The Human Code
The Human Code" podcast unravels the intricate blend of technology, leadership, and personal growth, featuring insights from visionary leaders and innovators shaping the future. Host Don Finley dives deep into the human stories behind technological advancements, inspiring listeners at the crossroads of humanity and tech.
The Human Code
Enhancing Work and Life with AI: Insights from Eva Kapitany
Embracing Curiosity and Cultural Diversity in the Age of AI: An Interview with Eva Kapitany
In this episode of The Human Code, host Don Finley converses with Eva Kapitany, a seasoned expert in project management with 20+ years of experience. Eva shares her journey from Microsoft to becoming an advocate for agile methodologies and cultural awareness. Together, they explore how to adopt AI in both professional and personal contexts, tackle the importance of cultural diversity, and discuss overcoming fear and building curiosity. Eva highlights the practical applications of AI, including writing support and personal advice, while emphasizing the value of listening and respecting diverse backgrounds. This episode offers inspiring stories and actionable insights for anyone looking to integrate AI and cultural understanding into their life and work.
00:00 Introduction to The Human Code
00:49 Meet Eva Kapitany: Expert in Project Management
01:08 Embracing AI and Cultural Awareness
01:45 Eva's Journey and Early Career Insights
04:18 The Importance of Cultural Awareness
11:15 AI in Our Daily Lives
12:51 AI as a Personal Assistant
17:42 AI's Role in Personal Growth
20:43 Advice for the Younger Generation
23:02 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Welcome to The Human Code, the podcast where technology meets humanity, and the future is shaped by the leaders and innovators of today. I'm your host, Don Finley, inviting you on a journey through the fascinating world of tech, leadership, and personal growth. Here, we delve into the stories of visionary minds, Who are not only driving technological advancement, but also embodying the personal journeys and insights that inspire us all. Each episode, we explore the intersections where human ingenuity meets the cutting edge of technology, unpacking the experiences, challenges, and triumphs that define our era. So, whether you are a tech enthusiast, an inspiring entrepreneur, or simply curious about the human narratives behind the digital revolution, you're in the right place. Welcome to The Human Code. In this episode, we are delighted to welcome Eva Capitani, a seasoned expert in project management, system development, and organizational development with over 20 years of experience. Eva is passionate about breaking down barriers and implementing sustainable solutions using agile methodologies and best practices. Today, Eva and I will share how to adopt and embrace AI as a tool to enhance your work and personal life, the importance of cultural awareness, and how it can lead to success in a globalized world. Plus, strategies to overcome fear and build curiosity, enabling you to leverage AI effectively. Join us as we delve into these enlightening topics with Ava Kapitani. This episode is packed with practical insights and inspiring stories that will motivate you to embrace AI and cultural diversity in your journey. You won't want to miss it. I'm here with Ava Capitani and another episode of The Human Code. So Ava, first question that I have is typically around what got you interested in the intersection of humanity and technology?
Eva Kapitany:That's a great question. Thank you. Uh, one of the first things that I learned when I started at Microsoft about 24 years ago, I actually applied for one role and, um, started, came to my first day at Microsoft and was introduced to a whole different role that I had not applied to. And one of the first learnings I had in that role is sometimes you're given opportunities that you just need to take and run with. I have a background of being a self starter. My parents are originally from Hungary, from Budapest, and one of the things that was always instilled in me is, even if you haven't been academically challenged, which I didn't go to university, I wasn't able to do the certifications or the schooling that I, now looking back, wish I had. you have to be a go getter. You have to want to follow your dreams and think of areas where you're passionate about and go after them. Only that way will you succeed in life. And you should never wait for somebody to actually hand something to you.
Don Finley:I love that we're not even like a minute into this and you're already dropping some nice wisdom for people. cause it is really good for people to be pursuing their dreams. And even if your dreams change, at least for me, I found that it's always better to fully engage yourself. In what opportunity is right in front of you. how would you say you came about to getting that, getting that understanding early on in your career?
