're CEO of KR Digital. Now KR Digital traditionally had that's kind of a digital marketing cons ⁓ agency, is that right?
Kendra: Yes. Yep. Yep.
James Carman: But I think you and a a a small conglomerate of folks within the organization have kind of spun up this this AI enablement helping part of your organization, which is so cool. And you said something I I have to tell it on the pod. I I tell this about you every time anybody asks me about it, Kendra Ramirez. I tell them this little anecdote. You said this at a conference. I think it was at ⁓
Kendra: Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
James Carman: Cloud Nirvana, you gave a talk there and I was listening to it. You said, like, when if companies come to me and they say, Hey, Kendra, I want to use AI. I want to be able to automate all the things so I can fire a bunch of people. You were like, I don't work with those companies. I'm not doing that. Tell tell me a little bit about that. I think that's refreshing and it's awesome. And just tell me more about it.
Kendra: Well, thank you. ⁓ and it's literally a no period. I guess end of sentence. ⁓ and for me, it's about just integrity. I want to sleep well at night. I don't want that on my shoulders. And if that's the the reason they're they're doing it, that's just I just don't want to be involved with that. ⁓ and just sometimes there is just lack of education. So making sure that they understand and that, hey,
James Carman: Great. Mm-hmm.
Kendra: We still need humans to do the work. ⁓ there's so much, you know, subject matter expertise that we need. And ⁓ just, you know, getting rid of a bunch of people should not be be the goal. ⁓ but yeah, it's it's very much a it's a immediate ⁓ no. I'm like, you know what? There are thousands of organizations I'd be more than happy to take your money and I'm not
James Carman: Mm. Th there are plenty out there, I'm sure. And I think from and the integrity thing is so important to me as well. And you know, what we do here at Caliberty, we're the same, same way, right? You know, we want to be able to put our head down on our pillow at night and sleep. ⁓ but ⁓ you would be doing business as a disservice. Cause I think what we've seen is all of the companies that have taken that, like, ⁓ let's optimize here or cut costs here and all that, that's ⁓ you're gonna get okay returns there, right? Yeah, but
Kendra: Mm-hmm.
James Carman: The people who are really leveraging AI and seeing, you know, just skyrocketing in in productivity and and you know new revenue and those sort of things are where you're you're rethinking processes, right? I mean, I think that's that's gotta be the model for for this this this agency work if if people are to do it with AI. You gotta start there, right? And I think has that been your experience where you're where you're helping people the best?
Kendra: ⁓ a hundred percent. ⁓ so the organizations that come and say, Hey, we just want to navigate it, ⁓ we want to be able to bring efficiencies and help our team members that are overwhelmed. I'm like, I'm all in. Like, let's let's do that. Let's help your team, let's get you to the mission and goals that you have in your organization. And so being able to literally walk them through like from a strategy and training and then the workflow pieces where we're setting down with the humans, we're very human-centered in our approach and asking like What about your role that you love to do? Because let's let's not add AI to that. Maybe AI could do it, but let's not add AI to something that you love doing. Let's figure out the things that you hate doing and then figure out how could AI potentially help in those areas. let's not add AI to something that you love doing. Let's figure out the things that you hate doing and then figure out how could AI potentially help in those areas.
James Carman: I love that. And I think it's I you don't really talk to a lot of people that are like, yeah, you know, my job, you know, it's okay. But I just I just have so much time on my hands. I, you know, it's just, you know, all those little things that we don't like doing that, you know, that toil, if you will. That just Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I I love that. Let's let's find the things you love to do. Let's let's keep AI out of that for now and let's let's focus on the things you don't like to do. ⁓ what are those conversations?
Kendra: Yes. It's the mental load.
James Carman: like with your clients as you as you come into are they I know they're everybody's like, well we need to be doing AI, but how how do you kind of coach people through thinking around this as a, you know, this this is a this is a day-to-day changer. This is a this is ⁓ I don't know a superpower if you will, right? To to really juice your business and and take you to the next level. How how do you kind of get them there?
Kendra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. It it is it's such a mindset shift. ⁓ it and I really struggled with that in the beginning of doing this work because I'm like it just was so intuitive to me, but I had to understand that ⁓ like I thrive in change and a lot of people don't. ⁓ and so really meeting them where they are no matter where they are. ⁓ and and k ⁓ on our team, we always when we're working with individuals.
James Carman: Mm.
Kendra: We we want the skeptics in the room, ⁓ because the skeptics are really, really good at poking holes in things, finding bottlenecks, finding reasons why it might not work, and mentoring them with someone who is an AI advocate in their organization. Because we need both sides of the fence for it to to work very well. So just a hundred percent meeting them where they are, whatever fears, concerns, making sure to guide leadership on the importance of when they start rolling out AI.
James Carman: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.
Kendra: the why behind what they're doing. Because if they just focus on AI and the technical aspects, you're gonna leave a whole bunch of people behind. And so to understand when we're working with them that if you can speak or type, you can use AI. Like to get it out of their head that this is not a technical thing. And really the transformation happens when we focus on the humans. I have said this for many years. AI is not a technical problem, it's a human
James Carman: Mm-hmm. Hmm. So true. So true. ⁓ are there you know, there's all kinds of hype and stuff like that. And ⁓ how are there are there areas where when people bring it up and they're like, Well, let's do this, let's let's let's throw AI at this thing. Are there they're kind of those like no go type you know, automations or or workflows that you're like, this I we've done this a bunch of times and it's just it's it's not the best use case for AI. What are are there any of those or or are there any that's like we ought immediately look for this sort of thing that can help the those kind of quick wins or quick losses, if if you will.
Kendra: Right, right. ⁓ goodness, there's so many. Like it's ⁓ what's interesting if everyone wants to boil the ocean first. They want to do some big hairy AI project. And then like time out. Let's work internally. We're if we fall on our face, we do it internally. We don't want to do it with a public facing client. ⁓ let's look at more of ⁓ the productivity pieces within our own organization and ⁓ be able to look at different different aspects.
James Carman: Mm.
Kendra: Of where where could we gain some efficiencies? And the other piece of that is looking at their own current technology stack, right? So we had one ⁓ potential client, they reached out and they're like, hey, can you come talk to us about ⁓ working for our accounts receivable team? We're behind on different areas and we want to be able to automate our follow-ups. And so I just asked one question: what system are you using ⁓ today for accounting? They're like QuickBooks. I'm like, okay. Guess what? QuickBooks already has that built in. And I think it's just because all of us are just, you know, heads down doing the work and we're not looking up to see does the technology that we're already using either have some AI enablement already there, or have we talked to those vendors about their AI roadmap? ⁓ so it's making sure that we're really looking at ⁓ what are we already using, making sure we're not starting with the big hairy things.
James Carman: Mm.
Kendra: Let's start with just the day to take of how work gets done. And because what we find is a lot of these processes and workflows of how work gets done have not been touched in fifteen or twenty years or however long that individual has been doing that job. And and we're snickering because you and I see it both all day long. All day long. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Now, what has your experience been with you're closer to this than I am? The the package tools and the AI, kind of those embedded AI solutions, those chat bots. Like I HubSpot's got a thing I can ask questions. I think we use a thing called 90 for we're doing EOS, the enterprise operating system, and we use 90. 90 has a new thing built in. You can have a little chat bot, you can ask questions.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Hmm, yes.
James Carman: What has been your experience with those? Are they effective? Is it kind of hit or miss? Is it like, ⁓ these things are just junk? Like, what is what's been your experience there?
Kendra: ⁓ yeah, we've had great success with this stuff that's you know built into existing enterprise platforms. Not so much with a one-off someone built a wrapper on top of something. ⁓ so it's really, really important ⁓ for your listeners to make sure and vet your vendors, right? So when I say current technology stack, I mean your vendors you're already working with, the systems you already have in place because you already vetted those vendors, they're already in integrated in your organization.
James Carman: Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm.
Kendra: ⁓ so really making sure you do a good solid assessment of the work that you're currently doing and when and if you need to consider other other tooling outside of that. ⁓ but yeah, our work really is focused to what I call off-the-shelf AI, meaning the Microsoft Copilot, Claude, ChatGBT, just the core models and what are we currently doing, and not so much the you know, custom AI development. There's some fantastic partners like yourself that can do that kind of work.
James Carman: Yeah. Yeah. I think there's and you're there's a lot of mileage from that that day-to-day stuff that you're doing. with the off-the-shelf products, they do a fantastic job. I use it. I just did a bunch of automation the other day with Claude and it's I didn't have to write a lick of code. Like it's it it's actually really nice. It can do some really cool stuff. Now that's running on my laptop. ⁓ so it's not like it's an enterprise level thing, but for my personal things I need to get done, it's it's fantastic.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
James Carman: So you mentioned something I thought was really interesting. ⁓ reaching out to vendors. I and I know ⁓ some companies do that. I think they you know, they might meet with them once a to hear, or they might see newsletters of here's what's coming up. But I I think and what my experience, and we don't we don't use a lot of package solutions. I mean, we we have, you know, we we like the thing we're using right now, Riverside, to to record this podcast. They have been ⁓
Kendra: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: It seems in the past six months features have been coming out more readily. So I think the that's that's a you're gonna have a different relationship with your software vendors of, you know, hey, I'd really like to have this feature. It's not a like, ⁓ yeah, sure, get in line, that'll be three years. It's it's months now with AI helping them move faster. So I think that relationship can change. And as you said, be a little more open with them, ask them instead of like investing a bunch of money.
Kendra: Right. Mm-hmm. Yes.
James Carman: Maybe they're gonna build it into their tool and you don't have to like bolt something onto the outside. You can maybe, you know, that they may already be solving that problem for you. So I I I think is that are you experiencing the same thing that these software vendors seem to be moving more readily now?
Kendra: Uh-huh. Very much so. ⁓ perfect example, a client ⁓ had a particular tool that did not have AI enabled ⁓ at the time when we were with them and ⁓ they were just having a lot of headaches and we were walking through things. I'm like, well, have you talked to the vendor? And they're like, nope. I'm like, well, let's start there, right? Like, why why would we go ⁓ invest a bunch of money in developing something when it may be on the roadmap? Let's go talk to them. And so and they did and sure enough in the next thirty days some of the things very specific that they were pain points for them is going to be solved in the next thirty days. And so no telling how much I saved money saved them money in development because they were going down a path like this is just ridiculous. It's ⁓ seventeen times the work ⁓ that we're having to do because there's not a nice natural flow of how things were handed off and this this ⁓ it was a management tool. ⁓ so so yeah.
James Carman: Yeah.
Kendra: It's like talk to your vendors, right? They're happy to share. Like, hey, this is what we're doing and where we're going because they don't want to lose you either.
James Carman: Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's a whole SAS pocalypse conversation we can talk about. But they, you know, that might be another conversation. But they absolutely want to keep you as a as a as a client. And I I think we've just gotten trained. ⁓ I again I I keep saying this, the calculus has changed. The c lot it has changed in a lot of different ways, but this vendor relationship absolutely, especially software package vendor relationship is is is going to change or has changed because we've been trained to like.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: Yeah, yeah. Every time I go to the vendor and say, I'd like this new feature, they're like, Yeah, that would be cool, wouldn't it? But ⁓ yeah, yeah, see me in five years. Literally that's the answer. It's like, ⁓ that's three years down the road or five years, or no, we can't do that. No way. Those answers there there's more yeses and the timelines are not as protracted as they used to be. So, ⁓
Kendra: Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and if if you've got something happening, I guarantee, you know, other group clients of theirs have that same thing at
James Carman: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. So one thing we haven't touched on, and and I'm sure you deal with this and specifically you, because you you refuse to to work with people who are wanting to eliminate jobs. How do you work with some people in the organizations you you're helping with that fear? I mean, there's how do you how do you do this with empathy and and try to make folks understand that, like, you know, but this isn't we're not coming after your jobs here. We're trying to make your day better. How do you coach people through that that fear of?
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: of, you know, w whatever fears. There's a lot of different fears around AI, but one and big one is the job loss, right?
