Podcasts about ko insights

In this episode of No Brainer, hosts Geoff Livingston and Greg Verdino chat with Kate O'Neill about leadership, human-friendly AI decision making, and her new book What Matters Next. Kate is the founder and CEO of strategic advisory firm KO Insights, host of the Tech Humanist Show, a highly acclaimed global keynote speaker, and a four-time business author. Her work has earned her a coveted spot on the Thinkers50 Radar in 2020 and she was shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Digital Thinking Award in 2023. Drawing on the key themes from her latest book and her wider body of work, Kate emphasizes the need for leaders to balance action and inaction, approach the future as an extension of the decisions we make today, align technology with human experience, and maintain a clear purpose in their organizations. the discussion also touches on the role of strategic optimism in shaping a better future through informed decision-making. Links: ·     About Kate: https://www.koinsights.com/about-kate/ ·     Connect with Kate: https://linkedin.com/in/kateoneill ·     What Matters Next: https://www.koinsights.com/books/what-matters-next-book/ ·     About KO Insights: https://koinsights.com ·     The Tech Humanist Show: https://thetechhumanistshow.com Chapters 00:00 Intro 02:41 What's a Tech Humanist? 05:30 Navigating Human-Friendly Technology Decisions 08:08 The Impact of Deregulation on Technology Decisions 10:42 Balancing Action and Inaction 13:26 The Role of Purpose in Technology Decisions 25:21 Aligning Technology with Purpose 27:34 Articulating Purpose for Digital Transformation 29:37 Integrating Technology into Business Strategy 32:22 The Role of Human Workers in an AI-Driven World 33:59 Balancing Profit and Human Value 36:43 Strategic Optimism and Decision Making Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this enlightening episode of 'Rethink Real Estate,' host Ben Brady welcomes Kate O'Neill, founder and Chief Tech Humanist at KO Insights. Explore the integration of technology and humanistic approaches within the real estate industry and beyond. Kate shares how aligning technology with organizational purpose can enhance operational effectiveness and human-centric experiences. This episode dives deep into the concept of 'tech humanism,' where technology supports human needs and business goals, rather than driving them. Ben and Kate discuss practical examples of how real estate professionals can apply these strategies to improve client relationships and business outcomes. They also tackle the hype surrounding new technologies like AI, emphasizing the importance of thoughtful integration over following trends. Learn from a comprehensive dialogue on leveraging technology to foster a meaningful connection with clients and maintaining a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. Timestamps & Key Topics: [00:00:00] - Introduction to Tech Humanism with Kate O'Neill [00:01:33] - Defining Tech Humanism in the Context of Real Estate [00:03:06] - Challenges of Innovation in Real Estate Technology [00:04:11] - Real-World Applications of Tech Humanism in Real Estate [00:06:20] - Evaluating AI's Role and Its Overhype in Business Processes [00:09:24] - Aligning Business and Technology Strategies [00:14:27] - The Importance of Regular Strategic Alignment in Businesses [00:18:20] - Integrating Purpose with Technology to Drive Business Success [00:22:08] - The Broader Impact of Technology on Society and Ethics [00:26:00] - Kate O'Neill's Publications on Business Technology [00:36:45] - Recap: Technology as a Supportive Tool in Business

After winning the prestigious New York Digital Award in 2024, Redefining AI returns with an electrifying Season Four! Join your host Lauren Hawker Zafer, on behalf of Squirro, the Enterprise Gen AI Platform, as we embark on another season of groundbreaking conversations. Episode two guides us into a conversation with Kate O'Neill on What Matters Next: Navigating Leadership and Human-Centered Tech. Who is Kate O'Neill? Kate is founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm which improves human experience at scale — especially in data-driven, algorithmically-optimized, AI-led interactions. Her clients and audiences include Adobe, the city of Amsterdam, the city of Austin, Cambridge, Coca-Cola, Etsy, Getty Images, Google, Harvard, IBM, McDonald's, Microsoft, the United Nations, Yale, and Zoom. Before starting KO Insights, Kate was one of the first 100 employees at Netflix, a technologist at Toshiba, and founder of the groundbreaking analytics firm, [meta]marketer. Kate has received awards and wide recognition. She was named “Technology Entrepreneur of the Year,” a “Power Leader in Technology,” a “Woman of Influence,” was featured by Google in the launch of their global campaign for women in entrepreneurship. Her insights have been featured in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and WIRED, and she has appeared as an expert tech commentator on the BBC and NPR. Known for her ability to make complex topics relatable, Kate is a sought-after keynote speaker, appearing at conferences and corporate events and has spoken to hundreds of thousands of audience members worldwide. She's written six books, including four on business strategy and technology: Tech Humanist, Pixels and Place, A Future So Bright, and What Matters Next. Why listen? This episode of Redefining AI is a must-listen for leaders, innovators, and tech enthusiasts navigating the fast-paced world of artificial intelligence and digital transformation. Featuring renowned tech strategist and author Kate O'Neill, we dive into essential topics like ethical AI, human-centered leadership, informed decision-making, and aligning business goals with meaningful human experiences. Kate shares actionable strategies from her new book, What Matters Next, offering frameworks like the "Now/Next Continuum" and generative thinking to help leaders balance innovation with responsibility. Packed with real-world examples and practical insights, this episode is perfect for anyone looking to future-proof their organization, embrace ethical technology, and lead with impact in 2025. Stream it now on Spotify to stay ahead in the AI-driven business landscape! #ai #techpodcast

After winning the prestigious New York Digital Award in 2024, Redefining AI returns with an electrifying Season Four! Join your host Lauren Hawker Zafer, on behalf of Squirro, the Enterprise Gen AI Platform, as we embark on another season of groundbreaking conversations. Spotlight Two, teases us into a conversation with Kate O'Neill on What Matters Next: Navigating Leadership and Human-Centered Tech. Who is Kate O'Neill? Kate is founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm which improves human experience at scale — especially in data-driven, algorithmically-optimized, AI-led interactions. Her clients and audiences include Adobe, the city of Amsterdam, the city of Austin, Cambridge, Coca-Cola, Etsy, Getty Images, Google, Harvard, IBM, McDonald's, Microsoft, the United Nations, Yale, and Zoom. Before starting KO Insights, Kate was one of the first 100 employees at Netflix, a technologist at Toshiba, and founder of the groundbreaking analytics firm, [meta]marketer. Kate has received awards and wide recognition. She was named “Technology Entrepreneur of the Year,” a “Power Leader in Technology,” a “Woman of Influence,” was featured by Google in the launch of their global campaign for women in entrepreneurship. Her insights have been featured in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and WIRED, and she has appeared as an expert tech commentator on the BBC and NPR. Known for her ability to make complex topics relatable, Kate is a sought-after keynote speaker, appearing at conferences and corporate events and has spoken to hundreds of thousands of audience members worldwide. She's written six books, including four on business strategy and technology: Tech Humanist, Pixels and Place, A Future So Bright, and What Matters Next. Why listen? This episode of Redefining AI is a must-listen for leaders, innovators, and tech enthusiasts navigating the fast-paced world of artificial intelligence and digital transformation. Featuring renowned tech strategist and author Kate O'Neill, we dive into essential topics like ethical AI, human-centered leadership, informed decision-making, and aligning business goals with meaningful human experiences. Kate shares actionable strategies from her new book, What Matters Next, offering frameworks like the "Now/Next Continuum" and generative thinking to help leaders balance innovation with responsibility. Packed with real-world examples and practical insights, this episode is perfect for anyone looking to future-proof their organization, embrace ethical technology, and lead with impact in 2025. Stream it now on Spotify to stay ahead in the AI-driven business landscape!

Kate is a digital innovator, chief executive, business writer, and a globally recognized speaker known as the "Tech Humanist." She is the founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm that enhances human experiences at scale through data-driven and AI-led interactions. Kate has worked with prestigious clients like Google, IBM, Microsoft, and the United Nations, and she was one of the first 100 employees at Netflix.   The Tech Humanist returns to the podcast to talk about building relationships, decision making, AI, and much more!

