Shawn FitzGerald [00:00:00]:
Technology is supposed to make business easier. Right? But for many owners, it feels like a never ending maze of confusion, frustration, and costly mistakes. And if you're overwhelmed by the latest tools, struggling to integrate new systems, or just trying to make technology work for you instead of against you, you're not alone. Welcome to Intentional Change, the podcast that's helping business owners make smarter decisions and take control of their tech futures with clarity and confidence. So if you're a business owner and you have been spending a fortune on tech, not seeing the ROI that you expected, you're rolling out tools that your team has problems with and doesn't like and you're not sure what to do, you are going to love listening to our guest today. A good friend of mine, Joshua McNary. I've known him for quite a while and he is fascinating. He is a business technologist and today we're gonna just dig in to what tech means in a business and what you as a business owner should be looking at and thinking about. And hopefully when we're done, you'll have learned a few things about maybe some traps or some pitfalls out there that you might have stepped in or maybe you may be facing. And hopefully, Joshua will help you gain a little idea of how to navigate this space. So welcome, Joshua. Thank you for being here.
Joshua McNary [00:01:25]:
Yeah. Thanks for having me here, Sean.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:01:27]:
This is gonna be really great because I know technology. I I come from a tech background, having spent over thirty years in communications and working with all industries of businesses, small to large. And one thing that is common is tech. Every time that technology comes into the equation, so many business owners' eyes just glaze over and it's so overwhelming. Yep.
Joshua McNary [00:01:53]:
Absolutely.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:01:54]:
Let's let's start off with for people who don't know what a business technologist is, tell us what are you? What do you do? How do you help? Help us understand.
Joshua McNary [00:02:05]:
Yeah. Thank you for that. Appreciate you having me and and and offering to have that described right at the top here. So, yes, business technologist business technology in my definition is about helping companies, organizations, and individuals use technology to get their jobs done better, use technology more efficiently, making sure you're getting the return on investment out of the technology that you've applied inside of your basically, make technology really benefit your business, not just be another tool that's slapped onto your business or your your work in a way that I often see is the case kind of done haphazardly, doing it more strategically, thinking through how we're using any new technology, existing technology, or maybe just documenting and better understanding our current technology so that in the future, we could use technology better.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:02:55]:
In a business, a a lot of times, especially in small to medium sized business, the business owner or the management, they're wearing a lot of different hats. How would you help them understand where some of this technology role might fit in with what they're doing and where some areas where they should really probably start looking for an expert like you to give some guidance instead of trying to do it all themselves and go it alone.
Joshua McNary [00:03:21]:
Right. Well, I mean, you you mentioned it a few minutes ago in your intro about the the symptoms, some of the symptoms that may come across to a leader or or maybe even, someone in a role inside the business that may they may wanna feed up to a leader. They're they're spending a fortune on technology. They're they know that they're beholden to a certain software solution or hardware solution inside their business that if something went wrong with that, everything goes downhill. We need to make sure that is is is is well secured. It's a the foundation is is is firm. Maybe they know that they've not really invested in that technology tool that they purchased three, four, five years ago, and there's been a lot of changes to it. And we really probably should try to invest more in that so we can get more out of it, all that money we're pouring into it. I mean, these types of problems are the ones that I think are practical use cases of when you need to be thinking about these technology issues from a business technologist perspective. That doesn't necessarily need mean you need someone like me to come in and help you. You might already have a chief technology officer or a or a chief information officer inside your business or someone that serves that role. Maybe maybe it's you, the the the CEO or the leader, in some capacity wearing that hat. But but the idea of stepping back and recognizing the problem sets and saying this is not this is not okay. And because technology is so important to all of our lives and works here in in 2025, making sure you're making space to deal with that. That is really one of my big messages I put out to people, holding them accountable to that so that they are able to evolve their technology wisely going forward, from those from those symptoms that we have into real solutions. I mean and that often looks like an existing tech review, like, making sure we're documenting our existing technology and seeing where the gaps are, where there are room room for growth. It might be looking at doing a proper technology selection process on whatever the hole that we do see in our in our stack of technology where we're gonna fit something in, making sure we're doing a thorough review of the technology solutions we have in front of us. So those are the types of things that, I guess, relate to the question you had about about when you might look for help. But oftentimes, it's not necessarily that you need help. You might have the resources internal to you. Just need to make sure that you're taking the time to think about this approach of I of thinking it from a business technology strategy perspective.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:06:00]:
You know, having owned several businesses and work with a lot of entrepreneurs, I know that, you know, as you're talking about, I'm thinking, well, all I ever do is think. I'm thinking about every single thing. Thinking about my employees. I'm thinking about what I'm doing tomorrow, what I did today, what I did yesterday that was right or wrong. And, you know, I think we all think we're thinking properly and the right time. So let's take a moment and just kind of help me understand from your perspective how in your business or when you are working with other people, how is that thought process? How do you help them set that up so that they know when they're thinking about things properly versus just thinking about everything and getting nothing done?