Kendra: Yes, a lot of fears. Right, right. And that's why it's important for leadership to start with the why they're doing it, ⁓ versus just, hey, we're we're doing AI, no if, ands, or buts. ⁓ so one of the fun things that we've unlocked on on on several levels, we've unlocked so much of working with so many different people, is if I do have someone that's very hesitant, very resistant, ⁓ very fear-based, I actually get them to play first in a personal standpoint.
James Carman: Mm. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Nice.
Kendra: So I'll sit down and ask them like what's something in your personal world right now that, you know, maybe feels a little overwhelming, you don't know where to start or and sometimes I'll help kind of rattle off, you know, some some different different things like, you know, building a fitness plan, what's what the heck do I want for dinner? Right like, you know, ⁓ writing a little kid story with your kid or your grandkid. Like just I s I'll start just something for fun. And get them to just do something fun. So I was with this lady and I wish I had a video of it. ⁓ and I asked her that question, and she said, Well, my daughter just got engaged, she's getting married down on mobile, I have no contacts on there, I've never planned a wedding. I am very overwhelmed by the whole thing. I said, That's a perfect example of using AI. So we just sat side by side and I walked her through like how to you know prompted and asked questions. And her whole body shifted. Like just how she she was literally giddy. She's like, she's looking at me, she goes, This is AI? Like, yes, this is AI. And so just so sometimes we just have to start and meet people where they are. And by her playing, got her excited about, okay, now how do we translate that into work? And so that I sat and did the same thing. I said, Okay, now dude we did that really fun thing here.
James Carman: Mm-hmm.
Kendra: And we showed you how to prompt. We're gonna do something like what's something that is a day-to-day task that you're doing now that drives you crazy. And she's like, ⁓ I have to pull this report, always have to do a summary, it has to be emailed over. I'm like, perfect. That's another really great use case. And let's walk through it. And so just being able to connect those dots of personal use to ⁓ work use. And I mean, she she's just like just taken off. Like it's just been really, really fun.
James Carman: We may have to back up a little bit and explain something to the audience. So, Kendra, you're you're from the Cincinnati area. The correct way to say Louisville is the way you said it. Louisville. Like you're swallowing your tongue. Louisville, right? Now, outside of this area, folks might say Louisville, but when you live here, you say Louisville, you know, as it's all just kind of blends together. So just in case people didn't know, that's Louisville can.
Kendra: Ha ha Yes. Uh-huh. Louisville. That's right. Yep. That's the appropriate I did live in Louisville right after college, so I I'm allowed to say it.
James Carman: Yeah. Yeah. You that that's the right way to say it. Everybody outside of this area says it the wrong way. But but you would probably know it if you don't live here as Louisville. But it's that's that's not that's not what we call it here. but one thing you said I think was r is really important that start with the why. And you know, of course you you go back to Simon Sinek, right? ⁓ but like companies, they they do a really poor job, and we do it too. I mean, we you you you have to make sure people understand what is the motivation behind what you're doing.
Kendra: Correct. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: Why are you doing Because if you don't, anytime you leave that kind of communication vacuum, somebody else is going to fill it. And they're, you know, your employees are going to fill it with in their own head. And that's what leads to that fear, uncertainty, and doubt. And they're they're usually not flattering. You know what I mean? Like, ⁓ they're just they're just trying to take my job. It's always going to be the boogeymanga type of thing. So yeah, I think that's super important. Make sure you're sharing with people what you're trying to do here. What is the vision here? How do you envision this helping the company move forward and how making everybody's lives better, right? Not just my.
Kendra: A hundred percent. Mm mm. Yes. Absolutely. Mm.
James Carman: wallet as a leader or owner of a company. All right. So you're working with ⁓ these companies and a lot of people ⁓ are ⁓ definitely, ⁓ you know, interested in in you know making businesses better using AI. But I but know I mean you look on like Twitter and even or I'm sorry, X and even ⁓ Instagram. I mean all the platforms now. There's just AI in your face.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: everywhere. Are do are people starting to get into you hear this notion of fatigue? Everything's fatigue, right? Is is AI fatigue setting in with some of these folks? Are they just like, I I don't know. There's just there's there's just so much mumbo jumbo out there. Like what what is your experience with people? How are they real dealing with that or how are you helping people with that?
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's it's real. ⁓ and because every literally every minute the model is changing or updating or there's something new. and and I just experienced this myself. Like I took ten days off ⁓ and I was off grid. I was in Alaska and a lot of times didn't even have a Wi-Fi signal. And ⁓ you know, that FOMO you know, being like this is what I do for a living, it's really important for me to not miss something.
James Carman: Mm-hmm.
Kendra: ⁓ but when I really sat back and watched, I was like, okay, I use the filter of you know, when when I get back and when I hit Wi Fi, using the filter of is this really truly this new model update it, you know, that ⁓ Anthropic overcame, you know, ⁓ open AI and revenue for the first time or you know, all these like little things, like is it really gonna impact me tomorrow? And so I just really encourage all of us to just find a filter, whatever filter that you want to run it through, that you don't have to track everything. It's impossible to track everything. It's impossible to know everything. So just focus in on the models that you're using in your organization and following, you know, any of their newsletters or their developers, or that's what I do. Like I intentionally follow Anthropic and OpenAI. ⁓ and Microsoft developers in X of like what's coming, where things going. And then of course I have an AI agent set up to go and scrape information through a certain lens that I have it looking through for SMBs that I fought, you know, ⁓ service and nonprofits. And so it just knows exactly what I need to know to be prepared to prepare them, but through the lens of does this really going to impact me tomorrow? And if not, DOS it.
James Carman: Right. I was just telling somebody this yesterday. my daily job is knowing about these, just like you, right? I mean, we have the same sort of ⁓ job, and I'm listening to podcasts every day. I'm I'm reading, I'm, you know, books and articles and blogs and all I'm constantly ingesting information, particularly about AI, other things as well, but particularly AI. And I can't tell you.
Kendra: Right? Like we don't we don't need it. Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: As much as I'm digging into this in and ingesting this this stuff and trying to stay current, I have conversations, I'm sure I've had one with you where you're like, Hey, have you heard about this tool? And I feel like I'm saying no more than not when someone says, Hey, have you heard about XYZ? No, I haven't heard about that. I feel like such a like I don't know anything. Cause anytime someone says, Have you heard of I I'm constantly saying no. It is just it's like a wild, wild west. It's the the vast ocean, however, whatever analogy you want to use. It's just there's just too much. ⁓
Kendra: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: And what I've ⁓ yeah, well, yeah, there's plenty of that. The the tactic I've had to take is like I I kind of have to almost ⁓ just kind of grab a hold of something and dig in, do deep dives and to get to understand because the the concepts will translate, right? You know, once you learn the concepts and you get a feel for how do you use this tool effectively and these sort of things, and and do a deep dive and then just kind of put on your blinders, right? And just say, Don't worry about all the other noise that's going on right now.
Kendra: A lot of noise.
James Carman: Let me let me spend some time here. Cause if you're I don't know, I was just trying to come up with an analogy and this might not be a good one, but I'm bear with me. It's like if you wanted to learn to be a woodworker and you just you took a piece of wood to Home Depot and you just walked around the store trying to use all the different tools on one piece of wood, and and you're not going to learn to be a wood. Whereas if you went to the store, bought a tool, which is I love to I love to buy tools and then you brought it home.
Kendra: I love that analogy. So good. Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes.
James Carman: And you use the tool for a little bit with different pieces of wood, see how it works and everything. And then maybe you do that every couple of weeks and go to Home Depot and buy a new tool. That would be great if I But I think that's what people are feeling is this it's just overwhelming. There's just so much. But I think you just you just have to latch onto something and stick with it for a little bit and just give it some time. Cause you're gonna learn plenty with any tool. You don't have to learn all the tools. So
Kendra: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. No, no, not at all.
James Carman: the other part about that you mentioned was there's a lot of noise. ⁓ And ⁓ Yeah, I I feel like, you know, we've talked about this like with children. You know, I feel so bad how they're you know, they're growing up today as far as like what they're seeing. They live in this Pinterest world, this Instagram world where everybody's putting forth this like mostly false view of themselves and it's like this this false image that's out there. And so you're comparing yourself to all of that and saying, ⁓ my gosh, I I I don't measure up. I I'm not as good as those people. But you know, you those people that have those Pinterest houses that are beautiful and perfect all the time, you know, go there on a Tuesday, you know, when they're not doing a photo shoot and it does there's toys all over the floor, just like everybody else, right? Everybody or we're all human beings. Yeah, they they they don't live like the their Pinterest self. So
Kendra: Yes. Yeah. Mm mm. Right, right. Yes, it should look lived in.
James Carman: It's the same with the technologists. I mean, I think, you know, people do know things and and there are people that sort of varying levels, but I think people are are putting on a you know that Pinterest face and there's there's a lot of like making f folks feel like they're inadequate because it's like, ⁓ this person does all these things. And it it I it's the same thing. I I think we're experiencing the same thing.
Kendra: ⁓ a hundred percent. And and if someone like calls themselves a guru or expert, run. Like to to me that's immediate red flag.
James Carman: Yeah. Right. Yeah, 'cause we would've been we've been doing this for a few years now, like most, you know, at at large. I d I wouldn't have called myself a Java guru, and I've been doing it twenty almost thirty years. But like not in the first three years of using Java, I would not have said I'm a guru. Like the that that's a ten year level thing where you're like, you know, like that that's where you get the the you can kind of attach that moniker, maybe. Yeah.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. So don't fall in the comparison trap. Yeah. So all of you listening, do not fall in the comparison trap. Don't feel like you're you're behind. ⁓ 'cause I I love the the whole AI bubble chart. It's like, you know, eight point one billion people in the world. But only I think it was like gosh, I don't know, fifteen million of those people actually had paid AI accounts. So so like we're not even like don't even get yourself into the comparison, you know, like
James Carman: Yeah, yeah, I I agree.
Kendra: You just have to focus on, you know, where you are, where your organization is and and not get caught up in shiny objects 'cause it's just gonna be a massive distraction.
James Carman: It really is. It really is. It's it's been very difficult and to be disciplined in this this just crazy, crazy world with research and development and to you know get it enablement of yourself, like digging into technology and understanding it. You really just have to focus and and ignore all the noise. So very, very difficult. Well, this this has been good. This is the the main section of our conversation, but we have to move on to our next segment of the show. And this is what we call ship it or skip it. The idea is we bring up bring up a topic, we'll discuss about it. Like, is this something you like? Yeah, ship that, that's awesome, or skip it. Like, nah, don't like that. We brought up this a lot with different guests because people have nuanced opinions about this, and it's interesting to hear, especially over time, these these opinions change. But vibe coding, it's always a hot topic and Some ⁓ would just love to hear are you are you on board with vibe coding or are you like, ⁓ whatever.
Kendra: ⁓ absolutely hundred percent on board. I love it. I love it. ⁓ I've always been an ideas person, so being able to now go and build something, you know, from from that. And but it's just more like storyboarding ideas, putting a minimal viable product together, like it's definitely not production level, right? But it's it's enough to be able to hand to, you know, someone like your team, like
James Carman: Okay. Mm-hmm.
Kendra: Hey, I built this thing. I think I think it's something that's really gonna help, you know, with with our organization. And I'm sure it helps you all like have a better vision of what exactly is this organization, you know, trying to achieve, you know, with that that product or that software. but just being able to iterate and and ⁓ have something visual to show is is huge. So it's just super fun to be able to, you know, in those narrow, you know, cases, it's ⁓ really fun to see.
James Carman: Yeah, I I I like the idea of I'm I again I I think I say the exact same thing every time. I don't want to sound gatekeepy. I don't want to sound like, you know, we're we're guarding the these things. ⁓ there's there's obviously a time and a place for people who have experience for these things. But I I do love the idea of the democratization of of this. And I I think it's the being able to express yourself and and like say, like, ⁓ here's what I envision with a product, right? Like
Kendra: Mm-hmm.
James Carman: You can do that now. Instead of trying to just use words, you can kind of build that here's kind of the gist of what I'm thinking. Here's the screen. People it that's more approachable for people now. And I I think it's I think we will we'll we'll hear about more ideas now, right? Because it's it's approachable. Like before it was like almost daunting. You're like, I got this idea for a business or a product or whatever. And it's like, man, but to do that is like, ⁓ my goodness, you know.
