Hosted by Jeff Walter, Founder and CEO of LatitudeLearning
Organizations spend millions of dollars every year trying to better understand the people who matter most to their success. They conduct surveys, commission market research studies, organize focus groups, analyze customer behavior, review performance metrics, and hold endless meetings designed to surface new ideas. Despite these efforts, many leaders still find themselves making critical decisions with incomplete information.
The challenge is not a lack of data. Modern organizations have more data than at any point in history. The challenge is understanding what that data actually means and uncovering the insights that never make their way into a spreadsheet.
Some of the most valuable knowledge inside an organization does not exist in reports. It exists in conversations. It lives inside the experiences of franchisees, dealers, distributors, employees, customers, and partners who interact with products, services, and markets every day. These individuals encounter challenges, identify opportunities, solve problems, and develop innovations long before leadership teams become aware of them.
The question is how to capture that knowledge before it disappears.
That question sits at the center of a fascinating Training Impact Podcast conversation between Jeff Walter and Brad Mehl, founder of Boundless Markets. What begins as a discussion about customer insights quickly evolves into a broader conversation about organizational learning, innovation, knowledge management, and the role artificial intelligence can play in helping organizations learn from the networks they work so hard to build.
Brad Mehl’s path to founding Boundless Markets was shaped by years spent working in marketing, digital products, research, and business growth. Throughout his career, he repeatedly encountered situations where organizations believed they understood their audiences, only to discover later that important assumptions were incomplete, outdated, or simply wrong. Decisions were being made using data that provided visibility into outcomes without necessarily explaining the causes behind them.
Traditional research methods each have their strengths. Surveys can efficiently collect information from large audiences and provide useful quantitative data. Interviews and focus groups can uncover deeper motivations, frustrations, and opportunities that would never emerge from multiple-choice questions. Yet organizations are often forced to choose between these approaches because of time, cost, and scalability constraints.
The result is a familiar tradeoff. Leaders can gather broad but shallow information from hundreds or thousands of people, or they can gather rich and detailed information from a small number of individuals. Rarely can they achieve both simultaneously.
As Mehl explains, that gap became the opportunity Boundless Markets was designed to address. Rather than replacing traditional research methods, the company sought to combine the scale of surveys with the depth of human conversation.
The goal was not simply to collect more information. It was to create a higher-resolution understanding of what audiences actually think, what challenges they face, and what opportunities they see that may not yet be visible to the organization itself.
One of the most compelling themes throughout the discussion is the idea that organizations often underestimate the intelligence that already exists within their networks.
Consider a manufacturer with hundreds of dealers. Headquarters wants to know why certain dealers outperform others. They want to understand which support programs are working, where friction exists, and what obstacles are preventing greater growth. A survey might reveal satisfaction scores. Financial data might reveal performance differences. But neither necessarily explains why those differences exist.
The same challenge applies to franchise systems, distribution networks, service organizations, and partner ecosystems.
Leadership teams often see performance metrics. What they struggle to see are the experiences, motivations, concerns, and insights that sit behind those metrics.
Mehl describes how Boundless Markets approaches this problem by using AI-powered self-guided interviews. Participants engage in a conversational experience that feels far more like an interview than a survey. Rather than answering a fixed set of questions, participants respond naturally while the system asks intelligent follow-up questions designed around predefined learning objectives.
The result is an experience that allows organizations to engage hundreds or even thousands of individuals while still capturing the richness that traditionally comes from one-on-one conversations.
For organizations managing large networks, the implications are significant. Instead of relying solely on a small sample of interviews or a low-response survey, they can begin to understand what is happening across the entire ecosystem.
A particularly interesting aspect of the conversation centers on the human tendency to communicate more effectively through conversation than through forms.
Most surveys rely heavily on written responses. Participants are asked to type comments, rate experiences, or select predefined options. While useful, those approaches often fail to capture the depth of human experience.
Mehl explains that Boundless Markets intentionally emphasizes spoken responses because people naturally reveal more when they are talking. Thoughts emerge differently through conversation. Individuals often discover ideas while they are explaining them. The process of speaking encourages reflection, context, and storytelling in ways that written responses rarely achieve.
Walter expands on this observation by discussing the connection between thinking and speaking. As ideas are verbalized, additional insights often emerge. What begins as a simple answer can evolve into a detailed explanation, uncovering concerns, opportunities, and observations that neither the participant nor the interviewer initially expected.
This matters because some of the most valuable organizational insights are not carefully prepared statements. They are spontaneous observations from people doing the work every day.
One of the strongest moments in the episode occurs when the conversation shifts from understanding audiences to discovering innovation.
Organizations frequently focus on averages, trends, and consensus opinions. Those perspectives are important because they reveal what the majority of the network believes. Yet transformative ideas rarely emerge from consensus alone.
Innovation often begins at the edges of a network.
A franchisee experiments with a new operational process. A dealer discovers a more effective sales approach. A service technician develops a better troubleshooting method. A customer identifies an unexpected use case. These discoveries may remain isolated for months or years before the broader organization becomes aware of them.
Mehl refers to these opportunities as seeds of innovation. Like seeds beneath the surface, they are easy to miss. Yet when identified and cultivated, they can grow into ideas that transform entire organizations.
Walter illustrates this concept through a story involving Cinnabon. During a challenging period for the company, valuable insights emerged from franchise operators who had already begun adapting to changing customer preferences. Those operators were experimenting, learning, and discovering solutions before the broader organization fully understood the challenge it faced. The eventual turnaround was influenced by lessons that had already been hiding within the network.
The story highlights an important reality. Organizations do not always need to look outside for answers. Sometimes the answers already exist inside the network. The challenge is creating mechanisms capable of finding them.
Throughout the discussion, Walter repeatedly connects Mehl’s work back to a theme that sits at the heart of the Training Impact Podcast.
Most organizations think extensively about how they train their networks.
Far fewer think about how they learn from them.
Training traditionally flows outward from headquarters. Knowledge, standards, processes, and best practices are distributed to employees, partners, dealers, franchisees, and customers. That flow of information is essential.
But learning should move in both directions.
Networks generate intelligence every day. Frontline employees encounter emerging customer needs. Dealers identify product challenges. Franchisees experiment with new ideas. Partners discover changing market conditions. If organizations fail to capture those insights, they lose access to one of their most valuable strategic assets.
The organizations that learn fastest often outperform those with greater resources because they adapt more quickly to changing conditions.
This idea becomes especially important in a business environment increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and rapid technological change. Competitive advantage is no longer determined solely by who has access to information. It is determined by who can learn from information most effectively.
Capturing insights is only part of the challenge. Organizations must also ensure those insights are accessible and actionable.
