2024 Year End Recap – Part Two

Gene Volpe:

AI adoption and investment trends. So, going to Milind from Observe he highlighted that AI fatigue results from companies adopting AI without specific goals or measurable outcomes. Christie Thomas actually added that the businesses need to focus on clear ROI metrics, which we talked about a little bit to overcome this fatigue and skepticism. Prior to that, Altaz from Info-Tech said 75% of companies are increasing their AI budgets, but only 15% know where to spend it. And then one more, a kinkaism, maybe that goes on a mug. We’re in the era of doing more with less, but the less keeps getting bigger. So where should people spend their money? 

Scott Kinka:

Well, let’s address both of those things. I mean, I’ll go to the end and work my way backwards. I think my statement on stage there at Summit was related to the fact that our numbers tell us that its budgets continue to increase. So they’re not going down, and generally, they’re increasing in areas of investment like AI, but we’re being asked to do more or less meaning on the non-investment categories. How do you get more efficient on the rest of your spending? So it’s very interesting. Trends that we see right now going on in the marketplace are, yes, we’ll invest in AI, but we want to pull that money from somewhere else. Right. Okay. Now, getting back to the earlier statement about NRO, I think the challenge is how you measure human productivity in a general sense, right? So companies that go, Hey, we’re going to come up with a policy around governance for AI in our business. What’s our policy around governance for AI in our business? Great. Okay. Now we’re going to turn on Copilot. Right? Now, if this gets back to these standards we’re talking about, too, it is being looked at in different ways around the world. Are we going to pay people for output or time? We’ve spent the last several hundred years paying people for a time, a day’s wages for your effort and performance, and it is a matter of whether you keep your job for the next day or whether you get fired. But what happens when, let’s say, you’re coding, and you’re coding the old way in your hand jam, and then some kid next to you is able to output a similar amount of code by asking AI to write three-quarters of it, and they get as much or more done, but they do it in two hours. They get to take the rest of the day off. They get paid for the full day. So it’s going to change how we think about work intrinsically also. Now, I say that as a precursor to the R OI conversation. How do we measure productivity? You turn copilot on inside your business. There’s not going to be a direct line to the balance sheet of the business where you’re like, oh God, we turned onAIi. Look at how much more money.  So the idea around ROI, and I think what Millnd and Kristie were getting to do on this, is to try to turn on AI because there’s going to be an effort to turn anything on. Sure. Try to turn it on to places where you can measure. We’ve been talking a little bit about contact centers as an example. Can the agent get more calls in the same period of time? Can the agent get a higher satisfaction rate in an AV test between the two? Try to find projects where you can do it in a small area and where there’s a demonstrable ROI to be generated. Makes sense. Yeah, because this work that you really need to do from a policy perspective in the business, this data cleanup we were talking about, there’s a lot of work in all that. Sure. Right? And if you do that generally, and then you just kind of turn it on, there’s nothing measurable, so why do we do all that? That’s going to be the answer to getting back to the IT department. Generally, there is a challenge speaking to CEO speaking CFO, right? We turned it on. Everybody feels great. Ai, what do you mean? We spent all that money? It was totally worth it. What I get, we can’t.  But if you’re able to work on smaller projects where there’s a demonstrable ROI, there’s going to be more willingness to invest in doing it across the business. And you’ll get that suspension of disbelief out of the C-suite that the broader project that maybe’s a little bit hard to track, a direct to R OI, is going to be worthwhile because you demonstrated it on three real use cases.

The Role of Imagination in AI and Human Creativity

Gene Volpe:

Makes beautiful sense. So, find something measurable, implement AI into that space, and then report on the ROI. Yeah, I mean, it’s simple. That’s easy. Alright, so the last of those is the trifecta we talked about in the AI space, and I’m hoping you’re going to make people feel better about this as a human and machine collaboration. So, both you and Altaz stress the importance of human oversight in AI-driven processes, noting that while machines can handle large volumes of data, humans need to guide decision-making and ensure appropriate outcomes. More specifically, your quote was the difference between human intelligence and artificial intelligence is imagination. That will always be what sets us apart. So the question is, help convince the people that their jobs are going away or not going away. What specific skills can you point to that’ll help folks outlive the great AI job overtaking? 