The future of technology is rapidly changing the world of work, which made many people fear that technology will replace them. But you don't have to be afraid because it's not about the robots and remote work; it's about YOU. In today's episode, Kate O'Neill, the Author of Tech Humanist and the Founder of KO Insights, delves into how human-centric digital transformation shapes the workplace and upskills humans. Explore the ethical implications of AI Automation and how to ensure technology serves humanity. Also, hear Kate's insights on using tech to solve the world's biggest challenges – with a human touch. Today's conversation is something you don't want to miss! Join Kate O'Neill and be inspired to shape your future in a technology-driven world. Check out the full series of "Career Sessions, Career Lessons" podcasts here or visit pathwise.io/podcast/. A full written transcript of this episode is also available at https://pathwise.io/podcasts/the-interconnected-future-of-technology-and-humanity-with-kate-oneill.Become a PathWise member today! Join at https://pathwise.io/join-now/

known as the “Tech Humanist”, Kate O'Neill is the founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm committed to improving the human experience at scale through more meaningful and aligned strategy. Among her prior roles, she created the first content management role at Netflix, developed Toshiba America‘s first intranet, and founded [meta]marketer, one of the first digital strategy and analytics agencies. Kate has appeared as an expert tech commentator on BBC, NPR, and a wide variety of international media, and her written insights have been featured in WIRED, CMO.com, and many other outlets. Through KO Insights, Kate speaks, writes, advises, and advocates on a range of strategic challenges and ethical issues: big data, privacy, emerging tech trends in retail and other industries, intelligent automation and the future of work, digital transformation due to COVID-19, the role of technology in dealing with climate change, managing change at exponential scale, and more. Kate's research, writing, speaking, and advocacy all concentrate on the impact of data and emerging technologies on current and future human experiences — from both a business perspective, in terms of innovation and digital transformation strategy, and a general perspective, in terms of humanity overall. Her approach is consistently “both/and”: business-savvy and human-centric. She advises business and civic leaders on building data-led and technology-driven human experiences that are respectful as well as successful, and helps people overall understand the impact of the data and emerging technologies affecting their lives more and more each day. Her books have included “Tech Humanist” and “Pixels and Place,” as well as her latest, “A Future So Bright,” which launched in September 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateoneill https://www.koinsights.com https://twitter.com/kateo Watch our highest-viewed videos: 1-DR R VIJAYARAGHAVAN - PROF & PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR AT TIFR India's 1st Quantum Computer- https://youtu.be/ldKFbHb8nvQ 2-TATA MOTORS- DRIVING THE FUTURE OF MOBILITY IN INDIA- SHAILESH CHANDRA- MD: TATA MOTORS-https://youtu.be/M2Ey0fHmZJ0 3-MIT REPORT PREDICTS SOCIETAL COLLAPSE BY 2040 - GAYA HERRINGTON -DIR SUSTAINABILITY: KPMG- https://youtu.be/Jz29GOyVt04 4-WORLDS 1ST HUMAN HEAD TRANSPLANTATION- DR SERGIO CANAVERO - https://youtu.be/KY_rtubs6Lc 5-DR HAROLD KATCHER - CTO NUGENICS RESEARCH Breakthrough in Age Reversal- https://youtu.be/214jry8z3d4 6-Head of Artificial Intelligence-JIO - Shailesh Kumar https://youtu.be/q2yR14rkmZQ 7-STARTUP FROM INDIA AIMING FOR LEVEL 5 AUTONOMY - SANJEEV SHARMA CEO SWAAYATT ROBOTS - https://youtu.be/Wg7SqmIsSew 8-MAN BEHIND GOOGLE QUANTUM SUPREMACY - JOHN MARTINIS  - https://youtu.be/Y6ZaeNlVRsE 9-BANKING 4.0 - BRETT KING FUTURIST, BESTSELLING AUTHOR & FOUNDER MOVEN - https://youtu.be/2bxHAai0UG0 10-E-VTOL & HYPERLOOP- FUTURE OF INDIA" S MOBILITY- SATYANARAYANA CHAKRAVARTHY https://youtu.be/ZiK0EAelFYY 11-HOW NEUROMORPHIC COMPUTING WILL ACCELERATE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - PROF SHUBHAM SAHAY- IIT KANPUR- https://youtu.be/sMjkG0jGCBs 12-INDIA'S QUANTUM COMPUTING INDUSTRY- PROF ARUN K PATI -DIRECTOR QETCI- https://youtu.be/Et98nkwiA8w Connect & Follow us at: https://in.linkedin.com/in/eddieavil https://in.linkedin.com/company/change-transform-india https://www.facebook.com/changetransformindia/ https://twitter.com/intothechange https://www.instagram.com/changetransformindia/ Listen to the Audio Podcast at: https://anchor.fm/transform-impossible https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/change-i-m-possibleid1497201007?uo=4 https://open.spotify.com/show/56IZXdzH7M0OZUIZDb5mUZ https://www.breaker.audio/change-i-m-possible https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xMjg4YzRmMC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw Don't Forget to Subscribe www.youtube.com/@toctwpodcast #artificialintelligence #future #ai

IN EPISODE 152: Digital transformation doesn't start with technology - it's about people, purpose and alignment. In this episode, Kate O'Neill shows us why the best strategies for disruptive technologies are focused on meaning, not just machines. We discuss ways companies can get digital transformation right, how to measure for meaning, and why AI may not cause the apocalypse we're fearing. Plus, Kate shares a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the early days of Netflix and the stirrings of a United Nations summit. The future of tech is bright -and after listening to Kate, you'll learn how to put people at the center of technological change. ABOUT KATE O'NEILL: Kate O'Neill is the founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm committed to improving human experience at scale through more meaningful and aligned strategy. Her clients include Google, Adobe, IBM, Deloitte, Yale University, the city of Amsterdam, and the United Nations. Kate was one of the first 100 employees at Netflix and led one of the first digital strategy and analytics agencies. She's been widely featured in the media in outlets like BBC, NPR, Wall Street Journal and Wired ,and  she's the author of five books, most recently: A Future So Bright: How Strategic Optimism and Meaningful Innovation Can Restore Our Humanity and Save the World.

Widely known as the “Tech Humanist”, Kate O'Neill is founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm committed to improving human experience at scale through more meaningful and aligned strategy. Kate sits down with Dan Pontefract on this episode to discuss the link between technology and our humanity. It's don't miss viewing. Kate is helping humanity prepare for an increasingly tech-driven future and is doing so through her signature strategic optimism. Among her prior roles, she created the first content management role at Netflix, developed Toshiba America‘s first intranet, and founded [meta]marketer, one of the first digital strategy and analytics agencies. Kate has appeared as an expert tech commentator on BBC, NPR, and a wide variety of international media, and her written insights have been featured in WIRED, CMO.com, and many other outlets. She has worked with global companies such as Google, Etsy and Cisco to optimise the role technology plays in the modern world. Her books have included “Tech Humanist” and “Pixels and Place,” as well as her latest, “A Future So Bright,” which launched in September 2021.

“What does it mean for people if their jobs are threatened by a sense of automation sort of encroaching on the tasks that make up their job?” Debbie talks with Kate O'Neill about the automation of work and how to adapt. This episode shares insightful ways to think about where automation is useful and where it isn't.Follow Kate on LinkedIn

As manufacturing becomes more reliant on machines, automation, and other emerging forms of technology, human leadership is more important than ever. To learn more about the best practices for leadership in a technology-driven world, I brought in “tech humanist” and technology expert Kate O'Neil. As the founder and CEO of KO Insights, Kate helps organizations create meaningful strategies for balancing human experiences and the tech-driven future. In this podcast, she shares some of her favorite tips for how manufacturing leaders can find the brightest possible futures for themselves and their organizations. 1:30 – How can we reclaim our agency? 2:53 – When a lot of manufacturing is being done by machines, it's critical to find a balance between automation and human decision making 3:56 – As we use more and more technology and automation in the manufacturing sphere, human roles actually become more important than ever, especially when it comes to creating safe and effective procedures 7:19 – When using data, consider the humans on the other side 12:50 – Leaders need to determine the processes and nuances behind data, and this often means asking questions instead of just relying on hard data 16:30 “Machines are what we encode of ourselves” 17:50 – What does it mean to lead in a technology-driven world? 21:00 – Leaders and their organizations need to be careful about how they use public trust and responsibility with data and data gathering 23:00 – Due to issues like climate change, supply chain shortages, and labor issues, leaders are in a tougher position than ever, especially when it comes to decision-making 25:00 – Are you aligned with history in the way you want to be? 27:00 – Your actions today are tomorrow's history 29:00 – Social media is important for manufacturing leaders, but be wary of false information 32:00 – When used correctly and responsibility, technology is a powerful tool for manufacturing leaders Contact Kate O'Neil: Website Twitter Books  

