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S3 Summer Edition - Shell Holtz
10 Plays13 days ago
In this episode of Dial It In, the hosts talk to Shel Holtz, a pioneering podcaster and communication strategist. They discuss Shel's extensive career in communications and marketing, the evolution and potential of podcasting, and the role of technology in modern corporate communications. They delve into the benefits and challenges of integrating AI in communications, emphasizing the importance of strategic planning. Shel shares insights from his auditing experiences and stresses the need for honesty and alignment in internal and external corporate messaging. The conversation also touches on the impact of remote work on industry operations and the continuous adaptation required to manage evolving communication technologies.
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Transcript
Introduction to Dial It In Podcast
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to Dial It In, a podcast where we talk to fascinating people about marketing, sales, process improvements, and tricks that they use to grow their businesses. Join me, Dave Meyer, and Trigby Olson of BusyWeb as we bring you interviews on how the best in their fields are dialing it in for their organizations. Let's ring up another episode.
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome to our summer series on Dial It In.
Insights from Shell Holtz: Technology and Credibility
00:00:31
Speaker
This week we're talking to Shell Holtz. Shell is one of the original podcasters and is incredibly prolific in the communications and marketing world.
00:00:39
Speaker
It was fantastic fun to hear his take on where marketing is going and how to take advantage of technology while maintaining credibility. Shell has literally written the book on PR and marketing, and he's one of my favorite mentors in the marketing world.
00:00:53
Speaker
Enjoy this episode with Shell Holtz. Trigvi, I have a special treat for all of us today. And he's an old friend of mine and someone I've won from. I declare shenanigans because I checked and I looked because I was really excited. And Where the Sidewalk Ends is one of my favorite books growing up, but that guy's dead.
00:01:16
Speaker
So yeah I don't have any idea who... Shell Holtz, Shell Holtz. I actually have, so watching if you're watching our video. but Not Silverstein.
00:01:27
Speaker
No, not Silverstein. The better Shell. Okay. The kinder, gentler Shell. That changes everything. And he's a multi-book author. He is one of the original OG podcasters. He just celebrated 20 years and with his For Immediate Release podcast.
00:01:45
Speaker
with Neville Hobson and I couldn't be more delighted to have Shell with us. So Shell, welcome. It's a pleasure. Good to be with you both. Of course. We have an official bio and I might as well let Trigvi do that one because I want to do a little bonus we have sponsors for our podcast and so we like to share a little bit about that but let's learn a little more about shell first just for the record though you're not the little kid who grew up in texas in the 90s and then went to caltech and lived lived with the kid from roseanne that wasn't you not me is that what is that what ai told you all right i gotta hold on just one second
00:02:24
Speaker
Shell Holtz is a renowned communication strategist, author, and speaker with over four decades of experience helping organizations elevate their communication practices. As the principal of Holtz Communication plus Technology, Shell has been at the forefront of integrating traditional communication strategies with emerging digital technologies.
00:02:44
Speaker
He's a sought-after advisor for Fortune 500 companies and industry leaders offering expertise in employee communication, public relations, and digital transformation. A prolific writer, Shell has authored several books on corporate communication, including ones from ah Dave's MBA journey, and regular share regularly shares his insights through his long-running blog and podcast for immediate release, which I think crossed the how many episode mark?
00:03:11
Speaker
Around 1,800 so. I don't think I've done 1,800 things in my life, let alone 1,800 or one thing. So Shell's passion lies in helping businesses connect authentically with their audiences, navigate change, and stay ahead in evolving communication landscapes.
00:03:28
Speaker
With a wealth of knowledge and a proven track record, he's widely regarded as one of the leading voices in modern corporate communications. Ladies and gentlemen, Bazinga himself, And I should point out that's an old bio. Whoa.
00:03:41
Speaker
Yeah, i retired my consulting practice over seven years ago and returned to the client side. I am Senior Director of Communications at WebCore, which is a commercial general contractor and builder in California, headquartered here in San Francisco, and having a blast doing it. Everything else there is still correct.