This led to another innovation discussed during the episode: Actify.
Mehl describes Actify as a way to transform reports, webinars, transcripts, videos, and other forms of content into interactive experiences that help users quickly identify and act upon information that matters most to them. Rather than forcing people to consume lengthy reports or sift through hours of content, Actify distills key ideas into actionable insights that can be personalized to individual interests and needs.
The concept addresses a growing challenge in modern organizations. Information is abundant. Attention is scarce.
Most professionals are overwhelmed by the volume of content competing for their time. Valuable insights are often buried inside lengthy documents, webinars, presentations, and meetings. Even when important ideas are identified, they are frequently forgotten before action occurs.
Actify seeks to bridge that gap by helping individuals move from awareness to action. Instead of simply consuming information, users can engage with it, prioritize it, share it, and build next steps around it.
The result is not just knowledge transfer.
It is knowledge activation.
Perhaps the most significant takeaway from the conversation is the idea that organizations can systematically transform tribal knowledge into organizational intelligence.
Every company possesses knowledge that exists primarily in people’s heads. Employees know things that are never documented. Partners understand nuances that never appear in training materials. Customers identify opportunities that never make it into strategic plans.
Historically, much of this knowledge remained inaccessible.
The combination of self-guided interviews, AI-powered analysis, interactive content experiences, and conversational knowledge tools creates a new possibility. Organizations can now capture, organize, and distribute knowledge that would previously have remained hidden.
What once existed as isolated experiences can become shared organizational learning.
What once depended on individual memory can become accessible institutional knowledge.
What once disappeared when employees left or partners moved on can now be preserved and leveraged.
For learning and development leaders, this may represent one of the most important opportunities emerging from artificial intelligence. The technology is not simply helping organizations deliver knowledge more efficiently. It is helping them discover knowledge that they did not realize they already possessed.
The conversation between Jeff Walter and Brad Mehl ultimately expands the definition of what organizational learning can become. While many discussions about AI focus on automation and efficiency, this episode explores a different possibility: using technology to listen more effectively.
Boundless Markets is built on a simple but powerful premise. Every organization is surrounded by intelligence. Customers, employees, dealers, franchisees, distributors, and partners are constantly generating insights, solving problems, identifying opportunities, and adapting to change. The challenge is not whether those insights exist. The challenge is whether organizations can find them before they are lost.
As businesses navigate increasingly complex markets, the ability to capture network intelligence, surface hidden innovation, and transform tribal knowledge into actionable learning may become one of the most important competitive advantages available. Organizations that learn how to listen at scale will be better positioned to adapt, innovate, and grow than those that continue relying solely on traditional information channels.
To learn more about Boundless Markets, visit https://www.boundlessmarkets.com/
For more from the Training Impact Podcast, follow us on Social Media:
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Part 1
Jeff Walter (00:00)
Hi, I’m Jeff Walter and welcome back to the Training Impact Podcast, where we focus on scaling performance through training infrastructure. My guest today is Brad Mell, founder of Boundless Markets. They’re a B2B customer insights and growth firm with proprietary tools so that you can know what’s on the minds of your audience and use that to drive growth.
And we’re gonna talk today ⁓ about that and especially as it relates to when your audience is a is a network, like a a network of partners and and their staff. So, Brad, welcome to the program.
Brad Mehl (00:31)
Thanks, Jeff. It’s great to be here.
Jeff Walter (00:33)
And ⁓ Brad, I I I find it really interesting to kind of understand the autobiographical. How did a person get where they’re at? And especially for a founder, because you know, it’s no small you know, as a as a founder myself, it’s it’s no small undertaking. so what what was the path that got you there and and why did you start Boundless Markets?
Brad Mehl (00:54)
Sure. So well first of all, it’s it’s just great to be here. admire what you do. And so just to give a little little bit of context here, I I I come from the world of B2B growth. I’ve been a CMO and also a geek from the digital product world. And ⁓ but yeah, I’ve noticed along the way, because a lot of the companies I I I worked at, there are major blind spots and gaps in what
companies knew about their audience or what they thought they knew that was wrong. and so I’ve also come from the research world, right? And and and and lately more AI. And so a lot of it was just some some things that I observed as an operator.
Jeff Walter (01:23)
Uh-huh.
Brad Mehl (01:35)
of decisions that got made, assumptions that were made, based on either partial truth, incomplete truth, and sometimes, you know, data that didn’t tell the whole story. So we built some tools that do, you know, a couple of things, you know, but it’s all about understanding what’s on the minds of your
stakeholders, your customers, your whoever it is, in in in ways that may not be typically articulated with like a survey, right? Or in or in other ways.
Jeff Walter (02:05)
Well and so so okay so you so as CMO and y you’ve seen this so what what what created the leap to say, you know what, I think I’ll go start a company to to tackle this problem? What what what triggered that?
Brad Mehl (02:16)
Yeah, well I I started Yeah,
so I started a couple of companies, but you know, what the last impetus was my my last company was an expert network, right? So had over you know half a million experts, the subject matter experts, like leading thinkers around the world. So you wanted to, you know, find the expert on soybeans in Latin America, like for very specific needs, almost in real time.
Jeff Walter (02:26)
Okay.
Brad Mehl (02:45)
expert networks do that. And and so that was ⁓ my last company and I just got really fascinated with this all idea of and and these were these were interviews typically so that was the format. Right? And I started thinking of gosh, these are Zoom calls. Like or or sessions like we’re having right now. But that’s hard to scale. Like how could you do that with
Jeff Walter (02:50)
Interesting.
Right.
Right.
Uh-huh.
Brad Mehl (03:13)
⁓ you know 50 people, 100 people. Well you can’t set up Zoom calls with 50 people. yeah you could, but it would sure take a while. So the idea is like how can you get qualitative insights like really deeply and do it at scale in a way that ⁓ and then aggregate all those insights from people. So that was really the infinite.
Jeff Walter (03:22)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Well it’s it’s it’s it’s interesting because if you tried if you want to try and understand an audience or a population, it it’s like your historical tools were you either survey a lot of people and hopefully get s and hope to get a high return rate, or you talk to a handful of people. Right? Like, you know, whether it’s one on one or a focus group or something like that, like you kind of get some quantitative data.
And then you get some qualitative anecdotal information talking to, you know, a a handful. And and especially that second part leads to a lot of insights, but it’s a handful of folks and it’s to your point, it’s hard to scale. And did you pick the right people? Right?
Brad Mehl (04:16)
True, it’s
true.
Jeff Walter (04:17)
Are
they are they representative of the audience? And so so so okay, so and then it’s inter and it’s interesting when you said that your your prior company was a network of experts and here you have all this expertise. And so how do you I gotta imagine it’s one of the things is like how do I know who the soybean expert in Latin America is, right? Like like unless they put it on their
Brad Mehl (04:19)
It’s true.
