Podcasts about Narrative Science

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!What happens when a military intelligence officer turns tech entrepreneur? That's what we uncover with Jonathan Hansing, co-founder of Walabi, as he shares his intriguing journey from the US Army to shaping the future of marketing analytics. Listeners will discover the surprising parallels between military intelligence and B2B marketing, as Jonathan elaborates on his experiences at Narrative Science, Tableau, and Salesforce. Together, we navigate the potential and pitfalls of data-driven methodologies in the world of AI and marketing, as Jonathan humorously admits to being an "AI guy who hates other AI guys."Marketing and sales teams often face significant challenges with data integration and visualization, and Jonathan brings to light the steep learning curves associated with platforms like Tableau. Our discussion explores alternative tools that simplify these processes and introduces the Cynefin framework as a strategic ally for marketers. This sense-making model helps differentiate between complicated and complex problems, offering strategies to align marketing efforts and secure leadership buy-in. We provide real-world examples of how this can improve communication and understanding among business leaders across diverse domains.The future of marketing is rapidly evolving, especially with AI's transformative impact, and we emphasize the necessity of rapid experimentation. Jonathan and I explore how being data-driven is crucial, yet it's equally important to embrace failure as part of the learning journey. We discuss the concept of an experimentation budget as a growth lever, the scientific approach to marketing, and the art of staying comfortable with uncertainty. By the end of our conversation, listeners will be equipped with strategies to navigate the dynamic landscape of AI-influenced marketing while spreading their bets across multiple channels.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals MOps-Apalooza is back by popular demand in Anaheim, California! Register for the magical community-led conference for Marketing and Revenue Operations pros.Support the show

Are you an angel investor looking to navigate the AI landscape and make strategic investment decisions?In this episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast, host Marcia Dawood sits down with special guest Katie Taylor, the CEO of Narratize, an innovative AI company. Katie shares her journey in the AI space, from her time at Purdue University to becoming one of the seven developer ambassadors advising OpenAI with ChatGPT. She explains how Narratize's approach to AI differs from other companies, emphasizing the importance of large language model agnosticism and responsible AI principles. This episode is a must-listen for investors seeking insights into the evolving AI marketplace and the strategies they can employ to make informed and impactful investment decisions.This episode offers a compelling exploration of the AI marketplace and the critical considerations for angel investors. Katie's perspectives shed light on the evolving landscape of generative AI and the potential for its exponential growth. With insights on security, privacy, and diversity in AI leadership, this episode equips listeners with the essential knowledge to make informed investment decisions in the dynamic AI space. Whether you're an experienced angel investor or someone interested in the world of AI entrepreneurship, this episode provides valuable insights and thought-provoking discussions that make it a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of AI and investment. To get the latest from Katie Taylor, you can follow her below!LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathryn-katie-trauth-taylor/https://www.narratize.com/ Sign up for Marcia's newsletter to receive tips and the latest on Angel Investing!Website: www.marciadawood.com And don't forget to follow us wherever you are!Apple Podcasts: https://pod.link/1586445642.appleSpotify: https://pod.link/1586445642.spotifyLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/angel-next-door-podcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theangelnextdoorpodcast/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@marciadawood

This is the audible version of ANH executive and scientific director, Rob Verkerk PhD's article 'When you try to publish counter narrative science', published on the ANH International website on 14 March 2024. The written version can be viewed here:

What's the story we're going to collectively coauthor together with GenAI? Listen in for what's possible! Katie Trauth Taylor is Co-founder and CEO of Narratize, an all-female-founded startup based in Cincinnati, Ohio.  With her PhD in narrative science, Katie is a serial entrepreneur who leads the design and implementation of evidence-based methods that enable people to harness the power of stories for accelerated innovation.  Narratize is one of OpenAI's 8 original developer ambassadors and recently secured a $2M seed funding round, earning recognition as one of Cincinnati Inno's 24 startups to watch in 2024.  Narratize is a generative A.I. platform designed for scientific, medical, and technical clients — from NASA and Boeing aerospace engineers to the World Food Forum and United Nations teams — to leverage GenAI to more effectively communicate their complex innovations, so their ideas don't get shelved. In today's episode, be inspired and fascinated by narrative science and algorithms in the era of GenAI. You'll also discover how Narratize is uniquely positioned to tackle GenAI and DEIA imperatives. We also discuss the need to fund female founders, the role of IP and consent regarding data, and the potential of Generative A.I. as a democratizer for creativity and storytelling.  SHOW NOTES https://creativitysquared.com/podcast/ep-36-katie-trauth-taylor-narratize-genai-ai/ JOIN CREATIVITY SQUARED Sign up for our free weekly newsletter: https://creativitysquared.com/newsletter  Become a premium member: https://creativitysquared.com/supporters  SUBSCRIBE Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform: https://creativitysquared.com Subscribe for more videos: https://youtube.com/@creativity_squared/?sub_confirmation=1 CONNECT with C^2 https://instagram.com/creativitysquaredpodcast https://facebook.com/CreativitySquaredPodcast https://giphy.com/channel/CreativitySquared https://tumblr.com/blog/creativitysquared https://tiktok.com/@creativitysquaredpodcast #CreativitySquared CONNECT with Helen Todd, the human behind C^2 https://instagram.com/helenstravels https://twitter.com/helenstravels https://linkedin.com/in/helentodd https://pinterest.com/helentodd Creativity Squared explores how creatives are collaborating with artificial intelligence in your inbox, on YouTube, and on your preferred podcast platform.  Because it's important to support artists, 10% of all revenue Creativity Squared generates will go to ArtsWave, a nationally recognized non-profit that supports over 100 arts organizations. This show is produced and made possible by the team at PLAY Audio Agency: https://playaudioagency.com. Creativity Squared is brought to you by Sociality Squared, a social media agency who understands the magic of bringing people together around what they value and love: http://socialitysquared.com.  #FemaleFounders #WomenInTechnology #AIWriting #Innovation #ArtificialIntelligenceTechnology #WomenBusinessOwners #WomenEmpowerment #WomenInBusiness #WomenEntrepreneurs #StartUpBusiness #ArtificialIntelligence #Storytelling #AIWriter #ArtificialIntelligenceAI #WomenInTech #DigitalCreativity #MachineLearning #FutureTechnology #FutureTech #GenderEquality #TheFutureIsNow #GenderGap #TechPodcast #AIPodcast #AINews #TechWomen #DeepLearning #GenerativeModels #NeuralNetworks #EquitableTechnology #AITechnology

EPISODE 55 | The Dead Internet Theory Weirdly similar but also somewhat nonsensical tweets, emails that seem written by bots, the same posts showing up again and again - something seems to be amiss with the internet. And some people think they have found the answer: the internet died a few years ago and is now almost entirely run by sophisticated AI bots. This is the Dead Internet Theory. We'll look at the reasoning behind this notion, a timeline of events that includes some creepy real-world DARPA projects, the state of AI and computer-brain interfaces, and a peek at the (possibly) approaching Singularity - when humans and machines will essentially blend into one thing. Special shoutout to Gerd Altmann, who made most of the images use din the video version of this episode and made them available on Pixabay.  Like what we do? Then buy us a beer or three via our page on Buy Me a Coffee. #ConspiracyClearinghouse #sharingiscaring #donations #support #buymeacoffee You can also SUBSCRIBE to this podcast. Review us here or on IMDb! See a video version on our YouTube channel. SECTIONS 02:14 - Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Monetization - clone emails, I hate texting, @Capr1corn, @itspureluv, spoof websites, web bots, the Inversion, deepfakes 09:13 - The Dead Internet Theory - IlluminatiPirate sniffs out a truth, stupid stuff online, doors vs wheels, the early net was better/sucked, Solipsism 13:36 - The Metaverse gets handsy, the web is soulless, it's all a mindset, Pantone 448C 18:11 - Something Rotten in the State of Denmark - Tracing the DIT, standardization runs amuck, algorithm fiction, CGI and deepfakes, many internets, wag the dog 22:18 - A timeline of terror: DARPA's LifeLog, Facebook, Total Information Awareness, using Basketball for precrime, No Such Agency, Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, Project Mockingbird, Operation Mockingbird, Google's Selfish Ledger, NMT, Face2Face, Narrative Science, In-Q-Tel 29:37 - A problem of scale: Google search results are ridiculous, there are a lot of stupid people, our brains suck, are you trapped?, link rot, awesome stuff on the web, Yvette's Bridal Formal, Flat Earth News 37:02 - No 9000 Computer Has Ever Made a Mistake or Distorted Information. We Are All, by Any Practical Definition of the Words, Foolproof and Incapable of Error - Strong AI, the Turing Test, Eugene Goostman, autonomous vehicles 41:17 - Human-computer interfaces, Neuralink, Brown University's wireless interfaces 42:33 - One, Singular Sensation, Every Little Step She Takes - The Singularity approaches, transhumanism, immortality (of a sort), Ray Kurzweil and technofaith Music by Fanette Ronjat More Info: Dead Internet Theory in The Atlantic Dead Internet Theory in The Daily Free Press We're Living in the 90s on Agora Road The Internet Is A Potemkin Village: Proof Of Dead Internet Theory? More thoughts (and science) on the Dead Internet A video on The Dead Internet Theory Total Number of Websites How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually. Bad Bot Report 2021: The Pandemic of the Internet The Metaverse Is on the Way: Here's What You Need to Know The metaverse has a groping problem already The Wheels Vs. Doors Debate Tearing the Internet Apart Yvette's Bridal Formal The World's Worst Website Ever! Pentagon Kills LifeLog Project Q&A on the Pentagon's "Total Information Awareness" Program on ACLU Scientists dispute whether computer 'Eugene Goostman' passed Turing test The Internet Is Rotting Jonathan Zittrain Explains Why the Internet Is Rotting Facebook just released a database of 100,000 deepfakes to teach AI how to spot them The Strange Story of Google's "Selfish Ledger" Google's Selfish Ledger ideas can also be found in its patent applications The Only Way Google X's Selfish Ledger Is "Good" The State of AI in 2022: Current State & Predictions What is limiting the autonomous driving rollout? The Current State of Play in Autonomous Vehicles on Hackaday The first successful wireless human brain-computer interface is here. Eat your heart out, Neuralink. Singularity: Explain It to Me Like I'm 5-Years-Old on Futurism Singularity Group website Digital Freedom Fund Digital Freedom Foundation Flat Earth News by Nick Davies The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil Follow us on social for extra goodies: Facebook (including upcoming conspiracy-themed events) Twitter YouTube (extra videos on the topic, Old Time Radio shows, music playlists and more) Other Podcasts by Derek DeWitt DIGITAL SIGNAGE DONE RIGHT - Winner of the 2021 AVA Digital Award Gold, 2021 Silver Davey Award & 2020 Communicator Award of Excellence, and on numerous top 10 podcast lists.  PRAGUE TIMES - A city is more than just a location - it's a kaleidoscope of history, places, people and trends. This podcast looks at Prague, in the center of Europe, from a number of perspectives, including what it is now, what is has been and where it's going. It's Prague THEN, Prague NOW, Prague LATER.

In this episode, Dan Sanchez talks to Cassidy Shield who is the SVP Marketing and Sales of at Narrative Science. In this episode we cover:  What you can expect with traditional media What Narrative Science with a combo of paid ads, events, and organic social to build an audience How owned media led to more earned media

In celebration of the new year, we've identified 10 episodes & guests from 2021 whose stories, experiences, challenges, and visions are the reason we do this podcast. They've given us practical advice for navigating through a digital transformation — illustrating clearly what to start doing today and stop doing tomorrow. They've presented “better ways'' that challenge the status quo and paint a picture of the future of data & analytics. But most importantly, they've shown us what it means to be a leader in this space. In this episode, host Cassidy Shield, shares his key takeaways from each episode. Check out the full episodes featured in the show: Every System will Break, So Build a Culture that Won't w/ Tim O'Keefe Leading the Charge for Diversity in Data Science w/ Sadie St. Lawrence The Path to Building a Data-Driven Culture w/ Bruno Aziza How to Align Culture Transformation with Business Strategy w/ Elena Grotto & Felicia Joy The Blueprint for Data Literacy Transformation w/ Valerie Logan How to Build a Winning Data Strategy w/ Jason Krantz Charting Your Own Course as a CDO w/ Wendy Batchelder How to Improve Data Adoption Through Human-Centered Design w/ Ally Margain How to Coach Your Team to Become Data Storytellers w/ David Ciommo Why Most Analytics Projects Don't Live Up to Their Hype w/ Dustin Schimek If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data onApple Podcasts,Spotify, orhere. Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

This week, Cassidy Shield joins our host, Garrett Mehrguth, to spin the Wheel of SaaS. When it lands on Twilio, they have to think on their feet to craft an effective campaign strategy. It quickly turns out to be one of the most challenging SaaS Marketing Makeovers yet!

Today's consumers are diverse. One marketing message just doesn't cut it anymore. Teams today need to create a variety of messages with the same narrative to strike the right chord with their audience. Words matter — and choosing the right ones can mean the difference between a lost opportunity and a lifetime customer. So, we turned to the expert, Kate Bradley Chernis, who has taken the guesswork out of writing for all of your marketing channels. She joins us to show how the right words turn customers into evangelists — and how Lately's AI technology will define the future of content marketing. Kate is the Founder & CEO of Lately – A.I. that learns which words will get you the most engagement and turns video, audio and text into dozens of social posts containing those words. As a former rock 'n' roll dj, 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. What she learned in radio about the neuroscience of music helps fuel Lately's artificial intelligence. Prior to founding Lately, Kate also owned a marketing agency which got Walmart a 130% ROI, YoY for three years. In the episode we dive deeper into: Kate's experience working in radio The neuroscience of music How Kate “changed the channel” in her life Her entrepreneurial journey How to find the right investors by being yourself Building the world's most human AI (and how it works) Kate's leadership philosophy Lately's formula for a 98% sales conversion and more!  Check out these resources that were mentioned in the show: Connect with Kate on Linkedin Learn more about Lately  If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data onApple Podcasts,Spotify, orhere. Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

Does your company make data-driven decisions?

