From Consumer Insights Revolution to Global CX Standards with Kerry Hecht

Check out the full episode below! Enjoy the Exchange? Don't forget to tune in live every Friday at 12 pm EST on the Greenbook LinkedIn and Youtube Channel!

In a surprise twist, Karen Lynch hosted Kerry Hecht , CEO and founder of 10k Humans, for episode 51. They dove into Hecht's passion for empathetic qualitative research and how her agency uncovers deep insights. They also talked about the new book "Consumer Insights Revolution" by Zappi and PepsiCo, which stresses the importance of combining qualitative and quantitative data.

The conversation touched on Ipsos's recent growth through acquisitions and the broader trend of consolidation in the market research industry. Hecht highlighted the fast-paced adoption of data-driven insights in the Asia-Pacific region and the importance of keeping innovation alive in companies. They wrapped up by discussing a new initiative from Kantar, Bain & Company, and Qualtrics to set standardized customer experience metrics, exploring its potential impact on the industry.

Many thanks to our producer, Karley Dartouzos. 

Use code EXCHANGE30 to get a 30% discount on your general admission IIEX tickets!

IIEX LATAM
IIEX.AI

GRIT Business and Innovation Survey → https://tes.decipherinc.com/survey/selfserve/1701/grb24001?dvar=TheExchange 

Download the 2024 GRIT Insights Practice Report now and stay ahead of the curve! → https://hubs.ly/Q02yCM6q0 

Stay Ahead of the Curve! Subscribe to The Exchange Newsletter on LinkedIn Today! 

Transcript 

Karen Lynch: This is live. Here we are. We're living today. I'm so excited, friends. So first of all, apologies that this is not Lenny over here with us, because Lenny had a personal emergency and found out late last night that he could not join us today. So my mind starts scouring through the, who can I ask for a last minute favor? And Kerry, I am so glad you are here. Kerry Hecht, ladies and gentlemen, first of all. Friends, I need to fully disclose a few things. Like I met Kerry, I think it was back in 2011. When I was a qualitative researcher, I was using the platform through a field service provider at the time it was dubbed, and then it became further. And I don't think I don't even know if it exists anymore. Kerry, does it even exist? Yeah, no. Yeah, it doesn't even exist. So that's when we met. And I worked with her when 10k humans or 10,000 humans echoed Mr. She was one of my favorite partners. When I was executing online communities. And many of you know that she is also, or her firm and her team is also helping us to manage one of our expert channels focused on LATAM. So Kerry, thank you for answering the call.

Kerry Hecht: Look, it was my pleasure. I was heading back from the gym, and I clicked open my email, and I saw it, and I was genuinely really excited. So thank you for having me. This is one of my favorite parts of the week. I always listen to it. I encourage our staff to listen to it. I think that it does an amazing job of both telling us what to think about, what's relevant, connecting the dots for us, as well as keeping us aware of where to be looking. So I'm a huge fan of the show and it's absolutely my honor to be here.

Karen Lynch: Well, I'm so glad. Why don't you, you know? I could make an assumption that not everybody knows you, but why don't you just take a step back and introduce yourselves to those who don't. I mean, you've been in the industry forever. For as many eons as I have, really. But please, share something with everybody for context.

Kerry Hecht: Sure. So I'm Kerry Hecht. I'm the CEO and founder of 10K Humans. We are an agency that specializes in recruiting participants for both qualitative and quantitative, as well as community and project management. We have a small insights team. So we do everything on projects A to Z. I have been in the industry, I'm a lifer, as we're called, right. So I think this is my 34th year in the industry, something like that. And I've done everything.

Karen Lynch: No, I joined in I'm 91, like, ouch. I know, I know, I know.

Kerry Hecht: Yeah, it's amazing. At some point, you're like, there's some diminishing returns in saying that. It feels like there must be, you know, the collective experience of 4,000 years. Yeah, I'm excited to be here, and thanks for having me. My pleasure, my pleasure.

