[NEW EPISODE] Compelling Telling: The State of Creativity & Storytelling

Fridays 12:00pm - 1:00pm (EDT)                              

‍EPISODE SUMMARY:

We will address aspects of messaging and storytelling including: 1) what should your message be?; 2) not just what you say, but how you say it; 3) restrictions can facilitate creativity; 4) finding the right voice; and 5) the impact of Artificial Intelligence on storytelling

In this episode of Intangify, my guest is Laurence Shanet, an award-winning director, writer, and creative director of films, television and web-based video advertisements, as well as an author and ghost-writer of technical thought leadership articles.  We will discuss messaging and storytelling, and the state of creativity in 2023, including 1) what should your message be?; 2) not just what you say, but how you say it; 3) how restrictions can facilitate creativity; 4) finding the right voice; and 5) the impact of Artificial Intelligence.

https://www.laurenceshanet.com/

#storytelling #creativity #messaging #GenerativeAI #AI

Tune in for this sensible conversation at TalkRadio.nyc

Show Notes

Segment  1

Segment 2

Segment 3

Segment 4

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Transcript

00:00:43.850 --> 00:00:54.590 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: good afternoon and welcome to Intangi. I'm your host, Matthew, as bell, the Intangi podcast is where we talk about the intangible and sets of business

00:00:54.600 --> 00:01:10.000 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: things that you don't think about. That are the reasons why entrepreneurs and small businesses are are successful and and move forward. My guest today is Lawrence Shannon

00:01:10.020 --> 00:01:19.230 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: and lawrence is a creative director director and and and and writer he has many hats.

00:01:19.410 --> 00:01:33.320 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: and II half jokingly, posted on Linkedin today. That you know, we would be red shirting him. You may know that concept of Red Shirt that's when you that's when you have a

00:01:33.730 --> 00:01:52.059 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: you know a child that you hold back in school, and there's something about Lawrence and his creative spirit that makes me want to sort of go back to my inner child. So I hope I mean, I end up entertaining myself. The question is whether I'm entertaining anybody else will be a totally different

00:01:52.160 --> 00:01:58.569 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: different issue. But, Lawrence, welcome, glad to have you here. Can you tell us a little little little bit about yourself? Make sure you take yourself off.

00:01:58.820 --> 00:02:00.259 Laurence Shanet: Yeah,

00:02:02.650 --> 00:02:24.860 Laurence Shanet: I think I'm off mute now. Thanks. It's great to be here. And I think you actually covered a lot of it. I'm a creative director and director. I came through the advertising world. So I worked at ad agencies for many years, and then I discovered directed. I had been on the sets of a lot of commercials through my advertising work.

00:02:24.860 --> 00:02:42.409 Laurence Shanet: and of all the people on the set it looked like the directors were the people having the most fun. So I thought, that's what I want to do. And at each stage of my advertising career I think that was my process was, just see who I'm interacting with. That's having the best time and try and have that job.

00:02:42.590 --> 00:02:58.019 Laurence Shanet: So directing, was it and did that for many years in commercials but also started doing some TV shows pilots, network shows even and discovered that variety is really the thing that

00:02:58.030 --> 00:03:20.349 Laurence Shanet: turn me on creatively being able to do something different every day. And so now I still do almost all those things. I still creative, direct. I do some writing and thought leadership and ghost writing for people who don't feel comfortable with their own voices as a way of expressing what they want to say. And I direct commercials. I direct TV shows

00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:27.890 Laurence Shanet: and anything creative that's thrown at me. II enjoy as long as it has to do with communicating and messages.

00:03:29.350 --> 00:03:40.919 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: It's it's very similar. And you and I've had a few conversations where where our lives sort of parallel each other and in different universes. But it! It's very similar for me in the sense that

00:03:40.960 --> 00:04:10.390 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: I entered into intellectual property law as someone who wanted to be creative in many different ways. I wanted to be creative in sick science and technology. I wanted to be creative in the arts and entertainment and in branding and marketing and kind of all of those things where IP, so that's I had to do this. And it was the variety right across the way that that for me also made. It makes it really fun. And every day is different. Right?

00:04:10.460 --> 00:04:34.199 Laurence Shanet: I think when you and I have talked it's been interesting because people think of someone who does creative for a living, and an attorney probably not being that similar. And we discovered so many things that and I guess we're excluding the audience here because they weren't privy to those conversations, but we were surprised at how similar we were in many ways, and I think that's pretty common. And I think

00:04:34.200 --> 00:05:00.710 Laurence Shanet: when you're in the creative world. One of the things you think about is which of the messages you want to put out there has something that everyone will have in common. And really, that's what's amazing about a great movie. It doesn't matter if it's happening at an Antarctic research station. And you've never been to one. It's the themes are something that people can see themselves in. And the the bigger picture is the things that you have in common. And that's what makes one good and another one not good.

00:05:01.030 --> 00:05:05.829 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: I love how you just demonstrated your skills as being the master of the Segway.

00:05:05.840 --> 00:05:15.050 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: It's such smooth transition from. Yes, yes, we're both creative. We like variety into messaging. Let's talk about messaging now.

00:05:15.400 --> 00:05:26.309 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: So let's do that. So let's do that. You know a lot of what you do, whether you do it in in a number of you know, different media. But a lot of what you do is about messaging.

00:05:26.460 --> 00:05:32.919 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: And you know. And II really wonder what goes into the message that you want to give

00:05:33.560 --> 00:05:36.310 Laurence Shanet: absolutely. I think that

00:05:36.360 --> 00:06:04.800 Laurence Shanet: people generally think that if they have something they want to tell people that everyone else will be as interested in it as they are. And that just isn't unfortunately, the reality. We're all interested in what we're interested in. There will be overlaps, as you and I discovered. But in general, when, especially in business, when you're trying to communicate something. You have to really mind the gap between what you want people to know and what they might want to know about. And it's always a good idea to

00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:11.540 Laurence Shanet: talk to them in terms of things that they know about, or want to know about, or care about. rather than what you want them to know.

00:06:11.880 --> 00:06:18.679 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: How do you know that I mean, how do you know what they care about that? That you know, so that you can deliver a message to them.

00:06:18.970 --> 00:06:42.110 Laurence Shanet: You know, that appeals to their interests. Yeah, I think that's one of the things that makes some people good at it, and some people not. But it's not just a natural talent. Item. It's really the process of thinking about what they might want to know as opposed to what you want them to know and thinking about what might be useful to them. So if you're speaking to an audience that includes a lot of attorneys.

