Why consumer insights + AI = real world superpowers

Ryan: Hi, everybody, and welcome to this episode of Inside Insights, a podcast powered by Zappi. My name is Ryan, your host, and I am joined today by a very good friend, an insights leader, and an advocate for this industry, Jacci Weber, who leads Pet Insights at Mars. Jacci, what's up? 

Jacci: Hey, Ryan. Good to see you.

Ryan: Good to see you. For everybody's benefit, Jacci and I got to eat pizza together in New York City. Would you agree that New York pizza is the best pizza on the planet? 

Jacci: Oh, as a Detroiter, I have an opinion. You're a Detroiter! Yes, I grew up in Detroit. I am a big fan of the Detroit style pizza, which is like a deep dish, but they put the sauce on top.

Jacci: So if you ever find yourself in Detroit Buddies Pizza, I'm a big fan. 

Ryan: All right, so we'll start this episode with a pizza debate. Um, I have a very strong opinion that New York is the best pizza in the world because you can go anywhere and it's good. And I'm specifically talking about thin slices of cheese pizza.

Ryan: However, I freaking love Detroit style pizza. 

Jacci: Yes. 

Ryan: So good. And actually I live, I live west of Boston and there's a place, um, near our town randomly and they have Detroit style pizza, but they make it with sourdough crust. 

Jacci: Oh, 

Ryan: it's, you know, it comes with sopressata and a bit of honey and oh boy, is it good.

Ryan: So I, I actually, now this is going to piss everybody who's listening off that lives in Chicago. I will call Detroit style pizza, pizza. I can't go that far with Chicago deep dish. And I don't have hate for Chicago deep dish, but it's really like a lasagna, not a pizza. 

Jacci: I've never thought about it like that, but maybe we can agree that pizza is a top tier food.

Ryan: Pizza's elite. Yeah. Pizza's elite. I mean, you know, you can get asked the question, Mexican food, Italian food, Asian food, if you have to eat one for the rest of your life, but you could also just carve out pizza and probably be fine with it. 

Jacci: True. 

Ryan: It is a wonderful thing. So we were both at the corporate researchers conference last week.

Ryan: Um, what were some of your takeaways? Like, how did you, how did you feel leaving the event in New York City? 

Jacci: Yeah, I felt great and personally just super proud of how all of my Mars colleagues showed up. I know a couple of them, it was their first conference and they absolutely crushed it. So that was wonderful to see.

Jacci: It's also great to catch up with industry friends who I haven't seen in a while. I always find the conferences to be a nice reunion. Um, but some of the, the main topics I saw get pulled through this year: one storytelling is still around

Ryan: It's still a thing. 

Jacci: Still a thing.

Jacci: Um, still really matters when it comes to research. Of course we hear AI, everyone's favorite topic. Um, but one thing that I really enjoyed was bringing the behavioral science aspect back to research. I will plug Zappi did have a conference on Tuesday morning and the behavioral science speaker there was amazing.

Jacci: And then right when I walked back to the corporate researchers conference, there was a woman sharing the same messages. So how do we think about nudging our consumers and really getting back to the foundation of market research from a behavioral science perspective? So that was super helpful and very insightful to me.

Ryan: Yeah, I enjoyed it too. I mean, last week was a whirlwind for those of you who, uh, weren't awake. I guess we launched a book. We had a customer conference. Um, it was a really exciting week, but it was similar to you, Jacci, like going to the conference and spending time with people is actually what I always like to do at conferences.

Ryan: Like, just, you can learn, like Jacci and I went for a really lovely walk in Central Park, and you can just learn a lot about our space by just talking to other leaders, other people going through similar problems. Um, and to me, that's the real drive of the conferences. I also want to give a shout out to Richard Shotton and who's the speaker that, um, that Jacci was talking about, who's actually going to be on the pod here in a couple of weeks.

Ryan: So I'm looking forward to it. Like Richard Shotton and spends his life thinking about. behavioral sciences. So we're going to click into that soon. Also, before we shift from Insights Association, I want to give a shout out to Melanie Courtright and her team. The industry is battling data quality.

Ryan: We're only as good as the people who engage with us and give us the ability to understand their behavior and their opinions. And, you know, because of the commoditization of data collection, there's been an influx of data. Issues on this front and, and Mel and her team are doing a lot of work to put benchmarks out there to give best practices and it's needed.

