When AI Meets the Content Beast, Developing a Blueprint for Integrating AI at Work, and Avoiding AI Overwhelm

Eric Eden: 0:58

Welcome to today's episode. Today, we are talking about content marketing, storytelling and AI, amongst other things. We have a great guest. Our guest today is Jeffrey Klein. He is a content marketing expert, a TEDx speaker, he's written a book and he has gotten his AI certification. We're going to talk a little bit about that. Welcome to the show. Thanks, eric. I appreciate you having me here, so why don't you share just a minute or two before we get into it? A bit more context about who you are and what you do.

Geoffrey Klein : 1:38

Sure, I like to tell people I've had a nonlinear career, because after graduating, I worked for a genius marketer named Seth Godin and then went into law school, then worked in the film industry, then moved to England, worked in real estate, then back in marketing, then back in Philly, and since I've been back in Philly, which is about 10 years, I worked for a brand marketing agency and then I started my own agency, where I started and said what do you need? And so did a whole bunch of different marketing stuff based on feeling like I didn't want to leave money on the table. And one of the things I learned, thankfully, was that you need to focus on what you like to do and you think you're good at, so that you can bring value to people. And so about three years ago, I stopped doing all the other parts of digital marketing and really focused on visual content. I'd always been story, had always been really important to me it's why I did my TEDx talk on and so for me it was about visual storytelling.

Geoffrey Klein : 2:33

So I now produce video and animation for corporate clients, also as an adjunct, kind of give back, but also I just I think by teaching you learn. So I think there's an element of keeping yourself sharp, and so if I'm continuing having to make sure I'm on, my game helps others. And then I wanted to write a book because I'm a speaker and everyone says, oh, you need a book. And in my presentations I told people hey, you need to feed the beast the content beast, he's always hungry. And so my book called the content beast is really a primer to help people understand why they need to feed the beast and who they're really feeding and how to do it. And so that's my world. Now I still produce video and animation and then I speak mostly about either content marketing or ai, whether it's just general ai or ai in the context of marketing.

Eric Eden: 3:25

So let me ask you how did you like working with Seth?

Geoffrey Klein : 3:28

I'm just curious, I just saw him at a conference like a month ago and he is awesome. The only frustrating part about working with him is he's usually right, and that's sometimes. Can you get it wrong once, please? So he's really annoying, yeah, he, but he is really a pioneer in marketing in a lot of ways. Sometimes Can you get it wrong once, please? It's really annoying, but he is really a pioneer in marketing in a lot of ways and he's not content to just what he's done, and he's done a lot. He had 21 bestselling books and, as a thought leader, I really appreciate his thoughtfulness about almost any subject related marketing. He really has a big brain and looks at things in a way that the genius behind Seth Godin, in my opinion, is to take things that are meaty and cerebral and make them accessible for us mere mortals. That's how I look.

Eric Eden: 4:18

Yeah, I love it. That's great. So let me ask you giving a TED Talk. I was researching. I was curious how many people have given TED Talks, and it's a relatively small group of people, even though TED's been around for a number of years. Was doing the TED Talk impactful for you?

Geoffrey Klein : 4:38

professional speaker. So I think the fact that I have a TEDx talk, people go oh, he can speak. Whether it's true or not, there's a perception, in the same way, that I went to law school, so people think I'm smart, which may or may not be true. The experience itself was amazing. I was very fortunate because the way that TEDx works is there are a lot of licensees that hold a geographical area to put on the conference, and the woman that I had the license was also coach and so only six of us presenting, and so she spent a lot of time with us to take what I thought was pretty good and make it better, and to me that's the value of a coach in lots of different scenarios. I actually had an interesting experience in that I was scheduled to give the talk in November in Lehigh Valley, north of Philadelphia, and it snowed, so it got canceled and rescheduled for the end of January, so I had an extra kind of two and a half three months to practice. However good I would have been, I was definitely better because I had more time.