Joshua McNary [00:06:46]:
Right. Well, it's very easy to procrastinate in a business. We we I think you and I both we've talked about that. I mean, it's very easy to to get caught up in that. And I'm I'm I'm like anyone can get caught in that procrastination for the sake of of, you know, being scared of of of moving forward. Right? You're comfortable in your existing set of set of rules. I I mean, again, we're we're talking here in 2025. And over the last number of years, we've all you've heard is the buzzword of artificial intelligence AI all all over the place. I was listening to a podcast earlier today, driving around and and thinking about this in preparation for this conversation. It's a buzzword, but it's also just the current iteration of technology that we've seen over the last twenty, thirty years that represent my career. And it's speeding it's a speeding train down the tracks to the effect that even when I say that, you probably have heard someone say something like that before. The techno this AI is coming and it's gonna do this and it's gonna do that. However, it applies to your world and your business. But I don't think we even understand what that, like, what that even means, I guess. It's it's such a big change and so such a fast, such a potential for fast change in our society, in our businesses, and how we work, how we think because it's basically, at its current iteration, a word calculator. And those those that tool, those technologies, if we aren't, wisely thinking about how to move forward, we're gonna get moved past very quickly. So this is not answering your question. So let me come back to your question. But I I think I it's important to bring up because I I feel like, the the general concept here we're talking about thinking, you have to put some thought into taking these actions towards technology strategy that I'm, pontificating here. And the reason why is because technology is only increasing in speed. Whether it was AI or whatever tool it is, it's only exponentially increasing. And, if you aren't thinking about strategically, you're eventually gonna be usurped by the train. Okay. So that's the why of the of the question you had. The how, which I think is what your really question was getting to is how do you make sure that we're thinking and taking action in some capacity? That's kinda what I heard out of your question. And Yep. I'm gonna put a put a a wrap around that with regards to talking about AI a little bit because because right now, that's a lot of the questions I'm getting has to do with, well, how do I apply AI to what I do? I'm not quite sure how I could use AI in my business, or maybe I am using AI, but how do I take it to the next level or use it in a more robust way? And the main thing I say to them is, yes. I want you thinking about it. I want you thinking about the use cases. I want you to have some documentation on where the gaps in your business are. I want you to be thinking about the documentation and the the opportunities. But then I do want you to do. I want you to now go explore the next action on those items. So there's a time for thinking and there's a time for taking some action. And then there's a then there is a repeat cycle of that. So, and I really get this from my own productivity journey over the years and how I do my own review structure, whether it be quarterly, monthly, certainly annually, and and and and weekly is an area that I've been working on personally this year is making sure I'm doing proper reviews weekly. But then in between those reviews, I'm actually doing the stuff. And then I'm bringing good information back because of the actual action I was taking in my week back to this weekly reviews or back to the monthly reviews or back to the quarterly reviews, whichever cycle. So that is, a roundabout way to get back to your question and the idea of, yeah, there's time for thinking, and I want you to stop and and have a cycle or a rhythm to that, in your technology. But then there's also a time for doing and just trying things and exploring things. And And because technology is moving so fast, AI, in my little dialogue here, as a key part of that, you have to take action. Otherwise, if you sit there and you think too much, you eventually are gonna take your way right out of something that didn't ever existed because it moved past you already.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:10:50]:
Yes. And I I think that that is something that's very overwhelming because there's so much to keep track of, to learn, to listen to. And, of course, you know, YouTube and every podcaster out there, there's so much information, so many perspectives. It it it's difficult, I at least for me and I assume for others, how to filter.
Joshua McNary [00:11:13]:
And for me.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:11:14]:
Yeah. And to filter all that out. And, you know, I I know we're we're talking tech today, but, you know, with the sort of things that I focus on when I help businesses, you know, it's that that change aspect. But sometimes you have to before you can figure out how to solve your problem and figure out with what tools, you really have to understand that you just need to have some time to learn and play with the tools. And I think that's so helpful, especially with AI that it's moving so fast that, you know, prompt engineering and, you know, you have to learn video and graphics and all these other things that might be foreign. And that education side of it, you as a business owner, you have to allow yourself some way to kind of play and research and just make mistakes and fumble with it versus saying I'm gonna just roll this technology or this tool right into my business, and then you're like, oh, man. It was a real disconnect or something like that.
