[00:00:00] Jonathan Green 2024: Surviving in the corporate world with ai. Taking over with today's special guest, Philip Blackett on today's episode of the Artificial Intelligence Podcast.
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Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you wanna make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now. Then you can come to the right place. Welcome to the Artificial Intelligence Podcast. You will learn how to use artificial intelligence to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep.
Presented live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by bestselling author Jonathan Green. Now here's your host.
[00:00:53] Jonathan Green 2024: Now, I've been out of the corporate world or working for large businesses since 2010, so I haven't been on an insider for a long time, and when I.
Biggest experience at my last large company, which was huge, was that they were still using like databases from the 1980s and they didn't, they did a lot of data entry to move data from one computer to the other. And it reminded me a lot of air traffic control, which the computers and air traffic control are like from the 1940s and we don't know how to update 'em.
And I was like, that's very worrying. They're still using like light tubes. So I wonder. A lot of our audience is people who are in corporate, and they have this one question, which is, how much AI do I need to learn to protect myself? What's the amount I need to know? And that's the starting part where I'd like to start.
I know it's a tough question, but let's start from there.
[00:01:45] Philip Blackett: From there. It, it's funny you asked it, Jonathan, because I think even in your question that some of your audience are asking, it almost sounds okay, Philip. Be real with me. What's like the bare minimum that I should learn just to make sure I don't get in trouble?
I don't under meet expectations. I don't get on some sort of PIP or potentially lose my job. And so I think the way we approach it is very important to think of in terms of, okay, let's not figure out what it is that we need to learn just to get by it. This is a technology that is. Evolving by the day, literally.
This is something that is outpacing human intelligence in terms of how evolved, how advanced, how useful and productive it is. So it's almost in a sense that even if you get to the bare minimum, Jonathan, by tomorrow, the next week or the next year is gonna be almost obsolete. So as more so to sense, not so much what's the bare minimum, but let's adopt a growth mindset in terms of, hey, AI is here to stay.
Let's learn what it's about. How does it apply to my job? Take inventory of what we actually do day to day jobs to be done and figure out what things you absolutely have to do. That's only something that a human can do, like you. What are things that you could outsource, whether it's to another person or in this case, have ai do it to free your time up to do more of what's in your sphere of genius.
While at the same time understanding this is something you're gonna continue to grow into if you want to be increasingly more valuable to your company or the organization you work with.
[00:03:33] Jonathan Green 2024: I think that. It is so scary for people. The idea that you can never know everything. Like you can't actually know ai.
It's a, it's like a snake eating its own tail. It's uncatchable. And that's really challenging. And I think that's where people get really scared. And I feel the same way. I did as a kid try to do double Dutch jump roping, right? Which I've never successfully jumped into. It's like it's moving. Wait for that right moment.
Should I wait until we've chosen the next thing I'm about to use one tool? Oh wait, OpenAI has an update. Oh, Google has an update. Oh wait, Google's update has a problem and. It's very hard because there's so much news, which is so hype heavy to get a feel. And I think that's where it comes from. This is there's so much I can never know everything, right?
So what did I have to know? So I don't know that it comes from the bare minimum part of it probably does, but it's like I wanna know where the line is to make sure I stay above it, right? I wanna stay above, like I have to be able to run a mile in eight minutes, so I have to be below that. That's the kind of line they're looking for.
And I think that. It's a very stressful time because this is a major technological shift and people that are a little older maybe went through the personal computer shift in the eighties and the internet shift in the late nineties. So they've been through this before and technologies will come and go very quickly.
Sometimes nobody has a pager anymore, no one uses a fax machine anymore. Things that were critical and like game changers are now gone. And that's where I think they're wondering about. And most of the people that I work with are really starting from the point of. Figuring out where to position themselves.
Does my job actually require ai? Am I in a position where it matters? And that's, I think, where they're coming from. And I think it's not crazy just because there have been so many fads and so many trends that have turned out not to matter, that they're a little bit burned out on hype, which I get.
