The value of hyperpersonalization and the state of CX - Interview with Greg Kihlström of The Agile Brand

0:00Welcome to the next edition of the Punk's CX podcast. With me today, I am going to be talking to Greg Kihlström from the Agile brand. Now, Greg is a best-selling author, speaker, and entrepreneur, and serves as an advisor and consultant to top companies on marketing technology, marketing operations, and digital transformation initiatives. He has worked with some of the world's top brands, including Adidas, Coca-Cola, FedEx, HP, Marriott, Nationwide Insurance, Victoria's Secret, and Toyota. He's also a fellow podcaster and hosts the award-winning The Agile Brand with Greg Kilstrom, which sits in the top 10 on Apple's US marketing charts and is in its seventh year with over 700 episodes and millions of downloads to date.

0:41On his show, he explores marketing technology and its role in the customer experience with some of the world's leading experts and leaders. Now, a couple of months ago, Greg invited me to be a guest on his show, and we took the opportunity to meet up and record the episode while he was in Scotland recently on vacation. It went so well that I said we should release it as an episode on the Punk CX podcast too. So here's my chat with Greg. Let's get into it. Glad to be here in Edinburgh. You played a great spot. Yeah, yeah. At the top of the glass house here. Yeah, if people know Edinburgh, glass house is at the top of Leithwalk just before you get up onto sort of princess street so it sits nestled underneath calton hill and we're sat up on the roof garden of the glass house and you can it's just like this a oasis yeah yeah it's very protected very then very it's cool yeah i expect to see people doing yoga i want to kind of write a grass over there right but well you know it's scotland after all right cool so yeah so we're gonna talk about a few things here um i know you know i brought a few questions you brought a few questions.

1:50So, um, you know, before I, uh, flew out here to Edinburgh, I was at Forrester's, uh, CX summit in Nashville and you know, they announced a couple of things. Um, one of them was, I think we're in year three of the CX index decline, if not four or something, um, multi-year decline at the very least. Um, you know, what's everybody's talking about customer experience. there's so much focus on CX. There's so many people, I think, doing some great work in CX. Why are we still on this decline? So I think there's a perennial kind of problem in there, which is that, and I think you alluded to it there, is that it's about expectations.

2:34Because the way that it's measured, the way that these indexes are measured, it's not really an objective sort of measure. It's more about perceptions, right? And so I don't think that necessarily the quality is going down, And although that's kind of possibly occupable in and of itself. But I think the thing is that what's happening is that the gap is widening. So it's like customer or consumer expectations. So let's make it just broader. Customer expectations are accelerating or increasing at a rate faster than brands can keep up. And I think that's been happening for a number of kind of years.

3:05I think that if you look at it historically, the index over time, I think we're down. it it went up from about 2015 2016 levels up through 2020 2021 in around the kind of pandemic and we've just seen a sustained slide but we've seen a sustained slide back down to 2015 2016 levels right so you've got this kind of vague thing i think there was a lot of forgiveness in and around the pandemic so where people like going ah it's a bit massive shift off uh to online And because you have to get stuff and you need stuff, you're like going, when stuff arrived, you're like, oh, that's amazing. Or when you got through something on the phone or somebody replied to your email, because we're all in a different mindset, I think there was a lot of forgiveness in there.

3:57People were doing things and doing things because they had to do things, forced to do things in a way and operate in a different way than a way different to what they've ever operated before. I think there was this big forgiveness and now we're starting to see this well you need to get your shit together yeah language right and if you're not and I think that's one of the things about about that so but I do think there's there's that and I think that we've got all these brands that are struggling to keep up but I think the brands don't help themselves yeah because I always I've got this kind of saying that I kind of like shot out probably more often than I should.

4:38And it says, the future of customer experience is always built in the present. And I think what happens, and this has become exacerbated ever since the post-pandemic, we basically went straight into generative AI, just exploring the world. Yeah. And what we've got to is that everybody's rushing to do something with artificial intelligence. Everybody wants to be AI-powered or AI-enabled or AI-first. Right.

5:14And fascinatingly, I think we get caught up in that. Because when I say the future of customer experience, the future of customer experience is always built in the present. What it has been is that people get too caught up in the technology and what they think is going to happen tomorrow and forget about what is happening today. and fixing the problems that people have today. And when I say the future is always built in the present, what I mean is that if you don't attend to the problems that people have today, you potentially forfeit your chance to build on that relationship tomorrow. And I've been like...