00:03:59
Speaker
Thank you. Thanks for the global show. going to have to get the Chinese AI since. the The better one? Yeah. We had wasn't working. The brand new one. This is so cool. We're obviously longtime fans and and just in awe and super excited for you to be here. So
AI in Communications: Revolutionizing the Field
00:04:16
Speaker
what I i just I don't need I have questions, but Dave, I'm sure you have questions. But show what's on your mind these days.
00:04:23
Speaker
AI is top of mind these days. yeah It's really just beginning to make inroads into communications. I spend most of my time doing internal communications, and it's proven to be...
00:04:40
Speaker
incredibly useful for internal comms and with the external comms I do, huge time savings and and more to come. I've been playing with some of these agent demos and looking at some of the ways that can reduce the time spent on a lot of truly mundane drudgery yeah that's right very common and in communications practice. So very excited about the potential for all of this and a little worried as well.
00:05:11
Speaker
And I think it's challenging to keep up with technology. And I know you've always been one of the, one of the people that is the least toy averse of all of my communications friends. Like you're always playing with something and have a new toy in your box. And as matter of fact, as we were setting up, not only do you have green behind you on your green screen, but you have a full screen that you can pull down at will.
00:05:35
Speaker
That's, that's impressive kit. I love it. Yeah. These two sets of green screen that are taped to my file cabinet my walk-in closet door are just to project something instead of having posters there. That way I can have something different all the time.
00:05:50
Speaker
But if I need a background, I've got a full green screen that pulls down the way those old school screens for showing a ah movie in class if you if If you remember those now, the EV monitors, but they used to have big screens that they pulled down. So that's what I've got hanging from my ceiling.
00:06:07
Speaker
That's hands down the most impressive. the The only one other one that I saw was even closer was I saw a guy who had figured out to have a big green halo on his chair, Game of Thrones style. So at like anytime he moved around, it would still have that green, but I like your setup for sure.
00:06:24
Speaker
I think what's really fascinating is I know we're going to talk a lot about communication strategies, but with the as we're recording, this was, I think, three or four days after OpenAI's operator came out, which now you can ask ChatGPT to do anything browser-related. I saw a demo of a guy who...
00:06:44
Speaker
asked Chet GPT to book him a flight to Indianapolis. And it did it, the whole thing up until it was time to edit in the credit credit card information. And it was both titillating and terrifying all at the same time.
00:07:00
Speaker
i I did a demo. In fact, the video is up on my YouTube channel and LinkedIn, but this was using Anthropics Claude, which had released a demo version of an agent.
00:07:12
Speaker
The risks involved in having it run on your desktop at this point are still being ironed out. So this one runs on a virtual desktop that you end up installing.
00:07:24
Speaker
in order to play with it. But what I had it do was first visit my company's website so that it could learn what our areas of expertise are and what market sectors we operate in.
00:07:38
Speaker
Then I had it go out and find industry conferences coming up in the next 12 months that are still looking for speakers and find the conferences that aligned with our market sectors and our areas of subject matter expertise.
00:07:54
Speaker
I asked it to come up with a strategy for approaching ah these conferences and then to list the conferences in a spreadsheet with the URL for the website for the conference, the deadline for submitting a speaker proposal, and some other information. And I basically sat back and watched while it did all of this. It was really fascinating because over on the left-hand side of the screen, it showed you what it was doing.
00:08:19
Speaker
yeah In the main screen, it was doing it, but on the left hand side, it was actually showing you the code that it was using and then in plain English what it was doing. And for every step that it took, it grabbed a screenshot and put it in that left hand column. That's how it saw what it had done and what it needed to do next.
00:08:40
Speaker
And it just continued to go through this process until it had populated the spreadsheet and written the document, which is all pretty impressive. That would have been a ah two-day job for an intern.
00:08:50
Speaker
Absolutely. Wow. And it took about 10 or 15 minutes with this particular tool. And once they're ready for prime time, probably two or three.
00:09:02
Speaker
It occurs to me that there are we are three monster AI nerds all on the call together. And so so, but for our listeners who might not know about it or a little afraid of it, Michelle, can you explain the difference between an agent and AI on the whole?