Joshua McNary [00:12:11]:
Well, that's where that's where I think, to kinda maybe bring this together a little bit, My thoughts about where I started talking about documenting and seeing the opportunities, finding the use cases in your in your existing technology stack for where you could improve. You mentioned the idea that there's so it's so overwhelming. I mean, over the years, I've I've often shown this graphic. It's from the the chief marketing technology website. It's it's the, marketing technology landscape graphic. And it's this huge graphic. And well, I mean, it started with hundreds of apps and web apps and tools that you could use back, like, ten years ago. And the current iteration has something like 15,000 logos on it categorized in maybe, you know, 20 different bubbles of of more than probably, like, like, 50 different bubbles of kind of categories of tools. And that showed, as I've used it over the years, the this exponential growth of the technologies we use in our business. I mean, that's the called the marketing technology landscape. But if you look at it, and you should look it up if if you've never seen it before, it has pretty much every business category tool you could think of on there, really is encompassed because it all that connects to marketing, connects to connects to the work. So over the over the years, they've added all that. So it's, for my money, the best tool to look at to get a really quick sense of all the different tools that are possible. But it's become impractical. They've actually over the years, they took it from the graphic and they actually have a website you can go to now and search the database. So if you're looking for a specific type of tool, you can quickly pull that out. But but the reason I bring all that up is to say, if you don't take the time to think about what your tech problems are or you haven't taken the time to document properly or haven't documented lately the technology tools that you're use and you don't have some process maybe over time to evolve those things, which is what I'm talking about today, you are totally lost as to when and where to spend your time that you were talking about exploring and and and having that free time to explore either as individual or as you're tasking a team to do that exploration, it's you're there's no way because the the the options, the places to dig and look are all over the place. Right. And what I'm seeing or what I've seen, whether it be in my own work or, you know, exterior as I as I look at external situations, is that if you just kind of let the technology come to you, you let the vendor marketing come to you when you say, oh, that looks like it will help us. For one, you may not that may not be the best solution for your your situation, that particular vendor. So, you know, there may be other adjacent solutions to that. Let alone that solution or that problem that they're addressing might not actually be your biggest opportunity with technology. There might be another set, another use case over here. So by spending the time to be strategic, you're then able to spend your time better finding and exploring the the the technology tools and solutions around this particular, problem set, whether it's, contact management or marketing or sales or accounting or production, whichever whichever category you're you're you're you're deficient in, or whatever subcategory of those things. So that's that's where I think the power of this really comes in is thinking about, things in this strategic manner on technology and then applying it to how we do how we what we look at and how we actually try to explore, the technology tool sets we have in front of us.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:15:31]:
Yes. So let me ask there's gonna be a two part question, and I'll I'll tackle these one at a time. But in in the the hopes of being able to give our listeners, you know, maybe an actionable thing they can do or maybe Sure. A new skill or approach. So when you have this huge sea of apps and software and marketing's hitting you and they're saying it can do all of this stuff. I mean, that's overwhelming. But Yep. Let's say that there's been a couple pieces, couple pieces of software that have kind of filtered through that you think, okay, the rest of it's kinda junk, doesn't really fit what I need, not right
Joshua McNary [00:16:08]:
for me, but these few things are.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:16:08]:
How do you go about vetting those a little bit closer? Or and or maybe, what in your vetting process tells you this is no longer the best solution? You need to kinda trim this one off with the other ones too? How do you Right. How do you go through the process of of really filtering down a a a tool that pops up, you know, the hottest new thing?
Joshua McNary [00:16:30]:
Yeah. That's a great question. I traditionally, the way that I've done this is by looking at what are our primary needs around this solution. Let's just take let's just take, we'll just take accounting tools. Right? Because that's something everyone knows and probably has something that they're using. So the we know we need to do invoice. We need we need we know we need to be able to handle accounts receivables. Accounts receivables because we have some ecommerce elements to what we do in addition to our invoicing and and, and accounts receivable. We need to pay employees, etcetera, etcetera. So you go down the line. Okay? Those are just common examples. Right? But whatever depth were whatever depth that makes sense for your business and your and and your type of organization, listing all of those out. And then, basically, like, you see on the, pricing sheets for any app that you ever looked at. Right? There's usually three options, the the bronze, silver, and gold. Right? Okay. Well, then let's look at the our list of items that we and needs that we have around this solution that we think is gonna be wonderful for us. And do the okay. Which of these things that we just listed are in the bronze level? Like, the essentially, the minimal viable product of what we have here? Then what is the silver? Okay. What are the what connects nice to haves? And what is the gold? Like, this is this would be make this thing amazing. Too often, because of the marketing, I was saying I'm a marketer, right, at heart. Right? That's where I came from in my in my career. So I love marketing. But too often, the vendors, you know, sell us a bill of goods around the technology that aren't really the reality. So by doing this little exercise here of, like, okay, what of these, items that I actually need in my business technology, whatever, technically, I'm looking at, actually are happening inside the technology? So you could do this for one tool. Like, if you have one that came across your desk, like you proposed, that you are already interested in, doing this exercise just for that. But then I like to do it with my clients where I'll expand it to, you know, multiple option. You know, three, five, maybe 10 different vendors, especially if we're if we have a lot of different options in front of us for, in this case, we're talking about accounting. We would look at those different tool sets and see have that same list and then do a reality check up against, okay, of these things that we need, does this tool actually do that? And try to get a better apples to apples type comparison of the of different tools that we have in front of us. So whether you're dealing with one tool or multiple tools, taking this is the idea of taking the time to actually research that and understand that. And a lot of that you can get off of a off of a website. But, when I do this in a professional manner, I'm also I'll also usually including some kind of, meeting with their sales slash, technical sales team. So I can ask these questions and actually know definitively, does it do that thing? And how well does it do that thing? Does it met does it work with our solution, our existing stack of tools, or with wherever we think we're taking the technology? So that's that's some practical advice that, comes with experience around actually trying to understand what the tool is doing, not just taking the marketing for granted or for, on face value.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:19:35]:
Following along that thread, I'm I'm gonna ask a question that you may not have an answer. It might be a little bit of a curveball.