B2B marketers today have access to a more detailed, wider pool of data than ever before. Yet, even as they bury themselves in data, most marketers have an incomplete picture of performance and their customers. So in this episode, we turned to Chris Walker to learn more about how qualitative data can be the key to completing that picture — and executing quicker and smarter. Chris Walker is the Founder and CEO of Refine Labs, a progressive demand generation firm that challenges the status quo in B2B marketing. Fueled by marketing execution at scale, Refine Labs uses real data from real customers to create demand strategy and research for their clients. Before launching Refine Labs, Chris led marketing at two B2B firms where he built the foundation of his unique perspective on demand generation. Chris also hosts the State of Demand Gen podcast where he chats with today's top B2B leaders to share tangible advice and tactics to over 15,000 marketers. We covered a variety of topics including: Chris' career journey — from software engineer to marketer How Refine Labs is changing the way B2B companies go to market Why Chris once tried to post 8x on LinkedIn in one day The role data has played in Chris' success over the years Why marketers should care more about qualitative data Why marketing should be measured by revenue Organizational change in digital transformations How to simplify marketing attribution How CMOs can get their hands dirty and participate in marketing activities Check out these resources that were mentioned in the show: Follow & connect with Chris on Linkedin Learn more about Refine Labs Listen to the State of Demand Gen podcast wherever you get your podcasts If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data onApple Podcasts,Spotify, orhere. Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

Hi to my amazing listeners! This episode kicks of the beginning of what I'll call the "Marketing Planning Series" where I invite back founders and marketing leaders to talk about their marketing plans going into 2022. I get questions from startups about this a lot (especially as the marketing landscape has changed so much throughout the pandemic) so I know this is on people's minds. We'll dive into marketing channels, budget, and resources and so much more. Cassidy Shield is VP Marketing at Narrative Science. Prior to that, he was VP Marketing at Gogo, VP Marketing at NetCracker and spent 13 years at Alcatel Lucent, purchased by Nokia. He also went to Kellogg (woop woop!). Narrative Science was founded in 2010, has 85 people, and is based out of Chicago. Funding: Series D ($43.4M total) and they just got acquired!! Narrative Science allows you to humanize analytics with data storytelling (not dashboards). Here's what we cover: 2022 marketing plan - budget, channels, and resources; How are you splitting your budget organic vs. paid; What channels are you leaning into and why (NOTE: 90% of revenue is marketing sourced); They launched their first event (Data Storytelling Summit) and realized "hey, we're good at this"; Who's on the marketing team now and how you're planning to build out; Planning can't start until you know the goals of the business (HINT: we do this every 3-6 months on a rolling basis); Cassidy shared some other unique/helpful things related to marketing planning e.g. galvanize around your "big rock" items; Some goals (personal/professional) for Cassidy going into 2022. You can reach Cassidy on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cassidyshield Find out more about Narrative Science: www.narrativescience.com This episode is exclusively sponsored by Manifest Commerce, helping merchants with earth friendly e-commerce fulfillment. You can check them out here: www.manifestcommerce.io For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen). You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/anna-furmanov/message

Do you like Data Storytelling? In this episode Anna Walsh and Nate Nicholas, from Narrative Science, talk about their journey, how to Use Data Storytelling to Increase Data Adoption & Empower Your Team to Make Better, Faster Decisions and much more! #data #datascience #python #machinelearning #analytics #datastorytelling #ai #bi #artificialintelligence

Today, many organizations are pushing for increasing and enhancing data literacy across their business — oftentimes running one-off trainings with the hopes of magically creating a more “literate” workforce. But, it's just not working. We need a different approach. What if instead we focused on making technology more “business savvy” so that non-data people didn't have to learn every data concept? What if instead of expecting non-data people to speak the language of data, we expected data scientists and analysts to speak the language of the business? In this episode, we sat down with the one & only Kate Strachnyi, Founder and Community Manager of DATAcated, to discuss this vision for the future of data & analytics and how she educates today's data professionals through community. In this episode we also dive deeper into: How & why Kate started DATAcated The vision for her new centralized community: The DATAcated Circle Her advice for others looking to build a brand and community on LinkedIn A different approach to data literacy Why technology needs to be built for the business user The value of data analysts and scientists who work through a business lens How more data can do more harm than good How to tell data stories that people care about Kate's vision for the future of data & analytics The importance of maintaining trust in data The role big organizations will play in educating & enabling the data community  Check out these resources that were mentioned in the show: Connect with Kate on Linkedin Learn more about DATAcated Apply to join the DATAcated Circle  If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data onApple Podcasts,Spotify, orhere. Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

Data transformation can empower higher ed institutions to deliver excellent student experiences, reduce costs, and stay relevant with the changing demands of students and the educational landscape. However, higher education institutions tend to be slower moving in modernizing processes. So, how does one accelerate this type of vision? How does an organization bring all of the moving parts together? In this episode, we sat down with Rob Stirton, VP of Institutional Effectiveness & CIO at County College of Morris, to discuss how he played a hand in transforming the data culture at County College of Morris. Rob has 25+ years of experience in the data and analytics space and has established himself as a proven leader in educational technology, planning, strategy, analytics, and outcomes. He has spearheaded the generation and implementation of initiatives that have significantly impacted colleges and their students. Since becoming the Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness & CIO at County College of Morris in 2017, he has led a full blown data transformation that has vastly improved the way they serve their students. With Rob's expertise and leadership, they went from just being aware of data to truly being a data driven college in just 4 years. In this episode we dive deeper into: How Rob's passion for wanting to make an impact led him to working at community colleges The data transformation journey at County College of Morris The applications of data in higher education The difference between institutional research and institutional effectiveness How Rob's team got a data warehouse up and running in 10 months How predictive analytics reduced the impact of the pandemic and improved their ability to help students The importance of having data be a be a part of people's daily workflow How data storytelling is a self empowering tool for student success Check out these resources that were mentioned in the show: Connect with Rob on LinkedIn If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data onApple Podcasts,Spotify, orhere. Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

In the marketing world, there is an ever-growing divide between creativity and data-driven marketing. Many creatives worry that the increasing reliance on data will kill the freedom to take risks and pursue outside-the-box ideas. While advocates of data-driven marketing argue that dollars shouldn't be wasted on ideas that aren't guaranteed to generate a high ROI. Realistically, the best option for success lies somewhere in the middle; where data is used to not only defend the creative process — but inspire it. In this episode, we sat down with Brandee Sanders, VP of Marketing at Motive Retail, to discuss how creatives and marketers can build shields around their work using data. Brandee is simply a marketing rockstar. She's lived across two vastly different hemispheres of the mind, one side of logic and quantitative, statistical analysis and the other, human elementals driven by emotional, heart moving creatives. The deeply embedded world of data storytelling she's had the pleasure of working in has afforded her the opportunity to collaborate alongside Emmy award nominated multimedia creators and has done her time in the trenches at startups going to IPO. She's run the gamut from analytics to filmmaking and back again to demand gen and data science Ops. In the episode we dive deeper into: How Brandee went from a performer to a digital marketer How Etsy changed the trajectory of her career How she operates using dual hemispheres of her brain How a full-time gig allowed her to pursue her creative passions Her journey to becoming a self-taught marketer How to audit and understand a company's culture Using data as a tool to combat resistance to change Check out these resources that were mentioned in the show: Connect with Brandee on LinkedIn If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data onApple Podcasts,Spotify, orhere. Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we shop — increasing the demand for eCommerce experiences. In order to keep up, many brick-and-mortar businesses have been forced to transition to the eCommerce world. Yet moving a brick-and-mortar business online isn't simple. Today, ranking on eCommerce platforms, especially Amazon, requires a fine balance of art and science. From item setup and launch to driving search rankings, advertising, and sales — it is clear businesses need a holistic plan to jump into eCommerce. In this episode, we are joined by 2 experts who help companies make that jump — John Collins and Rick Sauls, Co-Founders of OmniiX and chargeguard. With a history of building and launching brands on Amazon and other online retailers, OmniiX serves to empower brands with the knowledge, actionable insights and thought leadership to even an unfair playing field. John & Rick work with large CPG brands to thrive on Amazon and create data-backed, sales converting content by working with a team of Amazon experts. In the episode, we talk about a variety of topics including: How John & Rick's individual experiences made for the perfect business partnership The ah-ha moment that started OmniiX Amazon's dirty little secret: chargebacks & shortages How companies organize teams around eCommerce The differences between branding & merchandising in the physical world vs eCommerce world The evolution and future of eCommerce How data is the key to thriving in eCommerce The importance of data management The birth of chargeguard Check out these resources that were mentioned in the show: Learn more about OmniiX/chargeguard Get your free C.E.R.A. account audit from chargeguard If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data onApple Podcasts,Spotify, orhere. Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

On LinkedIn, Kristina Jaramillo (President of Personal ABM and today's host) asked: What is ABM to you and what is it not. Leigh Chesley (VP of Marketing at Longbow Advantage) is a business growth strategy and an organizational approach --- not a technology. In this podcast roundtable with Kristina, Leigh and Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM), you will learn:Why you should not rush into investing in ABM tech like 6sense, Terminus, Demandbase, and others and how ABM should be an organizational decision and not a tech decision. How technology is only amplifying issues that are keeping accounts from getting to revenue. How a focus on technology and digital ads led to an under-performing ABM program  for a large enterprise competitor of JDA/BlueYonderHow Leigh would approach ABM differently at Longbow Advantage, how she'd build her ABM program and what the ABM strategy may look like. How sales and marketing at Longbow Advantage are working together to get accounts to revenue. Kristina also talks about ABM should not be synonymous with ABM tech in this podcast rant. As we discussed ABM strategy, you may want to read Kristina's article on the G2 blog:"Rethink your ABM strategy to drive revenue growth"You may also want to listen to our other ABM conversations, with leaders like:Mark Stouse (CEO of Proof Analytics)Nick Bennett (Director of Field Marketing and ABM at Alyce)Vijai Shankar (VP of Product Marketing for Uniphore)Jeff Pedowitz (CEO of the Pedowitz Group)Jess Larkin (ABM Leader at Okta)Jarod Greene (VP of Product Marketing at Highspot)Cassidy Shield (VP of Marketing and Sales at Narrative Science)

Adam Goyette, VP of Marketing at Helpscout, once mentioned: There seems to be this thought that ABM is a silver bullet. Run some display ads, send some direct mail and do some targeted gifting,  But these are just tactics. It's not what ABM should be about.  Peter Zawistowicz, Director of Growth Marketing at Gremlin, once stated that  ABM became the flag under which we deploy flashy, expensive, and often ineffective tactics, all in the name of driving up engagement. As the technology evolved, we believe that ABM's definition has become diluted, and ABM programs have become account-based awareness, account-based advertising, and account-based lead gen programs. In this episode, Kristina Jaramillo talks to Nick Bennett, Director of ABM and Field Marketing for Alyce, about what ABM is and how it should be a company-wide initiative to increase average account value, decrease time to close,  improve win rates and reduce churn along the complete buyer's journey, and customer lifecycle.  We also discuss:How we need to go beyond sales/marketing alignment, how we need to become integrated, and how marketers should be held accountable and commissioned for revenue, so we go beyond influencing just the top of the funnel.How sales and marketing's desire to scale is limiting revenue performance and why we need to focus on the interactions we're having with tier 1 accounts and the experiences we're delivering. How teams are ineffectively scaling ABM.How Alyce closed more deals in the last 5 months than they ever did in a 6 month period.The difference between personalized ABM and a personal account-based approach and how you need to be personal with the 60% of the market that's stuck in the status quo.How sales and marketing teams can increase their relevance and the personal brand's role in an ABM program.Here are the resources we discuss in the podcast:Our article on how 95% of sales teams are irrelevant to buyers on LinkedInNick's ABM podcastNick's Rep Your Brand PodcastHow you can learn more about our personal account-based approach:How a Personal 1-to-1 Account-Based Sales and Marketing Approach Will Help You Win with the Status Quo Enterprise C-Suite3 Mini-Case Studies on How GTM Teams Win & Expand Key Accounts Using ABMYou may also want to check out other ABM conversations with:Vijai Shankar (VP of Product Marketing for Uniphore)Jeff Pedowitz (CEO of the Pedowitz Group)Jess Larkin (ABM Leader at Okta)Jarod Greene (VP of Product Marketing at Highspot)Cassidy Shield (VP of Marketing and Sales at Narrative Science)

Cassidy Shield, VP of Marketing and Sales at Narrative Science, says that marketing sourced revenue is a weak metric that sounds trivial and runs hollow in most C-suite conversations. He also talks about how pipeline KPIs can be your north star but it becomes meaningless when your win rate is down, your deal size is down and your sales cycle time is up. Listen to this conversation with Cassidy and Eric Gruber (CEO of Personal ABM) to learn:1.  Why you do not want to be part of the  60% of marketers that primarily focus on measuring pipeline KPIs and marketing sourced revenue - and why these marketers do not get the respect they deserve from the C-Suite and the board. 2. How marketing is misaligned with the business.3. How marketing needs to hit re-set, build an operational foundation and earn a seat at the table where the focus is on EBITDA.4. The marketing KPIs that CMOs and Marketing VPs and Directors need to pay attention to if they want to go beyond awareness and leads and actually make an impact.5. How marketing can tie their programs to the fundamentals of revenue with a strong focus on how and where to move the needle?6. How marketing can have a greater impact on sales velocity,7.  The role that marketing can play in helping sales and customer success teams shape and reshape buying behavior so larger deals can be won, revenue can be protected and accounts can be penetrated?After you listen to this podcast, check out these additional resources that will help you rethink the marketing function:Quick 4 Minute Podcast - How ABM Should Impact More Than the PipelineVideo with Deanna Ransom: Making Marketing Accountable for RevenuePanel Discussion: Rebooting Marketing Planning and Measurement

Data storytelling is emerging as a critical component of data and analytics. Since we are visual creatures, data enriched by effective, human-centered design principles is the best way to convey clear and compelling insights. So what do you need to know to do it well and how can you get your company to see value in it? In this episode, Cassidy speaks with David Ciommo, Data Visualization Principal at Humana, about making the jump from visual storytelling to data storytelling and how he established a data storytelling discipline within his company. David is a data storyteller and data literacy advocate and the first ever winner of the Best Data Storyteller Award presented by Narrative Science. A trained illustrator, he began his career in graphic design and art direction before pivoting to data storytelling with no data or analytics background. What he did know was how to take data and tell stories with it. At Humana, David founded the Visualization Center of Excellence, an internal site created to share style guides, tip sheets, and other resources around data storytelling and data literacy. His overarching goal is to combine purposeful human-centered design principles with first class data visualizations in an effort to provide meaningful insights and tangible actionable opportunities to the leadership at Humana. We discuss: -Translating visual storytelling skills to data storytelling -Establishing data storytelling within the analytics team -The genesis of the Visualization Center of Excellence -Why you should always start with the story -Teaching data storytelling to others -Launching a data literacy campaign If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts , Spotify, or here. Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

Cassidy Shield, SVP of Marketing and Sales at Narrative Science (who will be on our podcast soon) mentioned that we need to focus our energy on sales velocity and its components including  # of opps, average deal size, win rate, and sales cycle time. We need to be talking about how to drive the fundamentals of revenue. When marketers start talking about these elements, where/how to move the needle, and the result on revenue - you will get the attention of leadership and boards.But we can't be talking about where and how to move the needle and result on revenue because we're not tying ABM to business challenges that are tied to revenue. Most ABM programs are still focused at the top of the funnel, even though analytics show that ABM can have the greatest impact at the middle and bottom of the buying journey. In this podcast episode, Kristina Jaramillo shares how: A fintech firm serving mid-market banks as well as national institutions like Wells Fargo are challenged to drive more deals as they are not using ABM to change sales motions, sales processes and conversations so they can improve their win rates. Currently, the stage 1 to close win rate is 5%.  An AI tech firm is nowhere close to a signed deal with Mastercard and Walmart after 14 months of conversations because the CMO is not using ABM to accelerate accounts to revenue. The CMO blames it on the fact that they need closers, even though marketing can influence both selling conversations and the internal conversations that sales is not privy to.A channel sales tech firm is unable to create wins with large enterprises that continually make the safe, comfortable bet of investing in legacy platforms like Salesforce. Listen to this quick podcast episode to see how ABM should go beyond pipeline and leads and how it should impact win rates, sales cycle time, deal sizes, the ability to go up-market and much more. After you listen to this episode, sign up for our upcoming ABM webinar: Why 2/3 of ABM Programs Fail. You'll learn about many other mistakes that ABMers are making including making ABM synonymous with ABM tech. 