Ryan: So, thank you Mel and thank you Insights Association for all you do. Um, so Jacci, we talked about this when we were together. There's a lot of freaking technology in this industry at the moment. 

Jacci: That's odd. And I think it's a good time for it. 

Ryan: It's everywhere. So you, you're somebody who's a classically trained insights person, but actually is a very early adopter and comfortable with technology.

Ryan: What do you see as the exciting parts of technology, as well as its role in our industry moving forward? 

Jacci: Yeah, that's a great question. And so, though I am newer to the industry, I've been around long enough, um, to be part of the movement from just pure online survey research, full service, to then moving into DIY research, and now we're moving into AI and automation.

Jacci: And what I perceive is like every change is helping us be more efficient. Why I think efficiency is good in our industry is I don't know that all of us, uh, went to school to be researchers to read three hours of written open ends after focus groups. Um, I think we are more as an industry, more thinkers

Jacci: wanting to provide value for our customers or and clients and probably would like to spend more time on you know, more of the fun analysis and the actual actionability of our results. Um, so I do think that all of this technology is enabling us to do that, to make it faster for some of the more menial tasks, faster to get to the answers quicker, and just help bring more value and joy to being a researcher.

Ryan: Well said. I mean, I said this last week in a private group, but I'll say it here. I remember when I, when I joined Steve Phillips at the early days of Zappi ten years ago, my thesis then was if we can make, at that time, the collection of tactical research answers quick, insights people could spend more time impacting the results.

Ryan: Now, I don't need to be negative, but it's been hard to make that reality change the outcomes, which we'll speak about in a second, but that was always the dream is technology can sort of lift people up and to do more fun things. No one got into market research to manage vendors and projects all day.

Ryan: I don't think, even though still a lot of people do that. You know, Jacci, the other thing that I think was was motivating to me actually is our industry has always had this reputation, and I think a lot of it's earned, that we're slow. Slow to adopt change, slow to adopt trends, and we're slow. For me, AI is a big technological revolution.

Ryan: However, it's just an enabler because one of the things about big, big revolutions, big things is they end up becoming commodities. And so to me, AI is a playing field leveler and it's what you do with it. That matters. And I've had this belief like. Holy shit, consumer data plus AI is a superpower for people who know what to do with it.

Ryan: And so anyways, all this to say, last week, I learned that you and Jordan and Karen, three Insights leaders who we get to speak to directly, are actually leading AI initiatives and leading adoption in your companies. And so I just want to say to everybody, we don't need to be the slowest, because we can shape that reputation one thing at a time, but Take me through a little bit about where you see AI play a role and how you're using it to the extent you can share.

Jacci: Yeah, for sure. And I know when I was originally asked to be on the panel, I wrote to the Zappi team and I'm like, are you sure you want me to be on? I'm just still baby stepping into the waters. And they're like, that's great. A lot of our clients are stepping into the waters. So that's just like one message I have to share.

Jacci: Like, as long as you're experimenting and trying things, You're doing AI. So don't worry. You're not on the forefront. Just start experimenting and see what works. We don't have an approved corporate Microsoft copilot chat GPT, for our organization. So how we are experimenting with AI is through research vendors.

Jacci: A lot of them are language models, like pulling out Google. In summarizing ratings and reviews is one way we use them. One of my favorite ways is we've now actually been able to derive value from our knowledge management by having an AI sit on top. So as long as we have all of our information loaded into the system, we can just ask it questions, like what do Hispanic U.

Jacci: S. consumers think about cats? And it'll pull together a summary within like two to three minutes. a point of view with all the right slides tagged. So that's been really nice too. So we gain confidence in checking what it's pulling. And then coming up in a few weeks, we're going to have the Zappi team on site to show us, instead of just creating summaries from data, how might we use it for concept ideation?

Jacci: So we're excited to go through that workshop, but we're still trying to figure out our way of what tools are ready for us to use, which ones are on the horizon, but not quite ready and which ones we have to wait a little, little bit longer for. 

Ryan: But I commend you for leaning in. I mean, the advantage is so clear to me, but it's really about data, not AI.

