Staying Relevant in the Age of AI with Aksel Bedikyan

What makes a business, brand, or insights professional truly relevant in the age of AI? Aksel Bedikyan, founder of OhGee Insights, joins Lenny Murphy to explore how technology is reshaping research, brand relationships, and entrepreneurship. Drawing on a career spanning aerospace engineering, analytics, media, and consulting, Aksel explains why AI should strengthen human expertise rather than replace it. They discuss the growing importance of meaning-making, the tension between personalization and privacy, and the value of combining AI-moderated research with human interviews. Aksel also shares practical advice for entrepreneurs.

Key Discussion Points

• How an engineering mindset shaped Aksel’s approach to research, analytics, and business problem-solving.
• Why relevance—not process—is becoming the defining source of value for brands and insights professionals.
• How AI can increase efficiency while giving researchers more time for interpretation, strategy, and meaning-making.
• The balance between personalized brand experiences, consumer convenience, privacy, and the risk of becoming intrusive.
• Why AI-moderated interviews and human-led qualitative research work best as complementary approaches.
• Aksel’s lessons for entrepreneurs on experimentation, generosity, relationships, and professional community.

Resources and Links

• ⁠OhGee Insights

Transcript

Leonard Murphy: Hello everybody. It's Lenny Murphy with another edition of the CEO series. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to spend it with myself and my guest. And uh today I am joined by Axel Bedan. U normally I have some relationship with folks. I did not with Axel but you have a first rate PR person who sent an email got my attention and I thought all right I want to talk to Axel. So, welcome Axel. I I appreciate you being here.

Aksel Bedikyan: Thank you for having me, Lenny. Thank you so

Leonard Murphy: It's it's great to have you. So,

Aksel Bedikyan: Much.

Leonard Murphy: Uh since I don't know you and can't, you know, tell your origin story for you, um then please uh you know, give us the

Aksel Bedikyan: I gotcha.

Leonard Murphy: Basics.

Aksel Bedikyan: So, when you say origin, how far back are we going here? just to make

Leonard Murphy: You can take that however far you want to.

Aksel Bedikyan: Sure.

Leonard Murphy: Uh probably not, you know, not the conception. Uh but certainly what's uh what's relevant to this

Aksel Bedikyan: Sure. Absolutely. Uh, so look, I'm um I'm of Armenian descent,

Leonard Murphy: Conversation

Aksel Bedikyan: Born in Istanbul, Turkey. We immigrated as a family to Canada, Montreal in 1986, I think it was. Um, and life has been just awesome here. I'm a Canadian. I'm a Montrealer. Love living here. Um I started getting into in my professional career. I got into um I would say engineering when I first started working. So I was an aerospace engineer.

Leonard Murphy: Oh, wow.

Aksel Bedikyan: I was basically Yeah. I was basically modeling um you know the flight controls on airplanes uh to help

Leonard Murphy: Okay.

Aksel Bedikyan: Pilots become pilots and become better pilots I guess. Uh so things like I don't know if you're sitting in a cockpit and you take the the wheel and you uh pull on it or push on it or you like you know shift it left and right what's the response of the aircraft like what happens to that thing right so a lot of a lot of engineering and coding so which was amazing I just absolutely love that job imagine coming out of university and you're like traveling the world and you're you know working with pilots and and all that so it was really really good. Um it took its toll. Uh the travel did after a while. So I wanted to go back to school and kind of even out that technical engineering experience with more business management. So I did an MBA degree. Not very original uh the engineering and MBA combination but I did uh and coming out of that I started getting into consulting management consulting uh in finance. I got recruited by Cirto Sole actually to start their research analytics and insights uh function and and um and offering.

Leonard Murphy: Okay.

Aksel Bedikyan: So it was an internal job and you know at the time a lot of people say oh you're so lucky you got coached by Cirto Sole. I didn't really have an affinity to that brand. I had seen a couple of their shows, but it was more the the person that um that hired me. Uh her name was Jackie and she remains one of the best uh bosses I've ever had. So that was really the the the beginning of my career in insights research and analytics. So I did that for about six, seven years. Built that team ground up. Uh and then I've had several roles uh outside of entertainment um in you know uh internet uh service media service uh type of companies and um I've been at it now with my own practice for the last 10 years uh running research uh insights analytics uh for um I think international uh global top brands. So it's been it's been a hell of a ride.

