Weird Unicorns, AI, and the TBD Career: The Future of Work - with David Armano

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Daniel Nestle: Welcome, or welcome back to the trending communicator. I'm your host, Dan Nessel. The problem, or a problem so many of us have as future thinkers, is that our colleagues and peers and employers perceive that we don't pay enough attention or even ignore the present, the now. And that's on us, especially communicators and marketers. Someone is paying our freight and we've got to remember that our excitement about nascent technology or our conviction about trends must be grounded in and clearly related to those who pay us. It really comes down to an urgency gap when what's urgent to us isn't urgent to our source of income, we've got to think hard about our priorities and put our client or our employer first.

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Daniel Nestle: At the same time, I think it would be malpractice if we didnt at least present our case and bring our insights to the table. Now, thats a fine and difficult balance to achieve, and I know that because I have failed numerous times to achieve it. And the result could be anxiety, dissatisfaction, a gap between you and your employers. Thats sadly, the only way to close it, is to potentially depart from a company. Well look, im bringing all this up because I know that my focus on tech and trends and comms and marketing is important and urgent and our profession must continue to evolve and stay ahead. Otherwise, well be doing our clients, employers, and the audiences that we care about a huge disservice. I mean, id much rather help guide them to the future, right?

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Daniel Nestle: I didnt plan on a soliloquy today, but its a good way to set the stage for my conversation with someone who I think gets that now versus future balance. And as a result, he's had a remarkable career creating and executing effective, award winning strategies for too many organizations. To mention. Not only is he an integrated communications and marketing leader, I think he's one of the handful of people who actually helped define the category. With a background in design and an instinctive understanding of human behavior, he's worked with his clients to bring focus and clarity to the big X's CX UX DX consumer customer experience, user experience, and digital experience for the uninitiated among us, and more recently, how generative AI is changing it all. Hes a social media og, a sought after public speaker.

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Daniel Nestle: You might have heard him at Southby, and hes a facilitator par excellence. Dare I say hes an influencer. A self described weird unicorn. Please welcome to the show my friend, Mister David Armano. David thank you Dan.

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David Armano: Really happy to be here. From one unicorn to another.

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Daniel Nestle: You know, I've often been called or been accused or called. I don't know what the right word is. An octagonal peg trying to get into a round hole. And I, and I feel that especially in times like this and like full disclosure, everybody out there, I have just launched a consultancy business of my own because I know, and as you heard me say in my monologue there, that I want to bring people into the future. And I think that there's a lot of folks out there who need my help and frankly, I would enjoy doing that. But, you know, I had been employed for quite a while and I feel like that gap between, you know, the future and the present has always been a struggling point for me. Right now.

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Daniel Nestle: David here has been in similar boats and I don't know if the rationale for, you know, for transitioning from one place to another is because of any of that. But right now, you know, David is the CEO of, of TBD, according to his profile. And we're going to get into what all that means. But I've never seen anybody like you, David, who just like, you know, takes a view of the situation, you know, and it's not exactly making lemonade from lemons, but it's creating this role in this space for a condition that people have a difficult time coping with Orlando or grasping. And it comes down to that future minded kind of outlook or that mindset, because it's in the nature of what you've said, of what you've written as the CEO of TBD, that TBD indicates that future.

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Daniel Nestle: So being future minded has so much impact on where we are right now and how we take our situation right now. But thats a whole long way of setting things up a bit here. And I do want to get into what that means. So how about you lead into it and get to that CEO of DBD by walking us through a little bit of the highlights of who you are. Why youre a weird unicorn and what is it? The CEO of TBD, for those of my listeners who may not know you.

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David Armano: Okay, so to add a little context, because I feel like your listeners gonna be like, what the talking about? I've never heard him like, you know, start with a soliloquy. So despite the talk of weird and unicorn like yourself and both of us can pat ourselves on the back. I've been in the corporate world for a long time. I'm not going to give away my exact age. But let's say I'm well north of 40 at minimum. So you can do the math or guess there. And so I've been, I'm reading a great book right now called from strength to strength, and it's all about sort of being in these later stages in your career now, in spite that, when I look back in my career, I've been working for companies for 95% of that time, so not that unusual.

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David Armano: And that's all been in the professional corporate world. Most of that time has been for, in the professional services space, digital agencies, but digital agencies said that were very well respected, regarded, that got folded up to larger multinational corporations. Edelman, which I spent nearly eleven years, is actually one of the outliers. Being a privately held but yet large company that I think has hit around a billion in revenue, it's really important context because as someone who finds themselves as CEO of TBD, meaning that I was recently with a small startup and now I'm trying to figure out what I do next. That's what, that's what the TBD is. This is speaking as someone who's been, who's worked as an employee for the majority of their career, as you have, Dan.

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Daniel Nestle: Yes, true. Totally.

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David Armano: And you know, we're Gen X, okay? We are Gen Xers. We are children of the seventies.

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Daniel Nestle: So, so pretty far north of 40 then.

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David Armano: Yeah, I said, I said forties. I put the s in there. Very intense. That's funny. So look, so as Gen Xers, we are entering this phase in our career where things are going to be more uncertain. Now look, I have Gen Xer friends who work for large pharma companies, great ones that you've heard of and they're not thinking about this stuff, but they will be in five years because even in companies like that, they just happen to have a longer Runway. Companies like that are more conservative. But if you're working in communications, Dan, the world that you came from, intersection of communications and technology in general, advertising, marketing, these worlds that we play in, and you are Gen X, chances are you need to be looking over your shoulder.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah, I don't think it's just Gen X either, but particularly Gen X is in.

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David Armano: Well, that is a good point. And we'll get into that because actually in my new adventures, as someone who's only recently entered this world of uncertainty, I've had actually many younger people reach out to me and have seen this where they actually didn't have the employment certainty that I enjoy. Now look, I made a lot of those things happen but, boy, I was 49 the first time I ever got laid off, and I will never forget. I think I told you this, Dan. I remember having conversation with someone and so never got laid off, not once. Not once until age 49 during a global pandemic. So that's what it took for it to happen. And I remember having a conversation with this gentleman, and I'll never forget he. I was telling him this, and he goes, first, I want to tell you congratulations.