Kendra: Exactly. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: This is one of those areas where I think people need to be not be fearful of AI because this is where all those new jobs from AI are gonna happen. Cause all of those ideas are gonna come flooding in, right? And then there's there's gonna be plenty of things for a lot of people to do, maybe more so So ⁓
Kendra: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I feel I feel bad for the IT departments right now 'cause they're just getting buried with the you know, here's here's a thousand vibe coded things and they're just like dumping it in their lap.
James Carman: Yeah, I think I I I'm I'm ship it on on vibe coding from ⁓ you know, using what it's for, right? So as you said, the rapid prototyping and and getting ideas and letting your ideas take shape and and those sort of things. I think there's a time and a place for that. There's also a time and a place for agentic engineering where there's a little more rigor and a little more, you know, methodology ⁓ methodology to it. And ⁓ I I again, there's a there's a place for everything there. I think I think we can we can live with all of that. All right, what about
Kendra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes.
James Carman: we brought it up during the conversation the the the SAS pocalypse. is there is there anything I mean, you're you're helping people use off the shelf products ⁓ better ⁓ with AI. What has been your experience? What are you seeing that with this whole SaaSpocalypse thing? Is this, is it, is SAS dead or is this just all mumbo jumbo? What do you
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Well it's it's funny because it's happening right now on X. Yeah, there's a group out there and there's like, ⁓ you know, we're we're totally canceled our sales force. There's a six hundred thousand dollar contract because we vibe coded a CRM. I'm like, really? Did you? 'Cause I don't think so. I you know, I don't think so. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. ⁓ that's cute. That's cute.
James Carman: Did you know? Did you know? Really? Yeah, Benny Off's like, That's cute. Yeah.
Kendra: Because again, you can you can definitely vibe code a CRM, but literally when you're going in, you know, to a production level, and then now you've got, you know, the security issues, but then also just the maintenance. So now you've got someone that's vibe coding something, but they don't know how to obscure it, they don't know how to actually get it to a production level. ⁓ there's massive concern there. Unless they have a partner like Callibrity right? So being able to do that, but
James Carman: Mm-hmm.
Kendra: ⁓ so so again, I think it just dovetailed back into our conversation about vibe coding, right? Understanding its place. It's vibe coding is not a production level ⁓ you know platform. And so just really understanding those those limitations. But ⁓ but I do think we will see some of again those narrow use cases because using Salesforce's example, Salesforce is like a Cadillac, right? It's got a thousand bells and whistles, and most organizations probably only use ten percent of it.
James Carman: Mm-hmm.
Kendra: So going and vibe coding a 10% little narrow ⁓ CRM for something very specific, but then working with an expert to finish it out. ⁓ that's the part that people don't understand and the maintenance that needs that the requirement of of being able to maintain that ⁓ is huge because again, the person that vibe coded it really they don't know how to carry that out. They don't know how to maintain it.
James Carman: Yeah, I I I'm with you. I think the SAS pocalypse is a little overplayed. The the idea is overplayed. I think there is there there's a band within the market where you're gonna see a lot of this as you're the smaller players that are having to buy the Cadillacs when they need an accord. They're not they're gonna want let me just build an accord. And and they can afford to do that now. Whereas in the past, the accord the accord might have cost them three million dollars to build it. Now it only costs them a hundred thousand or whatever. What it was makeup numbers, but it's more approachable.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
James Carman: I think the enterprises are doing what the enterprises always do, and they they do the the pendulum swing thing. They're like, ⁓ let's just fire all of the all of our vendors and we can do this. But there's a reason you hired those vendors in the first place, those software vendors, is because you have a core business that you want to focus on and differentiate yourself. But now, okay, even though it might be easier to get that that you know Pareto principal 8020 version of Salesforce or HubSpot or whatever the heck it may be.
Kendra: Yep. Exactly. Mm-hmm. Mm.
James Carman: Yes, but now you got to maintain it, as you said. And even though you know how to maintain, some enterprises are really good at maintaining and building software, but those investments that you're spending and pouring into this other thing could be better suited differentiating you and making your core business better. ⁓ I I think there's still there there's we need we need to figure it out. I think there may be a little bit of a ⁓ erosion of the the price point on some of these enterprise packages.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: Because of that to make it make s sense again for them, ⁓ I don't know. ⁓ but I I think we'll we'll have to wait to see how this thing settles out when it comes to the SaaSpocalypse. I I think the enterprise vendors, software vendors will be fine. They're they're likely going to have a bit of ⁓ a ⁓ revenue erosion, but I I think things will settle back in and and it'll be things will be okay. Now, IBM took a big, you know, ⁓ shot on the chin. Was it last week? Their stock dropped like a
Kendra: Mm, yeah. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: ton because you know the both their services and their software solutions are aren't looking as bright and shiny for everyone. But ⁓ we'll see. I mean the IBM's gonna be just fine. They've been around a hundred years. I mean not another hundred and two hundred years. They'll be fine. Okay. Well that that dead horse is now adequately ⁓ beaten. ⁓ let's let's look at this notion of ⁓
Kendra: Yes, exactly. A long time, yeah. Right. Yeah.
James Carman: Token optimization. This is this has been somewhat of a big topic. Where are you are you seeing that? Because I know you s we see it so from a you know, our our world is more on the the tokens we use would be would be code generation, right? So software engineering. Whereas on you know, the the folks you work with are more, you know, using tokens for business processes and stuff like that. Not necessarily chatbots, but but maybe agenc type things with using tokens.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah.
James Carman: Are are the folks you work with, are they hitting those token limits? Are they having to start thinking about, ⁓ wait a minute, we need to back off here? Are you are you seeing the same thing on that side?
Kendra: Mm-hmm. ⁓ for sure, for sure. It's so funny. I'm I'm literally laughing because, you know, ⁓ in the early days giving air quotes here of and I mean like March. ⁓ You know, ⁓ I had teams and, you know, AI leaders, you know, telling their teams like, you know, go for it. Like we don't want to hold you back and, you know, all the things.
James Carman: Ha ha ha. Back in the days of March twenty twenty six.
Kendra: And those same clients are, you know, and because I'm I'm looking at them when they're standing in front of the room saying these things, going, ⁓ please, please don't say that. Like, don't say that, don't say that. and then then now, you know, they're kind of coming back like, Hey, can you come back in and kind of show us how to make sure and be more mindful of token management? ⁓ so I'm like, Yes, absolutely. So it's really just ⁓ being really mindful. ⁓ I I and I do this naturally, like I always plan something and plan it.
James Carman: mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kendra: in maybe one of the higher ⁓ models and then ⁓ you know execute it in a lower model right so let's just take ⁓ claude for example so i'll go and use opus like let's plan this thing and then I'll just execute it through sonnet right so the a cheaper model and then also teaching you know ⁓ teams to do that planning first and do the planning in just regular chat ⁓ we we don't have to ⁓ always do it in the the the other models
James Carman: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kendra: And that was something that we found like a lot of teams, because there were a lot of teams, especially enterprise wide Claude, ⁓ they were so fired up about cowork, they were pushing co work, pushing co work, and again back to tokens, we're like, Ooh, like this is we just spent four grand, you know, this month in in token management, ⁓ or tokens for for cowork in one department. ⁓ that's that's not good, right? And so what what we found were because they were doing such a big push on cowork that they just would start in cowork instead of just starting in chat. And really and truly, you know, ninety percent of day-to-day productivity type work can be done in just regular chat. So just being mindful of what models you're using, being mindful of doing the planning. ⁓ and anytime in your doing, you know, the back and forth ⁓ refining and reiterating, like ⁓ being able to go back to your original prompt and edit that original prompt versus the iteration.
James Carman: Mm-hmm.
Kendra: And then whenever you have that long context window, just say, next time I want to run this scenario, what's a better way to prompt this scenario moving forward? So that way you're using the AI to learn, like, well, why did we have to go back and forth, back and forth? Because again, it always comes down to prompting. So their original prompt wasn't very good. And so that's why they had to go back and forth, back and forth. So just teaching all these like little things of like, so let's do it better next time, or let's plan first.
James Carman: ⁓ nice.
Kendra: So usually like I'll give context and then I'll tell the AI like let's plan first before building this and then I can go, you know, back and forth and then go into build mode. ⁓ so some of those little things like make big, big differences.
James Carman: Yeah. The models kind of those and I notice you didn't say fable 'cause that's just crazy. It's awesome, but my goodness, the the cost is man. So when you stick to the three main levels of of the models, they do a pretty good job of like you know, the the haiku. I'm I'm I don't feel like I'm reaching for a haiku very often. They're like, Yeah, just use this when it's like ⁓ you know, your idiot brother, ⁓ you know, or something. I don't know. Yeah, Daryl or what they should have just named it Daryl. That's good.
Kendra: Right. It is lost. Yes. Yes. Yeah, no, no. Mm-hmm. Daryl. ⁓ No offense to Daryl's listening, no offense. Exactly. Yes. Yes.
James Carman: My other brother Daryl as the if anybody gets that reference, I'm gonna be impressed. You you may, I don't know, but the the ⁓ but I I don't I've I there are very few of my cause I use a lot of like scheduled tasks in in Claude, for instance. And you pick you can pick the model that it uses for that. There's like only like two of them that I'm like, yeah, okay, fine, just use haiku for this.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm mm. Yeah.
James Carman: They do a pretty good job of at least getting you up to the sonnet level, right? You know, you maybe not everything has to be opus, but I mean the most often I'm picking that sonnet. Like I I bear I rarely dip to the haiku level. But I but it then again, I'm also not when I'm in the flow of working, I'm not very conscious about ⁓ let's flip, let's go to another thing and let's do this. I don't know. It's it's it's gonna be tough. There's gotta be a better way. I have noticed some and I think we talked about this during the prep call. On the Claude Code side, I use ⁓ and we
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes.
James Carman: I think I've talked about this before on the podcast, but ⁓ on Claude Code, I use a ⁓ superpowers plugin from the from the anthropic marketplace or whatever. Anyway, it's about doing spec driven development roughly. That's that's kind of the gist of what it's doing, but it does a pretty good job of auto-picking and it'll say, ⁓ I need to do ⁓ you know, I've I've written out this specification for this code, and here's the plan for this code. Yeah, it's not real complicated. I have it pretty well spelled out. Let's let's use Sonnet for that and then let it go write that code. And then but then when I want to do the security review, now that's an opus level thing, and then this and it does a great job of auto switching. I think that's what we need in the general claude ⁓ world.
Kendra: Yes. Yeah, a hundred percent. When you mentioned that, I was like, Why is that and just regular regular Claude? Like why it's smart enough to self select.
James Carman: Right. Yeah. I mean, I think w it's it's gotta be at that planning phase where you're when it's making a plan to go do a a a thing. It plans it out and it says, okay, this this step one, that's a that's a sonnet thing. Step two is a haiku thing. Step th you know, it it's gotta do it at that level. It you don't want it to do it in line. But most of those plans can they you can do that. You the it it has a pretty good idea of what the level of like rigor that is needed for each one of those tasks. So I I yeah, I'd love to see that start to make its way more into the
Kendra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yep. Agreed.
James Carman: mainstream and and honestly it would benefit anthropic too because they're getting you know constrained on compute. Yeah. So if we can offload some of that and make these smaller models used more often to to offload those tokens now, granted they make money on tokens, but they're also they could probably serve more clients. There's gotta be some curve there that the that the economists can figure out. I guarantee there's something there. ⁓ I am not an economist. ⁓ yeah I that that that seems like it just
Kendra: Exactly. Hammered. Yes. Yeah. Right. Yes. Yes, agree. Agree.
James Carman: It just has has to happen. ⁓ but yeah. I don't like the idea of having to consciously do it. And I know and I know to be disciplined, you you should think about things at that level. But I just I feel like a good tool should kind of do that for me. Anyway. ⁓ so I'm I'm kind of on the I'm I'm ship it on token optimization from a, you know, general principle. But the the thing I and I say this, I think every time I talk about this, the thing I worry about because I've been in this industry long enough is like, you know, what was it?
Kendra: Mm, mhm. Great.