5:50But the leaders, the people that do succeed, because there are people out there doing some great things. Yeah, there are some. They manage these competing interests. planning and building for tomorrow, but also attending to the problems that people have today. Whereas the people that are followers are more like, oh, we need to kind of plan for, we don't want to be disrupted tomorrow. The deal, all the focus goes on tomorrow and they forget about today. Well, and that's like priorities, right? Like that's the whole thing of, you know, if everything's a priority, then nothing's a priority, but it's like you also have to be able to hold two things in your corporate mind, whatever that is at once, right?

6:31Is the present and the future. But I also wanted to, because I know you were in Nashville. Yeah. And I've never been to Nashville. And I wondered if you, can we get to the doors of Nashville, the city gates and stuff? Do they all give you kind of cowboy hats or something? And once, I mean, I just think that everyone's around in cowboy hats. They literally were handing out cowboy hats for the event that everybody, I had to work that night but like that's they did go they literally had forrester cowboy hats so yeah yeah it's brilliant but you were there i mean kind of like so another one of the big things that they announced this year was like that kind of t yeah right did somebody do that on stage no no they should have they should have and i mean what's that all about or is it just and and and what's what's your sense of it is it going to move the needle on some of these yeah i mean I mean, I'm skeptical, I got to say, because I mean, I do think I mean, I think I think measurements serve a purpose in that they are there's some relative way of gauging things over time.

7:33So, you know, we can have this conversation about the CX index and where those gaps are and all that just because there isn't a relative objective index. I think adding the brand experience, you know, it's, it's, um, and that's really what it is, is like adding brand experience and CX together to make total experience. And, you know, they're, they put some numbers behind it. I'm, like I said, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a bit skeptical about yet another index. Um, but I think, you know, the, didn't garden or do it about five years ago. That's all I've been told. So yeah, it's, I think it's, it's an, it's another way of trying to make sense of, you know, here's, here's what brands are saying, here's the expectation that they're setting.

8:18And then here's what they're actually delivering. So I think in that way, I'm, I find it interesting in that, you know, it, it, it puts a measurement towards, you know, I come more from the marketing and the branding world myself. So like it puts a measurement towards, you know, setting expectations and realizing expectations. So from that standpoint, like I find it interesting. I don't know. Could you not also argue though, that you go like that possibly further entrenches some of the siloed behavior and the thinking and the, that sort of dominant sort of thinking around branding and all these different sort of things.

8:56When actually, if you think about customer experience in this holistic sort of like sense that all that stuff should be folded in any way yeah i mean it should be the experience that you have from the initial because if we're all going to be customer centric then it should be all those things should be kind of like part of it we're talking about customers a customer's experience not what we think what a brand thinks a customer's experience is but but actually what customers' actual experience is. I wonder then if that's, you know, the CX industry too gets a bit siloed in - No, 100%. So in other words, it's a way of like reminding everyone.

9:39Now I feel like I'm defending the Forster CX for some reason. I mean, yeah. But I do wonder that, you know, the CX folks are not thinking as much about the branding part and the marketing part. And so TX is a way to do it. Again, I'm putting... No, no. I think you're absolutely right. And I think the thing is, I would say that the customer... I mean, I'll say something slightly heretical is that I wish... Sometimes I wish that the whole customer experience, industry, sort of like thing, profession, segment, call it what you will, domain. Yeah. Sometimes I wish it would go away. Yeah. Because it's become this little cottage industry and it's only interested in itself sort of thing and and kind of how it is its own sort of virtuosity and and it's all you know its capabilities and all these different sort of things are a bit like going but ultimately you talk about people talking about i'm an expert customer experience you're like no you're not right you can't be right break it down if it's everything you can't be an expert at everything well no but no but arrive first principles you cannot be an expert at somebody else's experience.

10:49Hmm. Fair point. There's stuff that happens and then there's what we make it mean. Yeah. So it's a bit like you're talking about how, you know, you're, you're an expert in something, you're like, you, you're talking about being an expert in something and people might say this is semantics, but it speaks to how we approach things. Like, yeah, I'm an expert at customer experience. Hmm. Are you though? or are you just really an expert in reaching out to people to gain their perspective on what's going on and and doing that at scale and analyzing it and then and then figuring out how do i take those insights and drive them into the into the business to the appropriate people so that we can take actions that we can then learn from it and we can prove the service and then we go back to customers go we did this that's great so are you just talking about being a voice of the customer right specialist yeah yeah or what you're talking about yeah i mean to me that's more like a horizontal thing than a vert you know than trying to put everybody in a in a i mean silo is the the just because it's a cliche doesn't mean it's not real not either but like you know but putting everybody in their in their silos i mean i look at i look at ai that way as well of being like a horizontal like when you try to think of when marketing tries to do ai or cx tries to do ai it can't be as successful as it possibly could because it it needs to go it needs in ai's case it needs data from across the entire organization and cx i think it needs it does need data too but it needs that experience and the the viewpoint of the entire journey right but i think that's the thing is that also we end up getting to that kind of point where i think because i think this is one of the biggest things I see is that, um, people talk about wanting to be customer experience sort of leaders in this space or lead their market and customer experience.