00:06:42.110 --> 00:06:55.320 Laurence Shanet: they'll have different interests than an audience that has a lot of sports fans, and there will be overlap because a lot of those attorneys might be sports fans. But you have to think of them in terms of that group that they are part of.

00:06:55.320 --> 00:07:05.090 Laurence Shanet: and that may be very narrow or very broad, depending on what the message is, but you want to think in terms of what that audience cares about.

00:07:05.170 --> 00:07:17.950 Laurence Shanet: And so when you have a product, you want to tell them all about it. But imagine you sell a little widget that makes someone's life better. You care about how it's built. You care about the supply chain. You care about all that stuff. They probably don't.

00:07:18.120 --> 00:07:36.219 Laurence Shanet: They probably care about how it's gonna affect their lives? What's the benefit for them? So you really want to speak in those terms, I think, and that's abstract as well as something as specific as a product. It applies to thought, leadership, and speech writing. It applies to any kind of creative communication.

00:07:36.960 --> 00:07:45.750 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: So I was planning to hold this towards towards the latter latter portion of our of our talk, and I want to drill down more and into into the messaging component.

00:07:45.790 --> 00:07:49.969 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: But but it just occurs to me that

00:07:50.090 --> 00:07:56.479 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: you know, we want. We wanted to talk about AI in this context. And it occurs to me that AI

00:07:56.560 --> 00:08:02.510 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: sort of feigns that idea of knowing what knowing what you're interested in

00:08:02.610 --> 00:08:15.180 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: and and you know, I think is bad at that, or to some degree bad at that, maybe getting better. But you know, just to highlight what's to come in our conversation. Maybe you could comment on

00:08:15.190 --> 00:08:20.599 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: On AI as a tool to recognize what the reader or

00:08:20.680 --> 00:08:22.380 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: viewer once.

00:08:23.340 --> 00:08:43.519 Laurence Shanet: Yeah, I think AI is interesting because it appears to be doing one thing, and I think people often are sold. AI on the basis of it, doing something which is emulating a human, that it isn't really doing. And that's not necessarily cause it's bad at it. It's because that's not what it's doing.

00:08:43.520 --> 00:09:04.349 Laurence Shanet: It's averaging out inputs. It's not really it's no matter how consciously it seems to be replying to your prompts. It's not really responding to your prompts, and it's not thinking about what the question is. You've asked it. It's taking all of the massive things in its data set, and it's averaging them out to

00:09:04.390 --> 00:09:27.010 Laurence Shanet: giving you what it thinks you want, based on the most likely thing in the world, and that means that in a sense, everything you get will be really, really, really average, and in many cases having the average of a zillion things out there that relate to that is exactly what you want and is amazing. But it's never going to be interesting or unique in that sense. So

00:09:27.010 --> 00:09:35.229 Laurence Shanet: it's doing that on the level of every word, not every thought or every sentence. And it sequentially is figuring out what is the next

00:09:35.270 --> 00:09:38.330 Laurence Shanet: word most likely to be, and giving you that

00:09:38.360 --> 00:09:44.839 Laurence Shanet: so it's not really conversing with you, and as long as you realize that then II think it.

00:09:44.940 --> 00:09:48.200 Laurence Shanet: Its responses make more sense in that context

00:09:49.030 --> 00:10:03.669 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: that does make sense to me. And and sort of shifting years back to the messaging topic. Come back to AI later, when W, when you know we have time towards the end. But, you know one of the things that we we talked about is

00:10:03.790 --> 00:10:14.839 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: with messaging. It's not just. You know what the message is, but but you know how how you convey it. You know your tone and and I think

00:10:15.150 --> 00:10:25.589 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: you know we know from from what is it? 20 years of email communications that tone is not conveyed clearly in, written in the written word, always

00:10:26.130 --> 00:10:34.340 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: and and so I think, going back to AI pretty briefly, right? You can't. It can't necessarily interpret

00:10:34.520 --> 00:10:38.539 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: the intended tone behind the written word

00:10:38.650 --> 00:10:45.560 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: that somebody scrawled out when it prompted it. Right? So it has a formula to do that, but it doesn't

00:10:45.670 --> 00:10:54.380 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq:  but it doesn't necessarily capture the the tone, and I think probably you, as a, as a writer and as a director.

00:10:54.570 --> 00:10:59.690 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: are very focused on on that aspect of of the tone that you want to convey.

00:11:00.100 --> 00:11:24.690 Laurence Shanet: Absolutely. I think that people don't realize how much that plays into it. But as soon as you watch a movie or a TV show, you really learn that lesson quickly if you if you look at it. So when you look at a page, most people when they try screenwriting for the first time, and they have 0 experience. Their goal, they think, is to say exactly what that person wants someone to know.

00:11:24.800 --> 00:11:52.459 Laurence Shanet: But that's not how characters communicate in real life. When I say characters, I really mean humans. When someone has a thought that they want to communicate to their partner or their parent, or something like that. Often they don't say what they're feeling. They say something maybe adjacent to it. Sometimes I'll even say the opposite. So if you write in the way that all people are saying what they want people to know, it'll feel very artificial.

00:11:52.490 --> 00:11:59.599 Laurence Shanet: And tone. Matters so say you asked me, do you like pistachios? And I hated them

00:11:59.600 --> 00:12:24.809 Laurence Shanet: like I might say, no, I don't like pistachios, but that's probably not how I'd say it in a casual real world conversation. And if you said, Oh, you love pistachios, right? I might say, yeah. Right. Tone makes a huge thing in that cause on the page. That's just yeah. You've got it correct. I love them. But obviously, when I say it that way, it means exactly the opposite. And so really clever writers will often write

00:12:24.810 --> 00:12:32.909 Laurence Shanet: thinking about those things, whereas the average lay person wouldn't is, would it be more interesting if they use the opposite

00:12:33.550 --> 00:12:36.390 Laurence Shanet: idea, but expressed it with sarcasm.

00:12:37.210 --> 00:12:44.739 Laurence Shanet: So and and there are a million examples of that. That's just 1 one tiny way that the words don't equal. The message

00:12:45.200 --> 00:12:47.569 Laurence Shanet: in tone is what differentiates them.

00:12:48.230 --> 00:12:56.750 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: Well, we're gonna go to break, so I can go get some pistachios but you've been listening to intangify on talk radio, dot? Nyc, and we'll be right back.

