Detailed Notes
Strategic foundations for business growth start long before marketing or scaling — they begin with clarity, systems, and understanding your customer. In Part 1 of our interview with Charly Leetham, we dig into the real foundations every business needs to build something that lasts.
With 40+ years of hands-on experience, Charly shares practical insights on simplifying your message, creating systems, solving real problems, and building a business that’s resilient — not rushed.
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🔹 About This Episode
In this conversation, we explore: • Why clear questions create stronger business foundations • How to understand your customers without assumptions • Why simplicity leads to better systems and better results • The practical steps small businesses can take today • How to build clarity into every stage of growth
This is an essential episode for entrepreneurs, small business owners, and anyone serious about building a business on solid ground.
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🔹 About Charly Leetham
Charly Leetham has over four decades of experience solving technical problems, designing systems, and helping small businesses thrive. After careers in engineering, tech, project management, and franchising, she founded Ask Charly Leetham, a trusted digital services company supporting clients worldwide. She’s also the host of Rise and Shine – Your Business Tech Boost, where she shares practical tech insights without the hype.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/askcharlyleetham Twitter / X,: https://x.com/yourbizmgr YouTube: https://youtube.com/askcharlyleetham Instagram: https://instagram.com/ask_charly_leetham LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/charlyleetham
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👉 Connect with Us
Website: https://develpreneur.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/develpreneur/ YouTube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/@UCZOuFN_LhczvGyT2KSItH_g Facebook: https://facebook.com/Develpreneur Twitter/X: https://x.com/develpreneur
#StrategicFoundationsForBusinessGrowth #CharlyLeetham #BusinessGrowth #EntrepreneurPodcast #SmallBusinessTips
Transcript Text
Let's try Good morning. >> Good morning. Where? >> Well, good evening actually. >> Where are you at? >> I'm in Australia. >> Okay. So, we just had Wow. We like We're in uh we're in Aussie week or something like that. We just talked to somebody else there just the other day. So, it is >> Did you >> What time is it there? >> It's 8:00 a.m. So, it's not too bad. Okay. I was thinking I always forget where, you know, where it's at. I I know it's off by more than a few. Oh, I should probably turn on my little video. That will probably help. >> Sorry. I'm just trying to fix up my my camera here. >> Not a problem. Uh we've got another minute. You're We're >> got another minute or two before uh Michael, the co-host, will uh join us. Um let's see. So, yeah, this is this will be audio and video. Um we do um basically do about an we'll do about an hour. Uh we'll end up it'll end up turning into two different uh two episodes. Uh we we split it. We'd like to do sort of a you know part one and a part two. And we split it based on however the conversation goes. Uh which is what we like it uh to keep it at. It's very we try to keep it very conversational. Um, and just sort of we'll do a I'll do an introduction, he'll do an introduction, we'll pass it over to you to introduce yourself, and then we will uh we'll pretty much dive right in. Uh, let's see. And I'm just looking at some of the Yeah. Uh, this is, uh, our season is uh, building better foundations. We do different themes, I guess, and topics as we go. Uh, and this is for, you know, careers and stuff like that. I think what we're going to do with this one is, um, actually one that's very near and dear to my heart. It's some of the same stuff I do is, um, really about like I do we my company provides tech assessments and and technology audits and things like that. And, uh, I think a lot of that is where we're going to talk. Um, it's a lot of the same things. I'll definitely um talk about the we will we will hopefully not get too much on a rabbit trail about how technology has changed over the the course of our career. Um but I think it's a really good this is it's a fun one because I see this as another big inflection point and with you being there uh about as long as I have then I think we'll be able to we'll be able to be a couple old f old fogies a little bit and talking through things. >> I wouldn't have ever thought I'd be an old fogy but there you go I am. Good day. How you doing? >> I'm boogie at heart. It's just >> No, no, no. I got to say, do you walk past the mirror sometimes and think, who is that old person? >> That's why I don't allow mirrors in my house anymore. I'm like, no. Nothing reflective. I don't want to keep in my own delusion that I'm still in my 20s. >> My 20s, that's it. >> Gen X forever. What was it? We're 30. We're 30 when we're 13 and we never get any older. >> Exactly. Actually, it was what we were 30 when we were 12. We're 30 when we were 30. And now we're 31 in our 50s and and moving on. So, so all right. Um, yeah, because you got I'm actually going to cheat a little bit with some of these and go with some of possibly some of the questions that are the, you know, that it puts out that you're through Pod Match that you're always ready to answer. So, we'll see where those go. >> We'll see how I go on those ones. So, who am I speaking to? You're Rob. >> Yes, I'm Rob. and >> and I'm Michael. >> Hi, Michael. >> Hi. >> And um yeah, so we will dive right down. Like I said, we'll do our our introductions. We'll allow you to introduce yourself and we will go from there. This is uh it is I think I mentioned, but it's video and audio. So, we've got a podcast. We also have a YouTube channel. Um, it'll probably go out in a couple of weeks and um, I'm trying to think if there's anything else I need to tell you, but yeah, come up and we'll send you the links and all those kinds of good things. We will wrap it up. >> Fantastic. Because I will share all that with my my people as well. >> Okay. And then when we wrap up, one of the last things we'll do is just because I already tell you're an awesome person. We're going to say, "Hey." And if we don't, then you know that it wasn't a very good interview. >> Oh man, now the anxietyy's going. I like to I I I don't know how it some people take it, but I've also often said, "Look, I've done, you know, done I'm up to probably about a hundred different interviews. A lot of them like almost all of them like this. I've never had one go wrong. Maybe one that was questionable. So, you know, I don't It's not likely you're going to be the first. So, you know, let's just get there's no >> Is this where I say I like setting firsts?" >> Yes. This is not the time to set that first. >> No, this is not the time. This is not the first I want to set. >> Exactly. Save that for another one. Um, >> you might want to like leave that intro out next time because you seem to scare our guest each time you do, >> you know, but they like they rise to the occasion. >> I would rather have that warning up front. That's cool. >> You don't want to be You don't want it at the end where you're like, "Guess what? You're a first." And then you find out why. All right. Uh, so we're going to dive right into it and, uh, let me I got to adjust my little camera thing a little bit here and we are good. So, I'm going to do >> Are we recording? Yep. Okay. >> Oh, yeah. We're recording. That's I I turned that auto >> after I missed it the one time almost twice. And we'll do three, two, one. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season. We're building better foundations. We are building better developers. the developer podcast. I am Rob Redhead, founder of set developer podcast site and all that great stuff. Also the founder of RB Consulting where we help you leverage technology to build a technology roadmap for success. Good thing bad thing um let's see a good thing. This is one of those fun kind of things. Good thing is is that where I'm at, I've got a little townhouse and they've got a little uh HOA and one of the things they do is they come by and do uh pressure washing regularly, which is I guess like twice a year or something like that, which is awesome because it means I don't have to do it. The bad thing is is that they were like when I was trying to park, all the trucks happened to be right in front of my driveway. And so I had to like, you know, finagle my I had to like Tetris my way into the driveway. Uh making it a little bit more anxious of a parking job than I normally would have needed in the garage. uh but who's never anxious or at least I'm not anxious when he's introducing himself. Michael, go ahead and take over. Hey >> everyone, my name is Michael Malash. I'm one of the co-founders at Developer. I'm also the founder of Envision QA where we help companies with customuilt software and basically any type of software issues. We come in and we help you through testing and kind of walk through the process with you and make sure that everything's working great. Uh, good thing, bad thing. Uh, good, it's kind of mixed. It's that time of year again where, uh, in Tennessee, the seasons can be anything from winter to summer in a given day. So, uh, when it the weather is warm and nice, we're good. Uh, when it's not, it's really miserable. It's like, man, I wish I had my coat. And now, like the sometimes bad host that I am, I have to make sure because I've just realized like I needed to know beforehand how to pronounce her name. So, she may be correcting me. Uh, so she may be doing more than just a general introduction. Uh, we have with us Charlie today. I'm hoping that's right. If not, correct me. And go ahead and introduce yourself. >> Hey guys, that it's actually Charlie, but Charlie is the one that I get most. Uh, that's cool. Uh, but it is Charlie. It's short for Charlene. and it sort of comes back to the tomboy aspect of my my youth. So there you go. So hey, look, thanks so much for having me on today. I am really looking forward to this. A little bit about myself and I'll try to keep it short. I have got nearly well 40 odd