Douglas Duvall  00:06

Welcome to the creative context, where we have conversations with creative professionals and people who work with us. I’m Doug Duvall, Motif Media, and my co-host

Eric Wing  00:19

Hello, Eric here from Darby Digital.

Douglas Duvall  00:23

Today, we’re going to talk about the ever-changing landscape of media, how it affects us, and how it affects our clients. And you know, in something, take a magazine, for instance. You know, in the 60s, and 70s, that was like prominent media, and now they’re less and less popular, but in some regards, they’re still can make or break someone’s career because of the people who read them and the ever-changing landscape of media. We’re just going to kind of have a open flow conversation about this, and I’ll kind of keep riffing off the magazine because we have some experience around it with the architectural stuff we do for NS builders and the architects he works with and that sort of thing, all the people he’s trying to reach out to, like other architects, you know, designers, developers, they’re all reading those magazines. So in a way, he still wants to be a part of them, even though he’s forging he’s forged a lot of different ways in video and done things a lot different than builders before him. There is still this sort of rooted sense in old media, like a magazine or good old fashioned networking groups or something, while still pushing on the frontier of video and whatever AI might look like in two or three years. And it’s a challenge for everybody, I think. But there just, I think it just really revolves around being open minded, yeah,

Eric Wing  02:08

I think being open minded and also being, I think being creative with, with whatever vessel you have. So as a business owner, like to create. We’re two creative professionals. You know, we have different tools in our toolbox. So, you know, like the magazine, there could be tools that we’re using that are still completely valid. Are there other ways of doing it, maybe. But the you know, why? Why completely shut down the magazine if not everyone wants to read it online. And so, you know, I guess how that translates in the in like, the work that we’re doing, and what we what we see our clients doing, is predominantly being looked at through the lens of AI. I think that’s the, you know, the big thing in the room that everyone is trying to figure out what the relationship to it is and what’s interesting initially, when, when, in fact, we this, is this, maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but whatever we first heard about chat GPT from a client, actually, and it was a content client That was saying, hey, you know, not so many words do we still need you guys, like, what? What’s going on? What is this? And, you know, fast forward now a couple years, and we’re, you know, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve adopted, obviously, AI in our business and but beyond that, we’re using it to to help help other businesses scale up in a more efficient and cost effective way, which is really cool, never imagined. I think, I think the takeaway here is it’s just embracing and accepting what’s in front of you, and then you can make an assessment on like, what does it mean for your business or for your clients? So same with the magazine. The reason those magazines are still in circulation, and I still read magazines, and I know people that are younger than me that read magazines, it’s it’s still hitting the mark, right? Like you can still get ads, you can still sell ads into them. People are still reading them, and there may be a little bit more targeted, a little bit more niche now, right? And I think there’s some, there’s a there’s something to be gleaned there for business in general, is, you know how it if a business is not getting the leads or the sales that they want, is it because they’re trying to appeal to too many people, too many varied groups of people? So anyway, I kind of threw a bunch of things out there, but I think the magazine analogy is a good one, because if you go, if you look back to, like the early 2000s or sort of like the, you know, the boom of the internet. Uh, you know, print is dead was like a thing, right? Now everyone’s saying SEO is dead, right? That’s the current thing, yeah? But neither one of them are dead. They’re just evolving to your point,