Karen Lynch: So, yeah, so, you know, again, like, it is no small thing, ladies and gentlemen, when you get that, like, late night thing. Like, can you do this in 12 hours per, I mean, it was, you know, that might be an exaggeration, but it was definitely within 14 or 15. It wasn't, you did not have 24 hours to turn this around. So I'm grateful. And I'm sure on some level, Lenny's going to be quite jealous when he realizes that we had a good time today without him.

Kerry Hecht: I always love a good chat with Lenny too.

Karen Lynch: I know. I know. Well, and, you know, full disclosure for everybody listening, there is a universe when you could talk to us about whether you want to have a guest spot on here by design, not by emergency happenstance. So reach out to us. You know, that email, the exchange at greenbook.org is available for that sort of a conversation. But let's get into it, because I got really excited this week about another player in the industry's, you know, success with something that's a pretty big accomplishment. So I'm talking about for those of you who are paying attention on LinkedIn, you know, Zappi, in partnership with PepsiCo, released a book this week or launched a book. I don't know if it's the official launch, but a book on consumerism, the Consumer Insights Revolution. So really excited for you. It's, you know, Steve Phillips and Ryan Barry, both from Zappi, CEO and president, respectively, and Stefan Gans and Kate Short from PepsiCo. I don't know Kate, but Stefan was recently on our podcast. So I'm just excited for them. Did you have a chance to check that out?

Kerry Hecht: The PR about the book? I did, yeah. So I checked out the PR about it. And so let me, you know, in taking the small step back, I'm a fan of everything they do. I think that there has been such a great infusion of enthusiasm and thought leadership in our industry for the past, you know, a decade or so. And anything that Ryan does, I'm always a fan of. He approaches it with such authenticity that I really like it. And you know, the book focuses on busting silos, more organic approaches, this is something that I am a huge proponent of. I mean, you know, we've been in the industry long enough to remember when you had qual departments and quant departments, and those things never spoke. Even if they were working on the same clients. So I think, you know, having something that focuses on both leveraging the tools that are available in order to synthesize the data across all of the different ways that you would be thinking about and talking about a brand holistically is hugely important and always an important message.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, yeah. Well, and what I like about it also is they're driving home the fact that insights does drive business impact, right? So that is no small thing. I've talked about it on the podcast a lot with some of our guests. Really, we are talking about using insights to transform business strategy, business decision-making in a way that's been dialed up. You know, again, going back historically, we both have decades of this, but It has been used to inform marketing, it has been used to inform communications, but...

Kerry Hecht: Product development, everything.

Karen Lynch: All of it. And now the conversation is definitely shifting into we are transforming businesses through some very strategic work. So it's almost like they and the work of this book will be continuing to escalate. The work of the insights professional. So yeah, I totally agree.

Kerry Hecht: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that it's, you know, the way that brands have had to adapt over the past, you know, 15 years, 10 years, and the way that that is accelerating even further, with all of the different ways people interact with brands, I think that keeping this conversation at the forefront is, is really, really important, whether it is for small brands or big brands. Every brand has to be omnichannel at this point. Every brand has to be thinking about the fact that they don't necessarily have as much control over the way their brand is talked about as they used to. And so all of these tools that come together and making sure that you're looking at things up here and everything's under the same umbrella is really hugely important. And there's such smart guys over there. I mean, I, you know, I'm always interested in what they have to say.

Karen Lynch: I know, I know. They are certainly one to follow. You know, we talk about them quite a bit. Of course, they were, you know, our first competition, Insights Innovation competition. Yeah. You know, we're, we're, we're brand fans here too, because we, we, we were a part of it from the beginning. So we talk about them a lot, but yeah, they're super smart guys.