years experience in the IT industry. It wasn't it when I started, it became it. Uh, and I have basically done anything from field service through to sales management, contract management, client management, and now I run my own business, which is why we're we're talking today, I think. Now, I don't know if there's anything else you guys want me to share about myself or whether that's just going to come out as we talk, cuz I think that's probably a good place to go. >> Well, I think uh let's start about uh what your business does because as we all know, it is a huge uh area. So, if you can talk talk a little bit about your business and what your focus is, what your you know, your service or your your products. >> So, we help small businesses operate online basically. Uh I I've changed my tagline so many times. I'm not quite sure what I'm using at the moment. Uh but basically, it's tech when you just need it to work. I'm your tech. I'm your IT team. I'm your I can be your CTO. I like to sit basically between businesses and their tech providers. do that translation and give honest and sometimes brutal assessments as to where things need to be need to go, what needs to be done. Uh I find a lot of businesses, a lot of small business owners particularly, they don't have the budget to have their own IT person. Um often, and I, you know, nothing against the brother-in-laws or the cousins or the aunts or the uncles who try to help out, but they get someone in from the family who says, "Yes, I've got a bit of knowledge." and they really they they have a bit of knowledge. It's just not the depth and it's not the generalities that they need to be able to help a small business. And small businesses go, I just can't get it to work and it's costing me so much money and it's just hasn't worked for 6 months. And I can walk into that and go, okay, let's go through it. Let's talk about what you're doing. Let's talk about what you're trying to do. Forget what you're actually doing. Let's talk about what you're trying to do. Who are your providers and how can we make that work better for you? Or sometimes it's just the tech people aren't giving me answers. I can't make this work. And I can step in between them, do that conversation, and then talk back to them and say, "Hey, this is where we're at. This is what you need to do. Here's how we can fix this for you. I'm that person. I'm the tech wrangler." >> That's uh I have I've heard that tech wrangler wrangler uh term before and that was one of them I really like. Uh also it was uh in com combination with uh handling technology sprawl which is another one that I have I've run into too often. Um, >> yeah, huge. >> I want to dive into this a little bit because just now it's really like it's a little bit of a personal thing is like have you seen in the as your career has gone on uh because I have I have and I' I'd love to hear somebody else their your thoughts on this is like what used to be the big ticket items and what it used to look like. I feel like and I to me it has gotten less so in in recent years particularly especially go back maybe the last five or 10 years that it has become definitely much more accessible and more often than not especially with small businesses I'm finding I'm sort of having the the education slash conversation with them about um you know this thing that you think is is too much that you can't do it's too expensive it's too big actually is completely within your reach especially with the rise of software as a service and and some of those kinds of things and even the even the big big boys like your you know your your sales forces your net suites your oracles and stuff like that they have entry level stuff that is actually um not only useful but is also you know viable for even some of the smallest budgets >> I totally am and I as you said that I was just sort of thinking the term commoditization has come into it well and truly and I think that's actually part of the growth of any industry or in anything that we see. You start off with things that are really high-end. They're expensive. They they you don't know how to use them. I'm going to use the term they're difficult to use. And then as the technology matures and as the industry matures, everything becomes more accessible. Everything the pricing comes down uh more and more people can take it on. Uh it's that is the evolution of an industry of a business of any anything if you look at it and things become more commoditized. Absolutely. I'm seeing it. I mean, who would have thought just going to that, who would have thought that you could run your mail in a cloud and have it give you your word processing, your spreadsheeting, your databases, uh the analysis of all of that and have that all at your fingertips if you know how to use the system. 10 years ago, you know, I was still setting up Outlook on people's computers and going, "Oh, you want to log in on your phone and on your computer and have your mail on both and be able to manage that and know that your VA has responded to it." Like 10 years ago, that that was a major thing. We had a whole se of processes around it. Now it's not. You delegate the account. It's all in one place. People can log in. They can see if a a message has been read. It can have tags put on it. it can be moved into folders. Just that in itself is a major step forward. So, yeah, I'm seeing it. Absolutely. >> Now, uh cool. I'm glad that I'm not the only one that's just like feels like this is really gotten there and so I think a good followup to that is so as these things become commoditized and like you said there's like the the work that you did 10 years ago, same thing like when you're doing desktop support and stuff like it's different. it is. There's a lot like especially if you talk about like the data centers and installing servers and all the stuff that used to exist that really has sort of gone away because it's now just out there in the cloud and you just connect and you're ready to go. Um, how do you see that and how you've had to evolve and especially now I think for the audience a great one is like AI is now you know it's quote eliminating jobs people say um and it is it's going to there's certain things that are going to become commoditized uh as we've always seen and so how do you how do you make sure that you differentiate yourself and while you're while leveraging the technology changes and the advances also are you know able to you know put food on the table and do all the things you need to do to to make yourself, you know, still valuable to your customers. >> Fascinating to me how many conversations end up going back to AI at the moment. Uh it it has really taken off and if we were to look at it, I am certain we didn't see AI until the beginning of last year. I think that was when it actually hit the market and we saw you know chat GPT come out and people saying oh all of this stuff and people were becoming prompt engineers. Um, and we're not seeing many of those anymore. But so, how do you how do you leverage it and how do you keep yourself uh relevant? Learn how to use it. Don't don't be afraid of it. Learn how to use it. Understand what its limitations are. Um, I look I I've got a couple of episode on on my podcast about AI is not as good as you think it is. AI lies. is overly confident in the information it gives you. And when you start to dig into it, it actually makes up links. It actually makes up information and hands that to you and says, "Yes, this was the answer." And when you go and dig into it, when you sort of say, "Well, give me the references so I can go and check that." You're like, "That that's not what that said. That link doesn't even exist." And I had a conversation with AI at one point cuz I was digging into some legislation about something uh here in Australia. And I'm like, well, can you give me the links that you've you've given me this analysis on? It gave me the links. I went to them. I said that that legislation doesn't exist or that link to that legislation is incorrect. Oh, no. But if that legislation did exist, it would exist at that link. >> So, that was a bit of a that was a bit of a long way around to say understand its limitations. understand what it can do and learn how to use it. Learn how to learn how to make yourself more productive using it. Uh bring it into what you're doing. And again, I'm going to go back to, you know, email around 10 years ago, we were using email, but email wasn't something that we used a lot of. And when email first started coming in, there's only a few of us using it. A few of us had understood that it was really cool to be able to send electronic messages. and people were still relying on the postal service. Now the postal services are dying. Yes, we still have to use them, but the postal services are dying for your general domestic mail because everyone's moved to email. That is now just part of the life that we live. That's just part of how we operate. And AI, I think, is going to feel that. Another probably unpopular view on this is I don't think AI is going to get a lot better than it already is for a very long time. >> Um it still works on large language models. It still requires a whole heap of data to pull into it to be able to give you the information to be able to do what you want it to do. Uh like sure look we're seeing generative AI take off and I think you know that might the the niche stuff we're going to see do really well but the general stuff about we're just going to be able to take over your job. We're just going to be able to work out how your job works and come and do it for you. There's a lot that goes on in that wet wear. There's an awful lot that goes on in that wet wear. There's a lot of point decisions that we make at any particular point in the time, at any particular segment of time that we can't even define. We can't we don't even know we're doing it. We just do it. Our assessment of the risk that we're at, the uh consequences of what we're going to do, the oh, if I do this now and this is this and this is I don't think AI can do that. I it might be able to in the long run maybe, but that's going to require a lot of computing power, which is going to require a lot of um energy. Um let's not get into energy too much. But we don't have that amount of energy in the world to