00:09:16
Speaker
Well, what we have with generative AI right now is chatbots. And chatbots basically are a text field where you enter a prompt. Your prompt can be detailed. It can be many steps. You can...
00:09:29
Speaker
use priming in your prompt, but basically what you're looking for is a response. And then you enter another prompt and you get another response. With agentic AI, it will take many steps autonomously in order to achieve a goal or perform a task that you have set out for it.
00:09:50
Speaker
It could be to book a vacation. For example, book a vacation for me and my wife to Hawaii. So it would check my calendar and my wife's calendar. It would find a week that worked for both of us, book the flight, book the hotel, maybe book a couple of restaurant reservations, a rental car.
00:10:09
Speaker
It'll just go through all of the steps. And at some point when the security issues have been ironed out, it'll have my credentials to log into... my accounts and it will have access to my credit card numbers and use them. ah That's a ways away. Those security issues are still problematic, but that's the type of thing you can expect this to do. So you can imagine what this might do in the field of public relations, in communications, in terms of some of these yeah very yeah mundane tasks that that we have to perform all the
The Evolution of Podcasting: From 2005 to Mainstream
00:10:46
Speaker
time.
00:10:47
Speaker
Yeah, I want to get, I think we could probably spend hours together talking about AI, but it's such a privilege to have you here. and being that you're one of the sort of the original heirs of the art form, can you talk a little bit about how did you start figuring out what a podcast was and building it and doing it?
00:11:08
Speaker
Because I didn't really get knowledge of it until almost, I don't know, 10 years ago, and you're 20 years in. Right. And working with a co-host because Trigvie and I have been co-hosting.
00:11:19
Speaker
We do great when we present together, but when we podcast together, we have to do hand signals. Oh my God. all that stuff so we don't stomp all over each other. It's wonderful. Oh, you see now Neville, my podcast co-host is in the UK. He was in the Netherlands when we first started.
00:11:33
Speaker
So our whole experience was doing this remotely and video is a relatively new addition. We were using Skype. Initially, if there had been no Skype, there would have been no FIR. That's one of the requirements because how else do we record when we're on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean?
00:11:55
Speaker
I found out about podcasting by reading blogs. Blogs were big back around 2019. And nineteen and Podcasting was just getting started and some communicators were writing about it as ah potential channel for messaging for organizations. So I figured out how to listen to podcasts, which was not easy ah in 2019.
00:12:21
Speaker
You needed to have podcatching software. And at that point, there was only one. It had been created by Adam Curry, who was at one time producer.
00:12:32
Speaker
vj i think he was from the second batch of vjs but yeah he was a tech nerd and so he wrote the software code for the podcatcher this allowed you to find a podcast and retrieve the file and this was possible because a guy named Dave Weiner had modified RSS to include what he called containers, but in this case for an MP3 file.
00:13:02
Speaker
ah So that's how the podcatcher worked. And Adam and Dave worked together on this to make sure that the two would work in sync. But once you had the podcast in the podcatcher, you had to move it from that to a device where you could listen to it.
00:13:18
Speaker
So you had to be pretty dedicated, ah pretty committed, and have at least a rudimentary understanding of how files moved online and from your computer to another device in order to listen.
00:13:31
Speaker
But I was pretty convinced that there was indeed potential here for the business world. And I figured the only way I was going to learn how to podcast was to do one.
00:13:44
Speaker
That's the only way I would have the kind of experience would allow me to talk authoritatively to clients about it. So I decided to start one. And as I was listening to podcasts, with one exception, they were all one person just dabbling into a microphone.
00:14:00
Speaker
The exception was a very rude, a very funny show called The Don and Drew Show. It was a married couple just talking trash to each other.
00:14:11
Speaker
But I liked the dynamic, and I thought a co-hosted show would probably be better. Most of the podcasts that were out there also were about podcasting. So I decided ours would be about communication. I reached out to Neville.
