← Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
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- [00:00]
Julia Campbell
What if we named things for what they're not? We'd give teachers non oranges and fly non cars. That sounds ridiculous, right? So why is your world changing organization called a nonprofit? The truth is you are for purpose and the more you raise, recruit and retain, the more good you can do. That's where Bloomerang comes in. Bloomerang's giving platform is built for purpose with easy to use tools and powerful insights that will help you understand your donors better than ever and unleash even more generosity. Imagine spending less time on admin tasks and more time on what matters your mission. Bloomerang customers raise an average of 26% more. Are you ready to join them? Then just visit jcsocialmarketing.com forward/bloomerang to learn more and start making an even bigger impact. That's jcsocialmarketing.com forward/b L O O M E R A N G let's get to the episode. Hello and welcome to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell, and I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the Nonprofit Nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently find your voice, definitively grow your audience, and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people, and create even more impact, then you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hello. Hi everyone. This is Nonprofit Nation with your host, Julia Campbell. The question we are asking today, as artificial intelligence continues to reshape industries, including the nonprofit sector, how can we ensure that technology serves people rather than the other way around? So in this episode, we dive into the intersection of artificial intelligence and human centered work with my friend Tim Lockey, founder of the Human Stack and creator of the AI for anyone course. And with over 20 years of experience in the nonprofit technology space, Tim has helped organizations transition from being tech resistant to tech resilient. I love that. Tim, thank you so much for being here.
- [02:55]
Tim Lockey
Yeah, I'm so excited. Thanks for having me. And this is such a great time to have this topic.
- [03:00]
Julia Campbell
Yes, it's been a long time coming. So I know that You've spent over 20 years in nonprofit tech. Tell me, what inspired you to create your business, the Human Stack?
- [03:10]
Tim Lockey
Yeah, I was doing a lot of Salesforce implementations and I don't know why. It's my thing. I just don't naturally good at data and taxonomy. And so I found a deep connection with CRMs, found this incredible puzzle that I loved putting together. And I did that for organizations for over 10 years. And then I realized that as much as I loved that, when I looked around, there was a statistic that really blew my mind that said 90% of organizations collect data, but only 5% use that data to make decisions. And I felt like I've been wasting my life's work here on solving the wrong problem. The issue isn't collecting data, which is what I feel like I was doing with those systems. It really is how do we configure humans, not how do we configure tech. And so I really studied that problem for a while and then realized that one of the issues is that we're not actually, as technologists, we're not really clear about how to help people behave with technology.
- [04:15]
Julia Campbell
Right.
- [04:15]
Tim Lockey
I felt like maybe I've been working on the wrong stack and we need to start working on the human stack instead of the tech stack.
- [04:21]
Julia Campbell
I think that's so interesting. I really like that. I think that the work in technology, it just is something that nonprofits are so behind on, and it's something that could help us do our work so much better and more efficiently. And I know your work. I love this, this tagline. You focus on making nonprofits tech resilient rather than tech resistant. So can you explain more what that means and some of the strategies that you use?
- [04:49]
Tim Lockey
Yeah, I started looking at maturity models and just. Just noticed after working with thousands of users over the years, just noticed that there's a range from resistant on one end to people that are like me. And we'll stay up till 3am like, figuring out how to do some little that doesn't even matter, but I can't go to bed until I've got it. And so I think that there isn't really a technologist that knows everything about tech. There's just people that never quit Googling until they've got it right. And that is a form of resilience. Just to be like, well, I don't have it now, but I'm not giving up yet. And so I think that for me, I want to set our sights on. It's not about who knows the most about technology or something. It really is about, can you hang in there for one more iteration and try the next thing? This is so important when it comes to AI because there's so much iteration is involved in that. What I found was that there's A big difference between resistant and reluctant. And if you can help reluctant people move to being more comfortable, that's really, in most organizations, that's the sweet spot right there. Resistant people are resistant for a reason and it might be a good reason. Reluctant people often just need to hear from another person. Here's how I'm saving a little bit of time on that. And when they see that, they're like, oh, I want to save time too. And they just shift into a more comfortable use zone. So that's a lot of what I mean by just moving people towards that direction. And there's a culture of that. Right. That when you start to create those kind of motions with culture, not just for individuals, it just is very powerful.