12:47But yeah, it's the, you ask them kind of what's your vision of the experience you want their customers to have. And it's a bit like, well, it's like an assemblage, a random assemblage of the most recent buzzwords. Yeah, yeah. You look at it go, that means absolutely zero to your customer. Right, right. And so I think there's a real sort of gap, a deficiency in that sort of like vision and strategy kind of piece. And what you're seeing is like, actually it's not tied to the business. It's not really relevant to the business. And because, and that sort of then also speaks the whole this often perennial problem where that the cx space has where it gets a case of not being able to prove its relevance or its roi and things yeah and i think it's because we start from the perspective of here's some stuff that we'd like to do because that feels nice and fancy and kind of cool right um or the latest thing rather than saying actually from go back to the brand here's where we are yeah this is our market positioning this is our market reality these is the promise that we are making.

13:55This is how we deliver our promise based on our products and services and all these different sort of things. Bosh, right, fine. How do we execute that in a way that makes sense for the business? Let's make commercial sense for the business that allows us to then demonstrably prove the ROI of our initiatives. And particularly if you're in a big organization you know if you do that first and get down to that very basic level i think what you end up getting is you end up getting this point to this point where you end up creating this thing called organizational social capital i.e you make somebody else's job easier yeah they're like going i love you right right i've got budget come with me what else can you do yeah oh there's this other nebulous thing which isn't can't is less easy to see how it tacks through to kind of commercial objectives but that's fine i've got you this time yeah because you've done something that's made my bottom line or my top line or my efficiency or kind of whatever it is better improved or easier i can see this is the worst of the the skills that you bring you prove relevance you prove commercial reality or like you just you've made things better yeah and you've made yourself relevant and then you end up getting this people kind of like then go because that's the way that it works in corporate right you can understand it's like your virtuosity means zero until you improve that you prove your relevance to the core business yeah and I mean it makes sense that way to yeah to do that versus to be a thing to tack on to oh we gotta do CX you know or again whatever the buzzword of the of the day may be i would go back to kind of people if i would say to people that there's i can't remember the gentleman's first name but there's a there's an old consulting type kind of book called uh by written by a i think an author's called the author's name is meister this or meister m-a-i-s-t-e-r and he's called there's a book called trusted advisor okay oh right yeah right yeah it's like that's your job yeah yeah go in and figure out kind of like there's an old saying that comes from zig ziglar um who uh it's got the most rock star name of anybody i know right right zig ziglar um and he says like you know and it's from the book see you at the top yeah and he's like if you help enough people get what they want then you'll get what you want yeah start there yeah because you have skills if you're in that cx or even that brand sort of like space, however you kind of describe yourself, if you take that mentality, because everybody's your customer.

16:43Yeah, yeah. Help everybody get, enough people get what they want, then you'll get what you want. Yeah, that's good. And I mean, that takes skill, but that also, I think that takes a bit of empathy as well. And like what, which actually brings me back to another point to go back to the very beginning. You know, I do wonder, this whole CX index thing, you know, you mentioned the, it increased for a bit, like that's consumer empathy, right? Like we're, we're taught, you know, in, in CX and stuff to have empathy with the customer, but that was actually a bunch of consumers having empathy with brands.

17:20Right. And I think it's probably more likely the people serve it, you know, the people direct the frontline employees and stuff that, that had to serve them. But I, I mean, to me, I look at that and it's a good, it's a good example of what, you know, brands should be doing, you know, in, in the reverse. Yeah. I mean, I think that, I think that's the thing I've always kind of, I've always, there's a thing that, so our ability to, to gather data from all parts of the business and, and across all parts of the, the, the, the customer's kind of journeys is, I mean, quite literally it's astounding. Yeah.

