IBM thinkLeaders

In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guest Kate O'Neill (author of Tech Humanist: How You Can Make Technology Better for Business and Better for Humans) to discuss how we can leverage AI for good, the need for a transdisciplinary approach to AI, and what it means to be an Optimistic Futurist. Kate talks about her own career path and the holistic, integrative approach to advocates using when employing AI to tackle major societal issues. Connect with us on Twitter @ IBMthinkLeaders (#thinkLeaders) Kate O'Neill @ KateO “There is potential for it [AI] to go badly and there is potential for it to go off the rails. But there is also always so much power to use it for the good of humanity. And that's the way I prefer to be focused to steer us in that direction.” “So even at this stage of A.I., we have demonstrable experience of being able to say, here's a human problem, here's a category of human problems, and here's how we could leverage emerging exponential technology to help humanity solve that problem.” “If we only look at human problems and the solutions to human problems through one lens, like technology or A.I., then we'll only get a very narrow read on it. But if we bring an integrative, holistic lens that has sort of a generalist philosophy, we stand a chance of really recreating human experience writ large in a very meaningful way. And that's the future I would like to see.”

How can we tap into the value of human communication? What are the insights we can glean using natural language processing (NLP)? How can NLP capture sentiment and tone? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guest Phil Anderson (Senior Offering Manager for the Watson Discovery Service) to learn about Watson Discovery and how NLP has evolved. We talk to Phil about how Watson Discovery can help you better understand business specific data and be more productive, along with hearing about the innovation needed to grasp the nuance of natural language. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders (#thinkLeaders) “Where natural language processing is, is it understands not just the words that are in there, but also the intent and also sentiment and the emotion and all the things around that that are too nuanced traditionally for computers to understand. And so when I talk of NLP, I really think of how you take those technologies of communicating human language, and understanding a real business need you can use to serve your customer.”

Can we teach algorithms to understand human emotions? Are humans okay with being vulnerable toward an AI agent? How can biofeedback help us to be caring, empathetic, and aware individuals? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guest Ivy Mahsciao (founder & CPO at Evermind AI) to discuss whether AI has the potential to make us “more human.” Ivy describes her motivations for founding Evermind AI, a live journaling platform, and the difficulty of capturing the context of feeling versus mere content. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders (#thinkLeaders) “But as we know, the human emotions are so complex and there's nothing efficient about feelings. Having Evermind positioned in a way that can start to train our models to be empathetic and to have the human sense and tone is one way of getting to that generalized artificial intelligence.” “The added dimension of triangulation is what will be really important. Voice is just really one aspect of being able to understand and the deeper meanings of how people are feeling and sensing. And obviously, if you overlay on top of that with eyes and reading to their facial expressions, I think that's another layer.”

What are the ways that AI can be leveraged for good? How can we increase AI and digital literacies? What are some ways we can expand AI for everyone? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guest Karen Bhatia (Senior Vice President at the New York City Economic Development Corporation) to discuss how we can expand access to digital literacies, the need for a multidisciplinary approach to AI, and the importance of "responsible AI." Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders (#thinkLeaders) & our guest at: @karenbhatia “There is also another critical component, too, and that is thinking about the other types of jobs that are being created as a result of these emerging technologies and as a result of artificial intelligence growing. And that is people who are better able to understand what the technology is capable of and people who have the business savvy. Not only the technology skills. You don’t have to be a coder in order to understand what the benefits of this technology could be.” -Karen Bhatia "We're also thinking about the kind of digital literacy and literacy about data, as well as artificial intelligence, that needs to happen across the board, including with government. Also including just the public sector. And what I mean by that is just civil society, the everyday public. Better understanding what their data is being used for, how it's being used, what are their rights when it comes to data. Secondly, better understanding of what is artificial intelligence? How is it being used right now? How is it affecting them right now as well?" -Karen Bhatia

How can we better promote AI literacy? What skills are commonly lacking in organizations? Are new people entering the field considering bias in AI? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guest Hugo Bowne-Anderson (Data Scientist at DataCamp) to discuss how we can better promote AI and digital skills. We talk to Hugo about the skills that people often overlook, how to build out successful teams, and how new people interested in AI can overcome hesitations. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders (#thinkLeaders) & our guest at: @hugobowne @DataCamp

Can something as esoteric as wisdom be gathered through AI? Listen to our conversation about wisdom, AI, and building new tech leaders to tackle big problems. In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Dana Griffin. Dana is the founder & CEO of INNRwisdom, an AI company seeking to capture the wisdom of our elders. We talk to Dana about her motivation for wanting to gather the wisdom of others, how we can focus more attention on AI for Good projects, and the ways in which women are well-suited toward AI as a field. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders (#thinkLeaders) & Dana Griffin at @DanaAGriffin “The only way that we can go from having intelligent algorithms that can help solve one problem very well in a container, if you may, to something that can actually help us develop new solutions for some of the biggest issues we have globally is by taking in as much of our humanity as possible and mixing it together with the technology.”-Dana Griffin “As humans we've adapted to technology rather than technology adapting to us. The beautiful thing that our elders have done and now the very young generation is doing, is that they're using technology in a way that's very human.”-Dana Griffin

How can we increase the number of women in AI? What is the role of successful women in AI to provide future opportunities? How should businesses be adjusting? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Lili Gil Valletta (Co-Founder and CEO, CIEN+ and Culturintel) & Amanda Stent (Natural Language Processing Architect in the Office of the CTO at Bloomberg). We talk to Lili and Amanda about building a culture of mentorship around women in AI, how they can be strength in vulnerability and the importance of creating pathways for non-traditional backgrounds to work in AI. “I think we need both men and women together realizing that getting more women in tech is not about being P.C. and doing the right thing...It's about recognizing that 80 percent of consumer spending decisions in this country are done by a woman. So anything you're designing, if it doesn't have a female perspective, you're probably going to have an incomplete perspective.” Lili Gil Valletta (Co-Founder and CEO, CIEN+ and Culturintel “If we can support women when they are inside computing and technical careers and really allow them to reach the stage where they are running companies, provide them with the mentorship, the venture capital, if we have men who are willing to be mentored by and collaborate with women actively, not just mentor them, but be willing to be led by women, that way we can encourage women to really become part of and continue as part of technology as a field.” Amanda Stent (Natural Language Processing Architect in the Office of the CTO at Bloomberg) Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders (#thinkLeaders) & the guests at: @AStent @techatbloomberg @liligil @culturintel

How do we display a clear ROI with AI? What are the common pain points in the workforce that AI can be applied to? How are we adjusting to disruption? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Denise Broady (COO At WorkForce Software) & Roy Girasa (Professor of Law, Pace University). We talk to Denise and Roy about the delicate issue of trust when integrating AI in the workplace, what we can do to increase AI literacy, and how AI is augmenting their own intelligence. “[Y]ou really have to look at the use case and make sure that's getting adopted appropriately and tied with the ROI, not just purely rolling out technology for technology's sake.” -Denise Broady, COO At WorkForce Software Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders & the guests at: @dvubroady @WorkForceSW

What professions will be most impacted by AI? How can we ensure we are using AI to solve meaningful problems? Are companies prepared for the ongoing digital transformation? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Jason Tan (co-founder & CEO of Sift) & Karina Grosheva (founder & CEO of TaQadam. We talk to Jason and Karina about making sure humans are in the loop, adding greater diversity in the data, and the importance of AI literacy. “[A]s a buyer of software, I think it's important to educate yourself and understand the nuances of the different types of machine learning, the different qualities of machine learning, and make sure that you're trying to solve a problem in a meaningful way rather than having a hammer where everything looks like a nail.” -Jason Tan, co-founder & CEO of Sift “[T]he idea that we bring more diversity into the data and training the data is where we need to be investing in.” -Karina Grosheva, founder & CEO of TaQadam Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders & the guests at: @GetSift @JasonTan @MovetheGlobe @taqadamprogress

How can AI better serve as a companion for employees to improve efficiency and quality? Are companies applying AI to the right problems? How has the narrative around AI changed in recent years? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Josh Miramant (CEO of Blue Orange Digital) & Joe Ciuffo (Product Marketing Director for Genesys). We talk to Josh and Joe about using AI to improve the employee experience, focusing on core problems with AI, getting employee buy-in by better explaining its benefits, and also how society's impression of AI has gone from the threatening Terminator to the helpful Pokemon. Hosted by Amanda Thurston & Emily Winchurch. "The actual adoption of successful artificial intelligence is directly related to how people understand it and use it." -Josh Miramant, CEO of Blue Orange Digital "I think we first saw it [AI] maybe as Terminator, everyone was afraid it was going to take over the world. And now it's more like a cute Pokemon. It's there to help you. So it's been a good transition, but I think our expectations are getting more realistic and grounded too."-Joe Ciuffo, Product Marketing Director for Genesys Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders & the guests at: @jmiramant @BlueOrangeData @Joe_Ciuffo @Genesys @MandyLewToYou (host)

Are companies collecting the right data for the customer experience? Would people rather chat with a bot or a human? How do companies ensure they reach customers the way they liked to be reached? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Ido Bornstein-HaCohen (CEO of Conversocial) & Gabe Larsen (VP of Growth at Kustomer). We talk to Ido and Gabe about using bots to deflect reduce expensive FAQ-type interactions, treating customers as unique individuals as opposed to tickets, and using AI to augment customer service agents and improve the overall customer journey. Hosted by Amanda Thurston & Emily Winchurch. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders & the guests at: @IdoHacohen @Conversocial @GabeLarsen @Kustomer @MandyLewToYou (host) "[W]e're pretty good at understanding the inputs. But you know, the challenging piece is really understanding the outputs." -Ido Bornstein-HaCohen, CEO of Conversocial "I think we've got to get better at personalizing, not around the account but at the persona or the industry." -Gabe Larsen, VP of Growth at Kustomer

How do you appeal a blackbox algorithm? How do we balance equity and efficiency? What is explainable AI and why is it essential to ensure fairness, accountability, and transparency? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Renée Cummings (AI criminologist & principal consultant at Urban AI ) & Niki Athanasiadou (data scientist at H2O.ai & principal data scientist and owner of Common Sense Analytics, LLC). We talk to Renée and Niki about ensuring that "AI is not just speaking to AI," increasing education around AI and the diversity of talent in the space, and the importance of considering fairness, transparency, and explainability when building models. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders + the guests at: @CummingsRenee @RodonikiA “if we want to make algorithms or make AI as human as possible, then we've got to bring those other human aspects that make us who we are as a democracy in a society. So it comes back to your rights.” -Renée Cummings (AI criminologist & principal consultant at Urban AI "What we have is a lot of fear, a lot of misunderstanding. And at the end of the day, I think AI brings us in front of what humanity needs to do, who need to be responsible. We need to grow up and we need to start thinking seriously about how we want to live in what societies we want to live. " -Niki Athanasiadou, data scientist at H2O.ai & principal data scientist and owner of Common Sense Analytics, LLC