Ryan: I'm excited to see what you and your team do. I mean, Jacci called me out last week because I give knowledge management platforms a hard time and Jacci's like that used to be true, but now I can ask questions and actually get insights and that's fantastic news. 

Jacci: Yes, absolutely. And it used to just, yeah, be the vortex and just that, that extra annoying layer of project work, but you still had to search through now it's searched through for you.

Jacci: So yeah, just speed to insights to get us to the more higher value add areas of our roles. 

Ryan: All right, so you have, for you about as close to a dream job as one can get. If you don't know Jacci Weber, she loves animals and she loves insights and she loves people and she gets to do that for a living.

Ryan: So all this talk of technology is going to enable some outcome. We've talked about efficiency, we've talked about speed to insight. I want you to talk about the impact you think should be part of the insights person job. Like, where do you think we should be showing up? So in this world where we're a year in the future, somewhat today, you're using technology to get workflow done, to get answers quickly.

Ryan: Where do you spend your time? Where do you think we should be angling to spend our time? 

Jacci: Yeah. So, and this is some part of a journey I am on at Mars. so my title is head of pet parent insights. And one of my jobs is to spread pet parent centricity throughout our entire organization. So oftentimes in the corporate world I have found my main internal customers are marketing brand teams and even sometimes R and D.

Jacci: Thank you But this year, my team and I have been pushing the bounds of trying to spread pet parent centricity across the organization. So we've taken meetings and gone to town halls for different groups like our commercial group and our supply group. We talked to them about a global benchmarking program.

Jacci: I partnered with, A couple other consumer organizations in the building to hold a pet parent centricity day where we had a bunch of different classes. You could go to like, watch me moderate a live panel. Our consumer technical insights team taught people about sensory testing. We had our 3P team which responds to 

Jacci: customer feedback, they brought in some real life case studies, and we were able to expose that to people. Across the building and just logging into my email today, I have three different questions from people like outside of marketing and R and D who are trying to get better connected to the consumer.

Jacci: And there's still a magic of it for organizations outside of our typical customers, like just seeing Oh my gosh, you can bring consumers into the office and, and ask them live questions is so cool. And it was really a way to dial up the passion and make sure it worked completely pet parent focused at Mars.

Jacci: So yeah, I would just say, yeah, try to think about expanding your impact beyond the typical customers. Cause there is a hunger for it and people are looking for ways to get connected. 

Ryan: That's so cool to hear. I mean, obviously we need to do our tracking and our segmentations and our activation research.

Ryan: But that's why I talk a lot about data. If that stuff is streamlined and codified, this is the type of work. And it's funny, like even at Zappi, like you bring in customer calls and of course our customers are insights departments to a product or an engineering team. And that just lights people up. It gives them ideas.

Ryan: And, um, the fact that you're getting those calls is amazing. I want to come to pet parent day, by the way.

Jacci: We'll have you. Dogs can come to the office. So, feel free. 

Ryan: Honey was in here. By the way, shout out to my dog, Honey. She was in this room a few minutes ago, but she left.

Ryan: She's going back to somewhere. Tough life to be in Chicago. 

Jacci: Yeah. Tell her I say hi. 

Ryan: I will. I will. So, tell me this. You've been kind of getting your way out of just helping marketing. And I love it because customer centricity is a company wide problem and opportunity, not a marketing team problem.

Ryan: And so I'd love that you're doing it. What are some of the learnings you've had as you've started to do more of this immersion? In other words, how do you approach people who aren't used to insights? How do you get their attention? How do you bring value to them? If you could share a little bit of perspective, I think a lot of people want to be doing this, but it's outside of the traditional motion of question, test, answer, question, test, answer, which I think we've been conditioned to do for some time.

Jacci: Yeah, so I think a great example is when we started to interact with our commercial and supply teams. that director reached out to me and he's like, Hey, I know we should be more pet parent centric. What do you have for me to be pet parent centric? And I have a lot of information at my fingertips.

Jacci: But the first thing I had to do was kind of a discovery phase. And that was a lot of questions on, well, tell me more about your function. What are the kinds of decisions that you're making? To really help me narrow down on. Like where our connection pieces are. And we're, we're still working on that.