00:13:19.920 --> 00:13:26.069 Please join me at my various special guests on Friday at 11 Am. On Talkradio, Nyc.

00:15:02.380 --> 00:15:08.200 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: welcome back to intangify. I'm your host, Matthew as well. My guest is Lawrence Shannett.

00:15:08.260 --> 00:15:17.250 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: and Lawrence is a creative director and writer. And director. He he actually differentiates creative director from director. That's something I'm just learning now.

00:15:17.420 --> 00:15:32.510 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq:  but we were talking about the message, the message that you use to convey what you're interested in what you want, and really to try to reach the audience listening to what it is they're interested in and speaking to them.

00:15:32.590 --> 00:15:47.260 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: You know, based on their interests as opposed to what you find interesting. We were talking a bit before the break about Tone and and Lawrence. You you had a comment right at the end, which I which II interrupted you I don't know if you, if you remember

00:15:47.300 --> 00:16:00.789 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: but I mean, interrupted you, to go to the go to the break. But let's sort of reiterate where we, where we are on. The idea of tone can completely change the meaning, and how you choose.

00:16:00.820 --> 00:16:04.340 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: Tone! And as part of your as part of the writing

00:16:04.970 --> 00:16:06.740 Laurence Shanet: absolutely

00:16:06.830 --> 00:16:21.649 Laurence Shanet: whether it's a character in a script that is part of a commercial or part of a script. You might have written yourself, or a speech or something that's in a television show

00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:32.269 Laurence Shanet: In general, people don't always say what they mean. Sometimes they do. Some people are more direct, and I think that tone goes a long way to telling you about a person is that person

00:16:32.350 --> 00:17:00.679 Laurence Shanet: Snarky? Is that person jovial, and everyone communicates in different ways. There's no right way to do it. When I talk to people about communicating on behalf of their company. I often use the same kind of thought process. What is your company as a person? How would you embody your company if that person were someone you met at a party is it someone who's really smart and authoritative and talks about their work cause they're assigned.

00:17:00.680 --> 00:17:03.339 Laurence Shanet: Is it someone who's always making jokes?

00:17:03.340 --> 00:17:09.790 Laurence Shanet: And there isn't a right answer. But there are a lot of different answers, and I think companies

00:17:09.790 --> 00:17:25.409 Laurence Shanet: can succeed or fail, based on what that personality is, because ultimately a brand or a company, or even just a person's own brand to the extent that people use that that kind of terminology now is

00:17:25.460 --> 00:17:29.050 Laurence Shanet: a reflection of what people want to interact with.

00:17:29.100 --> 00:17:42.360 Laurence Shanet: Do you want? Who do you want to hang out with at the party, and sometimes that's different. You know I some days I want to learn something new. Some days I want to hear a good joke some days. I just want someone to listen to me. So

00:17:42.460 --> 00:18:02.200 Laurence Shanet: thinking about that, I think, is very helpful for both people and companies in terms of determining their tone, and then being pretty consistent. You don't want that company to seem like a psychopath, because every day it has a different personality. You want to know whom you're talking to, and rely on them, and have some idea of how they're likely to respond.

00:18:02.790 --> 00:18:20.030 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: I you're so funny like you. You go right where my brain goes. So right before you said that I was, I was about to talk to you about consistency. you know, and it was because, you know you you mentioned that. You know you could have. You could want to hang out with a different person in each different time.

00:18:20.070 --> 00:18:23.829 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: When you're sort of talking about it in the personal context.

00:18:23.990 --> 00:18:31.169 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: And what I was thinking, you know, in terms of that, as it ties to a company, a company branding, or even personal branding is

00:18:31.670 --> 00:18:32.550 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: well.

00:18:32.670 --> 00:18:37.820 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: you know. Do I have a consistent personal brand? I mean.

00:18:37.920 --> 00:18:48.520 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: I think, how do you? How do you even. How do you even select that and know that this is what this is, what we will be stood for, known, and how people will recognize us.

00:18:50.670 --> 00:19:01.630 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: at least, and maybe it's the world of, you know, attorneys, because we're boring that that I can't. You know. I can't possibly imagine what would be my

00:19:02.090 --> 00:19:07.459 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: my personal brand and my tone that I'd want to convey. But companies do this every day.

00:19:08.040 --> 00:19:20.380 Laurence Shanet: Yeah, absolutely. I think. Companies, just as we have lots of aspects to our personalities. A company might also. But in the context of business you want some consistency, because

00:19:20.610 --> 00:19:39.610 Laurence Shanet: in general, if you meet someone, and they're always sort of a completely different human each time. That's very disturbing. It's it's kind of unnerving. But they might have different. Not everyone's always in the same mood. There's a certain amount of latitude. And as long as it's consistent with the

00:19:39.880 --> 00:19:46.269 Laurence Shanet: general personality and values of that person. As far as you know them. It won't

00:19:46.500 --> 00:20:08.569 Laurence Shanet: conflict with the image you have, and that's when I think people get very unnerved as ever. Someone that you always thought of as calm and solid whatever. If that person is suddenly manic, something's wrong, and it's kind of upsetting and disturbing, and in many ways with brands. It's about trust, and you'll trust a brand less if it's constantly changing, it's

00:20:08.570 --> 00:20:29.289 Laurence Shanet: or its message. And some of how you make the decision is based on what people would want from that. If you are selling juice, the stakes are much lower than if you're selling life insurance, let's say which is one reason that for many years a lot of brands in the insurance category were really boring. And then they discovered that more important than that is differentiation

00:20:29.700 --> 00:20:49.190 Laurence Shanet: insurance is basically the same at every other than your specific limits and coverages. The process is kind of the same. And that's when companies like Tyco and Progressive discovered. Oh, we want to create a personality for ourselves. We want to be more fun than them, because then we'll communicate that we get you

00:20:49.190 --> 00:21:00.790 Laurence Shanet: as a as a customer. You know we we know who you are. We're not this robotic thing. And so they realize that there was more value in that, because the biggest task was differentiating themselves from all the other insurance companies.

00:21:00.790 --> 00:21:05.490 Laurence Shanet: People believe that will cover you if we're big enough to have an ad on TV.