Cassidy Shield, the VP of Marketing at Narrative Science joins the podcast. We talk about why it's important to be both data-driven and creative as a marketer, how to become a better blend of both, ways to spark your creativity and much more.

Narrative Science creates stories from data and I'm chatting with their vice president of marketing, Cassidy Shield, on this live recording of the Business Storytelling Podcast to find out more. Previous related thoughts from my blog: https://lnkd.in/esSNuEG Connect with Narrative Science here: http://narrativescience.com  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ctrappe/message

Cassidy Shield is VP of Marketing at Narrative Science. Before Narrative Science, Cassidy served as VP of Marketing at Gogo, VP of Marketing at NetCracker, and spent 13 years at Alcatel Lucent (purchased by Nokia). He's also a fellow Kellogg alum! Narrative Science was founded in 2010, has 88 people, and is based out of Chicago, IL. They've raised Series D ($43.4M total). Narrative Science humanizes analytics with data storytelling (not dashboards). Data should be understandable for everyone. Stop creating unused dashboards and start data storytelling. Here's what we hit on: More about Narrative Science, who you're for, what problem you solve; The challenge with finding early adopters/visionary leaders (that's the target buyer) and how they're trying to figure this out; Who's on the Marketing team, anything unique? (HINT: the people in the roles have never done the specific work before - instead, Narrative Science sets a high bar and looks for specific behavioral traits); Podcast "Leading With Data" - what are you trying to do with it? What's the purpose and how's it going; Cassidy has 20+ years of experience. I asked him to explain his quote “the key to digital is great content that leads the buyer to what you sell”; Narrative Science doesn't have a PR agency, and that's because startups should do their own PR (if they can); Marketing: what's working well for you right now? what channels? (HINT: paid media - FB and Instagram, building community through events and the podcast); Marketing: what are the challenges, what are you trying to figure out; How do you track marketing's impact on revenue? (HINT: the company's revenue is 90% marketing sourced! The team has not had much consistent, repeatable success with outbound sales); What are the last 2-3 really good (marketing) ideas you've come up with; What are some bad recommendations in your area of expertise. You can find Cassidy on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cassidyshield Find out more about Narrative Science: www.narrativescience.com And here's the Leading With Data podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leading-with-data/id1535701027 For more content, subscribe to Modern Startup Marketing on Apple or Spotify (or wherever you like to listen). You can find Anna on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/annafurmanov on Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCYgrBn-Y6P9o_OJ2lxHkWyg or visit this website: www.furmanovmarketing.com Thanks for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/anna-furmanov/message

Are you a runner if you spend a ton on running gear, only to run 10 miles at the end of every quarter? Probably not, right? So, why do so many companies claim to be data-driven, when they do the exact same thing with their data? We need to improve our data cultures — and we do it with storytelling. In this episode, the tables are turned as Kate Strachnyi, Founder of DATAcated, interviews our very own Nate Nichols, Chief Scientist, and Cassidy Shield, VP of Marketing at Narrative Science, about how to get a real data culture going in your organization. What we talked about: -The 3 components of data storytelling -Why stories are how our species understands insights -Why today’s technology leaves too much room for interpretation -How we create a stronger, data-driven culture -How to tell a data story to a business executive -How Lexio works and its use cases Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast: Let Your People Be People Lexio Interactive Demo If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

Are you a runner if you spend a ton on running gear, only to run 10 miles at the end of every quarter? Probably not, right? So, why do so many companies claim to be data-driven, when they do the exact same thing with their data? We need to improve our data cultures — and we do it with storytelling. In this episode, the tables are turned as Kate Strachnyi, Founder of DATAcated, interviews our very own Nate Nichols, Chief Scientist, and Cassidy Shield, VP of Marketing at Narrative Science, about how to get a real data culture going in your organization. What we talked about: -The 3 components of data storytelling -Why stories are how our species understands insights -Why today’s technology leaves too much room for interpretation -How we create a stronger, data-driven culture -How to tell a data story to a business executive -How Lexio works and its use cases Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast: Let Your People Be People Lexio Interactive Demo If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

Special guest JoEllen Kames joins the program. She’s head of design at Narrative Science, and we discuss how to use storytelling to make the world’s rapidly growing data more accessible and empowering.

Heather Hoeppner went from high school teacher to client success leader at Affirm. Heather sits down with us to chat about how her love for data drove her to make various twists and turns in her career. In this episode, Carrie and Heather talk about their time together working in ed-tech at eSpark Learning and what Heather has been up to since that time. Learn more at ClassroomtoBoardroom.net Heather's Bio: Heather leads big box retail initiatives for Affirm, a San Francisco-based Financial Tech firm offering honest financial products. Prior to Affirm, she oversaw enterprise key accounts at Narrative Science, a Chicago-based AI company focused on language capabilities in advanced analytics. Heather spent the first 10 years of her career with Teach For America, first as a high school English teacher in West Baltimore followed by seven years supporting and managing teams of teachers and district leader relationships. Heather holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, a Master of Arts in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University and a BA from Kenyon College. She is also the co-founder and advisor of Tilly, an online landscape design company. 

Special guest JoEllen Kames joins the program. She’s head of design at Narrative Science, and we discuss how to use storytelling to make the world’s rapidly growing data more accessible and empowering.

In today's GROW B2B FASTER episode, our host Sammy, Managing Partner and founder of SAWOO catches up with Cassidy Shield, VP of Marketing at Narrative Science ($43m funding).That's in it for you1. Narrative Sciences' unconventional way of hiring high performing marketers2. Why B2B marketers should drive pipeline, not leads3. How B2B marketers can let the B2B buyer ask for a call instead of pushing for it 4. How Content-based networking can drive your B2B demand generation5. The competitive advantage small B2B companies should leverageAbout CassidyCassidy is passionate about driving change, he started his career streamlining industrial operations with software and lean operating principles. Since November 2018, he works at Narrative Science. Before, he was working ca. 13 years at Nokia, then he moved to the first software company called Netcracker and then Gogo - both as the VP of Marketing. About Narrative ScienceNarrative Science creates software that writes stories from data to drive understanding and results. Powered by artificial intelligence, its technology automatically turns data into easy-to-understand reports, transforms statistics into stories, and converts numbers into knowledge. Narrative Science was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, United States.ShownotesCassidy's podcast “Leading with Data”Find Cassidy on LinkedIn or send him an email at cshield@narrativescience.comFind Cassidy's company Narrative ScienceCassidy's favourite business books:  “Play Bigger“ by Alan Ramadan, Dave Peterson, and Christoph as well as “Positioning” by Al Ries and Jack TroutCassidy recommends the podcasts by Christopher Lochhead as one of the best marketing podcasts out thereCassidy's favourite business leaders: Dave Gerhardt, CMO at Privy & Christopher Lochhead, CoCreator Category Pirates Newsletter

In today's episode, Julia has a heartfelt conversation with Stef Caldwell, a passionate advocate for women and an overall superstar. Stef is the founder of ManifestHer Network, host of the ManifestHer Podcast and author of ManifestHer (called “the Self love book of 2020”). She also leads Business Development at Narrative Science (a disruptive A.I. company) and has recently added “angel investor” to her resume. When Stef was 22 she wrote an audacious list of 10 year goals, and by understanding the Law of Attraction and using techniques like visualization, she achieved those goals in less than 5 years. And that only encouraged her to dream bigger, which she continues to do, and through practicing Manifestation, she has accomplished more than she ever thought possible. Stef also shares her thoughts on the “post prescribed” life: what happens when education comes to an end and you're forced to decide what it is you really want, which may not necessarily be following the path your family or society has laid out for you. Finally, Stef talks about her multi-hyphenate career and the importance of enjoying what you do in order to achieve what you want. The journey, to Stef, is the reward. This is one conversation you won't want to miss. Connect with Stef on Twitter or Instagram: @ByStefCaldwell and be sure to check out her book on Amazon! --- Connect with Julia on Instagram: @DreamYourLifeNow Email: julia@dreamyourlifenow.com QUOTES “When you focus on the ends, sometimes the means suck. But when you focus on the means, you get to enjoy every moment of every single day.” “When I published my book, I thought I was going to wake up that day and be a different person. But it's who I got to become in the process...that's all that matters. That day was just a blip in time.” “Always have the vision you're holding close to you in some capacity, whether that's in your phone, a journal, a dream book or even a vision board.” “It feels almost too simple, but then again that is The Law of Attraction: put out the energy you want to receive and [the thing you desire] will come to you...it's not hippy woo woo, it's Psychology.”

Learn how to leverage the power of data storytelling to increase data adoption and create a better data culture at your organization - with Nate Nichols, Chief Scientist at Narrative Science, and Cassidy Shield, VP of Marketing at Narrative Science; hosted by Kate Strachnyi. The Narrative Science product, Lexio, let's you turn your data into interactive stories, making analytics easy and accessible for everyone - check it out for yourself! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/datacated/support

So many claim they’re data-driven these days, the word has lost its meaning. So, how do you go beyond the buzzword and achieve a truly data-driven approach? Even trickier: How can you take a data-driven approach before you even have the data? These are questions Jaclyn Borgiel answers every day in her role as Group Product Manager here at Narrative Science. She joins Cassidy today to share her approach to answering them, and many others that arise, in the realm of product management. Jaclyn is passionate about growing products and teams, and building their long-term strategies to reach full potential. She has had a diverse mix of experiences across B2B, B2C, high growth, and mature products, but is still an action-oriented problem solver at heart. She has worked as a product leader, analyst, product marketer, and strategic and operational expert — following challenges and purposeful missions, while building great teams. Jaclyn was drawn to Narrative Science’s mission to democratize data for all. After her training in tech at a Silicon Valley Strategy and Analytics rotational program, Narrative Science was the ideal next step on her quest to finally make data work for every business person and scale analytical teams across industries. In this episode, we discuss: -Jaclyn’s career trajectory that led to a passion for product management -What product management is and why it matters -How to make “data-driven” more than a buzzword -How to move past vanity metrics and find success metrics -How to bring a data-driven mindset from the outset, when you have no data -Why intuition comes through experience and observation -What excites Jaclyn about her work on Lexio at Narrative Science -Why data storytelling should be simple and actionable -What the future looks like for data storytelling and product management If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

So many claim they’re data-driven these days, the word has lost its meaning. So, how do you go beyond the buzzword and achieve a truly data-driven approach? Even trickier: How can you take a data-driven approach before you even have the data? These are questions Jaclyn Borgiel answers every day in her role as Group Product Manager here at Narrative Science. She joins Cassidy today to share her approach to answering them, and many others that arise, in the realm of product management. Jaclyn is passionate about growing products and teams, and building their long-term strategies to reach full potential. She has had a diverse mix of experiences across B2B, B2C, high growth, and mature products, but is still an action-oriented problem solver at heart. She has worked as a product leader, analyst, product marketer, and strategic and operational expert — following challenges and purposeful missions, while building great teams. Jaclyn was drawn to Narrative Science’s mission to democratize data for all. After her training in tech at a Silicon Valley Strategy and Analytics rotational program, Narrative Science was the ideal next step on her quest to finally make data work for every business person and scale analytical teams across industries. In this episode, we discuss: -Jaclyn’s career trajectory that led to a passion for product management -What product management is and why it matters -How to make “data-driven” more than a buzzword -How to move past vanity metrics and find success metrics -How to bring a data-driven mindset from the outset, when you have no data -Why intuition comes through experience and observation -What excites Jaclyn about her work on Lexio at Narrative Science -Why data storytelling should be simple and actionable -What the future looks like for data storytelling and product management If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Leading with Data in your favorite podcast player.

Data can fundamentally transform customer experience. The flexibility and power of data opens up a wide array of possibilities for evolving delightful experiences that everyone can enjoy. In today’s episode, Cassidy is joined by JoEllen Kames, Director of Product Design at Narrative Science, to discuss her mission to redefine the way the world interacts with data. Here are a few key takeaways: -The value of human-centered design (and why it’s evolving into the more dynamic “computational design”). -How technology and design work together to create experiences. -How to design for paradigm-shifting innovation (and why Apple’s “home” button was genius). -The implicit beliefs about data and how to overcome them -What the future holds for data and design. If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Narrative Science in your favorite podcast player.

Data can fundamentally transform customer experience. The flexibility and power of data opens up a wide array of possibilities for evolving delightful experiences that everyone can enjoy. In today’s episode, Cassidy is joined by JoEllen Kames, Director of Product Design at Narrative Science, to discuss her mission to redefine the way the world interacts with data. Here are a few key takeaways: -The value of human-centered design (and why it’s evolving into the more dynamic “computational design”). -How technology and design work together to create experiences. -How to design for paradigm-shifting innovation (and why Apple’s “home” button was genius). -The implicit beliefs about data and how to overcome them -What the future holds for data and design. If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Narrative Science in your favorite podcast player.

On this episode of the 3C Podcast, Brett interviews Katherine Martin, Growth Marketer at Narrative Science. She explains what content-based marketing is and how she wrote a book and started a podcast to connect with new clients and customers. Katherine says that these days, brand drives demand and relationship building is key. 0:00 Intro 2:13 Conversation with Katherine 5:40 Who is Narrative Science 9:00 The time is now 10:26 Content-based networking 16:45 Writing a book 21:52 Engagement over numbers 24:44 New B2B marketing ideas 28:28 Outro Sign up to be on our waitlist!Katherine: | Twitter | LinkedIn | Narrative ScienceFollow Fathom:| Website | Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn

We’re living through the biggest data storytelling event in history. Worldwide, COVID data is impacting everyone. And it’s proof that data storytelling can be used as a force for good. In this episode, Cassidy is joined by Dan Platt, Senior Principal of Market Innovation here at Narrative Science and the founder of our Data Storytelling for Good Initiative, to discuss how data stories can be used to make the world a better place. The combination of Dan’s background in economics, PR and journalism have culminated in him becoming the unrivaled data storyteller he is today. While getting his graduate degree in journalism from Northwestern University, rather than see advancements in data technology as a threat, he was excited by the potential of harnessing that power to tell better stories and, ultimately, make the world a better place. At Narrative Science, Dan has fulfilled and surpassed these ambitions throughout the evolution of the organization, including spearheading the Data Storytelling for Good Initiative, which empowers non-profit organizations with data tools that allow them to spend more of their time improving the world. As you can see, there is a good reason Dan has the rare honor of being written into a client’s contract as their go-to guy within the company. In this episode, we discuss: -Why journalism has become a valuable degree in tech -The growing public awareness and acceptance of the power of data technology -The client who wrote Dan into their contract -Why Dan wants people to interact with data stories in tools they already use -How to communicate technical information to non-technical people -How to use data storytelling for good -How COVID proves data affects everyone’s life If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

We’re living through the biggest data storytelling event in history. Worldwide, COVID data is impacting everyone. And it’s proof that data storytelling can be used as a force for good. In this episode, Cassidy is joined by Dan Platt, Senior Principal of Market Innovation here at Narrative Science and the founder of our Data Storytelling for Good Initiative, to discuss how data stories can be used to make the world a better place. The combination of Dan’s background in economics, PR and journalism have culminated in him becoming the unrivaled data storyteller he is today. While getting his graduate degree in journalism from Northwestern University, rather than see advancements in data technology as a threat, he was excited by the potential of harnessing that power to tell better stories and, ultimately, make the world a better place. At Narrative Science, Dan has fulfilled and surpassed these ambitions throughout the evolution of the organization, including spearheading the Data Storytelling for Good Initiative, which empowers non-profit organizations with data tools that allow them to spend more of their time improving the world. As you can see, there is a good reason Dan has the rare honor of being written into a client’s contract as their go-to guy within the company. In this episode, we discuss: -Why journalism has become a valuable degree in tech -The growing public awareness and acceptance of the power of data technology -The client who wrote Dan into their contract -Why Dan wants people to interact with data stories in tools they already use -How to communicate technical information to non-technical people -How to use data storytelling for good -How COVID proves data affects everyone’s life If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

We welcome to the podcast Cassidy Shield, VP of Marketing at Narrative Science, a company dedicated to telling engaging stories through data. We go way back with Cassidy, maybe too far back, and we get to pick his brain about who in the company should own the product vision and what the heck that even means (TL;DL: It should be Marketing).