00:14:25
Speaker
I knew Neville through the International Association of Business Communicators. We had both been assistant sysops in the PR and marketing forum on CompuServe back in the day. wow And i think it was 1996,
00:14:39
Speaker
Evan, I can't be sure of this, but maybe 96, there was a conference, IABC conference in Boston. where we had members of IABC Hyperspace, CompuServe members who had joined that particular SIG, who were at the conference, would go to a session, take notes, run back to their room, type up their notes and share them in the forum.
00:15:03
Speaker
And we actually live blogged one session where questions from people were being read to the speaker on stage. We think it was the first time anything had ever been live blogged.
00:15:15
Speaker
And we enjoyed the experience. So I got in touch with him and said, hey, I don't know if you've heard about podcasting, but I ran down what I was thinking. And he said, it's funny. I was thinking the same thing and I was going to call you.
00:15:27
Speaker
so I think one of the things that I found fascinating, especially since we just went through an election, is a lot of people credit the art form as an alternate now as an alternative media source.
00:15:43
Speaker
Podcasting, yeah. but and Absolutely. and And Neville and I have talked about this a bit. ah the The fact that this has gone so mainstream. that people are now quoted in the news for things that they have said on podcasts. ah it It could be political. It doesn't have to be. It could be social. It could be ah gossip, entertainment, movie star type gossip.
00:16:07
Speaker
But just like Twitter at one point became the place where noteworthy people said things that got quoted in the media, that was podcasts. I thought,
00:16:19
Speaker
Trump spent far less money than, but he got onto lot of podcasts and they all were of a type. They were all bro type podcasts. So he was targeting a demographic, which was actually pretty shrewd. And I think it paid off. I think Joe Rogan probably paid off more than anything else. But it does speak to the kind of influence that podcasts can wield now.
00:16:48
Speaker
So it's come a long way since Neville and I started. There were about 400 podcasts back then. And I think there are maybe one or two of those that are still around.
00:16:59
Speaker
I think the Geek News Central, Todd Cochran's podcast is still going. I think, and just put a little context, the one, one of the folks that's credited as being the godfather of podcasting is Mark Marin and for immediate release is five years or four years older than the what WTF podcasts. You've been doing this since 2005.
00:17:23
Speaker
Yeah, January 3rd, 2005. We actually sent out our first file. i don't remember the date, but it was late December 2004. It was a test just to make sure that the file would actually go where it was supposed to go and could be retrieved the way it was supposed to be retrieved.
00:17:39
Speaker
But yeah our first episode, which just is terrible, was January 3rd, 2005. I am terrified to re-listen to our first episode. I remember it well, and I've learned a lot since then. absolutely.
00:17:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate that. but So is podcasting something as somebody who's really a communications legend, do you recommend businesses, people, how do you if figure out if they should do a podcast?
Strategic Use of Podcasts in Communication Plans
00:18:08
Speaker
Well, I think you figure it out the same way you figure out any medium that you're going to use in ah ah a communication strategy, and that's by going through a strategic planning process.
00:18:20
Speaker
I think there are far too many people who become enamored of the technology and try to shoehorn it into a strategy. rather than starting with your goal and working down through the various layers of a strategic plan and getting to the tactics and saying a podcast would reach this demographic that we're trying to reach.
00:18:40
Speaker
The topic that we're addressing would lend itself to this. ah It's part of a strategic plan. yeah There are so many great technologies out there and all of them require a strategic process to to determine whether it's going to help you ultimately achieve your goals. is You can create a podcast and get a million listeners, but if it doesn't move the needle on something, know, why'd you do it?
00:19:06
Speaker
Bingo. Yes. So as like when you started with WebCore and this it's been a while, seven years, but did you recommend that they start a podcast or what was how did you bring them into the modern age?
00:19:20
Speaker
Yeah, well, WebCore does not have a podcast. we We did a limited podcast for the company's 50th anniversary. So we found some employees who had left the company. We went to some of the original founders of the company and did some interviews. We talked to leaders and employees who have been there a long time. We have one employee who's coming up on his 43rd anniversary with the company.
00:19:43
Speaker
Wow. So we talked to these folks, but this was a very limited thing. The VP of marketing and i have a vision for a podcast. What we don't have is the bandwidth to actually spend the time to produce it or the budget to outsource.