Kerry Hecht: There's lots to talk about.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, you know, I want to segue into this next talk, this next topic that we have, and just full disclosure, I did share a bit of a brief with Kerry, so we're on the same page. You know, Ipsos. So, so, you know, you think about some of the big names, right? Obviously, you know, Zappi is a big name. We all talk about Zappi, newer to the scene. Ipsos is universally, you know, even bigger than that, right? So when Ipsos releases a report, and it's, you know, even just about their financial performance, I tend to dig in and take a look, like, what's going on? You know, I would do the same thing with Kantar, which we'll talk about in a minute. But, you know, this report that they came out and Research Live covered it. I don't know if you all the audience are listening, might be following what happens on Research Live too, which is UK based. But anyway, Ipsos shared in a press release that they saw a 4.7 revenue increase. And that's despite a few different challenges. And they're very clearly linking revenue increase to some acquisitions. Lenny and I talk all the time about right now we are in a phase of growth through acquisition. Not necessarily new and unique, but it is the current phase that we're in. But in the US, we might be thinking about the electoral cycle and some of the things that Ipsos is linked with here in the US. Some of these acquisitions are overseas, right? And so I just thought it was really interesting to talk about a global organization like that, and how you know, how when they share reports and results, you can look at it at the micro level of what's happening in our area, but also then the global picture. I don't know, I think it's smart business to take a look at all that, and I'm glad to talk about it.

Kerry Hecht: I think it is for sure. So I mean, I very much agree with you. So, you know, we always talk about internally that there's two ways for growth, and one is innovation and one is acquisition. And innovation is fun, right? Innovation is great, but it's also challenging, especially when you are in periods of uncertainty, whether it is cultural uncertainty, electoral cycle uncertainty, or technological revolution uncertainty, right? But the other side of that, the growth through acquisition, I personally always have a little bit of a mixed feeling about, right? So when you see some of these smaller companies that are really inventive or really doing interesting work, and often the personality of the company is what makes it so special, and you see it get acquired, And of course, you know, this has always been the case that, you know, that this happens and it will happen more in the future. I always feel a little bit of nostalgia because I think that so much of the real thought leadership comes from some of these smaller companies and dynamic leaders. And when they get incorporated, And of course, you know, the bigger company benefits from it. We all still benefit from, you know, there being more money put behind it, etc. But some of the personality goes away. And I think that's just a natural evolution of that. What I also noticed here in this article was that they were focusing on, so yes, down a little bit in the Americas, probably would not be surprising to any Americans that are watching this, but that there was more growth in the Middle East and Africa, and then followed by AIPAC. And I thought that was really interesting and definitely one of those things that we all should be paying attention to. And I think as a smaller company, you know, we look for opportunities to be global. And it's always the, you know, trying to make the decision of, do you try to get into the market yourself? Or do you partner? But I think if, if we're smart, we should be looking at what they're looking at, and what those opportunities, because it's not necessarily that the opportunities just play out in those markets, but what is happening there that we could apply to the way we're thinking about doing business in the markets that we're working in in the US or in Europe or wherever. So anyway, I think there was a lot of good stuff in there.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. And what's interesting about that last point, and then maybe I'll remember what my other point was going to be. No, no, you have nothing to be sorry for. That's just what I said. You and I will not have a loss for words. I think I've shared with you on some of our editorial calls for the expert channels, our focus on APAC expert channels, you know, consistently gets amazing traffic. You know, it is working well with Google search. You know, Colin, who is our representative over there, who kind of, you know, freelancer for us in this capacity as hosts, he You know, he is never at a loss for content. We have this great event that we're doing annually. And the content there at that event is very, it's almost like so... Refreshing because they are enthused about the insights. They are there. If you haven't, if you're listening and you haven't been to that APEC event, like consider putting it on your calendar, you will feel refreshed because everybody is so happy to learn from one another, whether it's a brand or event, like they are, the spirit of it is extraordinary because they are, it's almost like they were just behind enough that now they are reaching this place in their love of insights field that is a little bit infectious.