Companies across the country are investing in data and how to harness it, yet some continue to struggle with using that data to tell their story. That means they're missing the opportunity to create transparency within their organization and, most notably, the chance to exercise their authority through the contextual awareness their data can bring. In this episode, host Aaron Schoenherr and Narrative Science President Nick Beil discuss going beyond the dashboard and into data, the relationship between transparency and authority and data overload in the age of COVID. Episode Highlights: 1:17 – Nick provides his background and introduces his company, Narrative Science.  2:32 – Nick discusses if hard data or the stories behind those numbers carries more authority.  4:10 – An in-depth example of how contextual data is more powerful than data on its own, particularly within the COVID-19 pandemic. 8:09 – Analysis of how busy executives prefer to receive their data. 10:25 – Aaron and Nick discuss the relationship between transparency and authority, and the role trust plays. 14:00 – Nick gives examples of industries that are ahead of the curve with their data strategy and highlights which industries are lagging.   16:55 – Nick provides insight into how he gets organizations that are behind the curve to reconsider their data strategy. 19:02 – Discussion about potential data overload amid the COVID-19 pandemic.  20:50 – Aaron and Nick discuss organizations and leaders who have demonstrated true authority during the pandemic.

Today I connected with Cassidy Shield, VP of Marketing—and reconnected with Katherine Martin, demand generation manager at Narrative Science. We picked up where Katherine and I left off in our September interview, doing a deeper dive into data storytelling and how it can help make it much easier to use data to solve challenging marketing … Continue reading "Ep 30 — Solving Problems With Data Storytelling Part 2"

Chris Walker hosted Cassidy Shield on State of Demand Gen to talk about marketing in 2021. The pandemic has forced companies to focus on CREATING demand, not just capturing it. Cassidy shared his insights on how they know what’s working and what’s not, and how to reevaluate current channels and repurpose them for new objectives.

Sadly, most virtual events are terrible.For whatever reason, virtual events have been unable to replicate in-person conferences, which likely won't happen for another six to 12 months, conservatively speaking.But Narrative Science has cracked the nut. Its most recent virtual event attracted 3,000 (yes, 3,000 registrations).In this Marketing Spark episode, Cassidy Shield, Narrative Science's VP, Marketing, talks about how the company has approached virtual events and made them a core part of its marketing activities. 

In this episode we talk to Katherine Martin, Marketing Manager at Narrative Science. If you like this episode, you'll probably also love... ...these past episodes: ROI Positive in 28 Days with a B2B Podcast with Dylan Hey Post Episode Guest Follow Up Tactics with James Carbary and Logan Lyles Are you getting every B2B Growth episode in your favorite podcast player? If not, you can easily subscribe & search past episodes here. You can also find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Being interviewed by your boss on a podcast?! That’s exactly what happened when Brent Silberman, Revenue Operations Manager at Narrative Science, joined Cassidy on this week’s episode of Leading with Data. Also known as the “Data Poet”, learn from Brent’s experience as a one-man data team presenting analytics to everyone across our organization - from the go-to-market and product teams all the way up to our executive leadership. We discuss: What is Revenue Operations & why it matters How to share insights that your stakeholders they actually use The future of analytics and what it will look like If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

In 1952, automation was poised to wipe out the most common jobs. And in 70 years, it managed to get rid of only one. Why? Because there is a difference between a task and a job. That’s one of the many insights Nate Nichols has learned as Chief Scientist at Narrative Science. Nate came on the show today to discuss: How AI will change the future of work The difference between a task and a job Why intelligence is the combination of knowledge and judgment Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast: towardsdatascience.com If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

Welcome to Leading with Data, a podcast by Narrative Science! If you’d like to learn more about Narrative Science, or have a topic or guest suggestion, feel free to contact us at cassidy@narrativescience.com You can find this conversation, and many more, by subscribing to the show on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, or Stitcher.

Knowing when to play it cool and let the customer come to you can work better than a hard sell. As VP of Marketing at Narrative Science, Cassidy Shield has learned that the most effective approach for drawing customers to the company’s product is by showcasing its abilities and the brand’s values.  What exactly does Narrative Science do? The brand calls itself a “data storytelling company” — its software Lexio transforms analytics data into plain language stories that people can easily understand and use without a degree in data science. Cassidy says it takes a special type of customer to understand the product’s value. “They're not afraid to make a decision that's against the norm,” he says. “We're looking for early adopters of technology.” On this episode of Tech Qualified, Cassidy explains how he’s restructured and reinvigorated Narrative Science’s marketing team since joining 18 months ago, and why a subtle marketing approach works for the brand. “It's been largely that strategy of building content we feel is valuable and providing experiences, and putting our people first so we’re seen as humans, which is critical to establishing that trust and relationship. People then get comfortable taking the next step, which is, ‘How can you help me?’”

Welcome to Leading with Data, a podcast by Narrative Science! If you’d like to learn more about Narrative Science, or have a topic or guest suggestion, feel free to contact us at cassidy@narrativescience.com You can find this conversation, and many more, by subscribing to the show on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, or Stitcher.

Being interviewed by your boss on a podcast?! That’s exactly what happened when Brent Silberman, Revenue Operations Manager at Narrative Science, joined Cassidy on this week’s episode of Leading with Data. Also known as the “Data Poet”, learn from Brent’s experience as a one-man data team presenting analytics to everyone across our organization - from the go-to-market and product teams all the way up to our executive leadership. We discuss: What is Revenue Operations & why it matters How to share insights that your stakeholders they actually use The future of analytics and what it will look like If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

In 1952, automation was poised to wipe out the most common jobs. And in 70 years, it managed to get rid of only one. Why? Because there is a difference between a task and a job. That’s one of the many insights Nate Nichols has learned as Chief Scientist at Narrative Science. Nate came on the show today to discuss: How AI will change the future of work The difference between a task and a job Why intelligence is the combination of knowledge and judgment Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast: towardsdatascience.com If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

Almost every in-person event is transformed into an online event nowadays. During this episode, Elias and Mark have a chat with Katherine Martin on how to successfully organize an online event. Because just setting up a PowerPoint and register for a Zoom Pro account is not going to do the job! Katherine organized several events during 2020 and had thousands of people that registered and joined the event and turned out to be valuable leads for the marketing and sales teams. We discuss 4 steps: How to promote and online event and get people registered How to get registered people to actually join the event How to create engagement during the event to make sure people don't leave early How to do a successful follow-up after the event. During the interview, Katherine refers to James Carbary from Sweetfish Media and a host at the B2B Growth Podcast. LinkedIn Katherine Martin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherinemartin2017/  Website Narrative Science: https://narrativescience.com/    If you want to be on this podcast or would like to know more about Marketing Technology, visit our website at marketingguys.com or contact Elias Crum at e.crum@marketingguys.nl

Today I connected with Katherine Martin, marketing manager at Narrative Science. We talked about: How data combined with human context and creativity can help us solve hard marketing problems. How their recent 2-day virtual event helped them attract 5 times the audience over just the last 6 months than they generated in all of 2019. … Continue reading "Ep 15 — Solving Problems with Data Storytelling"

En este episodio me acompaña Pablo González, Head of Growth y miembro del board de Data Factory. con quien hablo sobre el modo en que la inteligencia artificial y los datos están amenazando el trabajo actual de los seres humanos o desafiándolo para que estos comprendan la importancia de agregar valor en las actividades que realizan. Durante la plática exploramos las distintas implicaciones de las notas algorítmicas de Data Factory, artículos desarrollados a partir del Narrative Science que permiten la automatización de una serie de crónicas deportivas que prometen ser el punto de partida para aplicar dicha tecnología a otros rubros. Si quieres seguir consumiendo más historias como ésta, súmate a nuestro grupo en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/512162085809126/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘You have the life you are willing to put up with' on the Daily Grind, your new weekly motivational podcast. This episode features Kelly Johnson and special guest Stef Caldwell! Caldwell specializes in customer experience at Narrative Science, founder of Manifest, a growing community of and for ambitious women, creating spaces for women to gather with like-minded women to have open dialogue about the challenges they face both personally and professionally. She lives and works in Chicago, IL. In today's episode, Caldwell shares her childhood background, overcoming anxiety about the future, and career motivation to later inspire her to create Manifest and how she expanded her mark and ultimately sharing her leadership skills, ambiguous goal-setting and confident mindset with others. Since then, she has truly developed a community of women who support each other's biggest ambitions (and challenge each other to take action) and recently published her first book, ManifestHer. She also teased our listeners that she is working on a second book, Manifest Her to Personal Finance so stay tuned! Besides checking out Manifest Her and the Data Storytelling Podcast and grabbing a copy of ManifestHer, she recommends 5 books: 1. A Tribe Called Bliss by Lori Harder. 2. Choose Wonder Over Worry by Amber Rae. 3. The Third Door by Alex Banayan. 4. Atomic Habits by James Clear. 5. I Can't Make This Up by Kevin Hart. (Intro quote is by author Gary John Bishop). Audio Credit Intro: Draw The Line Mastered by Connor Christian Follow Our Podcast: Instagram: @kjfdailygrind Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kjfdailygrind Podcast Network: https://ambiguouspodcastsolutions.com/ Follow our Host: Twitter: @kellyjlefty Instagram: @kellyjlefty Follow our Special Guest: Instagram: @bystefcaldwell Manifest Instagram: @manifest.her ManifestHer Podcast: https://manifesther-podcast.simplecast.com/ The Data Storytelling Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-data-storytelling-podcast/id1513431423 Website: https://www.bystefcaldwell.com/ Manifest Website: https://manifest-her.com/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dailygrindpod/support

When there's a face present, 70% of our gaze goes straight to it.   The problem that recorded video solves right now is the problem that it's always solved. Video connects you to people in an immediate and intimate way that faceless digital communication scientifically cannot do. In this episode, I'm excited to unpack some of the science about video that I shared recently at Narrative Science's Data Storytelling Virtual Summit.   I'm Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-host of the CX Series on the B2B Growth Show, here today to share what I've learned about the science of video from 3 amazing podcast guests.   What we talked about:   - Our essential human interest in faces (and how our attention wanes when we see a profile instead   - The way that video makes us think we're in close proximity emotionally   - How video jumpstarts social bonding   - The metric that I argue matters most in communication today   Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:   - Dan Hill on Faces http://vid.us/hqpw9j   - David Meerman Scott on Proximity http://vid.us/2521tx   - Vanessa Van Edwards on Connection http://vid.us/a0x55t   - Ethan Beute on the Science of Video http://vid.us/a0x55t   Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

Everyone tracks some form of data. (We track quite a lot of it if we're rolling with the times.) But amassing data isn't meaningful unless we can create a narrative out of the facts.   For example, if you just looked at the cold data of the COVID-19 pandemic, you'd start to feel pretty hopeless, but if the data started to produce fact-based stories, we humans would start to be able to understand it and use it to make decisions.   Even greater than comprehending data using narrative is creating community with data. Our guest today is an expert at both, a person who spends most of her time analyzing not just what the data is saying but how it can serve people by connecting customers not just to her company, but to each other.    In this episode, I interview Stef Caldwell, the Senior Customer Success Leader and Community Architect at Narrative Science, about customer experience and customer success.    What we talked about:   - What your data can and can't tell you about your customers   - What the relationship is between CS and CX   - Why we must scale the human touch in Customer Success   - Why to create community around your core beliefs   - How Stef founded Manifest to address the missing rung — the first step that carries women into management   Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:   - Manifest   - Lululemon    - Goal setting with Michael Hyatt   - James Clear's Atomic Habits   - Charles Duhigg's Power of Habit   Subscribe, listen, and rate/review the Customer Experience Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Google Podcasts, and find more episodes on our blog.

Our guest on this episode is Nick Beil. Nick is the President at Narrative Science.    Nick and I kick off the episode discussing “getting back to sales basics”. We open with how sales teams need to rethink how they market and sell their products. Sellers first must approach the conversation to find out IF and then HOW they can help. Discover the pain, determine if there is a fit and then develop a solution proposal. Great conversation with lots of good take aways.    But before we jump into the episode I want to thank our sponsor the T-REX Summit the southeast’s premier sales and marketing growth conference. Like many events we have pushed out T-REX and our new date is now September 1 & 2 at the Carolina Theatre in Durham.    We’ve got a great lineup of speakers including Cal Fussman, a world renown speaker, journalist and author, Erica Schultz the CMO at the RAIN Group, Brad McGinity the CRO at 15five, Aliisa Rosenthal the VP Sales at Walkme and Melissa Sargent the CMO at Litmus to name a few.    Go to trexsummit.com or more info or to purchase your ticket today and use coupon code “BestSelling" to take 50% off your ticket price now.   

Building community is both an art and a science. On today's episode I talk with Stef Caldwell, the Customer Success Leader and Community Architect at Narrative Science, Founder of Manifest, and the author of ManifestHer. Stef's Links Instagram: @bystefcaldwellWebsite: bystefcaldwell.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bystefcaldwellManifest Instagram: @manifest.herManifest Website: manifestchicago.comTaylor's LinksWebsite: taylorelyse.com Instagram: @taylorelysemorrison

Brent Silberman jumped onto Sales Operations Demystified to share his knowledge about the importance of getting to know the individual reps, learning whilst onboarding, simplifying forecasting criteria, and understanding the close process.

Meet Anna Schena Walsh, the Director of Growth Marketing at Narrative Science, a SaaS that turns data into stories. Anna leads marketing initiatives including brand, content, digital, and demand generation and has previously led product marketing for both of Narrative Science's products. In this episode, you'll hear about AI-driven storytelling and the power of Narrative Science. You'll learn how to develop the mindset of internal storytelling, what it means to tell a story in a cross-departmental way, and how product marketing can break through the noise with better stories. And finally, you'll hear about the process that Anna used to write, launch and distribute her new co-authored book "Let your people be people" in just a few months. This is an episode full of stories. Enjoy! Notes: 02:50 The SaaS That Turns Data Into Stories 05:30 Joining The Team In Product Marketing And Moving Over To Growth 07:10 Finding Product Market Fit With A Certain Psychographic Profile: Innovators 09:40 You Don't Really Find Innovators, They Find You 12:00 Storytelling 15:20 KPIs and Organic Word Of Mouth 18:10 The Organic Story Framework That Everyone Goes Through 21:00 The Story Behind The Book "Let Your People Be People" 24:50 Strategies To Get A Book Written 27:20 Distributive Initiatives For A Book And Results So Far 32:00 An Important Lesson Learned: Lean Into People's Unique Talents 34:20 Carrying On Empowering Companies To Unlock The Value Of Their People Through Storytelling 36:00 Lightning Questions

If there’s one trend that not nearly enough data scientists seem to be paying attention to heading into 2020, it’s this: data scientists are becoming product people. Five years ago, that wasn’t the case at all: data science and machine learning were all the rage, and managers were impressed by fancy analytics and build over-engineered predictive models. Today, a healthy dose of reality has set in, and most companies see data science as a means to an end: it’s way of improving the experience of real users and real, paying customers, and not a magical tool whose coolness is self-justifying. At the same time, as more and more tools continue to make it easier and easier for people who aren’t data scientists to build and use predictive models, data scientists are going to have to get good at new things. And that means two things: product instinct, and data storytelling. That’s why we wanted to chat with Nate Nichols, a data scientist turned VP of Product Architecture at Narrative Science — a company that’s focused on addressing data communication. Nate is also the co-author of Let Your People Be People, a (free) book on data storytelling.

