#68 - Who’s Shaping the Future of Digital Community? | Zina Verduzco

00;00;11;07 - 00;00;34;10
Rob Lee
Welcome to the truth in this art. Your source for conversations at the intersection of arts, culture and community. These are stories that matter, and I am your host, Rob Lee. Today, I'm excited to be welcoming back an innovator working at the crossroads of tradition and technology. From hands on work in cultural anthropology and 3D modeling to guiding businesses through the rapid shifts of AI.

00;00;34;14 - 00;00;49;17
Rob Lee
She's always stayed rooted in the Inland Empire. We first spoke back in 2022, and I'm excited to catch up and learn a bit more about AI and what's going on in her world. So please welcome back to the program. Zina Verdugo, welcome back to the podcast.

00;00;49;19 - 00;00;52;19
Zina Verdugo
Hey, thank you for having me. It's a great honor.

00;00;52;21 - 00;01;02;19
Rob Lee
Thank you for coming back on. And as I am one to say, because you're, you know, we're doing this. Thank you for wearing your glasses. You know, as a fellow, for an individual.

00;01;02;22 - 00;01;08;05
Zina Verdugo
You know how it is. You know, sometimes I wake up and I'm like, oh, the world's not real because it's blurry.

00;01;08;05 - 00;01;23;29
Rob Lee
Yet the world's not real because it's blurred. Everybody had to be aligned. So for the listeners who didn't, you know, check out maybe your first episode, the first conversation we had, it's been three years. Things have changed. I have less hair now. I have less hair.

00;01;24;02 - 00;01;26;24
Zina Verdugo
You know, I'm older, so.

00;01;26;26 - 00;01;47;13
Rob Lee
How are we all? The world is more blurry. So could you reintroduce yourself to the listeners and share what you're focused on now? Because in doing the research, I know when we had the initial conversation, museums were a bigger part of it. The anthropology was a bigger part of it. Now you've kind of shifted. So if you will, do you reintroduce yourself?

00;01;47;16 - 00;02;12;12
Zina Verdugo
Yeah. So hey everybody, I'm Deanna for disco. And honestly, like you said, it's been a goose chase. When I first started back in 2020, 2019, I was working as a mixed reality exhibit creator, creating Egyptian artifacts for calcite. Some of you know, at that time during Covid, we thought Mixed Reality was going to be the next biggest thing.

00;02;12;15 - 00;02;37;20
Zina Verdugo
I thought, you know, getting ahead of of being a curator should I was going to be a billionaire right now. That was not going to happen after Covid. We kind of realized the shift in mixed reality change, due mainly due to the ability of mixed reality being very expensive for the common user to use because we needed special goggles, special software just to use it so it wasn't available to the masses.

00;02;37;21 - 00;03;01;08
Zina Verdugo
Around that time, 2022 ChatGPT had its biggest moment yet is when it launched and I started to play. Around that time, I was working for a data company, and my role was just to learn about ChatGPT and what I was able to do as we were trying to. In a way, crack the code. I'm going viral in their words, but it never really took off.

00;03;01;08 - 00;03;28;16
Zina Verdugo
So that came out really came from just wanting to understand what I was. And in that shift, I realized that as a Latina, my community was being left behind because we're always afraid of what is new and what is happening. So that pivot came from that understanding that my community needed it, and they needed to understand what it was doing and how it was going to help them not become nots.

00;03;28;21 - 00;03;31;19
Zina Verdugo
Let them be behind in a way.

00;03;31;21 - 00;03;53;29
Rob Lee
That that makes sense, helping to so taking sort of that, that area that you were learning about and kind of being a more of an early adopter and being able to kind of bring that back to the community and help and support in that way. And I relate to that where, you know, in my day job, sort of, you know, I just remember it was December of 2022.

00;03;54;01 - 00;04;17;05
Rob Lee
We were, having a conference about just emerging technology. And, you know, it was funny. Everybody who actually does any data stuff in this sort of higher ed space of all sitting at the same table, sitting there like just furiously typing, and then you have other people who you could tell have never have never looked at a prompt word, just like making jokes like, yeah, man, I'm just going to do my taxes for me.

00;04;17;05 - 00;04;18;02
Rob Lee
I was like, you're bugging.

00;04;18;02 - 00;04;18;19
Zina Verdugo
Oh my.

00;04;18;19 - 00;04;38;08
Rob Lee
God. And you know, thinking of ways that, you know, the way it was being pitched that is going to make everything easy and so on. And then as sort of time passed and, you know, you kind of watch, you know, I go from like this distant idea to a huge part of like our final like, this is December.

00;04;38;08 - 00;05;04;00
Rob Lee
We had finals in May, and then it was talk at finals from, some of my, some of the academic coordinators at the job. They were just like I learned that two people were using a, you know, ChatGPT to write their term papers, to write their dissertations, things of that nature. And it became a big thing. So taking an account, you know, I was kind of both having that start in 2022 and having that awareness not long after our interview.

00;05;04;00 - 00;05;15;27
Rob Lee
By the way, what major advances have you seen in the space as it relates to the people you're talking to in sort of your use of AI ChatGPT and a like, yeah.

00;05;15;27 - 00;05;37;25
Zina Verdugo
So like you say that a lot of people that was their first time kind of experiencing prompting and data and having that built in assistant. I know working with that large data sets and working with Excel, you and me both understand that you can't put everything on there, anything. That's something that early on people were, you know, just here you go.

00;05;37;25 - 00;06;04;07
Zina Verdugo
This is everything about me. Tell me about myself. It was more of a rapid question. Personality test. Like, my body knows me, it understands me. And I think was that a lot of people didn't understand that early 2022 until 2024, tragedy was making everything. I think it was a lie. You know, the word hallucination. And so forth is thrown out a lot.

00;06;04;09 - 00;06;25;04
Zina Verdugo
And I think it's true. When I was using it, I, you know, prompted things to understand what would it lie about and understand it better. A lot of those lying came from making up data, making up stories, making a research, making a point. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's so perfect. Let me add it in. Thankfully, I wasn't a student because I really fell for the same trap.

00;06;25;06 - 00;06;52;20
Zina Verdugo
But but just understanding that once you started to look for the seed, like the information and what didn't exist, and I think that's where I was like, oh shoot, this can't be good. And I think I'm very thankful where ChatGPT is going that they are actively trying to prevent people from taking which opportunity says to heart and understanding that this is a tool and it will make mistakes.

00;06;52;20 - 00;07;05;00
Zina Verdugo
So that's something that I like to teach everybody that I work with a lot of my clients. That's like my first two weeks with them. It's like, hey, I'm going to teach you that this will lie to you because I want you to be happy.

00;07;05;03 - 00;07;05;23
Rob Lee
Yeah.

00;07;05;25 - 00;07;22;25
Zina Verdugo
Yeah, it's your job is for you to be satisfied, and it's going to tell you whatever you want to hear so you can keep coming back and using it. And it's going to tell you even more. So you can pay for a premium, because at the end of the day, they want you to be a premium user. But the game has completely changed, right?

00;07;22;27 - 00;07;44;16
Zina Verdugo
I'm not building as much anymore. I'm teaching a lot more. And that matters because a lot of my clients are smaller businesses, a lot of Latinos, Latinx, a lot of these companies and small businesses that the budget isn't in them to have AI specialists on payroll. So me as a consultant, I come in and teach them like, hey, you don't need to hire 17 people.

00;07;44;16 - 00;08;05;05
Zina Verdugo
It's possible. But if we are able to prompt this, we're going to be able to gain new revenue so you can put back into your business. And if your business grows, you're going to be able to hire more people. Yeah, because the hat is a tool. But at the end of the day, you still need people in it to run it.

00;08;05;07 - 00;08;28;17
Rob Lee
And let me, let me comment on like two things. And because because definitely it's one piece where, we see we see sort of this capabilities. And I like that you touched on sort of it's sort of that loop of it want you to keep using it. And I and I have fallen for that. I've done the Pro account and all of that stuff just because I'm like, oh, you can't quite get it right.

00;08;28;20 - 00;08;59;12
Rob Lee
I'm going to keep, you know, iterating, iterating, iterating until I get an answer that's close. But then I've run out of my, my free my free prompts, what have you. So I just said, let's do the the paid version. And it's similar to how being on line more. And I think if we look at 2022 now is sort of this period where the amount of online and sort of how online has shaped, I think that's a big piece of it where that that focus is to stay on there.

00;08;59;12 - 00;09;19;05
Rob Lee
You keep getting sort of the loop of that feed that keeps hitting you very similar to this. You're getting maybe a hallucination, maybe misinformation. And I like the response that I get now. And I'm like, I know that's inaccurate. Like I'm putting like football stats. I'm like, who has the most touchdowns ever? And I'll have up the real site just looking at the data.