Scott Kinka:

So there’s a few things there.  Let me get back to that point of imagination. That was in my keynote. We were talking about our show, Reimagine the Future, and it was thematic throughout. In the keynote, I was using that thematically, and obviously, a lot of that circulated around AI. There was when I said that, that’s the reason why I was reaching over here. I put up a quote from Albert Einstein on the big screen that said the true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. Right? And it’s hard to say whether machines can imagine, at least not by definition, right? Because of the core definition, if I go back a couple of slides, lemme just find it real quick. I think it’s valuable to sort of do this. The definition of imagine is to form a mental image of something not actually present to the senses. This means if you were going to use that, and this could be an entire episode, and if you’re watching this and you want to comment and disagree with me, this could be a fun debate, and I’m going to take a position that I don’t even know that I whole wholeheartedly agree with. But I think machines can’t imagine because that’s their only based on instruction. So AI by design is referential, not self-referential and not fully without reference. This means you have to give it information that it consumes, and it draws connections between these data sets. But what today is not doing? I had an idea that just poof, and imagination popped up in my head. Now, one could argue, and we’re having this whole conversation about the singularity, and when we get there and the whole nine yards, maybe machines get there, but at the end of the day, it’s still based around an instruction set. I have an idea that’s based on all of the inputs that I was allowed to process. So, ultimately, I’ll bring this forward to answer your human question.  Will the humans ever be replaced? I think there will come a time when there will be, in many industries, a little bit of a reordering of labour. But if globally we get to the point where we don’t let AI get out of hand by just providing it, do what you want instructions. You know what I mean? At the end of the day, humans will always be required to provide AI instruction. So what I would say is if you’re looking to get your skills together, be somebody who becomes good at prompting AI practice on large language models and squeeze as much as you can out of it. That’s a skill set that will be in demand even if you feel like the work that you do today may be repetitive. And the thing that could potentially be AI-driven at the end of the day,  And if you’re a super geek on it, I always go back to iRobot, watch iRobot, the new one, then read the ov. I mean, that was from the. I think Asimov wrote it in the thirties, and it was a movie in the two thousand, right? But it was about the idea of sentient machines. But at the end of the day, it was still a matter of where they were and their own interpretation of the three laws. Right? Instructions. Right. Be somebody who knows how to prompt AI to get the output that you want, and you’ll be fine. 

Gene Volpe:

Right? Prompt engineering. It’s a new thing coming back. Prompt engineering. So that was great. I love the iRobot references. I love that sentient stuff to me. It makes me nervous, but it’s exciting at the same time. So, let’s talk about predictions. And I think I’m really going to make myself look terrible here, but I parsed it out. Some of our guests had some sports predictions. There goes, okay, so as Eagles fans and the time we’re at, we’re in between the wildcard and divisional round, which we just won, and we’re heading into a home game. I don’t want to laugh at these people, but I definitely want to giggle a little bit. 

Scott Kinka:

Okay, let’s have. Can we giggle? Let’s have some fun. Let’s giggle.

Gene Volpe:

All right. So Graeme Geddes from Zoom. Wait as we’re doing this. Hold on. I like it. Go Birds. Graeme Geddes from Zoom said the 49 ERs will win the Super Bowl. Sorry, Graham, that didn’t age very well. Ryan DiRocco from Performative. The Dolphins will have a solid shot at winning next year, assuming a healthy team and active key players. Neither happened. Yeah. They have a mess on their hands. 

Scott Kinka:

Yes, they do. 