Jeff Walter (04:41)
Yeah, it’s like how do I get that intelligence out of the network, right? And and
Brad Mehl (04:44)
Yeah. A lot of it
is is is the data you capture. And so you know, it’s sort of like the the metadata, the data in your CRM, the data in whatever system you have is developing is sort of like a repository of who knows what, who cares about what, and and you know then you know the motivations, the challenges, w whatever you you need to sort of
extract or or g or or or find out from people.
Jeff Walter (05:10)
Yeah, and w so okay, so there’s the impetus. So ha so so when a client engages your boundless markets, like what are they hoping to achieve? Like I I understand everything that we just talked about, there’s some tools, there’s AI, ⁓ we can get more into the mic what how that works, but
When a client comes in, what are they hoping to achieve and and then what are the how do you go about doing it and how is it different than how you would traditionally do it?
Brad Mehl (05:38)
Sure. So it the the needs can be all over the place, Jeff, right? So it’s one example is like we have a something we’re working on now with a a a manufacturer of ⁓ fans, right? And they wanna know really what their dealers think of them and their brands and their products and their support and their service.
Jeff Walter (05:53)
Uh-huh.
Brad Mehl (06:01)
And also any any blockers that would prevent that dealer from doing more business with them. And how do they find that out, you know, across you know dozens and dozens, actually hundreds, of dealers ⁓ with depth. So and and and as you said, like they could do a survey, sure, that’s fine. That that’s a good thing to do. but
Jeff Walter (06:08)
Right.
Right.
Brad Mehl (06:23)
That would be an example of a use case, is you know, you know, what’s preventing our channel from doing more with us? How could we better support that channel and in our in our network? And you know, what would the outcome, what would that look like? So that’s just just one example. But it could be that or it could be ⁓ another another example is ⁓ there’s a the a tech company we’re working with, and they have literally
Jeff Walter (06:33)
Mm-hmm.
Brad Mehl (06:48)
like over ten different use cases for their product. And they have many different audiences. And we all know in sales and in marketing, you need to speak the language of your audience. In this world of AI, you know, like it’s authenticity and trust and inspiring that trust. And so so we’re
Jeff Walter (06:51)
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Right.
Brad Mehl (07:12)
helping them understand the language of their audience and the use cases that really resonate most with their technology.
Jeff Walter (07:21)
Yeah. And and so how does that work? How like I I understand the traditional way. So the the tools that you so they’re looking at getting more insights. And when we when we first started talking, what what what I thought was really interesting is to me it was more like getting a higher definition picture. You know, it’s like it’s not necessarily a replacement for these other things. It’s like survey will give you a certain level of resolution, right?
Brad Mehl (07:47)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (07:48)
And focus
groups will give you additional resolution. But this thing like gave you a four K image of what and so how did how does it work? Just help help the audience understand what that what that all looks like, what actually happens. ‘Cause it’s
Brad Mehl (08:02)
Sure. So
so first we we we start everything with a with a discussion about their learning goals and objectives and what they would do with that information and sort of act like journalists and and sort of like try to get inside the minds of ⁓ of of of the client, right, of the company. So learning objective first and business objective.
Jeff Walter (08:12)
Uh-huh.
Brad Mehl (08:23)
And then we design an interview experience. and it it can be part survey with multiple choice and all the things you would expect in a normal survey, plus open-ended questions. So then we we ⁓ we set up a URL. So it’s literally as simple as sending a link. We give you a you know a a link with questions and follow-up questions because
Jeff Walter (08:30)
Right.
Uh-huh.
Brad Mehl (08:50)
It’s all self-guided. You send that out, and then when people get it, they they see a web page, and they you know, typically there’s some context that’s given to the audience, like, hey, we’d love to hear more about your experience. And sometimes there’s an incentive, you know, sometimes there’s not an incentive. We have charitable donations and gift cards and all kinds of reasons why pip people participate. and then people see the first question.
Jeff Walter (09:04)
Mm-hmm.
Brad Mehl (09:17)
And which is it’s always good to have a softball question in the beginning because it it’s called reducing cognitive load. You have an easy question that just gets people talking. So with this experience, there’s ⁓ an option to nothing’s on video by the way. Because we found not everyone always wants to be on camera. So this is audio only.
Jeff Walter (09:22)
Well it
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, but
Brad Mehl (09:45)
Will talk into it or they can type, but there’s they’re encouraged to speak into it so that their authentic perspective is captured. And then after they answer a question, then there’s a little typing that appears on the screen, which is the follow-up question.
Jeff Walter (10:01)
Mm-hmm. Now is that deterministic or is that based on how they answered the qu like
Brad Mehl (10:08)
It’s based on how they answered the question, and it’s based on the learning objective. So, look, you just asked me a question. And so my response is going to be based on your response. And then you ask me a follow-up question, but your follow-up is based on what I said, but it’s also based on some things you want to know.
Jeff Walter (10:11)
Okay.
Okay.
Yes.
Right, right, right. There’s a framework, there there’s there’s a general pattern in my head that I’m I want to be able to t understand. But there’s also as we talk, the that’s getting honed and refined, right?
Brad Mehl (10:39)
Right.
That’s exactly right. And in other
words, to put it another way, the follow-up questions of a self-guided interview are are based on the context of what what people say and then also your your goal, you’re you know, what you want to probe more deeply into, which is set up all in advance.
Jeff Walter (11:06)
Okay. So so then if if you and I were survey ⁓ interview participants, it’s really so it what what it ends up being when you say self guided interview is the the the site, the web page that you’re going to is actually interviewing you as though you were i it were say a journalist wanting to understand more information about you ⁓ or or about or but within the context of what it’s trying to write a story about. Right? And
Brad Mehl (11:32)
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. And I don’t wanna
I don’t wanna put out there that anything is going to ever replace the kind of one-on-one conversation and the power of that human experience. Okay. I think I think that’s ideal and and and and the best for many situations. Okay, right. But but when you need to scale that beyond, let’s say, you know, more than 10 people, right?
Jeff Walter (11:39)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
Brad Mehl (12:00)
A self-guided interview is is a really good way to do it. Because you get the benefits of a survey, plus all the the the depth of insights that you get from a you know a conversation like this.