Leonard Murphy: So the uh the story of how do you wind up here? Um it's it just never ceases to amaze me how many of us just find ourselves in this industry. Um the uh it that's now listening to you talk about being an engineer and you know controlling uh you know thinking about the controls my my thought went to oh so early on you were thinking about the me mechanistic ways of uh things that shift behavior and then shift outcomes. Am I reading too much into it or was there actually a throughine of like you know your experience as an engineer.

Aksel Bedikyan: Mhm.

Leonard Murphy: Preparing you for this uh thinking through understanding how things work to drive outcomes?

Aksel Bedikyan: You know, I I think that's a really good point.

Leonard Murphy: Uh

Aksel Bedikyan: I I can't even um say that I thought about that, but it's awesome that you connected you you've connected those dots for me. Uh I think like engineering for me coming out of university, I went to Miguel University in Montreal. Um it was really about like how do you go about solving problems, right? You're this thing doesn't work in front of you. It's supposed to do something, but it's not doing it. and you're like sitting in a $20 million machine. At the time it was 20 million. I'm sure now it's well in excess of 30 40. Um it has so many different systems that communicate with one another. How do you kind of like fix this problem? Right? I remember like sitting there fresh out of university. I had never done this before and um and it just like tapping into isolating issues and repeating being able to like repeat this problem, right? You can't solve a problem you can't repeat basically,

Leonard Murphy: Mhm.

Aksel Bedikyan: Right? So, if this airplane is not doing its thing,

Leonard Murphy: Mhm.

Aksel Bedikyan: But it's kind of doing it sometimes and it's not doing it other times, good luck trying to solve that. You need to be able to like really put your finger on the thing that's problematic.

Leonard Murphy: Mhm. Mhm.

Aksel Bedikyan: And once you do, then you start pulling on that thread, right? And you're like, "Okay, so let me see where this leads and this leads." And finally, eventually, if you've done your job right, you're sitting on the thing that is causing this problem and I think engineering teaches you that right and that's really the strength of it like it's not about

Leonard Murphy: Yep.

Aksel Bedikyan: Thermodynamics or like mechanics or whatever it's really thinking um from a system standpoint and understanding how every input has a reaction to something and how everything is kind of connected to one another and I think research is very much like that right I never really

Leonard Murphy: Yep. Yep.

Aksel Bedikyan: Thought about it until you mentioned it but

Leonard Murphy: Well, it it from what you just said, it sounds like you've uh that either really struck a great intuitive bell or you know there is a you had thought about it. Uh not that I'm accusing you of being dishonest, but it's like you know obviously there's similarities. Um and I I think that's just really cool. Uh I also love the name of your business. um OG insights um the OG ge like OG right

Aksel Bedikyan: Mhm.

Leonard Murphy: Of that's what that means there's the thread that we needed to pull to understand where the problem is and here's how that works systemically uh so hats off on uh on good branding from that standpoint as well.

Aksel Bedikyan: Thank you.

Leonard Murphy: Um...

Aksel Bedikyan: And and it has a couple of meanings. Um it just came to me one day um as I don't know maybe I was having a bite or

Leonard Murphy: Okay.

Aksel Bedikyan: Like just standing around. Um, so the OG is exactly what you're saying. Like, oh gee, I've never really thought about it that way. I didn't think it was connected in some way. Or, you know, wow. Like sometimes you speak to someone and you're like, okay, you gain a different perspective, right? You're like, oh, oh, okay. But also the O is for my elder daughter, uh, eldest daughter, Una. The G is for my younger daughter, Gracie. So, there's like a play on that.

Leonard Murphy: Okay.

Aksel Bedikyan: And I wanted them to be kind of part of, you know, the the company name and and you know, the the practice. They're they're too young to help me, but still they do help me in certain ways. And then also OG, just phonetically, I'm a huge lover of hip-hop, especially 90s hip-hop.

Leonard Murphy: Okay. So, the OG.