Joshua McNary [00:19:41]:
Okay.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:19:41]:
But I I know that, you know, with you know, I I have I have recently been working on trying to understand how to use HubSpot better, and it just I I don't know. It just is such a disconnect. And then, you know and, of course, when you get into HubSpot, then there's a whole sea of add ons that you can get, you know, Zapier connects and all these other things that are going on. So that's kind of the background as the foundation. My my question is, you know, when you have all these solutions that are out there, how do you find an innovative approach? Has there been an experience with someone that you've worked with or the way you look at it where, you know, that you you understand what the the software is? You understand the basic functionality of you understand your customer or your own problem. But how do you connect those in a way what's your brain process to try to find that innovative use that will solve a problem that maybe the own the company isn't promoting, but it's out there? How how do you use these tools with kind of a an approach to try to find something innovative?
Joshua McNary [00:20:47]:
Well, I guess I'm gonna take that and say that you don't you don't always need to be innovative in the sense of does the does this problem need an innovative solution? I guess, is what I'm trying to say. So, another thought I had as you were speaking was the idea that we'd there are copious number of marketing automation slash CRM tools, the types of things that HubSpot does. HubSpot is one of them. And guess what? There's probably a handful of other ones that would work for you, Sean, or whoever we're talking to. Okay?
Shawn FitzGerald [00:21:18]:
Yes.
Joshua McNary [00:21:19]:
So at times, it becomes a matter of taste or a matter of, you know, the right pricing or the right the right mix of of circumstances that leads to using one tool over the other. And in that way, it's not innovative. It's more just making sure we're finding the right, in this case, couple tools, okay, versus the right tool. I will say though with regards to your specific comment about HubSpot, and we this could this would be true for, like, Salesforce or, Zoho apps, which I've used with clients before. Other other various platform platforms is where I'm going with this. There's various platforms out there that have become way bigger than whatever they originally were intended to be. And they're actually a platform now. And that's where you have the extensions and add ons and the companies that have you know, it's called HubSpot. And you and in my mind, I think back to the original days of it being early on a marketing automation type tool, inbound marketing tool. But it's it's way beyond that now because they've got all these different modules they've added on or companies they've eaten up over time. And and that's true for many other companies. So then that's where it starts to become a little confusing. Right? Because you could actually just use HubSpot's, CRM to do something and not use their automation tools or their inbound marketing tools. And you could use some other platforms, email marketing tool, and link and potentially link them up because you got all these crazy in in a integrations and such. And I think that's kinda where you were going with regards to innovation. There's times when that type of solution where you're going kind of cross platform and all using a a part of a platform can make sense, especially if you're coming from an existing technology stack situation that maybe kind of evolved over time as a business grew, or, they're in a position right now where they're trying to scale and maybe they're trying to move to a more mature platform like a HubSpot or Salesforce or such where you might need to kinda bridge that gap over time. So another, slide I've used in my presentations over the years was this graphic basically saying, you know, there's there's this idea of best in class tools, which we could picture as like a a basket of of of tools. You know, individual, tools put into a larger basket that all work together, integrated well together. And then there is the platform type tool, that thing that does all the things within it, but probably is not gonna give you the cutting edge, amazing, innovative thing to your question. So I tend to lean towards the basket of tools and trying to find the best in class tools for that situation and make those things work well together integrated rather than the one, big monolithic tool. Although I will say over the years that that slide's become less relevant because a lot of these tools have gotten so good in these different categories. The the that argument has has kind of went down a little bit. So took that question a little bit differently than than where we started it, but I do think there's some, relevancy there in that idea of integration and, you know, platforms versus integrations and things like this that are relevant to what you were talking about.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:24:17]:
You know, one of the I I think through my own experience and some of the businesses that I I have worked with, you know, a lot of times they come to me when they have a problem. Sometimes there's there's a huge fire that's burning in the company somewhere, and they call and they're like, help me, save me, fix, and, you know, and you rush to get the thing fixed. Yes. And one of the things that I always try to instill upon them is that, you know, you have to start getting practices where it's more preventative. You you have to constantly be looking ahead and get a strategic plan and talk with your team and and learn.