Kerry Hecht: So, Well, there's also the cultural phenomenon of it not, you know, so if you think about what we actually wrote for that one of the expert channels for the Latin American one about the rise of love of Korean popular culture in Central and South America, right? So if you take that even a step further, when you think about the way people are embracing different global phenomenons or different phenomenons from different regions in the globe, and incorporating it into their own popular culture is happening at a level and across, you know, countries and continents that we haven't seen before. And I think that that speaks for why there should be enthusiasm about Consumer Insights, because there's a lot to learn, and a lot to love.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And, and just going back before we move on, because I do want to get to this next topic. But, you know, you were talking about that innovation versus, you know, expansion and acquisition and those two different strategies. And I, I think I have shared before, way back when, when, you know, shout out once again to Tim Lynch, my husband, when he was at Focus Vision, they had, he wanted to innovate, because he was like, Focus Vision was the coolest back in the day. It was so cool and innovative. The whole idea of, God, do you think about it now? It seems ridiculous. The whole idea of video conferencing was so new. And he loved the innovation behind it, but they had an acquisition strategy. And it meant he wasn't a great fit for that organization anymore. So his career has morphed and changed. And what I think is really interesting about it conceptually, for an individual in this industry, It's important to make sure you're aligned with your, you know, leadership's ethos around those two things. If you are an innovator, if you love it and you bring it to somebody who does not share that passion, innovation, you're not going to fit in that organization. So it's actually a great thing to understand strategically about the company that you work for.

Kerry Hecht: Yeah, I agree. I totally agree with that because I do think that they're, you know, they're, look, the companies that are acquiring through acquisition have remained successful and good for them. You know, but there is, you know, if you think about some of these acquisitions where the products that are now incorporated into the larger brand were so exciting, and perhaps we aren't talking about those in quite the way that we used to. If you think about all of the, you know, Decipher and all of the things that were acquired, they used to be these standalone companies and personalities that were the disruptors, that were getting us all excited about all of the new different technologies. And perhaps there isn't quite the same level of enthusiasm around those things, because you don't see them as individuals anymore.

Karen Lynch: Right, right, because that entrepreneurship that they brought to that table was sort of like people moved on from that same feeling, or the people that were those innovators moved on, you know, certainly.

Kerry Hecht: With the leaders, right? So they worked through their three-year clause and...

Karen Lynch: Right, yeah. Super interesting. Anyway, throw that out there for all of you who are wondering if you're a fit in your current organization, you know, just...

Kerry Hecht: I think that's a good way of thinking about it. I think that's a smart thing to say.

Karen Lynch: Well, and I can say that to you, because I know that you and I share that innovation bug, right? You are always innovating for your organization, so it makes sense.

Kerry Hecht: It's painful sometimes, though.

Karen Lynch: I know. I think they said to me here, when I had first started, one of the things they said about Green Book is they're constantly throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, and I'm like, I can't live with that.

Kerry Hecht: No, I can too. I can too. But I think sometimes it's for the people that work with you, it feels like scattershot. And you're like, no, no, it is connected, I promise.

Karen Lynch: That's so funny. Anyway, sorry. Well, let's move on to this next topic because it's an adjacency. We talk about CX and the customer experience and the work that goes on in that space all the time because it's this whole other animal that we wrangle. But it's big news because Kantar, Bain, and Qualtrics have started to collaborate on establishing industry-wide CX standards. So that's, when they say industry-wide CX standards, they mean it's just gonna be, it's bigger than just the CX industry, right? Because Kantar and Bain are in the mix. That's a big deal. So they're looking at benchmarking customer-centric excellence across culture, capability, and execution. So anyway.

Kerry Hecht: Interesting. Yeah. So I was like, so, you know, if you think about, and we've been at this a long time, as we've said repeatedly at this point, Our industry organizations have, the governing industry organizations who do amazing work and are working on a bunch of interesting things right now, but we've always hesitated to take the position of telling people best practices or insisting on best practices. And so I thought that this was really fascinating. In that it shows that there is a need and an appetite for establishing these things. And often, as is the case with many things, well, it's like, well, if you're not going to do it, we're going to do it. So I think this is a really fascinating collaboration, and I look forward to hearing more about it. And I do think it opens the door for a conversation about how we collectively, both as an industry and working within some of the industry organizations, can do perhaps a better job of setting standards and articulating standards. Because I think we try to, we brush up against the line of perhaps the politics of saying, this is how this should be done. And if you are not, you know, if you're not doing it this way, there could be detrimental effects to our industry. Right. And we see a lot of that with data quality and data integrity. But I thought that, you know, something like this was, I was interested and surprised by both collaboration in the position.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, it's cool. And, Karley, I don't know if you can snag the cx-standards.com URL that's in my notes there, but they have put out kind of a place where you can give feedback on these sorts of things. Yeah, I like that too. I know, I'm like, how do you conduct research about your kind of collaboration in this industry? Like, just, you know? Yeah.