00:21:05.610 --> 00:21:19.679 Laurence Shanet: People know that you're you know, a legit entity. And that wasn't the problem they were solving for the wrong problem. As that industry matured. So I think, understanding what people need and want from you

00:21:19.700 --> 00:21:40.039 Laurence Shanet: and maintaining that trust has a lot to do with it. But so does connecting with them. And so in some cases humor is helpful. In other cases humor might be sort of disarming in a bad way. If you didn't want that, you know. You don't want your doctor cracking a joke when he or she is explaining what's wrong with

00:21:40.130 --> 00:21:44.670 Laurence Shanet: X organ in your body. So I think that context is important.

00:21:45.160 --> 00:21:49.460 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: Yeah, as you were talking about sort of the the trust element.

00:21:49.600 --> 00:21:58.409 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: The word that was coming to my mind that the the the person communicating with the brand wants is reliability

00:21:58.610 --> 00:22:07.929 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: they want. They want to be able to rely on what they know it is like when they go to right. So they what that experience? So it's a reliance on that.

00:22:07.980 --> 00:22:30.220 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: and that, that, you know again, has a parallel in my world, which is which, which is the world of trademarks, where the name and the logo are meant to be assigned of the quality of the of the of the product, so that you rely on that name as a shorthand way to know that that's the quality I'm going to get when I go and buy that product.

00:22:30.380 --> 00:22:33.009 Laurence Shanet: So it's very much that reliance. Go ahead, please.

00:22:33.090 --> 00:22:43.929 Laurence Shanet: Yeah, I think that's the reason I'm assuming that brands were created in the first place, otherwise you wouldn't need to brand anything like oh, that's a tomato great! I like tomatoes, but

00:22:43.940 --> 00:23:13.829 Laurence Shanet: one brand might be reliably better tasting than another, and same goes for dishwashers and any other item, the bigger the purchase, the higher the stakes, I guess. But if you're buying a car aside from the other things that it can communicate about you like status, and whatever else the reliability is, something that you want to know is there? Because every time you get in it, it could kill you. So you want it to work. And so reliability is is very important, knowing that

00:23:14.710 --> 00:23:30.839 Laurence Shanet: this brand will likely respond in this way. But the stakes are higher in some than others. When it's like a a purple cheese snack, it doesn't matter as much. What matters is. Is it going to be fun to eat? Is it going to be interesting? Is it going to be good tasting because those steaks are lower?

00:23:31.500 --> 00:23:37.410 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: But it's sort of interesting. The the more modern era of particularly of e-commerce.

00:23:37.480 --> 00:23:44.710 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: Th there, like, I think what you've stated is sort of the traditional view of brands and the traditional view of trademarks.

00:23:45.350 --> 00:23:53.240 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: but but there are, I mean, and on Amazon I have. I have been a consumer of products that

00:23:53.390 --> 00:24:03.069 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: I did not understand or recognize that the name they use. In fact, the name they use was Gobbledy cook, as far as I was concerned, and

00:24:03.330 --> 00:24:08.690 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: and still made that purchase. you know. Sometimes repeatedly.

00:24:08.920 --> 00:24:20.359 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq:  you know. So so like I, there's a change there. I think that the traditional view is that. And then there are some who are just like, and maybe it's like you said it's about what the product is.

00:24:20.510 --> 00:24:32.180 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: But I mean, I don't know. I bought some things that were, you know, not $1 items. You know, and and and I and I think people are increasingly do that. There's sort of a new strategy

00:24:32.230 --> 00:24:41.589 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: that some use which says, You know, the name doesn't matter. It's I've got to be the cheapest, or I've got to have the coolest video or whatever it is.

00:24:42.090 --> 00:24:48.889 Laurence Shanet: Yeah, I think if you're buying something, I mean, I know for me. If I'm buying something that doesn't cost much then.

00:24:49.250 --> 00:24:56.480 Laurence Shanet: or if there's a chance to spend very little on something that you were going to spend more for. And the stakes aren't that high? Absolutely, I'll try

00:24:56.480 --> 00:25:20.149 Laurence Shanet: the off brand thing. You can tell which ones are. A lot of them. Make an effort to seem like a branded legit thing, especially on Amazon. And they're mostly oem items. I guess that that's a little in the weeds oem most people know these days. But the the companies that make things often, for the big brands are original equipment manufacturers. They're people who produce items and parts

00:25:20.290 --> 00:25:47.349 Laurence Shanet: on behalf of other brands, and then they white. Label them. So a lot of those companies are now selling directly to people on Amazon, and sometimes you can get a great deal, and to go back to the thing I said earlier about, say, a plastic step stool. You want a folding steps tool in your kitchen, and a normal one. If you went to bed, and beyond which I used to jokingly called Blood bath and beyond, and I guess I cursed it, because now they're

00:25:47.580 --> 00:25:57.900 Laurence Shanet: seemingly going under. But if you go to that store the thing will cost 40 or 50 bucks, but you can get it for $9 on Amazon, and there's a good chance. It's not that different.

00:25:57.990 --> 00:26:02.120 Laurence Shanet: And that's really the difference between a branded product and not but

00:26:02.130 --> 00:26:06.319 Laurence Shanet: that $9 one, if it's the same, and maybe even made by the same company.

00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:24.620 Laurence Shanet: Why not take a chance on it? Sure, there's a chance that it could collapse, and you'll hurt yourself because the steps tool. But chances are it's probably going to be fine, and if it's not, you're out 9 bucks, and you can probably get the one that was 40 or 50 for 30 the next time, and you'll be sort of it'll be a wash, but you

00:26:24.620 --> 00:26:37.289 Laurence Shanet: have the chance of saving a bunch of money or discovering something really cool. So I think that calculation when you go onto Amazon is is very big, and that's something people should probably take into account when they

00:26:37.370 --> 00:26:40.310 Laurence Shanet: or marketing a product is thinking about

00:26:40.420 --> 00:26:54.389 Laurence Shanet: how important it is for the consumer. This trust matter, if not, then personality starts to matter more. Are you someone at the party who consumers would want to hang out with and identify with to the point where

00:26:54.830 --> 00:26:57.479 Laurence Shanet: buying that brand is worth more to them.

00:26:57.660 --> 00:26:58.370 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: Yeah.

00:26:58.720 --> 00:27:15.070 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: So I did just buy several steps tools on Amazon from a No name brand. So thank you for that. Hopefully, there, wow! I didn't know the steps tool market was so huge. We're both steps tool consumers. We might have bought from the same unknown brand.