- [06:34]
Julia Campbell
Absolutely. I would add another R to that is risk averse. So people that are maybe resistant, they are reluctant. But there are other people that are very interested, but they're very risk averse or they've been taught to be risk averse and not try new things and not be innovative and not attempt new technologies. And the theme of today's discussion is, you know, how to human in an AI world. So when you hear that, what does that, what does that mean to you? I think it's something that people would be very interested in.
- [07:12]
Tim Lockey
Yeah, I have such a maybe weird definition on how that shakes out for me. For about six months I was asking myself the question, is the human stack just good marketing or is there actually something called the human stack, like is this a real stack or is it just good branding or whatever? And I finally answered that, that it is a real thing. And the reason for that is that the tech stack is just a community of technologies all working together for a common purpose. The human stack is a community of people that are working together for a common purpose. They both need each other. Tech stack needs the human stack and vice versa. But their base codes are completely different. This is where it's really important to understand this when it comes to understanding how AI can talk and sound like humans. But it's actually not because the base code of technology is just zeros and ones. It's just true or false. So all it's trying to do all the time is answer the question, is this little thing true or is it false? And you add all of those up together and somehow those little true false statements end up in a pixel being the right color on a screen. So mind blowing how you can do that. But for humans, the base code for us is in or out. Are we in the group or are we not in the group, because our base code is just belonging based and where tech is looking for accuracy on a true false, we're looking for do we belong or not? And we'll trade accuracy like we'll lie in order to feel more part of the group every time. Because actually belonging matters more than accuracy to us. That distinction has been a real guiding light for me as I'm thinking about what makes us human. It is that very human need to belong and to create belonging for others. That's actually what's going on in the human stack. That's what's created a lot of difference in the way that my work creates a methodology to not just use technology, but to create belonging around the use of technology and to find, okay, now I can do this better. That means that I can contribute to the group more and the group can contribute to this mission more. Right? And so that's where I make that distinction, is we're really searching for belonging all the time. AI is actually really helping to promote that. But AI, at the end of the day, it doesn't know what it's saying. It's just, it's all just zeros and ones and math at a hypersonic level, you know, running econometrics and machine learning to know, to just create predictions.
- [09:55]
Julia Campbell
What you said was so interesting because I think many people worry that AI is replacing human connection and belonging. So how do you see AI enhancing, you know, rather than maybe erasing these kinds of connections?
- [10:12]
Tim Lockey
I think a lot of that boils down to the quality of our interactions. Right. So I'm add, and if you ask me to take notes in the meeting, good luck. Right? The notes are going to be bad and the meeting's going to be bad. Right? It's just not going to work. And so one of the ways I look at this is that the ability for AI to create space for us to focus less on tracking what's happening in the conversation and more on the conversation itself increases the quality of our connection. Right. In technology terms, that's called interoperability. The ability for one technology to work with another technology. That's the connection. That's interoperability. For humans, interoperability is the strongest form of it really is conversation, the way that we pass ideas back and forth with sounds and words and writing. It's amazing that we can do that. The more we can clean that channel and let technology take care of the tracking and the summarizing and the sending it out, the more clear we can keep the conversation. So I think that's where as I look at where we can create efficiencies. It's not just about saving time. It's actually creating space for the conversations to just be more dialed in, more present, more available. That's one answer. There's others as well. But that's a little starter I want.