Kerry Hecht: Someone said to me once, many moons ago, when we were talking about marketing research communities, that we should be using them as a marketing tool, right? So if you think about how engaging and clever this is, number one, great, you're setting some standards, you're teaching people things, you're educating them, you're getting them to participate. That's marketing for these. Like, I can't tell you the last time I thought of Bain, right? You know, and now I'm, as soon as this call is over, I'm going to be digging in on this a little bit more. So your marketing works. You've got, you know, I'm in.

Karen Lynch: I know, I know. Well, and it's also, this is something I appreciate because it's super buttoned up. They plan to launch the new standards on, you know, what's been deemed as CX day, you know, October 1st. And I'm like, also way to say, and we'll launch it by a day. Like it's just putting a ribbon on a package that I like, I love that. I love when it's so smart. So cool.

Kerry Hecht: Yeah, smart.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, smart, right? So of course, so those three organizations together, super smart, doing good things for the customer experience, which is like, you know, we all should be. Yeah, because it's ever changing right now.

Kerry Hecht: I mean, we've already touched on the need to change, you know, with what Zappi is doing, like these things all kind of fit in together with we have to be thinking about this in a different way than we've thought about it before.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So so alright, so let's, let's do another angle right to this, because this is like speaking of customer loyalty, like, let's dig into another article that that Leti and I found this week, from the wise marketer, that's the name of the publication, but it's called rethinking zero party data. Yes, talking about from a brand standpoint, like, first of all, does a great job defining right in the text there, what zero party party data really is, and then talks about kind of the expanded definition of it in our very connected world. So anyway, it's I don't know, this gentleman, the author is St. John Denkins at Data Sapiens. So hats off to him, because it feels like a bit of a primer. And yet, at the same time, it stretches your thinking a little bit. What do you think?

Kerry Hecht: Yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was really interesting. And I thought that, you know, the first thing, the first place my head went was big data, right? So we've been talking about this for a very long time, especially, you know, over the past decade, as things have shifted, like shopping is primarily done online, and all of the different ways that, you know, that we've been gathering data about people. And I think that, you know, it's one of those things that I don't think consumers think about the same way that we do, but, you know, we'll touch on that a little bit more with like the privacy things like this, but every time you download an app, right, and you accept the terms and conditions, and those terms and conditions are to be collecting all of the data that you're using on all of the other apps that you're doing, right? And so, you know, it's not a new thing to be collecting this kind of data. It's not a new conversation to be talking about what we do with it. But it is an interesting new framing. And I'm curious as to where it goes in the next, you know, six months or a year, because there is that, you know, those conversations that are constantly happening about how people, you know, we should be owning and in charge of the data that is collected and used. Yes, but at the same time, you know, you can't even get through setting up an app on your phone or setting up your phone without accepting terms and conditions that say that data is going to be collected and used. So how much control do we have over it? Are we ever going to really take it over? And, you know, I think I think everyone in the world at this point is also very used to having a curated experience, right? I say I want to buy a lamp and all of a sudden I've got a bunch of lamps that are popping up.

Karen Lynch: We're about to get a bunch of lamp stuff, by the way. I'll text you later and be like, here's my first lamp.

Kerry Hecht: Yeah, but I think that we're already used to how this has impacted our life in the way that we get algorithmic information, which presumably makes our lives more efficient. So I think there's a lot of different conversations to have around this.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, and I think one of the things that stuck out to me, you know, that the author pointed out, and this is how, how this, this, you know, this, all this, all of this data is becoming thought of, to go back to the reframing that you said, as this strategic asset, that idea that this is, again, all this data is informing decisions at a very high level and informing business strategies at a very high level, then I think even you know, when we were first wrangling with how do we even manage all this data?