00:19:58
Speaker
So we're just going to sit on it and hopefully bring it to life at at some point. But I can tell you that I listen to a lot of construction podcasts.
00:20:09
Speaker
And they are all interview shows. Not to slam an interview show. I'm on one right now. Right. But they're all interview shows. And ah some of the podcasts that I have been enjoying lately are not interviews. They contain interviews, but they're pieced together to tell stories and multiple voices and narration. And this runs the gamut from something like Serial, which sort of kicked off that genre,
00:20:36
Speaker
To one of my favorites, which is the good old Grateful Dead cast. i even wrote a post about this. I am a deadhead. I'll freely admit this. But if anybody wants to get schooled on podcasting, listen to an episode of this. You don't have to be a fan to get what they're doing with this show, which is weaving a story together with...
00:20:59
Speaker
snippets of multiple interviews. They could have maybe 30 interviews that were conducted from which they extracted segments to assemble a narrative that includes little snippets of music and and again, the narration.
00:21:15
Speaker
and And that's not quite what we're looking to do at WebCore, but I want to get more into the storytelling and let the other folks doing the other podcasts do the interviews.
00:21:27
Speaker
For sure. but As you build that, and I think it'd be a perfect pivot time for us to talk about more strategy and communications as an IABC fellow. Any credential that I think you can get in media and public relations, I think Shell has. As that strategic tactician, are there ways or like a narrative that you like running your clients through when you were running business?
00:21:55
Speaker
solo practice, or as you're building that through, how are you taking those communication fundamentals and so keeping them relevant for your customers?
00:22:07
Speaker
When I was an independent consultant, one of the services that I offered was audits. And I find audits to be incredibly useful.
00:22:17
Speaker
And by the way, an audit is defined as an external view of ah your operations. So when I hear somebody saying I'm conducting my own communications audit, I said, it's a review. it's It's a study. It's an analysis. It's not an audit by definition. I'll agree that you can conduct your own communication audit the the day the IRS lets me conduct my own tax audit.
00:22:44
Speaker
I want to interject because there's an important thing that happens to me all the time is that anything, any communications audit or any marketing related audit that people do that the initial reaction is I don't want to pay you to learn about my business.
External Audits: Gaining Valuable Perspectives
00:22:59
Speaker
And then the the the response that everyone should almost universally give is then you shouldn't have called me in the first place. Is that an example of a confounding answer that you got that you had to go back at?
00:23:09
Speaker
Because that was what I hitched on is i when you were going through what you you you shared is what was the kind of answers that made you pause? Yeah, I can't remember what the...
00:23:21
Speaker
The feedback was from that particular audit probably 15 or 18 years ago. ah But it would just be a disconnect between what we heard in our interviews and focus groups and what the survey said. It might be that people are very proud to work here and then we get the survey back and now I wouldn't, there's always a net promoter score question in the survey and people, yeah, I wouldn't recommend this place to my family or friends. We want to know why did we hear one thing and then another?
00:23:52
Speaker
I mean, we did one audit. This was for a TV network that does live programming. I'm not going to name them. And we interviewed the CEO and a rather famous person at the time.
00:24:07
Speaker
And he questioned the need for an internal communications department. He said, there is so much cachet to working here, to being able to, when you go out with friends, to say, I work here.
00:24:22
Speaker
That's all we need to have a great culture and enthusiastic people who want to do a great job because they want to keep working here. and We get out to the front line who were producers of shows and the like, and do they say, we don't trust the leadership of this company as far as you can throw them. I go, okay, that's what why is that? said, well, at the beginning of the year every year,
00:24:46
Speaker
They tell us what the business plan is. And then with the monthly updates, February, March, April, all the way through October, we keep hearing how great everything is. And then just like clockwork in October, the budget cuts hit because things aren't going well.
00:25:02
Speaker
So they haven't been truthful with us. So we go back to the... the CEO of the company and tell him this. And he says, yeah, but if we told them what the real situation was, it would end up on the smoke. This is true. a consultant is somebody who borrows your watch to tell you what time it is. But yeah it's you are so close to this that having that outside perspective is vital. And now that I'm back on the client side, I pay.