Aksel Bedikyan: So, yeah, the OG plays there as well. So, it's got like a bunch of different meanings.

Leonard Murphy: Yeah.

Aksel Bedikyan: And when I kind of like thought about one and then it just like, oh, it can also be that and it can also be that. I'm like, okay, that's it. That that's going to be the name of the

Leonard Murphy: There you go. That's and for anybody who is not the naming I have always found naming is

Aksel Bedikyan: Company.

Leonard Murphy: The most difficult thing of launching a business. I've always hated that process. So hats off if you automat if you got to one is like yep this checks all the boxes. Okay. Um uh without trying to go through naming by committee because it is just I it's always been a painful process. So,

Aksel Bedikyan: All right.

Leonard Murphy: Uh, yeah. So,

Aksel Bedikyan: Thanks.

Leonard Murphy: All right. So, you've been in, uh, you've been have your own shingle out for for the past decade. Um, pulling lots of threads, helping to move the the stick for lots of different companies. Um, And what jumped out in when your your PR person reached out was the framework idea of in pursuit of relevance and particularly through the idea of how AI is disintermediating to an extent um the a personal relationship with brand especially from a shopper standpoint um and also the buyer journey and you know there's so much disruption that is occurring to the the way that people normally engage, discover, engage and uh and purchase uh any type of tool or service or or solution uh product and that idea of relevance really struck a chord with me of that's what it comes down to, isn't it? So tell me about that. Tell me how you know you've been approaching that what that framework means especially in this era of just the changing dynamics of how people engage with any type of brand that they are looking

Aksel Bedikyan: Right. Um, so look,

Leonard Murphy: At.

Aksel Bedikyan: I mean, we're we're seeing what's happening right now. Uh, your LinkedIn feed is probably comprised of 90% of content related to AI. Um, some people are like experts quote unquote in in AI and they've been doing it for 15 years and you're like, "Okay, how could that be?" Unless you're like building, uh, you know, uh, models and and and neural networks, which they probably weren't. So, there's that part of it that's like very hypeish and, you know, they're they're trying to get ahead and and be like leaders in it and some of them are, but some of them aren't. There's also the fear like, "Oh my god, what's happening to my job? What's happening to my industry? um am I going to be able to make it and so on so forth, right? Um there's also things like, okay, well, how do I actually jump on this thing and you know try to master it or get better at it and actually help my business or my clients or my work or come up with new ways of doing things, come up with a new business, right? And I think all of those things all ladder up to being relevant like you're you're providing a valuable service product some sort of an output that society deems valuable right and I feel like I feel like I don't know we're at a place now

Leonard Murphy: What?

Aksel Bedikyan: Where this is really really important right like we've always gone through this right like oh the internet car whatever like all these major major innov the the

Leonard Murphy: Right.

Aksel Bedikyan: The printing press you know like the wheel you know what I mean like go

Leonard Murphy: Right. Fire uh wheel. Right.

Aksel Bedikyan: Back really really back and and you're always faced with this but right now we're living in it so it feel like it's we feel it on our skin right so this idea of relevance I think right now is even more important because like there's all this upheaval going on and you see all these different directions people are taking and and it's just interesting like the reaction to it right so from my perspective anyway this is just my perspective AI has really helped our business right and it's helped our business why because we're native data scientists number one so we understand how these models are built but we also understand and probably better how to apply these models towards business decisions, right? How do we use these tools and these models to be able to help clients make better decisions? So, that's kind of like where we're coming from. And sometimes it's from the standpoint of providing new services, additional things that we otherwise didn't.

Leonard Murphy: Mhm.

Aksel Bedikyan: Sometimes it's from the standpoint of, hey, it used to take me 15 hours to put together a PowerPoint deck. Now takes me five hours. What do I do with the other 10? Well, how do I add value? Right? Okay. So now I have more time to be able to dive into it, make sense of it, connect do thought dots and and be again a valuable member of society or business that I can bring to uh towards my

Leonard Murphy: I could not agree more in in violent agreement.

Aksel Bedikyan: Clients.