Kerry Hecht: We have the processing capabilities. I mean, I remember when we were first talking about big data and there were some companies out there that would essentially profile you based on your demographic information. And I was like, man, how interesting is it that instead of going through a screener or some of this preliminary work that we can do about personas or your customer profiles, that we've already got all of this stuff. And I remember rabbit-holing on it and being way down that rabbit hole before. I was like, well, this is just a lot of stuff. But now, you know, this kind of fits in with creating synthetic profiles about people. And it kind of fits in, like, there's a lot of difference, there's, we could talk for probably two days on this alone. And I think that it's, I think it'll be interesting to see where we go, how we use it. And it fits in thematically with a lot of the other things that we're talking about.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. And it's like the tech wasn't, it's like we had the data before the tech could rise to the challenge of wrangling it. And now we have the data and the tech is going even further than we imagined. Like it kind of, it kind of came, met us where we were and then just took off. Right.

Kerry Hecht: Right. And there's, there's accuracy with this stuff too, right. That you, you know, that, that when it's, when you are categorizing people, um, based on behavioral data, I mean, that is what we do. So there's no reason to think that this isn't a good way of moving forward or a way of moving forward, and it is here.

Karen Lynch: So let's segue into something else that is here, right? You and I already talked about this on the pre-show, friends. So just so you know, there was an announcement this week. It was just shared, you know, a press release. Context Solutions and MindSpring collaborated to create an immersive learning experience for retail, blending 3D simulation software, and a global learning environment. Now, You might say off the top of your head, you the listeners, why are we talking about learning environments? But if you aren't paying attention to immersive environments for research purposes, this is the connection for you. It's super cool to think about these environments.

Kerry Hecht: Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. And I think that, you know, we've been playing with VR and AR for quite some time, and this is just a natural extension of that. And, you know, so when I read that article, the first thing that I went to is I'm like, back to this notion that all brands need to be omni-channel, right? And so, you know, if you think about brand experience and, you know, flagship stores and things like this, you know, this turns, this gives people the opportunity to extend those really robust brand experiences, bring it into the home and bring it into, you know, I mean, even if you're talking about learning environments, right, you know, they're, you know, I know we're avoiding politics, but there's a lot of evidence that some of the slack needs to be picked up by corporations, right, you know, as far as how we move best to move forward. Through life, you know. And I think that having these, you're going to see VR and AR in learning environments. You're going to see that in, I think even in higher education or even in, you know, the way that doctors interact with each other and all these different kinds of things. So having it be sponsored by brands, I don't think is anything but like a logical path forward and a logical conclusion to what is happening with the technology that's available. Yeah.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Yeah, the whole idea is really cool to me. I've been a fan since we've been talking about it. And this is where I shall shamelessly plug a session at our AI event, which is coming up in October, where there's actually a partnership, a vendor and a brand will be talking about digital twins and everything around this space. So if you check out that article, and your interest is piqued, whether it's about, you know, you're a brand looking for retail, and you're thinking about how you can apply this to your research or to your future commerce. Check out this session at AI XAI. It's going to be a partnership with a company called Glimpse, a partner in the industry called Glimpse with HubSpot. So yeah, it's going to be very cool technology, and I'm really excited for that particular event. So let's stay with AI for a few minutes. Yeah, here. It's like, Kerry, we're already at 28 minutes in, if you can even stand it. We're nowhere near everything we want to talk about. But speaking of AI and new environments, we had a launch from Meta this week for AI Studio, where you can create your AI chat bots. Super cool, right?

Kerry Hecht: Oh, yeah.

Karen Lynch: Please, there was a lot going on. Apparently, even my son who has been kind of resisting getting on the AI bandwagon could not help but get excited about, you know, AI's integration into, you know, Instagram, you know, to name one. But what's cool about it is if you think about these applications of it, like, okay, I could have said you're the social media manager, probably say you're in social media for a company. That's a shameless plug for our partner on the sidelines over there. You know, you could create an AI assist for responding to DMs that might come our way, for answering questions, and have an extension of yourself. So here we are using AI for relationship building through social media strategy. It's cool to think about a business use case.