This week, we're exploring why it behooves businesses and business leaders to look at their users, consumers, customers, etc., as humans first. Slightly shifting perspective to consider the humanity behind purchasing decisions can lead to greater loyalty, more frequent use, and genuinely happier users, all of which add up to more business success and better outcomes for the world. Together with my guests, we discuss how human-centric decisions apply to various industries and how you can build better relationships that lead to success for all of humanity. Guests this week include Charlie Cole, Neil Redding, Dr. Rumman Chowdhury, Ana Milicevic, Cathy Hackl, Marcus Whitney, and David Ryan Polgar. The Tech Humanist Show is a multi-media-format program exploring how data and technology shape the human experience. Hosted by Kate O'Neill. Produced and edited by Chloe Skye, with research by Ashley Robinson and Erin Daugherty at Interrobang and input from Elizabeth Marshall. To watch full interviews with past and future guests, or for updates on what Kate O'Neill is doing next, subscribe to The Tech Humanist Show hosted by Kate O'Neill channel on YouTube, or head to KOInsights.com. Full Transcript Kate O'Neill: When you buy something, you're a customer. But — to paraphrase a line from the movie Notting Hill — you're also just a person, standing in front of a business, asking it to treat you like a human being. Over the last two decades plus working in technology, I've often held job titles that were centered on the experience of the user, the consumer, or the customer. In fact, the term ‘customer experience' has been in use since at least the 1960s, and has become so common that a recent survey of nearly 2,000 business professionals showed that customer experience was the top priority over the next five years. And while generally speaking this emphasis is a good thing, my own focus over the past decade or so has shifted. I've realized that the more macro consideration of human experience was a subtle but vital piece missing from the discussion at large. Because when we talk about experience design and strategy, no matter what word we use to qualify it—customer, user, patient, guest, student, or otherwise—we are always talking about humans, and the roles humans are in relative to that experience. In order to refocus on human experience instead of customer, you have to change the way you think about your buyers. You owe it to yourself to think not just about how people can have a better experience purchasing from your company, but also what it means to be fully human within the journey that brings them to that moment, and the uniquely human factors that drive us to make decisions leading to purchase or loyalty. A recent piece by Deloitte shared in the Wall Street Journal echoes this idea and offers five ways to be more human-centric in business: 1) be obsessed by all things human, 2) proactively identify & understand human needs before they are expressed, 3) execute with humanity, 4) be authentic, and 5) change the world. That's what today's episode is about: using empathy and strategic business-savvy to understand what it means to be human, and how that intersects with the worlds of technology and business. Neil Redding: “When you look at everything that has to do with buying and selling of things, it's so closely tied with what we care about, what we value most, value enough as humans to spend our hard-earned money on. And so, the realm of retail reflects something really deeply human, and profoundly human.” Kate: That was Neil Redding, brand strategist and self-described “Near Futurist” focused on the retail space. He's right—buying and selling things has become deeply entwined with humanity. But when we purchase something, it's not because we think of ourselves as “customers” or “end users.” We buy because we have a need or desire to fulfill, and sometimes that need is purely emotional. A ‘customer' buys your product—a human buys your product for a reason. 84% of consumers say that being treated like a person instead of a number is an important element to winning their business. It does seem like business professionals are catching on, as 79% say it's impossible to provide great service without full context of the client and their needs. But understanding something isn't the same as putting it into practice—only 34% of people say they feel like companies actually treat them as individuals. One major difference is the question of framing. Customer experience frames the motivator as, ‘how effectively the business operates the events related to a purchase decision.' It drives companies to focus on improving their own metrics, like bringing down call center wait times. These may yield worthwhile outcomes, but they're inherently skewed to the business perspective and aligned to the purchase transaction. Focusing instead on human experience shifts the perspective to the person outside the business, and what they want or need. It allows consideration of the emotional state they may be bringing to the interaction, which leaves greater room for empathy and context. A human experience mindset suggests that each individual's unique circumstances are more important than aggregate business metrics, because the reason why that person is interacting with your company probably can't be captured by measuring, say, how long they might have to wait on the phone. You could bring that wait time to zero and it still may not have any impact on whether the person feels heard, respected, or satisfied with the outcome — or whether they want to engage with you again. But as fuzzy as it is to talk about human experience, we know that measurement is fundamental to business success, so we have to find a way to define useful metrics somehow. For each business, that number is likely a bit different. So how do you know whether your customers feel like they're being treated as humans instead of just numbers? Charlie Cole, CEO of the flower delivery website ftd.com, believes one answer is obsessing over customer satisfaction metrics. Charlie Cole: “The best way to win this industry is just kick ass with the customer. We obsess over NPS scores, uh, as kind of leading indicators of LTV scores.” Kate: If you're not familiar with the acronyms, allow me to decipher: NPS stands for Net Promoter Score, which measures how likely the customer is to recommend the business, and LTV in this context means ‘lifetime value,' or the amount a customer may spend at your business over the course of their lifetime. Charlie Cole: “But remember, it's not the receiver's lifetime, it's the sender's lifetime. I mean, think about it. My stepmom is—just had a birthday April 9th, and I sent her a plant. If I went on a website and picked out a Roselia, and she received an Azelia, she's gonna be like, ‘thank you so much, that was so thoughtful of you,' and I'm gonna be pissed, right? And so like, we have to make sure we optimize that sender NPS score. It was shocking to us when we looked into the NPS, when we first got to FTD, our NPS, Kate, was in like the teens! My CTO looked at it and he goes, ‘how is this possible? We send gifts, who doesn't like receiving gifts?' And so we were looking at this stuff and we realized like, this is how you win. And I think when people look at the world of online delivery, there's very few companies that are extremely customer-centric… and in our world it matters. It's births, it's deaths, it's birthdays, it's Mother's Days… it's the most emotional moments of your life that you're relying on us for, so I think that gravitas just goes up to the next level.” Kate: Net Promoter Score offers directional insight about the customer experience, but it still isn't quite measurement of the broader human experience. The typical NPS question is phrased, “How likely is it that you would recommend [company X] to a friend or colleague?”, which forces customers to predict future actions and place themselves into hypothetical or idealistic scenarios. It is also measured on a 1-10 scale, which is pretty arbitrary and subjective — one person's 9 would not be another person's 9. A clearer way to ask this and gain more useful human-centric data would be with simple yes/no questions, asking people about actual past behaviors. For instance, “in the past 6 weeks, have you recommended [company X] to a friend or colleague?” Other alternative measures include PES, or Product Engagement Score, which measures growth, adoption, and stickiness of a given product or service, and doesn't require directly asking customers questions about their past or future habits. Instead, data comes in in real-time and allows for a clear measurement of success relative to a product's usage. While these metrics are useful in various ways, one thing missing from them is emotion. As humans, we are animals deeply driven by our emotions: research from MIT Sloan finds that before humans decide to take an action—any action, including buying something—the decision must first go through a filtering process that incorporates both reason and feelings. Reason leads to conclusions, but emotion leads to action. And if a customer feels frustrated by the customer service they're experiencing—perhaps they feel like they are being treated like a number, and not a person—they'll file a complaint, share on social media, and tell their friends and family to avoid the business. These actions can be quite time-consuming, but people will give up their time to right a wrong they feel they've experienced. All this is to say that if you want to retain human loyalty or attract new people to your business, you have to create a positive emotional response in your customers, which means understanding more about who they are than simply what product they might want. Many businesses have discovered that one of the best ways to create an emotional connection with people is through branding. A great brand image can forge a permanent bond with someone who feels strongly that the company shares their values and practices what they preach. Once someone has connected a brand to their own identity, it becomes much more difficult to convince them to switch to another company—even if that company provides the same product at lower cost—because switching companies feels like losing a part of them. Dr. Rumman Chowdhury, Director of the Machine Learning Ethics, Transparency, and Accountability team at Twitter, explored the concept of branding with me when she came on my show last year. Rumman Chowdhury: “Human flourishing is not at odds with good business. Some of what you build, especially if you're a B2C company, it's about brand. It's about how people feel when they interact with your technology or your product. You are trying to spark an emotion. Why do you buy Coke vs Pepsi? Why do you go to McDonald's vs Burger King? Some of this is an emotional decision. It's also this notion of value. People can get overly narrowly focused on value as revenue generation—value comes from many, many different things. People often choose less ‘efficient' outcomes or less economically sound outcomes because of how it makes them feel. A frivolous example but an extreme example of it would be luxury brands. Apple spends so much money on design. Opening every Apple product is designed to feel like you're opening a present. That was intentional. They fully understand the experience of an individual, in interacting with technology like a phone or a computer, is also an emotional experience.” Kate: If you're able to understand what people connect to about your brand, you can invest into magnifying that image. If your customer loves that you invest into clean energies, it becomes less important how much time they spend on the phone waiting for a service rep. Operational metrics can't show you this emotional resonance, so instead you have to think about what makes you stand out, and why people are attracted to you. Sometimes, however, human emotion has nothing to do with the product or brand in question, and more to do with the circumstances surrounding it. There's perhaps no better example of this than flowers, which can be given for myriad reasons, and usually at the extreme ends of the emotional spectrum. I'll let Charlie Cole explain. Charlie Cole: “For us, it's buyer journey by occasion. So, you are sending flowers for the birth of a newborn. You are sending flowers for the tragic death of a teenager. You