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David Armano: That's really. Not many people go that, you know, go that long without every level, without being laid off. And I said, oh, yeah, thank you. This is kind of an accomplishment. I was feeling all proud about myself. And then he's like, secondly, I want to tell you I'm sorry. And I'm like, what do you mean you're sorry? And he's like, oh. He said, well, because it's never happened to you. And at this age, it's going to be really tough for you to build this muscle that many of us built earlier in life. And he was right on both fronts.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah, well, you built some serious muscle, though. I remember when that happened and during the pandemic, and I should probably tell everyone also that we've known each other for quite a while. And just a couple years before the pandemic, I was working at Mitsubishi heavy, and, David, you were at Edelman, and I was your client. You came over tokyo, and you facilitated this incredible workshop, which was my first exposure to you professionally in person. And it's hard to believe. Cause I'd been following you for, like, ten years prior to that. But regardless, you know, I had seen you, like, as this, like, you know, very, I guess, weird unicorn, but uniquely talented person within Edelman. And then when I saw the layoffs happen at Edelman, I was like, jeez, it happened to David. I can't believe it. Right?

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David Armano: Yeah.

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Daniel Nestle: And so I paid. So I paid particular attention to your. To you at the time I saw you.

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David Armano: You got to see me in the corporate context, actually working with a large client, like you said. Yeah, yeah. You got to see, like, the total lead, like, the difference where the majority of my energy went. You know, it wasn't a lot of people that knew me or thought they know me from stuff I put online. Like, that was almost a creative outlet for me. But the day job is where the majority of my energy goes.

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Daniel Nestle: And it's amazing because you were so, like, I remember I do workshop facilitation myself, and I really enjoy it. It takes so much energy, and you get such a great vibe from the people that you're with. And yesterday I spoke with somebody who actually gave me a. A neuroscientific term for that, which I forget right now, because neuroscientifically, my mind is not as plastic as it used to be. However, there is the reason you get energy from people. There's something behind that. What I was going to say, though, is that you're so comfortable in front of a whiteboard. Maybe that's your design background. And I thought that Mandev. I would love to be. Have any opportunity to have another workshop with David. Right. So when I saw that you were.

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Daniel Nestle: That you'd been laid off, I thought, okay, you know, the reaper comes for everyone. And then I thought. Then I thought, okay, what's, you know, okay, he's gonna be snapped up. What's he gonna do? And so I followed you, and you. I saw you on Joseph Jaffe's dead nascent program. And I love Joseph and was a great, you know, it was a great show. And I. You talked about being the chief paws officer at the time.

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David Armano: Yeah.

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Daniel Nestle: And that seriously resonated with me. And it was also at a time when I was just considering, because when early pandemic times, you're like, am I really where I want to be? Is this the right thing for me? I'm stuck at home. There's nothing like the key things about my job might not be the key things anymore. You know, these thoughts run through your head. And I saw you as the chief paws officer. I thought that was so. What a healthy way to look at things.

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David Armano: Yeah, right. And for those of you don't know what Dan's referring to, so more context to set the stage. Early pandemic days, as people like myself were getting laid off, I intentionally. I reflected rapidly on my situation and communicated this, and it was all true. This kind of relates to what I said earlier. I had been. This is my first layoff, and I realized, man, I've been running hard. Like, I've been doing this corporate thing. Dan, I'm a lot, like, physically healthier than I was when I was in Japan, when I saw, I mean, probably not totally because I'm older, but I'm certainly leaner and my diet is better because partially related to this lifestyle.

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David Armano: In the corporate world where you're just running and you're performing high, it's great that you felt like a lot goes into that to fly yourself to Japan or have your company fly and do all that the rare person can do that and, like, make every use, every hour of their day and make every great choice. So it's a challenging ride. And so I realized that I'd been going full steam.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah.

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David Armano: And now it wasn't my call, but it ended. And I also thought, you know, when it happens to people, they're never really honest about it. And I had this rare opportunity where I could be honest because it was happening during the COVID Now this was, this is actually looking back. This is around the time when LinkedIn first introduced the open to work, which I never did. I never did that. I did it now, but for different reasons. We can get into that later. But point being is I reflected on two things. One, I could give myself permission to take a beat, and I did. I took a month off and took my son to New York and spent time with his grandparents. He really needed family at that moment. It was a great thing.

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David Armano: And then two, I thought, I'm going to sort of, this is before people even were talking about, I said, I'm going to be open about this because I think there's something about this stigma that should change. And if not me, who's going to sort of help lead the change now? The world has changed since this was 2020. I got, like early months of the pandemic. It was June 2020. I will never forget. It was the early days of George Floyd. I mean, it was like a little dystopian backdrop of people marching in the street, civil unrest and, you know, and early days of COVID And, you know, I think that was a part of it, too. I think when you, when life feels like, when things feel like they're falling apart, you get this clarity.

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David Armano: And you also sort of, at least for me, I found that there's always a temptation when time gets tough to behave poorly. I don't most of the time, not all the time, because I'm certainly not perfect, but I usually dig deep and act well, for lack of a better phrase, because I challenge myself. And something I've always noticed in the professional world, so it's a good litmus test, is that how is leaders? I've noticed the best leaders always do well under pressure.

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David Armano: That's how you tell if you ever want to know the difference between, like, a really good leader and a not so good leader, watch them when things are not going well for them because the standout leaders will dig deep and rise to the challenge and the ones that are not great now, by the way, the corporate world is full of the latter because they are survivors.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah.

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David Armano: And a lot of those poor behaviors get rewarded in the corporate world. Sorry. That is true. That is, that is the truth. So it doesn't always mean that you're going to have an amazing career, but I, I've seen enough leaders who really shine in those instances. And when done well and when done professionally, they rise to the top as well.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah, it's hard times make hard people or something like this. I forget what it is. There's a bunch of different expressions. But I think it's a healthy experience to go through a crisis of some kind in your life, and it sucks when it happens to you and you're suddenly without an employer or without a lifeline or without a safety net or whatever motivates you. And it's vastly different when you're at different parts of your career or depending on the company that it happens from, you know, and some people are fortunate enough to, you know, to have companies that and employers that really do care about them and make sure that they're taken care of when they leave. And, you know, I'm always grateful for that, but it doesn't stop the grief.