Joshua McNary [00:24:54]:
And Is is easier said than done. Right?
Shawn FitzGerald [00:24:56]:
Of course. Of course. Well, you know, it's you get caught up with the day to day sort of things, and you get pulled away from those big picture things. But, you know, your you gravitate towards technology. You have a great understanding of what these tools do and how to use them, but it doesn't come naturally. You don't just wake up and it the information is just there in your head. You Right. Do certain things. So let's take a moment to, talk a little bit about how do you learn? How because I'm sure that your expertise comes from constant learning every minute, every second, every day, focusing on things. How do you go about learning so that it's not this overwhelming mountain, but it's more constant steps in your travel to understand?
Joshua McNary [00:25:43]:
Sure. Yeah. Appreciate that. Well, I think I'll start with just saying some of the kinda key resources I use. I'm I'm a big podcast listener. We're here making a podcast right now. I try to listen as much as possible when I'm driving around or, as we're coming into the summer season here in spring as we're recording this. You know, when I mowing the lawn or whatever, you know, trying to trying to use those times that in a wise way to interpret information. I mentioned earlier, on that I was listening to a podcast regard related to AI. And that's actually I'll just I'll I'll give a call to that one. That's the, the artificial intelligence podcast put out by the marketing intel or the marketing artificial intelligence institute, which are acquaintances of mine. I've attended their conference the last number of years, on the same topic. And they do a great job of doing a weekly wrap up of artificial intelligence happenings, big picture and smaller picture with a marketing bent, but also generally speaking. So that's a good one. So podcasts are great. That's one of my favorites right now that directly applies to this conversation today. I also love, subscribing to and often unsubscribing to various newsletters. So, I have my own newsletter I put out, but, and I enjoyed producing that. But I also try to subscribe to others to constantly be getting a new flow of information. I had a a period there where I was getting probably a half a dozen different AI oriented ones. Then I kinda picked the top three that I really liked, and I dropped the three of them and, you know, kept the other. And, whether it be for technology or business practices or such, I I do try to come in and out of those. And I I've set up an automation such that that actually goes to a special folder in my email tool so that I'm able to go back to those on a regular basis, usually daily, and and specifically spend some time looking at those. So that's another practice of mine that I would say I I regularly do. Talking to people, whether it be on a podcast or making networking connections and allowing ideas to bubble up is the other one that I would say is is really important. What I do specifically with regards to technology because when I talk to other business owners, I better understand what problems they're having, where they're seeing their gaps in technology, and allows me to kinda practice my my specialty, you know, first as a friend, and then sometimes it leads into professional opportunities. But but it's it's it's a great way for me to mine ideas, understand kinda where what's really happening on the ground for so that's the other, item I would say as a practice that I I I typically
Shawn FitzGerald [00:28:15]:
I think that's great. I love that. It's, you know, there it's it's much easier to gain access to the the PDFs and the podcasts and the YouTube videos and all that stuff that's out there. And, of course, that has its own, challenges of wading through what's good and are these people knowledgeable or not or are these regurgitating the same information from somewhere else. But I I think that that podcast you're subscribing to newsletters, letting them come and go, that's great because it's, you know, it's it's all just kinda dipping your toe in those pools of things that you're interested in to learn and, then following that up with talking with other people. So that way you can kinda throw your own ideas around and kinda test them and have them challenged. And, you know, I I find that's a great practice because it helps to solidify things. So I love that.
Joshua McNary [00:29:05]:
Absolutely.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:29:06]:
You know, the, so, you know, a lot of the things we've been talking about are kind of theoretical or very big picture. Could we step through let let's just let's just kind of role play here something if if if you'd humor me for a minute. So let's say that I'm I'm a a customer. You know, I have some business, and I'm having some problems. And and I've heard you on the podcast. I've gone to your website. I met you in person, whatever. And I'm like, you know what? I need to talk with Joshua. Could you kind of step our listeners through what does working with you look and feel like? What is that initial start? What is what kinda goes through those first few steps?