Jeff Walter (12:14)
Yeah, well I and I and I agree with you and that and that’s w ⁓ actually the scale thing is the thing that I’m very excited about on the AI front. Yeah, as as I’ve been talking to different folks
doing startups, you know, folks like yourself, although you’re the first one that’s on this, that I I’ve heard that’s that’s more of an interactive interview to to pull knowledge out of an audience, which I think is brilliant. But but but even the soft skill development tools where you’re you’re you’re talking to a an avatar or, you know, simulation, it never is as good i know
Although you know, some people say, well, it all depends on who you’re actually talking to. It could be better or worse. But but the human interaction is is different. But the thing is it’s scale and cost, right? And and so like it would be great like I in my brain I’m sitting there going, Okay, I’ve got clients and they’ve they’ve got, you know
Brad Mehl (12:52)
Right.
Yeah. That’s right.
Jeff Walter (13:06)
a thousand units, fran ⁓ franchise units, or the or they’ve got five hundred dealers, right? They’ve got a they got an an ecosystem of partners, be they dealers, franchisees. And within that, say thousand, you’ve got ten thousand people, right? And and at the best you’re getting some information through your field force talking to the managers of those units.
Brad Mehl (13:09)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (13:32)
Maybe you’ve got some survey data that’s like got a three percent, which is giving you something. And you talk to a bunch of people, but you can’t talk to ten thousand, right? Or or by the time, you know, because it it doesn’t scale. It’s hard to scale. And what I found fascinating about the interactive interview is it can scale. You can talk to ten thousand people.
Brad Mehl (13:47)
Mm-hmm.
It totally.
Jeff Walter (13:57)
You know, it again to your point, not as not as good as a skilled interviewer can interview ⁓ as but but better than a checkbox survey. And and ⁓
Brad Mehl (14:06)
for sure. Yeah, yeah. And all you all you
have to do is send out a a link. You know, you know, if you can send out an email, you know, you’re you’re good you’re good to go. ⁓
Jeff Walter (14:10)
Yeah.
Yeah. Well and
the and the co ⁓ well and the cool thing is it’s it’s not just getting I I think of it as just a higher resolution understanding. Is is it’s it’s it’s it’s ⁓ you can pull out really detailed I see some of the stuff you’ve done. really detailed insights from what’s going on.
Brad Mehl (14:35)
True, and and so like all the all the verbatim comments and answers to all those questions from all those people flow into a central doc in almost real time, which is continually updated. So so it’s a huge time saver, right? I mean, so like you know, you could while we were having this conversation right now, we could have been we could be interviewed you know, a hundred people. We just did a
Jeff Walter (14:45)
Right.
Yeah.
Brad Mehl (15:02)
We just did a study. We we had a hundred and fifty completed interviews with senior people like Salesforce and Zoom, you know, over the past couple of couple of weeks. And then, you know, we turned that into a digestible format. you know, we’ll we’ll do charts and graphs and you turn it into some eye candy, but it’s at the end of the day.
It’s about gol the golden nuggets, those quotes, those key those key insights. And ⁓ so it’s so it’s intelligence. ⁓ it’s network intelligence.
Jeff Walter (15:28)
Yeah.
Well,
i it it’s that network and t well the th the thing the cool thing is, yeah, you’re you’re getting those gold nuggets, but you also have the attribution of who gave you the gold nugget? And you know.
Brad Mehl (15:45)
That’s right. Yeah, that’s that’s you know, you asked it’s a good point because you asked the question
about ⁓ the process, right? So as people are taking it, there’s a little checkbox for yes, I consent and I give my permission. So it’s all you know compliant and so forth, no worries there. and it’s really amazing what people will share in in only five or ten minutes, like the depth.
Jeff Walter (15:52)
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Brad Mehl (16:11)
that you you can get from something as short as just a ten minute experience.
Jeff Walter (16:16)
I if you let them talk, ’cause you’re not gonna get the same level of depth that they have to write. You know, it’s it’s if you let just kind of open the mouth and just do the the brain dump, you can get some major insights.
Brad Mehl (16:22)
That’s right.
Yeah, there’s something
there’s something about us as humans. We love to talk and we love I’ve actually done research on this working with clinical psychologists and anthropologists back in the day for Proctor and Gamble and other large, large companies. And one of the findings from all that research was that there are a set of core human needs.
Jeff Walter (16:33)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Brad Mehl (16:53)
Whether regardless of where people live, what kind of work they do, a couple of those needs was the need for identity. Like we belong to an ex, or I am a sales professional, I am a franchise professional. People like to hold on to identities. Another core human need was the need for self-expression. Right? And that’s where the talking comes in.
Jeff Walter (17:02)
Mm-hmm.
Brad Mehl (17:18)
It’s just people want to feel heard. But in the context of like research, not everyone people don’t necessarily want to be on camera. Like they’re just look sometimes gonna get a little freaked out by that. That’s why we we went the audio route. And if people want to type their their their answer, they can as well. But they’re you know, the way we have it set up, the majority actually do talk.
Jeff Walter (17:28)
But
Well, ’cause like you said, w in in five, ten minutes you can get a lot of insight if people are talking. Well I I I personally I I a hundred per I really like that you went that route because
you know, going on a completely different side. I’m I’m a huge believer in freedom of speech because you have to speak to think. Even if you’re just speaking to yourself. Like like if you think about when you think about something internally, you’re actually talking to yourself. So so talking is thinking. You like you have to talk to think. And and then as you’re saying it,
Brad Mehl (18:10)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (18:17)
You’re thinking of more things and and and then the insights come flowing out. And you know, it’s it if I I’m sorry, I just it so it’s really cool. So I’m really excited about what you do from a network intelligence thing. ‘Cause after I I first met you, I was I was thinking about about what how what you guys are doing and I was at a conference at at the franchise association ⁓ a couple of months ago and there they had ⁓ woman there
she was CEO of Cinnamon. Cinnabon. But anyway, it was interesting. she was there during a time of crisis. You know, tastes had changed in America, things are happening. People thought they had you know, headquarters thought they had a good idea. It was being resisted to by a bunch of franchisees. but lo and behold, there were some other franchisees that were
doing something kind of like the headquarters guys thought was a good way out, a good way to turn this thing around. And I and and lo and behold, for a bunch of different for a a myriad of reasons, they found that golden nugget in the in it you know, in these franchise in these units that were, you know, in the northwest of America. And ⁓ and you know, it and and it helped turn the company around and it w and and you know, great success story. It was really, it was very cool.
Brad Mehl (19:10)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
It
was the small cinnab cinnabon, right?
Jeff Walter (19:36)
It was a small Cinnabon, yeah. Taste had changed, people didn’t want the big buns anymore. Unit the units of buns were dropping. And so people were afraid to go to the small and drop the cost, I mean the price, because they didn’t you know, they weren’t sure and and but then there was, you know, just so happened that the grandson of the founder had a bunch of units out in Oregon or something, and the CEO happened to be
Chatting with him and happened to stumble across this bo. Yeah, and and ⁓ but I was thinking your product, right? And I was like, okay, the the there was a lot of hard work that went into that and that turnaround and ideas, and then the ultimate expression wasn’t exactly what headquarters thought, and then they had an actual tried and true thing. And I was sitting there going, huh. I wonder how.