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Daniel Nestle: You know, like, I recently separated from Lyxel, and everybody knows this, and if you didn't know it, you know, it now, but, you know, I knew how things were going, and as I said earlier on, this gap between, you know, focusing on the future versus focusing on the now, getting that balance right, you know, and reading the room and understanding the business situation, how I'm going to make that argument but still do what I think is necessary. I don't know if that's one of the reasons why we decided to separate, but in my mind, it definitely was a source of anxiety for me. So I was really, I felt really relieved, and I want to do a whole bunch of different things, and that's my nature. So now I have the opportunity to do that, and I'm grateful for that.

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Daniel Nestle: But a lot of that has to do with where I'm at in my life and having exercised this muscle before and just having a different kind of network now and having my show and having a brand, there's a lot, there's a much stronger foundation this time around, but really where I wanted to go, and I think you're the same way as well. You know, this time around it's different. Right. And a lot of that just has to do with those good behaviors and just taking control and taking leadership. Right. But really, where I wanted to go with this, I'm sorry.

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David Armano: Let me jump into one thing, and then I'll say quickly, because I'm glad you brought up the grieving process. I think very few people, you know, separating, as you put it, especially when you either had limited control or was out of your control. It is a grieving process.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah.

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David Armano: And more so if it was something that you didn't choose to do. I mean, if you leave for something else, it's a difficult process, but it's. And you may. I'm not even sure. I don't think it's the same. I think. I think when it happens and it's out of your control, you do grieve, and it's something that people don't talk about. But I will say that grief. Grief is both ugly and beautiful. It's ugly in the sense that it's painful. And anyone that you meet that is grieving, you should actually make an effort to talk to them, because when someone's going through something painful, the worst thing you can do is sort of not know how to deal with it. So you just sort of stay away.

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David Armano: Now, the beautiful part is that, again, you have to make personal choices here, but there's a lot of gifts that do come with grieving. You can reprioritize your life. You can really understand what's important, and it gives you perspective, clarity, all these kinds of things. People will. Sometimes the people that come out of the woodwork, you go, that person really made an effort. And so I can now choose, you know, I can now keep them close to me and I don't have to do that with others. And that kind of, like, frees you up. So there's a lot of gifts that come this. So it's ugly and beautiful in the same breath.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah, it's. The cycle, though, is fascinating to me. And I've experienced grief several more times than I'd like to admit early in life. And I think it just sort of stuck with me. But there's that cycle of denial. I don't know what the five stages are, but there are stages, and there's a point in there that there's denial, and ultimately it gets to acceptance. Right. There's anger, denial.

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David Armano: It's also not super linear. People think that grief is linear. It's not. It's what you just said, it's cyclical.

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Daniel Nestle: Right. So I kind of started to think a little bit more as you were talking, actually, about maybe we're in a profession that is in a grief cycle, and it's not because. It's not because. And when I say profession, I'm talking about communications and I suppose to some degree marketing. But, but when you think about pr and communications, especially grief is ultimately, you know, of course you think about it dealing with death, but it's not dealing with death, it's dealing with the removal of something from your life or the loss of something from your life. And it is a loss situation.

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Daniel Nestle: And when we look at the profession, I think, and Gen Xers would know this really well and those older than us would know it even better, is the profession today looks a lot different than it was several years ago, ten years ago, 20 years ago. There are so many changes happening and understanding how to cope with that change. It doesnt have to have the oppressive and depressive and sad nature of grief, but it does have this element of denial, resistance and ultimately acceptance that I think we need to have more of. And none of us are perfect about this and none of us really can read the tea leaves. But it's an interesting frame within which to see the changes around us. And I'm going to do some more noodling on that.

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Daniel Nestle: And maybe that's one of the reasons why the TBD is coming for us all. So I want to circle back to that and say just kind of what's happening right now in this crazy industry. And we can call it when I say the industry, let's just say integrated marketing, communications, that whole field that we're in because lines are blurred and all that. But what are the changes that are happening now and that might be coming that you think necessitate this idea that we all are going to have to be CEO's of TBD, we can broaden that aperture.

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David Armano: Honestly, let's put the entire corporate white collar world, okay? So unless you're hit it out there doing a physical or, you know, if you're, if you are, if you have like a desk job, you're part of the corporate workforce, okay? And yes, it's a spectrum. So we are, because we're technology, marketing, communications, we're probably on pretty close to one side where you age out, you just age out. That is a fact. Now, on the other side I mentioned like I know people that working for large pharmaceutical companies, that's going to happen later. Okay. But here is the reality. Okay, what's retirement age right now? 65, something like that. Yeah, it's 65. You're not staying in the white collar world of work. You are not staying employed until you're 65.

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David Armano: That is going, if that is the case, super outlier and in that spectrum, again, if you are on the side where it's maybe closer to marketing technology, things like that, you're considered old at 40. Right.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah. Truth.

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David Armano: And if you're somewhere else, that's, again, maybe more legacy. You know, maybe it's like, you know, maybe it's even a field wherever. I think some of the exceptions, like I, my really good childhood friend, he's a, he's in a field, a niche, part of civil engineering where it's like, you know, people do work in their seventies because it's so niche and you're more respected for the knowledge that you get. I think many fields should be like that, but that tends to be the outlier. So, you know, this idea of like and TBD is to be determined. And so you got to figure it out. And you probably have to figure out, figure it out without the assistance of a full time benefactor as a FTE or full time employee. Yeah, I think.

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David Armano: I think that largely speaking in the world of white collar work, you know, I think once you're north of 55, somewhere in that spectrum, it's going to become more difficult. And then the question is now what? Because you may not now, that's if you've actually planned well, like maybe you can retire at 65 and then throw in other stats where most people can't. So then what do you do? What do you do from 55 to 70?

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah.

