Diana Goovaerts, Executive Editor at Fierce Network

Diana Goovaerts initially got into the publishing business. But frustrated by that industry’s speed - or lack thereof - she shifted to the fast-paced world of journalism, first as a local reporter in her native North Jersey and, later, in the past decade, at WirelessWeek, GSMA and now Fierce Network, where she serves as executive editor. We’re all glad she made the change. 

An expert on all things wireless and, more recently, the important but sometimes arcane world of cloud and data center, Diana joined us to discuss AI - both as a beat and a change agent in journalism; her early days covering county board of education meetings into the wee hours of the New Jersey morning; and just how damned glad she is to finally leave near a Starbuck’s for this episode of Pressing Matters, from Big Valley Marketing, the podcast that brings you conversations with the top media and influencers in B2B Tech.  

I’m Dave Reddy, head of Big Valley Marketing’s Media + Influencers Practice and your host. Through research and good old-fashioned relationship-building, we’ve identified B2B Tech’s Top 200 media and influencers, including Diana Goovaerts. Here’s my chat with Diana. Enjoy.

Transcript

Dave Reddy (00:00):

Diana Goovaerts initially got into the publishing business, but frustrated by that industry's speed or lack thereof. She shifted to the fast-paced world of journalism first as a local reporter in her native North Jersey and later in the past decade at Wireless Week GSMA and now Fierce Network where she serves as executive editor. We're all glad she made the change an expert on all things wireless and more recently the important but sometimes arcane world of cloud and data centers. Diana joined us to discuss AI both as a beat and as a change agent in journalism, her early days covering county board of education meetings into the we hours of the New Jersey morning, and just how damn glad she is to finally live near a Starbucks for this episode of Pressing Matters from Big Valley Marketing, the podcast that brings you conversations with top media influencers in B2B Tech. I'm Dave Reddy, head of Big Valley Marketing's Media and Influencers Practice, and I'm your host. Through research and good old fashioned relationship building, we've identified B2B tech's, top 200 media and influencers, including Dianas. Here's my chat with Diana. Enjoy. Diana, thank you so much for joining us today on Pressing Matters. Really excited to talk to you. We've talked a lot on email and online and had an opportunity to work on a few stories together. Thanks again, I really appreciate you joining us.

Diana Goovaerts (01:37):

Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Dave Reddy (01:41):

So you grew up in Jersey, which exit?

Diana Goovaerts (01:45):

That's a common misconception about New Jersey actually, I actually grew up in the Northernmost County in New Jersey off the Appalachian Trail, so I was nowhere near the parkway, nowhere near the turnpike. I was in the boondocks. So hiking was the activity du jour. Yeah,

Dave Reddy (02:04):

Farm. It's like north of New York City, right?

Diana Goovaerts (02:06):

Yeah, so we were about an hour and a half north and west of New York City, so kind of in the boonies, but still we had excellent bagels, good pizza, which can't find where I'm at now. Nope,

Dave Reddy (02:19):

Nope. I went to school in Washington DC and you cannot find good bagels or pizza there. God bless them. So what did mom and dad do? What were you guys doing out in the boonies? As a guy who grew up in the boonies myself of Cape Cod, my

Diana Goovaerts (02:31):

Mom was a homemaker and my dad was a family law lawyer. So yeah, that was about it. There were three of us kids in the household and we all played soccer. So my mom has spent a lot of time shuttling us back and forth to our games. We played both for our school teams and recreational soccer and the travel teams too. So

Dave Reddy (02:52):

Mom was a literal soccer mom?

Diana Goovaerts (02:54):

Yeah, she, we even had the big van

Dave Reddy (02:59):

By the way, for those who don't get it, the what exit is an old joke that I went to American University and they're I think a third of all students, including my now wife had New Jersey roots. And that was sort of the standard joke. What exit on the turnpike you from, you stuck around there for a while, but you went to Penn State, which I've never been, but my understanding is that's pretty much a university town, but that must have, based on where you grew up, that must've felt like the big city. Why Penn State?

