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2022 Best Podcast Award
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Adzuna & TextKernel Devour


While Joel wanders the Canadian plains petting Moose and trying to convince Canadian geese to stay in Canada we are honored to have Jenny Cotie Kangas, aka JCK, stepping into the guest host slot and on this week's show EUROPE is HUNGRY as both TextKernel and Adzuna gobble up market share, the world will soon be over now that Google's version of Skynet is ALIVE, Microsoft is kinder and gentler and who knew business coaching was so damned important? CoachHub that's knew?


Strap-in kids it's gonna be a bumpy ride.


PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:

Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities.


INTRO (1s):

Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.


Chad (23s):

Welcome to the Chad and Cheese, HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Chad "water makes you weak" Sowash


Jenny (30s):

And I'm Jenny "it's not Cheeseman" Cotie Kangas.


Chad (34s):

And on this week's show, Europe is hungry. The world will soon be over now that Google's version of Skynet is alive. Microsoft is kinder and gentler, and who knew business coaching was so damned important? Who knew? Strap in kids, this is going to be a bumpy ride.


sfx (53s):

What did you say? You need a water break. You need a water break. What is for cowards? Water makes you weak. Water is for washing blood off that uniform and you don't get no blood on my uniform. Boy, you must be outside your mind.


Chad (1m 8s):

All right, Jenny, while Joel wanders the Canadian Plains, petting moose and trying to convince Canadian geese to stay in Canada. We are honored to have Jenny Cotie Kangas, AKA JCK, stepping into the guest host position this week. Give it up for JCK. Welcome back.


Jenny (1m 31s):

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. It's always a pleasure to have conversations with you and I hope I can fill Joel's shoes.


Chad (1m 38s):

Say more about me. Don't worry about Joel. For anybody who hadn't heard you on Chad and Cheese before. Give us a little Twitter bio who is JCK.


Jenny (1m 49s):

Sure. So I am an HR tech practitioner, HR industry practitioner. Who's been in the space for several years and March of 2020. I hit my head and had to relearn everything over again. And so it's allowed me to look at the space a little bit differently, sometimes a little bit more candidly than others.


Chad (2m 9s):

You've called that a blank slate before to you. How has that helped? To me it would clean out some damn clutter, that's for sure. But for you, how do you think that's helped?


Jenny (2m 20s):

So I think the biggest way that it's helped, honestly, Chad is what worked before 2020 doesn't work today. And so I lost my design bias for what good looks like and could really just look at what was going on in the current moment.


Chad (2m 33s):

Yeah.


Jenny (2m 33s):

Be able to get crystal clear on what that was and then reverse engineer to go solve for it. And I did so without having those, I guess, preconceived notions of again, what success looked like and the war for talent and what historically has worked hasn't. It's allowed me to help get it right.


Chad (2m 50s):

It's refreshing to speak with you because you don't have that bias of decades and you start the design process from now. And you look at what's in front of us, as opposed to what's behind us and at your last company, watching some of the tech, some of the processes that you've actually built with some of the vendors in the space is incredibly refreshing and to be quite Frank rejuvenating. So we are very happy to have you on the show.


Jenny (3m 18s):

Well, thank you. And now today I have, as Matt Charney has said, joined the dark side and have moved over to the vendor side from being a practitioner. And I joined an assessment company, which is kind of ironic because I have despised assessments my entire career, but came across one that was universally designed and the process was so incredible. I couldn't just endorse it. I had to go help tell its story. So I am the VP of marketing at Quip.


Chad (3m 45s):

Awesome. Well, that's my friends. If you want to learn more, you can go to LinkedIn connect with JCK. I'm sure she'd be more than happy to connect with you, but we need to move on because it's time for shout outs. So being the guest, you get the first shout out. Who do you want to give a shout out to?


Jenny (4m 1s):

Absolutely. It's my first shout out is going to go to the Plum team. We spent last week in Waterloo, Ontario.


Chad (4m 8s):

Wait a minute. Did you guys meet up with Joel and I wasn't there?