Douglas Duvall  05:13

yeah? For sure. And I actually referenced this in the last episode. The corporate company I worked for was a magazine. It was a tech magazine that wrote about tech, but they were slow to get their content on the internet, where those magazines are dead, because the people reading about tech are probably gonna read it on tech, right? Whereas the architectural magazine, I’m not sure what type of magazine you read, you know, it’s a tactile thing. These people work with their hands that, you know, the architect probably sketches out things. The builder, you know, there’s a reason they went into building. They like to work with their hands. And when that magazine comes in the mail, there’s a feel to it. I’m just speculating. I don’t know that could be the case. Maybe not, but like knowing your audience, I think that’s a big thing here is tying it back to that knowing your audience, if you’re writing about tech, you should probably, it should probably be in a blog format, not in a written magazine. You know, in the context of the company that once was It’s long, it’s gone now. But terms of video, when the the emergence of the smartphone, and, you know, smartphone video, and how good they’ve become, people kind of always ask me, like, what’s the point of hiring somebody? If you know this does just as good a job as what you’re doing? And this is, this is in addition to what I do. You know, you can’t have a professional videographer following you around 24/7, in most cases, maybe, maybe you can, from a cost perspective, I tell people to start here, and once they’re unhappy with what this is doing. Then you hire me, then you hire a professional I think it’s we use it. We tell our clients to use them. It’s just something that’s been added to the toolbox. It doesn’t mean professional videography goes away. I think professional videography is more abundant and saturated than ever, because people see the need for it, right? Because this only gets you so far. In most cases, some people this is all they’re ever going to need. Yeah,

Eric Wing  07:30

I can relate that to web development. You know when, if you if we rewind 16 years ago, the landscape was pretty bleak in terms of options for business owners. You either did it yourself, you, you know, there was something called Joomla, which kind of predates WordPress, yep, so you’d go to Joomla or Drupal, but there are still complicated tools. There are CMSs and they weren’t. They weren’t sort of user friendly, as much as WordPress and even WordPress now, people still find WordPress to be cumbersome, which we could have a whole conversation around that. And in fact, talk about pivoting. The reason we do our development the way we do is, is because there is, there is a way for WordPress to be user friendly, but it besides the besides that, my point being, we still. We’re still hired every year for multiple, multiple web development projects, right? Because there’s we still, we still serve a need. You know, for some people, Squarespace is fine, more of a do it yourself over the weekend, product Wix, another example, Webflow, which I know you’re familiar with, is not user friendly, but it is for a designer who is not a developer, right? Like, there’s just a tool for the there’s a sort of a tool for each technician, but then there’s also the the service being provided to the individual need of the client. So I think that’s how it translates into our world. What’s interesting with how we’re seeing things evolve is on sort of more on the AI consulting, more like business system architecture, that that side of our business, it’s, it’s a little different, because the it’s a new frontier, and it’s almost like we’re, I’m Growing up with the with the technology. And so if it’s a little bit lightning in the bottle here, it’s almost like early internet days, or like, you know, the.com era. And so I really don’t know what to expect there. There’s there’s a need, there are solutions, but people don’t quite realize that. They need a solution, right? Because they’ve been doing it. They’ve been reading the magazine for years. So like, why do they need to now do this other thing to get their information? So it’s the you know? So I just find that fascinating, how just fast forward two or three years, and the stuff that we’re saying right now would just be quite common. I think anything where anything dealing with general technology and Internet of Things, and AI like all that kind of stuff, it’s kind of taking shape for the next generation. But, but what does that mean for the consumer? What does that mean for people that would hire us? I think ultimately, it comes down to topics that we’ve discussed in the past, just having clarity of need, what is needed, right? And then you, then you use the tools available to the you know as the client. You use the tools available to you, whether it’s an AI, an AI generated search result, it’s a Google search result, or it’s a consultation with one of us, right? It’s and then it’s up to us to to suggest the appropriate tools from our box. But the toolbox just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I feel like, you know