00;09;19;11 - 00;09;24;04
Rob Lee
And it's like this person, I was like, that's inaccurate, vastly.

00;09;24;07 - 00;09;56;14
Zina Verdugo
Well, one of the things that a lot of people don't understand that with AI, it's very easy to rank higher ranking. If you understand SEO sitemap being you're able to in a way manipulate what I sense, because once you understand SEO site mapping, I can put and search that I'm the greatest podcaster ever and nobody will know because Google AI reviews is giving you the exact information.

00;09;56;16 - 00;10;28;20
Zina Verdugo
And now with a Google AI reviews, a lot of the information that's taken is actually which is surprising from reading. So a lot of the data is taken from Reddit and you're like, well, and then it's not like a superior or credible source. Why are they using so much data from Reddit? But when you understand that they just need human input, you realize that I can plug in whatever I want in a way to rank higher or to in a way guiding AI in my favor.

00;10;28;23 - 00;10;52;10
Rob Lee
Then in. And this is the second part I'll throw out there before I go to this next question about the business piece. So this is a thing that I do. I don't like sports journalism. Right. I think it's very sensationalized. It has gotcha headlines and I don't really like it, but because of my own idiosyncrasies, I'm always like, why don't I like this headline?

00;10;52;10 - 00;11;15;22
Rob Lee
Is this accurate? So I'll just put in there like taking headlines from different sites. And I was like, how much of this is clickbait? Like, give me a clickbait score based on it, and then I'll start using other things that are from more reputable news sites. And I was like, do a comparison of sort of this clickbait criteria that you created based on this sample, and then compared it to, let's say, a CNN or MSNBC or whatever.

00;11;15;24 - 00;11;26;17
Rob Lee
And it's just like based on this criteria, this is all clickbait. This all has similar rhythms, and it goes to what you're touching on with sort of the SEO piece. It's like, this is getting an engagement.

00;11;26;19 - 00;11;47;28
Zina Verdugo
No, of course. And one of the things I experience in marketing that's actually my background, I come from a marketing heavy SEO background where my whole job is to understand the trends, keywords, and SEOs. And a lot of the clients are the one that I work with. Back when I was doing marketing, was helping them understand how to navigate hashtags, trends, and ACOs.

00;11;47;28 - 00;12;06;26
Zina Verdugo
So when they're building products, they understand the trends before they launch, along with doing blogs, podcasts and so forth. We would understand of how to target them in a way, you feel you're being targeted, but not really, because that's what everybody else around you is talking about.

00;12;06;29 - 00;12;08;17
Rob Lee
It makes sense. It makes sense.

00;12;08;20 - 00;12;33;11
Zina Verdugo
But when you're just piggybacking off the headlines, one of the things is you're kind of thought that when you build these headlines, you kind of like what's going to be clickable. So you build a headline based on that click ability. Not so much of how this resonates with the user, but more of what's going to get them clicked on more shock factor.

00;12;33;13 - 00;12;34;13
Rob Lee

00;12;34;16 - 00;12;52;03
Zina Verdugo
And then you're going to see email when you like it, like TikTokers and so forth. It's like oh let me tell you about this. And it's like a five second, TikTok. And in the bottom it's like the description. Why? Because you're going to take a longer time reading the description. And the videos are going to loop and what do you know.

00;12;52;05 - 00;12;59;01
Zina Verdugo
Yeah. Right. So the way content using the main made for social media dances has changed dramatically.

00;12;59;04 - 00;13;27;06
Rob Lee
And that definitely tracks because, you know what I was going through and restructuring the way that I title episodes for sake of argument like I used, you know, ChatGPT to do certain things. It is a for me, it is a means to mold, but it still has to have that human element. So I'm going in. I'm taking from human resource, human resources, I'm taking from, you know, sort of transcripts and I'm taking from my thoughts.

00;13;27;06 - 00;13;49;18
Rob Lee
I'm like, crap, this in a way that has clarity, like, let's go back and let's iterate together. You being my editor, if you will, versus I'm editing for the machine. And I found a lot of people flip that a little bit. And I think that that's not quite the way to do it, because you start running into those words like, people love the word delve for some reason or those different terms.

00;13;49;21 - 00;14;11;25
Rob Lee
And I got caught one time recently where, you know, I thought I had my philosophy and my thing in place, my, my method and all worked out because you go through and you realize how you're going to use and how you're going to implement it into your process, writing questions and the like for me. And I had an interview and it was two dudes with very similar names.

00;14;11;25 - 00;14;38;00
Rob Lee
The guy I was interviewing actually had the same name. The guy I was interviewing, is a chef, and the his information was in that I literally put in their dude's bio and his bio is very similar to another person who was a writer. So combine the two and it's like, yeah, so you started off with writing and I was just like, I luckily how we were talking before we got started, I asked to do when I met him in person for in-person interview.

00;14;38;01 - 00;14;57;18
Rob Lee
We were on site in the restaurant and I was like, yes, I used to write, right? And he's like, no, I've never written anything in my life. I was like, I gotta redo all the questions about it. I had to improv the whole thing because it would it look like it's combined both person's backgrounds into one thing? Yeah, yeah.

00;14;57;20 - 00;14;58;24
Rob Lee
Overlap. Yeah.

00;14;58;26 - 00;15;18;25
Zina Verdugo
So definitely do that because I don't use it as much anymore to develop more, to optimize what I'm doing. Because after so many emails, I'm like, I don't even know what to write anymore. Just do it for me and answer, you better. Like I have a list, you know, and it's like, email these many people and I'll be like, da da da da.

00;15;18;25 - 00;15;35;14
Zina Verdugo
And then just copy and paste because after 20 email them when they are like, this message greets you, blah, blah blah. I'm like, okay, anymore, just throw it into the tool. Because after a moment when you're, you know how it is as a business owner, it's so much that you have to do. Sometimes your brain kind of gets out before you do.

00;15;35;14 - 00;16;00;18
Zina Verdugo
And just to piggyback off of what you said and you know that pain point that you experience, I've experienced something similar. A lot of what I do is go to a lot of conferences, sites and I've gotten but admit, but I had six hours and I was rushing. They called me, they messaged me the night before, hey, we actually want you to have like something for the goodie bag for the conference.

00;16;00;18 - 00;16;20;24
Zina Verdugo
I was like, oh, this is great. I'm gonna throw it, blah blah, blah. And I'm a I'm very creative. And I was like, you know what? Let me do handwritten letters. That's so cute and personal. And then somehow in the back of my mind, it's like, oh, 500 letters. That's nothing. I could do that by the 10th one, I was cramping, I was hurting, and I was like, I can't do this, I can't do this.

00;16;20;27 - 00;16;42;15
Zina Verdugo
So within two hours I was like, you know what? We're going to use chapter. You, we're going to we're going to prompt and chapter three ChatGPT ChatGPT. And we're going to throw it into Canva, AI in canvas, get a designer. Because I don't have time, because I had six hours to design, edit and print. So I was like, you know what, let's do it.

00;16;42;17 - 00;16;56;10
Zina Verdugo
So it was a wild journey. I successfully did it. It worked. And then it was a day at the conference and I was like, you know what, I just want to confirm my QR code works. It did not work.

00;16;56;13 - 00;16;58;02
Rob Lee
Oh no.

00;16;58;04 - 00;17;03;17
Zina Verdugo
Yeah, my QR code did not work. And I was like.

00;17;03;20 - 00;17;04;19
Rob Lee
Thanks.

00;17;04;21 - 00;17;27;11
Zina Verdugo
I was like, damn. And I just spent all this money for 500 postcards. They're completely useless. And I already dropped them off at the like, conference with the lady, and they're already put into the bags and I call them. And I was like, hey, is there any possibility you get to take the cards out of work? And they're like, oh, we're sorry, the cart already gone, and I know they're already on the location.

00;17;27;11 - 00;17;56;00
Zina Verdugo
They're ready. But I was like, okay, I'll just take it. I'll just take the worst. I'll take the loss. And that's, you know, even as much experiences that I have been using it for a while, we still run into these issues because it will never be perfect and you still do humans. And that's why people don't realize people are always like, okay, I'm going to steal my job over and it's going to help optimize your job, but I will never steal your job because it still needs somebody behind it to fix it.

00;17;56;02 - 00;18;19;15
Rob Lee
Yeah. No, that's that's a really good distinction there in sort of the, I guess the, the pin to this part of the question before I go into specifics, do you see I just the way that it's used right now and September 2025 as we're recording this, do you see is more of a threat or an opportunity now?

00;18;19;17 - 00;18;27;18
Rob Lee
And how do you like, see it impacting like small businesses in that sort of thread or opportunity sort of lens.