Jacci: We've also found a lot of value from live, just customer faces. Like at the end of the day, our business usually looks at people as data points on an Excel spreadsheet, but we get to actually bring a face, sometimes a name, but a face, some emotions all of that great stuff, to the data. And so I think it's really helpful for customers to see whether it's pre recorded video or live interactions that really bring the human element to the work.

Jacci: So we've been doing some of that, but as we've been, yeah, exploring different departments, it's been an education for me too, of like, what are the decisions that you're making? And then I go back in my archives of, How can I find what kind of information can I best pull? Or hopefully someday, what kind of study can this spark that we aren't looking at today?

Ryan: Yeah, I love that. I love the discovery point that you start with because I think for most people who are researchers, that's a natural skill set. And there's a lot of things I believe With technology playing a bigger role, we need to either unlearn or adjust our skill sets. But curiosity and discovery isn't one of them.

Ryan: And I like that you started with that because it's like, okay, what are you trying to do? Because you need to be able to speak IT persona, R&D persona, supply chain persona, sales personas language. And that way you can catch them in stride. And I think that I guess the trick is going to be knowing for everybody who's on this journey, knowing what to do with that discovery because it's going to require you to connect business goals to where human centricity can help.

Ryan: The answer is it helps most places. Um, but I think that's a very natural place to start is to just go and ask questions, have conversations with people. Kind of bring them proactive insights. I love the customer face thing. Like, you know, I was always a fan of solutions like Vox pop me and others where it was like, Oh, I could see you.

Ryan: I can watch you and you're a human, you know, like you're not a data point and I talk a lot about connecting insights and that's part of it is like, how do I bring culture to the matrix, which is going to happen, but bringing those sort of faces to names, I think one of the things that I think of when you're talking Jacci is like, okay, if I know Jessica and supply chains problems, how am I taking all my information

Ryan: I know, and proactively helping her so that it's not this brief question answer paradigm. And that to me is exciting. If you're an insights professional, like to have the time to be able to do that all day. 

Jacci: Yes. And the more efficient we can be with our data analysis, the more time we could spend on impact and activation within the organization. 

Ryan: All right. So we've made the case for some change. There's still a lot of folks who were like, look, I'm uncomfortable with this. What am I going to do differently? If this, these technologies take over something that I was comfortable doing before, essentially outsourcing work to vendors, getting answers and then going in.

Ryan: What advice would you have for those folks who maybe are struggling to be comfortable with this change of foot? 

Jacci: Yeah. And that's, that's a big one. It's huge, but if we really look at the world around us, Everything is changing and everything is dynamic. And I am one to say, I do like stability. Part of why I've been in research is I like the methods.

Jacci: Um, I like having a process to do things, but, frankly, that's the world we're moving away from. I think the new researcher is going to need to be agile and open to thinking differently. One of the ways I've used with my team, is just to move them forward or consider something different, is through experimentation.

Jacci: And oftentimes that's starting with me, displaying the behavior. So an example would be our knowledge management platform used to be this very annoying vortex that you would put your reports into, but maybe some other people in other corporate worlds are on teams chats with their team.

Jacci: And, you know, someone might put in there, ‘Hey, what do we know about cat parents?’ And then everyone just throws their PowerPoint decks, you know what they have and takes time out of their schedule to get it. What I've been doing lately is instead spending three minutes and going to our knowledge management platform, typing in the question and downloading a report and putting that in the chat and just demonstrating that behavior and providing those examples shows the team how quick and easy it is.

Jacci: Through that, about two weeks ago on one of our one on ones, one of my employees actually said that that new tool saved him from executing three projects. In one week. So they're starting to see, the efficiency and benefit of those platforms. So just experiment, we might not get it right the first time, but just practicing is great.

Jacci: And then I think another thing is, , as much as we can trying to quantify the impact. For example, we switched over our early stage, idea screening, last year. And part of that business case was like our, our business is not moving at the same speed it was seven years ago. We have demands to have answers quicker.

Jacci: So what if we looked at A company where we could get our results 80 percent faster and at half the price. Is that good? That's pretty good. That is pretty good. So thank you, Zappi. Um, but that kind of quantification, experimenting, getting comfortable with it, matching up our old database but then also seeing how our internal clients are reacting.