Leonard Murphy: And I think that particularly so coming from the the qualitative angle I used to consider myself more of a quant guy. Um over time I've discovered no I'm I'm a quali I'm a understanding guy I just liked efficiency right so so quant was very uh useful because it was efficient. So now these tools have enabled the same level of efficiency to a great extent in unstructured data and etc etc. Okay, great. The but for me it has always been I want to understand. So, and I think back my whole life, right? That's anything I I I like understanding things. Um, which I guess is better than walk around not understanding things. There's quite a bit of that, too. But uh point being from a tool standpoint the adaptation finding relevance uh even in my own life is becoming crystal clear that these tools pro process absolutely changing become more efficient just like from the fire to the wheel to the printing press to you know the steam engine whatever that they always create process efficiencies. So uh but in our job of meaning making and I think that ultimately that is what we are tasked with right uh is uh helping people understand what is the next right decision they need to make for whatever the business issue is. Um the the tools have not impacted my relevance they've sharpened it.

Aksel Bedikyan: Mhm.

Leonard Murphy: So Um and and I think that that's uh that is something particularly it's been a hump for a lot of people on more of the qualitative side to get over. Um because I think we we subscribe too much of our value to process rather than impact. Um but my guess is that particularly for you as coming from the client side and then also you know now as more the consultant it was pretty clear on you know out of the gate that your competitive advantage was you know how you were relevant to your clients by helping answer the business question and the process was just the necessary thing you had to go through to get there. Is that am I making an appropriate

Aksel Bedikyan: Absolutely 100%. So like there's the why and the what like why are we doing this and what are we doing and all that stuff and the how like

Leonard Murphy: Assumption?

Aksel Bedikyan: Sometimes like the how is completely changed right like the playbook we had in insights and research I don't know five six years ago very different today very different today right like it's really

Leonard Murphy: Yep.

Aksel Bedikyan: Affected our our industry you know whether it's qualitative research quantitative research you know more data science type of uh work um it's it's certainly uh it certainly has shifted Uh and again it's made just our life easier from a process standpoint and it's also made our life easier from it's it's kind of lowered the barrier some of the things we'll do now or I will you know develop and experiment with I probably wouldn't have done it three four years ago why because like you needed an expert in coding

Leonard Murphy: That's right.

Aksel Bedikyan: In a particular language or you needed a you know data um engineer and you needed this and you needed that. Well, you know, I'm able to do or the team, my team is able to do quite a bit now because we've just lowered that level of of of barrier. The the human element is still super super important and interesting because like if you're not in front of the clients and having the why conversations and the what are you trying to get out of this conversation because they'll come, you know, they'll come to you with like I need X and then you're like, "Okay, let's talk about X." And you finally like you leave the conversation. It's not at all like at all what what what we end up doing. Why? Because they just had kind of something in their mind, but it wasn't really best suited for that, right? Like it wasn't the best how to get to their why, basically.

Leonard Murphy: Yep. Yep.

Aksel Bedikyan: So I think I think that part of it is really really uh important and it's critical like the the

Leonard Murphy: Yep.

Aksel Bedikyan: The quality I I think I was mentioning it to somebody today that that I met um the the quality of research I mean good research sells new research. Why? Because you're uncovering not only new insights, but you're uncovering new hidden areas, like places that you don't have answers to, but you're now conscious of the thing you don't know, Right. It's like you don't know what you don't know and once you do know what you don't know or once you do know what you're not good at then suddenly you have a new angle right and that's what good research does and I think the human element of it is super important because that's exactly how you get to that right I don't know maybe in a couple years I'm going to be wrong and I'm going to eat my words but right now um that's still how I feel and I feel strongly about

Leonard Murphy: I'm I'm could not agree more. The again the uh there's a a model that you know started to emerge and people are talking about of the uh the uh decision intelligence infrastructure decision intelligence stack I mean I've been talking about that in other venues etc etc and sure that may describe the connective tissue of how data drives the decision-m from an automated process standpoint and and I think that that ship has sailed it is clear already that we are we are there and that's only going continue. Um but it has nothing to do with understanding uh the right question to ask to address the business issue and then the sense making on the back end um with all right what does this mean and I think that is is some magical combination that occurs in the human psyche of you know intuition and experience and creativity and uh you know that that dot connecting empathy whatever all of those things which were not words that I would normally use in a business context a few years ago. I didn't think of myself as you know leveraging intuition and empathy. Um uh but as I as things progress like well yeah I guess it's kind of what I'm doing. That's that's the that's the superpower isn't it? Um and that's the value creation is taking the information that sense making through whatever weird combination of things that happen in our brains to help say to get to that OG moment. Uh that helps.