be able to power data centers to do that. There's all the things that sort of come to mind when you ask me about AI. If you want to know how I think you should be using it, make yourself more productive. Learn how you can use it to be more productive. some examples I can give of that I uh do my monthly reporting and I uh for for my clients and I normally pull it down into a CSV, pull it up into Excel spreadsheet, run pivot tables and then generate the reports from those. The other day I said to AI, can you read CSVs? Yes, I can. So, I dropped all my CSVs in. I said, I want reports that look like this. Here's my brand book. Here's my here's the way I talk. I want these formatted reports. So they said, "Here it is. Here is a doc X. You can just download that, put it up, and send it as a PDF or you can just download that as a PDF." That harved the time I spent. Now, it took me a little while to get it to that because I had to do all of the work around here's the criteria. Here's what how I want you to do it. Oh, I don't want it to look like that. I want you to look like this. But I've done that once. I don't have to do that again because now I've got the set of instructions that next time I come in to do it. I just paste those instructions in and say go ahead and do it or I I'm using Claude AI to do that. I've set up a project. Just pull that project in. Off I go. There's all my CSVs. Do your job. Give it give me what I need. Does that answer part of your question at least? >> Oh yeah. Um, yeah, because I I think it is and that's it. It it also sort of added to it is the Yeah, I think there's people I agree that there's uh I don't think it's it where we're at right now. I think it's going to need a lot because it it needs energy. It need because it needs processing and it needs data. And I think it's one of those that now I think we've sort of, you know, you've you've been here long enough as well, you probably remember the day where you'd like buy a laptop or back in the day when it was a desktop and then 30 days later it was already, you know, out of it was like, oh, that's old hat. It was it was stuff was progressing very quickly and it's sort of slowed down. Um, and now I'm wondering if this is I think this may be the cusp of another one of those, you know, geometric growths where it's like, oh, now we need we need to be able to store huge amounts of data and have bigger processors and all that kind of stuff. And then now it's going to, I think, push because that's what we are as humans is we're always finding new ways to solve some of those problems. So, I think people are going to find ways to do the processing with less, you know, power behind it and things like that. Or everybody's going to have a little portable nuclear thing like they did in the Back to the Future movies or something like that. But there's some way there's going to be somebody there's going to be some brilliant people and they're going to figure out a way to to take us that next step. But, um, I do want to like just for the, you know, I think for our audience, I think it's a very important thing is it's like don't be afraid of it. Go learn it. Um, we all had to learn, you know, back in the day for some people don't even realize this, we had to learn how to Google stuff, like what is a what is a search? I remember people like, how do you search for stuff? And then AI is really just to me it's just a progression of the search engines. It's, you know, >> that just have that conversation. I really wasn't that far. That's why it sort of has been I feel it's been very natural for it to be incorporated into the search engines that are there because that's sort of where they were going. And at the end of the day, it's, you know, AI is really not much different than expert systems. If you can give them like you do the steps, then >> it'll follow the steps. But watch out because if you skip a step or if you're too vague in a step, you'll get some interesting stuff and you will get I will just add uh because I'm I know I'm on my soap box a little bit, but I had an argument with chat GPT one time about that where I said I'm I'm grabbing information and it sent me fake LinkedIn stuff. I'm like, I need contact information for those people. And it sent me fake LinkedIn stuff. And I said, okay, well, don't unless it is a verified LinkedIn address. Don't give it to me. Just make something up. >> And then it said, well, no, I gave you the right. No, you gave me a fake. I looked at it. It's fake. So, I finally was like, >> just don't give it to me. I'm going to go use another system and then connect into it and I'll go figure something out. It's like, you know, >> it's like you're not good enough, so I'm just going to go back and do it myself. So you're and we're going to find that it's just like anything else is it's like it has its its limitations. >> Well, and some of that is also the issue because how these languages were trained. There's a lot of archival sites that are out there that have old information and old pages and that's what they're scraping because I found a couple where because I've had to go recover websites that people lose and it's like because they got hacked and you go to these sites to find that because that information is public without a lot of companies knowing that their information is stored in these archival sites and so AI is scraping it and it's using that. Interestingly enough though, you both kind of touched on it, but the way I look at AI is it's more of a rules engine. It's it's like the old dragon naturally speaking. You have to train it or you have to basically give it the steps and the processes in order for it to really work or essentially give you your the feedback. So you're essentially giving the inputs to the an application a rules engine for when you prompt it to give you the feedback that you need. And that is the extent of what I see AI as today besides it just being a glorified Google search. Um it it essentially is good especially with code though it is good at finding because it's scraped all the Microsoft you know GitHubs and things where all the public repositories are. It is smart enough because they've had developers already go through and train AI for certain tests that most general people use but it's already been trained. It's already been given these rules to give you that feedback. And that's really all the modern AI is. It's a rules engine that can regurgitate what it has been told within its guidelines. If you go outside those guidelines, you're going to get weird stuff and it's going to get all funky. I >> I actually wanted just sort of to to touch on that and you you it was a perfect segue actually. You've got to understand where the data that you're getting the information that it's regurgitating to you is coming from. And now I use it a lot to check code to say, "Okay, look, I'm getting this error message." We had to learn how to use Google. I love that. I actually love that because I used to just get that really long Microsoft 0x code that you get on the blue screens of death and I would t like I'd write it out and then I'd type it in and say, "What does this error message mean?" That was Google. Well, now you can do that on AI, right? That's the sort of thing that you do. you when you're looking at code and you're looking at errors you're getting, you're like, "Okay, what does this error actually mean? Give me the the guidelines as to where I should be looking for this problem. Am I looking at this system over here or am I looking at this system over here or is it something completely different?" That information comes from the large language models. Now, when chat GPT and all of those or OpenAI came out, it was the wild west. people didn't actually realize that Open AI was using their data to train itself. Uh and then when they started working out that their data was going into Open AI and this was now being disseminated to just about everyone, people said, "No, you can't use our data." And they started, you know, now we've got silos of data. So the information that we're getting those answers from, for me, it's things like Stack Overflow and GitHub and all of that. And I know that when I go to Stack Overflow and look at like I fixed it this way, it's like no you didn't. No, you didn't. And you like you'll find five or six threads with the one answer all the way through and it's the wrong answer all the way through because one person has picked it up and copied it and someone else has picked it up and copied it and someone and Chat GPT goes, "Well, that must be the right answer." And it's like, "But it's not." >> Yeah. Copilot is notorious for that since Microsoft owns Stack Overflow. They dump that entire uh code stack into uh Copilot. So if you want B and they basically say that if you need to search for something on Stack Overflow, Microsoft even suggests go to Copilot. It's faster to go to Copilot to find information on Stack Overflow than to go to Stack Overflow. And that right there tells you that there is two definitive problems. One, Stack Overflow has a lot of information, but apparently it's not easy to find. And two, search engines are very limited on how they can parse through that information. So AI is unfortunately the best way because it is again more that rules engine where it can quickly parse through a lot of data very quickly. >> But that's also like once you understand it, that's actually a really good way of understanding how you can use AI to make yourself more productive. because I use it to say, as I just said, give me the potentials on this and then I can use what's between my ears to go through and say, logically that doesn't make sense. Or let me just go and check that. No, that doesn't exist. Okay, that one's wrong. Let me check this. No, those rules don't exist. That command that you're giving me is actually incorrect. For whatever reason, it's actually incorrect. So you can start to then it's the it's that um process of elimination, isn't it? Yeah. Like where where am I getting to? What oh I'm I'm probably closer to an answer here than I am here. So I'm going to go down this track for a little bit. That's how you use the AI that we have today. That's how I think you should be using the AI we have today. Uh that's that's as developers. I have seen authors uh who