Diana Goovaerts (03:33):

It's a little bit dark, but it was one of the last colleges my dad visited with my brother before he passed, so I also liked that they had a really good English program and at the time my brother was actually still there, so he's four years older than me, but he stayed on to get his master's degree. So as I was a freshman in college, he was in his first year of grad school there. So it was really nice to have that kind of family support system as I entered college. So that was pretty cool. And yes, you're right, it did feel like the big city because if I remember correctly, in Happy Valley, the student population alone, it was like 40,000 undergrads or something crazy. Our football stadium could hold 110,000 people. It was a really huge change, but I managed to make a little family in my fellow English majors as well as my roommates and our close little friend circle. So it actually turned out to be a really lovely experience.

Dave Reddy (04:31):

That's a sweet story. You said that was one of the last schools your dad brought your brother before your dad passed away. That must've been emotional then to go to Penn State, or was that just sort of in your head, this is how I'm going to honor my father?

Diana Goovaerts (04:47):

It was just kind of, because for me, when he passed I was still pretty young. I was still in elementary school and so it was just kind nice to have that little bit of connection. I didn't apply exclusively to colleges he had visited, so I applied to several other schools and got into several other schools. But I think the deciding factors were that my brother was there, so that was a little bit comforting as I ventured out of home. And also that he had been there. It was just kind of a nice touch on Cherry on top of the ice cream Sunday, if you will,

Dave Reddy (05:21):

According to what you focused on publishing, you said you were an English major, was publishing their way of what they called journalism or was that literally book publishing? I know you had a job in book publishing at one point.

Diana Goovaerts (05:32):

Yeah, so it was actually a separate degree from journalism and the emphasis on publishing was, it was more just we focused on editing, we focused on composition and all the different formats of essays and that sort of thing. And I even TA'ed for one of my English professors at a certain point and I don't know, it was a really interesting experience and I did go into book publishing after getting that degree because that's what I thought I wanted to do. I thought how cool would it be to be the person who's reading all of these proposals and helping decide which books get published and bringing great stories to light. I actually went into academic publishing first, so I started

Dave Reddy (06:16):

Princeton Press, correct?

Diana Goovaerts (06:17):

Yeah, Princeton University Press. So that was my first job, but I was working on reference books as well as books in the religion and anthropology space. And what I very quickly realized was not that I didn't enjoy the subject matter, but the publishing timelines were just so long. And so one of the reference books I was working on didn't get published until several years after I left the press. And so it's just like these books, they operate on timelines of three, five years and that development process is great and necessary, especially when you're doing something like reference or some sort of research material, but it just didn't suit, I guess my attention span. And I found very quickly that news was something that satisfied my desire to both dig into topics and see a result in the form of an article a lot quicker.

Dave Reddy (07:19):

Yeah, I mean, one thing I remember about getting into news and I wanted to get into news from the beginning was that whether you diagnose me or not, my small attention span, A DHD, whatever you want to call it, was very well suited to journalism. So that was it. You went from the slow pace of publishing to the, is there any faster pace than journalism?

Diana Goovaerts (07:37):

Yes. I ended up at a small community newspaper in northern New Jersey, so we weren't the star ledger, but we were the New Jersey Herald. And so I covered, I think it was three towns, maybe four or five within our county. And it was interesting because each of them had a different style of government because that's allowed, it can be a mayor and council, it can be just the council, city editor or town manager. Yeah.

Dave Reddy (08:10):

And now are you still in the county, the Boonies County or have you moved a little further south within northern New Jersey so that there's a little bit more going on?

Diana Goovaerts (08:21):

No, so I moved down to Princeton for that publishing job and then after that I moved back up to my family house and that's where I got my first newspaper job. So I was in the boonies. So I would be driving to these town meetings that were half an hour, 45 minutes away from my house on the drive home after these town meetings end at 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock on the really contentious nights, midnight. I'm driving home, I'm trying to avoid deer and bear and I'm trying to write the story in my head as I go home. But yeah, it was an adventure. It certainly was.