What's the ROI for businesses applying AI? How can organizations democratize the use of AI? Are businesses ensuring that humans are kept in the loop with AI? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Rob Key (Founder & CEO of Converseon) & Chris Duffy (Author of Superhuman Innovation: Transforming Business with Artificial Intelligence & Strategic Development manager at Adobe). We talk to Rob and Chris about digital transformation, human-centered AI, and the importance of considering fairness, transparency, and explainability when building models. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders + the guests at: @robkey @converseon @DuffeyChris “The challenge with transformation within companies is that companies don't transform necessarily themselves. People transform. And if you can get enough people within an organization to be able to change and transform and embrace new technologies, then eventually the company will as well.” -Rob Key, Founder & CEO of Converseon “I think everyone agrees we have to move beyond advertising to create great experiences. A subset of that is personalization at scale, but the differentiator still comes back to an inherently innate human quality. And that's creativity. That's still going to be the differentiator. So companies that can create at scale but have that human magic will be the winners of tomorrow.” -Chris Duffy, author of Superhuman Innovation: Transforming Business with Artificial Intelligence & Strategic Development manager at Adobe

How do we grow smart cities without growing inequality? How can public officials become more responsive to its citizens? What are the new job titles emerging in smart cities? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Governor Martin O’Malley (author of Smarter Government: How to Govern for Results in the Information Age, former Governor of Maryland & Mayor of Baltimore) & Alexander Shermansong (founder of Civic Consulting USA, faculty at NYU). We talk to Martin and Alexander about the emergence of a more customer-centric form of governing, the role of cities in tackling major issues like climate change, and why a “smart city” is more than just a city with smart garbage cans. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders + the guests at: @MartinOMalley @alexshermansong “In the Information Age, citizens demand that their leaders have the guts to show them why they're making a decision. That doesn't mean that once people understand why you're making the decision, they will all agree. People reserve their right to vote against, but they do expect the respect of showing why you're making a decision on what basis, what is the objective truth.” -Martin O’Malley, author of Smarter Government: How to Govern for Results in the Information Age, former Governor of Maryland & Mayor of Baltimore “[G]overnment has pushed the ball pretty far in terms of smart cities and entrepreneurialism and we're seeing a lot of reaction from the private sector saying, ‘Wow, there's actually a lot we could be doing around transportation, around sanitation, around these other areas.’ And there's now a host of startups anxious to get into government and see how they might either provide the same services government has been providing or in some ways to improve upon them.”-Alexander Shermansong, founder of Civic Consulting USA, faculty at NYU -- MARTIN O'MALLEY Just two years after his upset election as Mayor of Baltimore in 1999, Time Magazine named Martin O’Malley one of the top five big city mayors in America. His new data-driven system of performance management, “Citistat,” earned his City the Innovations in Government Award from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 2002 and has been copied by mayors across the country and around the world. When he ran for his Party’s nomination for President in 2016 — after two highly successful terms as Governor of Maryland — Washingtonian Magazine called him “probably the best manager in elected office today.” As Mayor, O’Malley set Baltimore on course for the largest ten year reduction of crime of any major city in America. As Governor, O’Malley’s leadership made Maryland’s public schools #1 in America for an unprecedented five years in a row. And with a new performance management regimen called, “Baystat”, O’Malley turned around a 300 year decline in the health of the Chesapeake Bay — the largest estuary in North America. O’Malley was the first of a new generation of Smart City mayors that would follow. In fact, his performance management system, Citistat — and it’s Maryland progeny, Statestat — also inspired key amendments to the Government Performance and Results Act; foundational requirements intended to drive data-driven management practices across federal agencies today. In his new book, “Smarter Government”, O’Malley lays out in his own words how to govern for better results in the Information Age. It is a formula that every elected leader has the ability to call into service. But it requires a radical commitment to openness and transparency. The courage to follow the data wherever it might lead. A relentless commitment to measuring the outputs of government on a real-time basis. It is all about producing better results — real-time — for real people. The book was published in the fall of 2019 by Esri Press.

How can we properly leverage data to drive experiences? Are we distinguishing between fame and true influence when using influencer marketing? What happens when brands chase trends instead of having a clear vision? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Gil Eyal (founder & CEO of HYPR) & David Berkowitz (founder & CEO of Serial Marketer). We talk to Gil and David about the limitations of data scientists, how brands can create an emotional connection to users, whether NPS is a worthwhile tool, and why podcasts are becoming a popular and effective medium for advertising. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders + the guests at: @gileyal @HYPRBRANDS @dberkowitz @MandyLewToYou "Sometimes the overuse of data creates a creepy experience that on paper should be great. You know, super customized, the super personalized, but really on the other side it's received as, 'why do they know so much about me?'"-Gil Eyal (founder & CEO of HYPR)

Can Millennials and Boomers get along in the workplace? Will traditional college degrees become a thing of the past? What is the role of industry with reskilling? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Lindsey Pollak (multigenerational workplace expert + author) & Josuel Plasencia (Co-Founder and COO of Forefront). We talk to Lindsey and Joseul the how the workplace is being disrupted, the difficulty of dealing with five distinct generations in the workplace, ensuring that diverse voices are included in decisions, life-long learning, and so much more! Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders + the guests at: @lindseypollak @josuelplasencia @_Forefront “The role of technology is evident. It's going to continue to have a larger influence in our lives. So I think we need to really ask ourselves and really look at each other in the eye and say, what is behind this code? What is behind these companies? What are the systems we have in place to check, and how can we as a community track progress and monitor progress as it relates to these technologies in the workplace.” -Josuel Plasencia, Co-Founder and COO of Forefront “I think we often don't acknowledge how massive the upheaval that we're going through right now is. And I know we talk about that in terms of technology and the divisiveness of our country, but the generational upheaval that is taking place is unprecedented.” -Lindsey Pollak, multigenerational workplace expert + author

How does a brand connect to its customers on a deep, emotional level? Are the product and the brand synonymous? How does social media impact product development? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Nadine McCarthy Kahane (Founder of STONE AND STRAND) & Mark Prommel (partner and design lead at PENSA). We talk to Nadine and Mark about the double-edged sword of social media with brand messaging, the difficulties of scaling, matching your visual brand identity with the emotions of your customers, and so much more! Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders + the guests at: @markprommel @thinkpensa @StoneandStrand “I'd say we have a little bit of a different take on brand is that we're always saying that the product is the brand and let's define what the product is. And if we get that right and we get what people really need and what people are searching for, then the brand can constantly be built on that and constantly refer back to it as well.”-Mark Prommel, partner and design lead at PENSA "I think one of the questions for brands is, as you choose to scale, do you create multiple niches or do you try to expand within your same segment but dilute your value proposition?" -Nadine McCarthy Kahane, Founder of STONE AND STRAND

Can we understand someone through their writing style and social media profile? What do we mean by human-centered communication? Is it cool or creepy when a brand knows exactly what their customer wants? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Drew D’Agostino (CEO of Crystal) & Touseef Mirza (CoFounder, CoreConnect Conference and Adjunct Professor, NYU). We talk to Drew and Touseef about connecting to customers on a visceral level, the importance of empathy, how to build trust in a relationship, being mindful of algorithmic bias, and so much more! Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders + the guests at: @DrewDAgostino @CrystalKnowsMe @tmirza @coreconnectnow “How do we merge this new world of connection authentically with a person, as well as using the tools with have to reach them?” -Touseef Mirza, Co-founder of CoreConnect Conference and Adjunct Professor, NYU “I think that more and more people are becoming comfortable with ML recommendations…..but there are different areas where it can seem invasive, particularly where it hits close to home.” Drew D’Agostino, CEO of Crystal

Will we have push notifications with voice in the future? How personalized do consumers want their experience to be? How does voice fit into a brand's strategy? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Matt Listro (VP of Business Development at Mmuze) & Rachel Scherer (head of Visible Consulting Group). We talk to Matt and Rachel about t personifying a brand, the difficulty of injecting humor with a brand's voice, how early chatbots didn't live up to the hype, bot transparency, and so much more! Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders + the guests at: @MmuzeAI @RachelSchererNY “What we're seeing increasingly is that it's important that you essentially have this language intelligence, this brand brain, so to speak, that is powering all of these channels. So no matter what the touch point, there's consistency.” -Matt Listro, VP of Business Development at Mmuze “In learning whatever your brand voice is in creating that brand strategy, I think part of the recommendation...is to not just create an idealized version of what that voice is.”-Rachel Scherer, head of Visible Consulting Group

If female-run startups outperform male-run startups, why is there a massive disparity in funding? What cultural changes need to take place in order to increase women in STEM careers? How can men be allies to women in tech? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Rachel Renock (CEO of Wethos) & Preeti Adhikary (VP of marketing, Fusemachines). We talk to Rachel and Preeti about the importance of mentorship, the responsibility of marketers to flip the script, and making gender equity a business priority. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders + the guests at: @rachren1 @wethosco @PreetiAdhikary “It's one thing to put women in positions of power, open doors of opportunity. It's another thing to have those places be welcoming. People have to be cognizant of different working styles and different strengths and weaknesses and that ultimately makes a stronger team.” -Rachel Renock, CEO of Wethos “One of my big consistent advice to the women on my team is that they need to be authentic. Being able to share, even with your team who you are is really important. I feel like you shouldn't really be carrying that mask and showing people a very different side of who you are.” -Preeti Adhikary, VP of marketing at Fusemachines

Why are we more afraid of Terminator than the real risk of algorithmic bias? How can the basic understanding of AI in the many sectors that are applying and relying on it? Is there a way to operationalize trust in AI? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Nicolas Economou (CEO of H5) & Sarah Judd (Curriculum Manager for open learning at AI4ALL). We talk to Nicolas and Sarah about the importance of auditing AI, increasing AI education for underrepresented groups, and ensuring that democratic values are baked into AI. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders @H5technologies @ai4allorg “One of the main reasons I got into teaching AI to high schoolers is to have a populace that is more informed about what is actually scary and what is not actually scary and how we can mitigate the risks of the things that are actually scary.” Sarah Judd, Curriculum Manager for open learning at AI4ALL “It seems like in many, many areas we're falling into a sort of a, what I call an efficiency trap, where we rely on AI to produce results quickly. Forgetting that along the way it may be that the decisions or predictions being made do not uphold the values that we care about in a democratic order.” -Nicolas Economou, CEO of H5