Brad Mehl (20:16)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Walter (20:27)
If I if I i i i if they went through your if they went through your your tool through these gu these self-guided interviews and you would get the insights of all the people that were I think this idea ⁓ I’m concerned about this idea because, right? And then you would also get the insights of the handful of folks that were like,
Brad Mehl (20:44)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (20:51)
Hey, we’ve been trying something like this, and here’s our flavor, here’s our twist on it. It’s not exactly what you guys were saying, it’s but it’s close, it’s adjacent. and we’re doing it this way, and it’s been it and it’s been really successful because, right? And that’s all happening through the same type of interview, right? You’re talking about like, hey, we’re thinking, you know, of reducing the size of the button. Da da da. You what like and one guy’s like, no, don’t do that, it’s gonna kill my butt. The other guy’s going,
Brad Mehl (20:57)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (21:19)
You know, and here’s the vast majority going, you know, that’s your eighty percent response on the survey going, Don’t do it, don’t do it, you’re gonna kill us. And then this, you know, the this this one little golden nugget here going, Yeah, we’ve been doing something like that, and it’s turned out really well for us, and and here’s why. And and I just in my brain after we talked, I thought of that that that presentation, I was like, I wonder how much quicker and
Brad Mehl (21:26)
Right.
Mm. Yeah.
Jeff Walter (21:46)
they would have been able to take action and how much pain they would have avoided and how much sooner they would have turned it around if they had had that network intelligence ⁓ in a way that was not
Brad Mehl (21:57)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (22:00)
that that would that you could sit there and go, Hey, Joe over in Spokane, he you know, the he he he he there’s a golden nugget out there, right? ⁓ and that and it’s it’s just you know, it’s interesting. Like I just I I I couldn’t help but think about the two things and going how much how much quicker and and luckily with them they were able to turn around and she did a great job and kudos to her and she’s off to her next adventure and she’s doing great there. And
Brad Mehl (22:09)
Right. Yeah.
Jeff Walter (22:29)
And you know, it’s a success story, but I I you know, but I sit to go, how many folks didn’t work you know, how many organiz how many companies didn’t get turned around because they they didn’t that they were they didn’t have that golden nugget, that proven thing out in the network, right? And then and then how much time and energy like it’s just I I think it’s just brilliant. That’s why I keep I keep trying to keep saying that.
Brad Mehl (22:38)
Yeah.
Yeah, no, yeah.
You know, and it’s I think it’s a it’s a great point. I love that cine Cinnabon example. I and I call those kind of stories seeds for innovation. So a seed is underground, right? And it’s kind of buried. But by definition, you put it in the ground and then it blossoms. But you can’t see the seeds from the surface. So a lot of companies
Jeff Walter (23:05)
Mm-hmm.
Brad Mehl (23:15)
You know, rightfully, and y you know, you do you do tons with training, which is which is wonderful stuff. But a lot of a lot of companies think about training their partners, training their employees, training their franchisees. But what about learning? Because it really works both ways. In order to train, you need to learn. So learning from employees, learning from franchisees, learning from distributors, right? And and getting those like seeds for innovation.
Jeff Walter (23:32)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Well and and and and and bringing it to the training i i it’s the same network you know, we we talk about network intelligence or audience intelligence, you know, you you said ⁓ on a particular audience. we see the same thing in training, if training is going to be effective, which is it’s a it’s the same network problem. There’s an audience out there that you’re trying to educate to do something. You’re either trying to
Transfer some knowledge or help them develop a skill so that in the execution of the business, li life is good and we can all, you know, we bring joy to our customers and and we’re able to pay the rent and all that good stuff. But it’s anyone’s but the amount of feedback that you have to know where the gaps are, right, and and what’s hitting and what’s not hitting and what we’re just completely missing.
Brad Mehl (24:25)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (24:32)
And by the way, this new thing, you know, this trend has happened, or this new regulation or or something has changed in the environment, whatever it is, cultural or legal or whatever, and it’s ha and it’s and nobody would have thought it would have affected this, right? It’s the law of unintended consequences. But anyway, being able
Brad Mehl (24:46)
Right.
Yeah. So it’s a great
it’s a great point because you know, with this sort of these types of insights, to your point about evolving trends and things quickly changing, you know, ⁓ you can do what’s called pulse studies. You take something timely and topical, whether it’s you know new legislation or or something new from your competitor or some new development, quickly you know, ask your
Jeff Walter (25:10)
Right.
Brad Mehl (25:20)
your audience some very you know smart questions and follow-ups and then you you can almost like in real time be able to like aggregate all of that and then you can act on things quickly. Now why does it matter? It matters because in this world of AI it’s almost like an arms race is which companies can be more agile? Wait, who can operate with excellence and speed
Jeff Walter (25:43)
Mm-hmm.
Brad Mehl (25:50)
So being able to jump on things quickly based on insights can can can make a a great deal of difference.
Jeff Walter (25:56)
Come on.
Yeah, you know, you just gave me a a ⁓ a it’s really funny, my listeners have heard me say this. So it’s another conference and it was really interesting. There was a gentleman talking about the history of the worker and where economic value is created. And he was talking about like you had the industrial revolution and the concept of the industrial worker really was really took economic productivity to the next level, right?
And then that gave away ⁓ with automation and everything to the knowledge worker where you’re you got specialized knowledge and you’re applying it and that really took economic productivity to the next level.
and then and then he was saying we’re entering the era of the learning worker where it’s the insights and that you have to keep learning.
Part 2
Jeff Walter (00:00)
So I mean what I love about this is that the the knowledge, you know, we had talked we just talked about how one part of the network can have an answer while the other part of the network has concerns concerning that answer and and then work that which actually I’m sorry, which actually also reminds me of another thing that was, you know, when there was the explos just I’m tak going hard left here, sorry. but ⁓
when when social media and and discussion groups and all that became a a big thing and that technology was available, a number of of clients, especially in in you know you know in the automotive sector, they didn’t want that on their platforms because they didn’t want somebody to say, fix that with you know bubblegum and duct tape, and then since it was on their platform,
you know, they would be liable if that wasn’t a good thing. But what I love about this is, well, sometimes i that bubblegum and duct tape isn’t is is actually a good thing. And it’s surface it’s a way to get that feedback in in a s in a scalable way. but but in a controlled way because then you’re you’re controlling the knowledge that then gets disseminated back out. Which is actually something else we talked about. You know, so far it’s been getting that frontline, that that
you know, perspective from the the the the network capturing that knowledge in these interviews and bringing that in and I think that’s I think there’s so much that can be done there. It’s just so wild. But then there
Brad Mehl (01:31)
Yeah. And
and ⁓ I I know we want to talk about the this the dissemination of that information too, but just to your point, Jeff, remember the ⁓ the signs when you go to London by by the tube? And you know what they say? Mind the gap. Right? So it’s what I like to say is it’s think about your knowledge gaps.
and mind those things. Like what is it that your organization should know that you don’t know? Right? And those are the n those are the knowledge gaps. So mind the gap, just like they say in the British tube, right?