And that's really the question. So when you, coming from the corporate world and seeing these things, the other thing, my experience has always been that large corp, the larger the company, the slower they are to adapt to new technologies. If you look at what happened when streaming, like downloading music happened in the late nineties, the record companies adapted very slowly, right?
And their first thought was, can we sue everyone to stop them from sharing music with each other? We've already seen that. Now people are trying to sue open AI and sue AI for writing things or doing things or sounding like them, and that's all eventually gonna shake out. But those take years. By the time the loss finishes, the technology's passed.
Gone past that point anyways. Exactly. A lot of large companies are trying to put the genie back in the bottle or saying nobody use ai so, or everyone use ai, right? And it's I dunno which way my company's gonna go. How do I know? I guess maybe this is the way to start from, like, how do I know what's gonna be useful at my particular job?
What's the foundational stuff? Where should I start as someone who is not lucky to be an entrepreneur? But just wants to do their job better, do their job faster, and future proof themselves.
[00:06:23] Philip Blackett: So I, I think the first thing that comes off, Jonathan, is it's helpful for us to adopt more of a mindset of what our manager, our boss, our employer, is likely taking in this time.
We can't be necessarily limited to just our own silo, right? Our cubicle, our job responsibilities and roles when we first got hired for the job. Which was probably years ago. Because to be fair, I would imagine those roles and responsibilities probably need to be updated from what it was back when we first got hired.
So I think part of it, I would say is, you're right. Many of the bigger companies, they move at a slower pace for a period of time before AI really came into the scene, many of those businesses could truly get away with it. And they could be content with just, hey that's just our sales cycle.
That's just how we move. It's almost a given as far as part of what our culture is. But because of ai, it basically is democratizing access to game changing technology that helps people become much more productive to a point where now a lot of these bigger businesses are seen as more threatened.
By smaller companies are more nimble to change. Companies are much more willing to take a chance to experiment with certain tools and just, let's see what happens. If this one works out great. If it doesn't, let's try another tool. And so I think that for people that are employees or professionals, the thought is, at least for a second, think about it from the perspective of those who employ you.
Of your bosses and of your managers, they're trying to keep up and they're probably seeing in their board rooms, in their conference calls, their meetings, their closed door get togethers. Hey, our lunch is about to get taken. It's about to be eaten by a smaller company with startup funding. Either. We gotta figure out a way to adapt and have our team adapt with it while we're running the risk of getting behind.
That could lead to major changes that could include layoffs. And so I think that one of the things that comes off top of mind for me is more okay, take your job, but then also think about it in the sense of ask yourself just a simple question, how can I do my job better with the help of ai? And then from there, I would say we have to get into experimentation mode.
We have to try some things out, ask some questions, talk to fellow team members. Hey, what are you using? What are you doing? Is chat GBT the only tool that's out there that we can use? Or is there something different? Just being open to that type of change can really be helpful, especially if you multiply that times the number of employees you have in your organization.
[00:09:22] Speaker: So let's say that. There's really nothing coming down from on high. Like you're not hearing that feedback from your boss yet. That's worrying. And there's another thing, which is that most people. Don't have a definition of what AI is. So we've seen that a lot of boards of directors say to the ceo, E, we need to invent AI this year.
And he goes, great. What do you mean? And they go, we don't know. We just know we want it. And that's the worst kind of instruction you can get.
[00:09:48] Philip Blackett: Yeah.
[00:09:49] Jonathan Green 2024: Which is do what I want, but I won't tell you what it is. Like every I, no, I get what it's, so it can be, that's where I worry about, and that's what I try to help people with the most, is to get specific, which is.
What tools exist and what tools have usefulness because there's so much hype, it's really hard to separate the signal from the noise. Even really large companies that are doing massive launches are just chat GBT wrappers, and people are finding out and going, wait a minute, why would I use this when I can just use chat GBT?