The products are changing, the market is changing, and the customers are changing. So how do you make sure that AI is manifesting your brand’s objective during this time of disruption? How do marketers adjust to the shifting landscape? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Anthony Mavromatis (VP of Customer Marketing Analytics & Data Science at American Express) & Jeanne Hopkins (CMO at Lola.com). We talk to Anthony and Jeanne about whether marketers are spending enough time with data, what AI can and can't do for marketers, and the tremendous importance of trust when it comes to data usage. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders @jeannehopkins @LolaTravel @AmericanExpress “I think that many marketers need to be a little bit more curious. You need to be more curious about your customers. You need to be more curious about your community, your prospect base, and oftentimes that curiosity can be solved by some of this data.” -Jeanne Hopkins, CMO at Lola.com “Along with a sense of the numbers, there's also a sense of what the AI is doing behind those numbers--that lead to those numbers. And I think that that's a skill set that many marketers need to acquire now because the reality is that AI is powering today a lot of the experiences and it's only going to increase. So the onus really is on the marketer to work with our data science team to understand like what is it that we want the experience to be? How do we want our brand or brand values to manifest?” -Anthony Mavromatis, VP of Customer Marketing Analytics & Data Science at American Express

What is a brand’s voice on a particular channel? Can a brand really be everywhere? Why do people hate ads? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Oz Etzioni (CEO of Clinch) & Cleber Dantas (Global Martech Director at Anheuser-Busch InBev). We talk to Oz and Cleber about the future of cookies, how AI can be used to optimize data use, and the need for teams to develop a newsroom mindset. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders @ozetzioni @cleber7dantas “There was a huge race to collect a lot of data and know more and more about the consumer. Now the big task and challenge is, “What do you do with that data? How do we execute on that data?”’ -Oz Etzioni, CEO of Clinch “You cannot just be in a channel, and promote the content one week and then one month later you promote again. You need to be actively participating in it.” -Cleber Dantas, Global Martech Director at Anheuser-Busch InBev

Are we meeting the promise of AI in cybersecurity that can be predictive and prescriptive? Do we fail to appreciate the value of "data wranglers" involved in data curation and governance? What keeps our experts up at night? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by guests Steve Orrin (Federal CTO for Intel Corporation)& Brandon Daniels (Exiger’s President of Global Technology Markets). We talk to Steve and Brandon about how we can move past the toddler stage with AI in cybersecurity, data valuation versus monetization, and organizations shouldn't assume they can just sprinkle on some "AI pixie dust." Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders “Where I think the real promise is, and again, this is the promise we're not there yet, is when we start to use AI to get beyond the, when I called diagnostic, what happened? What's that thing over there to more predictive and prescriptive when we can use AI machine learning to tell me not what's currently going on, because we do need to do that, but what's going to happen or why is certain things happening the way they are and get into that mode of where I can leverage this new technology, new tool to get ahead of the curve. “ -Steve Orrin, Federal CTO for Intel Corporation “[I]n the context of...artificial intelligence in cybersecurity data governance is almost that primary foundational building block upon which AI can run. We have in many cases skipped steps one through five and gone straight to step six and tried to apply artificial intelligence without the data being available to recreate the decision making that a human otherwise would if they had limitless time and limitless capacity, which is really the promise of AI.” -Brandon Daniels, Exiger’s President of Global Technology Markets

How do we ensure consumer trust with marketing? Do consumers or even advertisers fully understand how data is being used? What are the ethical implications and responsibilities of handling valuable data? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, guests Samantha Wolfe (Managing Partner of We Are Phase2) & Devon DeBlasio (Product Marketing Director at Neustar) join host Amanda Thurston and guest co-host Eric Martinez (co-founder of Studio Bonafide). We talk to Samantha and Devon about the difficulty of understanding how data is used in marketing, the growing responsibility of tech companies, and how business models of major companies are quickly changing shape. We also get into augmented reality, deep fakes, and trying to reach one-to-one addressability. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders @samanthagwolfe @DevonDeBlasio "[T]here's probably certain ways to be able to simplify the question to the end consumer of saying, you know, do you want to give more data and then have a better experience or do you want less data and have not as good of an experience, but then you sort of lower your risks." -Samantha Wolfe, Manager Partner at We Are Phase 2 "I think having the one-to-one or even one-top many connection of having something physically on you, that you're engaging with, which is almost like a virtual store, so to speak, I think that's exciting. But also I'm very curious about what is actually usable." -Devon DeBlasio, Product Marketing Director at Neustar

What is City as a Service (CaaS)? How can we ensure that cities have tech that is accessible, inclusive, and equitable? Can tech increase civic engagement? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Yale Fox (Founder & CEO at Rentlogic) & Samantha Wu (Data Policy Consultant). We talk to Yale and Sam about the need for cities to be in the cloud, the problem of the digital divide presents, and the major need for cities to have software that is updated and patchable. We also get into the roles that cities should be hiring for, the issue of ransomware, and how every city should think of having an undo function. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders @yalefox @wuster12 “[C]ities are getting a lot of pressure to buy the newest thing to make sure they have artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain without really thinking about, okay, where are those services now and how do we build into those, the newer technology, how do we bring everybody along for the ride instead of always chasing the newest thing and then forgetting about our current level of services?” -Sam Wu, Data Policy Consultant “[Y]ou can't slow down the innovation. That's never gonna happen. And just from a branding perspective, no city wants to have anything to do with that...Doesn't mean you can't have these conversations about all these other cool things that are coming and keep them on your radar. But when you take a step to spend money that's public dollars or something that's going to affect the people that the government is supposed to support, that should be conservative, slow incremental steps with like an almost like an undo function.”-Yale Fox, Founder & CEO at Rentlogic

How do we balance the art of a sport with data analytics? Can data account for the unpredictability of a player’s performance? What will the fan experience be in the future? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Sebastian Oddo (Senior Vice President of Innovation for Octagon) & Qiana Martin(owner of Eat Soccer). We talk to Sebastian and Qiana about how AI is impacting athletic performance, the fan experience in a stadium, and how we watch a game at home. We also get into the rise of eSports, what leagues can do to engage distracted fans, and how players may be mimicking moves they learned in a video game. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders @bepositive @QianaRana “[T]he interesting part about AI is that it uses historical data, right? And sports is the sports industry has captured data for as long as I can remember...they're sitting on the perfect opportunity for AI within the leagues and within the teams. “ -Sebastian Oddo, Senior Vice President of Innovation for Octagon “I think you still have to have that balance between the art of this sport, which is something soccer is known for. Kind of the je ne sais quoi, the joga bonito of soccer versus the data analytics that says perhaps you need to bench this player and put someone else in.” -Qiana Martin, owner of Eat Soccer

How are we designing technology and how is technology designing us? Should we upload our consciousness to the web? How do we bring empathy into tech design? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Gray Scott (futurist, techno-philosopher, and host of the digital philosophy YouTube show FUTURISTIC NOW) & Pamela Pavliscak (emotional AI researcher & faculty at Pratt Institute). We talk to Gray and Pamela about how we are co-evolving with tech, the importance of empathy in design, and whether or not we will be uploading our consciousness in the future. We also get into what it means to be human and whether humanness can be replicated, the need for multidisciplinary thinking, and how a technologist's outlook on the world impacts their design. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders @GrayScott @PamInTheLab “I think we should all remember is life is an experiment. We don't have it figured out. We don't have it all figured out yet. So technologists can sort of fall under the illusion that we have the basic scaffolding of life figured out. We're far from that. We're still infants in the digital revolution and we have only barely touched the surface of first what it means to be human.”-Gray Scott, futurist “I've always come up against that tension where we have technology that makes us more productive, makes us more efficient, and now I feel like we're seeing kind of the byproduct of that carry over where we're missing something from our interactions with technology. It feels maybe too efficient or too cold or too distant...And so when this new technology is coming around promising to say to bring more empathy to our interactions, I think that's worth discussing.” -Pamela Pavliscak, emotional AI researcher

How do we ensure a collaborative space between humans and AI? Are we highlighting the ways that AI can benefit society? How can we improve the education system to better align with where we’re headed with tech? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Henna Hundal (co-founder of Azal Trust & radio host) & David Yakobovitch (Principal Data Scientist at Galvanize, host of HumAIn). We talk to Henna and David about why people may be intimidated by AI, how we can ensure the AI conversation is not too coastal, and the fear that people have about AI disruption. We also get into AI for good, the need for transparency, climate change, and the public discourse around how data is used. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders @hennahundal @davidyako “When we think about the ways that humans are needed to add value, we can think about ethically sourcing data...Making sure that AI-driven tools, the users who are interacting with them at every point in the process can know when their personal data is being harvested and can choose to accept or reject that premise whether they want it to be harvested or to what extent they want it to be harvested.” -Henna Hundal, co-founder of Azal Trust & radio host “When we look at the AI ethics space, [it] is about inclusion and bias and what are the rights and liberties for each and every person. And I think that's where it comes down to is, whether you're doing a consumer or enterprise application, are you informing your audience about what's possible?” - David Yakobovitch, Principal Data Scientist at Galvanize, host of HumAIn

How do companies move past mere compliance and focus on doing the right thing? Do companies need data stewards and ethicists? How are business, technology, and humanities blending? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Michael Brent (Data Ethics Officer at Enigma Technologies) & Jennifer Fischer (AI Ethicist and Associate Professor at Felician University). We talk about going from STEM to STEAM, understanding data practices and governance, and the impact that GDPR is having on American companies. We also get into how we can be proactive with data practices, as opposed to reactive with regulation. Connect with us @IBMthinkLeaders “What is this product going to do? Who will it serve and what results will it deliver to them? That's a way to start thinking about the ethics of what we should be building and how we should be using this information.” -Michael Brent, Data Ethics Officer at Enigma Technologies “What I've seen is...a challenge around the knowledge and awareness and transparency that goes along with providing a rich data governance set without it being so burdensome that then you're slowing down your delivery teams.” -Jennifer Fischer, AI Ethicist and Associate Professor at Felician University BIOS Michael Brent is the Data Ethics Officer at Enigma Technologies in New York City, and a Co-founding Faculty Member of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Hailing originally from Toronto, Canada, he earned his PhD in Philosophy from Columbia University, and taught for several years at the University of Denver before returning to the city to join Enigma as their first Data Ethics Officer. -- Jennifer Fischer is an AI Ethicist and Associate Professor at Felician University. She is a frequent speaker on topics related to development and use of intelligent technologies, applied digital ethics, human-robot interaction and future of work; in context of business; data privacy; legal & regulatory compliance; algorithmic bias; cyber-risk; and impacts of techno-social engineering upon the individual and society. Ms. Fischer brings real-world experience to teaching. Most recently, as the Global Head of Platform Security Management for KPMG International; and with +25 years’ experience as a Global IT Executive serving in transformation leadership positions to optimize business performance, manage risk effectively and help organizations adapt to changing business conditions. .