Geoffrey Klein : 5:44

I think about things that I'm involved with, we all have our sort of blinders on a lot of the time and you expect that people know everything that you know, and then when you share and you get the feedback from people, that's what makes it worthwhile to me. That is, people have gone. That was helpful. That was interesting. That was entertaining. That that was helpful, that was interesting, that was entertaining. That it's actually having that impact on them. That's the goal for it and the credibility there's an issue of as a professional speaker. Have you been on stage? And so it was really important that I could say, hey, listen, I've done a TEDx and they're like, oh okay, so at least I think in anything when you're up for something, they're looking for reasons to say no, and this at least takes away the first no, and then it's up to you to deliver on the rest. But I think it's all part of trying to develop yourself as a thought leader.

Geoffrey Klein : 6:30

Personal branding has become incredibly important in business, especially if you cannot, obviously, be a speaker. But I think across the board, I was like the example. People talk about personal branding and you look at people like Elon Musk or even Jeff Bezos. Their personal Instagrams are bigger and more active than the companies that they're the CEOs of, and so the fact that business people now are being seen as thought leaders and giving attention as a brand, I think is something that's developed more so in the last 20 odd years, and now it's an opportunity for people, and so I've worked hard.

Geoffrey Klein : 7:09

My Mr Purple moniker comes because I wear purple every day. People know. People know that I'm obsessed with story. People now know that I'm obsessed with AI because I focus on that, I talk about it. It's what you see when you look at my LinkedIn or any of my socials. It's what I'm focused on, and I think what you focus on expands. So I think it's. The TEDx was something, and I'm proud of it. I am. I think it's a pretty good talk and I think it showcases my worldview pretty well when it comes to the power of story.

Eric Eden: 7:40

Yeah, I'm going to link to it in the show notes. I think everyone should watch it. It's a great talk on the importance of storytelling and how to do it really well. And let me ask you about the other aspect of personal branding. As you mentioned, having a book builds a lot of credibility, right? Has that been impactful for your personal brand too?

Geoffrey Klein : 8:00

Yes. So I wrote the book and it came out. Where are we? May, four or five months ago? The process is a pain. So anyone who's like, oh, writing a book's really easy, and I've seen lots of book coaches saying, oh, we'll get it done in 90 days. It's a labor of love. I don't care what you're writing on. At least that's been my experience. I think it is for most writers and I'm friends with many authors. But again, it's not just about the personal branding and credibility. It's about producing something that you're proud of and that is useful to people.

Geoffrey Klein : 8:32

The idea behind the book was twofold. I'm a writer, I like to write, so for me writing a book seemed a no-brainer that at some point I should write a book. I thought I was going to write some sort of fiction. A lot of event planners and others want to have the author title for their speakers and in the case that they want to buy the book for the conference.

Geoffrey Klein : 8:56

I was very fortunate that I was being considered for a conference and they said and I was like, oh, yeah, I'm writing a book. And they're like, will it be done by the conference? And I was about halfway done. I'm like, yeah, it'll be done and so now I had a deadline, but it was a great experience to be able to give my presentation on the book and then hand out the book to everyone, and everyone would get it. I share this. In a lot of times that I speak with people about credibility, and I think it's an important thing I should share, which is James Ribalata, who is a fellow speaker of mine amazing speaker, he shared in a presentation I saw a distinction that I think is super important for businesses of all kinds, but it's also for thought leaders and things like that and speakers, which is the distinction between credibility and relatability.

Geoffrey Klein : 9:48

I think sometimes we focus too much on being credible. Oh, I've done a TED Talk when, in the end, someone's not going to buy from you because of your great accomplishments if they can't connect the dots to how that's going to help them, and therefore I think it's really important to be relatable so that they're like oh, we're in this together, you understand us and we understand. Oh, you're in this together, you understand us and we understand. Oh, you've had experience that's similar, or you've worked with someone who's had that similar experience. And so I think a lot of the time, brands are trying way too hard to prove how good they are rather than focusing the story that they tell on how they're going to serve the people that are going to buy from them.