have gone to writing what they call AI books. Now, they're not getting the AI to write the book and just publish it. What they're doing is they're giving the AI a whole heap of instructions around what their setting is or what they want their setting to be. Now, tell me what my setting should be. Tell me what my world should look like. And they have this conversation with the AI that that fleshes that all out. Then they get a set of instructions. Great. Well, that's what my world looks like. Put that aside. This is the character I want to build. Tell me about this character. Oh, there's the rules for that. And then they get all these sets of rules and they plug it in and they say, "Now write the story that follows these notes. These are the notes I want to hit." They get the story and then they go through and edit it. So they're becoming editors as much as they're becoming writers. And I think that's we're seeing that in a lot of areas. And I know we we've gone a little bit off on the in the A world, but I think that's what it is is I think that's um I think that one of the skills that you need to develop if you haven't and using it is how to be a good editor as to how to do, you know, reviewing code or reviewing answers. And um it is great for, you know, having conversations and and getting you thinking outside the box a little bit because it'll get some weird stuff in there or something that's, you know, it picked up somewhere. It's like, oh, some people do this. you're like, I've never thought of that. And then next thing you know, you can go down those rabbit holes and and explore it yourself. But, uh, it always comes back to like you've got to realize it's like if you don't put the guardrails on, then you're going to get some interesting stuff. If you can, you know, do the good job as a as a delegator, as a, uh, as an editor, is to really say, okay, I need you specifically like, okay, focus AI, this is what I need you to do. Give me this back. And then, like you said, you know, I think like the story, it's like you build on that. You can do it in these bite-sized chunks and then you can get there, but you're going to have to you're still as a human being is going to have to drive that process. >> Yep. Yep. Um and look, again, you know, I have clients come to me and say, "Oh, we want to put a chatbot on our site so that people can ask it questions." Okay, what information are you going to feed it? What do you mean information? Well, how is it going to know the qu the answers to the questions that people are going to ask? Do you have a list of questions that people ask to begin with? because that's going to give us some idea of what data we need to pull into it to make this quick. We can do a quick and quick and dirty implementation, get it up and running and then we can start feeding more and more into it. Or do you want it just to go out and get answers from your competitors and give your competitors answers to your clients and then have them when they come to you and say, "But your product is oh no, that's our competitor. We'll go and buy that from your competitor because that's what we want it to do." So that's the other way is think about what information you want to be feeding to your people or you want to um not feeding but yeah you want to put into a system so that you can help your clients better. I think as a follow-up to that, what's really good is sort of swinging back to the the focus of of when you sit down with your customers. Um, one of the things when you're first talking about like, okay, you know, you you need somebody to help you with technology. And so now they're saying, yeah, we definitely need somebody to help us with technology. We need something that we can afford and things like that. like starting with the simplest stuff is like what are some of the things that you run into when you're when they're setting it up where they're like because and and this probably is stuff that I think is not as common now because people have done it more but especially looking back the last 5 10 years I'm sure where a lot of the companies are like okay I'm new I need to set up a website I need to be on the web are some of the things that are that you you know I guess we'll start with the common mistakes maybe some that people are like oh yeah this is what you do well what are some of the things you've run into where you're like well Oh, you need to either like the chatbot, you need to think about it more or no, here's a better way to approach that. >> Look, that's such a broad con such a broad topic. I'm just going to come back to have a clear idea of what they want to actually achieve. When people come to me and say, I want a website, the first thing I ask is, okay, what do you want it to do? Are we selling something? Are you training people? Is it a brocherware site? What is it you want it to do? be really specific because if you want an e-commerce site, you could be looking at anywhere between 5 and450 $60,000. It depends on what you want it to do. If you want a brocherware site, you know, sure, you can go out and pay $200 for a brochure site or you can pay $2,000 for a brochure site. They're going to give you different things. They're going to do different things for you. So, understand what that scope is. And that's a big that's honest that's still a mistake that I see people making is I want a website. My business coach told me I needed a website. I want a website. Okay. So what is it you wanted to do? Ask yourself that question. Be really really specific. Think about the budget that you've got with that too. Um don't just go out to say people and say how much will it cost me to do this because there is such a range such a such a different differential there. And as I said, that 200 to 2,000 to $4,000 for a basic website, that exists. That that's just the way it is. Um, the other thing I'm going to say is don't get tied down on a technology stack. Don't get tied down on a particular solution. That that's Yeah, that that's a big one for me. I'll have someone come to me and say, I want to use XY Z. Why? >> Mhm. Well, I saw the ad and it looks really cool. And I actually had this conversation with someone one day. I want to put this thing in place. Okay. So, what is it we're What is it you want this thing to do for you? What do you think it's going to do for you that you don't currently have in place or that you aren't currently doing? Well, it's just going to make me money. That's what the ads telling me. I Okay, I now I know where we're at. So now we have to go back and do I I always go back to let's do a needs analysis. I I don't want to I don't want to come to you and say the answer is X. Now what was the question? I want to know what it is you're trying to what is your objective? Let's take technology out of it. Let's take uh the way you might do things out of it and just say this is your input. This is your output. What is this output? What is it you want to do here? Because that will frame so much of what we put in the middle of it. Sometimes it's a a really simple fix. Sometimes we've got to get a little bit more complex. Um security security people still don't understand security. People I Why do I need two factor authentication? Why do I have to change my passwords? Why can't I just write my passwords down and share them via email with my VA? Um uh that that one that one actually kind of terrifies me. The amount of times I've seen that done, I was like, "Oh dear, let's go and change all our passwords." Now, um, it's not done just because you get the deliverable. It's not finished. It never finishes. Once you've got a deliverable, you will always have maintenance that you need to consider. So, if I go back to websites, for example, it's not just that you put a website up and it will sit there and run. Yes, it will sit there and run, but it will require updates. You've got to make sure your software stays updated. You've got to make sure that your hosting provider is doing the right thing. Uh, review access to your admin consoles on a regular basis. Those sorts of things. It's all those basic things that, you know, we were dealing with them 40 years ago. We're still dealing with them today because human nature doesn't change. is just what the way we can do it. Um I years ago my dad said to me, you know, to is human to really mess things up requires a computer. And if you want to look at how bad things can get, we've got so many computers now you one thing goes wrong and everything just sort of goes, oh, so there's some of the things that I can think I can talk to talk about. I I don't know if that's the answer you wanted, but it's those sorts of things that that I still deal with. Like I was dealing with it 40 years ago. I still deal with it today or 20 years ago. I still deal with it today. >> And that is where we're going to pause this episode of our interview with Charlie. Uh yes, it's Charlie. I did not get it right the first time. Charlie Letham, L E T Ham. uh got all the links in the show note and uh as we come back in the next episode she will share a little bit more of us. This funny enough was just one of those episodes that we mentioned AI too early and we did go a little bit off the rails of our original conversation but uh I really appreciate how she just dove in with us. I think there's some great content there. Uh so you know definitely I hope you're taking notes and you're ready to go for the next one around. We will return with part two of our episodes uh with of our interview with her and we are not done with the season as well. We've got plenty more coming. So, just hang out and uh take a deep breath before you dive into the next episode because it's time to take some notes. Again, as always, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time.
Transcript Segments
Let's try
Good morning.
>> Good morning. Where?
>> Well, good evening actually.
>> Where are you at?
>> I'm in Australia.
>> Okay. So, we just had Wow. We like We're
in uh we're in Aussie week or something
like that. We just talked to somebody
else there just the other day. So, it is
>> Did you
>> What time is it there?
>> It's 8:00 a.m. So, it's not too bad.
Okay. I was thinking I always forget
where, you know, where it's at. I I know
it's off by more than a few. Oh, I
should probably turn on my little video.