00;18;27;20 - 00;18;46;04
Zina Verdugo
So here's a bit of truth. I think it depends whether it's you learn to use it or get buy used by it. Hey guys, I'm going to be everywhere on everything with anything else. I try to say no profit. I want to honor. That reminds me, want to drink water? I'm sure if I say this, somebody is going to build it.

00;18;46;04 - 00;19;08;09
Zina Verdugo
So that's all you do. But a lot of the things that I do is work with small business owners who said to me, and I try to teach them not to throw all their information into the chat. Me too. Like we were talking about earlier. Yeah. You know, I try to teach them not to coordinate personal information, don't feed it more than you need to.

00;19;08;09 - 00;19;29;07
Zina Verdugo
And if you do my loop always, always. I pretend that it's a case study and it's for a class so it doesn't think it's actual information more as it's learning from a class. So that's my look at what I'm trying to teach small business owners. What it is terrified of me because I've had people give me information from Social Security, family photos.

00;19;29;07 - 00;19;50;09
Zina Verdugo
I yeah, I've been working with small businesses for a long time, and some of the stuff that I'm like, oh my God, if I was like in it for the wrong reason, I could have sold 13 of your employees social security information. How's that? Everything right? But that's just the truth. You need to know that this is all too, when you shouldn't be putting everything into it.

00;19;50;11 - 00;20;16;11
Zina Verdugo
But on the flip side, one of my clients, they own a successful trucking company. They have currently been using AI to optimize their routes and track inventory for food safety compliance. So that's been a big help for them, because one of the issues that they face was that, you know, LA California traffic is horrible. So they would lose a couple hours and so forth and stuck and vice versa.

00;20;16;11 - 00;20;52;17
Zina Verdugo
And the food would kind of get very bad. Yeah. So I we were able to pinpoint where was change routes rapidly compared to waiting for the use for the truck driver to get salt. Sure. That's what we've been using it for. They had their own custom boards that we built for them, but by 2028, I generally believe that businesses that survive will be the ones that figured out how to automate all the boring, mundane things so they can focus on what actually makes their business successful, which is the human relationship aspect of it, and the ones who don't be worried why their customers are disappearing.

00;20;52;17 - 00;20;53;23
Zina Verdugo
You know.

00;20;53;25 - 00;21;22;16
Rob Lee
It's it's one of the things where just if you've played around with any of these, these tools to optimize things like I, you know, early on I looked at it very similarly to using a macro in Excel. It's just like you're able to do this. You can, you know, gloss it up in a way it could be more sophisticated, but or even running like, like PowerShell or something along those lines, it does certain things for you that can automate and make things more efficient.

00;21;22;19 - 00;21;45;08
Rob Lee
And then it gets more sophisticated the more, you know, bring in a consultant and so on. And I just think that there is this sort of reluctance that's there to sort of this, this rapid change. And I think that's kind of a lot of what you encounter as a person, as a consultant, as a person working in business, that folks are just so apprehensive.

00;21;45;12 - 00;22;07;02
Rob Lee
You know, I'm not going to use it. I can and then it's just like, okay, I'm losing business. My site's not updated. I am missing out on opportunities. And they view it perhaps as a threat and not looking at it as an opportunity to perhaps see where you can be more efficient, perhaps see where you can maybe diversify your business and so on.

00;22;07;02 - 00;22;09;00
Rob Lee
And just having that data.

00;22;09;02 - 00;22;33;14
Zina Verdugo
Now, that's definitely how you should you, in an assumption they're diversifying your revenue. As one of somebody that I work with, they've been in business for 12 years. Right. And oh they just came to me recently, about a month ago, they added to some of the best food I've ever had. Shout out to them. They have incredible, food from Cancun.

00;22;33;16 - 00;23;01;27
Zina Verdugo
So Cochinita reveals something that you won't see over here that much because it's own unique, loyal customers. They've been in business for 12 years, but sales have been tanking for the last year and a half. And I went in, I was like, hey, let's see what we could do. Let's optimize where we can. And as we started to go down through the onboarding, their entire digital presence was just one Facebook page that hasn't been updated since 2021.

00;23;01;29 - 00;23;26;25
Zina Verdugo
So one singular Facebook page, no Google listing Rubio, no next door, no TikTok, no Instagram. Just Facebook. And it has not been updated. And we came in, told them, hey, we're going to do a digital makeover just so you have more presence, because now people look at tick tock reviews before they even step outside, right? And they were very reluctant.

00;23;26;28 - 00;23;46;22
Zina Verdugo
Our customers said that customers should be able to find them through word of mouth, not because they're paying for ads. Right. And that's something that I'm constantly seeing that a lot of these small businesses don't want to pay for ads sometimes because they can't afford it, but sometimes because they don't feel like they're going to do anything. And as somebody that's done pay per click ads and so forth, I get it.

00;23;46;25 - 00;24;08;25
Zina Verdugo
Sometimes they don't work, but it's why you're targeting them, and not so much that the ads don't work. It's more on who are you targeting and what type of content you're putting out. And it does take a keen eye to address them because, you know, ab testing and so forth. It's most people run one ad when you're supposed to having six ads and doing it for a week and see which one works, which one doesn't.

00;24;08;27 - 00;24;33;12
Zina Verdugo
So people run one when you're supposed to be running five, right? Right. But overall, the takeaway from that was that they wanted to gain traction from word of mouth. When word of mouth marketing hasn't been effective since social media has taken off. So they were stagnant in their approach of how to build and how to grow, mainly from the fear.

00;24;33;15 - 00;25;03;00
Zina Verdugo
This is how we've always done it for the 12 years. Well, years ago social media wasn't as advanced as it is now. I wasn't even in the talks 12 years ago for employees, but the world moved online and they're still waiting for people to drive. I notice the window and we will never get that back. And even with the right, even when people are driving, they're on their phones now listening to five cars, hearing this music, making videos and so forth.

00;25;03;00 - 00;25;08;09
Zina Verdugo
A lot of the TikTokers now make videos as they drive. People aren't noticing the world around them anymore.

00;25;08;16 - 00;25;31;23
Rob Lee
And that's a that's a thing that is very curious, which it has me thinking, sort of the attention and the attention and ideas. Right where. Yes, you're touching on, you know, where some of the information that's uploaded into chat is collecting data. And I think that's the thing that people just also need to be aware of. It's it's a repository in many ways.

00;25;31;25 - 00;25;54;07
Rob Lee
It can it's sort of the trade off. It's like when, you go to a place to get like their Wi-Fi, it's like, give a shit while you're doing that exchange. Right. And I find that we have two things that happen. We're in this attention economy. There's a lot of money and all of that stuff. But attention economy is attention is very valuable because, you know, I see it.

00;25;54;07 - 00;26;21;06
Rob Lee
I know that you see it, that I feel like I'm constantly being advertised to it. It gets more sophisticated to keep me where I'm at. Yeah, it's it hits every area. It hits from, you know, doing this, doing a podcast. It hits just checking into a place. It hits all of these different places. Like when I go into Google, the first thing I see is this is the I surge versus, you know, a regular Google search.

00;26;21;08 - 00;26;22;29
Zina Verdugo
And I reviews.

00;26;23;01 - 00;26;40;03
Rob Lee
And I'm of an age where I was like, I learn how to do boolean searches. So if I'm looking for a specific thing, I'll put it in in this way. And that's not as effective anymore, because that leans into the the sort of I, supported. And this is my belief. And I want to see if you agree in this area.

00;26;40;06 - 00;27;00;08
Rob Lee
I think there's a difference between something being made easy versus something being made optimized. Like you can optimize something and it makes it makes makes your effort, it maximizes your effort. But something being easy, it's just like someone else has done the work. And then it's almost like phasing you out of the whole process.

00;27;00;10 - 00;27;42;08
Zina Verdugo
Oh, so that's a big one, because today I very much like, you know, I've talked about it earlier. I like them SEO, site mapping, and I don't know where it's going to go because SEOs used to be search engine optimization. Now it's usually focusing on an alternative optimization, generative generative engine optimization, which is SEO for eyes. With Google, I review a lot of the features that are being taken out is that you no longer need to clip on our website, because Google AI review gives you what you're looking for, and taking the search from multiple websites to give you exactly what you need without you ever clicking on a website.

00;27;42;11 - 00;28;05;29
Zina Verdugo
Ultimately, it has reduced 40% of click through rate for websites. Yeah, so even for me, I'm like, should I even get a website? Because realistically they're being taken out. They're a great tool. But what does that lead us to in the future? If I'm going to tell you exactly what you need without you ever needing a website or somebody else, write another tool that Google just came out with.