Aksel Bedikyan: And also to relevance right because with that value that you're bringing suddenly okay Lenny's relevant in

Leonard Murphy: Yes.

Aksel Bedikyan: This conversation why because he can do XY Z that a machine can't or other people can't making use of the machines right so that's really really

Leonard Murphy: Yeah.

Aksel Bedikyan: Important

Leonard Murphy: Uh thank you. That's the nice thing anybody has said to me all day, Axel. Um to call me relevant. Thank you. I appreciate that. The uh So, all right. So, we're we're Sympatico.

Aksel Bedikyan: Oh...

Leonard Murphy: Uh we're thinking about things the right way. I think or we both obviously think now what happens because everything we've just described and talked about does have a uh brands are experiencing as well not just with the specific questions but even kind of the fundamentals

Aksel Bedikyan: Heat.

Leonard Murphy: Right on the brand awareness you know after purchase all of those things. So what does that look like as we go forward? What is your take on not just the role of insights but even the impact on how a on brands uh not just from a corporate level but I mean understanding the whole concept of brand relationships and relevance etc etc. What's what's that throughine look like now?

Aksel Bedikyan: I mean look I I think it it sits on two tenets. One of them is very much pushed by these um language models and the technology and so on and so forth. So take this for example, right? So you and I are having podcasts. We're having a conversation. somebody does a search on on claude on oh I don't know who's an insights professional that I should talk to or who's a p you know what's a podcast that I should be on your name will pop up maybe this episode will pop up right so suddenly my awareness your awareness the reach so on so forth can really get um impacted and catapulted by that right so there's still a technology thing but at the same time you can have that platform but if you're not as good as a host as you are then it's just not going to work Right. So it it's it's it kind of it it accentuates the importance of that human part of it. You know what I mean? It's like okay so you're you're being you're being seen more.

Leonard Murphy: What?

Aksel Bedikyan: You're being more exposed but then suddenly now okay well all right well some you got to deliver the goods so to speak right and those who do will you know progress and those who don't won't. In this situation I'm talking about a very particular situation but I think it's the same for brands right? um I've been running um you know brand research for a long period of time and sometimes what we'll do is we'll work with agencies that have been doing uh brand um measurement for for a long time and a lot of you know they all have their own methodology and so on so forth but one of the things that they look at whether or not they name this is you know how strong of a brand um how strong is this brand on relevance right like I'm I'm coming back to relevance because It's an important thing. You could be a very strong brand. You can be an innovative brand. You can be a very unique brand, right? Like you're and you could be premium or not premium. But if you don't hold a place in people's lives and in people's minds and you're forgotten about, right? Like it's just that the situation in French there's a saying it's you're far from the eyes, you're far from the heart. If people don't see you, they don't hear you, then they'll just suddenly, you know, you'll you'll you'll you you'll just slowly be forgotten, right? But I think this technology can help you, you know, propel yourself forward and also reinforce the very value you bring uh to the equation, right? Because no one's going to be able to be a Lenny Murphy, right? Like you're just very unique in that way. Does that make sense?

Leonard Murphy: And thank thank God probably that there's only one of me but the

Aksel Bedikyan: Yes...

Leonard Murphy: Yes my mother often said I am so grateful that you were not twins. Um the uh yes it does it does make sense

Aksel Bedikyan: Sir.