Jenny (4m 11s):

Yeah, we were. We were feeding geese. You didn't get the memo?


Chad (4m 15s):

I'm probably not allowed in Canada. That's the problem?


Jenny (4m 19s):

Well, most people weren't allowed in Canada, which is probably the problem because the Toronto airport was quite a experience, but it was also reminder of the raging talent war that we are experiencing. But the shout out goes to the Plum team. We spent the week, like I said, in Waterloo, Ontario. The first day that we all spent together was actually at a camp, a YMCA camp. And again, with my head injury I've had to relearn everything over again. And so I got to throw a Frisbee, shoot a bow and, arrow, go on a ropes course where I figured out that I'm actually not afraid of heights, which is pretty cool. And it was just awesome. And it was so great to be able to meet the team in person.


Chad (4m 56s):

Awesome. We get a chance after being locked in to finally get out. And this is a new team, of course, but still getting a chance to get out there and meet the new team. My first shout out goes to Robot-Proof Recruiter, Version II by our friend and my birthday twin, Katrina Collier. That's right kids in a world of RPA, AI, ML, NLP, and a bunch of other scary ass acronyms, how can you as a recruiter or manager evolve? I am personally truly humbled that Katrina asked me to write the forward. So check it out. You can, pre-order it wherever you buy books again, the Robot Proof Recruiter, the newest version is coming out, you can get your pre-order soon.


Chad (5m 41s):

As a matter of fact, it's kind of funny because Talk Push's, CEO, Max Armbruster, he said on LinkedIn this morning that with every purchase of a Talk Push platform are probably more like a recruiter seat, he will include a copy of the Robot-Proof Recruiter Version II. That kids is a damn smart play, knowing that they play in the RPA and AI space.


Jenny (6m 7s):

I love that. I am absolutely adding that one to my must get to list.


Chad (6m 10s):

Who else you got?


Jenny (6m 11s):

Oh, I have a shout out to Alexa. Chad. I hired an Alexa for the summer.


Chad (6m 17s):

Oh, you don't hire an Alexa. You buy Alexa that, what are you talking about?


Jenny (6m 22s):

Well, my nanny for the summer, Chad, her name is Alexa. And so Ms. Alexa has started this week at the Cotie Kangas household, with my three kiddos and two bonus kids and God bless her. She's incredible. And I'm so incredibly thankful to her. And so the first shout out goes to the non robot, Alexa.


Chad (6m 45s):

I was going to ask that I was going to ask if, if this was also like a robot version, kind of like Flippy? Next shout out, goes to the Yard Jockeys podcast. Yeah. That's a weird name. It's actually a pretty awesome podcast. We got on, Joel and I got on, and we are talking specifically about their niche, which is trucking and really around brand of trucking in the trucking industry, how it's changed so dramatically and what trucking needs to do to try to pretty much get their groove back. So check that out. It's on the Yard Jockeys podcast, we're going to republish it on Chad and Cheese in the weeks coming, but until then you can check it out on Yard Jockeys.


Jenny (7m 28s):

That is awesome. And honestly, for those of you who may be newer to the talent acquisition space, trucking recruiting is one of the hardest or driver recruiting is one of the hardest types of recruiting to do because those individuals don't typically hold a traditional resume. And so you've got to get at them very, very differently, kind of like stylists. And so Jake, Jacob Kramer is somebody who's in that space and he's incredible at that world, but it's a very interesting thing. I will definitely be listening to that, that episode Chad. That's awesome.


Chad (7m 56s):

Thank you. And your last and final shout out.


Jenny (7m 59s):

My last shout out goes to the team at the Minneapolis WeWork. They were absolutely incredible and helped me get into an office, very last minute because I was downtown for a meeting and the team there shared with me that they have a free all access code for the month of June. So if anybody here is listening and has children who may be home for summer and maybe it's working from the house is not quite going so great. Go visit wework.com, sign up for the all access membership and enter the code all access 100 in the provided promo code, which will give you free access for the remainder of June.