Is a smart city more about people or technology? What would a smarter New York City look like? How can we ensure that a smart city is not a nightmare for privacy? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Mike Barlow (coauthor of Smart Cities, Smart Future, managing partner at Cumulus Partners) & Dan Wu (Privacy counsel and legal engineer at Immuta). We talk sensors, optimization, and the need for greater civic engagement when building smart cities. We also get into whether smart cities will usher in a Utopia or Dystopia, and how smart cities may reinvent democracy. Connect with us + the guests: @IBMthinkLeaders @ImmutaData @mike7pilot “For me, a smart city is about thinking about the process of making smarter decisions and more capacity. And that includes not only physical technological infrastructure but also, and a lot of people forget this, it's the scientific and civic infrastructure. How we make decisions.” -Dan Wu “I would define smart cities as places that use digital technologies, and this is key, 21st-century marketing techniques to communicate with citizens, to engage with citizens and to inspire higher levels of citizen engagement in the ongoing development of public policy. This is absolutely essential. In other words, they have to be democracy incubators. We have to reinvent democracy and grassroots participation in the city.” -Mike Barlow BIOS Mike Barlow is an award-winning journalist, prolific author, and business strategy consultant. He is the author of Learning to Love Data Science (O’Reilly 2015), and co-author of Smart Cities, Smart Future (Wiley 2019), The Executive’s Guide to Enterprise Social Media Strategy (Wiley 2011), and Partnering with the CIO (Wiley 2007). He is also the author of many articles, reports, and white papers on numerous topics including AI, machine learning, IoT governance, ambient computing, predictive maintenance, advanced data analytics, and digital transformation. Over the course of a long career, he was a reporter and editor at several respected suburban daily newspapers, including The Journal News and the Stamford Advocate. His feature stories and columns appeared regularly in The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, Newsday, and other major US dailies. He has written extensively on data science topics for O’Reilly Media and other publishers. Dan Wu is the privacy counsel and legal engineer at Immuta. Immuta lets companies share data safely and quickly -- to accelerate ethical analytics and protect trust. All without writing code, the platform helps companies restrict who can access data, apply privacy-protecting algorithms, enable purpose restrictions, and audit processing. Wu received his JD/PhD from Harvard, with a research focus on urban innovation. He’s privacy counsel and legal engineer at a data management platform for artificial intelligence. Through this work, he’s engaged with governance and IT personnel of large multinational companies on data governance and published pieces in Dataversity, Tech Pro IT, and Healthcare Business Today.

Who is most responsible for the ethical growth of AI--technology vendors, companies, or governmental entities? How can we ensure that technology is augmenting intelligence? How do we get around the tension between profitability and social responsibility? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Xena Ugrinsky (Founder of GenreX) and Meeri Haataja (CEO and Co-Founder of Saidot. We talk to Xena and Meeri about business transformation, senior management’s role in job reskilling, and the importance of having a multidisciplinary team capable of an iterative process. We also get into the problem of thinking of AI as magic, Finland’s national AI program, the need for collaboration within the industry, and how it’s difficult to determine the best application for AI. “[I]t takes a village [for AI and ethics]. Enterprise-wide solutions take an even larger village and so when you have a mismatch of values, you immediately have a deterioration of the value the collective can bring. Ethics and AI are probably one of the, one of the most challenging topics that we are going to have to wrestle with over the next couple of years.” -Xena Ugrinsky, Founder of GenreX “[A]sking what's the best application for AI is like it will be asking what's the best use case for [the] Internet. So it's sort of like, it's impossible. It goes across everything.”-Meeri Haataja, CEO and Co-Founder of Saidot Connect with us + the guests: @IBMthinkLeaders @QueenOfDataTech @meerihaataja BIOS Xena Ugrinsky is the founder & principal of Genre-X, and the author of Enterprise AI: Your Field Guide to the New Business Normal. She frequently speaks on topics related to the application of advanced analytics to systems modernization and business transformation. She provides strategy and client advisory related to implementing advanced analytics maturity in support of solving business issues for finance, operations, sales, and marketing. Prior to founding GenreX, Ms. Ugrinsky was a Senior Vice President of Analytics, Cloud, and Strategy in the Civil Commercial Group at Booz Allen Hamilton. In that role, she was part of the leadership team that led Booz Allen’s efforts defining a commercial strategy that translated offerings and services provided in the federal and civil markets to the commercial market. Meeri is the CEO and Co-Founder of Saidot, a start-up with a mission for enabling responsible AI ecosystems. Saidot develops technology and services for AI risk management, focusing on transparency, accountability and agreements on AI. Meeri was the chair of ethics working group in Finland’s national AI program that submitted its final report in March 2019. In this role she initiated a national AI ethics challenge and engaged more than 70 organizations to commit to ethical use of AI and define ethics principles. Meeri is also the Chair of IEEE’s initiative for the creation of AI ethics certificates in ECPAIS program (Ethics Certification Program for Autonomous and Intelligent Systems). Meeri is an Affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University during the academic year 2019-2020 with a focus on projects related to building citizen trust through AI transparency as well as developing certifications for judicial AI systems. Meeri is an active advocate of responsible and human-centric AI. She’s an experienced public speaker regularly speaking at international conferences and seminars on AI opportunities and AI ethics.

Do we really know how our customers feel? Should marketers focus more on small data or big data for insight? What metrics should marketers be looking at? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Dawn Colossi (CMO at FocusVision) and Greg Calacouris (Senior Strategist at Wunderman Thompson). We talk to Dawn and Greg about the problem of survey data, how organizations are leveraging their CMOs, whether MarTech is now synonymous with marketing, and Amanda’s distaste for ROI. We also get into subscriptions versus selling ads, qualitative data versus quantitative data, brand strategy, and whether the best way to truly understand human behavior is to watch someone on the subway. “[T]here's no artificial intelligence that's going to be able to talk to humans the way humans can talk to humans. And the most successful companies have found that feeling is what drives people to buy. And I don't believe there's any technology that is going to tap into human feelings to be able to let them buy. So you're still gonna need a human being behind that messaging and behind that positioning.” -Dawn Colossi, CMO at FocusVision “Whenever I look at doing research, I always look at first-hand data, particularly what people are doing. Behavioral data on platform analytics rather than surveys. But qualitative data, talking to people is always the most important thing. And some of the most interesting things I've learned from customers is actually just cornering people on the street.” -Greg Calacouris (Senior Strategist at Wunderman Thompson) “[The value of marketing right now feels like it's moving in the direction of community building and bringing people together in a way that engages them and makes them feel part of something because there is so much alienation in the way that we consume content.” Host Amanda Thurston, IBM iX Connect with us + the guests: @IBMthinkLeaders @MandyLewToYou @DawnColossi @FocusVisionInfo @gcalacouris @WunThompson BIOS Dawn Colossi is a transformative marketing communications professional with 20-plus years’ experience in Marketing, Corporate Communications and Public Relations. As the CMO for FocusVision, Ms. Colossi drives marketing strategy to create WW marketing strategy to drive revenue through brand and demand. Ms. Colossi is a thought leader in digital marketing transformation, marketing strategy and demand generation publishing numerous articles; being interviewed and featured in a wide variety of publications and a featured speaker at industry and digital events. == Greg Calacouris is a Senior Strategist with a digital product specialization. He has over 7 years’ experience working with brands in the digital space across social media advertising, communications, and product strategy. He is passionate about understanding how technology and human habits intersect, and is a fan of sandwiches. With his specialization in product strategy, Greg analyzes user data, conducts usability testing, and creates customer journeys. He identifies design challenges for the team to solve and presents as strategic product roadmaps.

Are demographics worthless? How do we strike a balance with personalization? What responsibility do companies have with data? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by David Allison (founder of the Valuegraphics Database) and Lauren Maffeo (associate principal analyst at GetApp). We talk to David and Lauren about what the best way to understand a customer is, tailoring experiences based on behavioral data, and the importance of making consumers aware of how their data is used. We also get into data governance, GDPR, algorithmic bias, gender bias, and whether predictive analytics offends our notions of free will. “Technologies need to understand what we care about, they need to understand what our values are first and foremost, and then start making decisions about some of these finer points around option a, stimulus B, whatever the scenario might be. The root of it though needs to be what we find important.” -David Allison, founder of the Valuegraphics Database “I think there's a general sentiment that we as consumers find it creepy and yet the benefits of saving time and all of that outweigh that sentiment. And until we see a big impact in behavior, AKA people abandoning these top five brands that have all of this data, I think the sentiment only goes so far because thus far we haven't really seen it change people's behavior or engagements with these brands in a significant way.” -Lauren Maffeo, associate principal analyst at GetApp Connect with us: @IBMthinkLeaders @AudienceValues @LaurenMaffeo BIOS DAVID ALLISON David Allison has spent his career helping organizations motivate, influence and engage audiences. He is the founder of Valuegraphics, the world's first database that can verify what your target audience wants and what messages will trigger them to act. The data contains insights from 250,000 surveys about 380 metrics in 59 countries, and will be globally representative by 2020, with a data accuracy and confidence that surpasses benchmarks for any PhD thesis. His bestselling book, WE ARE ALL THE SAME AGE NOW: THE END OF DEMOGRAPHIC STEREOTYPES was listed by INC Magazine as one of the top ten leadership books of the year, and Kirkus reviews called it a "genuinely authentic contribution to the field of marketing literature." LAUREN MAFFEO Lauren Maffeo has reported on and worked within the global technology sector. She started her career as a freelance journalist covering tech trends for The Guardian and The Next Web from London. Today, she works as an associate principal analyst at GetApp (a Gartner company), where she covers the impact of emerging tech like AI and blockchain on small and midsize business owners. She is also a community moderator for OpenSource.comand a member of the ACM's Distinguished Speakers Program. Lauren has been cited by sources such as Information Management, TechTarget, CIO Online, DevOps Digest, The Atlantic, Entrepreneur, and Inc.com. Her writing on technology has also been cited by researchers at Cornell Law School, Northwestern University, and the University of Cambridge. She has spoken at global events including Gartner’s Symposium in Florida, The World Web Forum in Zurich, Open Source Summit North America in Vancouver, and DrupalCon in Seattle. In 2017, Lauren was named to The Drum’s 50 Under 30 list of women worth watching in digital. That same year, she helped organize Women Startup Challenge Europe, which was the continent’s largest venture capital competition for women-led startups. She has served as a mentor for Girls in Technology’s Maryland chapter, and DCA Live included her in its 2018 list of “The NEW Power Women of Tech”. Lauren was also shortlisted for the Future Stars of Tech Award in AI and Machine Learning by Information Age in 2019. Lauren holds an MSc from The London School of Economics and a certificate in Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