That will probably help.
>> Sorry. I'm just trying to fix up my my
camera here.
>> Not a problem. Uh we've got another
minute. You're We're
>> got another minute or two before uh
Michael, the co-host, will uh join us.
Um let's see. So, yeah, this is this
will be audio and video. Um we do um
basically do about an we'll do about an
hour. Uh we'll end up it'll end up
turning into two different uh two
episodes. Uh we we split it. We'd like
to do sort of a you know part one and a
part two. And we split it based on
however the conversation goes. Uh which
is what we like it uh to keep it at.
It's very we try to keep it very
conversational. Um, and just sort of
we'll do a I'll do an introduction,
he'll do an introduction, we'll pass it
over to you to introduce yourself, and
then we will uh we'll pretty much dive
right in. Uh, let's see. And I'm just
looking at some of the
Yeah. Uh, this is, uh, our season is uh,
building better foundations. We do
different themes, I guess, and topics as
we go. Uh, and this is for, you know,
careers and stuff like that. I think
what we're going to do with this one is,
um, actually one that's very near and
dear to my heart. It's some of the same
stuff I do is, um,
really about like I do we my company
provides tech assessments and and
technology audits and things like that.
And, uh, I think a lot of that is where
we're going to talk. Um, it's a lot of
the same things. I'll definitely um talk
about the we will we will hopefully not
get too much on a rabbit trail about how
technology has changed over the the
course of our career. Um but I think
it's a really good this is it's a fun
one because I see this as another big
inflection point and with you being
there uh about as long as I have then I
think we'll be able to we'll be able to
be a couple old f old fogies a little
bit and talking through things.
>> I wouldn't have ever thought I'd be an
old fogy but there you go I am.
Good day. How you doing?
>> I'm boogie at heart. It's just
>> No, no, no. I got to say, do you walk
past the mirror sometimes and think, who
is that old person?
>> That's why I don't allow mirrors in my
house anymore. I'm like, no. Nothing
reflective. I don't want to keep in my
own delusion that I'm still in my 20s.
>> My 20s, that's it.
>> Gen X forever. What was it? We're 30.
We're 30 when we're 13 and we never get
any older.
>> Exactly. Actually, it was what we were
30 when we were 12. We're 30 when we
were 30. And now we're 31 in our 50s and
and moving on. So,
so all right. Um, yeah, because you got
I'm actually going to cheat a little bit
with some of these and go with some of
possibly some of the questions that are
the, you know, that it puts out that
you're through Pod Match that you're
always ready to answer. So, we'll see
where those go.
>> We'll see how I go on those ones. So,
who am I speaking to? You're Rob.
>> Yes, I'm Rob. and
>> and I'm Michael.
>> Hi, Michael.
>> Hi.
>> And um yeah, so we will dive right down.
Like I said, we'll do our our
introductions. We'll allow you to
introduce yourself and we will go from
there. This is uh it is I think I
mentioned, but it's video and audio. So,
we've got a podcast. We also have a
YouTube channel. Um, it'll probably go
out in a couple of weeks and um,
I'm trying to think if there's anything
else I need to tell you, but yeah, come
up and we'll send you the links and all
those kinds of good things. We will wrap
it up.
>> Fantastic. Because I will share all that
with my my people as well.
>> Okay. And then when we wrap up, one of
the last things we'll do is just because
I already tell you're an awesome person.
We're going to say, "Hey." And if we
don't, then you know that it wasn't a
very good interview.
>> Oh man, now the anxietyy's going.
I like to I I I don't know how it some
people take it, but I've also often
said, "Look, I've done, you know, done
I'm up to probably about a hundred
different interviews. A lot of them like
almost all of them like this. I've never
had one go wrong. Maybe one that was
questionable. So, you know, I don't It's
not likely you're going to be the first.
So, you know, let's just get there's no
>> Is this where I say I like setting
firsts?"
>> Yes. This is not the time to set that
first.
>> No, this is not the time. This is not
the first I want to set.
>> Exactly. Save that for another one. Um,
>> you might want to like leave that intro
out next time because you seem to scare
our guest each time you do,
>> you know, but they like they rise to the
occasion.
>> I would rather have that warning up
front. That's cool.
>> You don't want to be You don't want it
at the end where you're like, "Guess
what? You're a first." And then you find
out why.
All right. Uh, so we're going to dive
right into it and, uh, let me I got to
adjust my little camera thing a little
bit here
and we are good. So, I'm going to do
>> Are we recording? Yep. Okay.
>> Oh, yeah. We're recording. That's I I
turned that auto
>> after I missed it the one time almost
twice. And we'll do three, two, one.
Well, hello and welcome back. We are
continuing our season. We're building
better foundations. We are building
better developers. the developer
podcast. I am Rob Redhead, founder of
set developer podcast site and all that
great stuff. Also the founder of RB
Consulting where we help you leverage
technology to build a technology roadmap
for success.
Good thing bad thing um let's see a good
thing. This is one of those fun kind of
things. Good thing is is that where I'm
at, I've got a little townhouse and
they've got a little uh HOA and one of
the things they do is they come by and
do uh pressure washing regularly, which
is I guess like twice a year or
something like that, which is awesome
because it means I don't have to do it.
The bad thing is is that they were like
when I was trying to park, all the
trucks happened to be right in front of
my driveway. And so I had to like, you
know, finagle my I had to like Tetris my
way into the driveway. Uh making it a
little bit more anxious of a parking job
than I normally would have needed in the
garage.
uh but who's never anxious or at least
I'm not anxious when he's introducing
himself. Michael, go ahead and take
over. Hey
>> everyone, my name is Michael Malash. I'm
one of the co-founders at Developer. I'm
also the founder of Envision QA where we
help companies with customuilt software
and basically any type of software
issues. We come in and we help you
through testing and kind of walk through
the process with you and make sure that
everything's working great. Uh, good
thing, bad thing. Uh,
good, it's kind of mixed. It's that time
of year again where, uh, in Tennessee,
the seasons can be anything from winter
to summer in a given day. So, uh, when
it the weather is warm and nice, we're
good. Uh, when it's not, it's really
miserable. It's like, man, I wish I had
my coat.
And now, like the sometimes bad host
that I am, I have to make sure because
I've just realized like I needed to know
beforehand how to pronounce her name.
So, she may be correcting me. Uh, so she
may be doing more than just a general
introduction. Uh, we have with us
Charlie today. I'm hoping that's right.
If not, correct me. And go ahead and
introduce yourself.
>> Hey guys, that it's actually Charlie,
but Charlie is the one that I get most.
Uh, that's cool. Uh, but it is Charlie.
It's short for Charlene. and it sort of
comes back to the tomboy
aspect of my my youth. So there you go.
So hey, look, thanks so much for having
me on today. I am really looking forward
to this. A little bit about myself and
I'll try to keep it short. I have got
nearly well 40 odd years experience in
the IT industry. It wasn't it when I
started, it became it. Uh, and I have
basically done anything from field
service through to sales management,
contract management, client management,
and now I run my own business, which is
why we're we're talking today, I think.
Now, I don't know if there's anything
else you guys want me to share about
myself or whether that's just going to
come out as we talk, cuz I think that's
probably a good place to go.
>> Well, I think uh let's start about uh
what your business does because as we
all know, it is a huge uh area. So, if
you can talk talk a little bit about
your business and what your focus is,
what your you know, your service or your
your products.