Joshua McNary [00:29:49]:
Well, it starts out by understanding what that angst is. Is. I like to listen in my initial conversations with people about, okay, what what brought them to one even talk to me. So that really understanding that angst, and then digging into the why behind that. So often it presents as a symptom, like, we're not able to generate enough leads, through our website or through our existing technology stack. So, you know, there must be something wrong with, the way we're doing our online advertising and our website must be broken or, hey, this particular thing. The this this is the kinds of things I'll hear, with regards to these are the types of problems we're seeing. We think technology is at the root of it. So as I'll ask a lot of questions as to, okay, well, why do you think that is? And why is this important in the first place? Of course, in the case of, like, leads, it's probably because we need to make sure we're getting enough people in the door to be able to sell our things. That's pretty obvious one. But Sure. We gotta better understand, okay, well, what does that mean? What okay. Well, can we get some actual put some real data behind that? So understanding the depth of the problem is number one. I've learned over the years that when I've when I've worked more as a vendor, in in in applying technology solutions, people would come to me with a a a laundry list of symptoms, and I would often be quick to come back with a cure because I was a vendor at the time. But, but the reality was is they really didn't they really needed a doctor to help them diagnose her so that we made sure we not just throw a cure at it. We just throw some Tylenol at it. We actually, you know, found a medication or some kind of herbal remedy or some kind of PT program that actually would get to the source of the problem. Mhmm. That's what you need to do. So that's where I start from. But then kind of in a more practical way, it gets into often okay. What documentation do we actually have on our, problem set that we have here in front of us? What tech what technology documentation do we have? What standing operating procedures maybe are our team using currently to manage this process? What automations are involved? Let's make sure we understand what's happening there because that often gets lost and people will put some kind of technology automation in place. They might not even think of, like, that email automation I mentioned earlier about me putting all my, messages or my newsletters into one inbox to look at them. I mean, that's an automation. And people aren't thinking about, okay, well, that's an automation in my business. But it actually might be critical to making sure we find the leads that we're trying to find off that hypothetical problem I mentioned earlier. Maybe they all go to that one folder. Are they properly going there? You know? So these kind of things are these kind of things are why documentation, understanding of the process is so key. But because of the evolution of technology happening so fast, even in the last ten years, let alone where it's going to be going the next ten years, with AI coming, being here and come and coming on fast, that gets lost. So that that level set of okay. I'm really understanding the the the why and the hows behind our symptoms of why we're even thinking about this is number one. And then okay. Well, then laying the the framework of of what's happening really and really understanding that, this is the strategic work I I I was referring to earlier in the conversation, doing all that first. Then once we have that foundation of the real why behind why we care about this and the understanding of kinda where we currently sit, then we can start talking about, okay. Well, now what? What's the road map going forward? What can we try? What gaps do we actually can we fill and go from there and and actually find solution?
Shawn FitzGerald [00:33:25]:
You know, as you were talking about that, something had popped in to that that I had been dealing with within one of my, clients that I've been working with those last year. And, you know, they much like you were saying, they approached me because they had a need. They couldn't handle it themselves, and they thought that I could step in and provide some, support. And as I got in there, I found out that the problem they wanted me to fix really couldn't be fixed because there were so many other problems that need to be fixed before. So, you know, it's like saying I wanna learn how to ride a bike, but then you say, well, where's the bike? Like, oh, I don't have one. Or, oh, I have a bike, but there's no tires. So you're like, well, you know, you gotta solve these other things. So what I'm curious about is, you know, with with AI and some of these technologies that seem to be making leaps and bounds, you know, every month. Are we gonna get to a point where the things that are businesses that are working on now, those processes and the documentation, that it's going to just, like, take a leap where you know, I I think of, like, the Wayne Gretzky, common thing where it's, like, you know, we need to be skating to where the puck is going, not where it was. And do you feel like we're at a at a point right now with technology where there's gonna be that jump that we're skating to kind of where this the puck was, and it's moving so fast that we really need to change our focus. Alright. Do you see that? Or is that just
Joshua McNary [00:34:49]:
Yes. I mean, absolutely. I don't know when that is. I mean, there's a lot of talk out there if you listen to that podcast.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:34:54]:
But I don't think anyone does. That's a big question.
Joshua McNary [00:34:57]:
That podcast I was listening to earlier that I referenced earlier, I mean, I I encourage you to listen to, but they talk a lot about, well, when when will artificial well, when will, artificial general terms, AGI is the term that we we talk about, that often we think about, like, the Terminator. Right? The Terminator movies of of of multiple decades ago now. You know, this idea of some kind of robot or some kind of, computer really is what we're talking about now that can do the task of a human either at or better than than a human could in a general sense. Right now, there's, artificial intelligence tools that can do segments of a job for people. We talk to those in more as, artificial intelligence agent, in current current, language. But where you can go to, an AI and basically ask it as as you would any human. Hey. If I show you a few things or talk to you the right way about these things, you can then learn how to do this. That kind of intelligence. And so, in relationship to your question, that idea could be two years ago, two years away, could be five years away, could be ten years away. I think most futurists at this time don't go much further than that out. So if you can go to a box on on your desk and ask it to help you basically do your existing job, if you're a knowledge worker, or you're mostly sitting in front of a computer most of the day, and you can ask it to kinda help you do your job, that is transformational in so many ways, you know, culturally as well as from a technology and a business perspective. Okay. So Yeah. I do think it's important when you ask that question for me to kinda just say that out loud. I don't really have my own. I'm not I'm not, plugged in enough to be able to tell you, you know, my exact prediction. It's probably somewhere between, you know, the two to ten years. It was what I would tell people. But, and how that affects business and culture and society, I'm not a % sure either. I just know it's going my my sense and my prediction is it's going to affect us greatly. Just like the mobile phone did.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:36:53]:
Yes.