- [11:38]
Julia Campbell
To add on that because I feel that I'm so much more able to have better conversations with clients now that I have an AI tool. I use Read AI that joins my zoom calls or joins my team's calls or joins my conversation. Because I know that everything's going to be recorded and I know everything's going to be like you just said, recorded in a succinct way so I can be more present. I don't have to focus on my notes. I don't have to worry about writing down the wrong thing. I don't have to worry about, oh, did I miss this point? I can really be focused on listening and participating and adding to that conversation. So that's so important. I didn't, that's something that I didn't even really think of that. I think a lot of nonprofits could benefit from having these meetings or even these conversations, or just being more present and having more brain space to be creative.
- [12:33]
Tim Lockey
Absolutely. And to not be double parked on things. Right. So, yeah, I think that that is really helpful. It's funny, I've ended up realizing that because I use Fathom, you're reading Read or you're using Read. But after setting up CRMs for years and then looking at the value of transcripts, transcripts are so much more valuable because now you can take tools like Cassidy and convert those transcripts into structured data and put those into the CRM. And so not only do you have how many times you met and how many times they hit the website or whatever, those are just aggregated numbers, but they don't contain the content of those conversations unless a salesperson or a fundraiser puts in, right. The action items and the content, which they're never going to be able to do that well at scale. And so a group of conversations and transcripts from those conversations is really valuable. So I think that there's. I think you're right about that and I think that the value of that data is actually increasing because now you can quickly pull from the last five conversations. What have we been talking about? What's the next step in our conversation? How should we approach that? You can do that really rapidly and that's just never been possible before.
- [13:51]
Julia Campbell
And I think with the level of turnover, especially in development director positions, the turnover in the sector, that kind of context and that deep level of understanding of our donors or the conversations that we've had is so important. And I remember when I started my first development director job in like 2006, I had to study notes, physical handwritten notes on like legal pads that were transcribed by my predecessor that had never been entered into any kind of Google Doc or Word document and analyze them and think about what is my strategy with this donor, what's my history with this capital campaign contributor. And the tools are available to us now to save so much time and to add so much richness to these relationships. So I think that's absolutely a fantastic way that we can maintain this human centered approach. What are some other practical ways that you've seen you mentioned, Cassidy? What are some other tools and practical ways that you've been helping nonprofits use AI to sort of improve their impact?
- [15:01]
Tim Lockey
I'm glad that you bring up the question of transitions. I'm totally forgetting turnover. Thank you. There we go.
- [15:09]
Julia Campbell
Turnover, transition.
- [15:10]
Tim Lockey
Because one of the issues I think that's not being addressed right now is when organizations are not paying for tools like Boodlebox or other LLMs, even if it's just, you know, team versions of ChatGPT with licenses for everyone, they're not doing that then. They don't. They're losing that context when that person moves on. It's like they're using back in the days, right? Yeah, right. Remember like Juno.com or like Hotmail or whatever, everybody worked at an organization with their own email and there was no central domain and there was no slack.
- [15:46]
Julia Campbell
Nothing like that, right?
- [15:48]
Tim Lockey
Yeah, it's like that now. And so I think that one of the important things is to understand that when it comes to empowerment of individuals, the mindset and the behavior, the prompting, the way that you create context and all of that is what stays with the individual. But the assets of a knowledge base, you know, reg models that keep context and hold that, automations, agents, these are the assets of that organization and they only get them if they pay for them first of all, and then spend the time to create AI governance systems that capture all of those in real time as they're happening. And so I feel like one thing to say on that is this is an investment that organizations need to be looking at. Not just how do we empower our staff, but how do we as an organization capture the advantages and the assets that are going to be long term for us? I think that's one really important part of thinking about that is, why does that matter? And who gets to keep that at the end? ChatGPT is by far the most my go to tool. I use it all the time. I know that you talked with Josh. Hershey and I are always trading messages back and forth on things we've learned about ChatGPT. So I like that a lot. Claude is the smartest one out there right now and so I use both of those tools. I think of Claude as the old professor who basically gets really tired and is just like, no, and I'm not talking to you again until 10pm Right.
- [17:20]
Julia Campbell
Yes, I know Claude. I know. That's how I feel about it too. ChatGPT is just very happy to talk to you at any time.