So that's the second area of trepidation, which is okay, I know I wanna learn AI, but I can't even tell what's useful and not useful, where I should start. And we've even seen companies go public. Saying that they're an AI company and then the stock tanks after two days when people go, wait a minute, they have no AI tech at all.
They just put it in their stock ticker. So there's a whole, even at the highest level, we've seen this with multiple companies going public in last year that did that. It happened more than once, which is really astounding. So it's very reasonable to people go, I can't even tell This is my full-time job and I, it takes me about an hour of testing a product to.
Know for sure what's happening. If they're using ai, if they're faking, if they're using their a own ai or if they're using a chat GBT or philanthropic I or Claude's API like these other tools. So for the person who's a beginner, it can be very murky and it's reasonable. Because there's news every day.
I, that's my full-time job. And if I don't check the news every day for several hours, then I'm out of touch. And that's too much to ask for people. So what would you say is like the starting point? Okay, you decide, okay, I wanna do this. What's the first way to dip your toe in the water?
[00:11:22] Philip Blackett: Yeah. I think one thing that could be used as the first thing to do is recognize, one, I, many of us want to be led lead.
We want to be told exactly what to do, what buttons to push, where to go have it all. Mapped out for us, right? We want that sort of structure. And what you're highlighting, Jonathan, is that because it seems it's like the wild west here that everything goes, we're just trying to figure it out, that the leaders we're dependent on in the workplace are trying to figure it out just as much as we are.
And so I think that the first thing I would think in terms of is understand there's a possibility. That my manager or my boss or my team leader is probably in the same position as I am. We're just trying to figure it out. We have no idea. But once we get to that point, okay, then the question becomes, what's next?
Like you say, Jonathan, what do we do about that? Where two things come to mind for me is one, there's power in a team and people like coming together. So two minds are better than one as far as Hey, Jonathan, you're in the same boat as I am. This whole AI thing is new. Let's link up. Let's figure out like, what are you doing?
What are you seeing? How what? Here's what I'm seeing, and how can we essentially collaborate to figure this out? Whether or not our boss tells us or not, maybe we can pose some potential solutions to our team and our managers as a result of us working together. And if it's not even that, if it's more of an individual standpoint, I will look at it more so the sense to say, Hey, there may be direction coming from up high.
There may not, it may not even touch my area, at least not yet. Now the question becomes, are you content with how things have been done in your job up to this point? Or do we make a decision to take some proactive initiative to say. Let's try to learn this and figure out what can I start applying with and figure out if I can find a solution myself?
[00:13:39] Jonathan Green 2024: Oh. Here's something interesting, and I want your perspective on this. In America, we say the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
In Austral and other countries, they say the tall flower gets cut down, which is if you draw attention to yourself.
[00:13:53] Philip Blackett: That's true too.
[00:13:55] Jonathan Green 2024: So it's interesting that we're like, oh, if you stand out, people will help you. They're like, no, if you stand out, they'll take you down. When I, last time I worked at a big job, there was a lot of politicking and in fighting the larger companies, that exist and it's if you. Start drawing attention to yourself. It's not always a good thing.
People going, oh, look at Jonathan. He's trying to be the AI guy. So that's an another worry that I think about, which is if no one else is saying anything, and then you can start to, I. Have a problem. Like you become the person who's talking about AI all the time, and then it doesn't work out right?
You're just like the NFT person at the office now. No one talks to him. So I think about that as well, which is the social element of how do I not look, the kid maybe this way. The kid who always would say, Hey, teacher, you forgot to give us our homework.
[00:14:43] Philip Blackett: You don't want to be the nerd here.
You don't want be the one, not the one. The killjoy in the classroom.
[00:14:48] Jonathan Green 2024: Remember? The kid would always say, if he just can, the teacher will just give us the homework, double homework tomorrow to make up for missing it today. And I don't know if that's true, right? But that was their, they were like, no, it's, I'm not making things worse.