Joshua McNary [00:36:54]:
Just like the advancement of driver driverless, cars right now. There's there's amazing things happening in that realm if you've not been inside a Rivian or a Tesla lately that has those function. You know, try it or if you have opportunity because you'll see, like, that would change a lot of things. Right? Very obvious. These are things that we could more tactically see versus these kind of larger, big picture, you know, artificial general intelligence comments. These are things that are basically using those technologies to actually affect our lives. So in the case of business goes, when we're thinking about, our conversation overall today, the strategy component and then the action component that we talked about a little bit earlier. We need to make sure we're taking that action while thinking about the strategic component so that we can actually take the action back to the idea of you have to kind of know what route you're taking so that you can follow that opportunity because there's so much technology options. I mean, right now, you can go open up chat GPT if, for AI functions for chat functions. And you could have it do any number of things for you. You could have it do any number of things within your existing job role that you're doing. You could use it as a search engine, whereas a couple years ago, you would have only went to Google. Now you're gonna use this thing. So there's so many options that you have to narrow what you're doing, and that's the strategy part. But if you procrastinate too much and you start leaning on strategy thinking that's gonna only solve your problems, the puck is going to go right past you.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:38:24]:
Yes. Yeah.
Joshua McNary [00:38:25]:
And you have to be able to skate into it because I'm a hockey player too. My boys just finished their youth season. You had to be able to skate into it and pick it up and then come around the front of the net to try to do something with it. Right? So so that is that is absolutely true. And that's where the strategy of, I'm a big proponent of strategy, obviously, from this conversation so you know where to then take the action. And I think that's really key to, key to key to what you were talking about.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:38:52]:
Yeah. That's and that's something that I have I have really been trying to pay more attention to because I I feel that there's gonna be this real disconnect, and there's gonna be the people who are prepared for it and the people who are blindsided for it. And, again, I don't know exactly what that means or when that's gonna happen, but I just you know, it's it I I think I think that's one of the most exciting things to be thinking and talking about when it comes to technology is this massive change to our society and and to us as humans of what the AI or the technology or the supercomputing and all of these things that are seemingly science fiction, but they're starting to become real day to day. Tools that we use, they're not science fiction anymore. And I I just have this feeling that it's going to revolutionize so many different things that, you know, in twenty, thirty years, we're gonna look back and go, wow. We were kind of, you know, a little bit in in, you know, the stone ages, so to speak.
Joshua McNary [00:39:53]:
Well, I mean, you look back difference. You look back, at the mobile again, the mobile phone or I actually used to tell the story that when I was a kid, and this was probably the nineties or something, I my dad had a a CB radio, like, one that you would put into your trunk, you know, like, if you need emergency help. And I was mesmerized by this as a kid. I thought this was the coolest. It was a it was a fancy looking technologically wonder radio. Right? And we could talk to people hundreds of miles away on it. And I remember looking at that at the time, like, wow, this is amazing. This is, you know, this is the eighties, nineties time frame. And and that and then ten, twenty years later, now we have a mobile phone that can do that plus so many more things. And and that's in, my lifetime, which I'm I'm not that old. You know, it's it's it's a relatively short period of time. And so I think if we look back to the past, whether it be, you know, the those those area areas of the eighties or nineties or the, the odds or the or the or the teens, and you think about the shifts that we've been making technologically wise, you use that as a a reference point for where we're going. But just think about that at a higher level faster. And I think that's where this, the hockey puck analogy really comes into play. And it also is a cautionary tale. While we wanna be strategic, we also need to take action, to to the points that we've been making here today.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:41:10]:
Yeah. Fascinating. I I think as I I know that we've been, chatting, the time has gone by so fast. I always enjoy so much chatting with you and and and hearing your, experiences and your perspectives on things. I think it's very insightful. I've got I've got a couple of fun little questions, short little things that I'm just gonna ask Okay.
Joshua McNary [00:41:31]:
So
Shawn FitzGerald [00:41:31]:
you don't have to think too much about them. If if you could snap your fingers right now and just instantly change one thing about how businesses view technology, what is that that one thing that you would just love to have gone?
Joshua McNary [00:41:44]:
Transferring from important but not urgent to, important, just important. Making sure that we're we're thinking about these things as an important factor of our businesses, not just, as a parallel thing that helps us get things done, but actually as, integrated inside of our businesses as they only are going to continue to become.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:42:04]:
What is when you think back over your career, what is the what's the one lesson that you've learned or that piece of advice that stays with you that is still so relevant or has has guided your, your career?