- [17:27]
Tim Lockey
I know, exactly. Yeah. Claude's like, no, yeah, I know. Claude is kind of grumpy too. So I think those are by far my two main go to tools for just kind of everyday stuff. Cassidy, I think, and I'm glad to leave a link for that. Cassidy is an amazingly powerful tool that I'm using.
- [17:47]
Julia Campbell
I have never heard of Cassidy. I will look it up. How do you spell that?
- [17:50]
Tim Lockey
Yeah, C, A, S, S, I, D, Y. Cassidy is the tool that's allowing me to just create a lot of extra pieces from it or to extend what I can do with AI a lot further. So this morning I was giving a training to somebody and before that training I spun up a bot that was specific for that training that people could ask questions to and give feedback on how the session was. I'm finding a lot of value in that. I've used Cassidy to update Slack so that my Slack, anyone can just message an HR bot and ask for policies from the employee handbook, for example. That way it's in your main channel that you're already in and you have to go someplace else. And it's running off of a RAG model. That's. RAG model stands for retrieval Augmented generation. So it's your context. So I set that up in five minutes before I was showing somebody a way to use AI and they really liked that because, you know, that's one of those places where you can just save more time. So I'm using Casity to make useful in all sorts of other areas.
- [19:06]
Julia Campbell
That's amazing because. Yeah, why should you have to have all these PDFs that you have to consult your handbook, your, you know, all of these things when this could be just like your research intern, pretend you know, your executive assistant. If we all want executive assistants to help us find that one passage or that one protocol, I'M just thinking for the school board that I'm on, we have so many policies and protocols, and whenever I'm looking for one, I have to go to the website and look at the PDF and search and look it up. And this would be such a better use of all of our time. Oh, cool.
- [19:46]
Tim Lockey
Yeah.
- [19:47]
Julia Campbell
All right. I'm going to recommend it.
- [19:49]
Tim Lockey
Yeah. In fact, on our AI for Anyone course, there's a little megabyte at the bottom there, and that's all run off of all the transcripts from the course and some of the marketing background. It can answer questions to people, real time about the course. And that's running off of a Cassidy assistant as well.
- [20:08]
Julia Campbell
That is so cool. All right, I will put a link to the show, notes for the course, AI for Anyone, and a link to Cassidy if people want to hear more about it. I think another question that a lot of nonprofits have, especially fundraisers, is that donors might have ethical concerns about organizations using and adopting AI tools. So what are some concerns we should be aware of? And how can we ensure that we are being responsible and transparent using these tools?
- [20:42]
Tim Lockey
It's interesting. Nathan Chappelle and Tyrion Koshy put together a report, and one of their key findings from thousands and thousands of data points is that what fundraisers are looking to do is to increase their efficiency in fundraising. Of course. But what funders and donors are looking for is to increase the amount of trust from organizations. And so I think one of the most important ways to use AI right now is to think of every way that you can increase credibility, that you can show results from your work, that you can and really focus not just so much on all of the fundraising tools which are emerging, which are really powerful, but also be thinking about how do we link these to program outcomes, how do we ensure that we are being as relevant as possible and speaking to the direct concerns and alignment of the person that we're talking with. So that's one thing to keep in mind. Another thing that I think is. Is really important in all of that is to be aware of the tools that are out there. So I really like Cadenza. That's a tool that I've been working with them for a while. I like what they're building from that, and I think that that, again, is using your own information in fundraising. And so I think those are important ways. I think the last way that I'd say is I'm finding more and more that with some of these agents, I'm able to pull down information about a situation or a grant or a donor and process that in a totally different way, find relevancy, and then push that back up to a CRM really, really easily. And I think that's the personalization that we've been talking about in the industry for a long time. I think it's possible now in a way that it hasn't been before. I think those are ways to do that. I'm not sure how this would apply. I'll put out a scenario, and then I think it'd be fun to workshop this between the two of us. So I have a strong personality, and I forget other people don't have my same strong personality.