00:27:15.140 --> 00:27:21.560 Laurence Shanet: But actually, I mean, I'm reminded. And and we're going to go to break in a second. I'm reminded of a

00:27:21.710 --> 00:27:27.470 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: I think one of my first of those type of Amazon purchases, which was maybe

00:27:27.560 --> 00:27:30.240 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: almost 20 years ago.

00:27:30.510 --> 00:27:43.779 Laurence Shanet: and I was going to Australia, and I wanted to get a travel guitar, and I and I paid $5 for a travel guitar. Like a an adult guitar.

00:27:43.780 --> 00:28:05.750 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: Yeah, no body like a travel one. So you could carry it with you in a backpack right? You you may have heard like the Martin backpacker like. That's a that's like the model one that that you know, that you would use right and I think at the time that was like a $200 thing, right? So I bought this. I'm like, Oh, this is awesome. I got this one this cheap, cheap one. Maybe it was ebay. I don't remember where I got it, but

00:28:05.890 --> 00:28:10.529 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: but I tuned it. I got it. I got it home. I tuned it up.

00:28:10.630 --> 00:28:13.909 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: I played it that day. I played it the next day.

00:28:13.940 --> 00:28:23.440 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: 3 days later. The the head like, okay, that's it. Never do that again.

00:28:23.510 --> 00:28:49.450 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: As a guitar player, you know, it's okay if that happens. But it should happen while you're destroying a hotel room with it, because there is a time for a guitar to break. But usually, yeah, they they knew that that they thought that. That's why I bought it. It was a it was an acoustic guitar, not an electric. But you know, you get the idea. Anyway, we're gonna go to a break. You've been listening to intangify on talk radio down in my scene we'll be right back.

00:30:52.730 --> 00:31:02.400 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: welcome back to Intangi. I'm your host, Matthew Aspell. Our guest is Lawrence Shannon, creative director and and writer

00:31:02.560 --> 00:31:14.810 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: and we've been talking about creativity and messaging and messaging we we covered in the first part of the program. Really the content of the message, the tone of the message

00:31:15.380 --> 00:31:27.499 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: we veered off into a little bit about branding but we're gonna come back to to the message again. and and Lawrence. I wanted to see if you could address. You know

00:31:27.750 --> 00:31:37.760 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: the different media, you you know you, you produce film and television, you do commercials, you do you? You? You write technical articles.

00:31:38.130 --> 00:31:46.410 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: How how does the medium matter to to you as the presenter to, or or the brand, and to the and to the purchaser?

00:31:47.470 --> 00:32:02.660 Laurence Shanet: Some of it's about how that medium can carry your message. What? What capability it has TV? Obviously, sight, sound, motion. You have a lot more tools print. You have fewer tools.

00:32:04.750 --> 00:32:09.860 Laurence Shanet: consume them are different. People when they sit down to read, say, a book

00:32:10.080 --> 00:32:38.389 Laurence Shanet: are, gonna have very focused active attention paid to that. If you're communicating on television, you may or may not get that because someone may, especially if it's a commercial, someone may be off getting a drink cause the commercials a chance to take a break. If you're making the show itself, they're more likely to be captive and pay attention. So I think it's a combination of those things. How active or passive

00:32:38.390 --> 00:32:46.279 Laurence Shanet: is the audience in terms of consuming it! And then, what capabilities. Does it have to transmit your message?

00:32:46.280 --> 00:33:05.910 Laurence Shanet: Is it a still thing that is just a static image or words? Is it something that they have to actively. Wanna take in or not. All those things are are part of it. And then there's also the amount of immersiveness. So a page writing on a page is as immersive as the reader decides to make it.

00:33:05.980 --> 00:33:16.600 Laurence Shanet: Television or anything with film can be a lot more immersive. Something like VR is even more immersive. You're really there in that world, and it's magical. But the

00:33:16.700 --> 00:33:35.770 Laurence Shanet: effort that you have to take the hurdle you have to get over to get someone to do. It is much greater cause they have to get a headset and go in and put that on, and not all people like to. And so so sometimes there's a relationship between how immersive something is and what barrier you have to overcome to get a person to

00:33:35.960 --> 00:33:37.390 Laurence Shanet: immerse themselves.

00:33:38.220 --> 00:33:43.840 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: So this is sort of a 2 part question related to that, I mean on on on one hand. I wonder if

00:33:44.160 --> 00:33:46.820 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: when someone comes to you.

00:33:46.890 --> 00:34:01.209 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: they come to you with the medium already in mind. If that's what happens most of the time, or if they come to you and say, this is what I want to accomplish and you help them select the medium, hold the thought a second cause. I wanna get the second part of the question out

00:34:02.890 --> 00:34:06.109 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: in today's world where

00:34:06.350 --> 00:34:13.620 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: everybody is a content producer. And we have these social media platforms that allow us to select our media.

00:34:13.710 --> 00:34:22.420 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: How do we select our medium on our own. I post the Linkedin, I'm like, Oh, should I make this a video? Should it be a still photo, you know? Do I just write the text.

00:34:22.500 --> 00:34:29.839 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: why am I like? Well, like, I have to make those decisions. And we all have to make those decisions multiple times a day. Now.

00:34:30.199 --> 00:34:37.909 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: so where do you come in in the decision making process? And what do you tell people who have to make that decision for their

00:34:38.530 --> 00:34:40.179 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: content on social media?

00:34:41.670 --> 00:34:58.459 Laurence Shanet: I think that when people involve me, is sometimes not up to me. If it's someone that I have an ongoing relationship with, whether it's writing speeches or technical work for them, or whether it's a company that I make commercials for, or

00:34:58.540 --> 00:35:01.540 Laurence Shanet: TV network that I direct for

00:35:01.790 --> 00:35:11.150 Laurence Shanet: They may come to me earlier in the process and ask me that, and I'll make a recommendation based on what the message is, and how

00:35:11.270 --> 00:35:32.509 Laurence Shanet: easier hard it is to communicate what the best way is to do it. Other times I'll get approached, and it's already been decided, you know, if someone's giving a keynote speech. The medium is the medium I might be able to tell them. Sure, have a slide show with it and we'll design some stuff. But just as often it's already been decided. I'm speaking at a conference, and I will have these

00:35:32.560 --> 00:35:54.019 Laurence Shanet: tools available and so on. If it's a company, there's often a larger plan so that you can do all those things. Often you'll have a TV campaign and Internet banner ads. And and you wanna tie all those things together. And that's where medium and message converge, because you're creating messages for a specific media. And if you're lucky

00:35:54.050 --> 00:36:07.789 Laurence Shanet: having them work synergistically with each other, so you might have little banner ads that help the big TV spot, or many companies do this. They'll bring out a new idea at the Super Bowl, and then

00:36:07.810 --> 00:36:15.390 Laurence Shanet: afterward the rest of the year they'll have other ads that are maybe shorter and reinforce the bigger message that they established at the Super Bowl.