17:57Yeah. And, and we talk about people who are, particularly with the advent of this sort of latest iterations of artificial intelligence, what we can do with some of that data is mind blowing. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but the problem is, is we end up with this sort of thing is that we end up, it's effectively sometimes, well, sometimes it feels like we're like driving our car cars, this is when we have manual driving sort of cars. Um, but we're driving our cars as if we're via looking at the dashboard rather than looking at the windscreen. Yeah. Right. And so we're diving a bit bell dials and all these different things.

18:41And I, and I think this again, here's another thing that I keep kind of repeating probably too much. Um, but we talk about one, one, our organization is to be data driven or decision-making machines. Yeah. And that's great. Um, but I think there's different layer levers of understanding sort of thing, because actually what we need to understand is like, if it's always all about the quantifiable data, that can sometimes be very, um, can be very reductive and it loses sometimes the context and that emotional connection and empathy. So as you mentioned, and so I think there's, for me, I think there's, there's almost like three kind of different like behavioral levels particularly at a leadership kind of level which says um in very simple terms it says like data informs us and that's your kind of like level one right and then when people then take that so let's say quantifiable quantifiable sort of like stuff but then if you start enriching that with qualitative stuff as the next says um and stories move us so we bring that in so we see the data and then bring the stories and people like, oh, right, telling the story, that's great.

19:51And you see there's a lot of people trying to do that much more. But then the third level, which then becomes an individual behavioral sort of thing as an individual leader, is that experiences compel us. Yeah. And what I mean by that is that you see the data and then you hear the stories and you're like, oh, I'm going to go find out what's going on. Yeah. And I'm going to see it in real life, or I'm going to experience it, or I'm going to do that ride along. It's like, do you know? I heard this other day and I was like, well, that's wild. um uber cpo um does drive-alongs and actually does deliveries and oh wow he runs his own kind of like thing i heard about it so that it's called session something i can't remember yeah but he does his thing he kind of like for x number of hours every month sort of thing he's out on the road doing deliveries picking up people doing all these different sort of things because he's like going we're a product yeah we're a product company right i have to understand how all this kind of like stuff kind of works and um and i see that's what sometimes you can want to hear stories about people doing that like i know that uh chusema ship chandler who was the cfo at twilio but now became the ceo kind of just over a year ago yeah when he became that that was the thing he did he was like right let's go find out what's going on yeah yeah and he just went i'm going to talk to customers i'm going to be out in the field talking talking talking talking and it was no coincidence over the next year they grew by 10 15 yeah and you're like going you're all you're doing is you're you're you're connecting senior execs to the kind of the front line and what people are really experiencing and i think for me that's the the thing it's like the thirst or the hunger or the desire to understand.

21:43Yeah, yeah. And to go beyond the data and go beyond the stories to actually kind of like to really feel and to connect with what people are actually saying on the street. And it returns that empathy kind of bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, because to your point, I mean, you don't get that. A dashboard is at best directional, right? And, you know, ideally, sometimes it's useless, but like ideally it's directional right so but yeah getting that yeah i mean the you know i know like usaa like the first week or two you're there a big insurance company you know they're you're doing customer service responses and um and stuff like you know zappos i think was was famous for that as well you know so yeah just that that frontline experience of but i did think something I wrote about the, um, like a while ago.

22:36And it's like, we tell ourselves that we, we, we value this sort of like stuff, but we value it when it's important to us. Yeah. But in reality we don't. And that's the ugly truth of it. Like in the pandemic we're like going, we're like, yeah, we love all the, kind of there's a healthcare workers, the delivery drivers, all these, they're doing all this stuff that we kind of like need at the point. Yeah. And like in the UK, people are out kind of like banging pans and stuff and kind of like, like, three cheers for all these kind of people. But then after everything kind of changed, and then they realized the people in these industries, but the frontline delivery workers or postal workers or healthcare workers, they've not had a raise for years.

23:17And then they started going on strike and people were like, oh, seriously, I'll go on strike. You're like going, are you sh - It quickly turns, right? And so there's a difference between what we say that is important to us. and what is actually important to us. And the thing that shows up is actually what you do. Yeah, yeah. And so whether you're a brand marketeer, whether you're a service professional, whether you're in leadership or ops or whatever, actually there's a difference between what you say you care about and what you actually do. And actually the difference, and this is what I mean about the data and the stories and the experiences, is actually going out as a leader, going out and actually making time to go and speak to people and to understand the perspective and understand how things kind of fit together and work and all that sort of stuff and what the real experience is.