are sending flowers for the death of your 96 year old great grandfather. You are sending flowers for your wife's birthday. I would argue that even though the end of all those buyer journeys is ‘flowers,' they are fundamentally different. And you have to understand the idiosyncrasies within those buyer journeys from an emotional component. You have to start with the emotions in mind. You're buying running shoes. The buying journey for like a runner, for like a marathoner, a guy who runs all the time, is emotionally different than someone who just got told they need to lose weight at the doctor. Someone who travels for business all the time versus someone who's taking their first ever international…travel. Like, my wife retold a story the other day to my aunt about how her first European trip was when she won a raffle to go to Austria when she was 17. And her, like, single mom was taking her to Europe, and neither of them had ever been to Europe. That's a different luggage journey than me, who used to fly 300,000 miles a year. And I think that if you take the time to really appreciate the emotional nuance of those journeys, yes there's data challenges, and yes there's customer recognition challenges, so you can personalize it. But I would urge every brand to start with like the emotional amino-acid level of why that journey starts, and then reverse-engineer it from there. Because I think you'll be able to answer the data challenges and the attribution challenges, but I think that's a place where we sometimes get too tech-y and too tactical, as opposed to human.” Kate: Another challenge unique to flowers and other products usually given as gifts is that there are two completely different humans involved in the transaction, each with different expectations and emotions riding on it. Charlie Cole: “There's two people involved in every one of our journeys, or about 92% of them: the buyer, and the receiver. So how do I message to you, I don't want to ruin the surprise! But I need to educate you, and oh yeah, I'm a really really nervous boyfriend, right? I wanna make sure everybody's doing it right, and it's gonna be there on time, and I need to make sure it's going to the right place… So the messaging pathways to the sender and receiver are fundamentally different. If you kind of forget about your buying journey, and imagine everything as a gifting buyer journey, it just changes the messaging component. Not in a nuanced way, but darn near in a reciprocal way.” And while some businesses struggle to connect emotionally with the humans that make up their customer base, the tech industry—and specifically social media companies—seem to fundamentally understand what it is that humans crave, in a way that allows them to use it against us. They thrive because they take something that is quintessentially human—connecting with people and sharing our lives—and turn it into a means for data collection that can then be used to sell us products that feel specifically designed for us. Like most of us, Neil Redding has experienced this phenomenon firsthand. Neil Redding: “We spend more and more of our time in contexts that we are apparently willing to have commercialized, right? Instagram is kind of my go-to example, where almost all of us have experienced this uncanny presentation to us of something that we can buy that's like so closely tied to… I mean, it's like how did you know that this is what I wanted? So myself and people close to me have just said, ‘wow, I just keep buying this stuff that gets presented to me on Instagram that I never heard of before but gets pushed to me as like, yeah it's so easy, and it's so aligned with what I already want. So there's this suffusion of commercial transaction—or at least discovery—of goods that can be bought and sold, y'know, in these moments of our daily lives, y'know, so that increasingly deep integration of commerce and buying and selling of things into our self-expression, into our communication, works because what we care about and what we are willing to buy or what we are interested in buying are so intertwined, right? They're kind of the same thing at some deep level.” Kate: Part of the reason this works is that humans crave convenience. Lack of convenience adds friction to any process, and friction can quickly lead to frustration, which isn't a mind state that leads to more business. The internet and social media has made keeping up with friends and gathering information incredibly convenient, so an advertisement here or there—especially one that looks and feels the same as everything else on our feed—doesn't bother us like it might in other contexts. And when those advertisements have been tailored specifically to our interests, they're even less likely to spark a negative emotion, and may in fact encourage us to buy something that we feel is very “us.” The big question for business leaders and marketers then is how do you digitize your business so that it emphasizes the richness of the human experience? How do you know which technologies to bring into your business, and which to leave aside? There are plenty of established and emerging technologies to choose from: Interactive email helps marketers drive engagement and also provides an avenue for additional data collection. Loyalty marketing strategies help brands identify their best customers and customize experiences for them. Salesforce introduced new features to help humanize the customer service experience with AI-powered conversational chatbots that feel pretty darn close to speaking with an actual human. Virtual and Augmented Reality website options allow customers to interact with products and see them in their hands or living rooms before they buy. With all the choice out there, it can be overwhelming. And t oo often, businesses and governments lean into the “just buy as much tech as possible!” approach without thinking integratively about the applications of said technology. Many companies are using that technology to leverage more data than ever before, hoping to customize and personalize experiences. David Ryan Polgar, a tech ethicist and founder of All Tech Is Human, explains why this method may not yield the results you think—because humans aren't just a collection of data points. David Ryan Polgar: “Are we an algorithm, or are we unique? I always joke, like, my mom always said I'm a, a snowflake! I'm unique! Because, when you think about Amazon and recommendations, it's thinking that your past is predicting your future. And that, with enough data, we can accurately determine where your next step is. Or even with auto-suggestion, and things like that. What's getting tricky is, is that true? Or is it subtly going to be off? With a lot of these auto-suggestions, let's say like text. Well the question I always like to think about is, how often am I influenced by what they said I should say? So if I wanna write, like, ‘have a…' and then it says ‘great day,' well, maybe I was gonna say great day, but maybe I was gonna say good day. And it's subtly different, but it's also influencing kinda, my volition. Now we're being influenced by the very technology that's pushing us is a certain direction. And we like to think of it, ‘well, it's already based on you,' but then that has a sort of cyclical nature to actually extending—” Kate: “Quantum human consciousness or something.” David: “Exactly! Exactly.” Kate: “Like, the moment you observe it, it's changed.” Kate: It's so easy, especially when you work with data, to view humans as output generators. But we're living in an age where people are growing increasingly wary of data collection, which means you may not know as much about the people whose data you've collected as you think you do. Becoming dependent on an entirely data-driven model for customer acquisition may lead to faulty decisions — and may even be seen as a huge mistake five years from now. Instead, I always talk about “human-centric digital transformation,” which means the data and tech-driven changes you make should start from a human frame. Even if you're already adopting intelligent automation to accelerate your operations, in some cases, very simple technologies may belong at the heart of your model. Here's Neil Redding again. Neil Redding: “Using Zoom or FaceTime or Skype is the only technology needed to do what a lot of stores have done during COVID, where their customers expect the store associate interaction when they come to the stores, they just create a one-on-one video call, and the shopper just has this interaction over videochat, or video call, and kind of does that associate-assisted shopping, right? And so you have that human connection, and again, it's nowhere near as great as sitting across a table and having coffee, but it's better than, y'know, a 2-dimensional e-commerce style shopping experience.” Kate: As a parallel to video conferencing, Virtual Reality has opened up avenues for new human experiences of business as well. Cathy Hackl, a metaverse strategist and tech futurist, explained a new human experience she was able to have during COVID that wouldn't have been possible without VR. Cathy Hackl: “I'll give you an example, like with the Wall Street Journal, they had the WSJ Tech Live, which is their big tech conference, and certain parts of it were in VR, and that was a lot of fun! I mean, I was in Spatial, which is one of the platforms, hanging out with Joanna Stern, and with Jason Mims, and like, in this kind of experience, where like I actually got to spend some 1-on-1 time with them, and I don't know if I would have gotten that if I was in a Zoom call, and I don't know if I would have gotten that in person, either.” Kate: Virtual Reality and video technologies have also opened up new avenues for healthcare, allowing patients to conference with doctors from home and only travel to a hospital if absolutely necessary. Marcus Whitney is a healthcare investor and founder of the first venture fund in America to invest exclusively in Black founded and led healthcare innovation companies; he explains that these virtual experiences allow for better happiness, healing, and comfort. Marcus Whitney: “Going forward, telehealth will be a thing. We were already on the path to doing more and more healthcare in the home. It was something that they were trying to stop because, is the home an appropriate place for healthcare to take place? Lo and behold, it's just fine. Patients feel more secure in the home, and it's a better environment for healing, so you're gonna see a lot more of that. I think we're finally gonna start seeing some real breakthroughs and innovation in healthcare. Most of the lack of innovation has not been because we didn't have great thinkers, it has largely been regulatory barriers. Remote patient monitoring was a huge one that came up in the last year, so now we have doctors caring about it. What moves in healthcare is what's reimbursable. They were always trying to regulate to protect people, but then they realized, well, we removed the regulatory barriers and people were fine, so that regulation makes actually no sense, and people should have more choice, and they should be able to do telehealth if they want to.” Kate: And that's just it: humans want choice. We want to feel seen, and heard, and like our opinions are being considered. There's another technology on the horizon that could give people more power over their technology, and therefore freedom and choice, that will likely cause massive change in the marketplace when it is more widely available: Brain-computer interface. Cathy Hackl explains. Cathy Hackl: “So I'm very keen right now on brain-computer interface. The way I'm gonna explain it is, if you've been following Elon Musk, you've probably heard of neuro-link—he's working on BCI that's more internal, the ones I've been trying are all external devices. So I'm able to put a device on that reads my brainwaves, it reads my intent, and it knows that I wanna scroll an iPad, or I've been able to turn on lights using just my thoughts, or play a video game, or input a code… I've been able to do all these things. And I'm very keen on it, very interested to see what's going on… I think the biggest thing that's stuck with me from studying all these technologies and trying them out from an external perspective, is that my brain actually really likes it. Loves the workout. Like, I'm thinking about it, and I'm like, the receptors here, pleasure receptors are like lighting up, I'm like ‘ohmygosh!' So I'm still sitting with that. Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing? I don't know, but I think these technologies can allow us to do a lot of things, especially people with disabilities. If they don't have a hand, being able to use a virtual hand to do things in a virtual space. I think that's powerful.” Kate: That story also illuminates the fact that there are many different types of people, each with different needs. Digital transformation has given people with disabilities a new way to claim more agency over their lives, which creates a brand new potential customer-base, filled with humans who desire freedom and choice as much as the next person. Now, let's talk about some companies who are doing at least a few q things right when it comes to the digital transformation of human experience. Starbucks, for instance. One of the worst parts of shopping in-store was waiting in line, and then the social pressure from the people behind you wishing you would order faster. If you weren't a regular customer, the experience could be overwhelming. When they launched their mobile order app, it tapped into a number of things that made the experience of buying coffee faster and easier, with all sorts of fun customization options that I never knew existed when I only ordered in-store. Now, even brand new customers could order complex coffee drinks — meaning in that one move the company may have brought in new customers and allowed the cost per coffee to increase — all without people feeling pressure from other shoppers, and without the inconvenience of waiting in line. Then there's Wal-Mart, who during the pandemic instituted ‘Wal-Mart pickup,' a service where people can shop online and pick up their goods without ever having to step into the store. The service is technically operating at a financial loss, but Wal-Mart understands that solid branding and convenience are worth more to their company's bottom-line in the long run than the amount of money they're losing by investing into this particular service. Of course, some businesses are better suited for the online-only world than others. As more companies attempt to digitize their businesses, it's incredibly important to tap into the human reasons that people wanted to engage with your business in the first place. In some cases, businesses have failed to make this connection, assuming that “if people liked us as a physical product, then they'll continue using us when we're digital,” or worse, “if we simply make people aware of us, they will become customers!” This assumption ignores human nature, as Ana Milicevic, a longtime digital media executive who is principal and co-founder of Sparrow Digital Holdings, explains. Ana Milicevic: “To be relevant in this direct to consumer world, you also have to approach awareness and customer acquisition differently. And this is the #1 mistake we see a lot of traditional companies make, and not really understand how to pitch to a digital-first, mobile-first consumer or a direct subscriber. They're just not wired to do it that way, and often times the technology stacks that they have in place just aren't the types of tools that can facilitate this type of direct interaction as well. So they're stuck in this very strange limbo where they are committed to continuing to acquire customers in traditional ways, but that's just not how you would go about acquiring a direct customer.” Kate: Acquiring those direct customers requires an understanding of what humans want—a large part of which is meaning. And how people create meaning in their lives is changing as well. Long before the pandemic, trends were already pointing toward a future where we live more of our lives online, but those trends have also been accelerated. So beyond digitizing your business, it may also be useful to invest time, money, and energy into discovering how the humans of the future will create meaning in their lives. Cathy Hackl discussed some of the trends she's seen in her own kids that show how today's children will consume and make purchasing decisions in a very different way than most modern businesses are used to. Cathy Hackl: “Something else that I'm noticing… y'know we're going to brick and mortar, but we're going to brick and mortar less. So you start to see this need for that virtual try-on to buy your makeup, or to buy clothes, and it's also transitioning not only from the virtual try-on into what I'm calling the direct-to-avatar economy. Everything from virtual dresses that you're buying, or custom avatars, y'know you're starting to create this virtualized economy. And this is the reason I always talk about this now, is my son recently did his first communion, and when we said, ‘hey, what do you want as a gift?' he said, ‘I don't want money, I want a Roblox gift card that I can turn into Robucks,'—which is the currency they use inside Roblox—'so that I can buy—whichever gamer's skin.' And, y'know, when I was growing up, my brother was saving up to buy AirJordans. My son doesn't want that, y'know, he wants Robucks, to buy something new for his avatar. This is direct-to-avatar; is direct-to-avatar the next direct-to-consumer?” Kate: Our online avatars represent us. We can customize them to directly express who we feel we are. Part of the reason this idea is so attractive is that many people—increasingly so in the context of online interaction—seek out meaningful experiences as our ‘aspirational' selves. We gravitate to the communities that align with facets of who we wish we were. And perhaps less productively, we may also choose to present the idealized version of ourselves to the world, omitting anything we're embarrassed by or that we feel may paint us in a negative light. But honestly, all of this makes sense in the context of making meaning, because humans are generally the most emotionally fulfilled when we feel empowered to control which ‘self' we present in any given interaction. With this much freedom of choice and expression, and with the complications of the modern supply chain—which I will talk about more in depth in our next episode—it's important to acknowledge that creating convenience and improving human satisfaction aren't going to be easy tasks. Behind the scenes, there is a tremendous amount of work that goes into providing a satisfying customer experience. Let's go back to the example of flowers and see what Charlie Cole has to say. Charlie Cole: “If it's too cold they freeze, if it's too hot they wilt, if UPS is a day late they die. And then, the real interesting aspect—and this isn't unique to flowers—the source is remarkably centralized. So the New York Times estimated that 90-92% of roses that are bought in America for Valentine's Day come from Columbia and Ecuador. And so, if anything goes wrong there, then you really don't have a chance. Imagine the quintessential Valentine's Day order: A dozen long-stem roses, New York City. Easy, right? I used to live on 28th and 6th, so let's say Chelsea. Okay, I've got 7 florists who could do it. Who has delivery capacity? Roses capacity? The freshest roses? The closest to proximity? The closest to the picture in the order? Who has the vase that's in the order? Did they buy roses from us? Because I like to be able to incentivize people based on margins they already have. And so without exaggeration, Kate, we have about 11-12 ranking factors that educate a quality score for a florist, and that's how it starts the process. But then there's all the other things, like how do we know somebody didn't walk into that florist that morning and buy all the roses, right? And so there's this real-time ebb-and-flow of demand because our demand is not ours! They have their own store, they have their own B2B business, they might take orders from some of our competitors. They might have their own website. We have no idea what any given florist happens in real time because they are not captive to us. What we've learned is the place we have to get really really really really good is technology on the forecasting side, on the florist communication side, and the customer communication side. Because I can't control the seeds on the ground in Columbia, but I can really control the communication across the entire network as far as we go, as well as the amounts the we need in various places.” Kate: Creating that small-scale, emotional human moment where someone receives flowers requires immense computing power and collaboration between multiple businesses and workers. Which is part of why Charlie Cole also believes that in some cases, the best way to help your business succeed is to invest in helping other businesses that yours interacts with. Charlie Cole: “Small businesses… I think it's our secret sauce. And I think COVID has shined a light on this: small businesses are the core of our communities. Right? They are the absolute core, and I think it was always nice to say that, but now we know it. And so here's what I think we do better than anybody else: we've invested more in helping our florists run their own small business independently of us than we have about optimizing our marketplace. We launched new POS software. We launched a new local website product where we're like the first person ever to become a reseller for Shopify because we made a custom platform for florists. We're just their website provider. They're actually competing with FTD.com in a lot of ways—but I think that's where we're gonna differentiate ourselves from all the other people that are perceived as, by small businesses, (their words not mine) leeches. Right? I think to actually effectively run a marketplace which is fulfilled by small businesses, you need to invest as much in helping them win their local market independent of you.” Kate: You could make the case that there is no more evolved human experience than choosing to help others. So if your business is engaged in activities that allow other businesses—and therefore humans—to thrive, you may also be building your brand in a direction that creates more customer loyalty than any exit survey or great service interaction ever could. Beyond understanding human emotions and needs, you can help your business by leaning into understanding how we create meaning. At our core, we are compelled to make meaning. Whether we realize it or not, meaningful experiences and interactions are the driving force behind many of our decisions, financial or otherwise. Meaning is different for everyone, but having it is vital to our happiness. If you are able to engage with potential customers in a way that helps them create meaning, or allows them to use your product to make meaning on their own, you are aligning your success with your customers' success, and that bodes well for the long term. At the end of the day, making any of these changes starts at the very top of your business. Leadership needs to set the tone, creating a culture that allows room for workers at every level to engage more meaningfully with customers, and with each other. (By the way, for more discussion on creating or changing work culture, you can check out our last episode, “Does the Future of Work Mean More Agency For Workers?”) Your effort will benefit not only your business, but society as a whole. Remember the Deloitte piece in the Wall Street Journal I mentioned at the start of the episode, with ways to be more human-centric in business? Number 5 on that list was “change the world,” and research from Frontiers suggests that the well-being of any society is directly linked to how the people living within it feel about their lives and purpose. How we do that may be as simple — and as complicated — as helping people to experience meaning at any level. While the technologies around us keep changing, the opportunity becomes increasingly clear for people who work around creating customer experiences and user experiences to open up the aperture to see humanity through a fuller lens. This way, as you set your business up for longterm success, you also advocate for making human experiences as meaningful as possible — and you just might be changing the world for the better. Thanks for joining me as I explored what it means to think of customers as human. Next time, I'll be exploring the supply chain and how, despite the vast technology involved, the closer you look the more you realize: the economy is people.