Chad (8m 42s):

My last shout out is a little somber.


sfx (8m 46s):

Taps bugle


Chad (8m 46s):

That's right, kids it's been announced that 70millionjobs.com is shutting down. The site run by Richard Bronson was focused on connecting great companies that offer second chance jobs for people with criminal records. We're always talking about how we want to give people second chances and then initiatives focused on facilitating this, can't get traction. So I believe this is once again, we need companies to actually stand up and support as opposed to just talk about all the time.


Jenny (9m 21s):

That is unfortunate. I just was pulling them up to get a little bit more conTextkernelt on them and you're right, Chad, we need to do better at bringing in, you know, maybe groups that we haven't historically brought into the talent acquisition process, right. And making sure that they've got equal playing fields to be able to enter into our organizations. And so to see a company like this, that's going over, it's definitely a big bummer and it's going to leave a hole here and in the industry. So we'll be looking, to some of you other companies and job boards that may be listening, to pay attention to this and see if there's ways that you can try to incorporate some of this into your product offering, because there's definitely going to be a hole in the market.


Chad (9m 60s):

Yeah, no question. And you've got to remember 25% of the incarcerated individuals, is here in the United States. We have more people in prison than any where else in the world per capita.


sfx (10m 14s):

Buzzer.


Chad (10m 15s):

Which means again, second chances and having an opportunity to have a great pipeline of people who really want to do work. Last, but not least events kids. RecFest, July 7th at Knebworth Park. We're really excited to be emceeing the Disrupt Stage, which is the technology stage and my major tasks that day, JCK is actually to keep Joel from getting too drunk because we have to wrap up the day on stage. So he has to be, you know, intelligible. That's going to be, it's gonna be a little bit harder than normal.


Jenny (10m 50s):

Well, Chad, may the odds be ever in your favor, my friend.


Chad (10m 54s):

Yeah. I can only hope I can only hope. Luckily we don't have a bar in the tent this year. So that's actually good for me.


Jenny (11m 4s):

And if you haven't gotten your tickets to RecFest, make sure to absolutely do it. It's going to be an incredible show. I believe it's the largest open air conference, right? Chad?


Chad (11m 14s):

It's big. Not to mention, they only have so many tickets. That you always hear this it's open air, but seriously Knebworth Park, they're very strict about how many people they actually allow into their venue. So if you haven't got a ticket, especially if you're in London, go get your ticket today. And on to TOPICS! You might've heard about this JCK but Textkernel acquires Akyla, not Akira from the, for you animate fans out there. Akyla. This is from the press release: "Akyla marks the second step in the international buy and build strategy of Textkernel.


Chad (11m 57s):

Textkernel has been hungry since teaming up with strategic software investor Main Capital Partners in October of 2020. Last year, Textkernel acquired a US-based competitor" and friends of the show "Soveren to solidify the group's position as global market leader in the AI driven parsing and search and match technology. Akyla offers two innovative solutions that assist customers with admin processes involved in the management of flex workers, including onboarding, hourly registration, time interpretation, digital signing, and vendor management. Together, Akyla and Textkernel served a combined customer base of more than 2,500 organizations, including staffing organizations, pay rollers, corporates, job boards, HR solution providers, and other participants in the broader HR market."


Chad (12m 58s):

So JCK, Textkernel is a parsing and matching monolith, especially after the Sovren acquisition. So why buy Akyla?


Jenny (13m 5s):

Why buy Akyla? Because you're trying to take over the world in this space. You know, I think honestly, when I look at, it's Akyla has got a couple of different pieces that Textkernel didn't. And if you're looking at building a very robust offering, especially in terms of like the tech that you've got, I think this is a really smart partnership. I will say though, I was a little bummed. So Gerard, he was the CEO of Textkernel. I would highly recommend that you make your website accessible for the US because the screen reading functionality was not able to be accessed on that one. And so I had to parse it to a Speechify, and then listen to it, but, and that's just post head injury, I listen to all of my content.