24:14It goes back to that whole idea. It's like you've got the old Toyota idea that go into the Gemba. You'll get that from being a lean, agile professional. It's like people talk about doing the Gemba walk. You're like going, yeah, but here's the thing. it's like doing that takes time yeah and effort but it also takes a beginner's mind yeah good point it's just you don't go as if you're like oh look at me i've got my big title you're like going i'm just gonna go yeah i mean it gives you a whole yeah because i mean i think i think what you're also speaking to is like i think surveys have their place but to you know to what you're saying people don't i have i am very suspect of of survey results at large you know so i i like any tool i think they can be useful even the the real-time data like i think that i think the trick is all of it right because you don't have time to do ride-alongs with every you know with every single customer report so and yet that gives you a depth that you would never have otherwise and the real-time data that we're able to capture so easily now gives us another view the surveys give us another view tying all that together i think is the So that's the truth.

25:28I think that people get that. That's a rich stew, right? Yeah. And that's what you're doing is you're, I think what you're not, what you're also doing is you're not abrogating responsibility for insight to a data set over here. What you're also, what you're also saying is like, that's brilliant. I love that. I'm going to bring my own rich contacts over here. Now, that might be subjective, but what it does do is allows you to question that. Yeah. kind of interrogate that larger data set based on kind of what you've seen and kind of like heard just in a way rather than going i'm going to take that as just red and it's coming and you're like going but i've got this thing over here and i've done see that and it and if you do that if it allows you to interrogate those sort of things then maybe you get to a point where you go actually make better decisions yeah based on the data that's kind of there but that that's the thing but I tell you what, these are rabbit holes.

26:23Right, right. But one question I want to ask you, because I know you're big on this, because I know you mentioned before we started recording, you talked about personalization and this, we've got this technological ability to deliver, to technically speaking, deliver one-to-one sort of engagement. And I know you mentioned also kind of like that you were at an optimisely event. And I know that I actually had Chef Cut Islam on the podcast a while ago, actually. A wee while ago, talking about very, very, very much this. I mean, but the thing about personalization is like going, it's been around forever.

27:07People have been talking about it. Customers are like, yeah, I love that. And brands are like, oh, yeah, I love that. And then, but then not producing the results that they expect. I mean, is, is it like, where are we at with that whole personalization sort of thing? Is that again, is that like one of those things, cause it seems like it's, if you're a marketeer, particularly if you're a marketer that's, that's driving kind of like brand and you're, you know, you're designing and trying to execute kind of campaigns, whether that's in new customer acquisition, whether it's in brand, whether it's in kind of like retention and loyalty sort of things is that whole personalization thing has, has been around for a long time.

27:44But I'm not sure it's driving the results for it. I mean, where are we at? Do people still want to do it? Yeah, I mean, I know there's, I swear there's some stat from like 2011 or something that said like personalization is the best thing ever. I mean, I'm a believer in it because I know it works on me. Anecdotally, I know it works on me. I've seen it work in, you know, at some of the brands that I've worked with as well. I think the question, and I know we touched on this a little before we have record as well. I think the question is when, where, how, and why, right? It's, it's, it's the details, right?

28:22So, you know, like it started with subject line personalization and emails, right? So it's like Greg offer, blah, blah, blah, you know, back in, you know, 1999, that was like rock, you know, science fiction or whatever, but now, you know, it's, it's kind of table stakes, if not off-putting. I think that people want relevant things, but I don't think that they want minority report-like creepy stuff popping out of nowhere. And again, anecdotally, I can say that when a brand gets it right, I buy stuff that I might not normally buy or I buy from a brand that I might not normally buy from. Um, but I do think over indexing on like, how can we get more and more and more data and how can we get more and more personalized?

29:16I think there's a lot of things that brands should be doing better before they get the hyper personalization segment of one, you know, all that kind of stuff. I mean, is it because I know that, that, um, cause Shafka from all times, he kind of told me that I remember he told me in the podcast, he says, they're going, we're talking about this one-to-one engagement, um, pursuit as it were. And he was like, he said to me, he says, I paraphrase him. He says, I'm not really sure it's worth it. Yeah. Economically sort of thing. He's like going, well, you go, technically we can probably do it. If we have the right sort of data, we've got the right technology and all that sort of stuff set up.