Douglas Duvall  11:13

for sure, and the whole everything around AI, it’s like, you know, there’s everyone’s throwing money at it because they see, they see the potential. They know it’s important, but like you said, it’s like, it really hasn’t been quite sifted out what is so important and what is so exciting about it. Yet it’s just like the potential of what it can do. Yeah, the potential and a great example. So I’m renovating my home, and the plumber referenced I didn’t have an over overfill drain for the tub, right? So he’s like, Oh, you got to get it. And, you know, make sure you have the right model number and this sort of thing. I tested it out on chat GPT. I said, you know, Kohler tub, this model, need to overfill drain in this finish, send me a link, and it sent me a link to, you know exactly what I needed. I double checked because I wasn’t I wasn’t going to spend $200 on the wrong thing. But, like, it actually did find exactly what I needed. And I don’t know the when I google that I get a lot of sponsored at, like, 45678, sponsored ads before I get to what I want, whereas chat GPT just gave it to me. Yep, I still used Google to reference, like, to make sure I’m kidding the right thing. But I think you know that that is gonna kind of change how we look at things. And I still think you’re, we’re gonna need, we’re gonna need people like you to do, to communicate with it, right? Because it’s still, it’s probably still referencing stuff on Google. I mean, oh yeah, it’s just, it’s just bringing the the meat of what I want to the top, yeah, essentially,

Eric Wing  13:03

yeah, absolutely, there’s, I just wrote an article on the Darby site. I forget the actual title, but the the premise of the article talks about Geo, which is generative engine optimization. And in fact, I think you actually sent me an article about that a few months ago. But you know, when you sent me that article in between then and now, a lot has changed. The Case in point, what you just referenced GPT wasn’t quite doing that. I mean, it was giving results, but it wasn’t giving you the references of where it was getting the information before, and now it is right. So now there’s a little bit of a land grab moment happening for some for top companies who have top budgets to start looking at their entire digital landscape through that lens of generative engine optimization. Now, especially when you see gem how Gemini is, is dominating the top of most Google searches. Now, Gemini

Douglas Duvall  14:07

is certainly in your face. And then apples. What is it? Just Apple, AI, or, I mean intelligence, I think intelligence that’s that’s everywhere. It’s the apple. Apple’s AI, to me, is still like I was just telling you before we started, I bought a new pair of I broke down and finally bought air pods. And I was trying to use the note feature, because I was in my I was trying to write down square footage, and I didn’t want to keep closing my phone taking out the measuring tape. I just wanted to say, Hey, Siri, it’s still not 100% there in my mind. Like, yeah, there’s a lot left to be desired. So I basically, I made 25 notes instead of being able to open a note and keep adding lines to it. What? Was fine. It did. It did what I wanted it to do, just not in the most efficient manner, because now

Eric Wing  15:05

you have to sift through 25 minutes. But

Douglas Duvall  15:09

and Gemini, I really haven’t played around with it, just other than like, oh, summarize this email, it’s like, well, the emails two lines long. I don’t really need that. Okay, you just brought to

Eric Wing  15:21

mind. I don’t know if you’ve ever used the Google homes, where I don’t want to bring us down a rabbit hole, but have you used like Alexa Google Home, those like little smart devices. When Google

Douglas Duvall  15:30

Home first came out, I got one. I don’t I’ve never had an Alexa. At the time, I was deeply invested in the Android platform and the glitter quickly wore off for me and I got rid of it. Yeah,

Eric Wing  15:46

they’re not smart, that’s the thing. Yeah, it’s, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the I’m sorry I do not understand the question, or whatever it is, and it’s like, kidding me. So, but I bring that up because I received one of those from an employee, like Yankee swap situation back in like, 2018 or something, yeah, you know. And that was cutting edge. The thing was, like, just like an assistant in the room and all this stuff. But really, all it was doing was just scanning the internet for you and maybe reading a Wikipedia article to you, right? But now we have things now just look how quickly the landscape has changed, just on that, that internet of things that like personal devices, those things you know, that’s that is, in fact, the next big thing, and that’s what all of these tech companies are racing towards right now, is the personal assistant. And Google is winning that a little bit, because I have Gemini baked right into the phones. And you see those commercials where people just having conversations with Gemini, that’s that’s what everybody should be expecting. And you know, when we when we think about tools. There are some tools coming out that, like, we have to find a way to embrace them or integrate them into our business, or not, right? And I think that’s, I think that could be another, another example of just, sort of like how things are going. And, yeah,