Jeff Walter (02:03)
Right.
Yeah.
Well that it’s well that well and that’s interesting. Well, ’cause it goes to y you know, you know what you know you know, the there’s really three things, right? You you know what you know, you know what you don’t know, and you don’t know what you don’t know. And it’s the you don’t know what you don’t know that that they get ya, right? Because you know, th that’s the the the the gap. And so so so now so part of part of the challenge is is harvesting that knowledge from from the audience, from the network.
Brad Mehl (02:24)
Right.
Jeff Walter (02:36)
bringing it back, getting you know what I think of as just a higher resolution insights, right? You you just get and and in doing so you’re finding these gaps, you’re you’re finding the things that you didn’t know you didn’t know surface. Then there’s the challenge of then disseminating that back out. So so ha in a way that is engaging. So so how do you guys how do you how do you help facilitate that?
Brad Mehl (02:39)
I think.
Right.
Sure. So there there there’s two sides of it. if it’s for an internal audience, like inside a company, ⁓ we’ll put together a traditional report. So we’ll synthesize the insights, you know, distill them down into ⁓ the key themes, aggregated topics, ⁓ what emerged, full transcripts, just the key points, the key takeaways, action items, right? And that’s just
Jeff Walter (03:10)
Yeah.
Brad Mehl (03:29)
Aggregating all those qualitative insights and the survey findings as well, just like you know, traditional research, right? But then there’s the issue is if it’s external. So if you’re sharing, there’s tremendous opportunities to share content and insights in new ways. so one thing we built is called Actify. And Actify takes
Jeff Walter (03:34)
Uh-huh.
Okay.
Brad Mehl (03:55)
⁓ I’ll give you an example. Literally before this podcast, we just were on a it was used on a webinar with ⁓ people from HubSpot and Clay and you know large organizations in the go-to-market world. So it was a one hour one hour webinar. So we took the transcript from that webinar and we turned it into this this
Jeff Walter (04:13)
Mm-hmm.
Brad Mehl (04:19)
using Actify an interactive experience that people can take action on. So the whole idea is distilling the key points, and then you you click on it and you can see why that matters. And then you can save it, add things to your calendars, share it with a colleague, and so forth. So it’s all about breaking up content into just key little nuggets.
Jeff Walter (04:44)
Mm-hmm.
Brad Mehl (04:45)
based on what the audience, you know, cares about, and then let them take action on it.
Jeff Walter (04:51)
and and how does that
I understand what you just said, but I I’m I I’m I’m I’m I’m not visualizing in my head. you know, so how does that manifest? Like I understand what you like that that’s that’s different than you would ordinarily s that that you would see today.
Brad Mehl (05:08)
Sure. So right now it let’s say you have a let’s say we did a training program, right? and there’s wonderful interactivity and things with with training programs, but a lot of this is in the follow-up from that. Is what kind of actions do you want to see after that training? So so the idea is take like let’s say static content, you know.
Like any PDF, any report, any transcript from an event, any recording of a video, any content in any format. And we turn it into a URL with interactivity. The people kick in, you know, literally pick the things that matter to them. You click and you see what mat why it matters. And then you could, you know, block out time on your calendar to follow up.
on those things. ⁓ and you know, just share specific key points, just the key points, in like a little one pl paragraph summary with your colleagues.
Jeff Walter (05:55)
Uh-huh.
Huh. So so so
So so if I if I if I understand either w yeah, whether it’s webinar or I I get this report, going back to the original thing, like hey I I I got all this great insights. And on many many you I I did this structured interview, I got these great insights, or I have a PDF or something else, but but let’s let’s talk about it as a cycle, right? And now there’s ⁓ a bunch of things in those insights I want to disseminate back out to folks, but
Brad Mehl (06:16)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (06:32)
But you might for whatever reason only be interested in you know ⁓ you know ma maybe maybe we’re a network you know, going back to a a manufacturing network, right? You know, we’re we’re we’re we’re franchisees or or frontline employees of a ⁓
you at at dealers of a tripper chipper shredder company. Right. And ⁓ you know, maybe maybe you’re over at Lowe’s and you’re renting shred chippers and so you’ve got a certain thing that you’re interested in and I’m over to other dealers send selling ⁓ sh shell selling shredders to you know tree companies, right? We’re we’re both dealers, we’re both got the same, you know, role, but we’re we have different interests. So if if I understand
Brad Mehl (06:50)
Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (07:14)
I can then it the the that those insights can are then presented in a way where it’s like I can easily find out what I’m interested in. It keeps giving me more detail about what I’m interested in. And then and and I I don’t wanna go through fifty page I don’t want to go through a forty page PDF. Right, right.
Brad Mehl (07:26)
That’s right.
Yeah, who has time, right? So what it
does is you know, ⁓ enough for documents, but you could you could actually pick and and and personalize it and it would customize and and recommend things that should that matter to you based on your interests. So and those so you you you click on it and you know you can see follow-up items, suggested follow-up items, and you can pick your situation.
Jeff Walter (07:38)
Yeah, really interesting.
Right.
Brad Mehl (08:01)
and then based on your situation, all the the key IDs, the key points, the suggested next steps that you might want to act on, those are all those are all different based on your scenario.
Jeff Walter (08:10)
So you know, so if you took you know, like a classic thing, like we do a webinar. you know, we have a big webinar. The the brand has a big webinar of all the of all the shredder salespeople. You know, and and and we we you know and and it goes on for you know half hour, forty five minutes, hour. ⁓ and maybe, you know, and then I get this with Actify
Brad Mehl (08:14)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (08:34)
it kind of takes that information, dec figures out all the bits and pieces. And then afterwards I, because I have a certain interest, can easily find the f the intelli the the intelligence in the five minutes of conversation across that hour that I’m sorry.
that was across the hour conversation, it was a minute here, two minutes there, and three minutes there. Those insights of you know, those three insights in f in three or the you know five minutes total get compressed into something that I can consume pretty easily and I find it like that. And you and then you do for yours. And because, you know, I don’t want to sit and listen to an hour webinar.