- [22:58]
Julia Campbell
Yes, me too.
- [23:00]
Tim Lockey
I feel like this would be something you could relate to. And so I built a set of data that is not real, just sample data. And in it, I included a bunch of ar, sorry, HR pieces. So disk profile, you know, Myers Briggs information questions that you would, you know, you would develop in an intake when you're onboarding somebody new that's like, how do you like to receive feedback? What's your, you know, how do you like to be rewarded? You know, these kinds of language or recognizing. Exactly. Right. All of that information. What's your hire date? Right. I mean, you don't ask them, but you just log that. And then I created a bot that I called the Executive Sounding Board. And the idea there was for me to be able to say, this is who I am, so it could find me in the document. And then to say, I want to recognize this one person for them doing a great job based on their personality. What's the best way to recognize that? That was really interesting. And then I turned that into a. Every. I just tried this out, but every Monday it sends me an update on anybody whose hire date is coming up that week. And then it writes a little card. I hate writing cards. I'm so bad at it. And so it writes a card for me to model off of. It's a draft. And so I can just, like, look at that. And so I feel like those kinds of things are ways I'm thinking about that as a leader or even giving hard feedback, like, I need to have a hard conversation. What's the best way to communicate this? Or to say, here's what I want to say. Throw it down my form, but send it to a private bot and have it say, that's a really bad way to approach this. Instead, I would recommend this kind of a script. I don't know exactly how that applies in the fundraising space, but I feel like there's gotta be some links over that I feel would be helpful.
- [24:59]
Julia Campbell
Yeah, I saw years ago, I'm really gonna say seven to eight years ago. Kishana Palmer, speak on donor love languages. I will never forget this. I don't know if it was at an icon and she was talking about major gift donors or she was talking about, you know, when you meet one of the donors or you or you're asking for a major gift. And she was talking about the love languages and saying it's so important that, you know, do people respond to words of affirmation? That is my personal love language is words of affirmation or respond to gifts or acts of service or. I mean, I guess you probably wouldn't do affection for a donor or quality time. Like, there's certain specific things. I will never forget that because I went home and literally interviewed all of my family members about their love languages. And I know with my kids, my husband, with my family members, like, what really resonates with them and what makes them feel special. And I think you could do that on a scale with a bot that you're talking about with donors or even with team members, with board members maybe. And that could really work. So you can really personalize your communication and make it more human centered, which is what we're talking about.
- [26:15]
Tim Lockey
Yeah. One of the things to keep in mind here is when you set your sights on creating belonging, that's what we're doing. And it's one of the reasons I like Mallory Erickson's work so much is that it really is around that idea of finding alignment between people and centering on that alignment so that there is this creation of we're headed in the same direction. We're trying to accomplish something together. So we need each other to get there. And I feel like that is a really important way of seeing that. And data actually can really help people like me who just forget people have other personalities. Right. Like, and it's, it's not just professional. Like, I think this, you know, a chat GPT that's holding here is relevant information about your significant other. Like, you've talked about these things, you've had these fights before. So like log it so you don't keep having them. That's the kind of help that I need. And I feel like that doesn't make me bad or a bad husband. What makes me a good husband is remembering that and using that to better enhance relationships, not just personally, but also professionally.
- [27:27]
Julia Campbell
Yeah, it's usually like a second brain. Also what we have to Realize is that oftentimes we are too emotionally charged and we're too close to a situation. So having a tool that has an outside perspective or is completely devoid of perspective and emotion.
- [27:43]
Tim Lockey
Yeah.
- [27:44]
Julia Campbell
To organize our thoughts and to help give us, you know, sort of a different way of looking at things I think is so valuable and helps us focus on, like you said, our North Star, which could be connection, belonging, love, or, you know, really just helping the organization change the world. So that's so important. I'm just like, my wheels are spinning here. This is so cool. So how do you see AI evolving sort of in the next five years, particularly in the nonprofit space?
- [28:21]
Tim Lockey
Before I answer that question, I always want to help people kind of set their nervous systems on that because. I know.