Gene Volpe:

I, and he said here, added that while he supports Tua, he hopes his health remains a priority, which I do too. That was sad to see him. That happened. Anthony Lobretto from 1111 says, wait, I’ll wait till you’re done doing that so you don’t spit your order. The Jets will win the Super Bowl. Wow, that didn’t age well either. 

Scott Kinka:

Can we just cut that part out and use that as a snippet on LinkedIn? Yeah, we’ll just cut.

Human and Machine Collaboration: Skills for the AI Era

Gene Volpe:

That’ll be a TikTok. We’ll tag him in. Yep. All. All right. So now that we had a little bit of fun, and of course, we’re not making fun of anybody because God knows how the season’s going to end for us. Two weeks from now, you might be laughing at us. We’ll see. Now, we’re going to get into predictions about artificial intelligence. Rei Kasai, aside from Talkdesk in the AI hype cycle, there will be both significant winners and catastrophic failures. Have there been any notable winners or losers so far? Or is it still too early to tell? 

Scott Kinka:

I mean, the winners are the people who own the tech right now, right? 

Gene Volpe:

Give me a couple of Nvidia. 

Scott Kinka:

Yeah, right. Well, I was going to start with the platforms, and then I was going to say that the people who are powering it, Nvidia, and anybody who’s manufacturing any kind of silicone that’s in use right now, is a big winner. Right. The platforms themselves are big winners just because of the investment coming in. But I don’t think there’s any; is this the company that’s going to run away with the AI race stuff going on yet? Not yet. 

Gene Volpe:

Yeah. Okay. So we’re just a side note real quick. Yeah. Are you a chat GPT or a Gemini user, or are you using something else completely just for your generic 

Scott Kinka:

Yeah, I’m chatting GPT if I’m working on a project, but I do a lot with Copilot, actually.  Write this for me. Do this for me. Hey, can you get a thing that looks like a kind of thing if I’m doing project work? But listen, at the end of the day, you have to be careful with chat GPT because you’re not loading up business information in it. It becomes part of the public large language model. This gets back to The governance conversation earlier. How many of you out there have put something up in there, and you’re like, oh, well, great. This is for me. Well, it’s not for you, it’s for everybody.  

Gene Volpe:

It’s for everybody. 

Scott Kinka:

Everybody. Yeah. 

Gene Volpe:

That’s good. I didn’t think about that, actually. But when you are putting that stuff out there, salaries, other things like that, you never know. I mean, God only knows how they’re using it inside hospitals with HIPAA and everything. I mean, there’s got to be, 

Scott Kinka:

I mean, what’s going to become interesting? I’ll hold because that’s probably my answer to your prediction comment. 

Gene Volpe:

Fair enough. Okay, good. Alright. So Pete Eisengrein from Evolve, your old friend from Evolve IP, a massive data leak related to AI will occur in the next 12 to 18 months. As of July 20, 24, 70 7% of companies reported data leaks related to AI. Stupid question. Is that going to increase, or they’ll get better at it? 

Scott Kinka:

Oh no, there’s going to be; I’m leaning in on Pete. There you are. We’re going to have something massive that is really ugly. It’s not just like a breach where people have my social security number. Something bigger. No, I think it’s that kind, that level of thing. 

Gene Volpe:

So, just personal information that gets out there, and it’s going to be at a widespread, 

Scott Kinka:

Lemme think about it. How many big businesses today have governance platforms in place? Most of ’em don’t even have governance yet, right? Well, big companies do. Public companies do those who have outside investment, and obviously, those who are in regulatory do, right? However, a lot of companies that hold a lot of key information don’t even have internal policies yet. Let alone, again, remember we’re talking about that attack vector on the security side. Being humans, you could have a policy. It doesn’t prevent somebody, unless you’re doing it systemically, from taking a spreadsheet, uploading it and going, Hey, analyze this for me. Well, we just put out all of our customer information. 