00;28;05;29 - 00;28;30;16
Zina Verdugo
Look, I think this is a dog best tool. I love it. Is Google, an AI powered business content feature where you go into Google, you search for what you want, and then they'll give you. So here's an example. You go into Google, you go dog owners near me. It gives you a list of dog groomer near you. You click the Google AI voice call feature and then you put in your information.

00;28;30;16 - 00;28;49;26
Zina Verdugo
For example, you have a Yorkie. He's five calls, you want him to get groomed and you want him to get his nails trim, right? You put in the criteria, then you put search and then you're like, when do you want this appointment? Today, tomorrow and a week. And then you just give that. You give it to AI and then the AI Google business will call for you.

00;28;49;28 - 00;29;05;07
Zina Verdugo
Oh, so they will automatic, they will automate it all for you or they'll call and set up the appointment they never send you. Like this is a price. This is how much. And this is the only appointment available. This is for you know. And then I'm tell somebody else until you agree to one on one.

00;29;05;10 - 00;29;14;12
Rob Lee
Wow. It's it's funny. It's really funny. It's just like literally it's done at example literally a virtual assistant like like listen now.

00;29;14;15 - 00;29;16;12
Zina Verdugo
Because it was the AI assistant.

00;29;16;14 - 00;29;40;01
Rob Lee
Yeah. And I think, you know, there is again with if used properly and with the proper intention, it can be, you know, very helpful for small businesses more often, more often than not we're working very, very, very skinny. We're working off of almost nothing. You know, whether it be, you know, a funding situation, whether it be how to get access to funds.

00;29;40;01 - 00;30;13;22
Rob Lee
And the thing that you were saying earlier around, like some of the, the, the online marketing piece, it's just like I do, this is my business. I do this part of it, you know, I, I make the I make the blankets or whatever. The thing is that the business is about. But just like you can make all the great blankets you want, but if you're not able to be discovered because one you not optimize and popping up in the top, if someone is looking for Rob's blanket and I'm not the first person that pops up, I'm buried and I see the same thing and doing podcast when I'm teaching, you know, podcast, I was just

00;30;13;22 - 00;30;35;11
Rob Lee
like, you gotta like if you're talking this, you got to have the proper keywords and it has to be blocked out properly. And I've noticed this sort of trend where and this is popped up in how I title podcast. You want to have a hook in there. Some of these things are antiquated and or is and just kind of pitched back to you in a different way because certain things remain true.

00;30;35;12 - 00;30;49;23
Rob Lee
What how is it describing the thing? What's hooking the thing? Why would someone want to check this out, let alone listen to it, or so on the content itself, knowing it doesn't really care as much about a curse that is being able to be discovered.

00;30;49;26 - 00;31;13;01
Zina Verdugo
Yeah. So early on in 2022, I was working with the data company. I kind of spoke about it when we first introduced that, I was working with a data company that wanted to go viral, and that's something that we actually study on. How possible is it for you to go viral, and then is there an actual formula that you can create that's going in and guarantee you to get reviews?

00;31;13;04 - 00;31;36;03
Zina Verdugo
And overall, it's somewhat impossible to really know what to do because it changes day to day on what they want to see. You know, the news has to do a lot with they know what it's created and what everybody wants to see at that given time. So with marketing, it's kind of why I love it is because with marketing units, it's a full time job.

00;31;36;06 - 00;31;59;07
Zina Verdugo
It's not those jobs that you're like, oh, I'm in marketing. No, you're in marketing 24 seven because you have to know about trends. You have to know what's popular. You have to know what's in what's not. Because what worked last week might not work this week. And hashtags go based on two, five, maybe seven hours. Wow. Things are constantly changing, right?

00;31;59;09 - 00;32;18;07
Zina Verdugo
When it comes to social media, it's a lot more harder because it might trend for a week, but you have one week to, like, really build up on that, right? For a moment, it was for the example of the Dubai chocolate. It's still relevant, but people aren't going out of their way.

00;32;18;09 - 00;32;39;05
Rob Lee
Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I've seen and it's sort of this is sort of the discoverability and I being a piece of that. Right. And a big piece of it. And I know that, you know, I've seen a few podcast here and a few artists here, because I know the whole AI and art conversation and we'll, we'll, we'll hit that next.

00;32;39;08 - 00;33;01;20
Rob Lee
But I know that, two folks brought to my attention that it's another podcast that literally not ripped off, but they were very influenced by how I could do things. Literally asked the series of questions the same way, using the same terminology. I use. And I'm like, well, we already have that. I was just like, cool, you can't, you're not gonna really replace me.

00;33;01;20 - 00;33;24;25
Rob Lee
And I've really thought, you know, as far as from an education standpoint in the bit that I do know I'm not a specialist in the field is you're solving me. I'm sitting here learning stuff for you. This is a free class. Free consultation for me. But, what? I talked to guest A come on. And having you back on here, it the intent is I'm checking up on folks.

00;33;24;25 - 00;33;56;00
Rob Lee
How have you been since the last time we talked and everyone wasn't invited back? Oh, I'm coming up on 900 episodes at this point. Right. And I was just like, who are 50 to 60 guests? I wanted to have come back on to check how they've been, what they've been working on. And with many of them, I, you know, I say to them, it's like, look, if you're posting on social, if you posted on Instagram, do the collaborative posts where this is all going to get subbed, sucked up by the algorithm because there's so much stuff out there as you would touch me earlier.

00;33;56;02 - 00;34;17;24
Rob Lee
I didn't exist 12 years ago for that one business. The internet wasn't what it was. Social media wasn't what it is now. So the way to combat it is at a minimum, it has to be a collaborative post. It has to really show that you that, unified connection, you know, Instagram isn't going to do that for you, sort of, you know, AI is not going to do that for you.

00;34;17;24 - 00;34;22;10
Rob Lee
They just want to make sure people are using whatever the tool is.

00;34;22;13 - 00;34;49;12
Zina Verdugo
It's so that you're aware of what's happening and overall. But now, yeah, I think just to kind of talk about, yeah. As somebody that's I've been in marketing for roughly eight years, and when I started off, it was very different where I am now. And that's overall why I like marketing and marketing. You are wearing 18 different hats.

00;34;49;15 - 00;35;15;14
Zina Verdugo
So even though I was a director, felt like I had my head in every single department, from sales to bleeds to branding to everything, like, you know, thinking about it, I'm like, oh God, now. And I think the way I make content I'm going to be very sincere on is it needs to change because I'm used to making content as an influencer, because I get invited to these bigger brands.

00;35;15;16 - 00;35;37;28
Zina Verdugo
Just to piggyback off, I got invited to the, Amazon AWS summit as a reason I got invited to Maserati. When you're and I, you know. But yeah, I keep getting invited to these incredible events and I'm posing as an influencer because that's what I'm used to working with. And that's the content that I know how to make, because that's where I come from.

00;35;38;01 - 00;36;04;17
Zina Verdugo
Sure. But there's different types of content based on what you want to build. And I think everybody's so used to like, oh, the funny things and this and that, where they don't realize that the educational content makes produces more authenticity and more click through rates. Yep. I think just understanding the different types of content, along with the folks that each one should carry, it's a whole science if you really think about it.

00;36;04;19 - 00;36;13;13
Rob Lee
Yeah. You know, when I was looking at this and I try and early on my background was in marketing. So I feel you're on something you, me.

00;36;13;13 - 00;36;14;06
Zina Verdugo
You feel me.

00;36;14;06 - 00;36;40;19
Rob Lee
And and I was in, in marketing data specifically for like back in the day and so yeah, and some of the things I see in some of the sort of influencer branded messaging and so on, I know that doesn't fit for me, you know, as personally as an individual. And, you know, for better or for worse, like, I'm more inclined to look at myself as a brand, as a small business and make decisions based in that.

00;36;40;19 - 00;37;13;14
Rob Lee
But at the same time, there moves that I see people making that just, you know, it's like, why would you do that? Why would you, you know, associate yourself with, say, oh, because there's a bag attached to this. There's so many attached to it. And, you know, it makes it really challenging. And then you have some of the smaller businesses like here when I do ads for sake of argument, like I really don't do ads for my podcast, but when I do, it's for some business locally, usually a restaurant or usually like a bookstore or something like, I like this place.

00;37;13;14 - 00;37;41;28
Rob Lee
I go to this place and the leveraging is, you know, authenticity. And I could just go to a bunch of these different businesses, pitch them, hey, do this and they're going to go with an influencer a lot of times, because the influencer can get these clicks by going, they're having a free meal. And you know, they did a post and I'm like, I do bespoke ads for you, you know, and so of there's a difference in that.

00;37;42;01 - 00;38;13;06
Zina Verdugo
As somebody that's done the influencer marketing, it's not one it's cut out to me. Everybody thinks that you're bringing in information and it's going to go viral. And a lot of what people don't see behind the scene that people are very, very mean in these comments. Like, I mean, I just go super viral. I'm talking like 80,000, 1.2 million views on some of these videos and most of it most of the time for a week when that video is going viral, it's like, you know, the behind the person.