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David Armano: And, you know, it is going to come for us all. It's the, it's the one form of ism that doesn't discriminate. Right. In the corporate world, there's lots of isms that Denison communications, you know, very well, lots of effort is paid around all kinds of diversity, all kinds of equity. I'm really leveling it out. But age is a different animal.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah.

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David Armano: Age is actually sort of, you know, in most white collar cultures, it's something they kind of want to stay away from because of everything that we're talking about, because it's the one acceptable ism in the world of white collar work.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah. It's exceedingly difficult to prove that you're being discriminated against based on age as well and the burden, unlike any of the other protected classes, the burden of proving ageism is on the person who's being discriminated against. And I'm not saying that I've experienced that, at least nothing right to my face, but I have no doubt that as resumes go out and people look at when it starts to go to two pages, you're like, wait, how long has this guy been alive? And it's just like, it's not that I can't do the job. It's not that I can't contribute. It's just that, will I be happy? And a lot of employers are going, well, we're going to have to pay this person more than somebody younger. That's the number one thing, I think.

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Daniel Nestle: And then beyond that, it's like, well, how's this person going to really jive with our culture and with the checkboxes start to, the flags start to raise? And I'm absolutely certain that happens in the minds of talent acquisition people, recruiters, et cetera. And then when you get through the interview process, the other part of it is, you know, you get older or you get longer in the profession, and, you know, if you're still a cog in the, in the gears or, you know, you're still just a, you know, middling middle level kind of, you know, I guess, like, just doer of some kind. The irony is that there's probably still a lot of things. You just keep doing that. Like, you just keep plugging away and plugging away until somebody says, we're paying you too much to do something somebody younger can do. Right.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah. But if you are an executive or you're ambitious or you're really able to take on a much larger role or bigger responsibility or something like that, you know, there are far fewer of those roles, so it's harder. Right, right. It's, it's just a natural. It's the, it's the longest, and you have ten.

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David Armano: Everyone else make the personal decision. Like, is that the, is that the life I want? You know?

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Daniel Nestle: Right. Yeah.

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David Armano: Because there's a lot of concessions that come with that also. A lot of great perks. I mean, Dan, I would be lying to you if I. I mean, you know, going out tokyo and working with high functioning executives and having an amazing day of working sessions and teaching and learning and listening and then going out for karaoke on the dime of the company and then doing it over again before coming home. Like, it's pretty freaking great, Jeff.

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Daniel Nestle: It is great. I'm looking at my mileage plus status plummet, right. Because I'm not getting any paid for flights anymore, and it's a very first world privilege problem. But still, it's just another chink in the armor, like, oh, another hit. And I only feel it when I travel with my family and I can't get them through the line fast anymore. Dad, why can't we go to that little door over there? Your dad's lost status. I'm sorry. It's almost more embarrassing to say that than, hey, I'm not working for a company anymore. You know what I mean? So it's these little things, and I don't want to really think about those as anything worth thinking about, really. But it does. It gets to you.

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Daniel Nestle: The thing is, though, that there are so many, there's so much happening around us now that I think that the nature of work and the nature of this framework that almost all of corporate America at least functions within, which is that you age out, it's got to change, and it's changing in some places, but it really needs to change. And when I say the nature of work, I mean, what is a role? What is a job? Do we have the right titles? Is this progression the right way to go? I mean, if you're a leader of people and there's a whole management kind of track, that's one thing you need to progress based on how well you've done as a manager in the past.

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Daniel Nestle: But on the other hand, on the functional side, with functional expertise, that is so malleable, and there's so many different things happening all the time. So one of the things that hamstrings larger companies, I think, is this extreme compliance and adherence to, well, the job description needs to have these elements and the elements need to be verified in the market, and you have to have this middle point in the salary, and it's got to be all top to bottom, almost uniform with other companies in the same field or other places in the industry. Right. And I think that's fine to a point, but it stifles the ability to be flexible in hiring. And I don't know where the solution to this is. I just think it's a problem.

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David Armano: Well, let's talk about some of the forces at play when, let's look at it with a future lens, because there's a couple of unique things that are going on that are going to be really, you know, you're starting to see the early days of it shake out, and nobody knows exactly where this is going. Yeah, there's so aging out is actually not all that new. Okay. That's kind of a traditional thing. What is new or unique or a different flavor? A couple of forces that I think are really going to be shaping the future of the white collar world of work. AI. Absolutely. But more specifically AI, because what AI does really well is it excels at entry level work, AI does what likes, like someone coming into the workforce with no experience or very little experience. The things that you would. You would.

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David Armano: The tasks that you would give to those employees is what AI excels at. Okay, so that's like tsunami number one. And we've never had that. As a matter of fact, so many of these companies relied on that incoming force, so that's one. Secondly, you have a very unique generation that's smaller than its previous. You have Gen Z coming in that has very different attitudes about work. There's just an article in the Wall Street Journal how, like, the number one perk of Gen Z is, do you offer mental health services? Right. And then if you look historically, it was like, do you have an on site gym or do you have an on site kitchen? You know, it's just so. Just different. Okay. But, yeah, so you got attitudes about work. And work culture are pretty unique with Gen Z.

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David Armano: We could spend a whole podcast on that, but just park that one. But related to that, you also now have the hybrid. Just to over generalize the hybrid world of work, some of it's remote, some of it's not. Office culture has. Is not what it was. Anyone that you talk to, even if they're back into an office part time, it is totally different. You've got people that love it and really benefit from it. Millennials, probably the most. They got young families. They are the ones that. The millennials are the biggest demographic in their workforce. They're the ones that, they're oftentimes the middle managers that often get sort of like thrown under the bus. But also, if we're really honest, kind of keep a company going, so they got to keep them happy.

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David Armano: But then by the same breath, the gen zers who need a lot of guidance and mentorship and actually would benefit the most. Scott Galloway talks about this all the time. They've lost out on things that could benefit. So you got that dynamic and then also just sort of. We are at a somewhat unique mix. I mean, there's, the multi generational workforce is not necessarily a new dynamic, but these are. You got four interesting generations currently in the workforce. You have boomers. There's definitely still boomers in the workforce. Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z, all super distinct working styles, all figuring out how to work with each other, all bring strengths to the table, all have deficits, all could learn from each other. I think organizations are really going to grapple with.