Eva Kapitany:Again, one of the things that I've grown up to do is, my parents have traveled with me a lot through, throughout Europe, throughout the U. S., and I was always curious about how people functioned, what made them tick. I always was more of a listener than somebody who said something, because I always loved to observe. And when you're in a career, especially as a management consultant, and I've been doing this for a good 24 years, one of the key things and key you need to have as a human is to listen. You can absorb a lot more than actually saying and telling people what you know. That also bridges a, relationship and you can gain trust by that. And one of the biggest things of like cultural awareness that I see is missing in today's life. When we talk about DEI, I think cultural awareness is very much in DEI. It should be, but a lot of people forget about it. Especially here in the US, a lot of people come from all different walks of life, different regions. they come to this country to seek a better life, to fulfill their dreams. And you can do that. But I don't think that people realize that in order to do that, you shouldn't forget about where you come from, but also be open to other people's backgrounds and embrace that because that makes you more successful.
Don Finley:Completely agree with you because there's one, because I operate a company that operates all over the world anyways. And we do spend time appreciating each other's cultures. like I was on the phone this morning with one of our colleagues in Egypt and we were joking about how my dog's a little overweight right now and he gets to go to a gym. And she was like, you have gyms for dogs? And I was like, yeah, but at the same time we're able to laugh. I find the silliness in it. how else do you think that we can, appreciate other people's culture or bring up that awareness when there might be a divide or there's something that you've just done the last, 30, 40 years that you may not understand that there's different ways that people do it or different ways that people address their own mindset. around the activities we're talking about.
Eva Kapitany:Yep. One of the things, along with listening, you also at some point get to. Uh, ask questions, right? And I believe that's why it's even more important. Like I said, asking, asking questions when you have, an, a certain level of understanding and demonstrating your curiosity, right? saying, I want to engage with this person. What makes them tick? what kind of a culture, where do they come from? And what is it that they truly believe in that makes them individual? and makes them succeed. it's also about learning about different perspectives. I'm, I think it's really a, an individual, desire. Not everybody desires to learn about other people. it's not a blanket, requirement or it's, I wouldn't say it's something that everybody should do. I think it's some, something that, is up to each individual person. Uh, to, have that curiosity. It's not something you can train. You just have to be that way.
Don Finley:It's an interesting thought that do you, wait, are you saying that you don't think curiosity is trainable?
Eva Kapitany:I'm not saying it's not trainable. Some have it more than others.
Don Finley:Okay, true. And also I'm as I asked the question, I'm like, I might actually buy into that because curiosity in itself is a really internal Quality, like to be curious, I feel is something that is born within. how you go around the world and not use a sledgehammer with your curiosity is probably a trainable skill. Yeah.
Eva Kapitany:look at it from this perspective. Is a narcissist curious? A narcissist is going to look at himself and always position himself first. No matter how you have a dialogue with that person. It's never going to be a two way dialogue, so you can be curious, but that person has also demonstrated that they are not curious about what you have to say, because it is all about them. once you encounter those people, and you can identify that type of person that doesn't have the curiosity, or doesn't want to learn, or doesn't want to have a type of At some point you give up, and that's where I have found myself recently, where I was in a relationship, where I wasn't seen, I wasn't valued, and no matter what I did, I was never accepted.
Don Finley:I
Eva Kapitany:within a project, that's true with any day to day interaction that people have. If I'm walking down the street with my dog, let's say, or I go have coffee with somebody, go into that task that I'm bringing the best of myself, and I hope that somebody else will do the same. have this theory also, when I interact with people. my mom always laughs at this and my friends, for me, three strikes, you're out, I'll try it once, try it again, second time, and maybe I'll change a little, tweak it if you will, then the third time I'll tweak it a little bit more. But if it's not going anywhere, I'm out,
Don Finley:can understand that. I, have conversations about boundaries a lot in relationships, what are good boundaries? What are healthy boundaries? And for the most part, I don't know that I will ever know many people's full set of boundaries that they have. But you also sometimes find boundaries with people when you've stepped across them. And I think what you're sharing is a good approach to basically saying Hey, if I'm going to meet you, but you're not willing to learn about me or understand how I operate in this world, then three strikes and you're out is a fairly, reasonable attempt at making this. and as I've explained to loved ones, a boundary isn't me saying that I don't love you. It's just. me telling you, Hey, here's how I need to be loved in these situations.