Kate O'Neill is the CEO of KO Insights, also a Keynote speaker focused on the future of human experiences amid tech & other changes at scale. We talk about her new book, A Future So Bright, How Strategic Optimism and Meaningful Innovation Can Restore Our Humanity and Save The World.

Kate O'Neill is the author of “A Future So Bright,” a book that argues that the best way to confront challenges and build a better tomorrow is to allow ourselves to envision the brightest future possible, while at the same time acknowledging the ways the future could go dark and working to prevent them from happening. Widely known as the “Tech Humanist,” Kate is helping humanity prepare for an increasingly tech-driven future with her signature strategic optimism. Kate is also the founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm committed to improving human experience at scale. As a professional global keynote speaker, Kate regularly speaks with leadership audiences around the world, exploring how data and emerging technologies like AI are shaping the future of human experiences, and advocating with her signature strategic optimism for humanity's future in an increasingly tech-driven and exponentially-changing world. Her clients and audiences include many Fortune 500 and World's Most Admired companies and brands, including tech giants like Google and IBM, household-name brands like Coca Cola and Colgate, future-forward cities like Amsterdam and Austin, top universities like Cambridge and Yale, and even the United Nations. Read the show notes here: https://bwmissions.com/one-away-podcast/

Kate O'Neill is an executive strategist, the Founder and CEO of KO Insights, and author dedicated to improving the human experience at scale.  In this paradigm-shifting discussion, Kate traces her roots from a childhood thinking heady thoughts about language and meaning to her current mission as ‘The Tech Humanist'. Following this thread, Kate illustrates why meaning is the core of what makes us human. She urges us to champion meaningful innovation and reject the notion that we are victims of a predetermined future.Challenging simplistic analysis, Kate advocates for applying multiple lenses to every situation: the individual and the collective, uses and abuses, insight and foresight, wild success and abject failure. Kimberly and Kate acknowledge but emphatically disavow current norms that reject nuanced discourse or conflate it with ‘both-side-ism'. Emphasizing that everything is connected, Kate shows how to close the gap between human-centricity and business goals. She provides a concrete example of how innovation and impact depend on identifying what is going to matter, not just what matters now. Ending on a strategically optimistic note, Kate urges us to anchor on human values and relationships, habituate to change and actively architect our best human experience – now and in the future.A transcript of this episode can be found here.Thank you for joining us for Season 2 of Pondering AI. Join us next season as we ponder the ways in which AI continues to elevate and challenge our humanity. Subscribe to Pondering AI now so you don't miss it.

Kate O'Neill is the leading experience strategy expert and thinker top organizations turn to for solving human problems at scale Kate is CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm committed to improving human experience at scale. The organizations she has helped have included the likes of IBM, the United Nations, Yale University, and the city of Amsterdam. They're organizations with storied histories, big futures, and complex challenges — perhaps not unlike yours. Each of them is responsible for a whole lot of humans and a whole lot of human experiences, and they all rely on big human insights to pull their strategies together. Learn more www.ericbrooker.com or https://www.koinsights.com/

Kate O'Neill is founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm committed to improving human experience at scale. Kate is widely known as the “Tech Humanist.” She is helping humanity prepare for an increasingly tech-driven future with her signature strategic optimism.  Her latest book, A Future So Bright: How Strategic Optimism Can Restore Our Humanity and Save the World is EXACTLY what we all need right now. Hit the play button to hear this amazing conversation as Kate catches up with Lou Diamond. Click here to watch the video of their LIVE recording of this interview from (9/9/21) Click the image below to grab yourself a copy of "A Future So Bright" ** CONNECT TO LOU DIAMOND & THRIVE LOUD  

Kate O'Neill helps leaders create meaningful human experiences in a tech-driven world and take responsibility for the future we all share. She is founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm providing big-picture thinking on how business, humanity, and technology interact at scale, and committed to improving human experience amid exponential change. In this interview with Kate about her book A Future so Bright, we learn about "Strategic Optimism", how we can use Artificial Intelligence for good, how cities can help us get ready to lead, and how the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals connect with Kate's work.I'm so honored to offer you the opportunity to learn from Kate. Take advantage of this opportunity by sharing this interview with your friends and business colleagues. And, be sure to check out Kate's website, www.koinsights.com, so we can all agree with Kate about A Future so Bright: How Strategic Optimism and Meaningful Innovation Can Restore Humanity and Save The World.To learn more about your host, Marty Wolff, go to https://www.linkedin.com/in/martywolffceo/. You can also call or text me at 570 815-1626 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Have you ever wondered what it means to be a humanist in the age of technology? How can we put human values into a machine? How can we even know what those human values are? We asked Kate O'Neill, founder of KO Insights and author of the Tech Humanist, this question and found that there's a lot to work with when it comes to understanding humans and what they might want their machines to do. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit artificiality.substack.com

Kate O'Neill is known as the Tech Humanist. She is the founder of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm committed to improving the human experience at scale, even and especially in data-driven, algorithmically optimized, and AI-led interactions. Kate regularly keynotes industry events, advocating for humanity's role in an increasingly tech-driven future. Her world-leading clients have included Google, Adobe, IBM, Yale University, the city of Amsterdam, and the United Nations.In This Episode:The intersection between technology, business, and humanityAlways being open to changeThe both/and mindsetFinding gratitude after major loss

Kate O’Neill, known as both the “Tech Humanist” and “Optimistic Futurist,” is helping humanity prepare for an increasingly tech-driven future. Her research, writing, speaking, and advocacy all concentrate on the impact of data and emerging technologies on current and future human experiences — from both a business perspective, in terms of innovation and digital transformation strategy, and a general perspective, in terms of humanity overall. The Pioneering Path to the Present Kate’s expertise in data-based business models, integrated experience strategy, and human-centric digital transformation comes from more than 25 years of experience and entrepreneurship leading innovations across technology, marketing, and operations in category-defining companies. She was one of the first 100 employees at Netflix, where she created the first content management role and helped implement innovative dynamic e-commerce practices that became industry standard; was founder & CEO of [meta]marketer, a first-of-its-kind analytics and digital strategy agency; developed Toshiba America‘s first intranet; led cutting-edge experience optimization work at Magazines.com; and has held leadership and advisory positions in a variety of digital content and technology start-ups, consultancies, and agencies. Kate is now founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory and consultancy firm committed to improving human experience at scale. Through KO Insights, Kate speaks, writes, advises, and advocates on a range of strategic challenges and ethical issues: big data, privacy, emerging tech trends in retail and other industries, intelligent automation and the future of work, digital transformation due to COVID-19, the role of technology in dealing with climate change, managing change at exponential scale, and more. Her approach is consistently “both/and”: business-savvy and human-centric. She advises business and civic leaders on building data-led and technology-driven human experiences that are respectful as well as successful, and helps people overall understand the impact of the data and emerging technologies affecting their lives more and more each day.  https://thomsinger.com/podcast/kate-oneill

“Purpose is the shape meaning takes in business.” This should be the motto for 2021 for ALL companies. From Facebook to Google to The Wing, the entrepreneurial ecosystem has scaled bad practices and behaviors that have hurt many people. I don't think these founders had bad intentions. Quite the contrary. I truly believe that each of these founders had a vision for helping people that turned sour while scaling. How? We perpetuate growth for growth's sake to saturate markets quickly. While “intentions” may be to serve more people while yielding BIG returns, many of these companies forget to put the very people they claim to serve at the center and harm them in the process. Remember when Google used the motto “Don't do evil”? They don't use it anymore. As we forge into 2021, I hope all companies can get clear on who they serve and the purpose of serving them. Otherwise, why should what you do matter to us? Kate O'Neill, founder of the Tech Humanist will help you answer that very question. Here's what you'll learn: How companies scale unintended consequences. How to be a tech humanist. The 3 things we need to understand to scale technology that creates meaning and meaningful experiences. What to do when your company f*cks up. Best practices for centering humanity during scale through purpose. Subscribe & Rate Now. #getsshitdonepodcast Learn More About the Get Sh!t Done: shegetsshitdone.com Have feedback, a show topic you want us to cover, or just want to say hi: tribe@shegetsshitdone.com

Professional keynote speaker, author, experience strategy expert and tech humanist Kate O'Neill is featured in a Thrive LOUD Minisode.  Plucked from her original conversation with Lou Diamond back in the fall of 2019, Kate talks about the challenges companies, industries and people are facing with automation and technology and how she helps them try to find the hope within it. Listen in and enjoy!