I'm making things better. So I wonder about that. And it's standing out can, if you learn ai, then the boss might go, Hey, you know what, everyone else needs to learn AI just like Jonathan did. And then suddenly everyone at work hates you. So there's this other dynamic that it's very complicated to navigate.
[00:15:16] Philip Blackett: I, I. One I resonate with, you're saying Jonathan. 'cause I've been in school before where we had the substitute teacher and he or she was gonna bring in the TV back then to, to watch a movie. And we knew we were gonna have an easy day off. And then you had that one student that said, Hey, Mr.
Johnson, actually on the syllabus we were posted cover photosynthesis. Actually, here's a textbook reading on how we're supposed to do about it. Go about it. And the whole class wants to throw. Let's just say lunch, food at the, when it comes time to have to class. But I think even in that made up example, John, that I think a key principle comes up that I would highlight here.
What is more important to you in this situation? I think it's more so the question we have to ask ourselves. Is it more important for us to be able to move forward as a team and for me to learn how to be the best at my job that could essentially help other people and our team move forward?
Or is it better yet for me to lay low, not say anything and wait to be told what to do anyways, just so I don't have anybody look at me a certain type of way socially. And maybe they don't wanna talk to me at the water cooler or sit with me at the lunch table later on that day. Because, like you said before, you keep up with the news.
I do as well, particularly on LinkedIn, and ever since January, all I'm seeing on a weekly basis are major companies and businesses laying off people. Hundreds and thousands of people, some of those people didn't have the option to learn about AI or how it could benefit their job or how they can better improve their prospects of keeping their job and their career, which if they had the option, I'm pretty sure they probably would care less about what other people thought and more about, listen you're not paying my mortgage, you're not paying my car payment and my rent.
So whatever it takes for me to keep my job and take care of my family, I'm gonna do it. So I think. Not at the risk of trying to be a little overly simplistic here. I think we have to, in this scenario, ask ourselves what's more important, keeping our job and moving our company forward, or trying to be the cool kid in the office room at the risk of us losing our job later.
[00:17:37] Jonathan Green 2024: So yeah, I think about. When if you do it right, you can make yourself indispensable. So the person who knew how to fix the copier was almost bulletproof 30 years ago. Then it was the person who had the fax machine worked. Then it was the person who knew how to update the website. I remember so many copies I worked with.
They were like, oh, only Dan knows how to update the website. We don't even know how to log in. And I was like, wow, Dan has made a good move. Dan's got the keys to the city and now it's the social media accounts. And I feel like that could be the adv the right way to do it. And this is what I'd love to figure out with you, is like to become the person who is the office expert on ai.
So you become the person everyone comes to when they're asking questions because you don't have to be faster than the Barry, just have to be faster than your friend, than the person. Yeah. If you're the first person who gets ai, even if you, someone then learns the more than you you're still who they get used to asking questions to.
So I see it as, and I'm just trying to navigate this right, as establishing your position as the person who just gets it and who answers questions all day long. And when people, they go, Hey Jonathan, how do I use log into AI again? All of that stuff you almost can become, you almost can become, end up becoming the office tech support to which you don't want, but there's like a.
Narrow walk there. And then the other element is that it can lead to quick promotions because they need someone in charge of these projects, in charge of these decisions, telling them which tools work and which tools don't. So there's a lot of opportunities there. So how do you feel someone can establish themself as the office expert without coming across as the homework asker or the
[00:19:16] Philip Blackett: know-It-All right.
So I think one key thing that comes off to my mind too is. It is almost like once upon a time, as you said before, Jonathan, if I knew, if I was the only person knew how to keep the copier functioning, yes, you always gonna have a job. If I knew how to update the website, if I knew how to update and promote on social media, I always have a job there.