Stuart Frankel is the Founder & CEO of Narrative Science, which translates all the data companies produce into digestible information. The company started out producing software that turned raw baseball scores into stories for reporters. They have raised $43.4M in funding and have reinvented themselves multiples times in their decade plus in business. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC: A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston, one of our top early podcast guests and trusted partner of many of Chicago’s hottest startups. Check out what they’re up to at StartingLine.vc.

How do you market a company that is selling something fundamentally new and different? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, John Rougeux of Flag & Frontier talks about category design. It's not a tactic for every company, but when used strategically, category design can drive truly remarkable marketing results. John digs into who category design is right for, how long it takes, what a category design go-to-market plan looks like, and how to gain organizational support. He also shares examples of companies and marketers who've successfully created new categories. Highlights from my conversation with John include: John is an experienced category designer who has also owned and exited a business. He says that compared to traditional inbound marketing strategies, category design requires a much larger lift when it comes to educating the market. Every business has a choice to either compete in an existing market or create a new market.  If you're creating a new category, you have three choices: 1) try to fit your product within an existing category; 2) ignore category in your marketing and focus on the product's features and benefits; or 3) create a new category. John says options 1 and 2 don't work. When considering whether category design is right for you, you need to honestly evaluate your product and determine whether its simply a niche within an existing category or something that has truly never been offered before. If its the latter, then category design is really the only logical solution. Category design takes time. John says you should expect to spend six to nine months just designing the category behind the scenes, and then once you roll that out publicly, it can take another few years before it really takes hold. Category design needs to be a business initiative, not simply a marketing strategy, because it affects product roadmaps, sales and more. When executing a category design strategy, it is critical to focus marketing messaging on the problem that your audience is experiencing and the outcomes that they will experience as a result of your solution rather than how the product itself actually works. The companies that have been most successful at category design have evangelists whose job it is to go to market and talk about the problem and why there is a new solution. Its also important to build a consistent conversation around your new category. That might mean holding a big event (like HubSpot's INBOUND or Drift's HYPERGROWTH) or building a community, like Terminus's FlipMyFunnel.  If your company is venture-backed, it is also important to get your investors on board with the idea of category creation so that you have the funding to support the strategy. There are examples of category design all around us. Some of the bigger and more visible ones are minivans and music streaming services. The category wasn't created overnight, and in many cases, people don't even realize its a new category, but we see it is as fundamentally different from the status quo, and that is what successful category design looks like.  Resources from this episode: Visit the Flag & Frontier website Email John at John@FlagandFrontier.com  Visit John's personal website Purchase a copy of Play Bigger Listen to the podcast to learn more about category design, when it makes sense, and how you can use it to dramatically improve your marketing results. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is John Rougeux, who is the founder at Flag & Frontier. Welcome, John. John Rougeux (Guest): Hey, Kathleen. Thanks for having me on. John and Kathleen recording this episode. Kathleen: Yeah. I'm really excited to have you here for completely selfish reasons. I am deep, deep into the weeds, trying to learn everything I can right now about category creation because it's something that I'm kind of working on for a little project at work. And I stumbled across your name. I think it was in a LinkedIn post mentioned by Sangram Vajre at Terminus, and he mentioned you as somebody who's doing a lot of work on category creation. And I immediately thought, oh, I need to have him in on the podcast. And here you are. I am so excited, so welcome. John: Thanks. Thanks. I actually want to come back to something that you said a minute ago. You mentioned this was a little project for you, so I'm going to pick your brains about why it's not a big project. Kathleen: I think I might just be downplaying it. John: Okay, all right. Kathleen: It's a huge project. John: All right. Kathleen: Yes, yes. It is a giant. In fact, it's probably bigger than I think it is. No, it's- John: Well, Sangram told me a few weeks ago. He said, "If you're not doing something that scares you a little bit, then you're not setting your sights high enough." So I think you're on the right track there. Kathleen: Yeah, no, I think my whole career has been a succession of choices that consistently terrify me. So hopefully, that means I'm on the right track to somewhere. So you have an interesting story. You started out or your career really grew in B2B tech, and you worked in some companies that were looking at category creation as a potential strategy and it seems that that wet your appetite and led you to where you are today. Can you just talk a little bit about your background and how it got you to where you are now and what you're doing now with Flag & Frontier? About John Rougeux and Flag & Frontier John: Yeah. Yeah, happy to. So the thing that I like to tell people is that I always wish that I knew about category design earlier in my marketing career. I think it would have helped me be more successful and make better choices and think through the strategy of what I was working on at the time a lot more thoroughly. So the reason I say that is in 2013, I co-founded a company called Causely. And I won't get too far down into the weeds of what Causely does and the business model, but we were basically using cause marketing as a way to incentivize people to take action. And specifically, we were looking at incentivizing referrals on social media. And at the time, I was looking at marketing through a fairly narrow lens, like a lot of people do maybe when they are kind of earlier in the middle of their marketing careers. We were looking at things like you know how do you improve the performance of an advertising campaign? How can you write a better better blog post? All of those kind of tactical things. And I didn't realize at the time that what we were doing was something categorically new. People didn't have context for what that meant, what they should compare it to, what value they should expect, what things should it replace or not replace? And so we had a reasonable trajectory. We scaled the business to a few thousand locations. It was acquired. But when looking back on it, I know that if we had had this lens of category design of how do you describe something when it's different than anything else out there, I think we could have gone even further. And so when I joined a company called Skyfii in 2018, I had started to kind of understand what that meant, so I had read Play Bigger. I read some, the works by Al Ries and Jack Trout that talk about how if you can't be first in a category, design any category you can be first in. And at Skyfii, that business, it's a publicly-traded SaaS company out of Australia and they found that they were participating in a fairly commoditized space. Or I guess to be more accurate, the perception was that they were a competitor in a fairly commoditized space. And their business had evolved past that and the product did all sorts of other things that were much bigger than the category the market thought they participated in, but they didn't really have a framework for talking about that. And so we went through a repositioning exercise where we defined a new category that better reflected what they were all about and and how people should kind of relate to that. And that was a really, I think, powerful and challenging exercise to think through.We've got something new in the market, but how do we describe that? How do we tell the right story? How do we tell the right narrative so that people know how to relate to it? Why category design is a fundamentally different approach to marketing Kathleen: This is so interesting to me. There's so much I want to unpack here. I guess, starting with something that you kind of started with, which is that there is this typical marketer's playbook, right, where people come in and they think, "Oh, we need to top, middle, and bottom of the funnel. We need to create content and attract people," this and that. And when it comes to category creation or trying to market something that is different than anything else people are used to, that playbook doesn't really work. Because as I'm quickly learning, especially looking just at the top of the funnel, traditional top of the funnel marketing, it's like well what is that problem that people are having and they start to look for a solution. And the challenge you have is that if the solution you're offering is something they've never heard of, it's such a steeper climb to try and gain their attention. It's like they don't know the right questions to ask even, if that makes sense. John: No, that's absolutely right. And I always like to mention a really thoughtful post that Mike Volpe, the founding CMO of HubSpot wrote a few years ago because it lays such a great groundwork for any discussion around category design. And the blog post simply says that look, every marketer has two choices on their strategy. They can pick an existing category and try to carve out a niche within that category. Maybe they can dominate that category. But basically, they have to pick a space and then do the best they can within that space. Or they can try to design a new category. And when you look at kind of the underlying product or business model and you really take a close examination of what it is and whether it's different or whether it's something better, you almost don't have a choice. If you're doing something that is new that people don't have a framework for, you really have three choices. So I want to pack these for you. So choice number one is you can try to shoehorn this new thing you've built into an existing category. And we'll come back to why that doesn't work in a second. Number two is you can just talk about the products, like features and benefits but not really think about a more underlying narrative for that. And then number three is you can design a new language, a new framework, which is called category design. And so here's why number one and number two don't work. So again, number one is if you try to shoehorn something new into an existing category. The reason that works against you is that people will make the wrong comparisons for what you're supposed to do, how you're supposed to be priced, how you deliver value. That just works against you. Secondly, if you just try to talk about the product itself but don't provide a larger context, you're not giving people, you're not giving them really any framework, and it makes it difficult to understand what you're all about and why they should be interested in you. I'll give you a great example. A friend of mine works at a company and I won't mention the name of the company, but they combine two different categories kind of in an existing platform. So one of these is VoIP, Voice over Internet Protocol communication software, very established, known space. The other thing they do is they have these marketing automation functions that they add to their software to at least in my view very disparate types of software, but they combine them together. And so far, they haven't really given their buyers a context, a category for what this thing means. And so they're basically letting people to their own devices to understand and come up with their own conclusions about what that is. And that just puts a lot of work on your buyers when they have to think about who they should compare you to when they need to think about what department is this even for, or what products does this replace or not replace? That's generally too much work for people when they're trying to understand something new. And like you said, Kathleen, if you're not telling them what questions they should ask, then chances are they're just going to be too confused before they'll even really be interested in having a conversation with you. Kathleen: Yeah, and there's two other aspects to what you just said that I think are really interesting, which I'm beginning to appreciate more with the work that I'm doing. One is that human nature is such that people want to slot you into something that they already understand. They don't want to have to think outside the box. So when people hear about something new, that their natural inclination is to try and categorize it in with things that they already know. And that's a hard thing to battle because you are literally battling human nature. And the second thing is if you do allow yourself to be put into a category that already exists that maybe isn't really truly what you're doing and you are actually successful in selling your product, you will wind up having a lot of problems with churn once you do sell it because people are still going to be thinking that you are like that other thing that you're not actually like. And they're going to be looking for your product or your service or whatever it is to solve for them in the same way that other thing does, when in reality your thing does not solve those problems. So it's like you're setting yourself up for a very long horizon of failures that you might not see at the outset, but it's kind of a you're failing before you've even begun. John: Yeah, that's a great point. And yeah, people do... They tend to... The world is so complicated, and there's so many things that we have to deal with and try to understand that we use this rule of thumb of categorizing things. Sometimes we do it explicitly, like smartphones are a great example of a category we all know about and buy them and we know why they're different than a mobile phone. Sometimes we just do it implicitly. We don't necessarily have the language or the terms to describe that category, but we know that we try to group likes things together because it makes it easier to understand the world. Kathleen: Yeah or we use analogies. So many times, you hear things like, "Well, that's just the Uber of," and then they list a different industry. Or, "That's the Airbnb of something else." John: Yeah, that's right. Kathleen: And so we're constantly trying to put these things into comfortable mental frameworks, which I think is fascinating. So you mentioned there were three things. The first two, I think you covered. And then the third is really designing a new category. John: The third is designing a new category. That's right. That's right. When does category design make sense? Kathleen: So how do you know... I guess the first question is how do you know when that's the path you should be taking? John: That's a great question because I've heard from some people that they have this idea that every company should try to design a category, and that's really not the case. It applies to some companies. But for many other companies, like if you're developing a CRM, a better version of a CRM, don't try to build a new category around that. So yes, so the way you would look at that is there's no formula you can put into Excel and calculate and churn all this out, but it really comes down to does the thing that you've built, does it solve a problem that has not been solved before? Or does it do so in a way that the world isn't familiar with? So is there a new business model behind that? Is there a new delivery mechanism behind that? It really comes down to those two things. And maybe if you want to look at it at a more fundamental level, you could ask yourself do the existing categories that my market is familiar with, do they accurately capture the type of thing that I'm offering? If they do, then one of the reasons you may want to choose to carve out a niche in an existing category is that people are looking for established products in established categories. People are looking for marketing automation software, they're looking for smartphones, they're looking for video communications tools like Zoom, like we're using today. And so, if you say, "Hey, we have the right tool within this category for this specific market or for this specific need," that can be very powerful. And arbitrarily forcing yourself out of that category just because you like that idea of category design is going to work against you. Now, that being said, again to kind of flip it around, if you find that the categories and the language that are used to describe existing products your market is familiar with just don't capture what you're doing or they limit it in some way, then ultimately you need to find a way to break out from that and that's what the process of category design is all about. What does it take to create a new category? Kathleen: Now, one of the things that I've come to appreciate just the more I look at this is what a big lift creating a category is. As you said in the beginning, this isn't a little project, right? I would love it if you could just talk a little bit about sort of expectation setting. If somebody is listening to this and they're thinking this really sounds like it could make sense for me, from your experience and what you've seen and you've talked to people who've been involved in category design, how long does it take before you can really expect that the market will recognize a new category? John: Yeah. It's a pretty long-time horizon. And so I mentioned Mike Volpe at the beginning of the call and I'll mention him again and Kipp Bodnar, the following CMO of HubSpot mentioned the same thing I'm about to tell you. And they told me that when they first started talking about inbound marketing, it was like standing in the middle of a town square on a soapbox just shouting into the wind with nobody paying attention. And that was the case for two to three years before that phrase really started to work its way into the lexicon of marketers. Salesforce, they pioneered, not so much CRM but cloud-based software. And even today, they still talk about other applications to cloud-based software that's 20 years later. And another example might be... So at Terminus, they talk about the account-based marketing gospel. And maybe this kind of hints to the challenge of how difficult it is to build a category. Sangram used to be there, I think he was their head of marketing if I'm not mistaken. He's definitely a co-founder, but his role is chief evangelist. And so they recognize that to really get people to be aware of and to understand and use this terminology around account-based marketing, they've had to invest very heavily in evangelizing that market or that message out in the market. Kathleen: Yeah. The other story that I've always found interesting... I followed all the ones you just mentioned really closely. And then the other one that's been fascinating to me is Drift because they came on the scene. And if they're listening, they may take issue with what I'm about to say, but look. A big piece of what their product does is live chat, website live chat, and then they have chatbots. Well, those things have been around for a while. That was not anything new, but they were really smart and they coined it as conversational marketing and they really focused more on, not so much the how and what the technology does, as what it enables the business to do, and kind of wrapped a methodology around existing technology in a way that made it feel fresh and new. And it was pretty genius. And I feel like they actually moved really quickly by comparison to a lot of the other examples I've seen. So it's interesting to me why in some cases, businesses are able to gain traction faster than others. John: Yeah. I would have to think that a lot of it has to do with the culture and how quickly or rapidly that business has gone through change in the past. And the other thing we should probably discuss is just the timeline of everything that happens before you share your new category with the world. I was talking with... There's an interview I did with, let's see, Anna and Cassidy at a company called Narrative Science. And they expected just the category design process itself to take about six to nine months. This is before they released language out publicly. And at Skyfii, that was our experience as well. And for that situation, that company, I think they were founded in 2012 or 2013. So they were five, six years into the business and there had already been a lot of discussion around the space that they started in, which was Wi-Fi marketing or Wi-Fi analytics. And so anytime that you're going into a space where the culture already kind of thinks and has a mental model for what their business is, the process of reworking all of that and getting everyone on board, especially the leadership team and perhaps even investors, getting them on board with that new message in a new way of thinking about the business, it takes time. And I would argue it should take time. Because if you rush the process and you ask your team to start using maybe even radically different language about what you do, people need time to really think through that and maybe they need to push back or challenge you a little bit or ask questions or provide suggestions. There's just this change management process you have to go through. And if you rush through that, people are not going to feel like they're a part of that process. And then ultimately, that's going to undermine your efforts in years one, two, three and further as you're asking your team to help you share that message. And at Skyfii, Skyfii is publicly traded in the Australian market and so they have investors and they have a public... They're very thoughtful about the message they put out into the market. And so they really wanted to take the time to make sure that message was right and that it made sense. And so, yeah, it took us, I don't know exactly how many months, but yeah, around six to nine months to really start that discussion and then get to a point where we were comfortable with the category name and the underlying narrative to support it. Why category design needs to be a company-wide effort Kathleen: Yeah, and I think there's... To me, one of the most important things is consistency because you kind of said if everybody is not on board and everybody isn't speaking from the same playbook, all it takes is one or two people to diverge and talk about your thing and language and terms that puts it squarely back in with all of the other things out there that... And it destroys your effort. John: Yeah. Well, and this is probably a great segue into another really important point about category design, which is that it's not a marketing project. Sometimes, it can be spearheaded by marketing, and marketing will often do a lot of the legwork, but it's not something that's relegated or exclusive to marketing. It has to be something that that CEO is involved in. It affects the company vision and is affected by the company vision. They kind of play off of each other. It affects the product roadmap. It affects what the sales team says. It affects what you might tell investors. So if your CFO is in charge of investor relations, he or she, they have to be on board and educated on the message. That's another misconception I heard a few times and it was... Personally, I thought it was a marketing initiative when I first read about it. But the more I dove deep into it and the more people I talked to, I realized it's actually a bit more of a business initiative, more so than a marketing one. Kathleen: Yeah, that's a great point. Having that buy-in top to bottom, it's really important. John: Yeah. What's been your experience at Prevailion in kind of leading your team in that discussion? Kathleen: So it was interesting because I came in really excited to make this a category design play. And shortly after I came in, we hired a head of sales, who also had some experience with category design and saw that that was a really strong play for us. He and I had both read Play Bigger, and we just kept talking about it until we basically beat the rest of our leadership team down into buying copies of the book. They've all now read it. They're all super excited about it, and it's great because it's given us a common language and framework around which to talk about what it is we're doing. So we're still really early stage, but I think we have that excitement and that buy-in in principle at least is there. And now, we're at the stage where we have to figure out our plan. What does a category design strategy look like? Kathleen: So along those lines, let's talk a little bit about somebody who's listening and they think, "Yep, this makes sense for me. Okay, I'm going to set my expectations. I understand I need to get top to bottom buy-in." What are the elements that you've seen in your experience from the companies that you've studied that have done this that contribute to successful category design efforts. In other words, what would be a part of a company's plan if they were looking to move forward with this? John: Yeah. So I'll mention two things that come to mind. So one I touched on a moment ago, but it's making sure that the CEO and the leadership team are involved and to the extent that they feel like they have a stake in the success of the project. What I mean is it's not enough for them to say, "Sure, that sounds great. Category sounds great, Mr. or Mrs. CMO. Go for it. Let me know how it turns out." That's not sufficient for getting buy-in. So getting them to be a stakeholder and have a real level of participation, that's absolutely key. And there's an interview I did with Chris Orlob of Gong.io, where we talk about that in more depth. So if you want to link to that, I'm happy to- Kathleen: Yeah, that would be great. I would love that. John: Yeah. The second thing is category design, it's all about talking about a problem that you're solving and less about the product. And so one thing I always like to say is that problem... Let's see, so your solution, your product. Solutions don't exist without problems, right? And then problems don't exist without people. And so you have to go back and understand the people that you're trying to work with and serve, and understand the problem you're trying to solve and the language they use to describe that problem, and the context for which they're trying to solve that problem or maybe they're not even aware that it is a problem or they think it's unsolvable. The point is you have to really understand the problem first and use that to lead your messaging. If your category is all around, here's why this specific product is so great and it's called this category, you're kind of missing the point. When you look at the language and the marketing that companies like Drift, for example, do, 80% of it is on the problem. Drift likes to talk about how the buying process has changed. Buyers are not interested in waiting hours or days or weeks for someone to respond to them. They want a response now. And you even see that word, "now", used.  