Kerry Hecht: Oh, for sure. I mean, so the first thing when I read that, the first thing I did was send it to our project management team, because, you know, in leveraging social media to find participants, we always have a ton of questions that come through the DMs on this. And it's always been a little bit of a, you know, how do we? We have to figure out how to do this effectively. And so, you know, and I think that they're also really smart to be offering these programs for free, right? So, I mean, I think that that's, you know, if you go into meta certification programs, there's tons of stuff which I think is, you know, that are free low-cost learning courses. And I mean, I think that's a brand engagement strategy as well. You know, if you think about people who have talked about the relevancy of Facebook and things like this, well, what better way to make you more relevant and make the tools more accessible for the brands that are using and advertising and paying to be on them? So I think it's really smart from a bunch of different perspectives, and we're certainly going to, you know, dive in there and see what it can do.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, it feeds back to what we were talking about earlier about the customer experience, right? Like, we may not be in the CX industry, but we all are organizations that have customers who have experience. And, you know, how can we improve the customer experience for our Yeah, it streamlines things, right?

Kerry Hecht: So even if you think about the ability to categorize between positive comment, negative comment, needing assistance, having that be automated in a way that is slightly nicer than press button one, press button two is a huge boon. And I think that anything that can help us save time, be smarter and do a better job, I mean, I'm here for it.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, I know. Me too. Me too. So I mean, here we are. We're 30 minutes away. Let's just let's skip this next one. You know, you know, just, I'm gonna just kind of say it really quickly. We won't dig into it. Karley, if you want to share the link. It's interesting. If you're curious about META, MRWeb just shared, you know, META's $1.4 billion settlement with Texas over biometric privacy violations. So while we're talking about META, it's not all like, you know, daisies and daisies.

Kerry Hecht: I was surprised with how fast that moved. When I read the article that that started in 2022 and they already settled, I was really surprised by the speed with which that went.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, that's so interesting, right? Because it doesn't usually, you know, it usually takes quite a bit longer, right? So yeah, yeah. But anyway, so check it out if you're interested and you want to stay balanced about meta. But let's just dig into this EU law. So for everybody listening, the EU came up with an AI law that went into force. It is going to be a comprehensive AI law aimed at fostering innovation while ensuring citizen protection and business compliance. So, like, way to go, EU, once again, being ahead of us, you know, here in the US when it comes to consumer protection. So, you, before we even got on the show, had a lot of thoughts about this, so I'll let you take it away.

Kerry Hecht: Yeah, I have... I mean, I feel like these things are such double-edged swords, right? Because I think that there is... Obviously everyone should be for protecting people's data and anonymity and, you know, consequently safety and all of those things, but... There is the human component with what we expect. I had a conversation with a lady who's a cybersecurity specialist, and she was talking about all of the things that we do vary, whether it's facial recognition, thumbprint recognition, all of these different kinds of things, and the way that we engage with the technology that we use to make it easier, faster. Theoretically more protected, I think that we will continuously be butting up against what people want from a convenience standpoint, and what privacy laws are created to protect us kind of from ourselves, right? I mean, if you're using your biometric stuff on anything, your biometrics are out there, right? And so I think that there's always going to be this push-pull between, and I don't see it as much as what companies want to do versus what companies do, what we become used to comes ingrained in our lives. And then there's privacy standards that are put up to protect us from that. So I just see this as a really interesting conundrum. Sometimes it scares me to read about this stuff. And I feel like it's a little bit beyond what my little brain can wrap my head around, right? But it's like, we use this stuff. So it'll be, again, always going to be an interesting story to follow. And that's how we do research.

Karen Lynch: And I love the concept of protecting ourselves from ourselves, because even when we were talking earlier about some of this kind of your digital life and unfolding, and there are some times when I'm like, sure, I'll agree to these cookies or whatever. And then other times I'm like, no, I'm not agreeing to that. And it seems very random. I have no idea why I say, sure, you can track my behavior right now. No, you can't track my behavior.

Kerry Hecht: It's because you already bought the lamp, and you're tired of seeing lamp pictures. You're like, enough.