Douglas Duvall  17:20

we’re just, it’s just no certainty of what, what is it really going to look like, and how is it really going to affect day to day, and the landscape of the future of technology, yeah, way. I

Eric Wing  17:32

mean, yeah. And how that kind of pivots into business, yeah. And then

Douglas Duvall  17:35

how does it trickle down? Yeah, yeah. From a video perspective, I know that Sora, everybody talks about, you know, the amazing footage it put out. And you know, what does that mean? I think it’s famous at this point. So Tyler Perry was building a big studio in Atlanta or somewhere in Georgia, and he, when he saw what Sora, did he like, canceled the plans to build the studio. Wow. That’s, I mean, I heard that. I don’t know if that’s true. Someone who’s cranking out movies like Tyler Perry and backing out of a studio that does make you go, Oh, wow. You know, what does that look like? I don’t think it really affects people who are hiring videographers, like, if you’re hiring a videographer for your to film a construction project, there’s very little generative AI can do for the construction project you’re building. If you wanted to make like a generic office with people sitting in it, working at their desks. Great. It’s great for B roll, right? Or, like stock footage. Websites are probably very concerned about the future of their getting $70 for 10 seconds of video. They’re probably very concerned because that’s, that’s who that’s essentially gonna cut out. But I, I just don’t think it really affects the scape of like, video and photography, a view kind of showing your work. It affects like, it’s probably going to affect the rendering world of showing what projects are going to look like. It’s probably going to affect anything that’s kind of generic, right city, B roll, even like that sort of stuff, is probably fair game. But yeah, it’s not gonna, it’s not gonna be able to show the progress on your construction project or your finished work.

Eric Wing  19:37

Do you think that the emergence of tools like that are more of a threat to other technologies, more so than the people that may use them. So for example, like, what is it real engine? Is it called? Yeah, would that be I know some production houses are pulling that into. Movie, like set design, and they’re using that for that as well. And I wonder if that’s more of a direct, you know, target of some of these AI generated, yeah,

Douglas Duvall  20:11

no, I, I think it, in a way, it is kind of attacking the high end and the like meaning, like Hollywood films, right? 100, $200 million budget films. When I say hi, yeah, and then, like, you know stock, everyone else will find something in the middle. But like, are you aware the the show the Mandalorian? Do you know what that is? Eric? Oh, no, not Eric Banna, but are you gonna say Eric? Can’t think of his name. No, I

Eric Wing  20:44

was gonna say Airbender, for some reason. That’s something different. Yeah. So

Douglas Duvall  20:49

it’s a, it’s a popular Star Wars Show, or at least it was in the early seasons. They use this technology called the volume. I think that’s what it’s called, where it’s like a 360 set, essentially. And the set makes the lighting like, if you’re in a desert, it makes the lighting look like a desert, because it’s literally mapping a desert in the volume. Wow. And then they can drop in like a ship crashed in the distance, and it looks like a ship crashed in the distance. How cool. I think AI is really going to punch that stuff up, yeah, especially since the technology was kind of almost there anyway, AI is probably going to take that to another level, and it’s probably going to attack, you know, people in the middle, in that sense, because you’re gonna have your art director who’s gonna set the tone for everything, and maybe somebody to kind of operate the system, and then AI sort of plugs and chugs, yeah, where it might have taken 30 people or 100 people to do the rest. Maybe AI replaces that.