James Carman: A couple months ago we were talking about token maxing and everybody was bragging about how many tokens they were using. And then that that was very short lived. It was pretty funny. It was like, ⁓ yeah, look at all these tokens I'm using. And then somebody got hit with a bill like at the end of that month. And then it was like, ⁓ that token maxing thing's stupid. yeah, yeah, it's stupid. But our industry tends to do these like pendulum swings from all the way over here to like token maxing, I'm using five billion tokens per second to like I used one token all week.
Kendra: Yes. Very sure. Mm, mhm, mhm. Wait. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes.
James Carman: And got my job done. Like I I don't want to go to that extreme. Like that's just nuts. Like that's you're gonna lose all utility and and I I think we need hopefully settle very quickly. And yeah, let's let's there's some balance. Imagine that, tech industry. Do some a little bit of balance. Let's let's strive for that. ⁓ yeah.
Kendra: No, no. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. Respellent. It's good to have goals.
James Carman: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. We we don't tend to reach for that balance stuff ⁓ very quickly, ⁓ very often
Kendra: Mm.
James Carman: All right. So we've we've been through our main ⁓ segment, we've gone through the ship it or skip it, and our final segment of the show. This is this is our lightning round. And I don't know if you've listened to us very much. ⁓ or not. ⁓ I mean of course everyone does, I know, but ⁓ this is the this is the real important part of the show, right? We've got our warm up in, you've you've settled, you're the your nerves are gone. You're not nervous anymore and you know, ⁓ you're you're you're fine. ⁓ but now ⁓ now this is where it really starts to to make make or break this this episode. This is where you could really people could be like that Kendra was my favorite or this she's she was just the worst.
Kendra: I love it. I love it. Lock in, lock in.
James Carman: Right. Like the, you know, I want to let you know this is this is really rubber meets the road, whatever you want to use there. ⁓ the the answers do count. They will be graded and scored. ⁓ we'll share that with you offline ⁓ later. I think it's about three months now. ⁓ because we we use haiku for our grading. So it just it takes forever. Yeah. ⁓ and it's wrong most of the time. ⁓ but it's okay. We I mean we don't really use the score for anything, but you can. You can feel free to put it on your LinkedIn, ⁓ however you want to do that.
Kendra: All right. Perfect. Of course it is.
James Carman: Are you ready? Have you have you prepared yourself mentally?
Kendra: Well. as ready as we're gonna be.
James Carman: Okay. All right. Well that's that's that's better than most other guests. Cause honestly, this thing is this is a this is a really scary thing. What was the last Halloween costume you wore?
Kendra: Yeah. Ooh, last Halloween costume. Dang, James, I didn't know what I did two days ago, literally that long ago. ⁓ man. ⁓
James Carman: Yeah.
Kendra: The only thing literally the only thing that comes to mind, and this is hilarious, is a group of my friends and my husband went to ⁓ an adult Halloween gathering and just see all fun, fun times. And we collectively decided to make my husband a pimp, and the rest of us were his his his posse. yes, his product. ⁓ gosh, I mean that was geez, a lot about ten, fifteen years ago, maybe I mean quite quite a long time ago.
James Carman: His yeah, his his his product.
Kendra: But it was super fun. It was super fun.
James Carman: Yeah. I find that, you know, adults, we don't we don't get to have that fun very often with Halloween, especially when you have kids, you're more focused on getting them in their costumes and all that stuff. And ⁓ you know, but that's that's always a fun little little question for folks.
Kendra: Yeah. No no yeah, yeah. Yeah.
James Carman: What sound would you make if you were freezing cold?
Kendra: My teeth would chatter like
James Carman: Okay. All right. Yep. Yep. That's good. We we we like the the audio. This is an audio podcast. So that was perfect. That was perfect. you have any friends who are taller than six foot four?
Kendra: Yes, yes. No.
James Carman: No. That's a good answer. It's a good answer. ⁓ favorite type of muffin? What are you reaching for on the old muffin shelf usually?
Kendra: Ooh, ⁓ blueberry.
James Carman: Blueberry, solid answer. I don't know the right answers. I just, I just like to give my own little two cents every now and then. ⁓ this one's this one's interesting for some folks. People sometimes think very deeply about this. Sometimes people are like, what are you talking about? Why am I even here? ⁓ how many times did you sneeze in the past seven days?
Kendra: Yes, I love it. Handful, maybe five?
James Carman: Bye. I mean it's summertime. Maybe there's some al allergy action going on, whatever, you know. one of the seven dwarfs.
Kendra: Yeah. Grumpy
James Carman: Grumpy. So that's kind of a psychological thing. What do you gravitate towards? It's like it's like a Rorschach kind of a thing. I didn't write these questions. Someone else. We have a whole team of experts dedicated to coming up with these questions. one's good.
Kendra: No, I was like, ⁓ gosh.
James Carman: The we've asked a lot of people this question for months now. Do you like the smell of gasoline?
Kendra: I do. Yeah. I don't know why, but yes.
James Carman: Yeah. Most people are surprised at their own answer. And most of the answers are yes. A lot of people will kind of yeah, a lot of people will associate it like, ⁓ we'd we'd go to the cabin on, you know, in the winter and my my dad would stop to fill up gas at the bottom of the mountain, bottle, whatever. There would always be some story. But that's usually what it what it reminds them of something. Or like, wait, we would go out on the jet skis and fill up at the dock or something. ⁓ but yeah, most people say yes. I think we've only had a handful of people that are like, No, absolutely.
Kendra: Yeah. ⁓ interesting. Right. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
James Carman: It's it's usually yes. So I don't know if that's the right answer, but that's that's what a lot of people say. you're able to get a ⁓ a superpower, if you ⁓ had to between invisibility or super what are you going with?
Kendra: Interesting. Interesting. ⁓ invisible for sure. You know how many rooms I would love to sit in and listen? ⁓
James Carman: ⁓ Mm-hmm. You could do yeah, you could probably get some stock market action by doing that. Yeah. Like sit in on some boardrooms or something. I'd be afraid I'd like cough or something, you know, like or hiccup or you know, something and get the hiccups while I'm in the room and what is that? What's going on here? Yeah. ⁓ this one always is an interesting question for folks. Why can't we tickle ourselves?
Kendra: Exactly. Exactly. Ha ha ha. And how are we supposed to answer that? Wha w I I don't. No. No, no. I have no idea. I have no idea.
James Carman: But do you do you know why why we're not able to tickle ourselves? Or or some people argue it and say, Y I can. I can absolutely tickle myself. Some people I looked it up. There's something about like because you're you're doing it, your brain knows, so it almost like deadens the sensory, like, yeah, input from that part of your body on purpose. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, exactly. That's what we're here for on the ⁓ forward slash. ⁓ are you able to say anything in an Asian language?
Kendra: knows, so it expects it. Yeah. Interesting. Learn something new every day. ⁓ no. ⁓
James Carman: No. Well that's perfect. That's French.
Kendra: Ha ha ha. Right, right.
James Carman: It's more non, but yeah, that's fine. It's close enough. ⁓ Favorite carnival food?
Kendra: Ooh, funnel cake. good.
James Carman: Such a, such a good one. final question. Okay, here we go. How would you rate your karaoke skills on a scale of one ⁓ to Mariah Carey? And I will if you need if you would like to rewrite the scale, like if you're not a Mariah Carey, if you want to substitute somebody there, feel free.
Kendra: I cannot carry a tin in a bucket, so ⁓ one.
James Carman: One. Okay. All right. I think you did pretty well. I I I feel good about this. I really do. I feel good about this this one. I think you Yeah, yeah. We'll we'll get it out to you soon enough. We'll get old haiku fired up there on that and ⁓ and get your answer out. All right. So we're closing up here. Anything you've got ⁓ that you all have coming up, you personally have coming up? Are you doing any talks anywhere? Are you got any conferences coming up? What what's going on in the near future for Kendra Ramirez?
Kendra: I'm looking forward to my brain. ⁓ goodness. I think just, you know, w inviting people to see AI. Like we, you know, every single month, ⁓ you know, our next one coming up in ⁓ August is a big one. We have Congressman Warren Davidson coming and that's a really big deal and we're gonna be talking about privacy and AI. ⁓ so yeah, every single month we have something, you know, fascinating going on and being able to share that. So just invite you all if if you're around, come s come see it.
James Carman: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That was w so this last ⁓ meeting, this this one's really cool actually. So this the Kendra and Helen had the group, all of us kind of gr ⁓ group up into, you know, five, six folks and talk about, you know, what are the privacy concerns that nobody's talking about, right? In with with respect to these AI tools and all of that. So we all had our own little conversation and we recorded them. Privacy. ⁓ we recorded our conversations, which I thought was kind of ironic. But then they used those transcripts to kind of compile together some
Kendra: Mm-hmm, right. I know. Yep.
James Carman: The concerns. What are people talking about? What are they concerned about to hand to the congressman? To to be able to ask to the congress. I thought that was a really cool idea. And it it came out really nicely. I think on the website you guys have shared your your findings and everything. So check it out. What how where do they go to learn more about CinciAI?
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yep. CinciAI.org
James Carman: CinciAI.org No dashes, just all one word, CinciAI.org And that meeting is on there, right? I think that's where I went. Yeah. There's there's a whole write up about it and stuff. So yeah, that's gonna be a fun one. I'm looking forward to it myself. ⁓ what about KR Digital? You guys doing anything anything ⁓ anything going on coming up here soon? Are you are you writing, are you speaking at conferences? Anything you guys are getting involved in?
Kendra: No? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes, yes it is. Yep. Yeah, majority of the work right now is all with, you know, private clients. So ⁓ I think I've got a a handful of public things, but ⁓ because I, you know, donate time to, you know, different different organizations or nonprofits, ⁓ just trying to lift as many people and get people reskilled as possible. ⁓ so ⁓ one really fun thing I'm doing actually on Monday is an all day AI session for seventy nonprofits. So I'm donating the
James Carman: ⁓ wow.
Kendra: the full day to to help them. ⁓ and so I this will be the third year that ⁓ this organization has had me in. And it's just super, super fun to be able to help move the needle so they can really focus on their mission.
James Carman: That's cool. And if people want to learn about care digital, where do they go for that?
Kendra: Yeah, just kendramirez.com
James Carman: That's perfect. All right. if they wanted to reach out to you, do they go there or you would would you rather them link reach out on LinkedIn? What what's the best way to get in contact with you if somebody wanted to talk to Kendra?
Kendra: Yeah, so it the definitely my booking link is on our website and also feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and mention that you heard our podcast.
James Carman: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been fantastic. I was I use fantastic a lot. Well, I gotta come up with a de a better word. I ⁓ that's a that's a go to word for me. This has been great. I really enjoyed the conversation. As always, we always have a great conversation together. I r ⁓ enjoy hanging out, chatting with you. You you always have a great take on AI ⁓ tooling and and the AI world. And ⁓ and I learn something I think every time we get together. So ⁓ thank you. Thank you again for joining us here on the forward slash. Yeah.
Kendra: I do too, I do too. Yes, love it. Thank you. Thank you for the invite. I loved our conversation. Really appreciate it.
James Carman: Yeah, we had a great time. ⁓ if you'd like to get in touch with us here, drop us a line at theforwardslash@callibrity.com See you next time.
Kendra: ⁓ thank you so much, James.
James Carman: And ⁓ Cincy AI, so when we say tri save, so Kendra and I are from the Cincinnati area. So we have like, you know, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana. ⁓ we I I've been attending her meetup that she organizes with her her ⁓ co founder, Helen. ⁓ it's an awesome, awesome meetup, such a great community. Everybody's so helpful. It's that it's that Midwest charm, all just bottled up in one room every every month. It's it's so fantastic. So thank thank you, thank you for all the work you do there. Absolutely.
Kendra: ⁓ we appreciate it. We appreciate it just it's super fun to to be together and we have such a collaborative community.
James Carman: Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's very helpful. They're like, I know you do the cool thing you do is a lot, you know, people who are looking for a job can get up and kind of say, Hey, here's what I'm into. And and it's it's a networking, it's connecting. It's it's it's a great, it's a great meetup. I love it. I think we're gonna have another show maybe where you and Helen we might talk about how did that even come to be and how can you do that in your your city. I'm I'm looking forward to that one because that's I think that's really important. So but today we're here to talk about you. You've been doing AI since 2018. What so How did you get into AI way back when?