Karen Lynch: And I find, if you think about it from a behavior standpoint, we are not consistent with what we do. We haven't thought about all of this. I mean, some people have. I know there are people in my orbit that have definitely, they have a hard, fast rule about all this. These are the people who are like, my kid won't have an iPhone at a young age or whatever. And Tim and I have figured that out as we go along. We do the best we can in the moment that we're in. We don't necessarily have a grandmaster plan. And I just think that we are the ones that need protection from ourselves because we don't think that way because sometimes we're fatigued so we don't make the same decision as we made the day before.

 Kerry Hecht: And even if you think about using your example of giving your kid an iPhone. So real quickly, I gave my kid an iPhone when they accidentally locked themselves in a bathroom one time and they couldn't reach the light switch. And I was like, you need a flashlight with you all the time. Right? And so, but I, you know, my kid, has a very low digital footprint. My kid, which is what I would encourage any young person, because once it's on there, it's on there. And once it's out there, it's out there. But not every kid is wired like mine is, right? So if you've got any, I'm an oversharer. So if you've got an oversharer on your hands, that could be a disaster for your 30 year old self when you're 15.

Karen Lynch: Right? Well, nothing gets them to, you know, take a step back than, you know, a mother who might embarrass them on social media.

Kerry Hecht: Right. That is true, too.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. I get a lot of like private messages with, you know, the emoji with tears coming out of their eyes. Oh, my goodness, friends, we could probably go on and on and on. But we're going to wrap because I still have a few things to plug. And I know Karley's like, when am I putting up these things? So Uh, you know, Kerry, before we wrap and I say thank you from the bottom of my heart, which I will say. Oh, this is great. This is yeah. Great. I'm so glad, friends. You, uh, can register for our two next events, LATAM and IIEX AI. Those Karley's putting up, you know, use the codes, get the discounts. LATAM's coming up in September. I will not be there, but Kerry will be right there. Yep. So thank you very much for that. And then our AI event, which is coming up in October. That's a virtual event. You can attend a lot of it for free. There is an intensive program the week prior for anybody who wants to get up to speed so they don't feel behind during the actual program itself. So take a look at that and you can always, um, and it's even, that's like a nominal fee. It's like $75. So you'd be getting a discount on a, on a, not a high priced, uh, ticket to begin with. So worth it to get kind of this immersion into getting up to speed with AI. So other things, green book related are, We talked about our APAC event, which is coming up in February. That call for speakers is out. Before you know it, we're going to be doing the same for North America and Europe. So, you know, never a dull moment, but know that our APAC call for speakers is live. And of course, you all probably know already that the GRIT survey is still live right now. I think it's still being filtered. So you can certainly participate in that and make us that solid. Kerry, any shameless plugs on your end that I was going to say, I feel so strongly about the GRIT report. I'm like, take the survey. That was going to be my shameless plug. Oh, good. I'm so glad. See, that's so, so supportive. Thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, really, it serves the industry. That's our, that's our intention for that is we learn a lot from it. And then we share out what we learned, because we want to, we want to be in service to the industry. That's important to all of us. So yes, yes. So Friends, that's our show for today. Kerry, thank you so much for being with me. I think you'll be back. That would be my best guess. I would hope so. Yeah, I love these chats, always. Good, good, good. Well, I appreciate you being here. And everybody else, I appreciate you listening and tuning in. Karley, thanks for all you do as well. And I guess everybody, have a great weekend. Enjoy the first weekend of August. Yes. Thanks, guys. All right. Bye, everybody.

Links from the episode:

10K Humans 

Zappi’s Book Release 

Ipsos Released a Report of their Financial Performance for the First Half of 2024 

Kantar, Bain, and Qualtrics Set Global CX Standards 

CX Standards 

Rethinking Zero-Party Data 

Data Sapien 

InContext Solutions and MindSpring Collaborative Effort 

The launch of AI Studio by Meta 

Meta Settles Texas Biometrics Claims 

EU’s Groundbreaking AI Law came into force on Thursday (Aug 1st)