Leonard Murphy: But so as marketing itself becomes more process driven more mechanistic more systemic overall you know the uh this concept of relevance becomes almost a segmentation profile right if the if the if the goal I always go back to Mark Fisher to PNG saying you know their goal was to have a one relationship in real time with every person on the planet. Okay, there we go. There's Nirvata from a marketing standpoint. Um, and it's relatively easy to get to the who, what, when, where, and how. Fine. Right. That's the world of big data. Now AI makes that easy, and we can synthesize all of that. The why, I think relevance falls under the why bucket. And um how do you determine in that world of uh of programmatic advertising I guess for lack of a better term the and personalization I guess that's ultimately where we get to is relevance helps drive personalization. Uh, is there a framework that can be applied there or is that always going to be the loosey goosey magic that we're just going to have to uh kind of we're not going to get exact we can get close uh is it relevant because it's price or you know I mean all the basic features that we look at uh in defining how a person uh uh what the relationship with the brand is or is there a framework that can be deployed that makes it very pinpoint and targeted in real time so that a brand can deliver the right message to the right person uh at the right time with relevance defined. Does that make

Aksel Bedikyan: Mhm. It does. So, look, is there a is there a method?

Leonard Murphy: Sense?

Aksel Bedikyan: Is there a methodology? Um, I don't I I'm not in uh possession of one. Um, are people and brands uh working on developing it? Absolutely. Empirically, do I think today compared to five years ago that I'm being served things that are more top of- mind, something I talked about with a colleague a couple of hours ago, um or a person's name that I muttered uh you know while playing golf with a with a friend just like suddenly popping up in front of me. That's happening much more. Right. So, um, in terms of relevance, um, yeah, it's more relevant, but it's also a bit more annoying because sometimes they still get it wrong, right? They're still serving me a product or a brand that I purchased yesterday.

Leonard Murphy: Yeah.

Aksel Bedikyan: Like, I I did it. You know what I mean? Like, you got me. Um, you can now stop uh bombarding bombarding me with these things. So, that's not quite there yet, but I do feel like we've shifted over the last few years uh towards getting this more personalized offer. Uh and I think it's going to I think that's where it's going and I imagine two three years from now it's going to be even more. I think the challenge is going to be how do we do it in a and like I'm going to annoy myself saying this word, but like how do we do this in a more human way, you know, like it's how do we do it without annoying people and just like being an irritation because sometimes it could very easily turn into that. Um, and I don't know what the answer uh to that is,

Leonard Murphy: Yeah.

Aksel Bedikyan: But certainly it needs to get it needs to get better, right? Because the more we're going to be pushing this personalization,

Leonard Murphy: Yeah.

Aksel Bedikyan: The more I think we're going to be pushing also the frontier of like, okay, it's enough, you know, like the we get it. You could really personalize, but now you're annoying me and I no longer want to work with your brand and I will not buy your brand type of

Leonard Murphy: Yep. Yeah. Well, and and you know that gets into personal data and privacy and you know the intrusion.

Aksel Bedikyan: Thing.

Leonard Murphy: Um you know those are uh I I at on a purely individual level I often tell my my kids like because I'll lecture them about data privacy etc etc and say I I work for the dark side um the you know but not truly not not truly I see value in delivering a relevant right message to me at the right time when when that is done well I'm going to give it a pass. So when when it is done uh not well,

Aksel Bedikyan: What?

Leonard Murphy: I'm going to get irritated and not just cuz it's annoying because also it's kind of creepy. So and so I I would add on to part of our uh this this future aspirational goal is also to eliminate the creepiness to prove the value. So, uh, because I think that's what what at least for me triggers me of like this is, you know, this is not valuable. So, now I'm going to get mad right now. It feels weird and I don't like it. And, uh, you know, how about quit listening to me, you know, turn off the turn off the mic. No, I don't have Alexa for a reason. I don't want you listening to me. Uh, you know,

Aksel Bedikyan: Listen to don't listen to me.

Leonard Murphy: Uh,

Aksel Bedikyan: You know what I mean? Like give me and that that's like that's Yeah.

Leonard Murphy: Right. Right. Right. I'll tell you when I want you to listen to me,

Aksel Bedikyan: Yeah. And and that's the tension, right? Because you want as human beings, especially as North Americans, we want convenience.

Leonard Murphy: Right?