Eric Wing  22:04

Yeah, that’s a real Yeah, that. I think that’s a real that’s a real thing. I also think that when something I’ve been keeping my eye on is, you know, sure AI will will be replacing jobs or doing jobs that humans just weren’t doing before. But for for everyone, for every task that AI does, it requires a trained technician of some kind, right? You still have to. It’s so generative, right? Like it’s not, it’s not able to. It’s not a self starter. AI is not like a self starter, right? Like it’s just sitting there until activated. And how I see that, you know, you those are great examples in your world and in my world, there are, there are AI tools that will generate websites now, but it doesn’t mean it’s any easier. I mean, you still have to have a vision. You still have to know the prompts. You have to know all of your things, like, who’s your audience, and, you know what? How are you presenting your products? Like, you still have to know all that stuff, right? And that’s a big part of what people pay for when they go to a firm

Douglas Duvall  23:18

putting a bow on this whole thing like, yeah, chat G P T is a tool. Yeah, there still needs to be some real life experience and, you know, expertise to kind of flesh it out. And maybe chat G P T gets you 30% of something you were having trouble with, and you fill out the remaining 70% outside of having it type a term paper for you or whatever you know, kids in school use it for, which is, I guess, good, probably not so good for yourself in the grand scheme of things, like right now, it’s not replacing experience, an experienced professional, yeah, not yet.

Eric Wing  24:08

Absolutely. In fact, I think the fact that, like we still have, we have a growing, you know, SEO, content marketing division of our company, you know, you know, initially, initially, that wasn’t the case. I think some, some people were like, Ah, here’s my opportunity. I can finally do this myself. But there, you know, you’re generating the contents one thing, but having an SEO or now geo optimized, like, that’s, that’s a whole other story, but, but you’re right, there’s, there’s an actual in I’m sorry, trying to put a bow on this, and I’m undoing the bow a little bit. But there’s there. You may have seen this, but there is job titles now, like AI, you know, prompt, prompt, engineers. That’s a like, that’s a thing. People. Being hired because they’re good at creating prompts, and that’s that is where a new frontier of value is coming from. So for example, like for you and I, going back to our toolbox analogy, and the magazine idea is, do we? Do we embrace this idea of a prompt technician or engineer to the degree where we, we hire them, and we, and we, we start offering these as services, right? Like what it would? I don’t know what that looks like on my on my end, but I’m curious. I’m curious if I hire, if I hire a 22 year old prompt engineer, you know, at whatever, I don’t know what the going rate is for a prompt engineer, let’s say $80,000 right? A year? Can, can I make $160,000 a year selling the services that that prompt an engineer can offer, right? And like, same for you like, so these are, this is where I get really, I get really, sort of engaged with with AI, and it’s very you nailed it when you said, you know, it’s a tool, you know. So anyway, so I’ll put that bow back together and just kind of leave it at like, you know, whether you’re listening to this as a as like a business owner, a general to sort of person that’s curious about technology or or creative. You know, the the experience with AI or technology in general is going to pivot. You’re going to kind of pivot around what makes the most sense for you in your in your personal life. You can now you check chat, GPT. You can do automated checklists and reminders. Now that’s a new feature that came out this week that’s really targeting the regular consumer, the regular person, or, you know, it’s or it’s just up from there, right, to scale, scale a business to, you know, do all sorts of things. So it’s just a matter of, like, what is the need? And having clarity around that need, and then seeking, or seeking one of us or someone like us, to to solve that need,

Douglas Duvall  27:31

using the tools like anything, right?

Eric Wing  27:34

Yeah, I know, right. We go way out and then come back, and it’s like, Yep, it’s like, all the other things you talk about more

Douglas Duvall  27:42

of the same. It’s exciting, regardless. And you know, how does it affect your business, and how does it affect content production? Well, you know, give Eric a call. Give me a call. You know, we can talk about it and how maybe it will benefit your business and what you’re trying to achieve with your online presence or your content strategy. So that’s all we got today. My company is motif media. We do high end video production here in Boston. Yeah.

Eric Wing  28:17

So I own Derby digital. We’re essentially a technology company specializing web development, digital marketing and business consulting that includes AI. So, yeah, this is, this is great. Can be I can I can be found on LinkedIn, also at with darby.com

Douglas Duvall  28:40

Yeah, and we should have our, we have our we have our links in the show notes or in the YouTube description. So thanks for listening. Catch you Next time.

Eric Wing  28:51

Yep, till next time.