Kathleen: Yes. That word, that one word... I went to HYPERGROWTH. I think it was not this year, but the year before. I went this year too. John: Okay. Kathleen: The year before, their whole keynote at HYPERGROWTH was all about the one word, "now." And it was so powerful, the way they distilled that down I thought, really, really simple but effective. John: Yeah, yeah. And they've written a book around conversational marketing. If you've used Drift products, you can kind of see some tie-ins but it's really about the problem that they're trying to solve. And people smarter than me have said lots of times that if you can articulate that you understand the problem better than anyone else, then people will assume you have the best solution. You don't have to work so hard to talk about every single little feature or benefit that you offer. Showing that you understand the problem creates empathy with your audience, and then again, they'll assume that you have the best solution to address that problem. Kathleen: Yeah, that's interesting that you talk about that because I think that's a really easy mistake for marketers to make, which is to say that, especially when you talk about B2B technology, it's really easy to fall into the trap of talking a lot about what the product does, how the product works. And I think many times, that's facilitated or even encouraged sometimes by the customer asking, "What does the product do? How does it work?" John: Right. Kathleen: And yet, I think the challenge as a marketer is to try to really get ahead of that and take control of the conversation and steer it towards not only the problems as you say and really deeply understanding them, but the outcomes that come from the use of the products. There's problems, and then there are what is the outcome for the user? How does it make their life better? How does it change them for the better? If you think of those as two different poles, and in the middle, lies the product and all the stuff it does, if you can keep the conversation more at the periphery on those poles, then I think you can be really successful. But that's tough. John: No, I've never heard it described that way, but that's a really clear way of describing that. And it's funny you mention that because I was having the opposite experience just this week. I was there was looking for a new email client for my computer. And that's a pretty established category. There's a million email clients. And in that context, you don't need to talk about the problem of communicating with people. Kathleen: Right. John: You know what email is. You don't need to talk about the outcome so much. There were a few features I was looking for and I was trying to find a client that had those features. And so you can talk about that a little bit more upfront when the category is established and people know what the category is, what it isn't, what it's supposed to do. But to your point, Kathleen, if that category doesn't exist and you're really trying to sell a vision around solving a problem, emphasizing what the problem is and then emphasizing the outcomes are really what's necessary to get people interested in just having a discussion around this new idea. And then from there, they're probably going to ask, "Okay, this sounds really good. Tell me about that product itself. What does it actually do?" Then you're in a perfect position to go into those details because they're ready for it. And they get the larger idea. Kathleen: Yeah, and that's where I think the traditional framework of top, middle, and bottom of the funnel comes back into the discussion, right? When you do get towards that middle to bottom of funnel stage, you can get into the weeds of how it works. And I know in our case, for example, it might not even be the same person we're having the conversation with. Our ultimate buyer isn't going to ever care so much how it works. They're going to hand that part of the decision off to somebody on their team and say, "Validate this for me." And it's almost like we've talked about it. We just need a spec sheet, but that... It's kind of like when you're going to a conference and you get the convince your boss letter, but in reverse. We're selling to the boss and the boss needs a convince their engineer letter that they can just hand to them and say, "Here, take this. It's in your language. It'll answer all your questions." Right? To me, that's the steps that we need to go through, but if we get too stuck in the weeds of convincing the engineer early, we're never going to get to convince the boss. John: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Building your category design go-to-market plan Kathleen: Yeah. Well, have you seen... So there are those foundational elements of how you talk about what it is you're doing, how you talk about the category, how you begin to gain share of mind. And then there's the actual go to market. And I've seen a lot of information written. For example, in the book, Play Bigger, which we've mentioned a few times, which is kind of like the Bible for category creation and other places. They talk about the concept of a lightning strike, which is just really a big kind of splashy go to market. It could be an event. It could be some other, something else that really makes an impression on the market and gets it talking about your thing. What have you seen or have you seen anything that has worked really well as far as like quick, well, I don't know if quick is the right word, but very high impact kind of strategies for really making an impression on the market? John: That's a great question. I'm not sure that I've seen a ton of really great examples beyond the few that we've discussed. So back to HubSpot, I don't recall a big... They have their INBOUND event, right? I don't recall that having a huge kind of blow up the world moment at the time when that conference first came out, but they've certainly been consistent and they made it a very conscious decision not to call it the HubSpot User Conference or even put the word HubSpot in there. It was about inbound, something bigger than themselves. I've seen Terminus, they have focused on this idea of a community of people who are interested in account-based marketing. Sangram told me they started with a fairly small event, relatively small event. And they've kind of built it from there. But that's more of an ongoing exercise, I guess, an ongoing process. Drift has their HYPERGROWTH conference. They came out with a book called Conversational Marketing. That's probably the biggest kind of high profile thing they did that was explicitly around that category. I think one of the things around lightning strikes is that, at least the way they're described in the book, is that they feel like they could be appropriate for a VC-backed company, or maybe a publicly traded company who's launching a new category and wants to really make that big splash and can afford to do that. I would say if you're earlier on and you don't have millions to drop on a big event or a massive campaign of another nature, it seems like other companies can can be successful with more of a process-driven approach of who are we trying to get to care about this category? What are they interested in? Where do they spend their time? And how can we just have these conversations with them on a repeatable basis? Because, like we were talking about earlier, it's not like once you name your category, the whole world suddenly cares about it and there's all these... Gartner doesn't give you a ring and say, "Hey, I guess we're going to create a Magic Quadrant because we saw your lightning strike. That's good. This is so great." Everyone who I've talked to anyway, who's done it well, has had to dedicate consistent resources over time to really get people to understand it and think about it. Kathleen: Yeah. You're talking about something that strikes very close to home for me because I've looked at those examples too and I had an opportunity... I've interviewed Kipp Bodnar. I've interviewed Nikki Nixon, who was one of the first leaders of the FlipMyFunnel community for Terminus. I interviewed Dave Gerhardt at Drift. So I've had a little bit of an inside peek into some of those companies. We didn't talk about this topic specifically, but what did strike me about all of those conversations and all of those examples is, as you say, consistency but also not just consistency, volume. There's a difference between, "Hey, we're going to consistently blog once a week, and it's going to be a great blog," and that's just an example. All of these companies not only have been super consistent, but they have turned the volume dial way up in terms of the amount of content they're creating around their category. I think every one of them has written a book actually, because Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah wrote the book, Inbound Marketing. You mentioned the book that Drift wrote. Sangram has written a couple of books. I don't know if that's a requirement or it's just a coincidence, but I think it certainly has helped. But it's also a reflection of that turning up the volume. We're not just going to write a bunch of blogs and use this keyword on them. We're going to write the book on our topic and really own it. And to me, there's something to that. If you're going to do a category creation play, you don't necessarily have to have the biggest budget in the world. Maybe you're not going to throw a HYPERGROWTH type conference, which is a cool conference. But you are going to need to really be prepared to just saturate the market with content, flood people with educational content around what is that problem you're solving, why it matters, why it's new, and why the new approach is better than the old one. John: Yeah. And that comes down to having patience and the right time horizon. And like you were asking about earlier, if your expectation is that category design is something maybe you can do for a few months and then you can go about business as usual, that's a wrong time horizon. And it will take months or probably years for people to really get what you do and talk about it, independent of conversations with you. And you have to have the content to support that, whether that's an event or a blog or a book or a podcast. And I think you also have to make sure that your investors understand that vision. They understand that you want to create something big, you want to create a category that you can dominate and design to your favor. And then if you do that, five to 10 years from now, you will be in a very good position. But also understanding that the first few years will have a different trajectory than someone who's just really trying to scale growth right off the bat at a very high level. Kathleen: Yeah, I feel like you just brought the conversation perfectly full circle because we started talking about how important buy-in was, top to bottom. And you can think of top to bottom as like CEO to the bottom of the organization. But honestly, if you have investors, that's really the top. Your board has to be totally bought-in because you'll get a ton of pressure. I mean we do have investors. We just got a series A round, so I'm dealing with this right now. And we're very fortunate that we have a really bought-in board, but I completely agree with you. It's also fascinating, you mentioned earlier analysts. That's another thing. If you're working with the analysts, what are the expectations you should have there? Because I recently read a quote that was like, "Gartner will never create a new market if there's only one player in it." Right? Because what's in it for them to build a Magic Quadrant for one company? They're not going to do it. So by definition, if you truly, truly are creating a new category, your thing is new and different and not like anything else and you "don't have any competition" which is like the bad words to ever say... Because even if you don't have competition, you have perceived competition. There's nothing in it for an analyst to say, "Well, this is a new category because a lot of work to produce a Magic Quadrant or a Forrester Wave." They're not going to do it for one company. So that goes back again to the conversation around time horizon. So it's such an interesting play and not for everyone certainly. You mentioned a couple of really good examples from the marketing world, Drift, HubSpot, Terminus. Can you think of any examples from outside of the marketing technology world that are really great examples of category creation? So if somebody is listening and they want to kind of look out in the wild and see who's doing this well, who would you point to? Examples of category creators John: Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. Once you understand what category design actually means, you start to see new categories all over the place. So I'll mention two. So in high school, Kathleen, I drove a minivan. It had wood siding, I hated it, and it was just the dorkiest car you could drive. But at the time, I didn't know- Kathleen: We have to come back and have a conversation about that in a minute. John: So at the time, I didn't know that minivans were actually representative of a new category in the market. And I can't remember when they first came out. I think it was maybe the mid-80s, and I mean there were these full-size work vans, but people didn't conceive of this van that you would use to haul your family around. It was a completely new category. And it continues to be... I've come full circle. We've got a minivan today, another one. And so anyway, that's kind of a great example. You see that in automotive all the time, so hybrid cars. The Prius was a great example of designing that category. Tesla now for electric cars, SUVs as well. So that's one. And then another one is, I was actually thinking about this on the way to work this morning, the way that Apple and Spotify have really created, I guess, a new category around how music is distributed, I think, is another interesting example. And I think it's a... The reason I bring it up is category design isn't so much about a specific name or a specific taxonomy or a word that Gartner has capitalized. It more has to do with the business model and the way people look at a space. So when Apple launched iTunes, they completely changed the way music was distributed from buying a full album to buying individual songs and to needing to have the physical copy of the media to having a digital copy you could take anywhere. And now, I would argue that maybe Apple or iTunes created that category. They are the first to do that. But I would also argue that it's really Spotify, I think, if I'm not mistaken, I think their user number is larger than Apple's for Apple Music, they're the ones who have actually designed the category. They're the ones who said, "This is what streaming music looks like. This is what you're supposed to pay. This is about how many artists or songs we're supposed to have available. This is how we're going to curate music to you." And that's a completely new way of using music or listening to music. I don't know what the official name for that category is. Maybe it's just called streaming music. It's not something I'm an expert on, but that was a very long answer to your question but those I think are two that come to mind for me. Kathleen: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I do feel like we're surrounded by category creation. And it's happening even faster than I think it used to because of the pace of technological change. We just don't necessarily recognize it as such. But when you have that framework through which to think about it, you do start to see it everywhere and it's really interesting to watch. And I think it's kind of like the whole frog that boiled in the water analogy, which is actually a terrible analogy when you really think about what you're talking about. But the notion that- John: Who's actually tried that by the way? Do you know anyone? Kathleen: No, God, I hope not. That's like, don't they say serial killers start by torturing animals? No, no, no. Do not boil any frogs. But the whole idea being it's happening to us. We are experiencing category creation. It's just that it's happening at a pace that we don't like see it. It's not like a yesterday it didn't exist, and today it does. That by the time the category has happened and has become commonplace, it just feels like it's been there all along kind of. It's really interesting. I think there's probably a whole psychological aspect to this that hasn't even been mined in a way that it could. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: But all right, shifting gears because I could talk about category creation forever, but we don't have forever. Inbound marketing. We talked about really what the podcast is about, and I love talking about category creation as part of it. Because when you talked about consistency and HubSpot and Drift and Terminus, really they were all phenomenal examples of companies that really did inbound marketing well. So when you think about inbound marketing as it is today, is there a particular individual or company that you really think is killing it? John: I'm going to say that it's really like a style of inbound marketing that I think is starting to get a lot of attention and it's this idea of having an evangelist be a voice for the company. And the reason I think this is so interesting is because, like our world is, there's so many messages we get from brands today, both on the consumer side and on the B2B side, that I think people have a real... They started to see that you can have a brand say anything, right? It's a construct. But when you have a person who's a real human being talking about the vision and the values and what their brand represents and how it might be able to help, to me, that's a much more authentic way and it's just very relevant in the world today because I feel like people just crave more human-to-human interaction. So a three examples of that. We've mentioned a couple already, so Sangram and Terminus does that very well. Dave Gerhardt does that. He doesn't have the title of evangelist, but he's much more of the face of the company I think even than David Cancel or others. And then, Ethan Beute at BombBomb is doing that really well. Kathleen: Yeah. John: I know you had him on a previous episode, and yeah. I know there's others out there, but those are the three that come to mind. I see their content very regularly. They all do a different job. They have their own styles. They have their own voice, but they're very authentic. And I think they're adding a lot of value for the respective companies through what they do. Kathleen: I totally agree. Those are three great examples. And picking the right person or settling on the right person to fill that role is such a critical decision for the company. It has to be somebody that truly, deeply understands, as you said, the problem that the audience is experiencing, but that also can come across as charismatically and passionately believing in that shift that needs to occur to create that new category. So it's an interesting mix of skills that you look for when you try to find your evangelist. John: Right, right. So does this mean you're going to step up and be the evangelist at Prevailion? Kathleen: I don't know. We actually... I'm really lucky. And one of the reasons I joined the company is that we have this amazing team of really smart people, who are also very invested in participating in marketing. So our CEO is unbelievable. He could sell ice to the Eskimos, not that he would. That makes him sound like he's a smarmy sales guy. He is so smart and he really has been in the market a long time and knows it, and he's also incredibly well-spoken. So while I would love to get up and talk about it, I think I'm really lucky that I have an executive team that is full of people who could probably fill that role better than I could. John: And you know what? I don't think it's entirely an either or situation. Some of those companies I've mentioned, they have someone who's maybe has the largest following or the loudest voice, but there's others on the team who can contribute to that. And I think that's what's really exciting, is it's not just one person, but you can have a whole series of people on your team evangelize for the company. And I don't know about you, there's something about when I just see the people behind a product that I'm thinking about using. I feel so much more comfortable having that conversation and and exploring what they do than I would if I was just reading pure brand messages. Kathleen: Absolutely. It all comes down to trust, right? And if you feel like you can trust that person who is the chief spokesperson, somehow or another there's a halo effect from that that shines down on the brand. And it really saturates the brand with that feeling of trustworthiness, that makes you want to buy from them. John: Yeah, that's right. Kathleen: Yeah. I love it. Well, digital marketing is changing so quickly. This topic of category creation is so fascinating because conceptually it seems like something that will stand the test of time, but then how you implement it obviously will change over time. With everything changing so quickly, how do you personally stay up to date and stay educated on all things marketing-related? John: Yeah. For me, both listening to and hosting podcasts has been a big driver of my growth. And so conversations like this one with you are really helpful because you and I could swap ideas. The episodes I've done... So I co-host a series on the B2B Growth show around category creation. I also did a series on FlipMyFunnel. That's given me the chance to talk to people who have done more category design work than I have and learn from them in the process. And for me, that's been so much more valuable than anything I could read or stumble across in a newsletter, not that those things aren't valuable. But having one-to-one access to experts, there's few things that are... I'm not sure if anything is going to beat that. Some of those conversations have led to ongoing relationships, where I've been able to ask questions and dive deeper into other topics. And so that's where I found the most valuable use of time, is just having conversations. I love to read, love to listen to podcasts, but anytime I could just talk to people and listen to them and then talk through my own ideas, man, I'd do that every day if I could. Kathleen: Amen. I just filmed a LinkedIn video about this, about how I learn. And the number one way I learn is through hosting this podcast, which when I say that to people, I know that that's not something that's going to be feasible for everyone. Let me just spin up a podcast so that I can learn. But it is the most amazing vehicle because you get to meet such incredible people like yourself, pick their brains, really get into detail that you can't get into in other ways. And it's amazing how much I take away from it. Second for me is I love to listen to Audible business books on 2X speed as I do my commute. John: What are you listening to right now? Kathleen: I am finishing Crossing the Chasm. And then before that, it was Play Bigger, From Impossible to Inevitable, and I come back. I'll listen multiple times to books because I feel like you absorb more the second time. John: Right. Kathleen: So yeah, lots of good ones. There's never too many books to read or never too few books, I should say. I always have more. John: Right, no shortage of content, yeah. How to connect with John Kathleen: Thank you. That's what I was trying to say. Well, if somebody has questions about category design and they want to reach out, learn more about what you're doing, or ask you a question, what's the best way for them to get in touch? John: Sure. So you could email me at John@FlagandFrontier.com. So that's J-O-H-N@FlagandFrontier.com. You can also just put in John.Marketing in your browser, and it'll bring up a really simple page with just my contact info. Sometimes that's easier to remember. Kathleen: So smart. That's great. I love that. John: I can't believe no one bought that domain, but it was there so why not? Kathleen: Genius. John: It's easier than spelling my last name. And then you can find me on LinkedIn as well. I won't attempt to spell my name here, but if you want to link to it in your episode- Kathleen: I'll put that in the show notes, absolutely. John: Yeah. You know what to do next... Kathleen: Great. Well, I have really enjoyed this. I've learned so much. I feel like I probably could have made this podcast three hours long, but nobody wants to listen for that long. If you're listening and you liked what you heard or you learned something new, I would really appreciate it if you would take a minute, go to Apple podcasts, and leave the podcast a five-star review. That is how other people discover us, and that is how we get in front of a bigger audience. So take a minute and do that. And if you know somebody else who's doing kick-ass inbound marketing work, tweet me at WorkMommyWork because I would love to interview them. Thank you so much, John. This has been fun. John: Yeah, my pleasure, Kathleen. And hopefully, we can have another conversation later on as you go further into your own category design process. Kathleen: Yes, about that and also about the minivan that you drove in high school. John: All right, sounds good.