Kate O"Neill Kate O’Neill is the founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic consultancy committed to improving human experience at scale. She is the author of Tech Humanist: How You Can Make Technology Better for Business and Better for Humans. A thought-provoking and dynamic speaker, Kate appears frequently at industry conferences and private events around the world, providing galvanizing keynotes, moderating and participating in lively panel discussions, and facilitating transformative executive workshops and retreats. Clients have included Google, Cisco, Etsy, Coca Cola, McDonald’s, Kelly Services, as well as educational institutions including the University of Cambridge and Yale University, professional associations like YPO and SHRM, industry conferences like INBOUND and UX Australia, cities such as Amsterdam, cultural institutions, and a wide variety of NGOs and IGOs including the United Nations. Karl Post Karl Post is the President at TallGrass Public Relations and the Hayzlett Group and a Co-Founder in the C-Suite Network. His experience includes a distinguished background in international franchising, business consulting and corporate business development. He worked in a variety of roles that included responsibilities for strategic relationships and partnerships, worldwide marketing, financial consulting and contract negotiations.

In a busy and hectic technological world, automating processes have become the go-to for many businesses. While the merits are undeniable, it is important to think about the segments and sectors of people that get displaced along the way. Bringing someone who works to bring humans and tech together, Dr. Diane Hamilton sits down with Kate O’Neill, the CEO of KO Insights—a strategic consultancy committed to improving the human experience at scale. Here, Kate takes us deep into the important conversations to be had when it comes to automation, highlighting the importance of human relationship with tech. Follow along as Kate reminds you in this episode about the critical piece to understand as we go into an increasingly data and tech-led future: thinking about how to keep humanity at the center of that. Have you ever wondered what happens behind the walls of the executive-level? Taking you into the boardroom where big decisions are made, Dr. Diane Hamilton talks to Karl Post, the President of TallGrass Public Relations and the co-founder of the C-Suite Network. Karl discusses with us how he is helping executive leaders become the most strategic people in the room. He shares how to be more proactive and what are the five keeps on making a business thrive. Listen to what Karl has to say and more, providing you some helpful insights on running your business in this day and age. Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here’s How »Join the Take The Lead community today:DrDianeHamilton.comDr. Diane Hamilton FacebookDr. Diane Hamilton TwitterDr. Diane Hamilton LinkedInDr. Diane Hamilton YouTubeDr. Diane Hamilton Instagram

You'll enjoy this chat with Kate O'Neill, author, strategist, futurist and founder of KO Insights. She has been working in technology for more than 25 years, and thinking about the way people relate through it, alongside it and in spite of it. We discuss the luxury of the tools we have at this moment, and the way we may be bending to the tools versus shaping the tools to us, giving them more power as platforms than the intent. Kate is everywhere. Her brand new show, The Tech Humanist Show is a multi-media-format program exploring how data and technology shape the human experience. You can find it on Twitter or on the YouTube channel. Her newest book, Tech Humanist is a classic. I'll bet you want an AI generated transcript of this episode: Get it here: http://adampierno.com/moving-forward-with-empathy-kate-oneill/ Hey, you might be a listener and have no idea, but I've written some books. You can find Under Think It (a marketing strategy handbook) and Specific (a book about trying to build brands in a world that doesn't want any more of them). You can read some fiction I've written here, for free. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/adam-pierno/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/adam-pierno/support

Being isolated has been a real challenge for me. I am fortunate to be with my family, but relating to my co-workers and partners only via screens and phones has been taxing. I've always considered myself some kind introvert but now I recognize the energy I get from sharing space and experience with people. This may be the most productive I've ever been at work, and typically such sprints have coincided with periods I remember being happy. For a variety of reasons, this isn't working out that way. We're making things together, but something is missing. The energy of others may signal additional meaning to the work. Needless to say, I'm a little turned around. If you're having similar experience, you'll enjoy this chat with Kate O'Neill, author, strategist, futurist and founder of KO Insights. She has been working in technology for more than 25 years, and thinking about the way people relate through it, alongside it and in spite of it. We discuss the luxury of the tools we have at this moment, and the way we may be bending to the tools versus shaping the tools to us, giving them more power as platforms than the intent.Kate is everywhere. Her brand new show, The Tech Humanist Show is a multi-media-format program exploring how data and technology shape the human experience. You can find it on Twitter or on the YouTube channel. Her newest book, Tech Humanist is a classic. I’ll bet you want an AI generated transcript of this episode: Get it here: http://adampierno.com/moving-forward-with-empathy-kate-oneill/ Get full access to The Strategy Inside Everything at specific.substack.com/subscribe

https://www.engati.com/ Engati is the world's leading no-code, multi-lingual chatbot platform. Blog link: https://blog.engati.com/ | Subscribe now. Kate O'Neill, Founder and CEO of KO Insights, talks about how to make technology human-centric. Follow us on Facebook: http://s.engati.com/157 LinkedIn: http://s.engati.com/158 Twitter: http://s.engati.com/156 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getengati/ https://www.engati.com/glossary/agent-interaction https://www.engati.com/chatbot

Kate O’Neill is known as “the Tech Humanist.” She is helping humanity prepare for an increasingly tech-driven future by teaching business how to make technology that’s better for humans. Kate has led innovations across technology, marketing, and operations for more than 20 years in companies from startups to Fortune 500s. Among her prior achievements, she created the first content management role at Netflix; developed Toshiba America’s first intranet; led cutting-edge online optimization work at Magazines.com; was founder & CEO of [meta]marketer, a first-of-its-kind analytics and digital strategy agency; and held leadership and advisory positions in a variety of digital content and technology startups. She’s written 4 books - and is now the founder and CEO of KO Insights. Kate connects with Lou Diamond in this educational, focused, fun and insightful conversation on Thrive LOUD that shows her strength as a speaker and 'rap goddess-like' passion for getting the words, technology and humans to all come together. *** Connect to Lou Diamond: www.loudiamond.net Subscribe to Thrive LOUD: www.thriveloud.com/podcast  

With a focus on helping humanity prepare for an increasingly data and tech-driven future, Kate O’Neill, AKA the “tech humanist”, helps guide and inspire businesses to create truly meaningful human experiences. As a leading innovator across technology, marketing, and operations, Kate is a global keynote speaker, strategic advisor, and author of the recent, Tech Humanist: How You Can Make Technology Better for Business and Better for Humans.  She is also the founder of KO Insights, which helps clients bridge the gap between business interests and human needs. In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, Celisa talks with Kate about the idea of tech humanism, why businesses need a strategic purpose guiding their use of technology, and the potential impact of emerging technologies on learning. They also discuss her people-centered approach to analytics, the importance of focusing on the human experience, as well as the implications of blending online and offline experiences. Full show notes available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode204.  Thank you to our sponsors for this quarter: ** Authentic Learning Labs is an e-learning company that offers products and services to help improve your current investments in education. One key product is Authentic Analytics, a dedicated suite of visualization reports to help analyze and predict the performance of education programs. Organizations use Authentic Analytics to easily scan through volumes of data in intuitive visuals, chart performance trends, and quickly spot opportunities, issues, and potential future needs. Find out more at https://www.leadinglearning.com/goto/authentic.   CommPartners helps learning businesses conceive, develop, and fulfill their online education strategy. Their solutions begin with Elevate LMS, an award-winning learning platform that provides a central knowledge community and drives learner engagement. To extend the value of Elevate, CommPartners provides a wide range of online education services including curriculum design, instructional design, fully managed Webinars, Webcasts, livestream programs, and virtual conferences. Find out more at https://www.leadinglearning.com/goto/commpartners.