00;38;13;06 - 00;38;40;19
Zina Verdugo
The social media men are just deleting comments because people are ruthless and everybody wants an influencer. And I think it's one of those, like in my head or might not. Are you willing to understand that an influencer may or may not bring the type of clientele you want, and it's not going to be a forever thing? You might go viral and you might be a hot ticket item for like a week, a month, maybe a year.

00;38;40;19 - 00;38;43;00
Zina Verdugo
But it's not a forever marketing plan.

00;38;43;02 - 00;38;53;04
Rob Lee
Is how do you leverage it? And and you get a good point there. It's it's a it's a marketing plan. And as you touched on and people don't have patience for this, it's experimentation. It happens.

00;38;53;06 - 00;39;00;13
Zina Verdugo
It's it gets results. And influencers allude to being quick and easy and relatively cheap.

00;39;00;16 - 00;39;20;06
Rob Lee
But here's a here's another thing based on where you're at, you're over there in, in the West Coast. And so I think of, of this, this sort of combination right when I watch the Academy Awards or what have you. Right. And when someone gets up there, they do their big speech. It's their moment and so on. And like, I'm always looking at whatever you said, right?

00;39;20;06 - 00;39;37;11
Rob Lee
Whatever the person said on air, it's like, what's your next project? Oh, like, did you did you leverage that? You can move that click because you're going to be out there. Did you leverage it? And I find a lot of times it falls flat. It's just you didn't do it. You know, you don't have like here's the next thing you know, I'm Batman in this next movie.

00;39;37;11 - 00;40;02;08
Rob Lee
It's like, oh, where are you really leveraged it? It's like, nah, I'm going to disappear for two years. And I think like again, to to the sort of, you know, the opportunities and threats, I think the strengths and weaknesses of it, like, you know, the whole combination is diversified and you were touching on it from, from a marketing perspective, doing so many different things just under the umbrella of marketing, but so many different things.

00;40;02;11 - 00;40;31;14
Rob Lee
And I think, you know, as far as operations goes, I think, you know, AI is a big piece of operations for businesses just to stay afloat, to stay like up to date. So going to sort of the community education component of your word is vital. You know, as there's a displacement thing that happens. I find like here locally, if a business is not getting discovered, people aren't coming in there.

00;40;31;16 - 00;40;40;22
Rob Lee
That foot traffic thing doesn't happen. You can't keep people's attention. As we touched on earlier, I'm driving past here. I'm not going to stop. Stop. I don't know where they can. They're not popping up in reviews.

00;40;40;24 - 00;41;02;00
Zina Verdugo
There because I'm going to one of the things that I like, I've been where my experience has brought me through. I was seeing the customer side of it. I've seen the analytical side from it, and I've seen the posts and data side of it. And when people are like, if it's not on TikTok and I can take a photo and post, say, and nobody's going to, and I was here, it's not fucking cool.

00;41;02;00 - 00;41;03;10
Zina Verdugo
So I'm not going to go.

00;41;03;12 - 00;41;19;05
Rob Lee
But factual, factual. And and if there's a thing like I'm, I'm a man of logic carriage. I enjoy pastry now and again. And, if I go out on a Saturday on a Sunday when I get to eat nasty, as I like to call it, it's like, yo, I'm going to get this, I get this flying or what have you.

00;41;19;07 - 00;41;38;18
Rob Lee
I, I'm checking. I'm going to generally will go to Google to see the places open. And I find that sometimes that's not the most accurate because as you were touching on earlier, they haven't updated the places with their data and it's like, oh well this is on Instagram. So it's like I got to go to both places just to get some semblance of truth.

00;41;38;21 - 00;42;07;27
Rob Lee
And I don't put that on Google, unfortunately. It's just like this. It's from you guys. You guys have to have this updated. It's like it's not on your website. It's or it's on your website, but out of your Instagram, it's not hitting all of those different points that you were touching on earlier that could fill in. Sort of these are the the days and the time that this place is open and, you know, for me, I go to a place that if they don't have the specific meal that I'm looking for, like, oh, we didn't update it, it's a strike.

00;42;07;29 - 00;42;10;28
Rob Lee
It's a strike. I can go somewhere else. I can get the same thing somewhere else.

00;42;11;01 - 00;42;16;17
Zina Verdugo
That's one of the things, and I'm looking at it now.

00;42;16;19 - 00;42;40;16
Zina Verdugo
I and technology has brought us into this. We train the generation to entirely more and expect everything 24 seven. And customers are used to Amazon delivery within a day, Netflix giving you what you want to watch and generating, like, hey, this is your rights. Watch, watch this tailored just for you. Amazon. I mean, just going back on Netflix.

00;42;40;16 - 00;42;59;21
Zina Verdugo
They give you whole seasons within a year or no, right? Spotify, catering your perfect playlists and even giving you your personalized EEG. We're so used to having everything served in a platter that when it's not, business, isn't able to work 24 seven. You're like, man.

00;42;59;24 - 00;43;00;19
Rob Lee

00;43;01;19 - 00;43;25;12
Zina Verdugo
Because they can get me what I want. But that's the kicker, that there's this disconnect and ensuring that we expect small businesses to operate like big corporations, just like it was everywhere. I think maybe a year ago, maybe less. The whole issue with cakes, the small businesses were mad that people didn't want to pay for $50 cakes.

00;43;25;14 - 00;43;44;23
Zina Verdugo
And I don't know if you remember that, but it was a big controversy. Like, why do I have to pay $50 if Walmart's doing it for ten and it's the same thing, it's just a cake. And it's like that whole like, yeah, it's just a cake. But small business, you know, that's a lot more personalized size, blah blah, blah.

00;43;44;23 - 00;44;05;22
Zina Verdugo
Product quality. So the point is I can talk about many of those things, but at the end of the day, they're not able to compute at such a high level like a corporation. And I think that's the bridge that AI is truly building of letting these small businesses compete to leverage at a higher state without the budget needed to.

00;44;05;25 - 00;44;27;09
Rob Lee
And that's that's a good point that you're you're touching on where, you know, as I was saying earlier, it's it's not about whether the thing is good. Like I prefer the local cake. Let me get that local, the flavor on that one. Right. And you know, the person, you actually have that person to person contact. But also it doesn't mean that, you know, like a lot of times out here, hey, you know, support this community business.

00;44;27;09 - 00;44;42;07
Rob Lee
I was like, yeah, I have other things I can do. I have other places I can put my money and so on. I'm likely going to support it, but you're not going to guilt me into liking it because the business is in a bad spot, or whatever the case may be, because I am also a business and so on.

00;44;42;07 - 00;44;57;27
Rob Lee
Right? But the thing that it kind of gets me is just like, there's no accounting for tastes, so the product can be good, it can be better for you, whatever. A lot of times we go with price. I don't really think of price as much, but a lot of times your average consumer is going to go with price and sort of what's in front of them.

00;44;57;27 - 00;45;15;26
Rob Lee
So if I'm on Instagram and the algorithm or what have you is just pushing this thing in front of me, I see it a certain number of times. I don't know what the data looks like, but if you see a certain ad 5 or 6 times four, so you see it four times, you're likely to go to the website, perhaps buy it.

00;45;15;26 - 00;45;34;09
Rob Lee
And because it's integrated in such a way, the shop.com link is already there. You just have to do minimal clicks and bing bong. You're right there and you already have your cart and they have a special goofy promotion if they want to get you to come back. It's done in a way that is so easy. But here's the thing.

00;45;34;11 - 00;45;45;00
Rob Lee
Touching on, Spotify, right? I remember last year and I'm very curious about this year, folks were disappointed with, the Spotify wrapped and and.

00;45;45;00 - 00;45;51;06
Zina Verdugo
The entered that maybe they got fired. I that's crazy.

00;45;51;08 - 00;46;09;17
Rob Lee
And it's just like, yo, these are obviously AI generated titles to describe it. It like I think one like I listen to a very eclectic I listen to some interesting music. And it was like your year of music is described as, what is it, Viking Vampire? I was like, what are you saying to me now?

00;46;09;17 - 00;46;42;12
Zina Verdugo
One of my friends was like the Rainbow clown Sunset Goddess, and I was like, they just took random Senate names and adjectives. And it's like, yeah, as said, that's going to get them. And it's one of those things that corporations do to make you feel like you're part of their tool, you're part of their system. One of the things that I did a lot of marketing is understanding the user in a way, this is horrible to say, but my culture, anthropology background comes from that of learning people and learning how they shop.