>> So, we help small businesses operate
online basically. Uh I I've changed my
tagline so many times. I'm not quite
sure what I'm using at the moment. Uh
but basically, it's tech when you just
need it to work. I'm your tech. I'm your
IT team. I'm your I can be your CTO. I
like to sit basically between businesses
and their tech providers. do that
translation and give
honest and sometimes brutal assessments
as to where things need to be need to
go, what needs to be done. Uh I find a
lot of businesses, a lot of small
business owners particularly, they don't
have the budget to have their own IT
person. Um often, and I, you know,
nothing against the brother-in-laws or
the cousins or the aunts or the uncles
who try to help out, but they get
someone in from the family who says,
"Yes, I've got a bit of knowledge." and
they really they they have a bit of
knowledge. It's just not the depth and
it's not the generalities that they need
to be able to help a small business. And
small businesses go, I just can't get it
to work and it's costing me so much
money and it's just hasn't worked for 6
months. And I can walk into that and go,
okay, let's go through it. Let's talk
about what you're doing. Let's talk
about what you're trying to do. Forget
what you're actually doing. Let's talk
about what you're trying to do. Who are
your providers and how can we make that
work better for you? Or sometimes it's
just the tech people aren't giving me
answers. I can't make this work. And I
can step in between them, do that
conversation, and then talk back to them
and say, "Hey, this is where we're at.
This is what you need to do. Here's how
we can fix this for you. I'm that
person. I'm the tech wrangler."
>> That's uh I have I've heard that tech
wrangler wrangler uh term before and
that was one of them I really like. Uh
also it was uh in com combination with
uh handling technology sprawl which is
another one that I have I've run into
too often.
Um,
>> yeah, huge.
>> I want to dive into this a little bit
because
just now it's really like it's a little
bit of a personal thing is like have you
seen in the as your career has gone on
uh because I have I have and I' I'd love
to hear somebody else their your
thoughts on this is like what used to be
the big ticket items and what it used to
look like. I feel like and I to me it
has gotten less so in in recent years
particularly especially go back maybe
the last five or 10 years that it has
become definitely much more accessible
and more often than not especially with
small businesses I'm finding I'm sort of
having the the education slash
conversation with them about um you know
this thing that you think is is too much
that you can't do it's too expensive
it's too big actually is completely
within your reach especially with the
rise of software as a service and and
some of those kinds of things and even
the even the big big boys like your you
know your your sales forces your net
suites your oracles and stuff like that
they have entry level stuff that is
actually um not only useful but is also
you know viable for even some of the
smallest budgets
>> I totally am and I as you said that I
was just sort of thinking the term
commoditization has come into it well
and truly and I think that's actually
part of the growth of any industry or in
anything that we see. You start off with
things that are really high-end. They're
expensive. They they you don't know how
to use them. I'm going to use the term
they're difficult to use. And then as
the technology matures and as the
industry matures, everything becomes
more accessible. Everything the pricing
comes down uh more and more people can
take it on. Uh it's that is the
evolution of
an industry of a business of any
anything if you look at it and things
become more commoditized. Absolutely.
I'm seeing it. I mean, who would have
thought just going to that, who would
have thought that you could run your
mail in a cloud and have it give you
your word processing, your
spreadsheeting, your databases,
uh the analysis of all of that and have
that all at your fingertips if you know
how to use the system. 10 years ago, you
know, I was still setting up Outlook on
people's computers and going, "Oh, you
want to log in on your phone and on your
computer and have your mail on both and
be able to manage that and know that
your VA has responded to it." Like 10
years ago, that that was a major thing.
We had a whole se of processes around
it. Now it's not. You delegate the
account. It's all in one place. People
can log in. They can see if a a message
has been read. It can have tags put on
it. it can be moved into folders. Just
that in itself is a major step forward.
So, yeah, I'm seeing it. Absolutely.
>> Now,
uh cool. I'm glad that I'm not the only
one that's just like feels like this is
really gotten there and so I think a
good followup to that is so as these
things become commoditized and like you
said there's like the the work that you
did 10 years ago, same thing like when
you're doing desktop support and stuff
like it's different. it is. There's a
lot like especially if you talk about
like the data centers and installing
servers and all the stuff that used to
exist that really has sort of gone away
because it's now just out there in the
cloud and you just connect and you're
ready to go. Um, how do you see that and
how you've had to evolve and especially
now I think for the audience a great one
is like AI is now you know it's quote
eliminating jobs people say um and it is
it's going to there's certain things
that are going to become commoditized uh
as we've always seen and so how do you
how do you make sure that you
differentiate yourself and while you're
while leveraging the technology changes
and the advances also are you know able
to you know put food on the table and do
all the things you need to do to to make
yourself, you know, still valuable to
your customers.
>> Fascinating to me how many conversations
end up going back to AI at the moment.
Uh it it has really taken off and if we
were to look at it, I am certain we
didn't see AI until the beginning of
last year. I think that was when it
actually hit the market and we saw you
know chat GPT come out and people saying
oh all of this stuff and people were
becoming prompt engineers. Um,
and we're not seeing many of those
anymore. But so, how do you how do you
leverage it and how do you keep yourself
uh relevant? Learn how to use it. Don't
don't be afraid of it. Learn how to use
it. Understand what its limitations are.
Um, I look I I've got a couple of
episode on on my podcast about AI is not
as good as you think it is. AI lies.
is overly confident in the information
it gives you. And when you start to dig
into it, it actually makes up links. It
actually makes up information and hands
that to you and says, "Yes, this was the
answer." And when you go and dig into
it, when you sort of say, "Well, give me
the references so I can go and check
that." You're like, "That that's not
what that said. That link doesn't even
exist." And I had a conversation with AI
at one point cuz I was digging into some
legislation about something uh here in
Australia. And I'm like, well, can you
give me the links that you've you've
given me this analysis on? It gave me
the links. I went to them. I said that
that legislation doesn't exist or that
link to that legislation is incorrect.
Oh, no. But if that legislation did
exist, it would exist at that link.
>> So, that was a bit of a that was a bit
of a long way around to say understand
its limitations. understand what it can
do and learn how to use it. Learn how to
learn how to make yourself more
productive using it. Uh bring it into
what you're doing. And again, I'm going
to go back to, you know, email
around 10 years ago, we were using
email, but email wasn't something that
we used a lot of. And when email first
started coming in, there's only a few of
us using it. A few of us had understood
that it was really cool to be able to
send electronic messages. and people
were still relying on the postal
service. Now the postal services are
dying. Yes, we still have to use them,
but the postal services are dying for
your general domestic mail because
everyone's moved to email.
That is now just part of the life that
we live. That's just part of how we
operate. And AI, I think, is going to
feel that.
Another probably unpopular view on this
is I don't think AI is going to get a
lot better than it already is for a very
long time.
>> Um it still works on large language
models. It still requires a whole heap
of data to pull into it to be able to
give you the information to be able to
do what you want it to do. Uh like sure
look we're seeing generative AI take off
and I think you know that might the the
niche stuff we're going to see do really
well but the general stuff about we're
just going to be able to take over your
job. We're just going to be able to work
out how your job works and come and do
it for you.
There's a lot that goes on in that wet
wear. There's an awful lot that goes on
in that wet wear. There's a lot of point
decisions that we make at any particular
point in the time, at any particular
segment of time that we can't even
define. We can't we don't even know
we're doing it. We just do it. Our
assessment of the risk that we're at,
the uh consequences of what we're going
to do, the oh, if I do this now and this
is this and this is I don't think AI can
do that. I it might be able to in the
long run maybe, but that's going to
require a lot of computing power, which
is going to require a lot of um energy.
Um let's not get into energy too much.
But we don't have that amount of energy
in the world to be able to power data
centers to do that. There's all the
things that sort of come to mind when
you ask me about AI. If you want to know
how I think you should be using it, make
yourself more productive. Learn how you
can use it to be more productive. some
examples I can give of that I uh do my
monthly reporting and I uh for for my
clients and I normally pull it down into
a CSV, pull it up into Excel
spreadsheet, run pivot tables and then
generate the reports from those. The
other day I said to AI, can you read
CSVs? Yes, I can. So, I dropped all my
CSVs in. I said, I want reports that
look like this. Here's my brand book.