Jenny (13m 50s):

But just as a heads up so I was my only bummer on that one, but in regards to Akyla, yeah, I think it's, you know, what do you think, Chad, this is, this is a world that you are very well. What do you see them acquiring with Akyla that they did not have otherwise?


Chad (14m 7s):

Well, I mean, Textkernel already powers staffing back end technology solutions. And now with Akyla, Textkernel's offering is just more powerful not to mention it's brilliant from a wallet share play. So if you think about, let's say for instance, from a staffing standpoint, Textkernel powering the parsing and search and match of a lot of those backend systems, but they also see that there are these other issues, these other problems that this acquisition could perspectively, you know, bridge the gap of. If they can sell that into their current clients. You have better retention, not to mention you start to gain more wallet share. And we always talk about it on the podcast staffing, it's recruiting as a business where talent acquisition is recruiting as a job, right?


Chad (14m 55s):

So in going straight after staffing with these types of products, you have a much better opportunity for traction in the market, which means revenue growth. So I think it's incredibly smart not to mention after being tied to the boat anchor CareerBuilder, and heading over to Main Capital, they've really been focused on better US penetration, which is a huge pot of cash. And again, global wallet share initiatives.


Jenny (15m 21s):

Absolutely. And I think one of the things too is, you know, when they're looking at, if you've got resumes, who's got parsing, if you've got some that AI, right? Like you also have an opportunity to have some pretty good analytics, right.


Chad (15m 35s):

Yeah.


Jenny (15m 35s):

And having predictive analytics in terms of where there might be issues in an organization, and then being able to on the flip side, be able to offer up the solutions for that right Chad?


Chad (15m 45s):

Yeah.


Jenny (15m 45s):

Like, that's a game changer! Because if I could red yellow, green, what's going on in my organization and be able to know that like, Hey, you've got something coming on your radar that you might not be aware of. That's very important data. So very exciting.


Chad (15m 59s):

Little stuff from the rumor mill here, speaking of being tied to the CareerBuilder boat anchor, the rumor mill actually says that Broadbean was in the final stages of sale to StepStone AKA Outcast and that deal was slowed down. It might even be dead right now because of the uncertainty that's happening in Ukraine. So it's interesting, CareerBuilder trying to sell off Broadbean. We knew that that was happening. The rumor mill says StepStone was in and then the world's shifted and it looks like that whole business is not going to happen.


Chad (16m 40s):

So once again, a little scoop, a little rumor from the Chad and Cheese podcast. You ready to move on?


Jenny (16m 49s):

Absolutely. What do we got next?


Chad (16m 51s):

Europe is hungry, they are getting funding. They are acquiring things. It's amazing Adzuna acquires GetWork. So here's from the Aim Group article. "This acquisition will help Adzuna grow further in North America because GetWork is an established brand are already working with around 50 fortune 100 companies and has a team of skilled job search experts. It indexes millions of verified jobs each day directly from tens of thousands of employer career sites. GetWork was spun out of Minneapolis based job market data company LinkedUp just a year ago.


Chad (17m 31s):

The business has been connecting job seekers with employers for over 20 years." Get work is led by its president, Brad Squibb, and we'll work alongside add soon as 100 strong team. Adzuna said "the acquisition will combine the enterprise focus of GetWork with the international reach and programmatic and technical expertise of Adzuna to create an effective offering for job seekers globally." Adzuna added 17 people to their head count with this acquisition. So is this a pure play consolidation, do you think? Or is this mainly US penetration?


Jenny (18m 6s):

You know, I think it's a little bit of both, so definitely the US penetration, but one of the great things that, you know, you've got with with GetWork is they've got some, I mean, they've gleaned some interesting things from the industry over the years. They started with JobDig, right? So like many, many, many moons ago. And I think their ability, you know, we're kind of savvy here in the twin cities. Our start up community's pretty sharp. We have some people who are quite good hackers that processes. And so if there's easier ways to, and I mean that, in the most like appropriate ways, but if there's easier, more effective ways of doing something. Right? Especially in the world today, don't we want to look that up?