Eric Eden: 10:32

So what's the secret to being relatable? You can tell us?

Geoffrey Klein : 10:35

The first secret is something in my book that I call the 11th commandment Know thy audience. So I think it's, and it's something that a lot of marketers talk about. So you have to understand your audience, you have to know who they are, but how many people are really spending the time to do that, as opposed to paying kind of lip service to it, and marketers create buyer personas that I think are useful, but it can be. It's about taking the time to collect data, to have in conversations with clients, with former clients, with future clients, to understand how what you're sharing your opportunity to share with them, something that can help them, how what you're sharing your opportunity to share with them something that can help them.

Eric Eden: 11:21

And so it's the secret to being relatable is being curious.

Geoffrey Klein : 11:24

It's simple but it is. Why is that? Because when you're genuinely curious, you ask lots of questions and therefore you'll learn about the audience. So when you're curious about what are your problems, what are the things that keep you up at night, what are the things that you like, what are the things that are important to you, I can then synthesize those in terms of my messaging back when I'm trying to share this opportunity with you. So the more questions I ask, the better I'll know who the audience is.

Eric Eden: 11:52

That's great. So let's talk AI. You recently got certified. Tell us about that and tell us about the things that you're doing with AI that you think are the coolest right now.

Geoffrey Klein : 12:07

So when I decided to go all in AI, it started of wanting just, you know, I have a term for myself an NTG, a non-technical geek. So I'm not a coder, I'm not an illustrator, editor, but I love what technology can do, and I've always have. And so, for me, I'm like this AI thing, I was like resisting it and then, finally, when I learned a little bit, I'm like, oh my God, this is amazing and this is the future and all these things. And so I said, okay, if I'm going to get involved in it, what I need to do. And so, from a content perspective, we all have things we consume books, articles, podcasts, newsletters, social and when I decided to go all in, 95% of the content I was consuming was AI and is AI. So I listened to two to three podcasts on AI, I get newsletters on AI, I'm attuned to it, I'm talking to people about it, I'm asking, I'm being curious about other people's experience with AI and in terms of how I'm using it. There's two distinct ways that I'm looking to integrate AI into my life and work. The first is to be more productive and look at all the different tasks that I do, look into the different workflows and say, how can AI help me be better at doing X, y and Z? And I think a lot of it starts with talking in my presentation about task identification. So there's three buckets of tasks. There's tasks that only AI can do or AI can do on its own. There are tasks that humans can only do on their own, and then there's the hybrid tasks in the middle, and when you identify what those are, you can start to really leverage how they help you in your business. So I'm trying to do it for myself, like I'm like let me see how I can use AI to really get ahead and apply it. Then I'm talking about how to help people with AI.

Geoffrey Klein : 13:55

I believe right now, a lot of people are experiencing AI overwhelm in a couple of different ways. There's so much information on it every day, and so where do you start? It's a big question. People are just like something, like I just I don't have the time, I don't have the bandwidth to even think about it. And then there's those when they think about it, they're like it freaks me out, it's like scary and it's, and so for me, the answer to that AI overwhelm is education, is learning, is training, and so I see an opportunity for me to help people learn and grow to use it effectively, because it's like social media Social media is free and anyone can do it, but not everyone can do it. Not everyone has a strategy. Same with marketing Marketing having a plan for how you're going to implement any kind of technology tool resource. The more thoughtful you are about it, the more effective you'll be using it.

Geoffrey Klein : 14:50

So I'm developing three workshops. So I'm using it in my speaking. So I'm speaking at conferences now on the promise of AI, or the fear of AI, and how to use it in whether it's HR or how to use it in banking. How does it apply generally? And then specifically to the audience that I'm speaking to.