How do companies adapt and utilize new technologies to move business models forward? Are companies adopting technology for tech sake instead of for strategic goals? How can we cut through the noise to determine what new technologies are aligned with your company? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Anita Zielina (Director of News Innovation and Leadership at Craig Newmark J-School at CUNY) and David Judge (Vice President, SAP Intelligent Enterprise Solutions). We talk to Anita and David about the role of leadership in business transformation, proof of concept fatigue, and how organizations can be more agile. We also get into incorporating diverse voices in tech, navigating a future where a company’s focus is constantly shifting, and whether the Net Promoter Score (NPS) is at all worthwhile. “Being in a decision-maker role...doesn't mean you have to understand every technological development in detail because no one can know. It's not your role as a CEO, or as a COO to understand every detail in depth, but it's your role to be able to make educated assessments of what to invest in, what not to invest in, and how to change your organizational culture.” -Anita Zielina, Director of News Innovation and Leadership at Craig Newmark J-School at CUNY “You can put a hammer in somebody's hand if they don't know how to use it, they're not going to accomplish anything much less build a house.”-David Judge, Vice President, SAP Intelligent Enterprise Solutions Connect with us: @IBMthinkLeaders @Zielina @DHJudge BIOS Anita Zielina is the Director of News Innovation and Leadership at Craig Newmark J-School at CUNY. In that role, she is responsible for all executive education at the school, training media leaders of the future in business model innovation, change management and product thinking. She is an experienced digital media executive with a focus on digital transformation, change processes and innovation management. Before that, she was Chief Product Officer and member of the management board at Neue Zuercher Zeitung Media Group in Zurich, Switzerland, where she was responsible for all digital products. She held leadership roles as digital editor and deputy Editor-in-Chief at STERN, the German weekly news magazine published by Gruner+Jahr in Hamburg, Germany, and worked as a reporter and editor at the newspaper DER STANDARD and its digital platform derStandard.at in Vienna, Austria. In 2012, Anita was the first Austrian journalist selected for the fully funded one-year Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, dedicated to entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership in journalism. There, she did research on innovation management in media and user engagement. In 2018, Anita was a visiting fellow at the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, focusing on issues around leadership in media. Anita holds an Executive MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France and a Master in Law from Vienna University. She lives in NYC with her husband Klaus. David Judge is VP of Intelligent Enterprise Solutions at SAP, and drives solution strategy for SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation. As an executive focused on innovation technologies, David guides product strategy and market awareness for multiple topics including machine learning, automation, and conversational AI. Prior to joining SAP, David was Practice Leader for Artificial Intelligence in the Emerging Business Accelerator with Cognizant, and Executive Director for Artificial Intelligence market development at IPsoft.

How much do consumers care about personalization and privacy? Is data merely bringing accountability to advertising? Are we headed towards an Agency Apocalypse? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Vic Drabicky (founder & CEO of January Digital) and Jennifer Usdan McBride (Managing Partner at We Are Phase2). We talk to Vic and Jennifer about balancing data and strategy, how digital content is not merely putting a 30-second ad on YouTube, and how the human side of marketing can ensure that advertising is not boring and vanilla. We also get into Amanda’s Instagram feed and dog food ads, the impact of GDPR, and whether everyone will have a similar wardrobe in the future. “I think content is really important, but digital content isn't just taking a thirty-second ad and putting it on YouTube.”- Jennifer Usdan McBride, Managing Partner at We Are Phase2 “What technology is bringing to this is accountability. It's getting rid of the laziness in advertising.” -Vic Drabicky, founder & CEO of January Digital Connect with us: @IBMthinkLeaders @vicdrabicky @jenunifferific BIOS Vic Drabicky, a retail and marketing expert, is the founder and CEO of January Digital, an award-winning, data-led, full funnel digital marketing agency and in-house consultancy for leading brands including David’s Bridal, Kendra Scott NARS Cosmetics, Peapod grocery delivery and TUMI. January Digital differentiates itself from traditional executional agencies by also serving as in-house business consultants. As a result, January Digital provides fully-informed strategic leadership that drives overall business growth. Named 2018’s Large Interactive Agency of the Year by the Interactive Marketing Awards and one of Inc.’s Fastest Growing Companies, January Digital has been recognized by the Content Marketing Awards, Digiday Awards, Drum US Search Awards, Glossy Awards, and US Search Awards, among others. Equally important, January Digital was named a Best Workplace by Ad Age, Fortune and Inc. for its pro-employee policies and Good Works program, created by Vic to make giving back to the community a company priority. Prior to founding January Digital, Vic led digital marketing strategy in-house and at leading agencies for renowned brands including Tory Burch, Nike, Cole Haan, and J. Crew. === Jennifer has a passion for bringing digital content, social strategy, technology and innovation to life. She has worked on notable campaigns for Google, Puma, Black Lives Matter, Johnson & Johnson, Northwell Health, Microsoft, Tribeca Film Festival, TNT & PNC Bank. Her work has been recognized by Cannes Lions, Clio, Effie, One Show, Communication Arts, D&AD, AICP, Webbys, LIA, AdWeek and NY Festivals. Some of Jennifer’s past achievements include a seismic evolution in the type of work created at J. Walter Thompson. With a focus on innovation, rooted in digital marketing and strategy she led the agency in developing award winning work for clients. In two years, she helped the agency win 23 Cannes Lions all for work in digital (the most Lions awarded in the history of the agency). Jennifer is an outstanding creative thinker and believes that anything is possible. She brings a collaborative spirit as well as a sincerity and kindness to the projects she works on. As a regular industry speaker, her favorite topics are the future of creativity & technology, creativity & data & emerging technology. Jennifer was invited to speak at Cannes Festival of Creativity, Advertising Week and NYVR Expo. Jennifer was most recently an awarding jury member on the Digital Craft jury for the Cannes Lions in 2018 and has judged final rounds for both the Global Effie’s in 2017 & 2018 and WARC in 2018. She has also guest lectured at the New School in NYC.

Can conversational AI make human conversations better? Will humans and AI complement or compete with each other? How important is chatbot transparency? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders podcast, we are joined by Clément Delangue (co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face) and Drew Austin (co-founder & CEO of Wade & Wendy). We talk to Clément and Drew the importance of building trust with conversational AI, building company values inside the conversational AI being developed, and how people prefer natural language as the first-choice interface. We also get into whether a chatbot should replace your therapist, the flaws in regular conversation, and why your chatbot might be more like your pet than your friend. “It's super important to be able to trust. The trust from people in this new form of technology...So being transparent is the first step of building this trust.” -Clément Delangue, co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face “We're about to have a conversation about something very deeply intimate and personal, your career, your life, your interests, your goals to start that on the wrong foot and pretend that you're a human is just not the right way to build the foundations of trust and I think trust is essential to how we have interaction and conversation. I mean if you think about some of the necessities and conversation it, trust is at that foundational core.” -Drew Austin, co-founder & CEO of Wade & Wendy Connect with thinkLeaders and our panelists: @IBMthinkLeaders @ClementDelangue @DrewAustin BIOS Clément Delangue is the co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face. His first startup experience was with Moodstocks, building machine learning for computer vision, which got acquired by Google. He has a passion for building consumer AI products used by millions. Organizer for NYC European Tech. @ClementDelangue Hugging Face is the social AI who learns to chit-chat, talks sassy and trades selfies with you. We’re on a journey to build the first truly social artificial intelligence. Along the way, we contribute to the development of technology for the better. https://huggingface.co/ Drew Austin is the Founder & CEO of Wade & Wendy, a platform powering artificially intelligent recruiters. Prior to Wade & Wendy, Drew was the co-founder of Augmate, venture-backed tech company managing and powering wearable devices in the industrial workplace. Earlier in his career, he led business development efforts at Connections of NY, an IT-focused executive recruitment firm. Drew is ingrained in the NYC startup ecosystem, a 2015 NYC Venture Fellow, advisor to SXSW Startup Village, and mentor at Starfast Accelerator & Talent Tech Labs. Drew graduated from Syracuse University, Whitman School of Management, with a Bachelors in Entrepreneurship & Emerging Enterprises. https://wadeandwendy.ai/

Can a brand experience feel like an authentic experience? How can brands improve trust? What are ways that a brand can showcase their values? In this special episode of IBM thinkLeaders, recorded live at Cannes Lions, we are joined by Justin Shriber (Head of Marketing for LinkedIn Sales Solutions) & Reid Blackman (Founder & CEO of Virtue). We talk to Justin and Reid about navigating the customer experience, building authentic relationships, and whether platforms can empower one-to-one relationships. We also dive into the merits of the Dunbar Number and scaling relationship online, brand safety, data as currency, and when it might be appropriate to automate our communication. “We talk a lot about authenticity and I think that that conversation is going to evolve. Authenticity to me is simply being transparent with what your motives and your aspirations are. And the reality is that as marketers, as sales professionals, we can be authentic and that may not necessarily align with what customers are interested in. If as a marketer, what I really care about is moving more merchandise, moving more products and services, I'm being authentic, but that isn't necessarily the answer. So I think that there's going to be an evolution not just of being authentic, but also making sure that the things that you're being authentic about aligning to the audience that you're trying to reach.” -Justin Shriber, Head of Marketing for LinkedIn Sales Solutions “Those kinds of things are really important and they're good, but they could also be misleading in the following sense. It's easy to be the hero in one way by doing some grand gesture. It's difficult to be good day in and day out. And so one thing that companies really need to do is not just think about what are the big gestures we can make that would be a useful way of communicating our values. But what can we do day in and day out? What can we build into operations and workflow to make it the case that we really do take our values seriously?” -Reid Blackman, Founder & CEO of Virtue BIOS Justin Shriber is the Head of marketing for LinkedIn Sales Solutions. For two decades Shriber has helped companies accelerate growth and profitability by building strategies that align marketing, sales and service with customer needs. At Oracle, he headed Oracle’s CRM OnDemand organization, and at Siebel he was one of the early pioneers of the cloud, leading product teams responsible for delivering the first generation of SaaS applications. He was also vice president of products at C9, where he led product management, product marketing and strategy. @jshriber Reid Blackman is the founder & CEO of Virtue, an ethical tech consultancy.Reid was gripped by ethical problems the first semester of his first year in college over 20 years ago. Countless hours later, after reading, arguing, and teaching about ethics, he’s still hungry for more. While his early research concerned issues largely contained within the ivory tower, his research has become increasingly action-orientated, particularly as it concerns the ethics of institutions like governments and corporations, and also the ethics of emerging technologies. He has taught at Northwestern University, the University of Texas in Austin, the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and Colgate University. He currently sits on the committee for “Methods to Guide Ethical Research and Design” for the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems and is a member of the European Union Artificial Intelligence Alliance. When he isn’t doing ethics you can find him with his wife and children, unless there’s rock climbing to be done.