Dave Reddy (08:56):

Alright. What was the most contentious council meeting you ever covered?

Diana Goovaerts (09:00):

Oh, woof. There were a couple ones, and I will say I think the worst ones were always the school board meetings. Those just people are very passionate and when kids are involved, they get very upset no matter what they're arguing about. So I think that was one of the worst ones. But that had to, oh, that was a while ago at this point, probably a decade. So it's not fresh in my mind, but there were a couple times when I was out until midnight or one at these meetings and they start at six or seven o'clock, so they just rolled right on.

Dave Reddy (09:42):

I can say as the father of three who are almost all their way through school, some of the more interesting conversations I've ever had were with school principals. That probably wouldn't be the phrase they would use to describe my conversations with them, but I get that you get fired up in a hurry Now you also

Diana Goovaerts (10:00):

Have to

Dave Reddy (10:01):

Go ahead, I'm sorry.

Diana Goovaerts (10:02):

No, no, you're fine. I was just going to say, you also have to remember that yes, it's school, yes, it's talking about your kids, but a lot of the stuff people were arguing about were budget related because in New Jersey, at least the school budget ends up being reflected in your property taxes. So yeah, when money is at stake, a lot of people get angry

Dave Reddy (10:24):

Money and kids, there's really, yeah,

Diana Goovaerts (10:26):

Those are the two hot buttons.

Dave Reddy (10:30):

So did you get a chance to cover any tech at this point? I mean, look, covering crime and council meetings is a great way to learn the craft, but when did you start covering tech?

Diana Goovaerts (10:41):

I did. So one story that stands out in my mind is I actually went to a school that was using, I want to say iPads. It was some sort of tablet, but they were using AR in the classroom, augmented reality. So what they would have the students do is walk around the classroom and scan these little barcodes and it would bring up this whole little AR world that they could move the pad around and see and be immersed in the lesson material that they were learning that day. And that was really cool. And I think that was the first time I really thought like, wow, this could take off. Because for me personally, the idea of virtual reality doesn't resonate as much. And I think that's because it takes you fully out of the world. Your eyes are covered, you're not paying attention to your surroundings, you're not paying attention to the people you're with. But seeing that use of augmented reality where you're still in the world, but it takes you that much farther into the material you're learning or what you're doing, it's a way to enhance your lived experience. And I thought that was a really powerful demonstration of that technology, and I was actually kind of bummed that I didn't see it take off in a bigger way, but people are still trying to

Dave Reddy (12:01):

Make virtual reality happen. I remember at the time we were talking a lot about VR slash ar and now we're sort of back to talking about vr. Although really both technologies still have some work to do, it's probably not this clean. Was this the story that made you say, that's it, I got to go cover tech, or was there a longer story behind you getting to wireless week in 2015?

Diana Goovaerts (12:27):

There is actually not a great story about it at all. I'm not some sort of tech geek that was like, oh, I got to write about this. It was somebody else at the paper got recruited out of the paper to go write for a B2B media company. And when that media company needed to hire someone else, he suggested my name. So they came and hunted me down. I had no idea what I was doing, but I jumped in because I had the reporting chops that they needed. And so I just jumped in and I spent my entire first year just trying to figure out what the heck I was even writing about. And so I mean, it's kind of been that learning curve throughout my career though I never have a chance to get bored because I went from writing about wireless to writing about broadband and then from writing about broadband to now writing about cloud technologies and most recently writing about cloud technologies to writing about ai and it's all interconnected. So it's really nice to have that background, but it's been really exciting to not have a chance to get bored. The subject matter is always changing. I always have to keep learning, and I think that's what keeps me interested in my job.

Dave Reddy (13:39):

So if publishing work moved at the speed of, say the FDA tech journalism moves at the speed of light, and so this was an entirely different situation for you.