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David Armano: Again, that kind of relates to the world of remote work, where it's going to work really well for some of those demographics and less well for others. Right. So those four things, I think when you look at them and they're each really big in and of itself, I think those, those begin to shape the future of the white collar world in this context of like, the little slice that we're looking at it.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah.

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David Armano: Where we're definitely in those years where, you know, if you do choose to saddle up with an employer, you just know a part of it is, you know, you may not be there for very long. Cause that's kind of how the world operates.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah. And in that context, it makes sense both out of self preservation, but also out of the idea that you want to contribute. Right. You want to actually continue to like, do great work. It makes sense to stay on top of what's happening, what's coming. And again, in our little slice of the universe here, and you mentioned that AI excels at entry level work. Totally.

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David Armano: Absolutely. And best intern you'll ever have.

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Daniel Nestle: Best intern you'll ever. That's exactly what I call it, an intern. And a recurring theme that I hear among my guests, and certainly one people I speak to in the wider world, is, boy, I know I can save a lot of money on hiring, but I don't know how. And at the same time, it's, wait a second, if I don't need as many young people, how am I going to get the wisdom and knowledge that we need to keep the company going? So wait, what the hell? There's a dissonance there that is very difficult for, I think, some senior leaders to really cope with.

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Daniel Nestle: But where I've been looking more recently, partly because of my own situation, is the idea that AI, yes, it's great at entry level, but if you start to get even moderately familiar with it and start to understand whats happening in that space, but also how to implement and adapt to those tools, it becomes a virtual team for you. So I think its hard to make this jump sometimes for folks. But when you have, let's just say, chat, GPT, any of the LLMs, when you have one of these things open on your desktop or on your phone, it's important to keep in mind that you can keep on opening up new chats and do different things all at once.

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Daniel Nestle: So essentially you can have those entry level tasks, and I don't like to automate everything, but you can have those entry level tasks help with that, while at the same time you can have something there to help you formulate strategy. You can have something there to help you kind of understand audiences. There's these other more complicated, higher level, I guess, activities that it won't do for you, but it will help you do so. You essentially have this level of enablement that never existed before.

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Daniel Nestle: So when you're aging out of a job or if you've been let go or if there's something there, one of the key differences from the past is, well, it doesn't cost me anything to hire a team anymore because now I can actually do more to kind of create value and create a consulting business or a business of some kind because I don't have to hire four people to do these admin tax tasks. In fact, I don't have to hire anybody. So, so there's a degree there that we're just starting to really scratch the surface of. And I think that also applies.

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David Armano: It's never been such a good time to be a CEO of TBD.

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Daniel Nestle: It has never been as good a time to be a CEO of TBD. That is, I think that's totally true.

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David Armano: You know, there's actually one of the, I'm going to add another macro trend on the employment one because I forgot this one, but everything you just said about AI is making me, it's not just an AI specific thing. There's actually between AI allowing us to be more productive, but also probably more importantly, so many of the cultural shifts where everybody's rethinking their relationship with work, including Gen. Zers who just don't want to work. The way in both, I have two Gen. Zers. They're like, dad, we don't want to work. We don't want to work as much as you did. And I'm, and I'm telling you, mark my words, any executives listening this, that is in a company with Gen. Zers, you will find this out. Yeah, it is a different, you know, I know it's a generalization, but you will find this out.

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David Armano: There's plenty of write ups on it as well. And so the other big macro trend is sort of as people rethink their relationship with work. I mean, I talked about like the lifestyle, right. And taking that pause, realizing how hot I was running. A lot more people have opened to different forms of work. Ten ninety nine s. I worked for one of my, when I was doing it myself, I had a client for a while who was a contingent workforce company. And so, and contingent workforce is basically, you are 1099. Okay. So you're working on contract and their business back in 2020. And probably up till now, I mean, exploded because people were like, they reassessed their relationship with work. They were like, maybe I'll go a different way and I'll be a contractor.

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David Armano: And even though, you know, I'm not gonna rise up in the organization traditionally and get all the perks that come with that, maybe I don't need the perks. Maybe all I need is I live on this much. Maybe I live in an area that doesn't cost as much.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah.

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David Armano: Something I've done. I've redesigned my life. I live in a much less expensive metro area. San Antonio versus Chicago.

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Daniel Nestle: That's, and that's available to everybody. You know, now, I mean, it's, I was just thinking about this idea of the fractional role. Like the fractional role, right. That the 1099 could be a consultant, it could be a project, but youre hearing a lot about, and over the last several years, certainly the fractional CMO, the fractional this, the fractional that, and it usually comes with a c suite position. And im not going to lie, if somebody says, hey, we need a fractional CCO or something like this, or CMCO, depending on what that entails, id be up for it. Right. I mean, there are certain things that I can do really well, and theres certain things that I dont want to do and I cant do well. And if being fractional means I get to help a company with strategy and content, wonderful.

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Daniel Nestle: If being fractional means we need somebody come here to help us with pricing. Not me. So theres different elements to that. I'm increasingly thinking that fractional is everybody now. Like, could be everybody. There's the fractional. Absolutely.

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David Armano: Could be everyone.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah.

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David Armano: It doesn't feel like a natural progression. I mean, look at things historically, okay, look at 50, 60 plus years ago, and this still exists, but it's almost totally gone. The pension.

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Daniel Nestle: Right.

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David Armano: And now we have the 401k for how many years? And now, you know, and, like, I feel like this shift between the sort of traditional FTE to something else is actually just part of that. It's like, there should be, you should be, in a perfect world, you should be able to work a job where you could spend 20 plus years and like, get the gold watch and retire and have a pension. Those days don't do not exist anymore. So now it looks like something else. And, you know, one of the reasons why I've reinvested in my health is because I'm realizing the best health insurance you have, you know, is to just try to prevent. Yeah, right. Just like it's like, well, you know, if now really you only.