Joshua McNary [00:42:18]:
On a personal level, I would say it has to do with holding myself accountable and being able to help other people hold themselves accountable to whatever goal we're we're working towards together, whether it's a client or a coworker or such. That has been powerful for me. Oftentimes, I've gotten comments about outside of technology, just the fact that I'm able to help help people be accountable because I'm I keep myself accountable to whatever that goal is. On a on a broader level, I would say, kind of business wise, I would say, return on investment, and understanding numbers around what we're trying to achieve in our businesses. And I know within my business, I've been at it for eleven plus years since, as McNair marketing and design as a business technologist and and its prior forms. When I figured out how to really understand the return on investment within my business and understand the numbers inside my business, I've been able to help more people and make more of an effect on them because I understood.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:43:14]:
Sure. Sure. Yeah. That's that's always key. You know, sometimes when you get started with the business, you may not be a numbers person, financial, whatever, but you find yourself suddenly running a business, and you've got to learn those things even if it's not your thing. Or you've gotta find somebody who you can trust, who is that. It's so key and so important. And a lot of the problems and and issues in your company are often hidden in the details of your data,
Joshua McNary [00:43:39]:
if
Shawn FitzGerald [00:43:40]:
you only know how to look. The I know you talked a lot about AI, but is there one piece of software, one technology, one tool? What is the one thing right now that you think everyone who's listening to this should try right this minute because you think it is so important or it's so helpful?
Joshua McNary [00:43:59]:
Yeah. I'll I'll give you two that are both in the AI world. One that came out last year, but if you haven't tried it personally yet, I would encourage you to check out is Google's Notebook l m. And you just need a Google account of some form to be able to access this at this point. But it lets you add various resources, documents, audio files, etcetera to it. And then, it will basically let you kinda create a little mini repository that you can ping with generative AI type, prompts and get information out of all those resources you put into it. And the real amazing feature of that is a a button you could hit that it would within minutes generate a five to ten minute podcast style, AI conversation, a couple AIs talking about all your resources you have in that library and kinda give you a summary of that. So it's really fun to to explore that and just kind of see what it thinks the information is saying that you added to it. So that's one. The other one that I, is is a bit, fresher in my mind and also in in is newer to me as well is, ChatGPT or OpenAI's deep research, module or or or, product. Allows you to generate in-depth, kind of think research paper level, dialogues that you previously would spend hours upon hours to create yourself or a small team would have to do. You can ask it to help you create that, and get in-depth analysis, put out to to you. And so it's it's, one of those examples of an agent type model that can, in the past, would have taken a team or a researcher to create. But now you could just do it with deep research on OpenAI's platform.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:45:41]:
Cool. Well, that I had not, I mean, I've I've been using ChatGPT, but I haven't gotten into that. I'll have to check something check that out. So besides the Google Notebook LM, the ChatGPT deep research, the other thing you had mentioned earlier, there was a podcast. There there was an artificial intelligence podcast. Can you give me the name of that just so
Joshua McNary [00:46:02]:
in case? It's called it's called the artificial intelligence podcast. It's put out by the the marketing marketing artificial intelligence institute. I had to think about that. And, the the host of that are Paul Raizer and Mark, Mike Kaput, are the two hosts of that program. And so, you could you should find it. It's it it should show up for you in any, major podcast directory.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:46:27]:
Great. I'll have to check that out. I'm always, I'm always eager to find a different podcast or something just to try to keep broadening my horizons and learn those things that I didn't know I didn't know. Well, Joshua, thank you so much for, you know, spending this last, almost an hour with us here, you know, sharing your insights and and, advice. And I hope that, you know, as a listener, I hope you guys are making notes, that something that we talked about piqued your interest or gave you some direction that might help you out of a problem. You know, because as business owners and entrepreneurs, we all have to kinda share and work together to, lift everyone up and and solve problems and be resourceful. Joshua, is if, if one of the listeners wanted to get a hold of you or contact you, follow you, things like that, how can they engage with you?
Joshua McNary [00:47:21]:
Yeah. You can come to McNaryMarketing.com. That's, my my business name, and you'll find more information about, various things that we talked about today there. Specifically, if you wanna join my newsletter, which I send out approximately weekly, sometimes we we miss a week here or there, but it is mcnarymarketing.com/subscribe. Totally free. You can unsubscribe anytime, and, you could reach out to me there and, connect and reply to those messages, and we can chat down the road.
Shawn FitzGerald [00:47:50]:
Wonderful. Well, thanks again for your time. And to our listeners, thank you for choosing to make it all the way through this. I we understand that your time is valuable, and we greatly appreciate you, allowing us an hour to step into your life and share some of our input and start a conversation. We will be continuing these podcasts. Our podcast name is Intentional Change. Make sure you subscribe to that if you wanna continue on, and, there's more great things to come. Thank you again for listening, and until next time. I'm Sean Fitzgerald.
Joshua McNary [00:48:23]:
I'm Joshua McNary. Bye now.