Brad Mehl (09:06)
Yeah.
Yeah,
exactly. And the thing is like we all know about short attention spans. You know, I’m wondering if if folks are even still listening to to the Well hopefully, you know. but if not, you know, we’ll we’ll act yeah, we’ll we’ll actify we’ll actify this discussion, right? ⁓ but people do have a short attention spans and and and you know, we all know that
Jeff Walter (09:15)
Yeah, interesting.
Yeah.
Well the good news there is yes. Actually ⁓ actually pretty we have pretty good stats on that. ⁓
Brad Mehl (09:40)
Content is fleeting. Attention spans are fleeting. content is created, and then it gets forgotten. You know, so the idea is let people interact with something, pick what matters to them, have them follow up on the key nuggets that really matter and distill it really down, and then make it make it actionable.
Jeff Walter (10:01)
Well and and I you know, in in defense of people, I I don’t I I don’t think it’s a short attention span. I d I don’t think we necessarily have short attention spans. I think there is so much information to consume that we have to be very judicious with our time. You know, we all only have twenty four hours in a day. And there’s some things I mean I love I love long forum podcasts, which is why
Brad Mehl (10:14)
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (10:25)
I like talking to guys like you for a long time. Well, ’cause I think you you y when you do that, when you when you get into the depths, you get a different level of understanding and depth. And and for a certain audience, for certain group of people, I’m just thinking of Actify for a second. It’s like, yeah, I wanna listen to the whole hour. Because I you know, and it I wanna listen to the whole hour of this, but not the next one.
Brad Mehl (10:48)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (10:50)
Because
this one is, you know, giving me certain insights that I’m that I’m getting that the next episode say doesn’t. But in the next episode, there’s a piece there that’s really interesting to me. Right? So so as a as a learner, I might listen to this whole episode because it’s really in tune with what is important to me and I want to go down to the depths and build on that base. But this other one over there, where I would normally say, ⁓
Brad Mehl (10:56)
Right.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (11:18)
That’s not worth my time to sit for an hour because it’s on some other topic. But then I go and I see, there’s this there’s this golden nugget there that’s seems really interesting and I can go drill into that, right?
Brad Mehl (11:22)
Mm-hmm.
It’s true, yeah.
And so like we have a there’s a there’s a we have this feature called ⁓ custom call to action, which is basically these interactive experiences can link together. So in other words, like let’s say we actify this this podcast, right? in the actified version of this podcast, we can have a link to, you know, a a different podcast or an actified version of that other thing. So that people
Jeff Walter (11:35)
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
yeah
yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Brad Mehl (11:56)
And reference it back and see those key those key points from that other thing.
Jeff Walter (12:00)
very cool. And and very that’s and then I can either go into I I can either go deep and consume the original content. It’s like you know, l it’s like reading the original transcript and and you know, I mean ⁓ like there are certain areas I have interest in, like my myself personally, I’m I’m a history guy. Sometimes you like to hear the the
Brad Mehl (12:01)
Yeah.
So
Yeah. That’s right.
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (12:24)
The accounts as the you know, the the detail of what happened at the time. And then other times it’s like, no, I’d rather hear what the person fifty years later said, the result of that, the implication that the pe you know, it’s like it’s that different levels. And then you’re stringing it together. That’s really cool. That’s that’s fun.
Brad Mehl (12:29)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and and and the other
the other thing is that, you know, just as human beings, ⁓ ideas get lost. So how many times have you been in a in a training session or a podcast or or listening to a you know a webinar, whatever it might be, you’re like, hmm, I should really do something about that. And then what happens? You go to your next meeting.
Jeff Walter (12:45)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Brad Mehl (13:02)
you know, the day is over and then it you lose you know, good ideas get lost all the time. So this is a way to, you know, the idea is get insights from your network, you know, or take any piece of content and make sure that those good ideas don’t get don’t don’t get lost.
Jeff Walter (13:03)
yeah.
That well and and and and and and allow people to consume it to the degree to the depth and degree that they A it’s not lost and B it’s easily consumable to the depth of level that the the individual is looking to consume. And and therefore you’re removing some of the friction. Right? And so so then the more information gets disseminated as a result. That’s very cool.
Brad Mehl (13:35)
That’s right. Yeah.
Yeah, and and and those
and the key nuggets we we we pull out, it tries to mimic real life behavior. So real life behavior is that if you let’s say you you read a report or you attend a training session or or you whatever it might be, there are things actions that you would take in real life, right? One would be discuss it with a colleague.
Jeff Walter (14:00)
Right.
Brad Mehl (14:01)
Two would be explore further and research. Right? Three, you know, is there’s a there’s a couple of other ones, but but the way we organize the with you know the the outputs are things to discuss, things to reflect on, things to act on immediately, you know. So we put things in those buckets just like real life.
Jeff Walter (14:21)
That’s very that’s really it it’s it’s really interesting ’cause I I this idea of
Network knowledge. I I I think it’s the first time I’ve thought about it from that perspective. And it’s because of the way you’ve pres it’s what it’s because of what you’re doing. You know, like we’ve all we’ve all heard about like market research or you know, you know, doing research in an audience and doing the surface net. But as I as I look at this, I just see this like the the two sides of the coin there are like extr you know.
easily in a nonf in a in a very low friction way capturing and distilling that network knowledge where where you can see the diff the ⁓ it doesn’t necessarily mean everybody’s in i is in in concurrence right you could see the tension. Yeah there’s a there’s a group over here that wants to go left there’s a group over here that wants to go right and that’s that’s part of the knowledge. But then but then also
Brad Mehl (15:08)
Mm-hmm. That’s right.
Which is a closer.
Jeff Walter (15:17)
the feedback of okay, now let’s take that and now let’s disseminate it back. And then it’s like you can almost see this ⁓ virtuous cycle going where that’s that’s ⁓ that’s really interesting. That’s really that I think that’s gonna have huge impact on organizations.
Brad Mehl (15:30)
Yeah. Yeah, and you know, and there’s two
and there’s two different ideas that you just mentioned, Jeff. You know, one is the wisdom of the crowds. So like studies have shown literally this is a quantifiable fact that if you ask enough people something, wisdom will emerge that is projectable, like that is quantifiable. Right? The wisdom of the crowds. The second thing you mentioned is is kind of like the outliers.
Jeff Walter (15:39)
Right.
Right. Yeah, yeah.
Brad Mehl (16:00)
In other words, people who maybe have a a different view, ⁓ an opposing view, to do things a little bit differently. and that’s sometimes where like the seeds of like your Cinnabon example, like where the seeds of innovation ⁓ can be found. So those are those golden golden nuggets there too.