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David Armano: And if the way things work is you get health insurance to your company, and that's pretty much the best way, but you don't have a company and it's not great in our country unless you're 65 and not awesome, but at least there's some support there, then the best thing you can do is just take good care of yourself.

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Daniel Nestle: Oh, yeah, absolutely. There's so many the elements that we need to consider with this future of work or what the future worker looks like and what the, let's just call us the older workers will look like so rapidly changing and evolving, and even insurance companies are giving some kind of benefit for proven wellness approaches and so on, and keeping yourself fit. But yeah, I think we're onto something here with this idea that the employee of the now and the employee of the future are very different employees, and theres a lag from where corporations and talent acquisition and HR are now to what the reality is on the ground. And a great example, my friend Ethan McCarty brought this up, and ive probably mentioned it on almost every episode I've done since, which is this fascinated me.

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Daniel Nestle: He's got a young Gen Z employee agency, and in a traditional agency world, this person would be doing all the shit work. Right. This person in a traditional agency world would be like doing research on some, on the media, or pulling down. In the old days, it was clippings, but reading, reviewing, and identifying things, much of which is automated. Now taking on the copywriting tasks for writing press releases and stuff like that. How awful that would be now. But this employee has basically constructed her own ecosystem of tools, some AI, some other technological, that basically allow her to be a one woman operational force. So whatever the task is and whatever the job is, she needs to have the core skill.

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Daniel Nestle: She needs to be able to write, she needs to be able to do the thinking, but to make the workflow, she has this tool for editing and this tool for management. And this tool, it's a very self contained package thats integratable with other technologies and other people. Yeah, theres no job description like this. Right. Except when you see on job descriptions things like, were looking for somebody whos innovative and entrepreneurial. Are you really? Are you? Because thats innovative, thats entrepreneurial. The only thing separating her from an entrepreneur is that she's working for a company.

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David Armano: Okay, let's dig into that example. Let's dig into that example, because one of my I can't. My pet peeves. It drives me crazy. And it's, I think it's, look, as human beings, I think we're all hardwired to just view ourselves as completely unique and irreplaceable and like, we're all special snowflakes and nobody is exactly like me. And, you know, that's part of our hardwiring as a DNA and our DNA. And one of the big arguments, there was even a, I think a piece in the New Yorker that got into this. It's like, AI will never do art. Or, you know, the big thing is like, there's just something so special. I'm not going to say this as someone who, like, works in the world of insights quite a bit. Yeah. There's some truth to that.

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David Armano: There was, there's some truth, like, and, you know, good art. Yeah, yeah. But the thing that those arguments really gloss over is how much of our world operates on good enough. And AI is really freaking good at good enough. I mean, I mentioned pharma, for example, as a space, like most of the stuff that has to get produced for pharma communications, first of all, it has to be compliant. Right? It has to, you know, pass and people are needed for that. But I'm sure also machines play a role. But, and it's not just pharma. I mean, it's the, the bulk of work output in the world from employers, from employees. The bulk of output in general. It's good enough. It does, it's not art. It's not something where you just like, it's not this amazing.

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David Armano: Now, now there's an opportunity for people who are so good at their craft that it stands out. But I feel like we're kidding ourselves when we think that's everything or that needs to be everything. Look at how many people I've seen people lament. Oh, great. I used to get 100 emails a day, spam emails that were written by people and now they're written by AI. And now I got to deal with you. Just, you're making my case for me. That's the point. Like, yes, you're always going to get and now it's going to be written by AI. Exactly. Because those emails were always just good enough.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah, I mean, exactly. There's a big, so what here, and a clarion call for people who are truly remarkable at their work or for people to become remarkable at their work. There's, there's a great quote from Mark Schaefer recently, and I'm gonna butcher it. But he was on my show a little while back, and every time we.

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David Armano: Talk, it, so is Mark. I'm gonna tell Mark.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah, yeah, I know. Yet another, yet another Mark Bridge here. But the number one name dropped person on my show probably. But, you know, he said that there's a pandemic of dull and AI can do dull, right? Let AI do the dull. Nobody needs you to do dull. So if you do the dull, you're going to be replaced by AI, right? There's no future for you. But if you are, I think he, I say remarkable, but I think he said spectacular. If you're spectacular at your what you do, you know, and that's the way that you need to think about how do you become spectacular? Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's right.

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David Armano: You can really stand out. But again, if you are a software company and you're put, you're cranking out the emails to your customers. Like, that's not like Rashad tobacco wall as an example, who, and I just spoke to him recently, writes an amazingly insightful newsletter. It's great, guys. The guy's a genius. Like, like, no, AI is not going to replace what he does, but he's also not a software company cranking out, you know, we're talking about performance based marketing, right? So it's all like trying to figure out the algorithms and the exact time that goes out to get someone to open up an email. Like, the machines are already started doing that. They're going to keep doing that. They might as well do it. Like if you're a copywriter and that's what you do. Like, yeah, your job's going away.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah. And you need to be, you need to either come to gross with reality about that, find new skills, or just get really good at your craft. Like get really good at it so that you're indispensable, which means you can't be doing that. You can't be doing those emails. Don't even try to build a career in an area that you absolutely know doesn't have to be anything more than good enough.

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David Armano: Yeah.

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Daniel Nestle: I mean, and the reality of it.

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David Armano: Is they will be their tools that they're using, but the tools will make them more efficient, which means you will need less cop. So it goes back to that. Like Jeremiah Owen talks about, and this is like, this is not him, uniquely, this is the big buzz in the, anyone who lives in Silicon Valley, it's like the company of Juan and all the billion dollar company, it's just one person. There's some truth to that. But the more boring version of that is the team that we once needed, a team of ten. Now a team of five can be, can provide that level of output and quantity of output just as the same using these newer tools.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah, I think at the same time and this as we sort of wind down, let's bring this to our colleagues in communications and marketing at the same time. Those are of us and those listeners who are gainfully employed and want to remain gainfully employed. I see this as a massive opportunity for those who see this opportunity for those who are, it's trite, but who are entrepreneurial, who are innovative, who are curious by nature. And that's a lot of people in our world. I think it's a superpower of mine. But, you know, I'm not the only one who says that. There's a lot of folks in our world who are like, wanna just keep asking questions. That is the key to unlocking the power of AI to me anyway, for people in our world. Right.