Diana Goovaerts (13:48):

Yeah, it's nice to both continue learning new things and see the results in the form of my stories and track page views and all of that good stuff. But I get to talk to some really cool people, which is another element of it I think that is underappreciated under, I wrote a story a month or two ago about Google Cloud and what they're doing with the Asteroid Institute and how AI is applicable to helping spot asteroids and why that even matters. You don't want the movie Armageddon to happen. And while that's people out there who work on that, and that's something you don't realize until you're in these stories kind of floating in the rabbit hole and trying to figure out what's relevant and what's not, and you meet some interesting characters, it's really fun

Dave Reddy (14:35):

Not to scare the listeners, but I read somewhere, isn't there an asteroid that's going to pass us really close? And if it passes a certain way, it's going to swing around and hit us. I realize that's like a one in a million shot, but this is what I've read

Diana Goovaerts (14:47):

Recently. I haven't read about that precisely, but I hope not in any event. Apparently it's pretty easy to deflect asteroids. Who knew? Right.

Dave Reddy (14:56):

Okay, so this is God. There's a movie I saw with my dad when I was like nine years old, I think it was called Meteor. That was a thousand years ago. And the USSR and the USA got together to try to blow a meteor out of space that was about to hit us. So we've been thinking about this for at least 40 years then, so we'll see. And of course, our dear friends, the dinosaurs, we all know what happened to them.

Diana Goovaerts (15:20):

Well, apparently the technology, they've proven it out and it's essentially, this is radically oversimplifying it, but it's kind of like bumper cars and because on a big enough timeline in a big enough amount of space, even a small bump will send it far. If the trajectory is long enough, a small bump will really change the path. And so that's basically how they do it. They send a little geometry.

Dave Reddy (15:48):

Yeah.

Diana Goovaerts (15:48):

Yeah, I mean, it's just ridiculous to think about. Honestly.

Dave Reddy (15:55):

Let's go back to when you started at Wireless week 2015. Again, as we've talked a couple of times already, tech, particularly in wireless moves a million miles an hour, and I know it's been less than 10 years, but what were you talking about then? I mean, if I remember correctly, it was ar, vr, it was 5G, it was iot. What were some of the things you were writing about in 2015 that just seemed like it might've been 30 years ago now, based on just how quickly things move?

Diana Goovaerts (16:21):

Oh man, you're killing me, Dave. You're assuming my memory's way better than it is probably writing about LTE Advanced. I feel like that was the big Ooh. And then they did LTE Advanced Pro, and you're like, no, that's still the same thing. And I think it was I was writing about wireless when the 5G hype cycle was starting. So when they were still working on the standards and when they were still deciding what it would be and then hyping it up. So when you hear people talking about it today, I am just like, I'm so tired of hearing about this. You said X, Y, and Z would happen, and it's not happened.

Dave Reddy (17:07):

I'm starting to hear about six G. So apparently we're just going to ignore that.

Diana Goovaerts (17:11):

Yeah, it's interesting. So what's happening right now with the telcos is like, to your point, yes, stuff in wireless does move quickly, but not the standards, not things like moving from 3G to 4G or 4G to 5G. That's like a 10 year cycle. And what the telcos are running up against is the fact that things are now moving at the pace of software at the pace of the cloud. And so that's kind of shaking up their world a little bit because they're getting pushed and prodded to move faster. Seeing that whole dynamic play out and watching the way they're having to adapt is just really interesting.

Dave Reddy (17:53):

It wasn't long ago that they actually charged us for phone calls

Diana Goovaerts (17:56):

And text messages per text. You people have no idea how lucky you are. They don't.

Dave Reddy (18:01):

They really don't. What do you mean a long distance phone call? Every call is long distance. It wasn't always that way.

Diana Goovaerts (18:09):

You got to wait for those night and weekend minutes.

Dave Reddy (18:12):

Can you roll over? We have just confused everybody under the age of 30. So you did this for a while. I can't remember if Wireless Week sort of unfortunately went out of business and then you went to GSMA or if you went to GSMA first.