00:25:33
Speaker
to have an audit. I know how to do an audit. i've I've done dozens of them, ah but I'm inside. I'm too close to this. I need somebody coming from the outside and bringing that perspective to the audit.
00:25:47
Speaker
And the way I always did audits was it started with interviews with the communications team. Why did you call me in the first place? What problems are you having? What issues are you having? What challenges?
00:26:00
Speaker
What needs to be fixed? ah There's some reason you wanted to do this. You don't think things are going along just swimmingly and you don't need this. So you start with the interviews with the communications team.
00:26:14
Speaker
ah Then it's interviews with the senior most leadership of the organization. And if I couldn't talk to the president, the CEO, most of the times I would turn down the gig yeah because they're the ones who set the agenda. and we would spend a fair amount of time with them, but the two most important questions we asked or information we solicited was, tell me about a communication around here that you think went really well and tell me about one that you think went really poorly.
00:26:46
Speaker
Then we would ask, what are the key things that you want employees to understand that they currently, from your point of view, don't? And then that would lead to other questions and we would be able to flesh out the information we needed.
00:27:04
Speaker
We would take that and then we would do some focus groups. And these focus groups were designed to inform the survey that we would send out next.
00:27:17
Speaker
So we were trying to uncover issues that people had with communication and messaging, and we tended to look at teams. So we might do a focus group with frontline members of the HR team and the IT team and the accounting team.
00:27:32
Speaker
We would get out into the field. I remember we we did this for ConAgra Foods and we got out to mills, for example, where they actually grind the grain. ah We did this for hospitals and got out to clinics and the like. We did this for a TV network and went out to talk to the various teams on different shows.
00:27:53
Speaker
Then we would run the survey. then we'd get the information back from the survey and we'd analyze it. And invariably we would have questions. ah Why did they answer this way? This is not what we've been hearing.
00:28:06
Speaker
So we did another round of focus groups to get at why the answers that confounded us came back the way they did. At the same time all this was going on, we were doing a content analysis, a deep dive. We would get access to the intra internet. We would get an inbox and all of the emails that went to all employees.
00:28:25
Speaker
We would be able to see any materials that were not digital we would get, print publications and the like. And then all of this would lead to our recommendations. And the recommendations were consistent with ah strategic planning principles.
00:28:42
Speaker
yeah Here are your key goals. And then these are the objectives that that you're going to ah seek to achieve. And we recommend the following tactics to do that.
00:28:52
Speaker
ah And it could be anything from a new channel to rethinking the mix of content that you're providing. I remember we had one client who brought us in because they thought their internet rocked. They thought it was a great internet and no one was reading it.
00:29:09
Speaker
And so we went in and we've looked at the intranet and came away going, you know what? This is a great intranet. Why in the world is nobody paying attention to this? They contracted us to do the audit and we get to the focus groups.
00:29:23
Speaker
And what we learn is from the front line, yeah, we think the intranet is great, but our managers tell us that if we have time to look at the intranet, we must not have enough work to do.
00:29:34
Speaker
only You had middle management that was actually preventing people from going to the intranet, even though the message from above at the most senior levels of the organization was this is the hub of information and knowledge in the company. This is where people need to go.
00:29:51
Speaker
that the middle managers who had targets that they had to achieve if they were going to make their bonuses were saying, no, if you're on the internet, you're not working. As great as their intra internet was, we had to find other ways to get this information into the hands of people that their bosses wouldn't object to.
00:30:07
Speaker
And it took talking to people to figure that out. in Gun blog within 10 minutes. and And I said, OK, you don't trust your employees and your employees don't trust you, but you think you don't need internal communications.
00:30:23
Speaker
Let's talk about there's a disconnect. Right. And so often because they're in there every day doing their job. The people who are in charge of communications are unaware of this because nobody's asked them to look for it.