- [28:29]
Julia Campbell
Because they get very nervous.
- [28:30]
Tim Lockey
Right, Exactly. Which is not crazy. Like. Like that's, you know, like. So one of those.
- [28:35]
Julia Campbell
It's going to be Terminator 2. No, I'm just kidding. Or the Matrix.
- [28:38]
Tim Lockey
Exactly. Well, yeah, you know, I was worried about that, but then I asked Chat GPT, are you going to come kill us all? And it said no. So, like, we don't have to worry about that. But I looked at when I created AI for anyone, I was really thinking about people who are resistant and reluctant, not people who are already into it. Like the square none, the square one people. Right. Like, how do you just get to your first prompt? And a lot of what I thought there is. There's a sense of powerlessness people have around AI. It's very understandable because we're powerless. It showed up out of the blue. It's not going away. It's everywhere all of a sudden. And so I wanted to find models that deal with powerlessness well. And so I looked at the 12 steps model, and the Serenity Prayer is a really good place to start. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, urge change the things I can. Wisdom, know the difference. Right.
- [29:37]
Julia Campbell
Wow.
- [29:38]
Tim Lockey
And so when we start to look at AI through that lens, the things we have to accept is AI is here. It's not going anywhere. And it's having a big impact on our jobs, on our lives, is having a big impact. What we can control on the other side of things, like courage to change the things we can is our participation in it, our beneficial and responsible use of AI. That's where we have the most control. And in that domain, we get professional and personal. That's it. We don't get, like, global. Like, we can't control the outcomes on societal harms. We can advocate for those, but that doesn't mean we don't have agency. So acceptance is a form of agency. And so I feel like before I talk about the future of AI, I want to talk about fear and risk.
- [30:28]
Julia Campbell
Yes.
- [30:28]
Tim Lockey
Because one of the ways that you lose your agency is when you start reacting to fear instead of responding to risk. Right. And so I think when you talked about being risk averse, I think that's exactly right. But that's different than being fear averse. And I feel like it's actually important to know where are the risks on some of this. So I just want to start by that and say if people are worried about AI, that's understandable. And for some people that feel like, hey, this is creating environmental harm, which is a major thing and is creating societal harm, our participation in it or not is not going to affect that side of the things we can't change. And I think that model is really important. So with that said, yes, I love.
- [31:15]
Julia Campbell
That the grounding and the infrastructure is so important. People are very overwhelmed in their nervous systems and their cortisol is up about it. Just hearing about it sometimes.
- [31:24]
Tim Lockey
Yeah, absolutely. The progression here is first we used machine learning, which is just millions of data points. Prediction run really, really fast. And so we got it to be good at predicting. Not we like I didn't have anything to do with it, but you know.
- [31:40]
Julia Campbell
Yeah, I just benefit from it.
- [31:41]
Tim Lockey
And then, and then we pointed that at language and we said of all the things you can predict, one of them is the next letter in a sequence of letters. It turns out humans care a lot about the next letter because if you can string together letters, you've got the foundations of ideas through language. We really commodified language with generative AI the way that we commodified learning with predictive AI. I think the way to understand where this is going to go is it's going to get good at something and then that will create incredible value in one area and then we'll take that and create more value in another area from it. So now that it can speak humanese in any language and language is basically a commodity now, which is just wild. And I know people like that could be really threatening. And I get it. It's part of the accepting things we can't change now that it's that way, the next thing that is going to happen is agentic AI. Right. Is going to look at agentic. It's like an agent. Right. So when you hear about AI agents, that's agentic AI. And so there's AI automations, which are a form of agentic AI. And then there's increasingly going to be not just automations, but autonomous decision making from an AI about different things. Should I send this email now or not? What should be in the email that I'm sending or not? That's agentic, autonomous AI. And so I think that's where it's heading. By this time next year, I think AI agents will be very, very common. It will really change a lot of the ways that we interact with each other. And the best form of that, I think, is that it takes away a lot of those really mundane transactional things that happen between humans that I for one would be glad for it to just take care of for me. Right.