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Daniel Nestle: And it takes a, I think it will take a mindset shift. It will take a rethinking of what you expect to get out of an employee. Like, okay, heres your job description, but lets look for somebody whos going to color out of the lines here, right. Because the opportunity is that AI gives you this power to expand tremendously. And im not saying rise up, although you can free yourself up and be smart about it and add more value in different ways, focus your time, blah, blah. And maybe the further you get along the value chain and the further you get in your career, you're going to be thinking more in that way. Like, okay, I can free myself up to think if I can get rid of all these silly tasks.

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Daniel Nestle: By the way, there's some neuroscience behind that with my friend Doctor Michael Netzli talking about how we get to be more strategic and very good at strategy as we get older and peak at that between 65 and 75. So theres a lot there and I think were in the thick of it now.

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David Armano: But.

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Daniel Nestle: Back to the point, you have these comms teams that have like, okay, youve got these different silos or different kinds of functions within the function in marketing too. Okay, weve got executive communications, weve got external communications, we have employee engagement, we have crisis, all these media outreach, media relations, which is going to change really dramatically in my mind. But anyway, you've got all these different things now to be a generalist and sort of COVID it all is something that we encourage, always encouraged, certainly up and comers in the field to do. And that's what a CCO needs to really understand everything, right? Well, AI gives you this opportunity to consolidate a lot of that in a more easily digestible and sort of easily or efficiently.

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Daniel Nestle: I'm say easily but efficient, more efficient ways so that you can expand your role and branch out into other things. An example would be if you're able to exercise your curiosity and say, okay, look, I'm going to dig into this particular stakeholder, group or audience because I really want to know the best way to reach them. So, hey, I'm going to draft something to them and I'm going to get AI to do it in a voice that resonates with them and blah, blah. So you have all this information, but then you're like, wait a second, I bet you there's more there, and I bet you there's more ways I can segment this. What data are we missing? And you're like, but I'm not a data scientist. I'm crap with Excel. I'm not really great at reading data. Oh, wait a second.

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Daniel Nestle: Let me just upload all this customer data and all this stuff into my new intern here, and then I will get a translation of that into something that I will understand. Then I can really bring more and more insights to the table back by data. So suddenly I'm a data scientist.

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David Armano: Yeah.

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Daniel Nestle: Which was not part of my role. So these are expansions that can happen, and it's a big opportunity. I think anybody at any age, at any point in their comms career has to be thinking of this. What is the future of? What is the future of this, David? How are people going to expand their roles, or how are the roles going to change? What's your thoughts on all that, Jeff?

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David Armano: I mean, the way that you laid it out, people can operate outside their areas of expertise, and I do think, yes, we'll see more of that. That's already happening. I think what I mean, AI is so broad. It really is. It is a big digital transformation. Create new economies. I was just on a call with a startup, and they're creating a new product around, you know, synthesizing data. You know, and it's different. It's based off a language model. So it's going to be all those things. But I also think to go back, a big part of our theme is, like, how we work in the white collar construct, regardless of size, big company, CEO of TBD.

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David Armano: One thing that AI is great at and should get better at is that first draft, that first draft of a business plan, that first draft of any written communication, that first draft of a data, to use your example, like first draft, the data analysis, it's really good at that. And this is, and we can't underestimate how powerful that is. I mean, because what it does is it shortens the time and wherever it equips the really qualified human to add that editorial, add those insights, add the things that we're really good at. The industry talks about this being the human in the loop, but that's such a simple statement. The first draft is the heavy lifting and it gives us an informed starting point to really add the things that make it special.

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David Armano: And you're just going to see that everywhere pervasive and across industry, across vertical. So. But I, but I do think in the long run, while new businesses are being created and while there's all new kind, all those things that come with disruptions, but there will be less of roles that there have been, there just will be.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah.

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David Armano: In the past.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah.

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David Armano: People can do more, less, which is what every company wants.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah. And things will change and new things will be created. I mean, if you have a zero sum mentality, then you're like, the world is screwed. But if you have kind of an abundance approach, like, okay, I don't know what's going to happen, but we look at history, we look at the way things develop. One door closes, another one opens.

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David Armano: Dan, what have we learned? This is where we have to be great philosophers and great historians in real time. It's interesting. You started this podcast and we could probably end here, but I'm going to add the layer and it's something that's underappreciated. Right. It's like, yes, look forward. Yes, be in the present. I have two dogs. They remind me every day how valuable this, because all dogs are just right now. Right. But also look back and that's underrated. Like, what have we learned? We have been, you and I have been students of both technology and the past, many digital revolutions. I'll just, I'll just name two. There have been many. But the mobile phone plus social networks.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah.

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David Armano: And all the amazing things, all the amazing connections, relationships that we built over time. When I was in Japan, I was talking about how, like, communications were changing based on those things. What about the negatives? Okay. Mental illness, body dysmorphia, teens that are growing. I mean I've seen it with my own boys. I've had to like it's been, you know, they have almost been derailed by just those two things in their lives and their young lives.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah.

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David Armano: So I think you have to view the world and like understand the potential and the good and. But also like on their understand the negative societal impact as well. And like somewhere in the middle is this is the, is the pure truth. And that for us to figure out how to navigate both professionally and personally.

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Daniel Nestle: So important to be looking at history. You know I always neglect to mention or to value how I was trained in some ways as an historian. For what it's worth as an undergrad and my favorite subject, my favorite class in my major at Penn was diplomatic history. And the reason I loved it was because it didn't take like the professor. And the noise that you hear around you had absolutely nothing to do with the conclusions that you were going to draw. You were looking at the original primary sources of everything and coming to your conclusions based on what you saw. It's really critical that we continue to do that everywhere in all aspects of our professional life especially. So. Okay, you're hearing something from the mouth of Dan and from David. You know you're reading all kinds of stuff.