Geoffrey Klein : 15:08

And then the idea is that organizations who are trying to kind of start somewhere and it's the Wild West right now, because a lot of people, even if they have AI in their organizations, a most people are using AI not officially. So most people are using AI without any instruction, policy parameters or guidelines from their organization. As a result, they're not getting any training. So not only are they using it, they're using it without really being told how to use it. So I'm developing a workshop for beginners AI literacy, which is where I think everyone needs to start and really understand okay, what's it about? What do you need to know about AI and how you can start using it. Then, after that, you look at AI proficiency Okay, now I'm using it more in my daily workflows and then, eventually, I really want to optimize. So now you're into AI mastery and, within those three categories, as they learn, what is the AI blueprint for your business? And so, creating that strategy, creating that roadmap, if you will, of how to now start expanding it into different places.

Eric Eden: 16:13

As a huge Star Wars fan, I for one can't wait to have my own C3PO. I refer to him as AI OG. It's amazing George Lucas came up with him 47 years ago. That's just ponderous, when you think about it, that he called it 47 years ago. But I'm curious what is the main thing you got from going through the MIT certification on AI that you did? What was one or two of the key takeaways you had from that?

Geoffrey Klein : 16:48

The biggest takeaway I think I took away from that experience was it's not about computer intelligence, it's not about human intelligence. It's about co-intelligence or collective intelligence. So Ethan Malek, who is a professor at Wharton, who's really in the AI space and thinking and sharing, just wrote a book called Co-Intelligence and it's about. One of the things is that it's always about having a human in the loop, and I think that's the thing that people are so petrified. They're like, oh my God, the robots are going to take over, and it's like we need humans in the loop throughout the process. I just wrote a newsletter about what I call the human bookends of AI.

Geoffrey Klein : 17:28

Whenever you're using AI, you need a human at the beginning to really understand what are you trying to achieve, what are your objectives, how do you prompt, how do you interact with AI properly and then you get output that can have some challenges AI properly and then you get output that can have some challenges, and so you need to basically have a human editor at the other end verifying it's that's accurate, making sure it's on brand, making sure it sounds like you know the way you want to sound, and I don't think that's ever going to go away.

Geoffrey Klein : 17:52

There's always going to be a need. There are certain things that may be able to do, but if you're not having any kind of oversight, that's when I think it's the same way that you might not you know a junior person at any organization, doesn't you're going to have oversight over them. It's the same just because someone can do some tasks doesn't mean you let them independently go off and do whatever, and so I think again, it's a very powerful tool. I just say today, current AI is the worst it will ever be.

Eric Eden: 18:24

That's very true. I think that's 100% true. We're just about out of time, so I'd like to ask you final thoughts, if you could suggest what would be your one or two pieces of advice for business leaders and marketers on how to leverage AI.

Geoffrey Klein : 18:43

It's the same advice I give in terms of finding out who your audience is or finding what tools to use in marketing, which is be curious. You have to start, you know, start playing with AI. So even if it when it doesn't matter, I'm not saying you should take all of your stuff and start trying to have AI do all your bookkeeping, but have fun with it. It's this really cool tool. So go on metaai, go to ChatGPT and just have some fun, see what it can do, get used to just talking to it.

Geoffrey Klein : 19:16

And then the second part of it is be curious about what's going on in AI listening to podcasts, listening to news articles, going to presentations and just listening and getting a vibe, because it's like any other information. You want to consider who's sharing the source. But if I'm looking for advice and one person tells me you should do this, maybe I listen. But if four or five people keep telling me the same thing, then maybe I need to start considering it. And so I think, if you're listening and being active about openness to it, there's plenty of opportunity, plenty of resources for you to get stuck in and take baby steps. If you're not ready to jump in, dip your big toe in and start experiencing how it works.

Eric Eden: 20:07

Great advice, thank you. All right, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for sharing your stories and your advice here today. I'm going to link to your website so people can check out your book and your type talk. We really appreciate it. Thanks for being on the show today.

Geoffrey Klein : 20:23

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, Eric.