Jacci: They love getting concept results in about three days versus three minutes. So, that's where it really comes full circle and others in the building are really appreciative of what we're doing. So just experiment, experiment, and there's ways for us to get comfortable as researchers, whether it's checking the AI report and looking at all the slides to make sure it's summarizing right.

Jacci: Or instead of signing a full year contract with a firm, just do an experimental project or two, right? Line up your data and see if you can get comfortable. 

Ryan: I love the point of the Teams chat. Like that's magic, right? Because instead of running three projects, creating 10 decks, y'all were immediately focused on, okay, now we know the answer.

Ryan: What do we do with the answer? And I think this concept of the work after the work is the exciting part of the future of this industry. It's actually what gets me out of bed is like, how do we spend more of our time there? Because it's a very unique skill set to know data, analytics, consumer psychology and consumer behavior, and how to sell more pet food.

Ryan: There's not many people who have that amalgamation of skills, which is fantastic. But I think you're right, like a lot of people, it's where do I start? And experimentation is a great thing because, look, change is a constant, but nobody likes change. It's a thing. But you can have low risk ways and you can start small.

Ryan: One of the things that. But I've observed that still 60-70 percent of insights departments are in this project's brief answer paradigm. So you're not alone if you're listening to this. But there are little things you can do to just make your system a little bit smarter so that you can do more of the work after the work, which Jacci is now seeing the benefits of, which is fantastic.

Jacci: Yeah. And I'll say shout out to my current manager, Bethany. She's really pushing our team in the ways of spending more time activating our research versus doing the research. And if we think like at the end of the day, Like Mars doesn't hire me just because I like to do research. So they're going to give me a job doing the research that I like Mars is hiring me to help end up selling more pet food.

Jacci: So that helps make the case for change as well spending less time actually executing the research and more about the activation and seeding of all the insights. So many. 

Ryan: Your categories, constant pressure, there's constant startups, the pet owner sentiment is constantly changing. So you have to be, you have to be inside of families like ours and understand what motivates us and what changes us.

Ryan: And that's not just running research, that's understanding people. There's a guy that 's now CMO at one of Pepsi's businesses. And I love him because he's like, his name's Fernando. And he's like the articulation to me of a modern CMO. Because he does a ton of marketing research and he doesn't do it to grade his homework, but equally he'll go sit in the subway and just watch people and watch, by the way, that's understanding people too.

Ryan: And that gives him inspiration. Um, so speaking of being better I should have said this at the beginning, Jacci just got appointed to be the chair of the advisory board at the Michigan State Master's Program for Market Research.

Ryan: In my opinion, the best market research program on the planet. I've had the pleasure of hiring from the program being part of it, speaking in classes for, geez, a good few years now. And. What I love about MSMR is that they're constantly trying to evolve the way they approach their curriculum so that people in the game can get out there.

Ryan: So Jacci does that, just got appointed, it's very exciting, and also founded the Insights Career Network. There's a lot of very talented people that are on the look out. So, with that as a backdrop, maybe explain to us your work in both capacities and the topic holistically of the industry's evolving education and career opportunity because you do this in your free time, which by the way, I don't know how the hell you do it.

Ryan: But we all appreciate it, but give us some color of what you're working on. 

Jacci: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, like you mentioned I just took over as the board chair for the Michigan state program. And to be honest, this has been a 12 year goal of mine as I was 12 years ago. Yeah. So the first alumni.

Jacci: So over the next two years I will, as the head of the board I will be focused on many things including bringing more people to the board. One area I'm very focused on is alumni engagement. We now have thousands of alumni, but just aren't tapping into that network as much as we should. But many of them want to give back to the program.

Jacci: They just don't know how. So. Part of my job will be defining and communicating out how can you be involved. We have board meetings twice a year. Different topics come up there just depending on what, what's hot. Sometimes it is curriculum. So last year we did talk about revamping the MSU curriculum, especially with some different electives.

Jacci: We were talking about generations in the workplace at our most recent meeting. So just whatever is on top of mind. And then we put on an insight summit every fall, which is really cool. Half the room ends up being professionals and half the room are current students. So we've brought in some speakers like this year from Kantar.