Diana Goovaerts (18:28):

Oh no, I was off that boat before it sank. Oh, good for you. Very smart. No, I was lucky enough that I got recruited out of Wireless Week and got to work as a contractor with GSMA for their mobile World Life publication because they were looking to expand their coverage to have a more in depth US presence. So they came to me and so I switched companies and then shortly after that, I think the company that owned Wireless Week went under or was sold or something, but by that time I was already working for GSMA and that was its own crazy ride.

Dave Reddy (19:06):

So for those who aren't familiar with GSMA, it's a trade organization and among its other things from a media perspective, not only does it have its own traded publication or publications, it actually hosts or hosted several shows just for the sake of our listeners or were some of those shows?

Diana Goovaerts (19:24):

Oh my gosh, the show to know about is Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It's every February. They also have a US version of that show and then an Asia version of that show as well as several smaller regional shows that they have throughout the year. Working Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was a really wild ride. So if you've ever walked into that show, you've probably seen the Stand that has the print publication on it, that little glossy magazine. So we were responsible for putting that out. And if you walked around the show, you probably also saw those TV screens that were constantly running with somebody chatting on them or some interview or some panel that was also us kind of floating around in the background in the studio. So we were pulling double duty. I got to work with a really great team there. They were really wonderful, and they kind of helped me hone a skill that was being on camera, right, because it is a skill. You have to learn to not have a flat effect, and you have to have intonation in your voice. You have to learn how to read a teleprompter. You have to know that you can't curse when you're live.

Dave Reddy (20:38):

We encourage that here on Stressing Matters. But

Diana Goovaerts (20:43):

No, yeah, it was a really great learning experience, some really nice people. And that was actually when I started working from home. So I started working from home even before the pandemic hit.

Dave Reddy (20:53):

Very good. So when I moved over to Big Valley in 2019, we have been all remote all the time, so we too, were ahead of the group, but you also moved to the Northern Virginia area at this time, which is probably why we're working from home because getting from Northern Virginia to Washington is no fun. What was that change like?

Diana Goovaerts (21:13):

That happened? My mom had passed, and then what happened? Is it No, I know. I'm so sorry. My life is a little bit depressing on the parental front, I guess, but no, so what happened was my mom had passed and it took a couple of years to settle the family estate. And so once we did that, we sold our house in New Jersey, which is where I had been living, and I thought I spoke to my now husband and we thought the opportunity down here was great. I was able to move because my job was work from home and he had some really great opportunities in his field down here. And plus my brother lives about 15 minutes from here. So yeah, we just kind of took the leap and got a rental and here we are.

Dave Reddy (21:58):

And you are out near Dulles, correct?

Diana Goovaerts (22:01):

Yeah, we're out about 40 minutes west of DC

Dave Reddy (22:04):

For those not familiar with the DC area, Dulles is again for about 45 minutes in Virginia, 45 minutes west of Washington. If you've ever flown into it, you are not actually landing in Washington dc you're landing in Virginia. And in fact, if you're landing at Reagan, you're technically landing in Virginia as well. So it's a bit of a trip out there. I know you might be shielded from some of the whole Beltway thinking by being, well, I guess you're technically outside the beltway, but how different is it living in that most political of towns?

Diana Goovaerts (22:37):

Honestly, politics doesn't really come up too much where we are, and I'm thankful for that. I would say that the politics of this particular region are different probably from the rest of Virginia, which is more rural, and so it's that similar divide that kind of affects the rest of the country, and that's fine. But yeah, we're pretty insulated from that. But I will say it's quite lovely to be near a Starbucks. I used to have to drive 15 minutes every morning to get to Starbucks and then 15 minutes home, and now it's not even half a mile down the road. So I'll take it. I'll take my

Dave Reddy (23:15):

Caffeine. You just blew people away with, they're thinking 15 minutes to a Starbucks. Where exactly were you living?

Diana Goovaerts (23:20):

It was 45 minutes to the mall and Target if I wanted to get something. Wow.