Gene Volpe:

Leaving the phone unlocked somewhere on a subway, who knows? Yeah, I know. It was interesting to me when that came out in that episode. That was something where I was like, when you were talking about you got to lock the people down, I was like, I never really thought about it like that. It’s usually the laptop with the VPN connection that’s connected at home, but it’s really my wife. You got to keep your eyes on what she’s doing. Right. And that’s hard to do. So that’s hard to do. Yeah, of course, we’re going.

Scott Kinka:

My wife, Hey, what’s my password for this? 

Cybersecurity Threats and Predictions for 2025

Gene Volpe:

Yeah, I’m not going to hold on. Jean, 1, 2, 3, password star, super secure. All right, Mark Houpt is coming back from DataBank regarding the geopolitical situation. Oh, this one’s going to be fun. The geopolitical situation in the world will worsen, leading to more cyber threats. And then, in our 2023 recap episode, you said that financial caution would continue. Specifically, cost containment would remain a priority for businesses in 2024, with companies still cautious after the financial uncertainties brought on by the pandemic. All that without getting political or getting political post-election, do you think this prediction is still holding up or will hold up? 

Scott Kinka:

No, I think it will hold up. 

Gene Volpe:

You do? 

Scott Kinka:

I do. I think we have a couple of things going on, and I think that my personal feeling is that the world is reorganizing itself into two blocks again. You’re starting to see, right, there are North Koreans fighting for Russia in Ukraine, right? Yeah. They’re aligned with the Chinese, who, I hope, at the end of the day between the debt that they hold and the products that they need to buy from Western countries, will keep that access from building. But there’s definitely an emerging feeling around this kind of western and not, and when you’re thinking about that in the veil of all of these technologies that we have going on right now, some will regulate what happens when western countries regulate and the people who hate Western countries don’t. Then what the bad guys have, the stronger guns. And I mean technological guns, that’s the case. So we’re going to be in for an interesting time. And I also wonder how the current incoming administration, which is open markets free capitalism focused, right? Innovation focused. You obviously have Musk now involved the whole nine yards. They’re going to go all in. But you also wonder, geez, you take the TikTok situation as a perfectly good example. Will they also potentially overreach in terms of protecting US interests and stifle potential innovation? So it is going to be really interesting. The incoming administration could go either way. So I think, yeah, the current geopolitical environment is going to be really, really interesting in terms of how it’s going to affect technology and budgets.

Gene Volpe:

Well, I’m glad I didn’t end on that question. That was somewhat dark. 

Scott Kinka:

But listen, here’s the one thing. If you’re a US-based business or a US-based investor, here’s the one thing the all us against the world is on its way in. 

Gene Volpe:

So safe to invest in US companies. Listen, maybe we move all of our data centers to Greenland. 

Scott Kinka:

Listen, ample, natural resources, 

Gene Volpe:

Sounds like we’re going to get it on the cheap.

Scott Kinka:

But if you think about getting back to the people, the winners here, who are the other winners? Self-generating power providers and data centers. Sure. I mean, there’s not even enough commercial power in a lot of areas to power the data center growth that is happening. That’s crazy. So people who were in Alaska are going to be in great shape, right? Yeah. Ample resources for natural gas per power generation. Think about it. Drop this in right on the field. We could have all the environmental conversations you want, but at the end of the day, our traditional power grid is not powering the next generation of tech that we have going on right now. So, I don’t think that the whole Greenland conversation is true; we would just love a buffer between Canada and the top of Russia. It’s also a giant plot of land that’s cool and has ample access to resources. 

Gene Volpe:

Interesting. So, is that why I Google GPT questions when I chat about the latest model that’s out there? My lights dim. Okay. No, okay, I’m sorry. Alright, so this one is going to be, this one has, I don’t know why I fit this in here, to be honest with you, but it’s an interesting question because you and I have been going back and forth about this recently, but Russo, one of our own, Eric Russo from Bridgepointe, a new technological boom is coming potentially driven by AI or digital transformation. He compared it to the internet boom during his time at Cisco and suggested that cryptocurrency might play a role in future business transactions. How close are we to crypto being a larger player in business transactions and everyday use? 