Podcast Description “The larger point is that experience at-scale does change culture, because experience at-scale IS culture.”Kate O’Neill is founder and Chief Tech Humanist of KO Insights, a thought leadership and advisory firm helping companies, organizations, and cities make future-aligned meaningful decisions based on human behavior and data. A prolific writer and author, her fourth book is Tech Humanist: How You Can Make Technology Better for Business and Better for Humans. Kate speaks regularly at industry conferences and private events, providing keynotes, participating in panel discussions, and leading creative brainstorming workshops for groups of all sizes. Her expertise has been featured in CNN Money, TIME, Forbes, USA Today, Men’s Journal, the BBC, and other national and international media.Kate's prior roles include creating the first content management role at Netflix, leading cutting-edge online optimization work at Magazines.com, developing Toshiba America's first intranet, building the first departmental website at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and holding leadership positions in a variety of digital content and technology start-ups. She was also founder & CEO of [meta]marketer, a digital strategy and analytics agency. Kate is a vocal and visible advocate for the greater inclusion of underrepresented people in technology, entrepreneurship, and leadership — she was featured by Google in the launch of their global campaign for women in entrepreneurship. Additional Resources The Tech Humanist ManifestoWeb siteLinkedInFB pageTwitter Twitter Kate O’Neill Become a #causeascene Podcast sponsor because disruption and innovation are products of individuals who take bold steps in order to shift the collective and challenge the status quo.Learn more >All music for the #causeascene podcast is composed and produced by Chaos, Chao Pack, and Listen on SoundCloud. Listen to more great #causeascene podcasts full podcast list >

Does being human-centered design correlate with ethics or is all product design strictly business-driven? In this episode of thinkPod, we are joined by Kate O’Neill (founder and CEO of KO Insights) and Jennifer Shin (data science expert, Founder at 8 Path Solutions). We dig into the news regarding Stanford’s newly-announced Institute for Human Centered Artificial Intelligence, whether ethics has a central role in product design, and the intersecting roles of consumers, government, and companies. We also touch upon aligning business objectives with human objectives, the terminology of bias, and our conflicted relationship with data security. thinkLeaders @IBMthinkLeaders Kate O’Neill @kateo Jennifer Shin @jennjshin ‏

Kate O'Neill, the Futurist, Author, Keynote Speaker, Fortune 500 Advisor, and Founder of KO Insights joins the show to share her journey from being one of the first 100 employees of Netflix to writing Tech Humanist and speaking at the UN. Hear what Netflix was like in the early days, how to align your company to make lives better, whether privacy even exists anymore, and why completely unplugging isn’t necessary. Connect with Kate on Twitter at @KateO and at KOinsights.com

If you use social media, you've probably noticed a trend across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter of people posting their then-and-now profile pictures, mostly from 10 years ago and this year. WIRED OPINION ABOUT Kate O'Neill is the founder of KO Insights and the author of Tech Humanist and Pixels and Place: Connecting Human Experience Across Physical and Digital Spaces. Instead of joining in, I posted the following semi-sarcastic tweet: https://twitter.

Welcome to episode #648 of Six Pixels of Separation.  Here it is: Six Pixels of Separation - Episode #648 - Host: Mitch Joel. This is the type of human being that the world (and business) desperately needs today. Kate O’Neill is helping humanity prepare for an increasingly tech-driven future by teaching business how to be successful with human-centric data and technology. Kate’s expertise comes from more than 20 years of experience and entrepreneurship leading innovations across technology, marketing, and operations. She created the first content management role at Netflix, was founder & CEO of [meta]marketer - a first-of-its-kind analytics and digital strategy agency, led the online optimization work at Magazines.com, developed Toshiba America‘s first intranet, and held leadership and advisory positions in a variety of other start-ups. Kate is now founder of KO Insights, a consultancy committed to improving human experience at scale. Kate is the author of four books including her latest, Tech Humanist (and we can't forget Pixels And Place). How do we make technology better for business and humans alike? Let's find out. Enjoy the conversation...  Running time: 54:16. Hello from beautiful Montreal. Subscribe over at iTunes. Please visit and leave comments on the blog - Six Pixels of Separation. Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook. or you can connect on LinkedIn. ...or on Twitter. Here is my conversation with Kate O’Neill. Tech Humanist. Pixels And Place. KO Insights. Follow Kate on Twitter. This week's music: David Usher 'St. Lawrence River'.

I’d only briefly met Kate O’Neill in person once before doing this interview. We’ve “known” each other for a while now on social media channels but had never really spent a lot of time taking in real life prior to sitting down for this interview. My loss… It's easy to see why Kate, the founder of KO Insights, is such a popular speaker, author (https://www.amazon.com/Kate-ONeill/e/B00JRD9ZAC), mentor, and consultant when it comes to human centric marketing and design. It's because she’s so, well, human. She’s real. No pretences, no BS, simply real. And in this day and age that is a rare commodity. Please do me one favor before you listen to this interview. Take a good look at this pic of Kate (her guest profile pic). Trust me, it will make all the sense in the world after you listen to the entire interview. It just might bring a tear to your eye as it did mine. Special Guest: Kate O'Neill.

E59 – Tech humanist human Kate O’Neill is a consultant, author and speaker. We talk about digital content, data privacy, wearables and cyborgs. She is founder and CEO of KO Insights and has been profiled and quoted in CNN Money, TIME, Forbes, USA Today, Men’s Journal, the BBC, etc. Her latest book, Pixels and Place: […]

Data is the most important part of any business's marketing efforts. Yes, you heard me correct. I said it. Data is the most important part of your marketing. Not the content. Not your social media accounts. Not your website. You need all of those channels, but they are not the most important. The data helps you track what is going on. Knowing how they are performing is the key here. That is what we talk about with our guest in today’s show. Kate O’Neill is one the smartest digital marketing minds that I know. We have worked on a couple projects together over the years. She was a key contributor to a section in my book, Chirp, Chirp. Kate was one of the most attended speakers to my Chirp, Chirp Extravaganza event. Let me give her a formal introduction to do her some justice.   Intro: Kate O'Neill has an amazing story. She tells it better in the podcast, but I’m going to highlight some of the special areas. Kate was one of the first 100 employees of Netflix. She has worked at Toshiba and various other technology startups. She travels around the globe keynoting on marketing and technology topics. She is a frequent contributor on the Twittersphere and her other social media channels. Kate has a very unique outlook on almost everything from data all the way down to life. It’s never a dull moment talking with Kate O’Neill. You are in for treat.   Heart of the Interview: Entrepreneurs, small businesses, and organizations that are not enterprises, still need to think big. There are two ways to do that. Keep one eye on the present and the other eye 10 years down the road. Get to know the customer. The more you know them, the more effective, the more successful and the more profitable you become.   Key Takeaways: No reason to pigeon hole yourself. You can always use the skills and knowledge from one area and apply to another as long as you have a willingness to start from scratch. You have to be willing to be dumb at something at first and not be daunted by the dumbness. You don’t need to have a large corporation to have a vision of an Apple or Netflix. You can still think strategically. And you should. Be nimble is a huge strategic advantage. The objective is to treat marketing as a knowledge center. Use Twitter to stay on top of the trends. Create lists in Twitter to easily follow the thought leaders. Ask yourself questions about a campaign when you set them up.   What You Can Do To Sell More: To effectively use data to better your business you must first believe that marketing is the opportunity to know your customers. All the data from the interactions doesn’t need to be scary if you approach it as things that can teach you about your customers. The more you know your customers the more you can tailor your offers and messaging that you put in front of them. And the more profitable you’ll end up being. It's a way to make the customer experience better. Make it easier for them to interact with you. And in the process you become more effective, more successful, and more profitable. Think about it as framing it around the customer and the customer experience.   Contact Info for Kate O'Neill: Website: www.KOInsights.com Twitter: @kateo LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kateoneill Facebook page: facebook.com/kateoneillpage Medium: https://medium.com/@kateo Instagram: https://instagram.com/kateoneill/ Email: kate@koinsights.com   Question for you: Do you currently use analytics with your marketing efforts?     If you like this podcast, then you will like this post: How To Set Up Goals in Google Analytics & Views For Beginners  

Kate is the founder and CEO of KOInsights a company that provides research, tools, models, and insights that foster more meaningful relationships between customers and brand, between tech and humanity. Kate is a Speaker, Writer, and Consultant working around the idea of “meaning”. “My career has shifted over discovering things and focusing on the people who are using the systems” Kate focuses on the people and meaningfulness as it relates to data, analytics, and marketing, as well as business strategy. “Any day you’re not doing plumbing is a good day.” We talk about Kate’s story and what Kate does. Her old company, [meta]marketer (recently closed), and how it strengthened the intelligence of marketing organizations through data and customer centricity. Tune in to hear more of Kate's story and how she did it her way!