The challenge though, is I think that for many businesses, especially the higher up you go as far as size is, many of these businesses are trying to systematize what you know. It's in their best interest to put it in a process and a guidebook, something that basically says, Hey Philip, that's great.
This information. Can you work with Jonathan and share with him what you know, so we can document this so that, God forbid if you were sick and we needed an issue, right? The nice way is if you're sick or if you're on vacation, Philip, I don't wanna bother you. While you're on vacation.
So I'll talk to Jonathan and we'll pull up this guy and we'll know exactly what you know to keep the ship going. So what comes with that is understanding, okay, that's probably an expectation that we should go into the situation with, right? And this is what gets this whole sense of, the knowledge.
You can't just rest on your laurels and just say, Hey, I'm good. AI is something that because it is constantly modifying, evolving, and changing, the person that's gonna actually take up on this role has to keep learning, has to keep growing with it, because at the same time, the moment I learned something about chat, GBT taking on a function, my boss or my team may say, Hey Philip, can you teach us this?
So once I teach 'em that now we're all on the same level again. So now I gotta keep learning what's the next thing? What's the thing? They're not, understanding already. So it's almost like you said before, as a paraphrase, I used to learn in the land of the blind, the one eye person is king.
So the question is, how do I stay the one eye person in one step ahead? As the people I'm leading are constantly, I'm being, I'm teaching them, I'm getting them up to speed, but I now, if I'm gonna take on this role, have to make the commitment to keep learning. What's the next thing? What's the next iteration?
What's the next tool? So that as I'm teaching people, they say, Hey, I gotta keep Philip if nothing else, because he's teaching our team. He's leading our team here, because as soon as I systematize it, I'm gonna be like, okay, thanks Philip. I have all I need to know. Nope, I got some more things I learned next week.
I'll take teach you that too.
[00:22:02] Jonathan Green 2024: I think that's what an advantage, it's a way to take that, how much stuff is changing and use it to your advantage, right? Instead of saying, oh, there's so much to learn. That means I always can be one step ahead of everyone else. And that's, that's really all that you and I do is stay a little bit ahead of everyone else, like we don't.
Sometimes people are surprised that I haven't used every AI tool and I'm like, there's a hundred thousand of them. I never, I see a lot of people who say things like, these are my 50 favorite AI tools, and I go, how is that possible? How could you possibly have used 50 tools enough to have favorites?
That's astounding to me. I used maybe 12 or 13 tools. Because it's my job. If it wasn't, I would be using two to three, maybe four but my job is ai, so I have a few extra tools and backups, but that's really, when someone says 50, I go, that's insane. That's impossible. It's on, it's just a number you can't keep up with.
There's no way that mathematically you're doing that. If you're using them all 52 every week, that's four minutes per tool, per week. Very well, and
[00:23:00] Philip Blackett: and I would love to know how that person does it, because initially, like you're saying, John, I'm thinking, oh, of 50 tools. Now I'm just gonna put on a list to say look what I know, as opposed to what's more impressive.
Okay. Walk me through each one of these 50 tools that are your favorites compared to the other ones you tested. And then in particular, how have you used those 50 tools and demonstrate that to me, that'd be even more oppressive.
[00:23:26] Jonathan Green 2024: So what I always recommend to people is that you just need a couple of things.
You need a text generator like chat, GPT, Glo, Google's, I guess if you're. I'm willing to live on the edge. I need an image and I'm a mid journey guy. That's the foundational place. And then there's, you don't need a lot of different things. 'cause Cha GBT is a real generalist. It could do almost everything.
So can Claude do almost everything? They're very similar to each other and you don't need to do both. I'm not very good at Claude. I've used it like seven times I think. I know I have account with them. I don't think I have the paid account. I can't remember. Maybe I do, but I just don't. I'm so busy trying to master one tool that to try and learn them all, it's not really necessary.
So I think that helps people to know to pull back. And I'm also getting more and more interested in data organization tools, like things that, there are a lot of AI softwares coming out that are good at helping you find files like when a missing project file, they're better at searching for, oh, we'll search your Dropbox, file your S3 and your hard drive to look for the file.