Dave Reddy (23:26):

Let's go back to GSMA for a second. I believe you're our first guest who worked for a trade publication, and that's a slightly different thing than straight journalism. You're obviously working for your own organization, you're putting out materials for your organization. It might be a little bit closer to what I do for a living, which is public relations, no offense. How was that different, either better or worse than working for Wireless Week and now working for Fierce?

Diana Goovaerts (23:49):

I think it was actually pretty similar, and I think that's thanks to the structure that they had in place at that organization to a pretty fair degree. The Mobile World Life Publication had editorial autonomy, so we weren't put out standards papers or the GSMA pr, we were the news arm, so we were covering everything that was kind of happening in the telco space. So in that sense, it was very much a B2B pub in the way that Wireless Week was or that FIERCE is.

Dave Reddy (24:25):

Speaking of fierce, you started there in March 21, so we're not quite out of the pandemic at that point. We are starting to come back, well, not necessarily to work, but coming back to life as an economy, some of the shutdown is stopping before we get into coming into Fierce, what was it like to change a job in the middle of all that?

Diana Goovaerts (24:46):

Honestly, I was thankful to have a job because it's hard to get back to that mindset now, but if anybody really, really thinks about it, there was a whole mess of layoffs because people, they couldn't go into the office and it was a really scary and uncertain and depressing time. So I was thankful to have a job and I again got recruited out of the job I was at to go join Fierce. And so I was thankful that somebody was a noticing the work I was doing and was interested enough to hire me during a time that so many other people were struggling for work. So I was really thankful and a bit nervous, but I never had to go into the office either. And so that helped. So it was really just because Quest X, which is the company that owns Fierce Network and Fierce Wireless and all of that good stuff, they were pretty much a mostly remote company. We do have offices, but most of the teams are fully remote. And so it was really just exchanging one laptop for another for me and keeping my position on the couch.

Dave Reddy (25:56):

You started out as a reporter, I presume that was somewhat similar to the work you were doing at Wireless Weekend GSMA, but last year you became executive editor of Silver Linings, which has been recently rebranded as Fierce Network. I believe that's about two months old now. And that was just three months after it was founded by Fierce. So what was it like switching from the reporter's chair to the editor's chair?

Diana Goovaerts (26:20):

Yeah, so I joined as a senior editor because I had been an editor at Mobile World Live as well. It was kind of a very similar level that I stepped into. And what happened was that I stayed in that position writing about broadband for a little over two years. And then what happened is they decided that they wanted to launch Silver Linings, which was basically taking the cloud channel that we had kind of misplaced in our broadband publication and breaking it out into its own publication and giving it its own voice and its own art style and its own brand, and really building that out. And so I spent basically the end of 2022, so in December and into the beginning of 2023, trying to figure out what the heck the cloud was and what I needed to know to start understanding that and start helping build that publication.

(27:26):

And that was all of what last year was is we were publishing silver lining and digging into the beats and building those relationships with a whole new set of companies and learning a whole new set of acronyms because cloud is different from broadband and broadband is different from wireless, so it's a whole new world all over again. And then we kind of sat there and thought about it, and I say, but it wasn't me. It was all the smart people working on the levels above me. But they all kind of sat there and said, Hey, wouldn't it make sense if we brought all these different connectivity pieces, the mobile, the broadband, and the cloud, and put them all under one umbrella? And that's where Fierce Network came from.

Dave Reddy (28:08):

It's too bad. I really like Silver Lining as a brand, but I had a feeling since you guys were fierce, that wasn't going to last. So describe your role at Fierce Network because you still write, you're not, sometimes people hear editor and they just presume you're editing, but you're doing a lot of writing too.

Diana Goovaerts (28:25):

So I think this is true of all the editors that we have here. So I'm an executive editor, as is Linda Hardesty, who covers our broadband beat, Monica Vin, who covers our wireless beat as well as Mitch Wagner, who is now our research guy. But for all of the executive editors, what we do is we kind of help specialize, okay, so we each specialize in a channel and kind of build our knowledge base. We help determine what should be covered with the people that we're working with. So I work with a reporter called Julia King. We also have Dan Jones on the wireless beat, working with Monica and Masha, ob Baranova, who is working on the broadband beat with Linda. And so we all kind of determine what should be written about. Then we divvy those stories up, we do the interviews, we write them, and then we also look at each other's stories and we cross edit and kind of exchange knowledge and grammar tips and all of that fun stuff. And yeah, that's what we do. And in addition to that, I also am the wizard behind the curtain when it comes to our social accounts.