00:36:17.270 --> 00:36:24.650 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: and the second part of the question, the in, when people are posting on social media, what dies? Are you have any guidance for them?

00:36:24.830 --> 00:36:35.879 Laurence Shanet: Yeah. Sorry I you? You did a very good job of saying there are 2 parts of this question. Then I completely ignored one of them. That's always happens to me. I can never keep all those questions in mind.

00:36:35.920 --> 00:37:01.690 Laurence Shanet: They say that goldfish have really short memories, and I think I'm I'm shorter. That's one of those weird things that actually turns out the goldfish, don't they actually have really decent memories. And it's just something that we decided is a is a trope, but so on a place like Linkedin. That's a good place to go back to what we were talking about earlier, where you have to think about how much that person cares about what you're

00:37:01.930 --> 00:37:26.160 Laurence Shanet: communicating as opposed to, how much you care about it, and that'll determine whether they're likely to pay attention in one form versus another. So, as you said, even on Linkedin there are a bunch of different ways. You could do it. You could have a written post, you could have a video, and you have to think about what the barrier is to get them to start listening. And then you have to think about during it. Are you being interesting enough

00:37:26.210 --> 00:37:27.959 Laurence Shanet: that they're gonna keep listening?

00:37:28.090 --> 00:37:45.499 Laurence Shanet: And so putting a video is interesting because it communicates more about you. They can get a sense of what you're like as a person that can be very useful in other cases that might not be as important, but getting a headline across, so they know that the topic is really useful to them.

00:37:45.720 --> 00:38:09.670 Laurence Shanet: So that first headline, and being above the fold is a big thing on, on Linkedin you might have a long headline or long message, but if they only see half of it, they may never click the read more and find out what that is. So the, it's really that barrier to getting someone interested. And will they continue because it doesn't matter what the second half is, if they're not interested in the first app.

00:38:11.040 --> 00:38:12.669 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: I think that was a great answer.

00:38:13.840 --> 00:38:16.269 Laurence Shanet: Well, I'm glad I listened to the second part then.

00:38:19.020 --> 00:38:25.459 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: so let's go back to the beginning of our program, where I purposely put on a red shirt.

00:38:25.590 --> 00:38:32.209 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: Because of that whole red shirt thing. And because I know you were changing your your outfit. But

00:38:32.370 --> 00:38:46.200 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: But I wanna ask you, there was something you had told me about the voice of the message in real, and you call you called it a red suit syndrome, and I wanted to see if you could explain that to folks.

00:38:47.090 --> 00:38:51.959 Laurence Shanet: Yeah, I came up with that a few years ago, and I gave a talk about it

00:38:51.980 --> 00:39:13.229 Laurence Shanet: as well with the same title. It came from the idea a lot of my friends also in creative professions. And I noticed the clients were coming to us. And they would say, Here's my favorite ad on TV. It's really funny. What can you give me? That's like that? Or Nike did something that's really cool. And I want the equivalent and

00:39:13.230 --> 00:39:33.750 Laurence Shanet: the reality of that is, some of them are ready to do that. Some think they are, but then they become uncomfortable when you give them something that says groundbreaking, because Nike takes a certain number of chances every time they do something. Geico takes a certain number of chances. All these major advertisers in their own ways are being very bold.

00:39:33.750 --> 00:40:02.980 Laurence Shanet: So what it reminded me of was that if someone walks into a store and they're looking at a bunch of things whether it's neck ties or suits, or something like that the thing that they notice, the thing they really like is often the brightest, poppiest thing. And so if you walk into a store, and there's a bright red suit, and someone wears that, and they have a lot of style. They look amazing in it, and you're very impressed, like someone who can pull off a bright red suit.

00:40:03.090 --> 00:40:10.750 Laurence Shanet: That person has confidence and swagger riz, as they say now, in in some circles. So

00:40:10.860 --> 00:40:18.869 Laurence Shanet: it looks really amazing. And you come in and you say, Oh, I want my red suit, and then you go and you put it on, and you look in the mirror.

00:40:18.940 --> 00:40:41.380 Laurence Shanet: and you don't really feel comfortable walking out the door of that store in a bright red suit, and that's not cause the suit's not cool. It's cause you're not that comfortable in it. So clients do that a lot. They'll say I'd like the equivalent of this very funny ad that I've seen on TV. And you write them the equivalent of that. And they say, Oh, well, that's a little wild and crazy for me. I don't feel that comfortable in it.

00:40:41.430 --> 00:40:49.599 Laurence Shanet: because they wouldn't wear that red suit they and when they see their version of it for their company, taking the chances with their brand.

00:40:49.820 --> 00:41:05.200 Laurence Shanet: They may not have that risk. Tolerance. So often. You have to give them something that's quite different than what they thought they wanted for them to be comfortable, or in certain situations. You'll want to push them to take that chance, because

00:41:05.230 --> 00:41:27.500 Laurence Shanet: the actual risk to the brand is really being too conservative, being too boring and getting them out of their comfort. Zone is important, and they'll do a better job, and you really have to weigh. Which thing it is? Is it that they're being too nervous? And aren't taking enough good creative chances? Or is that not really appropriate for them, and they shouldn't be wearing a red suit.

00:41:28.550 --> 00:41:37.439 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: It does. It relates very well as a sort of a corollary back to what we were talking about before with consistency, trust and reliability.

00:41:37.560 --> 00:41:45.320 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: and and part of was about you know. Like, if you keep changing who you are, if you keep changing the way you present yourself.

00:41:45.510 --> 00:41:47.750 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: If you're not known for that, then

00:41:47.790 --> 00:42:00.419 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: then you're gonna be like the guy in the red suit you're gonna be. You're gonna be uncomfortable, and it's not gonna be you and you. So you kinda have to be you and be true. But you have to push the boundaries for a little bit and stay within.

00:42:00.690 --> 00:42:08.060 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: You know at least what people expect, or at least are willing to to accept about who, about about what they know about you or your brand?