Scott Kinka:

Well, considering you helped me buy my first crypto within the last week, I’m probably not the best. I’ve remained on the sidelines for a whole host of reasons, which I probably shouldn’t have the reality of. I think from a technological perspective, what we’re really talking about is the power of blockchain. Do you know what I mean? As it relates to this. Again, this is another one of those scenarios where the traditional stances of the incoming party and the techno right wing that’s coming in with the party may be at odds. I don’t see alternative forms of non-US currency being a thing that the incoming administration and certainly the red bloods are going to lean in on. But I could sure as hell tell you that the musk arm of the party, the techno right, is all in himself.

Gene Volpe:

Dogecoin. 

Scott Kinka:

It’s going to get really interesting. 

Leadership Lessons: Humility and Servant Leadership

Gene Volpe:

It’s going to get, I mean I think everything’s going to be interesting at this point. Right. Alright, so I’m actually going to just jump into these predictions made in our 2023 year-end episode. So we’re going to call this segment back it or scrap it all. You’re going to put the artwork out there back. Actually, we should. We should. And I’m probably going to have to tone down. I know I just got really loud on the mic and it’s probably going to, if you’re listening to this on headphones, I’m really, really sorry. All right. So I’m going to read off a prediction that you made in 2023 and I just want you to say yes, I still stand by it and here’s why. In 10 seconds or let’s just scrap it. Let’s rapid-fire these. Okay, let’s do a rapid fire. Alright, so AI can be chaos. 

Scott Kinka:

Let’s do this before this. 

Gene Volpe:

We’re going to need to do another one, and yeah, you’re ahead of me. Okay. Oh, I’ll wait then. Okay. Alright. So I’ll read this off while you’re doing it. AI chaos. You predicted chaos around LLMs and AI stating it would dominate the tech landscape and board-level conversations, noting that AI adoption is reminiscent of the early cloud adoption phase where businesses are still figuring out specific use cases, back it or scrap it. 

Scott Kinka:

Totally back it. But I think the area where it was off was we’re now at the precipice of the chaos. Okay. Do you know what I’m saying? But the latter statement is spot on. What we’re in the age, and you’ve heard me, I probably said this and maybe I’m jumping ahead. We’re in the age of go get some. You know what I mean? And what I mean by that is it’s very much like a cloud where we’re in this mode of board-level edict stuff. We need to have some of this stuff. I have no idea what I need it for, but we have to have some because I need to be able to say that on my next earnings call or my next board meeting or whatever It happens to be. 

Gene Volpe:

Alright, so back it. So, the second one was interesting. It kind of just came out of left field. I think CX dominance continues. You suggested 2023 was another banner year for CX driven by increased automation and customer expectations post-pandemic. You predicted that CX would remain a focus in 24, but with more emphasis on data cleanliness to ensure effective AI-driven customer engagement back at or scrap 

Scott Kinka:

It. Totally back it. I mean it’s exactly where we are. We’re going to drop, I’m not sure if before this episode or right after this episode, our episode with the SPN team on the work that we’ve done with them, but also their whole work around fan experience. This gets back to the earlier statement about focusing on designing the house versus running the plumbing, which is kind of exactly what came out of there; businesses are getting smart and consumers know what they want. The companies that are going to win are going to be the ones that aren’t going to be so worried about plumbing and they’re going to hire others to do that or lean on partners and focus on what the customer experience actually is. So backing that one. Absolutely. A hundred percent. 

Gene Volpe:

Okay, cool. Network and security convergence. You emphasize that networking and security have become inseparable. And I actually had a quote for you about it. It’s not network or security; it’s network and security, right? I remember that one with ongoing discussions focusing on hybrid networks supporting hybrid work environments. This trend is expected to continue evolving. You said stop debating here. It’s right here. I jumped ahead of myself. Stop debating network or security. It’s not network or security anymore, it’s network and security. You can’t separate them back it or scrap it. 