Jeff Walter (16:09)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, w which is r yeah, it’s it’s it’s really interesting because it’s I like the way you put that. It’s the it’s the wisdom of the crowd and it’s the seeds of innovation, but you know, ninety, ninety nine percent of the seeds are lost, right? Like they but but that one or two percent, they change everything, right? They they they create tomorrow’s forests, right? So, you know, it doesn’t mean every seed is great, but in those seeds there is greatness.
Brad Mehl (16:35)
Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. That’s
In those seeds there is greatness. Yeah.
Jeff Walter (16:45)
And yeah, and and so it’s it it’s that interesting tension. Yeah, well
it’s you know ⁓ w we we we we we got our it’s an interesting tension because it’s also why I think you know representative g government is is the is actually going to always outperform totalitarian government. It’s it’s the same it’s the wisdom of the crowds, but then there’s that outlier, that seed.
Brad Mehl (17:04)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (17:09)
And there’s always seeds being spread, but depending on the times, certain seeds take root and start to grow. And and then that changes everything. And it’s that dynam dynamism which which allows a f you know a freer society to adapt to changing environment, right? It’s what a it it’s what allows species to adapt. It’s what allows businesses to adapt.
Brad Mehl (17:11)
Mm-hmm. That’s right. Mm-hmm.
That’s true.
It it’s true. It’s it’s our
ability to evolve as human beings is listening. At the end of the day, it’s listening. But sometimes, you know, people hear, market research and some of it gets a bad rap. You know, some some companies equate research with slow we know everything already. Why would we want to do that? We did our survey last year. but you know what? What
Jeff Walter (17:36)
Yes.
Yeah.
Brad Mehl (17:58)
What we’re what we’re starting to do is, in addition to like these qualitative insights at scale, in addition to just providing like you know, actifying it with the nuggets, is we just did this recently, is we built a chat bot based on the full findings of from 150 people and and on all their transcripts with all the verbatim comments. So then
Jeff Walter (18:03)
Yeah.
Brad Mehl (18:20)
Becomes not just a static report, but it’s in internally. This is something it could be internal or external, you know, inside the company or something public-facing, either way. But something dynamic where you want to ask, ⁓ how should we best approach our franchisees? Or you know, what should we work on with our what do our what do our distributors have to say about XYZ?
Jeff Walter (18:23)
Right, right.
Huh.
Brad Mehl (18:45)
and literally ask questions in real time with a follow-up and it’s all based on the insights from humans.
Jeff Walter (18:52)
You you know what’s really interesting? You just triggered a completely
new thought in my head is well one one of the challenges is always taking tribal knowledge, you know, that that it that that knowledge that’s up here in your head. and ⁓ e organizationally I’m talking about, you know, you’ve got that tribal knowledge, d you know, that people just some people just know that this is how we do this, whatever this is. And ⁓ and it’s evolved over time. And but I’m just realized,
Brad Mehl (19:14)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (19:20)
with your with your self inter with your self-guided interview, you’re turning tribal knowledge into explicit knowledge. You’re extracting the report and the insights and the golden nuggets, but then what you just said with the chat bot goes and then it turns into because you have extracted that tribal knowledge into explicit knowledge, you can then follow up and go, okay, I got this golden nugget. Let me hunt help me understand more about this point.
Brad Mehl (19:46)
Yes.
Jeff Walter (19:46)
And
now and now you’re going down into the detail ⁓ of you know, you might have captured the one line from a per a certain individual that encapsulates that idea. But now you’re now you’re going with through the chat box going down and saying, Well, let me hear not only what they said, but sixteen other people that said something similar with but but it got encapsulated into that one line that one golden nugget. And now you’re getting and that goes back to the whole ⁓
Brad Mehl (19:58)
Mm-hmm.
That’s right. Yeah.
Jeff Walter (20:15)
⁓ resolution thing. Now you’re drilling down to de yo, high resolution. Right? That’s very cool. Very cool.
Brad Mehl (20:21)
Yeah, this is literally if you wanted to ask a
question based on a hundred, two hundred, you know, conversations, you get an immediate answer, you know, that it kind of extracts and distills what all those people had to say and whether why it matters and what you do about it and so forth. ⁓ and I I like to say it’s like democratizing info. So it’s not just
Jeff Walter (20:27)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Ha.
Yeah.
Brad Mehl (20:46)
tribal wisdom, but it’s like it’s it’s ⁓ a way to take institutional knowledge that lies in people’s heads and and get it out of their heads so that that other people can benefit.
Jeff Walter (20:54)
Yeah. No, exactly, a hundred percent, yeah.
Well that that yeah, like from a training perspective, we yeah, we’ve been talking about more the research and and that, but but actually what what you just said about the with the chatbot, it turns it in that tribal knowledge into explicit knowledge, which then can then be that is then one form of that is the the distillation to a a a a a a summary report. But the other thing is then also being able to deep dive and and get it more detailed information about it and and that’s brilliant. That’s brilliant.
Brad Mehl (21:28)
Yeah, so so we
got three we got three things going on. We got qualitative insights at scale with power of surveys. The sec and then the second is actifying that with you know ⁓ the golden nuggets that people can just take action on. And then then the third is direct questions with the chat button.
Jeff Walter (21:30)
So that’s that’s
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, drill
drilling down into that’s brilliant. So ⁓ w hey, I I feel like they could keep talking for y I I really enjoy talking to you. but you’ve been so very generous with your time, so I pr I greatly appreciate that. to i i if somebody wanted to get a hold of you or your organization, what what’s the best way for them, easiest way for them to get a hold of you?
Brad Mehl (22:08)
Well, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. our our website is boundlessmarkets dot com. So that’s Boundless Markets with an S. And then the we have a separate website for Actify, which is actifythis dot com.
Jeff Walter (22:24)
Okay. And we’ll make sure we get both of those links in the show notes so folks can check it out there. Brad, a I guess I feel I feel every time we talk, I just get more and more light bulbs fire you know, synapses firing in my brain. It’s just really, really insightful. Thank you so Yeah. So yeah.
Brad Mehl (22:41)
You’re well, you’re the king of the insight. So thanks for having me, Jeff. It was ⁓ really, really a pleasure. It was it was
fun.
Jeff Walter (22:46)
It it was a lot it it was a lot fun. Is there any ⁓ anything else you wanna mention
Brad Mehl (22:51)
two two pieces of advice. One is be curious. Two is question assumptions. I’ll leave it at that.
Jeff Walter (22:53)
Yeah.
I like that.
I like that. Be curious and question assumptions. my guest today has been Brad Mell. Brad, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah. And to everybody out there, thank you for taking time out of your day to listen to us. We appreciate it. See you next time.
Brad Mehl (23:08)
Thanks so much.