Kendra: Yeah. I I I'm just a technology nerd. I'm constantly beta testing things, pushing all the buttons. And ⁓ I just fell in love with with technology. ⁓ growing up, school was hard for me. I don't read and learn from a book, like a read. I just don't learn from a book. And I've learned that it's really an opportunity to get my hands on something and learn through that process. And so just fell in love with it, started ⁓ in data center world ⁓ with ⁓ technical recruiting and then technical sales and just continued to evolve and it was just out of need. We were ⁓ with our clients at the time, we're with social media and they're like, hey, we're getting all this inbox stuff, we can't stay on top of it. You know, could you help? And I'm like, I ⁓ let's figure this out. So I went and looked for some tools and and then we just started adding in more AI tools and that's where we are today. Like just continue to evolve and listen to client needs and and grow with them.
James Carman: So you're CEO of KR Digital. Now KR Digital traditionally had that's kind of a digital marketing cons ⁓ agency, is that right?
Kendra: Yes. Yep. Yep.
James Carman: But I think you and a a a small conglomerate of folks within the organization have kind of spun up this this AI enablement helping part of your organization, which is so cool. And you said something I I have to tell it on the pod. I I tell this about you every time anybody asks me about it, Kendra Ramirez. I tell them this little anecdote. You said this at a conference. I think it was at ⁓
Kendra: Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
James Carman: Cloud Nirvana, you gave a talk there and I was listening to it. You said, like, when if companies come to me and they say, Hey, Kendra, I want to use AI. I want to be able to automate all the things so I can fire a bunch of people. You were like, I don't work with those companies. I'm not doing that. Tell tell me a little bit about that. I think that's refreshing and it's awesome. And just tell me more about it.
Kendra: Well, thank you. ⁓ and it's literally a no period. I guess end of sentence. ⁓ and for me, it's about just integrity. I want to sleep well at night. I don't want that on my shoulders. And if that's the the reason they're they're doing it, that's just I just don't want to be involved with that. ⁓ and just sometimes there is just lack of education. So making sure that they understand and that, hey,
James Carman: Great. Mm-hmm.
Kendra: We still need humans to do the work. ⁓ there's so much, you know, subject matter expertise that we need. And ⁓ just, you know, getting rid of a bunch of people should not be be the goal. ⁓ but yeah, it's it's very much a it's a immediate ⁓ no. I'm like, you know what? There are thousands of organizations I'd be more than happy to take your money and I'm not
James Carman: Mm. Th there are plenty out there, I'm sure. And I think from and the integrity thing is so important to me as well. And you know, what we do here at Caliberty, we're the same, same way, right? You know, we want to be able to put our head down on our pillow at night and sleep. ⁓ but ⁓ you would be doing business as a disservice. Cause I think what we've seen is all of the companies that have taken that, like, ⁓ let's optimize here or cut costs here and all that, that's ⁓ you're gonna get okay returns there, right? Yeah, but
Kendra: Mm-hmm.
James Carman: The people who are really leveraging AI and seeing, you know, just skyrocketing in in productivity and and you know new revenue and those sort of things are where you're you're rethinking processes, right? I mean, I think that's that's gotta be the model for for this this this agency work if if people are to do it with AI. You gotta start there, right? And I think has that been your experience where you're where you're helping people the best?
Kendra: ⁓ a hundred percent. ⁓ so the organizations that come and say, Hey, we just want to navigate it, ⁓ we want to be able to bring efficiencies and help our team members that are overwhelmed. I'm like, I'm all in. Like, let's let's do that. Let's help your team, let's get you to the mission and goals that you have in your organization. And so being able to literally walk them through like from a strategy and training and then the workflow pieces where we're setting down with the humans, we're very human-centered in our approach and asking like What about your role that you love to do? Because let's let's not add AI to that. Maybe AI could do it, but let's not add AI to something that you love doing. Let's figure out the things that you hate doing and then figure out how could AI potentially help in those areas. let's not add AI to something that you love doing. Let's figure out the things that you hate doing and then figure out how could AI potentially help in those areas.
James Carman: I love that. And I think it's I you don't really talk to a lot of people that are like, yeah, you know, my job, you know, it's okay. But I just I just have so much time on my hands. I, you know, it's just, you know, all those little things that we don't like doing that, you know, that toil, if you will. That just Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I I love that. Let's let's find the things you love to do. Let's let's keep AI out of that for now and let's let's focus on the things you don't like to do. ⁓ what are those conversations?
Kendra: Yes. It's the mental load.
James Carman: like with your clients as you as you come into are they I know they're everybody's like, well we need to be doing AI, but how how do you kind of coach people through thinking around this as a, you know, this this is a this is a day-to-day changer. This is a this is ⁓ I don't know a superpower if you will, right? To to really juice your business and and take you to the next level. How how do you kind of get them there?
Kendra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. It it is it's such a mindset shift. ⁓ it and I really struggled with that in the beginning of doing this work because I'm like it just was so intuitive to me, but I had to understand that ⁓ like I thrive in change and a lot of people don't. ⁓ and so really meeting them where they are no matter where they are. ⁓ and and k ⁓ on our team, we always when we're working with individuals.
James Carman: Mm.
Kendra: We we want the skeptics in the room, ⁓ because the skeptics are really, really good at poking holes in things, finding bottlenecks, finding reasons why it might not work, and mentoring them with someone who is an AI advocate in their organization. Because we need both sides of the fence for it to to work very well. So just a hundred percent meeting them where they are, whatever fears, concerns, making sure to guide leadership on the importance of when they start rolling out AI.
James Carman: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.
Kendra: the why behind what they're doing. Because if they just focus on AI and the technical aspects, you're gonna leave a whole bunch of people behind. And so to understand when we're working with them that if you can speak or type, you can use AI. Like to get it out of their head that this is not a technical thing. And really the transformation happens when we focus on the humans. I have said this for many years. AI is not a technical problem, it's a human
James Carman: Mm-hmm. Hmm. So true. So true. ⁓ are there you know, there's all kinds of hype and stuff like that. And ⁓ how are there are there areas where when people bring it up and they're like, Well, let's do this, let's let's let's throw AI at this thing. Are there they're kind of those like no go type you know, automations or or workflows that you're like, this I we've done this a bunch of times and it's just it's it's not the best use case for AI. What are are there any of those or or are there any that's like we ought immediately look for this sort of thing that can help the those kind of quick wins or quick losses, if if you will.
Kendra: Right, right. ⁓ goodness, there's so many. Like it's ⁓ what's interesting if everyone wants to boil the ocean first. They want to do some big hairy AI project. And then like time out. Let's work internally. We're if we fall on our face, we do it internally. We don't want to do it with a public facing client. ⁓ let's look at more of ⁓ the productivity pieces within our own organization and ⁓ be able to look at different different aspects.
James Carman: Mm.
Kendra: Of where where could we gain some efficiencies? And the other piece of that is looking at their own current technology stack, right? So we had one ⁓ potential client, they reached out and they're like, hey, can you come talk to us about ⁓ working for our accounts receivable team? We're behind on different areas and we want to be able to automate our follow-ups. And so I just asked one question: what system are you using ⁓ today for accounting? They're like QuickBooks. I'm like, okay. Guess what? QuickBooks already has that built in. And I think it's just because all of us are just, you know, heads down doing the work and we're not looking up to see does the technology that we're already using either have some AI enablement already there, or have we talked to those vendors about their AI roadmap? ⁓ so it's making sure that we're really looking at ⁓ what are we already using, making sure we're not starting with the big hairy things.
James Carman: Mm.
Kendra: Let's start with just the day to take of how work gets done. And because what we find is a lot of these processes and workflows of how work gets done have not been touched in fifteen or twenty years or however long that individual has been doing that job. And and we're snickering because you and I see it both all day long. All day long. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Now, what has your experience been with you're closer to this than I am? The the package tools and the AI, kind of those embedded AI solutions, those chat bots. Like I HubSpot's got a thing I can ask questions. I think we use a thing called 90 for we're doing EOS, the enterprise operating system, and we use 90. 90 has a new thing built in. You can have a little chat bot, you can ask questions.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Hmm, yes.
James Carman: What has been your experience with those? Are they effective? Is it kind of hit or miss? Is it like, ⁓ these things are just junk? Like, what is what's been your experience there?
Kendra: ⁓ yeah, we've had great success with this stuff that's you know built into existing enterprise platforms. Not so much with a one-off someone built a wrapper on top of something. ⁓ so it's really, really important ⁓ for your listeners to make sure and vet your vendors, right? So when I say current technology stack, I mean your vendors you're already working with, the systems you already have in place because you already vetted those vendors, they're already in integrated in your organization.
James Carman: Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm.
Kendra: ⁓ so really making sure you do a good solid assessment of the work that you're currently doing and when and if you need to consider other other tooling outside of that. ⁓ but yeah, our work really is focused to what I call off-the-shelf AI, meaning the Microsoft Copilot, Claude, ChatGBT, just the core models and what are we currently doing, and not so much the you know, custom AI development. There's some fantastic partners like yourself that can do that kind of work.
James Carman: Yeah. Yeah. I think there's and you're there's a lot of mileage from that that day-to-day stuff that you're doing. with the off-the-shelf products, they do a fantastic job. I use it. I just did a bunch of automation the other day with Claude and it's I didn't have to write a lick of code. Like it's it it's actually really nice. It can do some really cool stuff. Now that's running on my laptop. ⁓ so it's not like it's an enterprise level thing, but for my personal things I need to get done, it's it's fantastic.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
James Carman: So you mentioned something I thought was really interesting. ⁓ reaching out to vendors. I and I know ⁓ some companies do that. I think they you know, they might meet with them once a to hear, or they might see newsletters of here's what's coming up. But I I think and what my experience, and we don't we don't use a lot of package solutions. I mean, we we have, you know, we we like the thing we're using right now, Riverside, to to record this podcast. They have been ⁓
Kendra: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: It seems in the past six months features have been coming out more readily. So I think the that's that's a you're gonna have a different relationship with your software vendors of, you know, hey, I'd really like to have this feature. It's not a like, ⁓ yeah, sure, get in line, that'll be three years. It's it's months now with AI helping them move faster. So I think that relationship can change. And as you said, be a little more open with them, ask them instead of like investing a bunch of money.
Kendra: Right. Mm-hmm. Yes.
James Carman: Maybe they're gonna build it into their tool and you don't have to like bolt something onto the outside. You can maybe, you know, that they may already be solving that problem for you. So I I I think is that are you experiencing the same thing that these software vendors seem to be moving more readily now?
Kendra: Uh-huh. Very much so. ⁓ perfect example, a client ⁓ had a particular tool that did not have AI enabled ⁓ at the time when we were with them and ⁓ they were just having a lot of headaches and we were walking through things. I'm like, well, have you talked to the vendor? And they're like, nope. I'm like, well, let's start there, right? Like, why why would we go ⁓ invest a bunch of money in developing something when it may be on the roadmap? Let's go talk to them. And so and they did and sure enough in the next thirty days some of the things very specific that they were pain points for them is going to be solved in the next thirty days. And so no telling how much I saved money saved them money in development because they were going down a path like this is just ridiculous. It's ⁓ seventeen times the work ⁓ that we're having to do because there's not a nice natural flow of how things were handed off and this this ⁓ it was a management tool. ⁓ so so yeah.
James Carman: Yeah.
Kendra: It's like talk to your vendors, right? They're happy to share. Like, hey, this is what we're doing and where we're going because they don't want to lose you either.