00:30:40
Speaker
ah They're just getting the information out, presuming that their audience is consuming it and presuming that they're aligned in what they're communicating with what's important to the leadership of the organization.
00:30:51
Speaker
And they're just unaware of these things. And that's why those outside views of the process can be so helpful. i think I think it's a great story, and but I think the initial reaction people would hear, well that's just a TV network. That doesn't apply to me. And I would say I think that does apply because even, yeah, you might not be turned into the, and it might not be that big of a story, but you know not trusting your employees to turns around and that does bite you with places like
00:31:23
Speaker
yeah yeah employer reviews, things like that, it it it it gets around with an informationally flat world that we're in today. Exactly. I have similar stories out of hospitals and other kinds of organizations, but also did social media audits and other kinds of audits that were communication focused.
00:31:45
Speaker
But really just looking at your processes for producing and distributing this stuff and measuring it and coming back with recommendations to make it better. And things keep getting more complicated and the world is getting more polarized and AI is muddying things up with, by making it super easy to generate content that may be subpar if you're not paying that much
Aligning Internal Culture with External Brand
00:32:08
Speaker
attention. So do you find in your leadership role in your current company where you're both internal and external?
00:32:17
Speaker
Is there push-pull between the external brands and how you're communicating internally? I'm very fortunate in having landed at this company. No, the the external brand is very consistent with the way things are in the organization. The leadership is committed to building a culture that is consistent with what we tell people the culture is. It's it's great.
00:32:50
Speaker
It makes life easier, certainly, than it could be. Love it. Yeah. And I don't know enough about your current company, but is there a big work from home contingent in there? And is there ah a struggle now as things are starting to pull back?
00:33:05
Speaker
No, we have a policy that says you should be in the office three days a week if you are in a job that lends itself to being able to do that.
00:33:15
Speaker
but We have a couple of employees who are full-time remote because their jobs enable them. But for example, this week, because I have contractors at the house, I'm working from home four out of five days.
00:33:28
Speaker
Nobody cares. Nobody cares if I'm working here five days. Nobody says, how come you're not working from home this week if I'm in the office five days? I i go where it makes sense. for me to be and the culture allows me to do that. Now, of course, we build stuff. We're a commercial contractor.
00:33:45
Speaker
We build airport terminals, hospitals, office high rises and residential high rises, museums, hotels, big stuff. California Academy of Sciences, Moscone Convention Center.
00:34:00
Speaker
So these things can't be built from home. ah You have to have the labor force, the carpenters and the laborers and but plumbers and the electricians. and They need to be there on site, which means the project team, the project engineers and the project manager and the superintendents and the foreman and the construction managers, they all need to be on site.
00:34:23
Speaker
Most of the people in a construction company don't have the luxury of being able to work from home. And during the pandemic, they were considered essential workers. It's not one of those industries where this seems to be much of an issue.
00:34:38
Speaker
I do find the whole return to office debate just fascinating because i see very little evidence to support the the mandate to return to the office full-time.
00:34:53
Speaker
i I have always made decisions about what I support, and that includes my political perspectives based on data and evidence. I support what works, not what aligns with whatever cultural mandate seems to be going around at the time.
00:35:14
Speaker
And i I agree. And we've dealt with this at BusyWeb for a while. We've always been at least partially virtual, even before it was cool or necessary. And now we have probably a quarter of our team comes in regularly to to the author.
00:35:31
Speaker
But it's completely today, our office is completely full because we all had meetings that we needed to make too. But it's more about trusting your team. and It's easy as it as a team of 25 when you're dealing with thousands like Apple or whatever, or any of the big massive like meta, how are they doing all that stuff? Google with their huge campus right out by you and the fact that I don't know if they still have the ability to eat within seven minutes of any one place on campus.
00:36:03
Speaker
But something tells me that maybe the work from home thing has changed all of that. So, yeah, I, for one, hate going to the office and that, and it's not because I don't like the office, but the, and this is a God's honest truth. One of the leading manufacturers of mini donut machines is about a quarter of a mile away from busy life.
00:36:21
Speaker
So have a three days a week, the entire place smells like warm cinnamon for the better part of the day. Oh, I love going to the office. I like having the conversations with people. I wasn't expecting to see.