I think that's really useful. And the other area I really like is like email organization.
Or AI to keep your communication, like you and I have emailed, we've messaged on one platform, we've messaged on LinkedIn. If all of that could be found by one database, that would be so useful because that's really where a lot of balls get dropped.
I think when we're jumping communication channels and something gets missed. So I think that, but again, that's four different ideas. I don't think what you need to go down a lot of rabbit holes. Like people love to look at creating AI video and creating AI music. And I always say how many songs did you make last year at your job?
None. Then why do you need to make songs this year? Just 'cause AI can do it? So yeah, I love the things you're talking about, but where do you think someone starting out? Do you think I'm the right wavelength or coming from the insider perspective, do you think? Yep. There's other tools they really need to think about.
[00:25:12] Philip Blackett: Yeah, I think the rule of thumb here, Jonathan, is look for tools that are relevant to what you do on a day-to-day nine to five basis, right? So if you're, if your job is producing letters, if you're like in public relations and that sort and part of your job is to produce written communications.
Then yeah, a text generator, generative AI and that sort, absolutely helpful. You can use image generator too if you're doing press releases or posts on social media and you're trying to come up with a nice thumbnail and that sort makes sense. I wouldn't think it would make sense for you to use an app like, like opus clip or captions if you're in communications, unless you're involved with video production.
I. So unless your job requires you to produce videos for your organization, you probably should leave those tools alone. And maybe it might be a personal hobby you do. But I think an easy way to not get overwhelmed with the sheer, for lack of a better word, plethora of AI tools out there is really take stock in.
What do you do in your job? List out all the jobs to be done in your job. And then out of that, figure out, okay, are there any tools that can help me do the jobs I am being paid to do? Help me do it more efficiently, save on time, make it more accurate, more productive, and then just focus on that.
Because I think what happens here is you get caught up like a kid in the candy store and you get distracted. 'cause you see all these different buckets of candy and it's okay, which is the one that you are actually going to eat? Which is the one that actually is the one that you want to do and focus on that.
[00:26:55] Jonathan Green 2024: This is something I strongly agree with is that it's better to use AI to do what you already know how to do faster than to try to add new jobs to yourself. Because if I start going into like high level video production, if I've never done it before, I can't tell if it's doing it right or wrong or making mistakes or error correcting.
So anytime you go outside what you're already doing, you have a lot more risk and you're just giving yourself more work, which is not what you wanna do. You wanna use AI to give yourself. Less work. So I love what you're talking about. I agree with that. A great deal, and I think this has been a real useful conversation.
I love hearing from your perspective as someone who's come from more recently the corporate world, where can people find out about the books you've written more about what you're doing, and connect with you online and of course follow you on LinkedIn? I.
[00:27:38] Philip Blackett: Yeah, I think it'd be great, Jonathan, for people that want to continue the conversation, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.
Just look me up by my name, Philip Blackett that we can connect via message. I also have a use AI to grow Your Business Weekly newsletter that I produce on LinkedIn as well. I. Where I talk about certain topics related to ai. And you can also check out check me out on Amazon where I have a couple books on ai, particularly future proof, how to adopt the Master Artificial Intelligence to secure your job and career.
Just look up my name, Philip Black and on Amazon. And then lastly, if there's any other social networks you want to connect with me on, I'm on Facebook, Twitter Instagram, YouTube, and that sort, just look up my name, Philip Blackett.
[00:28:20] Jonathan Green 2024: And I'll link to everything below the video for those of you watching on YouTube, and for those of you who are watching the live stream, I'll link below that and of course, in the show notes.
Thank you so much for being here, Philip. This was another amazing episode of the Artificial Intelligence podcast.
[00:28:33] Philip Blackett: Thanks so much, Jonathan. Happy to be here with you.
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