00;46;42;19 - 00;47;12;12
Zina Verdugo
And understanding that everything's a manipulation to get you to buy color, categorizing information. You're able to target these people. So refined. I mean, you don't even know that you're being targeted. Talking about target is actually had a lawsuit that they knew the one who women were going to be pregnant and were sending them coupons based on what the trends that they were buying.

00;47;12;12 - 00;47;34;23
Zina Verdugo
So they were able to know that women were pregnant and it actually became like this huge for sale because the women were like, why are you sending me pregnancy? That's not racism. But I don't know what you would call it, but I'm not pregnant or whatever. And then it turned out she was pregnant later. Like, so you're like, able to in a way know more about the user.

00;47;34;23 - 00;47;37;13
Zina Verdugo
And sometimes the user knows about themselves.

00;47;37;16 - 00;48;01;26
Rob Lee
It's I remember back in the day taking one of these because it's it's psychology is consumer behavior, all of that stuff, that sort of conversation around the colors for like fast food places have like yellow or red, some derivative in it and delta, the colors that we are drawn to. If you see like a place that has like a color that evokes like say, depression or greed, like, oh, and Burger King is not blue.

00;48;01;26 - 00;48;29;05
Rob Lee
It might have blue in it, but it's not the primary colors are like yellow and red and and same thing for McDonald's. It's like just literally those colors and white for the letters. And you can see that. And I think a lot of people just don't get it, or see it. But the, the sneaky thing about it, and this is why I don't really have ads in, in sort of my POV, because there's no care and attention that human element, especially when you're in business, so you have someone's attention.

00;48;29;05 - 00;48;46;01
Rob Lee
This is sort of what I posit. You have someone's attention. You only have it for a certain amount of time, like some stats come down. Exactly. And there's a stat around like sort of like music you only can get like if you haven't looked at me, like the first 10s or something, I got to skip. I think I just get the song.

00;48;46;03 - 00;49;01;23
Rob Lee
So the same thing goes for the podcast. So if like I have someone's attention, I've already gotten past one hurdle amid all of the 700,000 plus podcasts that are out there right? And as soon as I get to that break where I want to put a goofy ad in it, that'll be done with intention. And that would be a natural break.

00;49;01;25 - 00;49;21;19
Rob Lee
And because things are so automated, yeah, we just do some AI generated ads, or we'll use AI to do snippets of the interview and put that out there. It's not done on attention. So it looks sloppy, it looks bad, and it's like, sure, you're using it, but you got to use it right.

00;49;21;21 - 00;49;39;23
Zina Verdugo
By you're too, you know, where we said that? And it just reminded me of like the controversy going on right now about Will Smith and yes, the AI video that I'm here, I haven't seen the video, I haven't had time to see it. But I've seen like people reposting it of like the hands looking weird and it's all like this and that.

00;49;39;23 - 00;49;41;17
Rob Lee
And those cases of melting.

00;49;41;19 - 00;50;01;22
Zina Verdugo
The face is melting. And then you have Redmond rub that, he produce an AI video and people are mad about that. And you're like, what is it? I feel like this is what I wanted. Study a little bit better, probably become an expert in is what is it okay for AI to do it? What is AI not supposed to do?

00;50;01;24 - 00;50;23;05
Zina Verdugo
What is the limit of human consumption that you're willing to have when it comes to AI? Yeah, I think text messages are fine because as a business owner, I don't have time to message everybody that I need to message because one of my thing is I have to be very because I am in consulting, I have to be very personable, be like, hey, don't forget to do this and that.

00;50;23;05 - 00;50;44;12
Zina Verdugo
Little reminders. Yeah, but because it's one on one with my clients, it's a lot more unique because I need them to know that it's coming from me and not like an email letter. So things like that. I have delegated, you know, bots to do email follow ups, promotion and so forth. We kind of expect them to already be a AIS.

00;50;44;15 - 00;51;08;12
Zina Verdugo
Yeah. But when it comes to podcasting, because realistically, you can produce a podcast fully, I yeah, only fully developed in my own. I can develop content, social media content, my favorites like the little ones with the gorilla or like the Chihuahua talking. Those are always my favorite. There's actually a dentist, but he changed his whole content just to be like the little gorilla chasing around.

00;51;08;12 - 00;51;29;21
Zina Verdugo
He got locked out. He's like, you know what? I'm going to go to Billy Joel's dentistry and blah blah blah. And then I'd like pins for his actual dentistry. Sounds like that's some dope marketing that you're supposed to use. I but like we talked a little bit earlier before the podcast, good people do good things with AI. Bad people do bad things with ego.

00;51;29;23 - 00;51;46;11
Zina Verdugo
And there's certain places I'm going to throw them out by hugging face. You guys never delete that. They have a feature that you're able. It's an it's whatever the synonyms are, but it's like adult content and you're able to switch faces.

00;51;46;13 - 00;52;11;03
Rob Lee
It's it's not great. And there are sort of ethical uses forward. And this is sort of my my take. And I'm going to go into sort of last like question on half of the real questions. But this is sort of my, my take in this area that in in an air for efficiency in an air for like people are working skinny and we all you know, we're business owners right.

00;52;11;03 - 00;52;36;07
Rob Lee
People want to make money from their businesses. But the folks that have sort of that access behind the curtain that are able to cause change and elicit change, they seem to be so drawn by using AI as the hook to get data, because the money is in data, the money is in getting that data, what have you. And unfortunately, like AI, is the tool that has this sort of promise of efficiency data.

00;52;36;07 - 00;52;37;11
Zina Verdugo
And. Yeah.

00;52;37;13 - 00;52;59;21
Rob Lee
And so but I think one of the cool things and I was doing the research about you and you know, I and let's gas this up a little bit that you're kind of helping out these business owners. You're absolutely helping these business owners around you and your community around you. And really combating that and being sort of this advocate, I think, for a more ethical use of it.

00;52;59;24 - 00;53;26;19
Rob Lee
So sort of what are, in your opinion, what are sort of if someone is like, hey, I can't get to you for, for consulting or what have you at this juncture, but what would you suggest folks do to increase their awareness in potential use, utilization of AI tools? Maybe from a security standpoint, maybe just general use, but something just that they're not just overwhelmed and lost.

00;53;26;21 - 00;53;48;03
Zina Verdugo
I think early on when I started off with a guy, it was the decision paralysis and has so much information that'll give you a whole pamphlet on what you're supposed to do. This is, oh, give me like, this is what I want and I'll give you a goal is one of my early products actually sold part of my company in this was we created AI generated business support.

00;53;48;05 - 00;54;12;18
Zina Verdugo
So I've always been very keen on helping small businesses and helping them grow because that's my background, you know, as a Latina or my mom. Then we working since I was eight, I made her seven year old girl. I am sold in the street corners. I sold and bought me. So I mean, yo, I've done it all, but that also showed me that that's not really how you're supposed to do business, because you can't always keep heads on the road.

00;54;12;21 - 00;54;35;25
Zina Verdugo
So, I kind of learned that with ChatGPT, it was overall learning how to perform properly, understanding techniques like zero from prompting train of thought, reasoning. It all sounds so fancy, but it's really just learning how to ask better questions and ask the right questions. Then once you kind of learn how prompt in works, I usually start out with a paper to understand.

00;54;35;28 - 00;54;56;10
Zina Verdugo
This is my model. I used to train a model. That's what I'm doing, which is test role example negative. For me, having a negative is very important because I don't got time to read 20 pages of a dissertation that blah blah, blah. Give me a 150 words. That's it. No more. And it has to be very quick throw and throw because I don't have time to read it.

00;54;56;13 - 00;55;21;09
Zina Verdugo
So for me, for reading the negative is always important in my prompting. From there, you kind of go into describing what sort of use one to use. Which tool ChatGPT use. Great for creativity, and it's usually everybody's go to. But when you're working at a higher level, you need something more sophisticated. Claude is excellent at documentation, analysis and just overall working at a higher level compared to ChatGPT.

00;55;21;12 - 00;55;48;13
Zina Verdugo
Right? Then you go into perplexity, which is one of the bigger up until I mean, I guess they're newer, but their research incredible, the way perplexity is able to produce the research that you need and the data and always backs up everything you ask, which I give it, you don't do. Perplexity does so with perplexity. You're able to understand where the information is coming, because it cites a resource.

00;55;48;15 - 00;55;49;05
Rob Lee
Nice.

00;55;49;08 - 00;56;07;25
Zina Verdugo
As somebody that's been and how you read, you know how important that is to have those footnotes and everything. It's critical and it's been so helpful. But overall, I think just understanding that you need to learn to probe before you can dive in from there, choosing the tool that helps you the best and is only as good as a data if you don't.

00;56;08;02 - 00;56;20;20
Zina Verdugo
Garbage in, garbage out, good quality data in, you'll get a better message. Like we talked about earlier, you can prompt and prompt in front of prompt and prompt, but if you don't really know what you want, you can expect it to guess what you need.