00:36:35
Speaker
But I got to tell you, if I am spending the day editing video or writing a strategic plan or knocking out articles for the intranet, One, being in the office is going to be distracting.
00:36:46
Speaker
We have an open office setup, which means that I can't close the door. Even if I did, people would knock. So I would constantly be interrupted. And you know what it's like to get your focus back on what you're doing after you've been interrupted.
00:37:01
Speaker
I'd rather just be here in my home office, nose to the grindstone, knock it out. Plus, the hour it would take me to get there in the morning and the hour and a half it would take me to get home is now time I can spend working on those strategy strategic plans or articles or videos or what have you.
00:37:19
Speaker
And everybody's fine with that. But if there are meetings, absolutely. I want to be in the office. I also want to get out to projects, which there are only two of us in the communications team.
00:37:30
Speaker
So we're stretched pretty thin, even more thin for the next six months as we implement a new integrated internal communications platform. So we get to do that while we're doing our regular day-to-day job.
00:37:42
Speaker
So I don't even get out to projects as often as I'd like, but this is a very visual, very physical industry. And it's it's fun to get out there and be with the people who are actually building the buildings.
00:37:55
Speaker
Yeah, I have that same problem. i that One of our clients is has all the tools on all the discovery shows that I really like and different axes things and has all the cool saws and everything. And I just want to come and play. and he's, no, we're working here.
00:38:09
Speaker
You need to go away go back and and and build something. I feel like we're just barely scratching the surface, Dave. What about you? we are. And i I would love to maybe at some point have you back if you're game for that, Shell, because I know we I'd love to that we're bumping into for you.
00:38:25
Speaker
But the big thing that I want to leave us with, and maybe this is a teaser for part two, is the ability to manage and be strategically artful while still embracing the fact that the world is constantly changing and technology is constantly improving.
00:38:48
Speaker
And i don't know if there's ever been a time, certainly in my short 30 year history ah of ARB communications at been more weird and more just kind of question marks at every turn.
00:39:04
Speaker
So I'd love to explore that more with you, Shell, if we get a chance because well staying game important. Yeah. Cool. Let's definitely have you back for another episode. Cause I think in in the political climate we're that we're in right now, where half the world doesn't believe what you believe and is angry at you because you believe what you, it becomes even more harder to communicate effectively to the everyone at the same time.
00:39:31
Speaker
And so you can come help us untangle some of that. I think we'd love to. and And try to do that in a fragmented media landscape. Yeah. Yes. Yes, exactly.
00:39:42
Speaker
So. Any final thoughts, Dave? ah Just the the thing that struck me ah through our too brief conversation, frankly, is the big thing that you need to be ah able to do is embrace technology without letting it derail for the sake of the shiny toy.
00:40:03
Speaker
And I love what you do, Shell, and I've been a huge follower and I'm a huge fan. Yeah, I love the technology, but it's just a tool to help you get your job done. And you have to always start with what your goal is.
00:40:15
Speaker
And how's that technology going to help you move that needle? Shel, one final question before we go. We always give our guests the opportunity for naked self-promotion. So where can people find you? And what's the tell us the name of your podcast one more time.
00:40:28
Speaker
The podcast is for immediate release. It's at FIRpodcastnetwork.com. ah We record a monthly long-form episode, and it was really long for January, about an hour and 50 minutes.
00:40:42
Speaker
But we also do short midweek episodes that tend to run about 15, 20 minutes. They're single topic. And you'll find them along with some other shows over at the FIRpodcastnetwork.com.
00:40:55
Speaker
I do have a website and a blog at holtz.com, but where you'll find most of my commentary is on LinkedIn. Awesome. you know Thank you, Shell. Looking forward to being a longtime subscriber.
00:41:08
Speaker
so Oh, thank you. Yeah. So this has been another episode of Dial It In. I'm Trigby. He was Dave. We are produced, as always, by Andy Wartowski and Nicole Fairclough. And with apologies to Tony Kornheiser, we will also try to do better the next time.