Eva Kapitany:right? And when you've gone through certain scenarios in your life, and situations. a lot of people say about me, and I'm very open about this, but I am a very direct person. I am a, like I mentioned, I'm a go getter. I get things done. I am known for that. do not tolerate a lot of, things that don't aim to succeed or bring something forward in life. Now, some people could say that, wow, that's pretty hardcore. And how, how can you have that mindset? when you're at a certain age and you've gone through certain things in life. situations. And if you have a certain background, which I am very proud of my background and heritage, this is who I am. And I think people have lost themselves and need to find themselves and really be true to who they are.
Don Finley:Yeah. So let me see if I can get your take on this. we both work in AI and one of the things that I look at is like how we're actually going to be applying AI into both our lives and also into the workforce as well. And the general thought that I've. scene is we've had AI for decades now. We've had AI in people's lives for probably the last 10, almost 10 years right now. that's really where image classification hit its jumpstart. and then social media recommendation engines and like the actual, news. Algo that all the social media sites have. They're optimized for engagement, which optimizing for engagement is optimizing for primal emotion. And primal emotions tend to be fear, anger, and get you on that side, right? don't want to live in that world really where I'm getting at, but at the same time, when I'm looking at like how we're implementing AI and really augmented intelligence with, LLMs, because they're not ready yet to take over the task, but they're ready to help. How do you see AI today and AI in the future incorporating into this world where we're now talking about boundaries, we're talking about like relationships, we're talking about the awareness of people's cultural identities, as well as their identity as well. And so what's the world that you see that we have this intersection of humanity, technology, and AI?
Eva Kapitany:I think that I'd like to address that question twofold. first primarily from the technology side, ever since AI came to play a couple of years ago, more mainly in the technology world, be it co pilot or be it chat GPT, and all of these different variations. I see this every day in my day to day, work as a management consultant, people are very fearful of AI. one being that there are really, it's a free for all at the moment and people are very, afraid that there are really guardrails or framework around it and how it will come into play. The fear also is very much, Oh, AI is going to come in and take over my job and I'll be without a job. What I say to that is, back in, when was it, 95, 96, when the internet came, didn't take over people's jobs, that didn't take over of the magnitude of where people are fearful now. educate yourself, and you dive into something and embrace it as a tool, and that is how I see AI. I see it as an enhancement to every individual's life. Work and thinking. And that's how it should be embraced. It's not here to replace anything. It's here to aid and supplement. of the things I love day to day, let's say, I need to write a document. one of the things that I really just don't enjoy at work when I'm working, right? I'm more of a roll up sleeves, I'll test code, I'll write use case scenarios, and I love to dive into deep, deep complicated, use cases and solve them. writing a document, I'm always stumped. open up Copilot and I say, I'm trying to write a document for such and such topic. And it gives me a starting point. And it helps, it's almost like this personal assistant that you have an interaction with. and it helps you think of different ways to approach things. And that's how I think that it should be looked at.
Don Finley:So basically as like a personal assistant slash the way that I like to say it is like an intern that you have that kind of gives you as much help as possibly can and aids in the goal that you have for the moment.
Eva Kapitany:Yes. And in an evolving intern who's going to grow and enhance their skills.
Don Finley:I think you had a second part as well that I interrupted.
Eva Kapitany:No worries. which is the cultural awareness and then the cultural aspect most more importantly. Um, let's say, one of the things I love to do is, I love to go back to Europe and I love to travel all around. Specifically Italy. I love Italy. I love Austria, Hungary and France. One of the key things, let's say you're going on a trip and you can use AI to see. I'm going on this trip and I encounter this in this situation, what is the cultural aspect of it? What do I need to look at? Uh, an even better example is you go on a business trip to Japan. And trying to understand what the ways are. How do they behave? What are the go to and what are the faux pas? how do you give a business card with your two hands, and how do you greet and what do you do in a restaurant and how do you address your business partners? Now, one could say, you can read some books. yeah, you can read all the books you want, but this offers you a very quick, on the go of getting the information even faster.
Don Finley:absolutely think you're hitting the nail on the head as far as us being able to use AI to get to the information that we need on a timely basis. I know I have a friend, he's part of a company that I advise, and he sent me a bunch of chat GPT or custom GPTs that he built, and they're all based on his, car owner's manual, his insurance policy, and his HOA, so that if he had questions about any of them that he literally didn't have to go look at it, he could just ask and see what was in his specific policy, what was there, and yeah, you can read it. at the same time, like you're saying, you can read anything and it's just, you might want to have this information readily available to you.