Here's my here's the way I talk. I want
these formatted reports. So they said,
"Here it is. Here is a doc X. You can
just download that, put it up, and send
it as a PDF or you can just download
that as a PDF."
That harved the time I spent. Now, it
took me a little while to get it to that
because I had to do all of the work
around here's the criteria. Here's what
how I want you to do it. Oh, I don't
want it to look like that. I want you to
look like this. But I've done that once.
I don't have to do that again because
now I've got the set of instructions
that next time I come in to do it. I
just paste those instructions in and say
go ahead and do it or I I'm using Claude
AI to do that. I've set up a project.
Just pull that project in. Off I go.
There's all my CSVs. Do your job. Give
it give me what I need.
Does that answer part of your question
at least?
>> Oh yeah. Um, yeah, because I I think it
is and that's it. It it also sort of
added to it is the Yeah, I think there's
people I agree that there's uh I don't
think it's it where we're at right now.
I think it's going to need a lot because
it it needs energy. It need because it
needs processing and it needs data. And
I think it's one of those that now I
think we've sort of, you know, you've
you've been here long enough as well,
you probably remember the day where
you'd like buy a laptop or back in the
day when it was a desktop and then 30
days later it was already, you know, out
of it was like, oh, that's old hat. It
was it was stuff was progressing very
quickly and it's sort of slowed down.
Um, and now I'm wondering if this is I
think this may be the cusp of another
one of those, you know, geometric
growths where it's like, oh, now we need
we need to be able to store huge amounts
of data and have bigger processors and
all that kind of stuff. And then now
it's going to, I think, push because
that's what we are as humans is we're
always finding new ways to solve some of
those problems. So, I think people are
going to find ways to do the processing
with less, you know, power behind it and
things like that. Or everybody's going
to have a little portable nuclear thing
like they did in the Back to the Future
movies or something like that. But
there's some way there's going to be
somebody there's going to be some
brilliant people and they're going to
figure out a way to to take us that next
step. But, um, I do want to like just
for the, you know, I think for our
audience, I think it's a very important
thing is it's like don't be afraid of
it. Go learn it. Um, we all had to
learn, you know, back in the day for
some people don't even realize this, we
had to learn how to Google stuff, like
what is a what is a search? I remember
people like, how do you search for
stuff? And then AI is really just to me
it's just a progression of the search
engines. It's, you know,
>> that
just have that conversation. I really
wasn't that far. That's why it sort of
has been I feel it's been very natural
for it to be incorporated into the
search engines that are there because
that's sort of where they were going.
And at the end of the day, it's, you
know, AI is really not much different
than expert systems. If you can give
them like you do the steps, then
>> it'll follow the steps. But watch out
because if you skip a step or if you're
too vague in a step, you'll get some
interesting stuff and you will get I
will just add uh because I'm I know I'm
on my soap box a little bit, but I had
an argument with chat GPT one time about
that where I said I'm I'm grabbing
information and it sent me fake LinkedIn
stuff. I'm like, I need contact
information for those people. And it
sent me fake LinkedIn stuff. And I said,
okay, well, don't unless it is a
verified LinkedIn address. Don't give it
to me. Just make something up.
>> And then it said, well, no, I gave you
the right. No, you gave me a fake. I
looked at it. It's fake. So, I finally
was like,
>> just don't give it to me. I'm going to
go use another system and then connect
into it and I'll go figure something
out. It's like, you know,
>> it's like you're not good enough, so I'm
just going to go back and do it myself.
So you're and we're going to find that
it's just like anything else is it's
like it has its its limitations.
>> Well, and some of that is also the issue
because how these languages were
trained. There's a lot of archival sites
that are out there that have old
information and old pages and that's
what they're scraping because I found a
couple where because I've had to go
recover websites that people lose and
it's like because they got hacked and
you go to these sites to find that
because that information is public
without a lot of companies knowing that
their information is stored in these
archival sites and so AI is scraping it
and it's using that. Interestingly
enough though, you both kind of touched
on it, but the way I look at AI is it's
more of a rules engine. It's it's like
the old dragon naturally speaking. You
have to train it or you have to
basically give it the steps and the
processes in order for it to really work
or essentially give you your the
feedback. So you're essentially giving
the inputs to the an application a rules
engine for when you prompt it to give
you the feedback that you need. And that
is the extent of what I see AI as today
besides it just being a glorified Google
search. Um it it essentially is good
especially with code though it is good
at finding because it's scraped all the
Microsoft you know GitHubs and things
where all the public repositories are.
It is smart enough because they've had
developers already go through and train
AI for certain tests that most general
people use but it's already been
trained. It's already been given these
rules to give you that feedback. And
that's really all the modern AI is. It's
a rules engine that can regurgitate what
it has been told within its guidelines.
If you go outside those guidelines,
you're going to get weird stuff and it's
going to get all funky. I
>> I actually wanted just sort of to to
touch on that and you you it was a
perfect segue actually. You've got to
understand where the data that you're
getting the information that it's
regurgitating to you is coming from. And
now I use it a lot to check code to say,
"Okay, look, I'm getting this error
message."
We had to learn how to use Google. I
love that. I actually love that because
I used to just get that really long
Microsoft 0x code that you get on the
blue screens of death and I would t like
I'd write it out and then I'd type it in
and say, "What does this error message
mean?" That was Google. Well, now you
can do that on AI, right? That's the
sort of thing that you do. you when
you're looking at code and you're
looking at errors you're getting, you're
like, "Okay, what does this error
actually mean? Give me the the
guidelines as to where I should be
looking for this problem. Am I looking
at this system over here or am I looking
at this system over here or is it
something completely different?" That
information comes from the large
language models. Now, when chat GPT and
all of those or OpenAI came out,
it was the wild west. people didn't
actually realize that Open AI was using
their data to train itself. Uh and then
when they started working out that their
data was going into Open AI and this was
now being disseminated to just about
everyone, people said, "No, you can't
use our data." And they started, you
know, now we've got silos of data. So
the information that we're getting those
answers from, for me, it's things like
Stack Overflow and GitHub and all of
that.
And I know that when I go to Stack
Overflow and look at like I fixed it
this way, it's like no you didn't.
No, you didn't. And you like you'll find
five or six threads with the one answer
all the way through and it's the wrong
answer all the way through because one
person has picked it up and copied it
and someone else has picked it up and
copied it and someone and Chat GPT goes,
"Well, that must be the right answer."
And it's like, "But it's not."
>> Yeah. Copilot is notorious for that
since Microsoft owns Stack Overflow.
They dump that entire uh code stack into
uh Copilot. So if you want B and they
basically say that if you need to search
for something on Stack Overflow,
Microsoft even suggests go to Copilot.
It's faster to go to Copilot to find
information on Stack Overflow than to go
to Stack Overflow. And that right there
tells you that there is two definitive
problems. One, Stack Overflow has a lot
of information, but apparently it's not
easy to find. And two, search engines
are very limited on how they can parse
through that information. So AI is
unfortunately the best way because it is
again more that rules engine where it
can quickly parse through a lot of data
very quickly.
>> But that's also like once you understand
it, that's actually a really good way of
understanding how you can use AI to make
yourself more productive. because I use
it to say, as I just said, give me the
potentials on this and then I can use
what's between my ears to go through and
say, logically that doesn't make sense.
Or let me just go and check that. No,
that doesn't exist. Okay, that one's
wrong. Let me check this. No, those
rules don't exist. That command that
you're giving me is actually incorrect.
For whatever reason, it's actually
incorrect. So you can start to then it's
the it's that um process of elimination,
isn't it? Yeah. Like where where am I
getting to? What oh I'm I'm probably
closer to an answer here than I am here.