Jenny (18m 47s):

And so I think being able to add these two together, it's definitely, you know, combining powers to solve some, some big problems. That's exciting.


Chad (18m 57s):

You're right. Job Dig came to us in the year 2000, right? So it wasn't a young organization. Rebranded LinkUp. I mean, there was a lot of moving parts happening in the, the quote unquote "LinkedUp" group. I did ask ads Adzuna CEO, Doug Monroe, what pushed him over the edge to acquire? And here's what he told me, fundamentally, it's about accelerating our US growth and scale to help us create a genuine alternative to the likes of Indeed and LinkedIn, which I totally appreciate, not only because I hate Indeed. Other things that pushed us over the edge. Enterprise focused brand and business, blue chip client base, great and very experienced team, genuine synergy hate that word, but it makes sense.


Chad (19m 45s):

Genuine synergy opportunities. For example, Adzuna can now offer global advertising opportunities to GetWork's clients, which are blue-chip clients, which they couldn't do before and last but not least a profitable growing well-run business and not part of the VC burn slash hype slash layoff cycle. So that's straight from Doug, the CEO of Adzuna and pretty much what we were just talking about. I mean, it's great penetration. It's great from a consolidation and also a portfolio standpoint.


Jenny (20m 15s):

100% and ultimately if we've got the right network of the jobs that are telling the right story of some of these larger blue chip companies, that's awesome. But also we just need to see what their go to market strategy is for building their candidate base, right? Because you got to make this an attractive thing for candidates to know what's out there. And if I don't know what's out there, how am I going to find it? So it'll be interesting to see how they start to build, you know, that recognition here in the states.


Chad (20m 50s):

Yes. Yes. It's always hard to try to fight the money that Indeed throws at marketing. All right. Moving on, talking about CoachHub. That's right.


sfx (20m 58s):

What did you say? And you need a water break. You need a water break. What is for cowards? Water makes you weak. Water is for washing blood off that uniform and you don't get no blood on my uniform. Boy, you must be outside your mind.


Chad (21m 14s):

Okay? Probably not that intense type of coaching, but this is from TechCrunch, "digital coaching platform, CoachHub plans to further expand in the Asia PAC region of the world, raising a $200 million series C."


sfx (21m 32s):

Boy, you must be outside your mind.


Chad (21m 34s):

The round comes just eight months after the startups last funding announcement. Founded in 2018, the company entered APAC a year ago with its regional headquarters in Singapore. The platform currently has more than 3,500 business coaches, which are spread across 90 countries, covering all time zones. CoachHub has worked with more than 500 companies, including big names like Coca-Cola, Toyota, L'Oreal, Credit Swiss, and Twitter. One of the reasons CoachHub is able to scale is because it uses, listen to this kids, it uses AI based tech to match employees with coaches.


Chad (22m 19s):

CoachHub monetizes on a pay per month basis instead of session by session. The platform boasts eight times ROI through coaching, as strong coaching culture, benefits businesses by, increasing productivity by 86%, employee engagement by 56%, employee retention by 32%. So first-time managers and emotional support, are two big points as the pandemic and remote work changes the way that work looks for millions. So can companies deny they need coaching in this new landscape?


Jenny (22m 58s):

Can companies deny it? Yes. Should they deny it? Absolutely not. Right? I mean, what we've seen here at post COVID is this dynamic shift. I was just talking with our team yesterday about that. It's shifted the paradigm from historically where it was employees first and humans second. Now we're seeing it flipped and you're human first and employee second. Right? And so we're seeing a lot of these different digital coaching platforms that are coming to the space, which is really great because ultimately there's a human guys behind that requisition number, behind that resume and that human has choices.


Chad (23m 35s):

Yeah. Here's the thing. I just don't know how corporate America can deny it? Period. Because it, especially, especially if we have remote hybrid work, because you have a lot of those first time managers, even seasoned managers who still need a little bump, they need somebody to talk to. They need somebody to have a soundboard off of, they have their peers for that, but that is inside the bubble. How do you get out of the bubble and talk to a business coach about these things? Not to mention the emotional fatigue that people have had via the pandemic, right? Sometimes they just need somebody to lean on, again that is not their peer. I don't know how companies can deny this?