Eva Kapitany:Yeah,
Don Finley:what has been one of the, largest impacts in your own life in the adoption of using Copilot in your day to day or, areas that you were most surprised by?
Eva Kapitany:well, actually in, going through a recent divorce, I've actually, I did have the therapist. And I found that I wasn't really successful in, really getting what I needed out of those sessions. What I actually started doing is asking ChatGPT for different recommendations and thoughts on different scenarios that I was going through. I was shocked, pleasantly shocked, by what it came back with. Because what I literally did was give a one or two liner of things that I had observed in a 15 year relationship. And it took the learnings from all of its different data sources told me, this is what folks have found. And these are five different things that you can look at. And I was absolutely floored. And so the question would come up, do I still need a therapist? Maybe at some point, think maybe I should go into a group scenario, right? a group discussion and have that interchange, or exchange rather. I love that this tool that helps me write use case scenarios for a system deployment also told me how to, somebody with certain behaviors.
Don Finley:I absolutely love it. I've done the same thing where basically I told an LLM to pretend that it was Carl Young. And that, hey, here, let's talk about my family dynamic. And it was surprisingly effective or like at least gave you some options. I still recommend therapy, but at the same time, like there's so many things on a day to day basis that you just want to process that it makes sense to, to have that co pilot friend for you can help to like work through those spaces. And I love those use cases as well. Cause it's just these are the things that people are trying out and they're the things that can actually help people on a daily basis and get, help them to navigate through difficult times. The other thing that was amazing is
Eva Kapitany:it's relatable. And that is, that is where we need to bring these people, the users and the people that have the fear from AI. These are the use cases and the scenarios that they need to be aware of. And we need to elevate that because it's going to provide comfort for them if they can relate to them.
Don Finley:and it is amazing to do that because the other, study that I read and I'm blanking on where this came from, but. basically had ChachiPT4 do diagnostics on people's medical, cases. It was right just as much as the doctors were, but 80 percent of patients preferred the bedside manner of ChachiPT.
Eva Kapitany:surprised. I'm not surprised by that. Yeah. Yeah.
Don Finley:these are amazing things. so Ava, what would you give as advice to our younger generation that is looking to both adopt this technology, learn from it and understand where the world is going is a, we're in a lot of change right now. So what are the skills that they can develop to be more effective in their own lives or, closer to their own purpose?
Eva Kapitany:Dive in. Start using it. Just as you're asking Google any question, ask Chet GPT for the answer. Just it. One of the key things in making this even more useful is to, get better at prompt engineering. You need to be able to fine tune what you're asking. Um, it'll give you basic things back, but the more detail you you give, the more questions you ask, the more you refine it, just like if you were in an interview and when you're interviewing for a position, uh, it's not just you being interviewed. You're interviewing your manager, you're interviewing your potential peers, and you're interviewing the company that you're trying to join. You're asking questions so that you can feel comfortable and see if you can see yourself in that organization performing that role under that person in that team. AI is very similar. Get comfortable with it and make it your friend. So that it can help you because I promise you in every aspect it will help you and like we just discussed from a cultural aspect to a personal health aspect to writing a project plan and managing risks and Test cases it can fulfill a lot of different needs you just have to use it. And if you're afraid of it, you walk away from it and you look at it again the next day. But it's just like conquering anything that you need in a self help book. if you start reading that book and let's say it's too hard to, digest or it's too hard to, too difficult to really grasp what you're reading, you close the book, you walk away and you take a break from it.
Don Finley:Thank you, Ava. It's been absolutely a pleasure getting to talk to you today. And I think that we've dropped a lot of nice bits of knowledge and wisdom for people to go after. So once again, thank you so much for making the time to talk to the audience today.
Eva Kapitany:Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Don Finley:Thank you for tuning into The Human Code, sponsored by FINdustries, where we harness AI to elevate your business. By improving operational efficiency and accelerating growth, we turn opportunities into reality. Let FINdustries be your guide to AI mastery, making success inevitable. Explore how at FINdustries. co.