James Carman: Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's a whole SAS pocalypse conversation we can talk about. But they, you know, that might be another conversation. But they absolutely want to keep you as a as a as a client. And I I think we've just gotten trained. ⁓ I again I I keep saying this, the calculus has changed. The c lot it has changed in a lot of different ways, but this vendor relationship absolutely, especially software package vendor relationship is is is going to change or has changed because we've been trained to like.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: Yeah, yeah. Every time I go to the vendor and say, I'd like this new feature, they're like, Yeah, that would be cool, wouldn't it? But ⁓ yeah, yeah, see me in five years. Literally that's the answer. It's like, ⁓ that's three years down the road or five years, or no, we can't do that. No way. Those answers there there's more yeses and the timelines are not as protracted as they used to be. So, ⁓
Kendra: Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and if if you've got something happening, I guarantee, you know, other group clients of theirs have that same thing at
James Carman: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. So one thing we haven't touched on, and and I'm sure you deal with this and specifically you, because you you refuse to to work with people who are wanting to eliminate jobs. How do you work with some people in the organizations you you're helping with that fear? I mean, there's how do you how do you do this with empathy and and try to make folks understand that, like, you know, but this isn't we're not coming after your jobs here. We're trying to make your day better. How do you coach people through that that fear of?
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: of, you know, w whatever fears. There's a lot of different fears around AI, but one and big one is the job loss, right?
Kendra: Yes, a lot of fears. Right, right. And that's why it's important for leadership to start with the why they're doing it, ⁓ versus just, hey, we're we're doing AI, no if, ands, or buts. ⁓ so one of the fun things that we've unlocked on on on several levels, we've unlocked so much of working with so many different people, is if I do have someone that's very hesitant, very resistant, ⁓ very fear-based, I actually get them to play first in a personal standpoint.
James Carman: Mm. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Nice.
Kendra: So I'll sit down and ask them like what's something in your personal world right now that, you know, maybe feels a little overwhelming, you don't know where to start or and sometimes I'll help kind of rattle off, you know, some some different different things like, you know, building a fitness plan, what's what the heck do I want for dinner? Right like, you know, ⁓ writing a little kid story with your kid or your grandkid. Like just I s I'll start just something for fun. And get them to just do something fun. So I was with this lady and I wish I had a video of it. ⁓ and I asked her that question, and she said, Well, my daughter just got engaged, she's getting married down on mobile, I have no contacts on there, I've never planned a wedding. I am very overwhelmed by the whole thing. I said, That's a perfect example of using AI. So we just sat side by side and I walked her through like how to you know prompted and asked questions. And her whole body shifted. Like just how she she was literally giddy. She's like, she's looking at me, she goes, This is AI? Like, yes, this is AI. And so just so sometimes we just have to start and meet people where they are. And by her playing, got her excited about, okay, now how do we translate that into work? And so that I sat and did the same thing. I said, Okay, now dude we did that really fun thing here.
James Carman: Mm-hmm.
Kendra: And we showed you how to prompt. We're gonna do something like what's something that is a day-to-day task that you're doing now that drives you crazy. And she's like, ⁓ I have to pull this report, always have to do a summary, it has to be emailed over. I'm like, perfect. That's another really great use case. And let's walk through it. And so just being able to connect those dots of personal use to ⁓ work use. And I mean, she she's just like just taken off. Like it's just been really, really fun.
James Carman: We may have to back up a little bit and explain something to the audience. So, Kendra, you're you're from the Cincinnati area. The correct way to say Louisville is the way you said it. Louisville. Like you're swallowing your tongue. Louisville, right? Now, outside of this area, folks might say Louisville, but when you live here, you say Louisville, you know, as it's all just kind of blends together. So just in case people didn't know, that's Louisville can.
Kendra: Ha ha Yes. Uh-huh. Louisville. That's right. Yep. That's the appropriate I did live in Louisville right after college, so I I'm allowed to say it.
James Carman: Yeah. Yeah. You that that's the right way to say it. Everybody outside of this area says it the wrong way. But but you would probably know it if you don't live here as Louisville. But it's that's that's not that's not what we call it here. but one thing you said I think was r is really important that start with the why. And you know, of course you you go back to Simon Sinek, right? ⁓ but like companies, they they do a really poor job, and we do it too. I mean, we you you you have to make sure people understand what is the motivation behind what you're doing.
Kendra: Correct. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: Why are you doing Because if you don't, anytime you leave that kind of communication vacuum, somebody else is going to fill it. And they're, you know, your employees are going to fill it with in their own head. And that's what leads to that fear, uncertainty, and doubt. And they're they're usually not flattering. You know what I mean? Like, ⁓ they're just they're just trying to take my job. It's always going to be the boogeymanga type of thing. So yeah, I think that's super important. Make sure you're sharing with people what you're trying to do here. What is the vision here? How do you envision this helping the company move forward and how making everybody's lives better, right? Not just my.
Kendra: A hundred percent. Mm mm. Yes. Absolutely. Mm.
James Carman: wallet as a leader or owner of a company. All right. So you're working with ⁓ these companies and a lot of people ⁓ are ⁓ definitely, ⁓ you know, interested in in you know making businesses better using AI. But I but know I mean you look on like Twitter and even or I'm sorry, X and even ⁓ Instagram. I mean all the platforms now. There's just AI in your face.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: everywhere. Are do are people starting to get into you hear this notion of fatigue? Everything's fatigue, right? Is is AI fatigue setting in with some of these folks? Are they just like, I I don't know. There's just there's there's just so much mumbo jumbo out there. Like what what is your experience with people? How are they real dealing with that or how are you helping people with that?
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's it's real. ⁓ and because every literally every minute the model is changing or updating or there's something new. and and I just experienced this myself. Like I took ten days off ⁓ and I was off grid. I was in Alaska and a lot of times didn't even have a Wi-Fi signal. And ⁓ you know, that FOMO you know, being like this is what I do for a living, it's really important for me to not miss something.
James Carman: Mm-hmm.
Kendra: ⁓ but when I really sat back and watched, I was like, okay, I use the filter of you know, when when I get back and when I hit Wi Fi, using the filter of is this really truly this new model update it, you know, that ⁓ Anthropic overcame, you know, ⁓ open AI and revenue for the first time or you know, all these like little things, like is it really gonna impact me tomorrow? And so I just really encourage all of us to just find a filter, whatever filter that you want to run it through, that you don't have to track everything. It's impossible to track everything. It's impossible to know everything. So just focus in on the models that you're using in your organization and following, you know, any of their newsletters or their developers, or that's what I do. Like I intentionally follow Anthropic and OpenAI. ⁓ and Microsoft developers in X of like what's coming, where things going. And then of course I have an AI agent set up to go and scrape information through a certain lens that I have it looking through for SMBs that I fought, you know, ⁓ service and nonprofits. And so it just knows exactly what I need to know to be prepared to prepare them, but through the lens of does this really going to impact me tomorrow? And if not, DOS it.
James Carman: Right. I was just telling somebody this yesterday. my daily job is knowing about these, just like you, right? I mean, we have the same sort of ⁓ job, and I'm listening to podcasts every day. I'm I'm reading, I'm, you know, books and articles and blogs and all I'm constantly ingesting information, particularly about AI, other things as well, but particularly AI. And I can't tell you.
Kendra: Right? Like we don't we don't need it. Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: As much as I'm digging into this in and ingesting this this stuff and trying to stay current, I have conversations, I'm sure I've had one with you where you're like, Hey, have you heard about this tool? And I feel like I'm saying no more than not when someone says, Hey, have you heard about XYZ? No, I haven't heard about that. I feel like such a like I don't know anything. Cause anytime someone says, Have you heard of I I'm constantly saying no. It is just it's like a wild, wild west. It's the the vast ocean, however, whatever analogy you want to use. It's just there's just too much. ⁓
Kendra: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: And what I've ⁓ yeah, well, yeah, there's plenty of that. The the tactic I've had to take is like I I kind of have to almost ⁓ just kind of grab a hold of something and dig in, do deep dives and to get to understand because the the concepts will translate, right? You know, once you learn the concepts and you get a feel for how do you use this tool effectively and these sort of things, and and do a deep dive and then just kind of put on your blinders, right? And just say, Don't worry about all the other noise that's going on right now.
Kendra: A lot of noise.
James Carman: Let me let me spend some time here. Cause if you're I don't know, I was just trying to come up with an analogy and this might not be a good one, but I'm bear with me. It's like if you wanted to learn to be a woodworker and you just you took a piece of wood to Home Depot and you just walked around the store trying to use all the different tools on one piece of wood, and and you're not going to learn to be a wood. Whereas if you went to the store, bought a tool, which is I love to I love to buy tools and then you brought it home.
Kendra: I love that analogy. So good. Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes.
James Carman: And you use the tool for a little bit with different pieces of wood, see how it works and everything. And then maybe you do that every couple of weeks and go to Home Depot and buy a new tool. That would be great if I But I think that's what people are feeling is this it's just overwhelming. There's just so much. But I think you just you just have to latch onto something and stick with it for a little bit and just give it some time. Cause you're gonna learn plenty with any tool. You don't have to learn all the tools. So
Kendra: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. No, no, not at all.
James Carman: the other part about that you mentioned was there's a lot of noise. ⁓ And ⁓ Yeah, I I feel like, you know, we've talked about this like with children. You know, I feel so bad how they're you know, they're growing up today as far as like what they're seeing. They live in this Pinterest world, this Instagram world where everybody's putting forth this like mostly false view of themselves and it's like this this false image that's out there. And so you're comparing yourself to all of that and saying, ⁓ my gosh, I I I don't measure up. I I'm not as good as those people. But you know, you those people that have those Pinterest houses that are beautiful and perfect all the time, you know, go there on a Tuesday, you know, when they're not doing a photo shoot and it does there's toys all over the floor, just like everybody else, right? Everybody or we're all human beings. Yeah, they they they don't live like the their Pinterest self. So
Kendra: Yes. Yeah. Mm mm. Right, right. Yes, it should look lived in.
James Carman: It's the same with the technologists. I mean, I think, you know, people do know things and and there are people that sort of varying levels, but I think people are are putting on a you know that Pinterest face and there's there's a lot of like making f folks feel like they're inadequate because it's like, ⁓ this person does all these things. And it it I it's the same thing. I I think we're experiencing the same thing.
Kendra: ⁓ a hundred percent. And and if someone like calls themselves a guru or expert, run. Like to to me that's immediate red flag.
James Carman: Yeah. Right. Yeah, 'cause we would've been we've been doing this for a few years now, like most, you know, at at large. I d I wouldn't have called myself a Java guru, and I've been doing it twenty almost thirty years. But like not in the first three years of using Java, I would not have said I'm a guru. Like the that that's a ten year level thing where you're like, you know, like that that's where you get the the you can kind of attach that moniker, maybe. Yeah.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. So don't fall in the comparison trap. Yeah. So all of you listening, do not fall in the comparison trap. Don't feel like you're you're behind. ⁓ 'cause I I love the the whole AI bubble chart. It's like, you know, eight point one billion people in the world. But only I think it was like gosh, I don't know, fifteen million of those people actually had paid AI accounts. So so like we're not even like don't even get yourself into the comparison, you know, like
James Carman: Yeah, yeah, I I agree.
Kendra: You just have to focus on, you know, where you are, where your organization is and and not get caught up in shiny objects 'cause it's just gonna be a massive distraction.
James Carman: It really is. It really is. It's it's been very difficult and to be disciplined in this this just crazy, crazy world with research and development and to you know get it enablement of yourself, like digging into technology and understanding it. You really just have to focus and and ignore all the noise. So very, very difficult. Well, this this has been good. This is the the main section of our conversation, but we have to move on to our next segment of the show. And this is what we call ship it or skip it. The idea is we bring up bring up a topic, we'll discuss about it. Like, is this something you like? Yeah, ship that, that's awesome, or skip it. Like, nah, don't like that. We brought up this a lot with different guests because people have nuanced opinions about this, and it's interesting to hear, especially over time, these these opinions change. But vibe coding, it's always a hot topic and Some ⁓ would just love to hear are you are you on board with vibe coding or are you like, ⁓ whatever.
Kendra: ⁓ absolutely hundred percent on board. I love it. I love it. ⁓ I've always been an ideas person, so being able to now go and build something, you know, from from that. And but it's just more like storyboarding ideas, putting a minimal viable product together, like it's definitely not production level, right? But it's it's enough to be able to hand to, you know, someone like your team, like
James Carman: Okay. Mm-hmm.
Kendra: Hey, I built this thing. I think I think it's something that's really gonna help, you know, with with our organization. And I'm sure it helps you all like have a better vision of what exactly is this organization, you know, trying to achieve, you know, with that that product or that software. but just being able to iterate and and ⁓ have something visual to show is is huge. So it's just super fun to be able to, you know, in those narrow, you know, cases, it's ⁓ really fun to see.