29:52Yeah. He says, but like in the end, you have to also ask yourself is like, just because you can, doesn't mean to say you should. Yeah. Yeah. And he said, economically, we figured out that actually it doesn't actually make sense. It makes sense to go up to a certain kind of point. And then beyond a certain point, the waters get a little bit kind of like muddy. Yeah. And also it's very contextual depending on where you are, where the customer's at and their kind of journey and stuff as well. well yeah because i mean they don't they don't i don't think they want a brand to know but so much about them at certain point like the the fact that a brand would know so much about them at certain points is off-putting and you know people call it creepy whatever as a marketer i tend to not call it creepy but i um at least so they're tipping i know but i think no so i do think i i mean i think here's the thing that i kind of think that um there's also the missing piece and all this sort of stuff, and again, you get back down to different types of data, is that oftentimes customers give brands permission to use their data, sometimes not knowing what they're giving their permission to do their data or the data for.

31:07And then there's also things where customers will say, oh yeah, I want personalization. But then what they understand as being personalization and what brands understand as personalization can be two different things yeah yeah and i don't think the two constituencies are really talking to each other and going like brands aren't going here's what personalized service or personalized experience means to us do you agree do you like it yeah and so and so forth and and i feel like that's a bit of a problem and even though you can go to brands and go well why don't you just talk to people why don't you ask their permission and then augment kind of things that way yeah and then you get into that sort of zero party data sort of thing and i'll be like again you get into that economic argument is it economically worth it yeah yeah because i mean you have to i mean i think i think generative ai helps with some of the like hyper customization of stuff if it's executed well which that's a whole if but it also is a matter of there still has to be intent behind and intent at the brand behind, okay, we're going to personalize based on these X million factors that we're collecting about all our customers.

32:25So that, to me, that's a cost that has to be accounted for. Like, okay, we're going to personalize based on their age, whatever, whatever Gen AI can customize based on age that saves some time and effort and some designer or copywriter sometime but someone still has to think that they're going to do that and then tell the machine to do it so like there's a cost it feels like maybe this goes back way to right to the very beginning you talked about the this experience and that's kind of going down but we've how that's been influenced by waves of new technology but particularly since 2022 genitive ai and now on to sort of agentic ai which is genitive ai cubed or something correct Because I've always thought that oftentimes organizations get caught up in this idea where they buy technology, it often feels like it seems like it looks like that they buy technology and they're trying to figure out what to do with it.

33:22And actually rather than going, actually we need to envisage or imagine the experience we want to deliver and then figure out, okay, what data do we need to deliver that, therefore what technology you need to use to power that. Is it that the pace of technological development or evolution is so fast that people are, because it's so fast, almost like buying things and always trying to catch up? Yeah, it's the, you buy a Ferrari and you only need a whatever, you know, the, yeah, I mean, I do think it's that, and I do think the pace of growth of all the AI stuff has been so quick in the last couple of years that I don't think a lot of people really understand what they have at their disposal.

34:12I don't think they even understood what they had at their disposal pre the AI boom or whatever. I think they were using 10 % of their big systems or whatever. I think those in the like composable camps or whatever might argue that that's an argument for, you know, just using like best of breed type tools and solutions and stuff like that. I could argue both sides of that of like, I think that's there's another can of worms there with, you know, integration and all that. And you still need to have a roadmap. I think to go back to your question, it's like you actually need a plan that's not a like, hey, let's use a bunch of technology plan.

34:50you need a plan of like this is what we want our experience to be and this is how we implement so it goes way back to what do we actually want to do for our customers to whether whatever it is you can you said something kind of which i think is really important and you talked about when i talked about sort of like using data to sort of like to drive our car and stuff and you like going yeah but some you know as long as it's directionally correct yeah i think that's the point yeah right And it goes back to that sort of almost, it feels like it's a core of kind of things where people are talking about, I think in many cases, people are still caught up in this idea.

35:29And it's a behavioral thing. This is the thing that the core of all of this sort of stuff is like, all of this stuff around us moves at a faster pace than we do. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of from a mindset and a behavioral sort of like set and actually, because there are many organizations that are still caught up in three or five year budget cycles or planning, business planning cycles, you're not going, that world, that was like, oh, five, six years ago that you could probably still get away with that. And now it's so kind of, the reality is that we need to still set those visions. That envisioning kind of process is important.

36:08And the thing is, we need to educate ourselves around what is the art of the possible. Yeah. What is it, you know, and what is kind of, what is the possible and probable, how does it all come together to build a picture that is directionally correct. Yeah. Um, and then you work towards it because then you can, you can figure out and be agile, nibble and things along the way and figure out how you can increase your iterative cycle rather than it being an annual planning sort of thing. Well, and then the tools make sense. Maybe 100 % of the Adobe suite doesn't make sense, but the 30%, 40 % that does, you actually have a plan for that versus you just wrote a big check for something and now your team is scrambling to use it.