Scott Kinka:

Totally back.

Gene Volpe:

Yeah, that was an easy one.

Scott Kinka:

I think what we’ve done though is that we, the intelligence, it used to be that you sold a wire and you move stuff over the wire. I have a private line, I’m going to have a wire to my other office. I’m going to have a wire wired in my business. Eventually, technology’s more intelligent, and it’s like up the stack. Technologies like NPLS came out and we started building the networking logic in a layer up effectively. Now we’ve gone, they’re fully separated. Right now, we’re talking wires. We’re pretty much just talking wires to the internet. Everybody’s got it. I don’t care how it is, whether it is a line of sight, fibre, or whatever. And then all of the connectivity is logical, the private connectivity. And that’s pushed and changed because people are also at home. So hybrid works are an interesting thing. You have to plan for every employee being in and every employee being home at the same time, which means that private networking has really completely just become the security edge. I mean we were wrapping up our numbers for the year and Mike Pereira, who not everybody here knows, but he’s our EDP of technology. I mean we were arguing over where certain suppliers of ours sit. Is it network in our network category or our security category? Interesting. Just because we’re like, listen, we don’t even sell that provider where it’s not, yes, it’s a networking service. It’s a private networking service. It’s a connectivity service. But with people at home, you turn every single instance, you’re turning all the security features on and planning it with it. So yeah, a hundred percent of its network and security backed it.

Reflecting on Tech Summit 2024 and Predictions for 2025

Gene Volpe:

You backed it. Another one. So three we’re three for three. Oh boy. Alright. AI security risks, the dark side: The idea of dark AI was introduced, predicting that the generative AI model would pose new security risks and lead to a rise in AI-driven cybersecurity threats and defences. Yeah, we’re in it and we’re going to be in it forever.

Scott Kinka:

Okay, back it. 

Gene Volpe:

So you’re more coming. 

Scott Kinka:

Oh yeah, it’s going to get worse. 

Gene Volpe:

It’s going to get worse. Okay. I figured as much. I read some of these, and I think I know what he’s going to say here. That was one of them. Regulatory and legal challenges for AI. You forecasted significant regulatory and legal challenges surrounding AI, including copyright issues, deceptive marketing practices, and ownership of AI-generated content. That’s a back it. 

Scott Kinka:

Yeah, it’s definitely a back-it. I think I much like one, I’m not going to give myself a great score on that. I said that as a prediction last year and it’s still a thing to come, but we really didn’t see the beginning of that. 

Gene Volpe:

So you could predict that again and still be safe. 

Scott Kinka:

You definitely predicted again, so be safe. I probably missed it being a massive part of the conversation in 24. Gotcha. Right? 

Gene Volpe:

Yeah, but was that your fault or was that just a slow acceptance of it? Were you ahead of the game?

Scott Kinka:

Your fault to be ascribed here? I’m always faster. I always say it should take less time than it should. Damn it. I knew that I should. That should done that.

Gene Volpe:

Alright. Okay, so that’s it with the predictions for 2023 into 2024. 

Scott Kinka:

And that was back it 

Gene Volpe:

Or scrap it all. That’s going to be something else. That’s going to be something else. Alright, so now for the fun part, I’m going to rapid-fire a couple of questions for you. These are questions that he asked everybody at the end of all the episodes. There’s no secrets here, right? All right, there might be one in here. Final segment. This is it all. We’re wrapping it up. Cheers to the final segment. Cheers to the final segment. Thank you for this another year by us. Hopefully, we have another great one coming up. I’m sure we will. Alright, so what’s on your end table now?