Dave Reddy (29:37):

That's a lot of changes in terms of what you're covering in the technology cloud, AI data centers, those are all natural related to wireless. They don't exist without wireless. They obviously don't exist without networking, but it's still different. And this may just be me, but they seem to be harder things to explain. In simple terms, people get mobile implicitly for the most part. Nowadays data centers not so much people, I think just think of it as a giant hotel with servers, if they think of it that much. Is it a tougher thing for you folks to explain or are we getting there?

Diana Goovaerts (30:10):

I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. I hope some of the feedback I've gotten is that I'm good at kind of breaking things down in a way that people can understand. And I think part of that has come from the work that I've had to put in myself to understanding it. And I tell this to any reporters I work with is you need to understand what you're writing about to adequately explain it to other people. And so I spend a lot of time asking a lot of dumb questions to some really smart people, but I am so thankful that all of those people took the time to nerd out with me and explain it because I feel like it has really helped me develop that skill of being like, okay, here's what this is. I know it sounds crazy, but here's why you need to care about what it is.

(30:58):

It's been really rewarding to talk to those people. And one of the most important things I've learned is that when you're talking to people who are passionate about the technology that they work on, they are happy to answer those dumb questions because they want you to care about it as much as they do, and they understand that you need to know what it is, and they get excited just as much as I get excited when it finally clicks. So yeah, it's been really cool to talk about them. And some of the best questions are just kind of stopping people and saying, okay, how would you explain this to a man on the street? How would you explain this to a lay person and why should I tell them that they care and they will give you the craziest, coolest answers. And I think that's been really helpful in helping me tell their stories to the world.

Dave Reddy (31:48):

AI of course, may have the opposite problem. It's one of those things that I think everybody thinks they get, but as you know, probably better than anyone, we don't talk about AI in terms of how it's affecting fierce, other than of course you guys covering it, how has it changed your job and how are you using it at Fierce?

Diana Goovaerts (32:09):

Well, we don't use it to produce our content, just leave that there. We do use it for our images. So one cool thing that we've been able to do at Fierce is use midjourney. It's an AI art tool, and we get to craft these really unique images that go with each of our stories, so we really are able to customize and tailor the images to illustrate the concepts that we're trying to convey and tinkering with that tool can be really fun. I personally also use AI services for my interviews, so anytime I talk to people, I generally record the interview mostly to cover my own butt and mostly also to make sure that I don't misquote anyone. That's always a big no-no. And so it's really nice to use AI transcription tools like I use Otter. They will give you the entire transcript, but also match it with the timestamps. So if the transcription is wonky for any reason, you can just click the timestamp and it'll take you right there and you can use your own human ear to double check what it says and correct it if necessary. So that's the way we are using it. I know our company broadly is looking at using it for some other process improvements, but I don't know the degree to which I can say more about that.

Dave Reddy (33:24):

Fair enough. Let's talk about AI overall when it comes to journalism and even your original gig publishing. Good, bad, does it scare you?

Diana Goovaerts (33:35):

I don't think I'm scared because I'm pretty confident that the way we do our reporting is not something that can be easily replicated, or at least I hope, right? Unless AI is going to sit there and have these conversations with people, yes, it could mimic maybe my writing style, but it couldn't pull an exclusive that I had from a conversation with somebody at a conference. So to that degree, I'm not scared. What I am thoughtful about is the way in which journalistic articles are used to train AI models, the ways in which other outlets may be irresponsibly using AI to generate content, and how that erodes trust in the media. Those are things I think we need to be really careful about. That said, AI tools can be really helpful in bouncing ideas. Even doing research like pull me all the research papers from the past 10 years on X, Y, Z topic. That could be really helpful in time saving. And I think that's the way I think about it. You need to not shut down the possibility that it could be helpful or useful, but you also need to be realistic about what it can achieve and be open-eyed to any potential dangers or downfalls.