Natural language generation (NLG) is a technology that allows companies to take vast quantities of data and turn them into compelling narratives that communicate the valuable insights they contain. In this episode, Jon Prial talks to Stuart Frankel, the CEO and Co-Founder of Narrative Science. Find out about the amazing advances in NLG technology and how this particular type of artificial intelligence is changing the way that many companies do business. You'll hear about: -Narrative Science and how it helps data rich companies become more efficient(1:03) -The difference between natural language processing and natural language generation (3:12) -Why NLG projects have to start with communication goals, not data (5:29) -The limits of data visualization (8:01) -Turning various types of data into narratives (9:59) -Why Narrative Science initially didn't call itself an AI company (16:15) -Leveraging other AI engines versus doing everything yourself (18:11) -Measuring success and getting better with AI solutions (20:08) -Approaching the many aspects of AI to create a successful strategy (21:29) -The maturity of the NLG industry (23:06) -Where CEOs should start with AI (24:15)

In this episode, we talk to Anna Schena and Cassidy Shield from Narrative Science about what it's like to go through the category design process. Want to get a no-fluff email that boils down our 3 biggest takeaways from an entire week of B2B Growth episodes? Sign up today: http://sweetfishmedia.com/big3 We'll never send you more than what you can read in < 1 minute.

Chicago wasn’t built in a day, as the saying nearly goes, reminding us that everything worth doing takes time, patience and unwavering hard work. Stuart Frankel learned that lesson over nearly a decade of experience. In the nine years since he co-founded Narrative Science — which creates software that translates headache-inducing data into useful information — he’s watched the market slowly catch up to his way of thinking. The company itself has evolved too: after getting their start with software that turned baseball scores into stories for reporters, they’re now best known for report-writing product Quill — at least at the moment.

Produced by: Catherine Charlwood (@DrCharlwood) and Laura Ludtke (@lady_electric) Music composed and performed by Gareth Jones Laura and Catherine are joined by a special guest: Dr Will Abberley (@WillAbberley), Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Sussex. In addition to discussing #litsci aspects of his research and teaching, Will also explores language in scientific writings, biology and the imagination, human effects on the environment, and the importance of communicating to a broad public. At the end of the episode, you can hear Will read Grant Allen’s article ‘Strictly Incog’ from the Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 44 (Feb 1887): 142-57. Episode resources: Books mentioned: Meredith Hooper, The Pebble in my Pocket: A History of Our Earth (Viking Children’s Books, 1996) Adelene Buckland, Novel Science: Fiction and the Invention of Nineteenth-Century Geology (University of Chicago Press, 2013) Adelene Buckland, ‘Thomas Hardy, Provincial Geology and the Material Imagination,’ 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, (6), DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.469. Gideon Mantell, The Wonders of Geology, 6th ed., 1848 Thomas Hardy, A Pair of Blue Eyes (Tinsley Brothers, 1883) Michael R. Page, The Literary Imagination from Erasmus Darwin to H.G. Wells: Science, Evolution, and Ecology (Ashgate, 2012) Laura Ludtke, ‘MICHAEL R. PAGE, The Literary Imagination from Erasmus Darwin to H. G. Wells: Science, Evolution, and Ecology,’ Notes and Queries, Vol, 62, No. 3, (Sep 2015): 480–82, https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjv110 Websites of interest: Narrative Science project at the London School of Economics, https://www.narrative-science.org We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of LitSciPod - we enjoyed making it!

欢迎收听丽莎老师讲机器人，想要孩子参加机器人竞赛、创意编程、创客竞赛的辅导，找丽莎老师！欢迎添加微信号：153 5359 2068，或搜索微信公众号：我最爱机器人。丽莎老师讲机器人之不知不觉渗入生活的AI技术。人工智能正越来越多的渗透入人们的生活，改变人们的生活，从自然语言生成到语音识别、从医疗诊断到商业决策，AI逐渐开始显露出巨大的优势，并且它的脚步不会停止。1.自然语言生成（NLG）自然语言生成是人工智能的一个子学科，它可以将海量的数据转换成人类可读的文本，通过这样的方式实现与人类的交流。目前主要的应用是为客户提供报告生成和市场摘要等服务。通过对数据的分析、挖掘理解，从数据中抽取出有效的信息并总结成文本输出。优秀的AI还能实现自动排版和美化，做到可读性与优良的可视化效果。目前该技术主要由Attivio, Automated Insights, Cambridge Semantics, Digital Reasoning, Lucidworks, Narrative Science, SAS, and Yseop等公司提供。2.语音识别提到语音识别，人们第一时间会想到手机里的Siri。你可以直接通过语音告诉它你的想法、需求或者任何其他的东西。通过机器学习算法，它可以将声音序列转化为对应的词语并进行理解，随后给出响应。支撑它最核心的功能就是准确的识别你发出的声音所表达的意思。当然除了Siri还有很多很多的语音识别系统。每天，都有更多的系统都被创造出来，它们可以通过声音识别人类语言，通过语音响应交互系统和移动应用程序服务于成千上万的 人。目前提供语音识别服务的公司包括NICE, Nuance Communications, OpenText 和Verint Systems。3 .虚拟助理虚拟助理就是能够与人类交互的计算机助理或程序。这种技术最常见的例子是聊天机器人。你可以向他们查询天气、餐馆、服务，甚至可以请它们帮忙预订酒店、机票或者是演出的门票，并为你计划好日程。想象一下，早上起来你告诉你的虚拟助理明天要去广州出差，任务结束后想去见见住在深圳的朋友，吃个饭看看电影。它就能帮帮你查好明天的机票、规划好路线行程所用的时间，并预定好出租车。同时还会根据你的喜好和网上信息定好深圳的餐馆，并给你的朋友发去定位，随后寻找一家最适合的电影院来部大片度过一个美妙的夜晚。除此之外、虚拟助理目前正被用于智能家居管理，它可以接入室内的智能设备，只需你一个指令、就能为你开灯、把电视放到喜欢的台，热好牛奶。提供虚拟助理服务的公司包括供Amazon, Apple, Artificial Solutions, Assist AI, Creative Virtual, Google, IBM, IPsoft, Microsoft, and Satisfy4.机器学习平台机器学习(Machine Learning ML)是计算机科学的一个分支学科，也是人工智能的一个分支。它的目标是开发出让计算机能够自己学习的技术。但今天一般的机器学习已经不需要开发人员自己费力耗时的研究编程、有很多的机器学习平台提供了从算法到应用的一系列工具，包括APIs、开发和培训工具、大数据、应用程序甚至运行算法的基础设施云服务。今天机器学习平台正获得越来越多的注意力，企业和个人都可以接入使用。无需特别深厚的学术功底和技术能力，只需要自己的数据就可以实现机器学习应用。甚至，有的平台还提供数据标注服务。一些销售ML平台的公司包括Fractal Analytics, Google, H2O.ai, Microsoft, SAS, Skytree, and Adext。值得一提的是Adext AI是世界上第一个观众管理工具，它将真正的AI和机器学习应用于数字广告，为每一个广告找到可能带来潜在收益的观众或群体。另外深度学习平台是机器学习重要的部分。深度学习包括具有各种抽象层的人工神经回路，这些抽象层可以模拟人脑，处理数据并创建决策模式。它目前主要用于识别模式和分类的应用程序，包括了计算机视觉、自然语言处理、语音处理等非常广泛的应用。除了互联网巨头外，很多初创公司和独角兽都提供了自己对于深度学习独到的解决方案。Deep Instinct, Ersatz Labs, Fluid AI, MathWorks, Peltarion, Saffron Technology 和Sentient Technologies都有值得探索的深层学习技术。5 .人工智能优化硬件人工智能使得硬件更加友好。怎样做到的？现在通过专门为执行人工智能的任务而设计和构造的新图形和中央处理单元和处理设备。除了GPU用于加速神经网络和并行计算外，一系列专用芯片也如雨后春笋般出现，像神经计算棒、自动驾驶芯片和健康管理芯片等ASIC逐渐走入了我们的生活，支撑着低成本、高性能、低功耗的产品。这些芯片可以直接插入你的便携式设备和其他地方。目前Alleviate, Cray, Google, IBM, Intel, and Nvidia等公司都在致力于开发下一代为人工智能优化的硬件产品。6.生物测定学这项技术可以识别、测量和分析人类行为以及身体结构和形态的物理特性。比如人体步态、行为分析、特征点检测、声纹、虹膜、指纹甚至签名笔迹等等生物特征都可以利用人工智能进行识别。利用深度学习的强大能力，将人体特征进行量化准确的测定。它令人类和机器之间更自然的互动，包括与触摸、图像、语音和肢体语言识别相关的互动，在市场研究领域中占有重要地位。3VR、factiva、Agnitio、FaceFirst、sensor、Synqera和Tahzoo都是致力于开发这一领域的生物测定公司。7.自动化机器人自动化机器人使用模拟和自动化人工任务的脚本和方法来完成工作流程。当雇用人从事特定工作或任务过于昂贵或效率低下时，自动化机器人就特别有用。除此之外，包括市场营销、文本处理、以及一切重复性、规则性的劳动都可以被自动化机器人取代。这样可以最大限度地利用人力资源，让员工进入到更具战略性和创造性的岗位，使员工的工作能真正影响公司的发展。（注：这里的机器人除了传统工业机器人外，很大程度上指的是自动化处理程序）Advanced Systems Concepts, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, UiPath, and WorkFusion也是拥有自动化机器人技术的公司。8．文本分析和自然语言处理（NLP）这项技术通过统计方法和ML来进行文本分析，理解句子的结构，以及它们的含义和意图。文本分析和自然语言处理主要用于分词词性标注、命名实体、情感分析、文本分类等等，而结合文本分析可以实现智能审核、智能采编、自动问答，以及文本的自动生成、知识图谱等等，同时还被用于安全系统和欺诈检测。大量自动助理和应用程序也在使用它们来提取非结构化数据。比如医疗机构病历电子化和合同的法律合规等都是他们的应用范围。这些技术的一些服务提供商和供应商包括Basis Technology, Coveo, Expert System, Indico, Knime, Lexalytics, Linguamatics, Mindbreeze, Sinequa, Stratifyd, 和Synapsify.9.情感识别这项技术允许软件使用高级图像处理或音频数据处理来“读取”人脸上的情感。我们现在已经可以捕捉“微表情”或微妙的肢体语言线索，以及暴露一个人感情的语音语调了。执法人员可以使用这项技术来尝试在审讯中发现更多信息。在市场上还有其他更广泛的应用。越来越多的初创公司致力于该领域。除了口头分析之外，将音频输入，可以用来描述一个人的性格特征，包括他们积极、激动、生气或喜怒无常的等级。同时情感视频分析被用来激发新产品创意，识别升级并增强消费者体验。情感人工智能被用于游戏、无人驾驶、机器人、教育、医疗保健行业和其他领域，利用来自面部和语音的数据进行面部编码和情感分析。10.图像识别图像识别是识别和检测数字图像或视频中的物体或特征的过程，人工智能越来越多地叠加在这一技术之上，产生了巨大的效果。人工智能可以在社交媒体平台上搜索照片，并将其与各种数据集进行比较，以确定哪些照片在与搜索图像最相关。图像识别技术还可以用于检测车牌、诊断疾病、分析客户及其意见，以及进行面部识别来验证用户。同时我们日常生活中接触最多的“刷脸”也属于图像识别的一种。除此之外，电商平台上的图像检索，农作物病虫害识别、安防监控、交通监测和智慧城市等都在大规模使用着图像识别。