Jacci: Anita Watkins from Kantar did also lead a what is your personal brand exercise that us board members were able to coach the students on. And it was just really fun, connecting with them. We also sponsored a, uh, networking bingo event just to get the students comfortable chatting with the different board members.

Jacci: There was like a whole grid and you could. Answer questions like what is your biggest challenge in the insights industry or how did you get in the insights industry because part of the magic of our industry, and I wonder if you feel this Ryan to people in the insights industry are just really nice.

Ryan: They really are. 

Jacci: Really nice, good people. And even when I was a youngin everyone was just so willing to help me and answer my questions. And I don't know that that's the case in all the other industries. Starting the students out with a foundation of like, look, we're here to help and we're taking time out of our schedules to be here and support you is a really nice way to start.

Jacci: But yeah, if you want to get involved in the Michigan State program many different ways, join the board and give us money if you're able, um, come speak in classes, networking with students and being mentors for students in lots of different ways. So that's really great for me as a former student to give back.

Jacci: The Insights Career Network is also a passion point for me. I would say it was December of 21 two weeks after I started my brand new job at Mars. Steven Griffiths, who's now at post contacting me. 

Ryan: Great guy. Shout out to Steven. 

Jacci: You know Steven? Yeah. 

Ryan: Yeah. Well, he, actually, he, I came and spoke at one of the events and Steven had reached out to me. That's how I got to know him. 

Jacci: Oh, nice. Yeah. He's a great networker in the insights industry. So I had only met Steven virtually on a board call, but he noticed I had an interest in especially early stage career development. And he sent me a LinkedIn message like, Hey, I've noticed that there are people right now, like towards the end of COVID, like looking to join our industry who have been laid off, but there's not really a great industry resource for them.

Jacci: So he's like, I'm thinking of starting a job club. Do you want to be part of it? And I did write back and I was like, Stephen yes, this is a huge passion. I literally just started my brand new job two weeks ago, and I'm looking at moving across the country. I don't know if right now is the right time.

Jacci: And he was like, just come to the first meeting and you'll see him. And that was the whole start of it. So Steven brought together six of us, co founders about half client side half vendor side. And we're just all very passionate about giving back and helping people on their career journeys.

Jacci: So that was in December by April, we had our first meeting And it's continued since. So as of today we have over 2,000 members. It's still a completely free resource. And some of the main benefits you get Twice a month on Mondays there are Zoom meetings where there's a speaker who's brought in to talk about some aspect of the marketing research job search.

Jacci: And then there's a networking aspect at the end. We have a job board and the thing that makes us different is you have to have a connection with the job to post it. So you're not just, you know, putting your applications into the ether. There would be someone you can specifically follow up with or learn more about the opportunity.

Jacci: There's also a page for anyone who wants to self identify as a job seeker. So that's very helpful for any recruiters or hiring managers. You can go in there, put on your filter's geographic location. Or time in role or what people are looking for. You can make a little statement about yourself as well.

Jacci: And yeah, so we started out with six of us. I, with all of my work commitments did have to step back from operations, but I am a big proponent on LinkedIn and sharing the good word. They now have a staff of 25 volunteers. 

Ryan: Wow. The team that's fantastic. 

Jacci: Oh yeah. It's amazing. So yeah, shout out Brian, Doug, Maya, Steven and just that was our core group and, um, thank you for all of our volunteers keeping it going. But yeah, we as the core team do pay a little bit to keep it going. Cause we've now expanded beyond the total daily limit of emails that Google will let us have. And we need an official CRM system to keep track of everyone.

Jacci: So, Brian Fowler, who's really the backbone behind ICN. shared with me at CRC that aside from the Insights Association the ICN has more followers on LinkedIn than any other Insights nonprofit in our space. So like 16,000 followers on LinkedIn. So they are doing amazing. But yeah, if you know anyone who is out of work or looking to transition.

Jacci: That's always a great resource to point them towards. A great, yes, very supportive community. 

Ryan: Yeah, that's huge. I mean, there's really, so first of all, on behalf of this industry, thank you. What you're doing for the future talent and the current talent is above and beyond what anybody would expect of somebody, particularly somebody who's got a very busy job and a dream job.

Ryan: Um, It just says a lot about your character and your commitment to the customer in this industry. So seriously, just thank you. You're amazing. And, and, you know, the other thing I would say is like with the career network, there is, so these are established professionals with proven skills. And there is a, there's a lot of very talented people at this exact moment, looking for work in this space.