So I'm going to go down this track for a
little bit. That's how you use the AI
that we have today. That's how I think
you should be using the AI we have
today. Uh that's that's as developers. I
have seen authors uh who have gone to
writing what they call AI books. Now,
they're not getting the AI to write the
book and just publish it. What they're
doing is they're giving the AI a whole
heap of instructions around what their
setting is or what they want their
setting to be. Now, tell me what my
setting should be. Tell me what my world
should look like. And they have this
conversation with the AI that that
fleshes that all out. Then they get a
set of instructions. Great. Well, that's
what my world looks like. Put that
aside. This is the character I want to
build. Tell me about this character. Oh,
there's the rules for that. And then
they get all these sets of rules and
they plug it in and they say, "Now write
the story that follows these notes.
These are the notes I want to hit." They
get the story and then they go through
and edit it. So they're becoming editors
as much as they're becoming writers.
And I think that's we're seeing that in
a lot of areas. And I know we we've gone
a little bit off on the in the A world,
but I think that's what it is is I think
that's um I think that one of the skills
that you need to develop if you haven't
and using it is how to be a good editor
as to how to do, you know, reviewing
code or reviewing answers. And um it is
great for, you know, having
conversations and and getting you
thinking outside the box a little bit
because it'll get some weird stuff in
there or something that's, you know, it
picked up somewhere. It's like, oh, some
people do this. you're like, I've never
thought of that. And then next thing you
know, you can go down those rabbit holes
and and explore it yourself. But, uh, it
always comes back to like you've got to
realize it's like if you don't put the
guardrails on, then you're going to get
some interesting stuff. If you can, you
know, do the good job as a as a
delegator, as a, uh, as an editor, is to
really say, okay, I need you
specifically like, okay, focus AI, this
is what I need you to do. Give me this
back. And then, like you said, you know,
I think like the story, it's like you
build on that. You can do it in these
bite-sized chunks and then you can get
there, but you're going to have to
you're still as a human being is going
to have to drive that process.
>> Yep. Yep. Um and look, again, you know,
I have clients come to me and say, "Oh,
we want to put a chatbot on our site so
that people can ask it questions." Okay,
what information are you going to feed
it? What do you mean information? Well,
how is it going to know the qu the
answers to the questions that people are
going to ask? Do you have a list of
questions that people ask to begin with?
because that's going to give us some
idea of what data we need to pull into
it to make this quick. We can do a quick
and quick and dirty implementation, get
it up and running and then we can start
feeding more and more into it. Or do you
want it just to go out and get answers
from your competitors and give your
competitors answers to your clients and
then have them when they come to you and
say, "But your product is oh no, that's
our competitor. We'll go and buy that
from your competitor because that's what
we want it to do." So that's the other
way is think about what information you
want to be feeding to your people or you
want to um not feeding but yeah you want
to put into a system so that you can
help your clients better.
I think as a follow-up to that, what's
really good is sort of swinging back to
the the focus of of when you sit down
with your customers. Um, one of the
things when you're first talking about
like, okay, you know, you you need
somebody to help you with technology.
And so now they're saying, yeah, we
definitely need somebody to help us with
technology. We need something that we
can afford and things like that. like
starting with the simplest stuff is like
what are some of the things that you run
into when you're
when they're setting it up where they're
like because and and this probably is
stuff that I think is not as common now
because people have done it more but
especially looking back the last 5 10
years I'm sure where a lot of the
companies are like okay I'm new I need
to set up a website I need to be on the
web are some of the things that are that
you you know I guess we'll start with
the common mistakes maybe some that
people are like oh yeah this is what you
do well what are some of the things
you've run into where you're like well
Oh, you need to either like the chatbot,
you need to think about it more or no,
here's a better way to approach that.
>> Look, that's such a broad con such a
broad topic. I'm just going to come back
to have a clear idea of what they want
to actually achieve. When people come to
me and say, I want a website, the first
thing I ask is, okay, what do you want
it to do? Are we selling something? Are
you training people? Is it a brocherware
site? What is it you want it to do? be
really specific because if you want an
e-commerce site, you could be looking at
anywhere between 5 and450
$60,000. It depends on what you want it
to do. If you want a brocherware site,
you know, sure, you can go out and pay
$200 for a brochure site or you can pay
$2,000 for a brochure site. They're
going to give you different things.
They're going to do different things for
you. So, understand what that scope is.
And that's a big that's honest that's
still a mistake that I see people making
is I want a website. My business coach
told me I needed a website. I want a
website. Okay. So what is it you wanted
to do? Ask yourself that question. Be
really really specific. Think about the
budget that you've got with that too. Um
don't just go out to say people and say
how much will it cost me to do this
because there is such a range such a
such a different
differential there. And as I said, that
200 to 2,000 to $4,000 for a basic
website, that exists. That that's just
the way it is. Um,
the other thing I'm going to say is
don't get tied down on a technology
stack. Don't get tied down on a
particular solution.
That that's Yeah, that that's a big one
for me. I'll have someone come to me and
say, I want to use XY Z. Why?
>> Mhm.
Well, I saw the ad and it looks really
cool.
And I actually had this conversation
with someone one day. I want to put this
thing in place. Okay. So, what is it
we're What is it you want this thing to
do for you? What do you think it's going
to do for you that you don't currently
have in place or that you aren't
currently doing? Well, it's just going
to make me money. That's what the ads
telling me. I Okay, I now I know where
we're at. So now we have to go back and
do I I always go back to let's do a
needs analysis. I I don't want to I
don't want to come to you and say the
answer is X. Now what was the question?
I want to know what it is you're trying
to what is your objective? Let's take
technology out of it. Let's take uh the
way you might do things out of it and
just say this is your input. This is
your output. What is this output? What
is it you want to do here? Because that
will frame so much of what we put in the
middle of it. Sometimes it's a a really
simple fix. Sometimes we've got to get a
little bit more complex. Um security
security people still don't understand
security. People I
Why do I need two factor authentication?
Why do I have to change my passwords?
Why can't I just write my passwords down
and share them via email with my VA? Um
uh that that one that one actually kind
of terrifies me. The amount of times
I've seen that done, I was like, "Oh
dear,
let's go and change all our passwords."
Now, um,
it's not done just because you get the
deliverable. It's not finished. It never
finishes. Once you've got a deliverable,
you will always have maintenance that
you need to consider. So, if I go back
to websites, for example, it's not just
that you put a website up and it will
sit there and run. Yes, it will sit
there and run, but it will require
updates. You've got to make sure your
software stays updated. You've got to
make sure that your hosting provider is
doing the right thing. Uh, review access
to your admin consoles on a regular
basis. Those sorts of things. It's all
those basic things that, you know, we
were dealing with them 40 years ago.
We're still dealing with them today
because human nature doesn't change. is
just what the way we can do it. Um I
years ago my dad said to me, you know,
to is human to really mess things up
requires a computer. And if you want to
look at how bad things can get, we've
got so many computers now you one thing
goes wrong and everything just sort of
goes, oh,
so there's some of the things that I can
think I can talk to talk about. I I
don't know if that's the answer you
wanted, but it's those sorts of things
that that I still deal with. Like I was
dealing with it 40 years ago. I still
deal with it today or 20 years ago. I
still deal with it today.
>> And that is where we're going to pause
this episode of our interview with
Charlie. Uh yes, it's Charlie. I did not
get it right the first time. Charlie
Letham, L E T Ham.
uh got all the links in the show note
and uh as we come back in the next
episode she will share a little bit more
of us. This funny enough was just one of
those episodes that we mentioned AI too
early and we did go a little bit off the
rails of our original conversation but
uh I really appreciate how she just dove
in with us. I think there's some great
content there. Uh so you know definitely
I hope you're taking notes and you're
ready to go for the next one around. We
will return with part two of our
episodes uh with of our interview with
her and we are not done with the season
as well. We've got plenty more coming.
So, just hang out and uh take a deep
breath before you dive into the next
episode because it's time to take some
notes. Again, as always, go out there
and have yourself a great day, a great
week, and we will talk to you next time.