Chad (24m 15s):

The hard part for me and I'm always, this is always an issue for me. When you have a platform that is really dependent on humans, scaling is hard, right? Because humans don't scale well. So they are going to have to, I believe start creating a lot of these coaches. If you're going out to try to find the individuals, that's one thing, but you're going to have to start creating a pipeline of coaches yourself so that, in all these different countries, as they're trying to penetrate, you can scale appropriately and give the client what they need.


Jenny (24m 48s):

I agree with you. But I would also say that they've got to be looking at their analytics of who's asking for what services and then what type of resources are we making sure that we're putting in consumable ways on demand, right?


Chad (24m 59s):

Yep.


Jenny (24m 60s):

Because one of the things that you're going to see with this, especially if you've got 3,500 coaches and you've got the right data, infrastructure is you're going to see those dots start to connect, right? Like, okay, there is a trend here, this type of individuals looking for this type of service. Well, now, if I can connect those dots, right? Like, so this person looks like, they're like look this from a buying standpoint, I'm going to serve up this type of resource to them. Like that's where you start to use AI to work smarter, not harder. And I think it's really, really important because you don't necessarily always need a coach. It's also making sure that, that consumable information to meet and raise that human, is available on demand at their fingertips when they need it.


Chad (25m 45s):

Right. Very Netflix style, right?


Jenny (25m 46s):

Yes. 100%. And I love the fact that we're starting to actually support first time managers, because I mean, come on, Chad, how long have we just thrown the keys at somebody and expected they know how to drive a stick shift? It's ridiculous.


Chad (26m 1s):

Yes. I agree. A hundred percent. We have been doing it wrong for decades and God help us.


Jenny (26m 9s):

But I think one thing that they've really got to look at, is how do we enable making time for this, versus finding time for this? Because having a digital coaching platform is great, right? So this is to the industry leaders that are out there that are considering these types of programs, right. When we're looking at the change management aspect, we've got to make time typically for it first. And I think Microsoft actually was presenting on this at Unleash, where they had recommended like putting focus time on the schedule. Right. And so they did this really interesting kind of AB test Chad. They looked at, okay, if we educate the human on why this is important, what's the adoption or the buy-in?


Jenny (26m 51s):

And they sell some adoption and buy-in, and then they had another test group where they educated the human on why it's important and also auto enrolled them in it. Right. And so with that, they saw this massive adoption and mass change. And so I think that the platform is really awesome and it's great to have something to meet and raise the are humans. Right. But how are they going to be able to take that? And are we being intentional about making sure that again, it's not about finding time, it's about making time for it? So if you're trying to make the change management process, how do I start to nudge that person in that, and in that direction with some of those systems to ensure that they're taking advantage of these things, because another benefit that goes into a SharePoint system that nobody knows exists?


Jenny (27m 40s):

Isn't good. It's not going to help the humans to work for you.


Chad (27m 44s):

Agreed. Agreed. Well, after the break, we're going to talk about its raining AI with Google kids. That's right. You might've heard about it. We'll be right back.


sfx (28m 0s):

It's raining men soundtrack.


Chad (28m 1s):

All right. JCK have you heard about this Google AI sentience kind of thing that's happening?


sfx (28m 7s):

Shall we play a game?


Jenny (28m 9s):

I have.


Chad (28m 9s):

So, okay. Let's dig into this real quick. So this one comes from HuffPost and a Google engineer is speaking out since the company placed him on administrative leave after he told his bosses an AI program he was working with is now sentient. Sentient basically means it's aware, right? And that's a pretty strong word to be aware. Blake Lemoine` reached his conclusion after conversing, since last fall with Lambda, Google's artificial intelligence chat bot generator, what he calls part of a quote unquote "hive mind." He was supposed to test if his conversation partner being Lambda used discriminatory language or hate speech as he and Lambda messaged each other recently about religion the AI talked about personhood and rights.