James Carman: Yeah, I I I like the idea of I'm I again I I think I say the exact same thing every time. I don't want to sound gatekeepy. I don't want to sound like, you know, we're we're guarding the these things. ⁓ there's there's obviously a time and a place for people who have experience for these things. But I I do love the idea of the democratization of of this. And I I think it's the being able to express yourself and and like say, like, ⁓ here's what I envision with a product, right? Like
Kendra: Mm-hmm.
James Carman: You can do that now. Instead of trying to just use words, you can kind of build that here's kind of the gist of what I'm thinking. Here's the screen. People it that's more approachable for people now. And I I think it's I think we will we'll we'll hear about more ideas now, right? Because it's it's approachable. Like before it was like almost daunting. You're like, I got this idea for a business or a product or whatever. And it's like, man, but to do that is like, ⁓ my goodness, you know.
Kendra: Exactly. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: This is one of those areas where I think people need to be not be fearful of AI because this is where all those new jobs from AI are gonna happen. Cause all of those ideas are gonna come flooding in, right? And then there's there's gonna be plenty of things for a lot of people to do, maybe more so So ⁓
Kendra: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I feel I feel bad for the IT departments right now 'cause they're just getting buried with the you know, here's here's a thousand vibe coded things and they're just like dumping it in their lap.
James Carman: Yeah, I think I I I'm I'm ship it on on vibe coding from ⁓ you know, using what it's for, right? So as you said, the rapid prototyping and and getting ideas and letting your ideas take shape and and those sort of things. I think there's a time and a place for that. There's also a time and a place for agentic engineering where there's a little more rigor and a little more, you know, methodology ⁓ methodology to it. And ⁓ I I again, there's a there's a place for everything there. I think I think we can we can live with all of that. All right, what about
Kendra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes.
James Carman: we brought it up during the conversation the the the SAS pocalypse. is there is there anything I mean, you're you're helping people use off the shelf products ⁓ better ⁓ with AI. What has been your experience? What are you seeing that with this whole SaaSpocalypse thing? Is this, is it, is SAS dead or is this just all mumbo jumbo? What do you
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Well it's it's funny because it's happening right now on X. Yeah, there's a group out there and there's like, ⁓ you know, we're we're totally canceled our sales force. There's a six hundred thousand dollar contract because we vibe coded a CRM. I'm like, really? Did you? 'Cause I don't think so. I you know, I don't think so. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. ⁓ that's cute. That's cute.
James Carman: Did you know? Did you know? Really? Yeah, Benny Off's like, That's cute. Yeah.
Kendra: Because again, you can you can definitely vibe code a CRM, but literally when you're going in, you know, to a production level, and then now you've got, you know, the security issues, but then also just the maintenance. So now you've got someone that's vibe coding something, but they don't know how to obscure it, they don't know how to actually get it to a production level. ⁓ there's massive concern there. Unless they have a partner like Callibrity right? So being able to do that, but
James Carman: Mm-hmm.
Kendra: ⁓ so so again, I think it just dovetailed back into our conversation about vibe coding, right? Understanding its place. It's vibe coding is not a production level ⁓ you know platform. And so just really understanding those those limitations. But ⁓ but I do think we will see some of again those narrow use cases because using Salesforce's example, Salesforce is like a Cadillac, right? It's got a thousand bells and whistles, and most organizations probably only use ten percent of it.
James Carman: Mm-hmm.
Kendra: So going and vibe coding a 10% little narrow ⁓ CRM for something very specific, but then working with an expert to finish it out. ⁓ that's the part that people don't understand and the maintenance that needs that the requirement of of being able to maintain that ⁓ is huge because again, the person that vibe coded it really they don't know how to carry that out. They don't know how to maintain it.
James Carman: Yeah, I I I'm with you. I think the SAS pocalypse is a little overplayed. The the idea is overplayed. I think there is there there's a band within the market where you're gonna see a lot of this as you're the smaller players that are having to buy the Cadillacs when they need an accord. They're not they're gonna want let me just build an accord. And and they can afford to do that now. Whereas in the past, the accord the accord might have cost them three million dollars to build it. Now it only costs them a hundred thousand or whatever. What it was makeup numbers, but it's more approachable.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
James Carman: I think the enterprises are doing what the enterprises always do, and they they do the the pendulum swing thing. They're like, ⁓ let's just fire all of the all of our vendors and we can do this. But there's a reason you hired those vendors in the first place, those software vendors, is because you have a core business that you want to focus on and differentiate yourself. But now, okay, even though it might be easier to get that that you know Pareto principal 8020 version of Salesforce or HubSpot or whatever the heck it may be.
Kendra: Yep. Exactly. Mm-hmm. Mm.
James Carman: Yes, but now you got to maintain it, as you said. And even though you know how to maintain, some enterprises are really good at maintaining and building software, but those investments that you're spending and pouring into this other thing could be better suited differentiating you and making your core business better. ⁓ I I think there's still there there's we need we need to figure it out. I think there may be a little bit of a ⁓ erosion of the the price point on some of these enterprise packages.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: Because of that to make it make s sense again for them, ⁓ I don't know. ⁓ but I I think we'll we'll have to wait to see how this thing settles out when it comes to the SaaSpocalypse. I I think the enterprise vendors, software vendors will be fine. They're they're likely going to have a bit of ⁓ a ⁓ revenue erosion, but I I think things will settle back in and and it'll be things will be okay. Now, IBM took a big, you know, ⁓ shot on the chin. Was it last week? Their stock dropped like a
Kendra: Mm, yeah. Mm-hmm.
James Carman: ton because you know the both their services and their software solutions are aren't looking as bright and shiny for everyone. But ⁓ we'll see. I mean the IBM's gonna be just fine. They've been around a hundred years. I mean not another hundred and two hundred years. They'll be fine. Okay. Well that that dead horse is now adequately ⁓ beaten. ⁓ let's let's look at this notion of ⁓
Kendra: Yes, exactly. A long time, yeah. Right. Yeah.
James Carman: Token optimization. This is this has been somewhat of a big topic. Where are you are you seeing that? Because I know you s we see it so from a you know, our our world is more on the the tokens we use would be would be code generation, right? So software engineering. Whereas on you know, the the folks you work with are more, you know, using tokens for business processes and stuff like that. Not necessarily chatbots, but but maybe agenc type things with using tokens.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah.
James Carman: Are are the folks you work with, are they hitting those token limits? Are they having to start thinking about, ⁓ wait a minute, we need to back off here? Are you are you seeing the same thing on that side?
Kendra: Mm-hmm. ⁓ for sure, for sure. It's so funny. I'm I'm literally laughing because, you know, ⁓ in the early days giving air quotes here of and I mean like March. ⁓ You know, ⁓ I had teams and, you know, AI leaders, you know, telling their teams like, you know, go for it. Like we don't want to hold you back and, you know, all the things.
James Carman: Ha ha ha. Back in the days of March twenty twenty six.
Kendra: And those same clients are, you know, and because I'm I'm looking at them when they're standing in front of the room saying these things, going, ⁓ please, please don't say that. Like, don't say that, don't say that. and then then now, you know, they're kind of coming back like, Hey, can you come back in and kind of show us how to make sure and be more mindful of token management? ⁓ so I'm like, Yes, absolutely. So it's really just ⁓ being really mindful. ⁓ I I and I do this naturally, like I always plan something and plan it.
James Carman: mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kendra: in maybe one of the higher ⁓ models and then ⁓ you know execute it in a lower model right so let's just take ⁓ claude for example so i'll go and use opus like let's plan this thing and then I'll just execute it through sonnet right so the a cheaper model and then also teaching you know ⁓ teams to do that planning first and do the planning in just regular chat ⁓ we we don't have to ⁓ always do it in the the the other models
James Carman: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kendra: And that was something that we found like a lot of teams, because there were a lot of teams, especially enterprise wide Claude, ⁓ they were so fired up about cowork, they were pushing co work, pushing co work, and again back to tokens, we're like, Ooh, like this is we just spent four grand, you know, this month in in token management, ⁓ or tokens for for cowork in one department. ⁓ that's that's not good, right? And so what what we found were because they were doing such a big push on cowork that they just would start in cowork instead of just starting in chat. And really and truly, you know, ninety percent of day-to-day productivity type work can be done in just regular chat. So just being mindful of what models you're using, being mindful of doing the planning. ⁓ and anytime in your doing, you know, the back and forth ⁓ refining and reiterating, like ⁓ being able to go back to your original prompt and edit that original prompt versus the iteration.
James Carman: Mm-hmm.
Kendra: And then whenever you have that long context window, just say, next time I want to run this scenario, what's a better way to prompt this scenario moving forward? So that way you're using the AI to learn, like, well, why did we have to go back and forth, back and forth? Because again, it always comes down to prompting. So their original prompt wasn't very good. And so that's why they had to go back and forth, back and forth. So just teaching all these like little things of like, so let's do it better next time, or let's plan first.
James Carman: ⁓ nice.
Kendra: So usually like I'll give context and then I'll tell the AI like let's plan first before building this and then I can go, you know, back and forth and then go into build mode. ⁓ so some of those little things like make big, big differences.
James Carman: Yeah. The models kind of those and I notice you didn't say fable 'cause that's just crazy. It's awesome, but my goodness, the the cost is man. So when you stick to the three main levels of of the models, they do a pretty good job of like you know, the the haiku. I'm I'm I don't feel like I'm reaching for a haiku very often. They're like, Yeah, just use this when it's like ⁓ you know, your idiot brother, ⁓ you know, or something. I don't know. Yeah, Daryl or what they should have just named it Daryl. That's good.
Kendra: Right. It is lost. Yes. Yes. Yeah, no, no. Mm-hmm. Daryl. ⁓ No offense to Daryl's listening, no offense. Exactly. Yes. Yes.
James Carman: My other brother Daryl as the if anybody gets that reference, I'm gonna be impressed. You you may, I don't know, but the the ⁓ but I I don't I've I there are very few of my cause I use a lot of like scheduled tasks in in Claude, for instance. And you pick you can pick the model that it uses for that. There's like only like two of them that I'm like, yeah, okay, fine, just use haiku for this.
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Mm mm. Yeah.
James Carman: They do a pretty good job of at least getting you up to the sonnet level, right? You know, you maybe not everything has to be opus, but I mean the most often I'm picking that sonnet. Like I I bear I rarely dip to the haiku level. But I but it then again, I'm also not when I'm in the flow of working, I'm not very conscious about ⁓ let's flip, let's go to another thing and let's do this. I don't know. It's it's it's gonna be tough. There's gotta be a better way. I have noticed some and I think we talked about this during the prep call. On the Claude Code side, I use ⁓ and we
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes.
James Carman: I think I've talked about this before on the podcast, but ⁓ on Claude Code, I use a ⁓ superpowers plugin from the from the anthropic marketplace or whatever. Anyway, it's about doing spec driven development roughly. That's that's kind of the gist of what it's doing, but it does a pretty good job of auto-picking and it'll say, ⁓ I need to do ⁓ you know, I've I've written out this specification for this code, and here's the plan for this code. Yeah, it's not real complicated. I have it pretty well spelled out. Let's let's use Sonnet for that and then let it go write that code. And then but then when I want to do the security review, now that's an opus level thing, and then this and it does a great job of auto switching. I think that's what we need in the general claude ⁓ world.
Kendra: Yes. Yeah, a hundred percent. When you mentioned that, I was like, Why is that and just regular regular Claude? Like why it's smart enough to self select.
James Carman: Right. Yeah. I mean, I think w it's it's gotta be at that planning phase where you're when it's making a plan to go do a a a thing. It plans it out and it says, okay, this this step one, that's a that's a sonnet thing. Step two is a haiku thing. Step th you know, it it's gotta do it at that level. It you don't want it to do it in line. But most of those plans can they you can do that. You the it it has a pretty good idea of what the level of like rigor that is needed for each one of those tasks. So I I yeah, I'd love to see that start to make its way more into the
Kendra: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yep. Agreed.