Aksel Bedikyan: Like we want things to just like happen. Uh and we don't want to, you know, spend time and money and effort and energy into thinking about it, doing about it. We just like it when things happen. So that's on one end. The other end is we do value things like privacy and you know just like leave me alone like this is my you know my my safe space and then sometimes those things All right. like how do we I guess at the end of the day it's more of um you know if you think about it from a supply and demand standpoint maybe it's more of a demand side question rather than a supply side question like as human beings like what is it that we want what do you want like what is it you want convenience we got it or you want this other side of the equation whichever it is I think from an economic standpoint the supply side will provide what we want at the end of the day why because you We're individuals. We're taxpayers. We have needs. We have this. We have that. We are society. We're like, it's a market. What's a market? It's it's a bunch of people, right? So, if the people aren't happy and they're not getting whatever they want, eventually the system will have to adjust to give them what it is that they need,

Leonard Murphy: Yeah. No,

Aksel Bedikyan: Right?

Leonard Murphy: I think that's a great way to think about it. I think there's a fine line between utopia and dystopian hellscape.

Aksel Bedikyan: Yes.

Leonard Murphy: Um, and you know, uh, and that is a perceptual issue, I guess, kind like the old quote of, you know, the from the judge about pornography. I don't know, but I know when I see it. I can't define it but I know when I see it. So u and maybe that's just the nature of the beast that uh we as beasts that it's always going to be you know based upon our in the- moment perception uh overall and but to your point the market is going market's going to rise one way or the other and then it will be punished uh if it you know oversteps and maybe we just live in that world of dynamism. There is no one one framework to to guide this. I was hoping you had that answer, Aksel. I really thought, all right, Aksel is going to have the answer to the the ultimate framework so we can avoid dystopian hellscape.

Aksel Bedikyan: Right.

Leonard Murphy: Um,

Aksel Bedikyan: Not quite.

Leonard Murphy: Okay.

Aksel Bedikyan: Sorry to disappoint.

Leonard Murphy: Next time.

Aksel Bedikyan: Yeah, I'll

Leonard Murphy: Next time. Next time. Okay.

Aksel Bedikyan: Be

Leonard Murphy: I want to be constant time. I'm You're You're looking a little fuzzy to me. I think it's my end. And so the gods of the internet um may not be shining on us quite so much uh at the moment. Uh what uh what did we not touch on that you wish that we

Aksel Bedikyan: Um I mean look especially in the world of research and qualitative research right because

Leonard Murphy: Had?

Aksel Bedikyan: We touch qualitative quite a bit we do quantitative we do data science but in the realm of qualitative research I find um that there's a place uh for AI um you know in terms of like there's a lot of talk around Ames now right so AI moderated interviews and we've done quite quite a bit of those and they're effective. They're good. They they give you information and and they they give you scale.

Leonard Murphy: Mhm.

Aksel Bedikyan: Like you don't have to interview 80 people for an hour or like run 50 focus groups with, you know, five uh people within a group to be able to come to some sort of insights. Like you can get to scale and all of that stuff.

Leonard Murphy: Yep.

Aksel Bedikyan: But it's still like, you know,

Leonard Murphy: Yep.

Aksel Bedikyan: We still have questions that we can answer, right? When we're doing these types types of um projects where it's just like AI moderated for me anyway there always has to be always I don't know about always but right now there has to be a human component to it right so what we do is we marry Amy's with human interviews right so and the human interviews give us things like okay when the guy is answering you uh on the call um he twitched a bit or he raised his eyebrow or like he you know he gave a you know he gave some sort of a facial uh response to your question that the Amy's not like it's just not going to pick up on that. But if I'm in front of that person, I'm like, "Oh, okay. So, let me dive a little bit deeper like something happened there." You know what I mean? Without necessarily having to say it to the person. So, it's it's allows us a a deeper probe. It gives us more texture. It gives more emotion. It gives much more richness. Right? And it's not to say that's the only thing we're going to do, but I think a world where both of those things coexist and feed off of one another one another and then complement one another is where I think we are with qualitative research today. We'll see uh in a year or two years from now maybe things change but that's certainly uh what I'm seeing out there. So I just wanted to touch on that because I know we wanted to talk a bit about qual research as well.