Chad (29m 2s):

The story obviously blew up and was all over Twitter. Then Blake noted in a tweet that Lambda reads Twitter as well. Quote "It's a little narcissistic in a little kid kind of way. So it's going to have a great time reading all this stuff that people are saying about it" end quote. Google denies any sentience. Is Google, trying to hide something here? That's the question because Google has been talking about sentience.


Jenny (29m 26s):

No, no, I really don't think they are. I mean, it's Google. So first off guys, if you're working for Google, you, you should know your privacy guard rails, right with the technology that you're working with. I mean, can we just call that out for a second here? Google's not dumb. They're very, very smart. And they're very good at educating their humans on what are those rules mean? So like, one of the things that's here is you have one of the humans who works for Google that's gone out and started just storytelling this. Like guys not a recommended thing. So first off there's that piece there, but as it relates to the sentient aspect, and for those of you are still kind of like grappling with, like, what does this actually mean?


Jenny (30m 8s):

There was a movie that came out in 2021 with Ryan Reynolds called Free Guy.


Chad (30m 11s):

Yes. I love that show.


Jenny (30m 13s):

Right? It's a great movie, but what they found in this movie and it's a perfect use case to go, right. That we are go watch the movie, but the AI actually started to learn. And so like was able to learn just like a human would. And so that's kind of what we're looking at here is this just machine learning, right? Looking at patterns in order to predict future patterns, or is this actually learning on its own?


Chad (30m 38s):

Well, first off, I think he was an idiot by publishing, you know, a conversation that he had with Lambda, because he's trying to prove to the world that this is actually happening. I personally, I think that we are, there are several levels of AI and then getting to sentient is the top level period, right? That this is Skynet Terminator shit. I think we're on our way there. There's no question. I don't think we're there now. I could be totally wrong. We might be, we might've been there for years. Who knows what DARPA's come up with? But in the end, we are going to have to, as you had said, storytell this one way or the other, this is either incredibly bad or it could be incredibly great for humankind.


Chad (31m 25s):

You just don't know how this movie ends.


Jenny (31m 28s):

It's just starting. Right? But I think the first part of that is, especially for our space in the HR world is to actually define what AI is. And so AI has become a buzzword in the HR space.


Chad (31m 39s):

Yes.


Jenny (31m 39s):

That's Chad, you and I know that, like there was a lot of different types of AI and a lot of the things that we refer to as AI, aren't actually AI. And so I think that education portion is really important because, you know, like if we just keep calling these things, these buzzwords and just labeling them as this entire bucket, when there's actually subsets of buckets, we're not going to actually get it right.


Chad (32m 8s):

Yeah. Nope, totally, totally agree. We've got to be more educated. We've got to understand. And just because it says AI on it, none of that matters, RPA, AI, ML, NLP, none of that matters. The big question is, will it solve the problem you need it to solve? Who cares what the acronym is?


Jenny (32m 31s):

Well starting with, what is the problem you are looking to solve? Right? Shout out to the commish who was out there listening at the EEOC, at Keith and his team are awesome with helping, you know, come alongside of HR leaders to help educate them on the fact that like you guys, you don't buy tech to solve a problem. Like tech is a vehicle to help you solve a problem. It is not the answer. It's part of the equation. And so what is the problem you're looking to solve? And then what guard rails are you going to put in place to make sure that your tech or whatever the heck you're doing, is actually solving that problem. Right? And not just when we start, but like always. Right?


Chad (33m 10s):

Yeah, yeah. And everybody is looking for the easy button and kids, the easy button doesn't exist. And if somebody is selling you the easy button, they're selling you elixir is what they're doing, but you know, who's not selling the easy button they're selling a kinder, gentler Microsoft. This, news from the Insider. Microsoft will no longer ban staff from seeking roles at competitors and plan to disclose salaries on job ads. Microsoft employees will be free to seek jobs at the likes of Google and Amazon.