00:42:08.250 --> 00:42:28.710 Laurence Shanet:  yeah. II think also. Well, imagine that you go to your family reunion or thanksgiving, and your mom suddenly shows up in a red suit that'd be very disconcerting. But if you have a friend is a stand up comic, and they showed up in a red suit, you know. You laugh and it's great, and it's it's perfect for them. So it it really is

00:42:28.730 --> 00:42:41.519 Laurence Shanet: about expectations for that person. I had a funny instance of that, because I've told the red suit analogy a bunch of times, and I, client of mine had heard me giving that talk, and

00:42:41.520 --> 00:43:08.480 Laurence Shanet: then we did a commercial for them, and it turned out that it was a brand where the stakes were fairly low, and it was probably a good idea for them to take some chances for memorability. It was a company that sells sandwiches. It was a basically the Canadian equivalent of subway. It was a subway. It was a sub sandwich chain called Mister Sub. And so I just given that, and I was skeptical because they said they really wanted to take some chances, and I was encouraging that low risk thing buying a sub once.

00:43:08.480 --> 00:43:19.110 Laurence Shanet: And so I proposed in a script that we actually have their announcer because they wanted someone who was Mr. Sub to wear a red suit.

00:43:19.160 --> 00:43:44.860 Laurence Shanet: and I tested them. And they went for it. And so there's actually a guy in a red suit because I had that red suit conversation with a client. There is a commercial that has a guy in a red suit, and it did really well on when it aired. It had a huge stickiness, and we did a bunch of executions in the campaign, and it was very popular for a while on Canadian TV. So there is a red suit out there a little.

00:43:45.280 --> 00:43:46.500 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: I'm going to get one.

00:43:46.620 --> 00:43:54.610 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: We're we're about to go to break just just before we do, I guess, just to tie into that. II want to tell you like I go to this conference every year.

00:43:54.850 --> 00:43:59.300 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: and and I have a friend who I who I usually see at this conferences, and he

00:43:59.330 --> 00:44:18.919 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: every year I he. He wears a Hawaiian shirt with a tie. This is a conference where usually everyone's wearing suits. It stops it. Stop being suits after Covid. But but it's a conference where everyone would be dressed up. But this guy would always be a Hawaiian shirt and tie, and I just came back from this conference a couple of weeks ago, and I saw him.

00:44:19.340 --> 00:44:22.210 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: and he wasn't wearing the Hawaiian shirt. And it

00:44:22.270 --> 00:44:33.010 Laurence Shanet: really bothered me. Yeah, it really concerning he was like way, too, way more conservative than he used to be. I was very concerned by by that.

00:44:33.130 --> 00:44:42.349 Laurence Shanet: I don't know

00:44:42.560 --> 00:44:49.739 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: but anyway, we've we've got to go to break. You've been listening to Intangi on talk radio, Dot and Nyc. And we'll be right back.

00:46:51.240 --> 00:47:04.290 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: welcome back to Intangi. I'm your host, Matthew Asbell, my guest is Lawrence Shannon, creative director and Author Co. And writer, and we are discussing messaging

00:47:04.370 --> 00:47:15.830 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: and creativity, and I want to shift gears now, Lawrence, to talk a little bit more about creativity, and sort of how you find inspiration, or how people can find inspiration.

00:47:15.970 --> 00:47:20.459 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: You shared some some some tricks of the trade

00:47:20.560 --> 00:47:23.510 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: with me, maybe a little earlier.

00:47:23.750 --> 00:47:35.559 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: I think, involving sort of imposing restrictions O on people. So I'd love to hear what you have to say about that. How do? How do we get more creative? Particularly in our messaging?

00:47:36.430 --> 00:47:46.670 Laurence Shanet: Yeah, people. Often when they're in creative professions, very early in their careers, they get very upset when restrictions are put on

00:47:46.850 --> 00:47:59.320 Laurence Shanet: what they can do or say in the Ad. And most of the more senior creatives that I know who have been doing it for a while. They almost embrace some of those because it helps focus you.

00:47:59.400 --> 00:48:06.919 Laurence Shanet: So if you have a blue sky thing, imagine sitting down, and someone tells you you can write an essay or a novel about anything.

00:48:07.410 --> 00:48:21.970 Laurence Shanet: It would probably take you days just to figure out what you're going to write about, you wouldn't be sure that it was the right thing. And that often isn't really what matters. You can almost pick anything and do something interesting about it. But you have this sort of

00:48:22.020 --> 00:48:44.120 Laurence Shanet: writer's block slash analysis, paralysis. That's the beginning of the creative process in many cases. So sometimes, having that restriction that focus can actually make you more creative and get you over that hump to where you're actually doing something. And the problem solving is interesting versus just trying to figure out what to do. And I think that

00:48:44.200 --> 00:48:51.210 Laurence Shanet: comedians often have that same kind of a situation when they learn to do improv

00:48:51.260 --> 00:49:09.209 Laurence Shanet: one of the things is giving you exercises that have very specific restrictions and doing those exercises can often unleash that creative thing. Maybe they'll tell you that no matter what you're saying, it has to be these same 5 words, but you might say that

00:49:09.300 --> 00:49:35.149 Laurence Shanet: phrase differently, and you can see if you can communicate a whole idea, but using the same words over and over again. And it's surprising how well you can do that. It kind of goes a little bit to what we were talking about earlier, when you say the same sentence sarcastically, versus not so restrictions like that can sometimes. If you're if you learn to use those tools can stoke your creativity instead of squashing it.

00:49:36.050 --> 00:49:52.429 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: I've had another guest on this program before who really specializes in for creative problem solving and and what she had talked about was kind of interesting. It was it was a corollary to this in the sense that

00:49:52.770 --> 00:50:08.569 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq:  she advocated towards rule, rule, breaking or assumption, breaking, breaking of rules of assumptions. And if I put those 2 together, you know which is the inspiration I'm getting from this conversation, having spoken to her in the past.

00:50:08.780 --> 00:50:23.080 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: There! There's the idea of you need to know the rules cause that gives you focus. But then you can elect to break the rules and and that can that can put you down in a totally different path in terms of something creative, because it's unusual

00:50:24.220 --> 00:50:46.329 Laurence Shanet: in any creative discipline. I think there is that idea of the rules are there, and they're important. And often when people first start out in any creative endeavor. That first instinct is, I want to break all the rules. I want to make my thing different and special and different and special, is really great. But often the rules are there for a reason. So if you're cooking

00:50:46.330 --> 00:50:56.680 Laurence Shanet: and you want to make a really amazing dish. Sure, you want it to be innovative. But if you haven't learned the basic techniques, and you just throw a bunch of stuff in a very hot pan. It's going to be a disaster.