Ryan: I believe that's somewhat of a symptom of poor decision making we made as an industry 20 years ago where our teams have gotten smaller and there's less opportunity, but there's some really amazing people there. So I encourage all of you, if you're looking to grow your team to start with the career network, because there's a lot of folks there.

Ryan: And I think, you know, I've had a chance to address the group. I've had calls with people who are looking for jobs. And there's some just really amazingly talented people. The MSMR thing really excites me and because one of my passions is, you know, Kids, young professionals, and look, I just believe they're going to inherit the world.

Ryan: And so the more we can invest in young talent, the better the future is going to be. And MSMR isn't just like people just out of undergrad going to the master's program. They have a mentorship program, which I'm personally part of where last year I mentored this man who is a 15 year career guy who was working for the government and just found a passion for insights and wanted to get into it. And I believe that's really exciting because how do we attract different types of talent into what I believe is a very wonderful industry that does a bad job of marketing itself? 

Jacci: Yes, I totally agree. 

Ryan: You know, there's some freaking amazing, like you get to shepherd culture and growth and strategy and use data and analytics to do your job for some of the biggest brands in the world.

Ryan: We don't say it that way. But that's what it is. Right. And I've seen quote unquote outsiders come in and fall in love with the space and never leave. And your point about being nice is like this cherry on top, because I'll tell you a funny story. So in 2014, I was in Mexico City at IIEX and I have this weird thing where when I speak in public speak, I don't like to have shit in my pockets.

Ryan: So Zappi was like a six person company and I quite literally had the whole company in my backpack. So my passport, my wallet, my computer. And I, you know, when you go to those conferences and there's like those white linen tables. So I put my backpack under it. Very long story short, I gave this keynote about automation at the time being something key to what we were working on. And my bag got stolen as happens in Mexico city. 

Ryan: I had no cash, no credit cards, no identity, and no laptop. And I still to this day, usually don't start my first trip to Mexico city store with anything other than how cool of a city it is, how wonderful the insights community is. Because I had at least 20 people: Here's my credit card. Come to dinner with us, come out with us. And it was just a reminder to me of this really wonderful community of humans. Um, and it's why I've been in this game. I stay in this game for two reasons.

Ryan: I believe customer centric businesses win and the people that I have become friends with, like you and others are like, they're just 10 humans. You know, like it's, so anyways, um, it's, it's a beautiful thing, but I think all the work you're doing is going to help elevate the functions. And I'm excited to continuously partner with you just for everybody's benefit.

Ryan: As somebody who's partnered with MSMR specifically, you can mentor young professionals. You can hire them. I have at least four MSMR grads on our payroll. They're outstanding. 

Jacci: Nice. 

Ryan: They're outstanding people. They're very talented. They work on some of our biggest problems, whether that's customer success, sales, research.

Ryan: But also getting to go into the classroom is a really fun diversification of energy. So I started going into the classroom probably six years ago. And I don't know, like we talked about this last week, like sharing what you know with others is such a gift to them, but it's also. I found it very inspiring, like what resonates, what doesn't, what, and maybe I'm just waxing poetic because one day I hope to be a teacher, but it's just been a great experience.

Ryan: So get involved. Jacci they can find you on LinkedIn if they want to get involved in either of these. 

Jacci: Absolutely. Yes. Happy to make connections via LinkedIn. 

Ryan: I love it. I love it. All right. Well, I've taken all the time Jacci has. We both were traveling all week, so we have filled inboxes.

Ryan: Jacci, thank you for sharing your wisdom and your perspective, but most importantly, thank you for everything that you do. 

Jacci: Oh, thanks, Ryan. It's so good to see you and chat again. Twice in two weeks. 

Ryan: Can we hang out next week too? 

Jacci: Sounds good. 

Ryan: I might be inviting myself to said Nashville workshop. We'll see.

Jacci: Oh yeah, we'd love to have you. 

Ryan: It may be to help with the workshop, but it may also be to play with all the pets on campus, you know, or both. 

Jacci: We're here for it. 

Ryan: Yep, exactly. Thank you everybody for listening. We'll be back soon.