How can brands gather meaningful insights about customer behavior to improve decision making? Can we stitch together these insights across the customer journey? How does a brand have an authentic exchange of value with a consumer? In this episode of IBM thinkLeaders, we are joined by Alex LePage (Senior Product Marketing Director, Marketing Solutions at Neustar) and Ganes Kesari (Co-founder & Head of Analytics at Gramener). We talk to Alex and Ganes about whether a customer can have a seamless journey in an omnichannel world, the power of marketing teaming up with data science for cross-functional expertise, and how to turn a happy customer into a promoter for the brand. We also dig into the recently announced Dashboard act (regarding data monetization) and the fine line between creepy and useful with retargeting. “[I]t's very important that brands look at what do customers value and how do you maintain the trust. Customers don't like people talking about their data behind their backs. So we will have to be conscious as to what a customer knows about, how the data is being used, and maintain the trust element.”-Ganes Kesari, Co-founder & Head of Analytics at Gramener “A data scientist combined with a marketer or a social psychologist--that is the most powerful combination because they need to define what the hypothesis is and what the model is going to be deployed to help us.” -Alex LePage, Senior Product Marketing Director, Marketing Solutions at Neustar Connect with thinkLeaders and our panelists: @IBMthinkLeaders @Neustar @kesaritweets BIOS Alex LePage leads Product Marketing for Neustar. He is responsible for driving the positioning, go-to-market strategy and messaging for Neustar's full Marketing Intelligence Platform, including the MarketShare analytics suite, the Identity Data Management Platform (DMP), and the Customer Intelligence solution. Previously, Mr. LePage held leadership positions in product strategy and product marketing at Rubicon Project and Chango, marketing at Toys R Us, and strategy and client revenue roles at iCrossing/Hearst and Wunderman/Y&R. With more than 20 years of experience, he is a sought-after speaker at the intersection of marketing, data and technology. Mr. LePage received a Master of Business Administration from Yale University and a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University. Ganes Kesari is the co-founder of Gramener, an organization that helps identify insights and convert them into stories. He’s played several startup leadership roles to scale Gramener, with a demonstrated ability to conceive strategy and execute on-the-ground.In his current role as head of Analytics, he has advised 100+ enterprises 1) to build their data science roadmap, 2) to execute projects that apply advanced analytics for business value and 3) to use data stories to drive business decisions. Ganes leads Gramener innovation efforts at AI Labs by experimenting with the latest developments in advanced analytics. Ganes speaks regularly in business and technology events around the world, such as TEDx, O'Reilly Strata, O'Reilly AI Conf, Hubspot Inbound, AnacondaCON. He provides corporate training in Data science and has taught in courses run by institutes like ISB Hyderabad, IIIT, IIM, and NID.

How are the privacy and political implications of social media impacting this year's Cannes Lions? Is the advertising apocalypse coming? And how will the social media landscape change in the coming years? In this special edition of thinkPod recorded at Cannes Lions, we are joined by former co-host Robert Schwartz (CMO of Carat US) and Christian Tom (SVP, Strategic Client Partnerships & Global Advertising Sales @ Group Nine Media). Join our lively and robust conversation with Robert and Christian, reflecting on this year's Cannes Lions and how it has been impacted (or not) by growing consumer concerns around privacy. We dig into the importance of brand safety and how this is shifting where dollars are spent, the impact of OTT, whether a social-only strategy makes sense today, and the growing frustration of consumers upset about an uneven value exchange. We also get political as we wonder about Millennial voters, why politicians are spending substantial money on the very platforms they are criticizing, and how we may be able to get more tech savvy people involved in politics. This is a special cross-platform episode, featuring Robert Schwartz from The Human Element (presented by Carat). You can also find host Amanda Thurston on the new episode of The Human Element! Check them out at: https://www.carat.com/usa/usa-home/news-views/carats-podcast-the-human-element/ “[T]his is the Cannes of privacy implications, political implications of that, and a whole sundry lists of kind of regulatory stuff. Uh, which isn't very sexy as a creativity conference, but I think it's really top of mind for not just agencies, not just clients, but also digital platforms.” Robert Schwartz (CMO of Carat US) “What I think is particularly difficult about social media is that the rise of it has happened within such a short period. That may be we as a society, we as a people haven't found the right way to grapple with it. Where the growth of say a print as a media, or radio as a media and television had a bit more time for all of us to get used to it. And the rise of mobile phone technology and then the social media platforms kind of coinciding is unlike, from what I can tell, much else that's happened in society.” -Christian Tom, SVP, Strategic Client Partnerships & Global Advertising Sales @ Group Nine Media "[I]f they [Congress] do intervene, what we're going to get is going to be much worse for us and much harder for us to actually implement than if we just did the right thing in the first place. And I think it's interesting to think through, especially with this 2020 election coming up in the US, how do we get to a point where either the companies who are here or start to drive better behavior or we start to elect politicians who actually understand the world that we live in?" -Amanda Thurston Connect with thinkLeaders and our panelists: @IBMthinkLeaders @MandyLewToYou @robertschwartz @cltom

Is the funnel dead in SaaS? How do you create relationships at scale? What revenue are you likely losing from your customer base? In this episode of thinkPod, we are joined by Laurie Aquilante Faiola (Director of Customer Marketing at HubSpot) and Shanann Monaghan (Director of Customer Experience Marketing at Looker). We talk to Laurie and Shanann about what SaaS companies need to do when someone becomes a customer, the continuum between mass scale and one-to-one relationships, and how to measure if the customer is truly delighted . We dig into the metrics that we should be focusing on, the importance of acquisition costs, balancing the quantitative and qualitative analysis, and the cross-functional efforts between a customer success team and customer marketing team. “[W]e're moving to a world where there's a continuum between mass scale and one to one relationships. There's a middle ground and I think it's things like user groups and it's office hours and it's programs that marketing can stand up and support, but [also] that customer success can plug into or even sales can plug into.” -Laurie Aquilante Faiola, Director of Customer Marketing at HubSpot “The people who really inspire others to take action are the ones who can tell a compelling story that connects with other humans, that taps into feelings and emotions. And so data on its own doesn't always do that. But when you wrap data into a story, it also adds authority and credibility. Bringing those two worlds together is so powerful and it's a hard skill.” -Shanann Monaghan (Director of Customer Experience Marketing at Looker Connect with thinkLeaders and our panelists: @IBMthinkLeaders @lawfaiola @ShanannK BIOS Laurie Aquilante Faiola is the Director of Customer Marketing at HubSpot. Her team focuses on leveraging marketing strategies and tactics to help customers experience successful growth with HubSpot, help them discover and buy new products, and on building an engaged community of advocates. Laurie previously led middle and bottom of the funnel programs for the North America region. Prior to joining HubSpot, Laurie was the Director of Demand Generation for NuoDB, a database startup in Cambridge, MA and prior to that held a number of marketing roles at Microsoft in Seattle, Washington. She is also the proud parent of a toddler and in her spare time, you can find her on outings with her family in Rhode Island or taking a boxing class. -- Shanann Monaghan has a decade of experience in marketing, communications and customer success. Prior to Looker, Shanann launched and grew customer marketing at several companies, including the optimization software, Optimizely. As the Director of Customer Experience Marketing at Looker, Shanann is passionate about leveraging marketing tools, technology and data to drive customer engagement and growth, and deeply cares about creating amazing experiences that inspire and delight humans.

How can we demystify AI? Why is the general public often both awed and afraid of artificial intelligence? Why is there a gulf between the excitement from enterprise to utilize AI and trepidation from the public? In this episode of thinkPod, we are joined by Sameer Maskey (Founder & CEO of Fusemachines) and Charlie Oliver (Founder & CEO of Tech2025). We talk to Sameer and Charlie about increasing the accessibility of AI, the importance of ethics and how that can be determined, and how talent is evenly distributed by opportunity is not. We explore algorithmic bias, our complicated feelings towards AI, the importance of gathering insight into how the general public is feeling about emerging technology, and why you may want to take a MOOC right now. “Within AI, there's such a variety of work that needs to be done. There is obviously the building of AI Systems and that's where a lot of conversation gets focused on. What we lose sight of [is] all the different parts of AI from ethics to...all the questions around culture, and there's so many other things that could make AI much more accessible to other human beings and make it more conducive to people.” -Sameer Maskey “[D]on't believe what they tell you about what you know and don't know. Because we've been talked down to about technologies for so long, especially women, especially people of color...You know more than you think you know in your ideas are really necessary right now.”-Charlie Oliver Connect with thinkLeaders and our panelists: @IBMthinkLeaders @sameermaskey @itscomplicated BIOS CHARLIE OLIVER In the Fall of 2016, Charlie Oliver launched Tech2025 to educate entrepreneurs and consumers on the next wave of disruptive, emerging technologies that are expected to drastically change our world in the next decade (AI, machine learning, driverless vehicles, IoT, blockchain, VR, etc.), through live-events and interactive workshops with industry experts. The mission of Tech2025 is to help entrepreneurs and the general public to understand and embrace emerging technologies. SAMEER MASKEY Sameer Maskey is the founder and CEO of Fusemachines Inc., a company that makes Artificial Intelligence accessible to everyone through education, software, and services. Dr. Maskey has more than 18 years of experience in artificial intelligence, natural language processing, machine learning, and data science. After completing his PhD in Computer Science, he joined IBM Watson Research Center where he invented various statistical algorithms to improve speech-to-speech translation and question answering systems.