Focus and listen. It’s what I had to do after my conversation with Stuart. I went back to the beginning of it, listened and learned. He is not only a great storyteller but a teacher too. Stuart is the Founder and CEO of Narrative Science, a company that interprets millions of data sources and transforms it into insightful, natural language narratives. His industry and brand are cutting edge and AI is certainly part of the now and the future. But just as important, I loved his vision of wanting to be “the somebody else,” the client that was being served, which led to an abrupt change in careers (the story is worth listening to). You will also appreciate and respect the business business opportunity he got from a CEO after seeing him (and really only him) on countless Saturdays in the office. Podcast Notes: Stuart’s career from Miami Accounting major from Miami and started working for PwC. Went to Vanderbilt Law School and was a corporate lawyer for three years. Frankel got an opportunity with a client to work on a project that excited him. After a couple months, Frankel got word that the project was canceled. Took some time to figure out exactly what he wanted to do from there. Coming into the office on a Saturday? In office every Saturday 9am-3pm. The only other person who would come in was the CEO. If you work a little harder than the other person, this can give you a significant advantage over them. Why Stuart got the promotion He was the youngest people there and the CEO thought that younger people would understand and adopt emerging tech and things better. He had been bugging him in the past 6 months about implementing new ideas. He was there and showed up even on the weekends and the CEO felt he could do this job Take the risk. When the project was canceled, he had the choice to go back and practice law or to discover another area of business he was interested in. Frankel didn’t look at what the next three years would be, but he looked at what the next 30 years could be. Working in AI (Artificial Intelligence), there’s always two sides... Creation of technologies: this is where a lot of work is being done by large companies (Google, Microsoft, etc), but also smaller companies. Market adoption: this is the harder step because it takes a lot for people to adopt and like the technology. Always be in a learning mindset. Read everything. Listen to a lot of podcasts. Surround yourself with people of very different backgrounds. Learning doesn’t stop at 22.

"Narrative Science is humanizing data like never before, with technology that interprets your data, then transforms it into insightful, natural language narratives at unprecedented speed and scale. Turn your data into an actionable, powerful asset you can use to make better decisions, improve interactions with customers, and empower your employees." Narrative Science CEO Stuart Frankel joins the show.

Guest:John Templon - An investigative data journalist for BuzzFeed News where he has reported on figure skating, tennis, immigration and politics among other things. He joined BuzzFeed in 2014 from Chicago-based technology startup Narrative Science. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of the Data Show, I spoke with Kristian Hammond, chief scientist of Narrative Science and professor of EECS at Northwestern University. He has been at the forefront of helping companies understand the power, limitations, and disruptive potential of AI technologies and tools. In a previous post on machine learning, I listed types […]

Jen Underwood, founder of Impact Analytix, LLC, is a recognized analytics industry expert. She has a unique blend of product management, design and over 20 years of “hands-on” development of data warehouses, reporting, visualization and advanced analytics solutions. In addition to keeping a constant pulse on industry trends, she enjoys digging into oceans of data. Jen is honored to be an IBM Analytics Insider, SAS contributor, former Tableau Zen Master, and active analytics community member. In the past, Jen has held worldwide product management roles at Microsoft and served as a technical lead for system implementation firms. She has launched new analytics products and turned around failed projects. Today she provides industry thought leadership, advisory, strategy, and market research. She also writes for InformationWeek, O’Reilly Media and other tech industry publications. Jen has a Bachelor of Business Administration – Marketing, Cum Laude from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and a post-graduate certificate in Computer Science – Data Mining from the University of California, San Diego. Interviewer: Rajib Bahar, Shabnam Khan - WSJ had an article on automation analytics recently. As if we don't have enough terms to keep track of such as descriptive analytics, predictive analytics, prescriptive analytics... What is the deal with automation analytics? Are they calling automatically scheduled jobs automation analytics? Or is this concept completely different? - According to Gartner, “By 2019, natural-language generation will be a standard feature of 90% of modern BI and analytics platforms.” NLG was also cited by Forbes in 2017 as a Top 10 Hot AI technology. What is natural-language generation? How does this subfield of AI differ from Natural language processing or NLP? - Recently, you released a white-paper on "Humanizing Enterprise Application Software with Natural Language". Would you like to share the lessons you have learned? - What major forces are currently driving demand for Advanced NLG? - How do Basic & Advanced NLG work? - Are there any benefits of embedding NLG into applications? - Is Quill by Narrative Science the only NLG product in this area? How does it compare to the competition? Please share it's pros and cons to other similar platform. - how do we connect with you in Twitter or other professional networking sites? Music: www.freesfx.co.uk

Leslie Gittess joins Joe and Tom this week for a conversation on sports tech and sports entrepreneurship. Leslie is the CEO of Blue Sky Media NYC, a media advisory boutique firm, which she founded in 2010.  Her clients have included SnappyTV (acquired by Twitter), Ubersense (acquired by Hudl), PrePlay Sports (acquired by Fanvision), FanDuel (merged with DraftKings), TuneIn, ThePostGame, Thuuz Sports, Marlo Thomas and Narrative Science. She is also a contributor/advisor at the Columbia University Start-up Lab in Soho. Before founding Blue Sky Media NYC, Ms. Gittess spent over 16 years at Major League Baseball Advanced Media and the National Hockey League specializing in all aspects of sports media and digital rights management. Her previous positions include vice president of business development at Major League Baseball Advanced Media and vice president of TV and business affairs at the National Hockey League. Prior to her career in sports, she was an associate at the law firm Hughes Hubbard and Reed in New York City. In this episode, Leslie talks about how she helps sports entrepreneurs succeed and what she looks for in a successful company. Leslie also shares some great career stories, and she talks about her work for the Columbia Start-up Lab. You can find Leslie on Twitter @LGBlueSky and be sure to check out Blue Sky's website http://blueskymedianyc.com/ The Facts The CUSP Show is a production by the faculty of Sports Management at Columbia University. You can get in touch with the program on Twitter @CU_SPS_Sports Our presenters are Joe Favorito (@Joefav) and Tom Richardson (@ConvergenceTR).

Ready to have complete stories beamed directly into your nervous system? Fear not, Narrative First and Dramatica will be there to help make the transition a smooth and painless procedure.

It’s easy to think of AI as cold, unbiased, objective. Not quite, suggests Narrative Science Chief Scientist Kris Hammond explains, because we never know when AI will repeat our biases back to us.

APQC CEO Carla O’Dell recently talked with Stuart Frankel as part of the Big Thinkers, Big Ideas interview series. Frankel is the CEO and a co-founder of Narrative Science, a Chicago-based technology company that is a leader in advanced natural language generation (NLG), which turns data into a text story about the data. Frankel shared with O’Dell details around NLG and data storytelling, and its importance in the KM space. Remember to follow APQC on Twitter @apqc!

The O'Reilly Radar Podcast: Narrative Science's foray into proprietary business data and humanizing machines to bridge the data gap.O'Reilly's Mac Slocum chats with Kristian Hammond, Narrative Science's chief scientist. Hammond talks about Natural Language Generation, Narrative Science's shift into the world of business data, and evolving beyond the dashboard.Here are a few highlights: We're not telling people what the data are; we're telling people what has happened in the world through a view of that data. I don't care what the numbers are; I care about who are my best salespeople, where are my logistical bottlenecks. Quill can do that analysis and then tell you — not make you fight with it, but just tell you — and tell you in a way that is understandable and includes an explanation about why it believes this to be the case. Our focus is entirely, a little bit in media, but almost entirely in proprietary business data, and in particular we really focus on financial services right now. You can't make good on that promise [of what big data was supposed to do] unless you communicate it in the right way. People don't understand charts; they don't understand graphs; they don't understand lines on a page. They just don't. We can't be angry at them for being human. Instead we should actually have the machine do what it needs to do in order to fill that gap between what it knows and what people need to know. The point of the technology is to humanize the machine so we don't have to mechanize people. I always think it's a sad, sad state of the world where technologists keep demanding that everyone become data literate. What they mean is that everyone needs to have the analytical skills needed to look at a data set and figure out what's going on. I always see that as technologists saying, "We failed. We could not figure out how to explain to you what's going on, so you have to have our skills." While I think it's a noble notion that everybody has these skills, it's not going to happen. At the end of the day, it's not democratizing data to say we're going to do that. It's meritocratizing data. It's saying, "The only people who are allowed to understand what's happening in the world, based upon this data, are the people who have these high-end skills." It's incumbent upon us as technologists to move that data into information that is absolutely accessible to regular people. If we don't do it, we have failed. I think over the next two years, we're actually going to see a shift in the business attitude toward artificial intelligence. Right now, businesses are really struggling with, "What's going to be my AI or cognitive computing strategy?" That's going to shift into, "I have particular problems, are there particular AI systems that can solve these problems?" What we're going to get is a much more rational approach to the introduction of AI into the business world. It's not, "We need machine learning," it's, "We actually need to understand Churn." It's not that we need predictive analytics, it's that we actually need to know when our supply chains are going to break down. Subscribe to the O'Reilly Radar Podcast: Stitcher, TuneIn, iTunes, SoundCloud, RSS

The O'Reilly Radar Podcast: Narrative Science's foray into proprietary business data and humanizing machines to bridge the data gap.O'Reilly's Mac Slocum chats with Kristian Hammond, Narrative Science's chief scientist. Hammond talks about Natural Language Generation, Narrative Science's shift into the world of business data, and evolving beyond the dashboard.Here are a few highlights: We're not telling people what the data are; we're telling people what has happened in the world through a view of that data. I don't care what the numbers are; I care about who are my best salespeople, where are my logistical bottlenecks. Quill can do that analysis and then tell you — not make you fight with it, but just tell you — and tell you in a way that is understandable and includes an explanation about why it believes this to be the case. Our focus is entirely, a little bit in media, but almost entirely in proprietary business data, and in particular we really focus on financial services right now. You can't make good on that promise [of what big data was supposed to do] unless you communicate it in the right way. People don't understand charts; they don't understand graphs; they don't understand lines on a page. They just don't. We can't be angry at them for being human. Instead we should actually have the machine do what it needs to do in order to fill that gap between what it knows and what people need to know. The point of the technology is to humanize the machine so we don't have to mechanize people. I always think it's a sad, sad state of the world where technologists keep demanding that everyone become data literate. What they mean is that everyone needs to have the analytical skills needed to look at a data set and figure out what's going on. I always see that as technologists saying, "We failed. We could not figure out how to explain to you what's going on, so you have to have our skills." While I think it's a noble notion that everybody has these skills, it's not going to happen. At the end of the day, it's not democratizing data to say we're going to do that. It's meritocratizing data. It's saying, "The only people who are allowed to understand what's happening in the world, based upon this data, are the people who have these high-end skills." It's incumbent upon us as technologists to move that data into information that is absolutely accessible to regular people. If we don't do it, we have failed. I think over the next two years, we're actually going to see a shift in the business attitude toward artificial intelligence. Right now, businesses are really struggling with, "What's going to be my AI or cognitive computing strategy?" That's going to shift into, "I have particular problems, are there particular AI systems that can solve these problems?" What we're going to get is a much more rational approach to the introduction of AI into the business world. It's not, "We need machine learning," it's, "We actually need to understand Churn." It's not that we need predictive analytics, it's that we actually need to know when our supply chains are going to break down. Subscribe to the O'Reilly Radar Podcast: Stitcher, TuneIn, iTunes, SoundCloud, RSS