Scott Kinka:

I knew you were going to ask me that. Okay, so no surprise. I brought it down. Oh, see, now you snuck down by behind. And by the way, interestingly enough, I was on a call with Melanie Thomas. Melanie and I haven’t even had this conversation because it was sitting on hers as well. You can see it behind her desk. I don’t even know what it’s, so this is the creative act. It’s by Rick Rubin, music producer Rick Rubin. To me, two awesome parts to it. One, it’s a little bit like Sun Tzu’s Art of War in that every little chapter is independent. You don’t need to read it in succession. They’re just concepts. Everyone is a creator in chapter one. You say that all the time. You know what I mean? Nothing is static. Conversation about that. It’s in the vein of being one of the most accomplished music producers there is of all time. But it’s written kind of topically around just the business of music, but also the business of just being creative about being human. It’s also, and I thought about this coming into this episode because I knew you were going to ask me this super interesting question in the vein of the conversation that we were just having around AI and its human aspects. This is an entire book about human creativity. Interesting. And I won’t get too far, I’ll let people draw their own conclusions. But a really interesting read in today’s age about the value of human creativity and how to really get the most out of your own. 

Gene Volpe:

So two quick questions. One is, any idea I’m putting in the spot You might not have when it was written. 

Scott Kinka:

Oh, it was recent. 

Gene Volpe:

Fairly recent. 

Scott Kinka:

Yeah. It’s within the last couple of years. 

Gene Volpe:

And does he have a chapter 2023? Does he have a chapter in there about beard care? 

Scott Kinka:

There is not one in here about beard care.

Gene Volpe:

I was just checking. 

Scott Kinka:

But look, spontaneity, how to choose, expect a surprise. Great expectations. Having a point of view drives momentum, and they’re snippets. Driving Momentum is eight pages long. Right. I mean, I love it. I think it’s a good kind of easy read, particularly if you’re somebody who likes to have a book but doesn’t plow through it. It’s a great end-table reading. You can just kind of pick it up. Go to a topic. Love it. Yeah. 

Gene Volpe:

Alright, so that’s a good recommendation for you folks out there. Your one app last year was a music app. Typically you were more Apple music heavy than say Spotify. Has your one app changed? 

Scott Kinka:

Well, I think there are two things on that. I continue to go back and forth between Apple and Spotify, which is interesting. I copied a bunch of my playlists over to Apple because it’s just so integrated with the rest of the ecosystem. It’s easy to ask Apple for songs. They have Apple gear all throughout the house. I have it in my car. You know what I mean? And it’s just a little bit less easy to do with Spotify, and frankly, I feel the audio quality is better on Apple. That’ll be honest. Maybe that’s controversial, but you can get it in the loss list, and you were getting the spatial audio something if you’re listening to it on Apple gear. But Spotify just continues to innovate the A IDJ and all the other stuff that is really going on. And one of the reasons why I started shifting back a little bit was to sort out the social aspects. More people are on it. So, the social aspects of Spotify are easier to understand. I found myself mailing you a song and you’re like, Hey, shoot that back to me on Spotify and I’ll shoot back to you. Yeah, right, right. So the social aspects I think of,it are really, really important. Be interesting, interesting. I think I would still stay there, although I did say, I mentioned TikTok earlier, and I’m not a big TikTok, but something with video shorts in it is interesting because I think I would not be able to disconnect enough to hear a song and have it an emotional effect on me. So I think I would still stick with the music app, but some kind of app where I could scroll shorts all day. It is interesting to think that there’s already more content than you could consume for the rest of your life. That’s unbelievable. There’s also more music than you could consume for the rest of your life. So I think I’d have to decide, it really depends on what kind of dystopian future we are in. 

Gene Volpe:

Yeah, I have this.

Scott Kinka:

That was the last Living Human, I think it would still be the music app. 