Is AI creativity a form of modern puppetry? How will AI automation impact the quality of content creation? Are algorithms in service of creativity? In this episode of thinkPod, we are joined by Claire Mitchell (Director of VaynerMedia's VaynerSmart group) and Kat Mustatea (playwright & technologist). We talk to Claire and Kat about how AI is altering art and the notion of human creativity, the uniqueness of the human imprint, and whether AI can have empathy for an audience. We explore the conundrum of AI creativity, discuss Chef Watson, debate Pikazo versus Picasso, dip into the legal gray areas of AI art, and explain what all this means for marketers and more. “Bots do something that is like a performance art. They behave in a certain way. And if you think about it, we have an artistic medium that can give us a language for that which is theater. And specifically I like to liken them to puppetry because they like puppets have puppet masters, they have people, sometimes one, sometimes many, who have programmed them to do something.” -Kat Mustatea “[T]hat speaks to what sort of inherent in human artistic expression or human creativity, which is intent and our ability to shift perspectives in order to empathize with an audience and to have an expectation for how the work will be perceived. And that's not something that machines necessarily have right now. We probably don't have to fear AI taking over human creativity anytime soon because of its inability to have empathy for an audience.” -Claire Mitchell Connect with thinkLeaders and our panelists: @IBMthinkLeaders @AnotherContext @kmustatea BIOS CLAIRE MITCHELL Claire Mitchell is Director of VaynerMedia's VaynerSmart group where she brings interactive experiences on emerging platforms to life. Prior to VaynerMedia, she led product design for IoT application development software, designed speculative automotive interfaces, and led creative development for VFX and commercial production. Claire holds a master’s degree from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program and a BA in Philosophy from St. Edward’s University. In her free time, she explores patterns, bits, and beats through textiles, code, and drums. KAT MUSTATEA Kat Mustatea makes art in the age of intelligent machines. Her TED talk examines the meaning of machines making art, looking at what new art forms arise as society shifts radically toward autonomous, algorithmic behavior. Her writing about the cutting edge of art and technology appears in Forbes, The Week, and Hyperallergic. A high school math prodigy, she studied philosophy at Columbia University and sculpture at Pratt institute. She founded a theater company in Berlin and has spent the last decade developing cross-disciplinary works for the stage that combine music, dance, and highly emotional theater. Her plays have been performed in New York, Chicago, Berlin, and Oslo. As a technologist, she has worked as a software engineer and product manager, and is now a freelance consultant. She is currently a resident at TED while writing a book about art in the age of machine intelligence.

How will leadership change with technological transformation? What is the best way for leaders to leverage AI? How should data inform hiring decisions? In this episode of thinkPod, we are joined by Daniel Dworkin (principal at Kotter) and Yao Huang (founder and CEO of The Hatchery). We talk to Daniel and Yao about the how leadership has changed with the disruption of AI, the unique skills of a leader and whether that can be easily detected, and whether AI will augment or replace leaders in the future. We also get into using affordable AI as a leadership coach, the delicate balance of nudging employees while also promoting trust, the importance of empathy, and how leadership will change with generational turnover. “You need as a leader to create a sense of urgency around what you're working on and that involves really tapping into not just the business case, the head aspect of the work, but also the heart. What's the emotionally compelling aspect of the innovation opportunity that's in front of you and how do you get people tapped into that so that they can persevere through the setbacks that inevitably come along as you're moving through an innovation?” -Daniel Dworkin “You're seeing things like remote work where you're humans aren't next to you anymore and yet you still need to drive culture, motivate them, keep them working and not quitting every six to 12 months....They're gathering people on iPads and Facetime chats and it takes a leader that can really drive the energy through the screen and motivate them through purpose. And so WHY you're doing this company, whether it's large or small, and what are you making and what does it do for the world and the people around you.” -Yao Huang Connect with thinkLeaders and our panelists: @IBMthinkLeaders @dannydworkin @thehatchery BIOS Daniel Dworkin helps clients unleash their full potential to create value for all stakeholders. He is a Principal at Kotter responsible for leading strategy execution and change initiatives with clients across industries, including aerospace, financial services, healthcare, and technology. Prior to joining Kotter, Daniel was a Partner at Schaffer Consulting where he supported organizations to accelerate progress towards growth and transformation goals. He writes about leadership, innovation, and culture for Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Chief Executive Magazine, among others. Daniel believes in the power of business to elevate humanity. He serves as the Co-Chair of the Board of Conscious Capitalism NYC and is a member of the Advisory Council of the Fund for Public Housing. Yao Huang is a highly entrepreneurial executive who works with businesses and start-ups in many industries with a focus on technology, assisting with revenue and funding. She is the founder of The Hatchery, a venture collaboration organization instrumental in developing the New York technology ecosystem. She leads the Hatchery’s enterprise incubator in New York building products with corporate partners — from ideation, development, sales, funding to exit. The Hatchery looks to change the way companies are built anchoring in customers first. Yao was named by Forbes as one of eleven women at the center of New York’s digital scene, and by Beta Beat as one of 25 Women Driving New York’s Tech Scene. She also traveled with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Indonesia in 2011, as a member of the U.S. State Department Global Entrepreneurship Program Delegation.

How do the sales team need to change their processes when dealing with SaaS products? Do consumers desire hyper-specialization or an all-in-one? How can a SaaS business meet the user where they are? In this episode of thinkPod, we are joined by Nicolas Vandenberghe (co-founder & CEO of Chili Piper) and Sean Johnson (partner at Founder Equity). We talk to Nicolas and Sean about the fierce competition in sales & marketing tools, digitally enabling teams to be more effective, and the importance of cultural change to bake digital in the DNA of a company. We also get into the need for innovation teams to have buy-in at the highest levels, churn rates, scalability versus product-market fit, the importance of onboarding, and finding the path to profitability for a SaaS startup. “The shift is that buyers want more convenience on how they buy, and you need to deploy technologies that are customer-facing.”-Nicolas Vandenberghe “B2B tend to have a network of peers that they trust. What I call, ‘invisible reviews’...these invisible reviews are what matter”-Nicolas Vandenberghe “If I don’t get what the product is, or it’s too frustrating to get setup, or whatever that lightbulb is that needs to go off in my brain to change my behavior, if you don’t do that during onboarding, there is a good change you’re going to lose them.” -Sean Johnson “If I have two opportunities to invest in two different identical companies and I know that Company A is shipping twice as fast, I know they’re going to learn twice as fast and I think they’re probably going to win.”-Sean Johnson Connect with thinkLeaders and our panelists: @IBMthinkLeaders @NicolasVDB @intentionally Originally from France, Nicolas Vandenberghe started selling newspapers in the streets of Paris in high school. He received his MBA from Stanford. He started and sold 3 tech companies with up to 65 employees and $11M in revenues, ran sales for a $2B telecom company negotiating billion-dollar deals with companies like Google, and most recently Co-Founded in 2016 and is the CEO of Chili Piper – a tech pioneer in Buyer Enablement. Its scheduling platform is used by Intuit, Square, Twilio and more than 300 companies worldwide for multiple use cases, from connecting prospects to sales reps instantly upon submitting a form to automating their on-boarding process. www.chilipiper.com Sean Johnson is a partner at Founder Equity, a Chicago-based venture fund, and a partner at Digital Intent, a technology innovation firm. He's helped companies like The Chicago Bulls, KPMG, CME Group, and Kindred Healthcare bring new technology and disruptive business models to life. He's a professor of marketing at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, and speaks all over the world on product strategy, digital marketing, and innovation. http://www.sean-johnson.com

How have our relationships been impacted by emerging technology? Is technology respecting our human dignity? Should it creep us out that our devices may understand our emotional state? In this episode of thinkPod, we are joined by Justin Hendrix (Executive Director of NYC Media Lab) and Dr. Jess Carbino (Relationship expert & former sociologist for Tinder & Bumble). We talk to Justin and Jess about whether we are being upgraded or downgraded, the interplay between privacy and control, the rise of synthetic media, and whether we should put our trust in institutions or corporations. We also debate using a chatbot therapist, need for soft skills in tech, and how technology is altering the ways in which we interact with one another. “Eli Pariser has this idea of human dignity and whether the devices and the content and the mechanisms and the ecosystem we built is sort of respecting our dignity. I'm not certain at the moment that the information ecosystem is doing that. We've got sort of a ways to go I think until we can feel comfortable that we've addressed those issues.” -Justin Hendrix “People not only want to present themselves as the self that they want to be to the world, but also how they perceive other people want them to be. And I think that's a really strong tension that people have and are trying to negotiate.” -Dr. Jess Carbino “How do we design systems that we can trust, that support institutions we can trust, that support relationships we can trust? I don't think we've solved that.” -Justin Hendrix “Fundamentally the decision to trust is related to the decision that I have control over my fate over my destiny.” -Dr. Jess Carbino Connect with thinkLeaders and our panelists: @IBMthinkLeaders @justinhendrix @drjesscarbino Justin Hendrix is Executive Director of NYC Media Lab, a public-private partnership between the City’s industry and its universities to drive emerging media and technology innovation and entrepreneurship, and the founding Executive Director of RLab, a new 16,500 square foot facility including co-working labs, classrooms, studios, and more in the Brooklyn Navy Yard that is New York’s City’s home for VR, AR and spatial computing. RLab is the nation’s first city-funded center for research, entrepreneurship and education in virtual and augmented-reality, spatial computing and other emerging media technologies. Previously he was Vice President, Business Development & Innovation for The Economist. He holds a BA from the College of William & Mary and an MSc in Technology Commercialization from the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Jess Carbino is a relationship and online dating expert who been called by The NY Post "the Dr. Ruth of the swipe right generation" and by the Host of This American Life "the Nate Silver of online dating." Dr. Jess, as she is fondly referred to, served as Sociologist for Tinder and Bumble, leading research for each of the two companies. She regularly analyzes user data to align social needs with product and user experience. She has conducted hundreds of focus groups and analyzed hundreds of thousands of profiles. Dr. Jess was named one of the 100 Most Creative People by Fast Company magazine. Her work has been featured in major news outlets including The New York Times, Time Magazine, Marie Claire, Cosmo, Men’s Health, New York Magazine and The Colbert Report. She has appeared on many TV programs including Good Morning America, Nightline, 20/20, The Doctors, CNN and Huffington Post. Dr. Jess also regularly speaks at conferences and events, most recently at the Oxford Union. Dr. Jess received her PhD in sociology from UCLA. Her doctoral research has broadly focused on sex, dating and relationships. Dr. Jess' dissertation, “Dating in the 21st Century” used data from several online dating sites to answer the age-old question: “what do men and women want?”