00:50:56.680 --> 00:51:19.849 Laurence Shanet: So learning those same tools as a writer, as a singer. Whatever it is, it's often very helpful, and if you always ruthlessly adhere to those rules, you'll make a thing that's just like everyone else's thing. You'll make a boring song that sounds like a bunch of songs that came before. You'll make a boring film that is like a bunch of other stuff. But breaking too many rules, just feels like chaos.

00:51:19.850 --> 00:51:21.199 Laurence Shanet: So it's that

00:51:21.280 --> 00:51:29.349 Laurence Shanet: do the thing and then change one thing about it that often works really well. And that's how, in many cases jokes work

00:51:29.460 --> 00:51:34.409 Laurence Shanet: is that you set up an expectation, and then you subvert it.

00:51:34.530 --> 00:51:59.349 Laurence Shanet: And that's what the punch line is, is you? You think you know what you're hearing. You think you know what you're hearing. And then you get this other thing. And that's very funny, because you expected X, and you got y, so that really is a very smart structure I don't know who your guest was, but clearly that person. And I have similar thought processes. I think that that idea of expectation, and then being different from expectation

00:51:59.530 --> 00:52:10.739 Laurence Shanet: is a really useful structure. And in order to do that, you have to first have the expected thing. If you're just all over the place, then there are no rules and

00:52:10.740 --> 00:52:29.759 Laurence Shanet: in a way, people run into this every day, because if you're watching. Say, a TV show. And it's about outer space. 500 years from now, the rules are very different, because technology can enable all these things versus a realistic thing that's happening in the present day. If you suddenly have someone come down from Mars, that's a very different

00:52:30.060 --> 00:52:49.040 Laurence Shanet: movie, because what we're capable of is different. So, having a world and a world that has rules is a starting place, and then there'll be expectations because of that. And then a smart subversion of those can work really well, whereas complete subversion just seems like chaos, and nothing has meaning anymore.

00:52:49.550 --> 00:53:08.279 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: I mean, I think, he historically, there have been the accidental breaking breaking of a particular rule that have led to something amazing. And and then there are these sort of those of us who are struggling to be creative and intentionally must break the rule. And and and so there can be. I think there can be both. But

00:53:08.300 --> 00:53:13.600 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: but you know. Usually it's the accidental ones that are the ones that end up being even better.

00:53:13.640 --> 00:53:39.820 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: which takes me to my last topic in the last few minutes that we have, which is that you know we you had. You had talked to me a little bit about the state of creativity, and 2023 and the whole, you know, AI trend, and how that, how things are, and how everybody's relying on AI or purposely putting out there that they're not relying on AI so so share with us your thoughts on on AI, and how that ties into the world of creativity

00:53:40.170 --> 00:54:08.409 Laurence Shanet: that's become a big thing. Now, as you and I were talking briefly about, I see more and more profiles on Linkedin saying, not created by AI. People are asserting that just so everyone knows. And there's this sense that using AI is cheating in some way, and a and sometimes it is but more often just as finger wagging parents would have said to kids, If you cheat, you're only cheating yourself. And it does sort of

00:54:08.420 --> 00:54:33.890 Laurence Shanet: limit you to the limits of AI, which often. Ai isn't trying to do what you think it's trying to do so the product doesn't necessarily serve you well. So I talk to clients a lot. I first of all, people who are comfortable as creative people who are good creators, aren't that worried about AI coming and taking their jobs

00:54:33.890 --> 00:54:59.159 Laurence Shanet: because at least as of now, and this will probably change, and we should be terrified. But as of now, it's not very good at being creative. It's not very good at subbing for you. It is very good at certain other things. So for someone who's confident in their creativity, I think AI isn't really this looming, terrible thing. It's a tool that you can use. And you want to teach people who maybe aren't

00:54:59.160 --> 00:55:13.260 Laurence Shanet: experts at being creative or or creating things, how to use that tool, and, more importantly, how not to use it, because a lot of them tend to use it out of fear. I'm a bad writer, so I'll have Chat Gp, write it for me

00:55:13.310 --> 00:55:31.850 Laurence Shanet: not and because they're not necessarily a good writer, they don't realize how bad the thing is that chat Gp. Wrote, cause it seems coherent. It seems like it's smart. And I I'm gonna want to come up with the name for an effect that I've noticed, which is that very often

00:55:31.850 --> 00:55:56.049 Laurence Shanet: chat gpt when it's writing about a subject. And the reader is not expert in that chat. Gpt seems expert. And the more you know about a subject the Dumber Chat Gpt seems so. Someone who's really expert at something thinks that Chat Gp is terrible at it, but someone who knows a little bit is probably more impressed, I'm sure if Chat Gp wrote something about intellectual property, I might be fooled by it. You definitely wouldn't be.

00:55:57.110 --> 00:56:22.580 Laurence Shanet: I hope so if if you are, then the robot overlords are about to take our jobs, and it is true. But I have a hunch it wouldn't be it chat. Gvt, because it's sort of averaging things out and guessing can make mistakes on a huge level, and people think of them as, oh, my God! It made up a lie. But that's not how Chat Gp works. It's not

00:56:22.580 --> 00:56:28.809 thinking about its sentences. It doesn't understand anything it says it's just averaging out what is the most

00:56:28.840 --> 00:56:45.529 Laurence Shanet: likely next word to come, based on millions and millions of examples in the real world? But it doesn't understand all of those words as a thought. So it's not lying. It's just putting a bunch of things together, you know. Imagine these toy blocks, but it doesn't know what those things are.

00:56:45.560 --> 00:56:55.620 Laurence Shanet: So it doesn't know when it's lying. It's just taking these tools that humans use called words and jumbling them together, and what it sees is the most likely order.

00:56:59.780 --> 00:57:13.230 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: Well, Laurence, I really appreciate your being here, and all, all of your comments, which were definitely not average. So so so I'm gonna go and eat some pistachios in my red suit.

00:57:13.240 --> 00:57:19.020 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: and you know, and I will look forward to chatting with you again on the other end. But thank you so much for being here.

00:57:19.030 --> 00:57:30.809 Matthew D. Asbell, Esq: You've been listening to intangify on talkradio dot Nyc tune in next week my guest will be Maurice Rhett Spiel, who is a digital marketing strategist, look forward to seeing you that thanks.

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