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Daniel Nestle: But go to your history, look at what is real and what the facts are and what's worked, right. Get analysis of what you can do. Work forward from there. That is so all these things have to happen at the same time and at once. And I certainly hope people are listening to what's coming out of our mouths. Sorry for them sometimes, but it's true that approach, that kind of healthy historical perspective looking at. Okay yeah. The advent of the mobile phone, the advent of the Internet, right. We're old enough to remember that. How many people were put out of work by that and how many of them are still unemployed. Precisely zero. Right. It's like it is. It is a change, is normal, its natural, its hyper accelerated right now and people are worried because were in the middle of it.

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Daniel Nestle: But again its part of that grief cycle. Are we in denial? Is there resistance? Is it anger? Are we coming to acceptance? I dont know. I think were coming all over the place.

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David Armano: Theres three different hats we can wear. I think that we do wear. When were thinking about the three dimensions of time. When you're looking back it's like with the lens of a student. What have I learned? What can I learn more about when you're living, hopefully you're living in the present and you're experiencing. So, you know, when you're doing it right, you're experiencing the present, you're processing things in real time. And when you're sort of in this kind of like, experience mindset. And when you're looking forward, you're prospecting. You're a prospector. You don't know for sure, but you're thinking, oh, this could possibly go in this direction. This may be going this way. I think this might happen, but you're in a prospective mindset. So student, someone who's experiencing and then being a prospector, they're three very different lenses that I think we should.

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David Armano: I think a good thing is to sort of have all those lenses at play and like, swap them out.

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Daniel Nestle: Oh, yeah. And there's. And really a knowledge and an understanding of what's come before and how. And how it's ended up is a fantastic lens through which to evaluate what you're going to be doing. You know, it doesn't mean you should make all of your decisions based on it, but you can't discount the lessons learned in the past. So, on that note, David, I think it's time for us to wrap up any last words. Like, I think we kind of got a grip of what you're thinking about, but, like, final words for our marketing, communications listeners and anybody else really about, like, you know, what's keeping you up at night? What is, what's your last words of wisdom for us to take?

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David Armano: I mean, last words of wisdom, I.

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Daniel Nestle: Think, on the show. On the show, not for, not real, not like in life, but just for the.

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David Armano: Related to the things that were talking about.

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Daniel Nestle: Your last words. Words wasn't within this hour, not forever.

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David Armano: Okay. We covered a lot of ground. I think at the end of the day, be it. Be an observer. Like, it's, there's no, like something, Dan, that you and I do is we take in a lot of information. Something that I do a lot is I synthesize that and then I figure out, like, how that information is going to affect decisions that I make. And I think that's something we all need to be doing. I think that's something that will help you professionally and personally just pay attention, what's going on. Know when to shift from being in the weeds to, like, getting yourself out. Right. So you're kind of seeing the bigger picture. That's something I'm trying to do.

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David Armano: And if you're honest about it, there's a time and place where you got to be in the weeds and you just have to be in the details. And then there's a time place where you have to go. Okay, now I need to give myself the headspace to look above it. All the things that we're talking about, we just talked about a number of white collar trends. We talked about AI. We talked about sort of being the CEO of TBD. And you know what? You might find yourself in your career life, I think, in any of those things. I think the common theme here is we talked a lot about the past, present, and future of work and personal.

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David Armano: So add to the lens of that kind of like the detail versus the big picture when you're navigating those things, and there's a task of point between those two.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah. Fantastic advice. Anytime you fill that tension point or the gap, you know you're onto something. I think be observant. I'll add to that. Just be curious and be inquisitive, of course, because that's my new business. But thank you, David. This has been fantastic. If anybody out there, and I highly recommend, of course, and almost, you know, I have a newsletter demand. I was going to say I do.

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David Armano: I have a newsletter. Go ahead.

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Daniel Nestle: And your newsletter is David by design at Substack. And you can go to Substack and subscribe there, or you can just follow David on LinkedIn, and I think you publish it all there as well.

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David Armano: Or google me. Pretty easy.

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Daniel Nestle: Just google David. David Armano me.

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David Armano: Yeah, that's right.

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Daniel Nestle: Look, obviously, as the CEO of TBD, that D is of prime importance. So anybody out there who wants to connect with David and think about working with David, go to Davidarmano me. Full bio. Everything is there because the weird unicorn is hard to. Is really hard to define that easily. But if you go to Davidarmano me, you'll get it and find David on LinkedIn and then on Twixter X, whatever you want to call it, Armano, you know, you've been around for a long time when you can just get. You can add your last name and you've got the account. You know, it's like one of those things.

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David Armano: All the cool kids are on threads now. All my friends who used to be on Twitter are on threads these days.

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Daniel Nestle: You know, I mean, my. My feeling on threads is still meh. I know there's a lot of people there, and I'm probably. The algorithm is not nice to me, but, you know, a lot of bad stuff there for. For what I've seen from, you know, where, but it's everywhere.

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David Armano: Something that I, you and I talked about this briefly, where I've got like a foot in so many different worlds. I mean, even professionally, it's like I've got my group of friends that are the communicators. I've got my, another group of friends that are the marketers. I have another group of friends that are like the CX, you know, designers slash ux. There's something to be said for being a node at the crossroads in multiple worlds. It comes at its own challenges. But also, too, I see it as a blessing. I have appreciation for what each of those people in each of those kind of worlds and communities bring to the table. And they're all different.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah. Yeah. I should give it some more time or some more effort to look at threads as well. But on that note, David, it's been, I love talking to you all the time, and we could keep going. Always learn something. So much. Thanks so much for coming on and again at Armano Substack, David by design, please read that great piece on imposter syndrome this weekend and with LinkedIn and Davidarmano, me. Thanks, David. Thank you, Dan. Talk to you soon. Thanks for taking the time to listen in on today's conversation. If you enjoyed it, please be sure to subscribe through the podcast player of your choice. Share with your friends and colleagues, and leave me a review. Five stars would be preferred, but it's up to you. Do you have ideas for future guests or you want to be on the show? Let me know@danarendingcommunicator.com.

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Daniel Nestle: Thanks again for listening to the trending communicator.