Has AI raised the floor but not the ceiling with marketing? Have we over-indexed on having content at scale? And is there a way for marketers to understand when hyper-personalization will cross the line into creepiness? In this episode of thinkPod, we are joined by Kate Bradley Chernis (Founder & CEO of Lately) and Joey Camire (principal & founding team of Sylvain Labs). We talk to Kate and Joey about whether AI will replace human marketers, where we are currently with AI and marketing, the difficulty of getting marketers to write, and how AI can bring delight to consumers. We also get into the hot debate around a company’s responsibility with user data and imagine a future where each cup of yogurt is tracked. Connect with thinkLeaders and our panelists: @IBMthinkLeaders @JoeyCashmere @outlandosmedia Kate Bradley Chernis is the Founder & CEO of Lately, an AI-powered marketing dashboard that’s reinventing the marketing process to give individual marketers the power to create and scale smarter, more consistent messaging. With Lately, Davids become Goliaths. As a former marketing agency owner, Kate, initially created the idea for Lately out of spreadsheets for then-client, Walmart. Well, not just Walmart. It was a partnership between Walmart, United Way Worldwide, National Disability Institute, and tens of thousands of local, small business and nonprofit affiliates who were all using her spreadsheet system – because they all had the same problems: a lack of coordination, widespread redundancies, no visibility and no organization. With Kate’s spreadsheet system, they achieved a 130%, three year, year-over-year ROI. In fact, Kate found similar success with all of her clients, regardless of industry or company size. So, along with one heck of a superhero team, she created Lately to organize the mess, automate repetitive processes and eliminate the "overwhelming" feeling that every marketer she'd ever met had complained about. Prior to founding Lately, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. She’s also an award-winning radio producer, engineer and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales and marketing expertise. After escaping from neuroscience and psychology, with a layover at the VCU Brandcenter, Joey Camire moved to New York to join the founding team of Sylvain Labs. Here, he leads innovation and brand strategy work for bluechip clients such as Google, GM, AB Inbev, Bloomberg, and more. Joey spearheaded several cultural projects including the documentary Instafame, as well as writing The Dots, a book deconstructing influence for brands and institutions in contemporary culture. Along with a team at Sylvain Labs, Joey produces the weekly podcast Critical Nonsense, digging deep into cultural ephemera to inspire interesting conversations. A respected authority on the realms of social influence, strategy and cultural change, Joey has written for numerous publications including Wired, The Drum, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, PSFK, The Egoist, and shots.

Does personalization truly scale? If so, how can we balance one-to-one personalization with brand consistency? In this episode of thinkPod, we are joined by Tameka Vasquez (marketing strategist and professor) and Oliver Christie (futurist and founder of Foxy Machine). We talk to Tameka and Oliver about creating customer experiences that resonate, the beauty of simplicity and being jargon-free, and whether or not AI will replace human creativity with marketing. We also tackle whether marketers have been tone deaf and the difficulties of hyper personalization. Some of the questions we tackle include: - is there a place for artificial intelligence in marketing? -How can we balance the customer experience with automation tools? -Does personalization truly scale? -Have marketers become tone deaf? -How much will AI replace creativity? Some quotes from our discussion: “Let's just start asking better questions. Let's just start challenging the status quo. Let's start looking at what we're doing across the various functions at an organization and figure out what we can do better, how we can optimize, how we can grow, how we can design a future.”-Tameka Vasquez “I always think of AI as simply a set of tools. Some are more sophisticated than others, but really it's what do you do with that tool? How are you going to use it? And I think we're still quite early on in the conversation as to what we should be doing.” -Oliver Christie “And at the end of the day, we're really just talking about reaching customers where they want to be reached and making sure that we're creating experiences that resonate.” -Host Amanda Thurston “I'm a big believer in simplicity and I think the reason I'm super excited about the possibilities of data and of artificial intelligence and all of these tools and technologies is because hopefully it just gets us to a place of simplicity.” -Tameka Vasquez “The data we've got and the tools, we've got are more sophisticated, but the questions we're asking are not.” -Oliver Christie Don’t forget to rate us on iTunes! Connect with us & the guests: thinkLeaders @IBMthinkLeaders Tameka Vasquez @tameka_vasquez Oliver Christie @OliverChristie Tameka Vasquez is a marketing and business development strategist with nearly a decade of experience managing various growth and demand generation programs for global technology companies. Her background includes bringing products to market in industries such as banking, media, and research. She is currently the associate director of marketing at a multi-national machine learning and data science company. Tameka is also currently an assistant professor of marketing management at St. John’s University. And she serves as a strategic advisor to Opus AI, an automation platform with a proven method of increasing diversity hiring. Oliver Christie is the founder of Foxy Machine. Oliver helps companies envision their future and leverage this technology to stay ahead of the competition. He looks at how AI can impact key aspects of the business such as acquiring and retaining customers, customizing products and services, and achieving profitability. Oliver then works with companies to develop the right solution which, at times, can fundamentally reshape how the business operates. Oliver’s experience includes working in the Financial, Media and Transportation sectors, and using technologies such as IBM Watson, Microsoft Azure, Google Tensorflow, H2O.ai and Intel.

Does AI need more fuzzy thinkers? How can we increase interdisciplinary perspectives in emerging tech? Can an interdisciplinary lens help us better foresee unintended consequences? In this episode of thinkPod, we are joined by Scott Hartley (author of The Fuzzy and The Techie: Why Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World) and interdisciplinary artist Carla Gannis. We talk to Scott and Carla about the disciplines missing in the AI conversation, how we can bring greater ethical thinking into AI, and the dramatic influence of sci-fi writers on emerging tech. We also tackle whether a four-year degree is an antiquated idea, how the mundane uses of AI can often be more important, and the borderless nature of data. Connect with us & the guests: thinkLeaders @IBMthinkLeaders Scott Hartley @scottehartley Carla Gannis @carlagannis HartleyGlobal.com CarlaGannis.com Scott Hartley is a venture capitalist and best-selling author of THE FUZZY AND THE TECHIE (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), a Financial Times business book of the month, and finalist for the Financial Times and McKinsey & Company's Bracken Bower Prize for an author under 35. He is a global keynote speaker on future of work, and human skills in our technology age. He has served as a Presidential Innovation Fellow at the White House, a Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures (MDV), and a Venture Partner at Metamorphic Ventures. Prior to venture capital, Scott worked at Google, Facebook, and Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He has been a contributing author at MIT Press, and has written for publications such as Quartz, The Financial Times, and Foreign Policy, and been featured in USA Today, Harvard Business Review and The Wall Street Journal. He holds three degrees from Stanford and Columbia, has finished six marathon and Ironman 70.3 triathlons. He is a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations, and has visited over 70 countries. Carla Gannis is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She produces virtual and physical works that are darkly comical in their contemplation of human, earthly and cosmological conditions. Fascinated by digital semiotics and the lineage of hybrid identity, Gannis takes a horror vacui approach to her artistic practice, culling inspiration from networked communication, art and literary history, emerging technologies and speculative fiction. Gannis’s work has appeared in exhibitions, screenings and internet projects across the globe. Recent projects include “Portraits in Landscape,” Midnight Moment, Times Square Arts, NY and “Sunrise/Sunset,” Whitney Museum of American Art, Artport. A regular lecturer on art, innovation and society, in March 2019 Gannis was a speaker at the SXSW Interactive Festival on the panel “Human Presence and Humor Make Us Better Storytellers.” Publications who have featured Gannis’s work include The Creators Project, Wired, FastCo, Hyperallergic, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, El PaÍs and The LA Times, among others. In 2015 her speculative fiction was included in DEVOURING THE GREEN:: fear of a human planet: a cyborg / eco poetry anthology, published by Jaded Ibis Press. Gannis received an MFA in painting from Boston University in the twentieth century. In the twenty-first century she is faculty and assistant chair of the Department of Digital Arts at Pratt Institute.

Behind the scenes from our March event in NYC, we talk to two of our AI experts, Pamela Pavliscak, Emotional AI researcher and futurist, and Mitu Khandaker, game designer, CEO and co-founder of Glow Up Games about trust, bias, ethics and transparency in artificial intelligence.

Can AI Help Us Find Love? With Rori Sassoon & Ryan Matzner Can we use AI to help us find love? And at what point does this become creepy? We're always talking about trust and transparency related to AI, but what about trust and transparency with humans and dating? In this episode of thinkPod, we are joined by Rori Sassoon (co-founder of Platinum Poire and author of The Art of the Date) and Ryan Matzner (founder of Fueled). We discuss and debate whether AI is an effective and efficient matchmaker, how AI may be able to know us better than we do, the amount of data a dating platform needs, and the prospect of using visual recognition technology to find a match that looks like your favorite celebrity. Connect with us & the guests: thinkLeaders @IBMthinkLeaders Rori Sassoon @rorisassoon (Instagram) Ryan Matzner @rdm Rori Sassoon co-founded Platinum Poire, a VIP invite-only power player matchmaking service that aims to create lasting relationships for elite singles looking for a secure and discreet way to meet others of equal caliber. Rori has become an expert resource on relationships and has given valuable advice within numerous publications such as The New YorkTimes, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Refinery29, People, InStyle, Bustle, Bravo, INSIDER, Elite Daily, and more. She appears on Season 10 and Season 11 of Bravo’s Real Housewives of New York, along with appearances on FOX’s Good Day New York, ABC, and WPIX. She is the author of the newly released book The Art of the Date on Amazon in which Rori advises the reader to "stop swiping." As Fueled’s (www.fueled.com) executive mover and shaker, Ryan Matzner leverages his digital marketing background, entrepreneurial tendencies, and acute eye for design to support a wide range of internal initiatives and client projects. Ryan built Fueled’s product, marketing, and business development teams from the ground up and continues to nurture them today. When he’s not captaining Fueled into the future of mobile, Ryan can be found dabbling in drone photography, fashion design, and providing The New York Times with ultra-niche commentary on the finer points of wood-burning fireplaces, fighting corporate waste, and adverse weather.