00;56;20;22 - 00;56;38;10
Rob Lee
And that's just the, sort of like I was touching on earlier. It's like, you know, if you are aware of it and you see these things, it's no different. It's a different medium to maybe get to an answer, but it's no different than if someone is doing a SQL script. I don't know what I want. Well, maybe you should write it out.

00;56;38;10 - 00;56;54;13
Rob Lee
What are you trying to accomplish? And then you kind of build from there. And then once you get good through doing a repetition and so on. But it's not just your style. Put it in there. You have like intellisense or I feel like like SQL, but you know, it's not like ChatGPT is going to be like, yeah, I'm going to fill this in for you.

00;56;54;13 - 00;57;10;12
Rob Lee
No, you're literally asking it for a particular thing. And, you know, having the model that you described in and I've seen and I've used that myself and a few different other ones that I think are very useful, but it's like the right tool, using the right tool to accomplish the task.

00;57;10;15 - 00;57;36;09
Zina Verdugo
Yeah. No, it's definitely understanding what you need. As business owners. We have so many tools from like QuickBooks. So Canva now to charity to notion to one day to at one point where you can have up to ten tools because if you have a website, you're selling a product online. Those are two definitely different. Then you have to have somewhere to go to your domain, and then you have somewhere to buy your domain.

00;57;36;12 - 00;57;56;22
Zina Verdugo
It is so many different tools that I think we tend to have this paralysis. Oh damn, I don't want to write another tool because I just want to sell blankets. I don't want to do x, y, x, y, you know, and it becomes a hassle just owning a business. And then I think that's what scares a lot of people of starting, because it's so much.

00;57;56;24 - 00;58;00;17
Zina Verdugo
For something that feels sometimes impossible.

00;58;00;19 - 00;58;18;25
Rob Lee
I like that you went back to the blanket analogy, by the way. Also, one of the things you touched on me that I'd be remiss if I didn't mention and this would be the last thing I'll say before I move into the rapid fire questions, is you talked about sort of having this work ethic, you know, being a being a hustler, having that grind sort of vibe from an early age.

00;58;18;28 - 00;58;37;02
Rob Lee
And I find it very interesting. So of the, the, the sort of conversation in a discourse online now is, you know, AI is going to make everything easier. But also we want to embrace the grind culture. It's like, I thought, I'm supposed to make things easier. Why are we still grinding? I still work at 45 jobs.

00;58;37;05 - 00;58;57;24
Zina Verdugo
You know, definitely. It's one of those things. Even today, I was like walking. I was like, I'm telling person, I'm over. There's this. It's like myself, I'm tired, but I'm like, Will that ever go away? And I just make everything better. But also, you need to have regulations and review what it's saying because, I mean, just letting I do whatever I want.

00;58;57;24 - 00;59;16;02
Zina Verdugo
You lose control of what you're actually doing. So this is something that I'm actually studying with a couple of my clients as I just kind of gauge what they're doing. I kind of let them one shot their prompts and see how they respond. And one of the common things that they do when someone shot responds, they'll be like like a lot of tell me the difference between this and that.

00;59;16;04 - 00;59;40;24
Zina Verdugo
And they just kind of guide it through conversation. And with that, the issue is that you don't really get what you need because you don't know what you need, and you just allow it to tell you what you need with overall, one of my key thing is actually teaching them. So whenever they never actually learn what they need, they just learn that ChatGPT will response and they will know what they want.

00;59;40;26 - 00;59;57;21
Zina Verdugo
Most of times they're hopeful that they will know what they mean once they talk to it, but they don't really understand it. But that being said, one of the issues is that because ChatGPT provides you with everything, sometimes you don't know anything because it gave you everything.

00;59;57;23 - 01;00;08;28
Rob Lee
It's the, something you were touching on was the decision paralysis or. I don't know if you're an oatmeal girl, right. But I'll say this. It's like when you get that variety pack of oatmeal, you know, you just wanted that apple cinnamon. Why am I.

01;00;08;28 - 01;00;09;12
Zina Verdugo
At.

01;00;09;15 - 01;00;12;02
Rob Lee
That one? It's it's sort of that.

01;00;12;02 - 01;00;14;11
Zina Verdugo
And the strawberry ones are best.

01;00;14;14 - 01;00;34;05
Rob Lee
Of course you could say that, I, I do this, I do this when I, when it comes to some of the prompts, because sometimes I just need to, like, warm up and figure out, like, all right, how is it behaving today or what have you. What does it look like? And when I start, when I ask for something very specific and it starts providing me more than I asked for, I was like, I didn't ask for that.

01;00;34;05 - 01;00;54;00
Rob Lee
Don't provide any of that extra, like, really cut the fluff really directly. And it's like, you're talking to me. I was like, I want bullet points. And the one that I have that I'm using in the day job, it is definitely plugged in, I think, to some of our data sources, which I don't agree with. But, you know, I might use research bag stuff.

01;00;54;00 - 01;01;13;15
Rob Lee
So I when I maybe ask a question that's related to health or something that's backed up, it will say sort of the source right there and there's the attempt, but it is like four different or five different eyes just tabbed out in our tool. And I was like, this is cool. I know that people are not using this, right?

01;01;13;17 - 01;01;36;04
Zina Verdugo
I think I think everybody's so keen. I know judging images slowly and quickly, more quickly, then slowly integrated it. Then I read because they have a lot of contracts going into space, and they record wants to sell to the U.S. government for a dollar. But that's a long, long story. But nobody's talking about Google Notebook.

01;01;36;06 - 01;01;37;02
Rob Lee

01;01;37;05 - 01;02;02;01
Zina Verdugo
With Google notebooks, it only provides you feedback based on what you provided. So based on if I upload a document, that's all the information it knows and that's all the information they will give me. So with notebook, let's say I only put it on an article about squirrels. All the people know it's about squirrels compared to an open source line like Judge, deputy quote and so forth.

01;02;02;01 - 01;02;11;26
Zina Verdugo
It uses the internet to grab that information. So with Google Notebook, with Google Notebook, it will only provide you with the direct information you in.

01;02;11;29 - 01;02;13;04
Rob Lee
The.

01;02;13;06 - 01;02;35;21
Zina Verdugo
Totally different in the ways you use it. And a lot of people aren't using the whole notebook to a full to its full extent. Exactly. Because I'm so used to just putting in generally between cloud and so forth, that if you need information just on your business or whatever information, you know, you should use something like Google Notebook, where it's only going to provide you what you provide it with.

01;02;35;24 - 01;02;56;18
Rob Lee
No, that's that's good. And actually it pulls that up. Because yeah, I think it's restricting you to, it's not open source that restricts you to, sort of universe. So that example I was providing earlier, if I put in this person's bio as I have it, tell me what's tell me that, five facts about this person based on his bio.

01;02;56;20 - 01;03;02;18
Rob Lee
It's not going to, like, pull in stuff from outside of the vast internet to fill in where there's gaps.

01;03;02;20 - 01;03;15;01
Zina Verdugo
Right? It is going to connect to nothing because the Google notebook only connects to what you see in your using your specific data to feed it, not the masses.

01;03;15;03 - 01;03;38;12
Rob Lee
That's good. So. And so you gave me you me some gems right there. So I mean, hopefully folks will be able to pull through here and figure out some ways to implement it because, you know, as podcasts hits folks that are in arts and culture, for folks that are business owners and, you know, in this sort of idea of sort of our ideas and sort of the way that we go about things that just people feel like they're under attack.

01;03;38;12 - 01;03;51;25
Rob Lee
I know that artists feel like, you know, AI is stealing their, you know, intellectual property and so on. And I know there have been people kicked out of panels recently for like, yeah, this is all air. And it's like, well, we have real artists here. And I say, oh, snap that.

01;03;51;27 - 01;03;53;03
Zina Verdugo
Yeah, I see it.

01;03;53;05 - 01;04;16;26
Rob Lee
And there is some validity to it, but it is what I think is it's this squeezing thing that happens, just like you guys are making all of the money from these, these big companies that are the major producers and so on. So it's like how to utilize it and utilize it and implement it into what you're doing while keeping the thing that you're doing, the human aspects of it there.

01;04;17;00 - 01;04;40;09
Rob Lee
It's to lift it up, not to replace it. So if you make really cool art, you should keep making it maybe. Right? Your, your artist statement using ChatGPT, maybe write the descriptions for it or the emails to pitch it and all of that stuff. That's sort of the way to implement it. And, you know, research some things that you've mentioned in this episode.