James Carman: mainstream and and honestly it would benefit anthropic too because they're getting you know constrained on compute. Yeah. So if we can offload some of that and make these smaller models used more often to to offload those tokens now, granted they make money on tokens, but they're also they could probably serve more clients. There's gotta be some curve there that the that the economists can figure out. I guarantee there's something there. ⁓ I am not an economist. ⁓ yeah I that that that seems like it just
Kendra: Exactly. Hammered. Yes. Yeah. Right. Yes. Yes, agree. Agree.
James Carman: It just has has to happen. ⁓ but yeah. I don't like the idea of having to consciously do it. And I know and I know to be disciplined, you you should think about things at that level. But I just I feel like a good tool should kind of do that for me. Anyway. ⁓ so I'm I'm kind of on the I'm I'm ship it on token optimization from a, you know, general principle. But the the thing I and I say this, I think every time I talk about this, the thing I worry about because I've been in this industry long enough is like, you know, what was it?
Kendra: Mm, mhm. Great.
James Carman: A couple months ago we were talking about token maxing and everybody was bragging about how many tokens they were using. And then that that was very short lived. It was pretty funny. It was like, ⁓ yeah, look at all these tokens I'm using. And then somebody got hit with a bill like at the end of that month. And then it was like, ⁓ that token maxing thing's stupid. yeah, yeah, it's stupid. But our industry tends to do these like pendulum swings from all the way over here to like token maxing, I'm using five billion tokens per second to like I used one token all week.
Kendra: Yes. Very sure. Mm, mhm, mhm. Wait. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes.
James Carman: And got my job done. Like I I don't want to go to that extreme. Like that's just nuts. Like that's you're gonna lose all utility and and I I think we need hopefully settle very quickly. And yeah, let's let's there's some balance. Imagine that, tech industry. Do some a little bit of balance. Let's let's strive for that. ⁓ yeah.
Kendra: No, no. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. Respellent. It's good to have goals.
James Carman: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. We we don't tend to reach for that balance stuff ⁓ very quickly, ⁓ very often
Kendra: Mm.
James Carman: All right. So we've we've been through our main ⁓ segment, we've gone through the ship it or skip it, and our final segment of the show. This is this is our lightning round. And I don't know if you've listened to us very much. ⁓ or not. ⁓ I mean of course everyone does, I know, but ⁓ this is the this is the real important part of the show, right? We've got our warm up in, you've you've settled, you're the your nerves are gone. You're not nervous anymore and you know, ⁓ you're you're you're fine. ⁓ but now ⁓ now this is where it really starts to to make make or break this this episode. This is where you could really people could be like that Kendra was my favorite or this she's she was just the worst.
Kendra: I love it. I love it. Lock in, lock in.
James Carman: Right. Like the, you know, I want to let you know this is this is really rubber meets the road, whatever you want to use there. ⁓ the the answers do count. They will be graded and scored. ⁓ we'll share that with you offline ⁓ later. I think it's about three months now. ⁓ because we we use haiku for our grading. So it just it takes forever. Yeah. ⁓ and it's wrong most of the time. ⁓ but it's okay. We I mean we don't really use the score for anything, but you can. You can feel free to put it on your LinkedIn, ⁓ however you want to do that.
Kendra: All right. Perfect. Of course it is.
James Carman: Are you ready? Have you have you prepared yourself mentally?
Kendra: Well. as ready as we're gonna be.
James Carman: Okay. All right. Well that's that's that's better than most other guests. Cause honestly, this thing is this is a this is a really scary thing. What was the last Halloween costume you wore?
Kendra: Yeah. Ooh, last Halloween costume. Dang, James, I didn't know what I did two days ago, literally that long ago. ⁓ man. ⁓
James Carman: Yeah.
Kendra: The only thing literally the only thing that comes to mind, and this is hilarious, is a group of my friends and my husband went to ⁓ an adult Halloween gathering and just see all fun, fun times. And we collectively decided to make my husband a pimp, and the rest of us were his his his posse. yes, his product. ⁓ gosh, I mean that was geez, a lot about ten, fifteen years ago, maybe I mean quite quite a long time ago.
James Carman: His yeah, his his his product.
Kendra: But it was super fun. It was super fun.
James Carman: Yeah. I find that, you know, adults, we don't we don't get to have that fun very often with Halloween, especially when you have kids, you're more focused on getting them in their costumes and all that stuff. And ⁓ you know, but that's that's always a fun little little question for folks.
Kendra: Yeah. No no yeah, yeah. Yeah.
James Carman: What sound would you make if you were freezing cold?
Kendra: My teeth would chatter like
James Carman: Okay. All right. Yep. Yep. That's good. We we we like the the audio. This is an audio podcast. So that was perfect. That was perfect. you have any friends who are taller than six foot four?
Kendra: Yes, yes. No.
James Carman: No. That's a good answer. It's a good answer. ⁓ favorite type of muffin? What are you reaching for on the old muffin shelf usually?
Kendra: Ooh, ⁓ blueberry.
James Carman: Blueberry, solid answer. I don't know the right answers. I just, I just like to give my own little two cents every now and then. ⁓ this one's this one's interesting for some folks. People sometimes think very deeply about this. Sometimes people are like, what are you talking about? Why am I even here? ⁓ how many times did you sneeze in the past seven days?
Kendra: Yes, I love it. Handful, maybe five?
James Carman: Bye. I mean it's summertime. Maybe there's some al allergy action going on, whatever, you know. one of the seven dwarfs.
Kendra: Yeah. Grumpy
James Carman: Grumpy. So that's kind of a psychological thing. What do you gravitate towards? It's like it's like a Rorschach kind of a thing. I didn't write these questions. Someone else. We have a whole team of experts dedicated to coming up with these questions. one's good.
Kendra: No, I was like, ⁓ gosh.
James Carman: The we've asked a lot of people this question for months now. Do you like the smell of gasoline?
Kendra: I do. Yeah. I don't know why, but yes.
James Carman: Yeah. Most people are surprised at their own answer. And most of the answers are yes. A lot of people will kind of yeah, a lot of people will associate it like, ⁓ we'd we'd go to the cabin on, you know, in the winter and my my dad would stop to fill up gas at the bottom of the mountain, bottle, whatever. There would always be some story. But that's usually what it what it reminds them of something. Or like, wait, we would go out on the jet skis and fill up at the dock or something. ⁓ but yeah, most people say yes. I think we've only had a handful of people that are like, No, absolutely.
Kendra: Yeah. ⁓ interesting. Right. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
James Carman: It's it's usually yes. So I don't know if that's the right answer, but that's that's what a lot of people say. you're able to get a ⁓ a superpower, if you ⁓ had to between invisibility or super what are you going with?
Kendra: Interesting. Interesting. ⁓ invisible for sure. You know how many rooms I would love to sit in and listen? ⁓
James Carman: ⁓ Mm-hmm. You could do yeah, you could probably get some stock market action by doing that. Yeah. Like sit in on some boardrooms or something. I'd be afraid I'd like cough or something, you know, like or hiccup or you know, something and get the hiccups while I'm in the room and what is that? What's going on here? Yeah. ⁓ this one always is an interesting question for folks. Why can't we tickle ourselves?
Kendra: Exactly. Exactly. Ha ha ha. And how are we supposed to answer that? Wha w I I don't. No. No, no. I have no idea. I have no idea.
James Carman: But do you do you know why why we're not able to tickle ourselves? Or or some people argue it and say, Y I can. I can absolutely tickle myself. Some people I looked it up. There's something about like because you're you're doing it, your brain knows, so it almost like deadens the sensory, like, yeah, input from that part of your body on purpose. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, exactly. That's what we're here for on the ⁓ forward slash. ⁓ are you able to say anything in an Asian language?
Kendra: knows, so it expects it. Yeah. Interesting. Learn something new every day. ⁓ no. ⁓
James Carman: No. Well that's perfect. That's French.
Kendra: Ha ha ha. Right, right.
James Carman: It's more non, but yeah, that's fine. It's close enough. ⁓ Favorite carnival food?
Kendra: Ooh, funnel cake. good.
James Carman: Such a, such a good one. final question. Okay, here we go. How would you rate your karaoke skills on a scale of one ⁓ to Mariah Carey? And I will if you need if you would like to rewrite the scale, like if you're not a Mariah Carey, if you want to substitute somebody there, feel free.
Kendra: I cannot carry a tin in a bucket, so ⁓ one.
James Carman: One. Okay. All right. I think you did pretty well. I I I feel good about this. I really do. I feel good about this this one. I think you Yeah, yeah. We'll we'll get it out to you soon enough. We'll get old haiku fired up there on that and ⁓ and get your answer out. All right. So we're closing up here. Anything you've got ⁓ that you all have coming up, you personally have coming up? Are you doing any talks anywhere? Are you got any conferences coming up? What what's going on in the near future for Kendra Ramirez?
Kendra: I'm looking forward to my brain. ⁓ goodness. I think just, you know, w inviting people to see AI. Like we, you know, every single month, ⁓ you know, our next one coming up in ⁓ August is a big one. We have Congressman Warren Davidson coming and that's a really big deal and we're gonna be talking about privacy and AI. ⁓ so yeah, every single month we have something, you know, fascinating going on and being able to share that. So just invite you all if if you're around, come s come see it.
James Carman: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That was w so this last ⁓ meeting, this this one's really cool actually. So this the Kendra and Helen had the group, all of us kind of gr ⁓ group up into, you know, five, six folks and talk about, you know, what are the privacy concerns that nobody's talking about, right? In with with respect to these AI tools and all of that. So we all had our own little conversation and we recorded them. Privacy. ⁓ we recorded our conversations, which I thought was kind of ironic. But then they used those transcripts to kind of compile together some
Kendra: Mm-hmm, right. I know. Yep.
James Carman: The concerns. What are people talking about? What are they concerned about to hand to the congressman? To to be able to ask to the congress. I thought that was a really cool idea. And it it came out really nicely. I think on the website you guys have shared your your findings and everything. So check it out. What how where do they go to learn more about CinciAI?
Kendra: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yep. CinciAI.org
James Carman: CinciAI.org No dashes, just all one word, CinciAI.org And that meeting is on there, right? I think that's where I went. Yeah. There's there's a whole write up about it and stuff. So yeah, that's gonna be a fun one. I'm looking forward to it myself. ⁓ what about KR Digital? You guys doing anything anything ⁓ anything going on coming up here soon? Are you are you writing, are you speaking at conferences? Anything you guys are getting involved in?
Kendra: No? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes, yes it is. Yep. Yeah, majority of the work right now is all with, you know, private clients. So ⁓ I think I've got a a handful of public things, but ⁓ because I, you know, donate time to, you know, different different organizations or nonprofits, ⁓ just trying to lift as many people and get people reskilled as possible. ⁓ so ⁓ one really fun thing I'm doing actually on Monday is an all day AI session for seventy nonprofits. So I'm donating the
James Carman: ⁓ wow.
Kendra: the full day to to help them. ⁓ and so I this will be the third year that ⁓ this organization has had me in. And it's just super, super fun to be able to help move the needle so they can really focus on their mission.
James Carman: That's cool. And if people want to learn about care digital, where do they go for that?
Kendra: Yeah, just kendramirez.com
James Carman: That's perfect. All right. if they wanted to reach out to you, do they go there or you would would you rather them link reach out on LinkedIn? What what's the best way to get in contact with you if somebody wanted to talk to Kendra?
Kendra: Yeah, so it the definitely my booking link is on our website and also feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and mention that you heard our podcast.
James Carman: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been fantastic. I was I use fantastic a lot. Well, I gotta come up with a de a better word. I ⁓ that's a that's a go to word for me. This has been great. I really enjoyed the conversation. As always, we always have a great conversation together. I r ⁓ enjoy hanging out, chatting with you. You you always have a great take on AI ⁓ tooling and and the AI world. And ⁓ and I learn something I think every time we get together. So ⁓ thank you. Thank you again for joining us here on the forward slash. Yeah.
Kendra: I do too, I do too. Yes, love it. Thank you. Thank you for the invite. I loved our conversation. Really appreciate it.
James Carman: Yeah, we had a great time. ⁓ if you'd like to get in touch with us here, drop us a line at theforwardslash@callibrity.com See you next time.