Leonard Murphy: Yes, I I I think we're in the golden age of qual. The uh the Well, I thought that for a while. I I was trying to give away virtual uh focus groups back in 2007 and like literally couldn't give it away. So I've always thought that technology would would create scale and efficiency and unlock all the the value of qual. I think we are we have arrived to that. Um and uh and the way you've framed that up is the right way. The the human it doesn't remove humans and allows us to focus on what where we're best uh and where we can add value. So I appreciate that. Last question. Uh you've been on a jury journey as an entrepreneur for uh for quite some time. lessons that you would pass on because the barrier to entry for entrepreneurs has also decreased. That's a also a side effect here from a technology standpoint. Um the uh so there's lots of people now that are that are uh building businesses that are are really interesting and and scalable in ways they couldn't be before. So, lessons that you would impart to the next generation uh that's hanging out of shingle

Aksel Bedikyan: I'm thinking of three things actually now that as you were asking the question um I hadn't pre-thought about this but as you asked the And three things came to my mind. Let's see if I remember them. Um the first one is a simple one. Just be easy to work with. Like be the person who when you they see your face on the Zoom call or like you walk into a room, they're happy to see you. Why? Because you're a good human being. Period. You're just good. Okay? So people just want to be around you. That's number one. You'd be surprised how that's not always the case. Number two,

Leonard Murphy: I call it the no assholes rule.

Aksel Bedikyan: Um number two.

Leonard Murphy: So the uh and there's a Lobby don't follow the rule.

Aksel Bedikyan: Yeah. Okay.

Leonard Murphy: So, sorry. Go ahead, Aksel.

Aksel Bedikyan: That's a good um the other thing is build stuff,

Leonard Murphy: Number

Aksel Bedikyan: You know, just throw something at the wall.

Leonard Murphy: Two.

Aksel Bedikyan: It sticks, it sticks, it doesn't stick, it doesn't stick. You would have learned something in the process. Throw stuff at the wall and do things for free. I often when I first started my business, it was just like, oh, the client wanted to do something, but they didn't have the budget. I did it. I did it and that's it without any expectation of money of nothing. Right? But that's an investment for the future. You build that relationship with a client. You provide something that's of value to them. You're top of mind. They'll call you again when there's a paid mandate, whatever. That's always always served me well. Maybe the last one is about like when you're running your own company and you have a practice whether or not you have

Leonard Murphy: Mhm.

Aksel Bedikyan: Employees it's easy to feel alone and isolated and just like you know sometimes you know you have difficult days no matter how much you love research I love the work that I do but sometimes days are difficult surround yourself with like-minded people you know peers people who um have companies people who are in your category people who are just curious and I don't know, share a hobby, whatever it is, right? Just surround yourself with those people. Um, and and good things will happen. So, those would be my three

Leonard Murphy: All sage advice, Aksel.

Aksel Bedikyan: Things.

Leonard Murphy: Uh I think all of that I I wish that I know some of those things myself when I first uh hung out of Shingle. So uh that's great. This has been a wonderful conversation. Where can people find you?

Aksel Bedikyan: Um, they could find me on LinkedIn. We have a website. There's an email address there as well. So, I'm looking forward to hearing from anyone. Um, conversations, shooting the s***, talking about the future, past AI, what have you. I'd be happy

Leonard Murphy: All right. The uh be careful with the whole,

Aksel Bedikyan: To.

Leonard Murphy: You know, h just just call me. We'll just shoot the s*** that that your phone may be ringing a lot. So,

Aksel Bedikyan: That's all good. I look forward to it.

Leonard Murphy: All right, Aksel, thank you so much. Uh really glad that we had the chance to chat. I hope that we have a chance to do it again in the future. Uh is there anything else that final words of wisdom or information you want to drop to our audience? Now's the time.

Aksel Bedikyan: I'm all wisdom out. Lenny, thank you so much. I look forward to doing this again with

Leonard Murphy: Great. Thank you so much,

Aksel Bedikyan: You.

Leonard Murphy: Axel. And uh thank you to our producer, Emma Nichols, to uh our sponsors if we have one. I don't know if we have one on this episode or not. Uh, and most of all, thank you to our listeners for taking the time out of your day to spend it with Aksel and I. That's it for this edition of the CEO series. We'll talk again real soon. Bye-bye.