01;04;40;12 - 01;05;11;18
Zina Verdugo
No, definitely just I come from a museum background, I love museums, I love art, or I love history artifacts. And that's my thing. And recently my sister has been more prominent in her drawings. She actually got invited to an artist exhibit. She's 12 years old, and she exhibited her art in. It was an incredible thing. But one of the things that we all, when we toured the museum at the end of events with everybody that got submitted artwork, there was one painting that kind of stuck out.

01;05;11;18 - 01;05;41;29
Zina Verdugo
It was beautiful from far away. It was a Cinderella 3D artwork. But when you get close, you're like, nah, this is a this is a I'm not who's a curator who let this happen, who will allow this person to submit any artwork to an actual exhibit. And I wasn't mad, but I was like a little like, dang, is that what we're getting that everything is going to be I created, you know, when you see, like Etsy, Etsy has like these AI artwork or like I call it spam word there.

01;05;42;01 - 01;06;24;08
Zina Verdugo
It's kind of like that artwork, you know, when you go to like a city, it's like, I don't love New York, New York, uncle. That's what I call spam art. And with that you're like, dang. So it is going to kind of take over our artwork. But I think this allows creatives this ability to, in a way, in my eyes, to allow them to be better at artwork because you're able to understand what you do better because you're not ruled by it, doesn't allow you to make yourself unique when everybody else has the same style, because as great as it is, it's not as creative as a human because a human has to prompt it.

01;06;24;10 - 01;06;50;22
Zina Verdugo
So the prompt will only be as successful as its human. And if you don't understand, trust me, I can prompt very well. But when it comes to making artwork using things like Dale. Nano what is it? Banana, nano banana, nano banana, which is Google's Nano. Image generator. For you to understand lighting angles, you need to understand how the pixels work.

01;06;50;22 - 01;07;17;22
Zina Verdugo
You need to understand how those things. And so from my point of view, you need to have a common sense. And as an artist, as a designer on how to build it, because I try to prompt things like make me a cute squirrel going up the tree and it looks bad because I don't know how to prompt it, because you need to have those specific prompt features like make it blah blah blah pixels saturate the colors in the background and the lighting that like 19 degrees, blah blah, blah, blah.

01;07;17;24 - 01;07;42;08
Zina Verdugo
And I've seen some of these crazy artworks that people are creating of actual these are like masterpieces they put in their face and it looks like they were at a photoshoot. But that's such specific prompting that you have to know the angles to be able to prompt it. So if you're not a photographer, it won't work unless you've planned for it.

01;07;42;11 - 01;08;02;21
Zina Verdugo
And I think those are. Yes, we're seeing a lot of AI art, but if you're creative, you won't stop creating. And I really want to see where it goes because creativity isn't something that I will do. It's an art creative on its own. It's data. Data is a creative.

01;08;02;23 - 01;08;22;02
Rob Lee
I love that, and I think that's where we can close off on the real part of the pie. Because it's a good spot, because, it's it's a thing that's been a pressing question for a number of years, even going back to, you know, what was the goofy thing that disappeared, at the beginning of Covid?

01;08;22;05 - 01;08;25;03
Rob Lee
The, the online art stuff.

01;08;25;06 - 01;08;27;06
Zina Verdugo
What are you talking about?

01;08;27;09 - 01;08;31;10
Rob Lee
It was just like, NFTs. It was kind of like, you know.

01;08;31;12 - 01;08;38;13
Zina Verdugo
I had somebody trying to sell me an NFT at a conference. They're like, it's gonna be great. You should input it for your clients. I was like, I'm not putting and left.

01;08;38;15 - 01;08;49;13
Rob Lee
And that's. And that's sort of my point. It's just like yucky. You know, the data folks who I keep playing with like sort of what art is and all of that stuff and it use you said it very well.

01;08;49;15 - 01;09;00;08
Unknown
No no, no no no no no no no.

01;09;00;10 - 01;09;09;27
Rob Lee
What I like to do now is moving to three rapid fire questions I have for you. You don't want to overthink these, because people don't overthink these. So here's the first one.

01;09;09;29 - 01;09;11;06
Zina Verdugo
Okay. Looks good.

01;09;11;09 - 01;09;13;27
Rob Lee
How many hours of sleep do you usually get?

01;09;14;00 - 01;09;16;27
Zina Verdugo
Oh, I like to sleep. So maybe like nine, ten.

01;09;16;29 - 01;09;34;09
Rob Lee
Oof, I miss six. You are crushing it. Sleep, champ. What is your most common eye prompt that you find yourself using? Like you're just messing around. Like what is like your most common prompt? Usually that would be with your Google search, but I think this is more apps.

01;09;34;10 - 01;09;49;00
Zina Verdugo
My most round usually emails. I do a lot of emails, text messages because after a day my brain tends to go blank. So I use it a lot for text messages and emails. So if you ever got a text for me or drop, it was a me.

01;09;49;02 - 01;10;04;07
Rob Lee
It's funny. And this is the last one I got for you. What is the strangest or most unexpected way you've seen? I use perhaps one of your clients or my way that you've used it like this is odd, but it worked. And I helped.

01;10;04;09 - 01;10;28;16
Zina Verdugo
My. This is a harder one. I've seen, I think not strangers, but I think the data that people have put in has been strange because you can't just copy and paste everything. Sure. I think that's been strange of like, people not thinking it's going to. I've got until like, oh, the government already has my data, why should I care that I had it?

01;10;28;16 - 01;10;50;25
Zina Verdugo
And I'm like, because it's different, but okay. And I think that's been the strangest as using it in a strange way. Yeah, I like to reverse engineered things a lot. So I think I'm going to be the one I usually like to go in preparing for this podcast. Kind of like a person, personal user, person. Again, I come from marketing and just using like a user persona, like, hey, what are the talking points?

01;10;50;25 - 01;11;02;05
Zina Verdugo
What should I prepare for? I tend to reverse engineer a lot of things and that seems very strange because usually people can't forward. I like the prompt backwards, so that's a very unique.

01;11;02;07 - 01;11;17;02
Rob Lee
I do that as well actually. It's like, all right, if someone's listening to this, be an audience, you know, building that persona, what would someone find value? If I'm talking to this guest and this is their background? Well, these are interesting topics. They are Robert speaks to me like like Jarvis or have you from from Iron Man? It's great.

01;11;17;04 - 01;11;18;12
Rob Lee

01;11;18;15 - 01;11;23;02
Zina Verdugo
Yeah. No. Once you understand prompt, then you start to go backwards. Not.

01;11;23;04 - 01;11;36;10
Rob Lee
Yeah. Look, I've been sitting here nerding out with you. I've been, you know, I've. I tried to, like, get to the rapidfire portion a number of times, and I was like, something else is interesting. Give get more information from her. She's a fount of information.

01;11;36;10 - 01;11;52;24
Zina Verdugo
So that usually happens when people talk to me. I was at the dog park and I was there for three hours, and I was like, we talked about crypto and cyber tropes. And I was like, yeah, you can hack into them. I would never get an electric vehicle, but whatever. But yeah, I got to.

01;11;52;27 - 01;12;12;13
Rob Lee
But I was but I'm saying that to say it's just just thank you for coming back on. I'm glad you reached out and we were able to make this happen. I, I know that my knowledge base with using it regularly has increased, and I'm definitely going to use this Google notebook, LM and a few other things that were mentioned in this conversation.

01;12;12;14 - 01;12;26;24
Rob Lee
And, you know, in that is two things I want to do. I want to again, thank you for coming on and invite you to share with the listeners any final thoughts, social media, website, any of those things do you want to share? Maybe you don't have one because we talked about that earlier. I don't know if I need a website.

01;12;26;27 - 01;12;28;16
Rob Lee
The floor is yours. Yeah.

01;12;28;16 - 01;12;45;07
Zina Verdugo
No. Of course we're in the awkward stage with investors that I need not be in the spotlight anymore. So you are the opening. That, and I wanted to come to you personally just to be like, thank you for having me. Back when I was doing museum work, it was kind of like a weird time. I was like, you know what?

01;12;45;07 - 01;13;06;02
Zina Verdugo
I need to get in the spotlight. And I kind of strayed away because I was like, I want to do it. But I think now that we're building these AI softwares and I'm more community focused, it was a great loop around to come back. I might not have a website because we need to work on everything. Like I said, as a business owners you sometimes don't have time.

01;13;06;05 - 01;13;06;18
Rob Lee
I hear you.

01;13;06;19 - 01;13;09;29
Zina Verdugo
But thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

01;13;10;01 - 01;13;30;28
Rob Lee
And there you have it folks. I want to, again, thank Zena Verdasco for coming back on to the podcast and catching us up with all the things I and for Zena, I am broadly saying that there's art, culture and community in and around your neck of the woods. You just have to look for it.

01;13;31;00 - 01;13;31;12
Rob Lee
And.