Dave Reddy (34:56):

Given that, are you optimistic, let's talk about technology and AI first. Are you optimistic for the future of technology and ai? Either in general or specifically,

Diana Goovaerts (35:07):

Am I optimistic about the future of technology? Am I optimistic about the future in general? I dunno if you want the answer to that. Yeah, no, I think the technology space, it's going to evolve in ways that we can't possibly foresee, and I think if anybody had the hubris to say they know what's going to happen next, I think that's silly. But yeah, it's going to be a rollercoaster. There's going to be highs, there's going to be lows. If you've heard anything about AI recently, we're in a hype cycle. We're about to hit the trough of disillusionment, as I heard it termed. So get ready for a bumpy ride, but it's not going to go away. The future of technology is going to be really cool and I can't wait to continue covering it.

Dave Reddy (35:52):

What's your sense, and you don't have to disconnect the two, or you can connect them technology and journalism, but what's your sense about the future of journalism? Are you optimistic for the future of journalism?

Diana Goovaerts (36:01):

I'm hopeful. I don't know if optimistic is the right word, but I'm hopeful. I think there will always be stories that need to be told, and that can't be told by a server sitting in a data center somewhere. Stories of wars that are happening, stories of social good and change that can only be done by a person on the ground that can't be done by a machine. So in that sense, I'm hopeful that there will always be a place for journalism.

Dave Reddy (36:34):

And that's serious note. We're going to take a turn for our final question as we always do. Jersey, happy Valley or Northern Virginia?

Diana Goovaerts (36:43):

Oh man. I have to say it's so ungodly hot here right now, so I hate myself for saying this, but Starbucks wins. Starbucks always wins in northern Virginia, Northern

Dave Reddy (36:58):

Virginia, because if you're a near five minutes from a Starbucks or whatever,

Diana Goovaerts (37:02):

Yeah, not even five minutes. I can walk there in 10 minutes.

Dave Reddy (37:07):

Well, you and I'll talk offline about how both Dunking Donuts and McDonald's or far better than Starbucks, but that's okay.

Diana Goovaerts (37:14):

Well, to be fair, okay, I say Starbucks, but here's the secret. I'm not actually a coffee drinker, but I do drink their refresher drinks, which also have caffeine. So God help me. I'm about to go on vacation in the middle of nowhere, Vermont, so there will be no Starbucks, and I will be having caffeine withdrawals.

Dave Reddy (37:33):

I'm pretty sure they have coffee and other types of things in Vermont. At the very least, they have maple syrup and great Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Yes. Diana, thank you so much for your time. This was a lot of fun, continued, good luck at Fierce Network, and again, thanks for being on the show.

Diana Goovaerts (37:48):

Yeah, of course. Thank you again for having me. It was really great to talk to you.

Dave Reddy (37:51):

I'd like to thank you all for listening today, and once again, a big thank you to our guest, Diana Berts of Fierce Network. Join us next month when we interview another member of the B2B Tech Top 200. In the meantime, if you've got feedback on today's podcast or if you'd like to learn more about Big Valley Marketing and how we identified the B two B2B tech top 200, be sure to drop me an email at d ready@bigvalley.co. That's DRE double y at BigValley, all one word.co. No m. You can also email the whole team at Pressing matters@bigvalley.co. Before I sign off, I'd like to recognize the Pressing Matters team for Winning PR podcast of the Year from Bulldog Reporter. Now, this is a team sport and there is no better team than ours. So congratulations to our marketing team of Steve Kerns, Forrest Taylor, Adriana Wynn, and Ariana Crawford, our executive producer, Katie Wong Shin, and most of all our intrepid producer and editor, Eileen Fernandez DeSoto, who somehow always makes me sound good. That is not easy. Once again, thanks for listening. And as always, think big.