Closing Reflections: Gratitude and Looking Ahead to 2025

Gene Volpe:

I’m with you on that. I’m a music guy myself, and I have all the gear. I got the Bose headphones. Also, what I like about Spotify are the audiobooks and podcasts. Get it all, get everything all in one spot. I will tell you this though, I think this is funny with the way the algorithms work on TikTok and on Instagram reels, I’d be afraid to show you my phone because you’d get a really good sense of the type of humour that I have because it brings that stuff together. I always tell if you grab somebody’s phone, go straight to TikTok, it’ll tell you what they’re looking at real quick. And that’s not always a good thing. So don’t try that with your husband, or this one was from Patrick Kelly. So he said one of his business mistakes was that one of the business mistakes he made was not seeking out leaders who truly led by example. And that got me thinking. You and I do a lot of talking, and I wonder if there is a leader from your past that you would’ve considered a mentor? 

Scott Kinka :

I mean, so there’s so many. Right. I mean, gosh, people watching this obviously know my relationship with Guy Farone, who I’ve been partnered with a couple of times. He’s the chairman at Bridgepointe and got a lot of lessons there, obviously throughout my past and throughout my career. But I’m going to actually share a story from my first job. And I shared this on the lead-the-team podcast. I did an episode with them and I got asked a similar question and he found it super interesting. So it goes back to those of you who know me know that I’ve had a career in music as a teen and through college and through the early part of my career, it was a second income and did more music than most people got the right to do. So I’m super fortunate for that. But you’re a k; you’rere playing seven nights a week. There are lines out the door; you get a little bit full of yourself, right? Sure. Easily. And so my first manager, a guy named Billy Sto, used to say to us when we were kids, I mean 17 and 18 years old, walking into a packed club, making more cash than any 17 or 18-year-old deserved to make.  He would just say, just remember everybody in the club is working too. His point was that not everybody showed up at seven and left at four and made money while they were there, and everybody was involved in the experience of every person in that room. This gets back a little bit to the customer experience question earlier, and it takes everybody to give that experience, that customer experience to the end user. It’s not just the band or the entertainment or what have you. And his point was like, just know everybody you work with. Be somebody, don’t be better. You’re no better than the busboy who’s making sure that there’s bigger at the bar, right next to the stage at the end of the day. And it’s a lesson in humility, it’s a lesson in leading, being a servant leader, if you will. At the end of the day, I have to remind myself of it all the time. And it’s hard. Take a second, and get to know somebody. Shake their hand, ask their name, and understand a little bit about them. So, personally, I think business is very fast-paced. I get five minutes into a meeting and we’re into the meeting and I’m like, I didn’t ask you how you were. I’m so sorry. I self-reflect back on that great lesson and the mistakes I constantly still make that I have to remind myself I have a high motor. Yeah, I know it. Yeah. As you know, I do. So I think that would be an interesting piece of advice. 

Gene Volpe:

I like it, yeah, it’s good. No, be humble, right? Be present, be humble. I love that. I think that’s great. That was really all I had. So I feel like I need to let you close this one. Wow. And how do you want me to close it? Well, first, we have to tell people that if they like what they see, they should send us a message, subscribe to Apple, subscribe to Spotify, and give us a review. We love the five-star reviews and we love a little comment. Make it nice, keep it professional. But other than that, I would say if you like it and you’ve been watching, just do us a favour. Take 10 minutes. It really helps us get the exposure that we need with this. It gets better guests for this guy over here. We’re always looking for good guests; it’s not that we have bad guests, but guests are amazing. So that helps too. But other than that, I leave it to you.

Scott Kinka:

Well listen, thank you all for another year. We’re 70 some odd episodes in. If we weren’t getting support from you or hearing from you, we wouldn’t keep doing it. So we’re excited to embark on our 2025 season 

Gene Volpe:

While I have a little bit left. It’s bad luck to do it empty.

Scott Kinka:

Cheers to you, Gene. Thank you for your effort too, to the Bridgepointe team, thanks to everybody out there and we will see you. It’s already 2025, but since this is the end-of-the-year recap, we’ll see you in 2025. Thanks for joining us here on the Bridgecast.