- [33:39]
Julia Campbell
One thing that I have always wanted that I don't know why it's not available yet, is when the school sends me a PDF of a list of dates. Can I just have those automatically added into my Google Calendar? Why can't that happen? Someone's listening to me right now. Make that happen.
- [33:55]
Tim Lockey
Wait, hold on. That's a great idea.
- [33:58]
Julia Campbell
I get so many. There's so many emails sent to me with important dates and school schedules, Cub scout schedules, theater rehearsals. I'm just thinking of the emails I got today, my daughter's volleyball schedule for the weekend. And I automatically go in and add every single date and time into my Google family calendar. And I just don't know if there's a way. And I think a lot of people would love that.
- [34:23]
Tim Lockey
That's such a great idea. That's such a great idea.
- [34:26]
Julia Campbell
I mean, someone AI is listening, snapping.
- [34:30]
Tim Lockey
It with your, with your phone and using like the, the vision part of.
- [34:35]
Julia Campbell
Oh my gosh, if you could snap it. Because think of the flyers. We still get flyers PDF, not PDF. We get PDFs. So we do get paper flyers from the school. And I oftentimes will take pictures just to remember. So, yes, put those into ChatGPT.
- [34:51]
Tim Lockey
Just say like you can just throw those in.
- [34:54]
Julia Campbell
How much time would be saved by that?
- [34:56]
Tim Lockey
I know that's such a great idea. So I think that those are coming and that's actually very possible with Gemini and which is multimodal. Anyway, sorry. Now my brain is like zooming along. I love it thinking about that. So I'm going to try and zoom back. One other thing I think where it's going to go after agentic AI is robotics. Right? So, and those are running concurrently right now. I don't know if you saw like the Roomba that Picks up the sock or whatever. Like, this has got this arm where it just, like, can pick up a sock and then go put it in the laundry basket or something.
- [35:27]
Julia Campbell
Oh, my gosh.
- [35:28]
Tim Lockey
And so I be like, I know. Yeah. So I think tasks are about to become commodify. Like, they're going to commodify tasks. And then after that, in a weird way, I think location where an AI can actually move physical objects without you being there. So right now you can do digitally remote work, but with robotic AI, you could do literal, like, remote work. So I think that's kind of where I see it heading. I think there is wild. Like, I heard about a manufacturing company that turned an AI loose to just find materials for it, and in a week it found 800 new materials that would have taken them years to find. So I think that there's massive scientific research available. And unfortunately, I think that there is all sorts of horrible warfare implications with AI as well. And so I think that there's. It's like the Internet. Is it good or bad? I think that's my prediction on where it goes. I think, again, if this all freaks you out, if you're listening to this and it's really freaking out, again, just recognize there's an element to acceptance here that I think is really important.
- [36:37]
Julia Campbell
Well, there was a quote I read way back, probably two, three years ago, right when ChatGPT came on the scene, and there was an artist, and she wrote on Twitter, and she said, I don't want AI to take over my artistry. I want AI to do what Roomba is doing. I want AI to take over my laundry and dishes and all of my mundane tasks so I can focus on my art. And I think that's what's so important for us to remember, is that it will not take over the things that are uniquely you, but hopefully it will help you be able to focus more on those creative pursuits and the things that make you uniquely new you and create those human connections and belonging, especially with your donors. So, I mean, this. I just think that's. So, do you have any final thoughts? And then also tell us where we can find out about your course and connect with you online.
- [37:34]
Tim Lockey
Tim, I love that quote. And there's such a moment of grief inside of that that's so human. Like, wait, I don't want machines to be doing this part of life. And I think that even though I'm an AI enthusia, I feel like skepticism and grief are part of this process. And I think respecting that is really important in it to recognize that this could spell devastating loss for a lot of people, both in their livelihood and the things that they care about. So, yeah, I think that that's an important thing to be aware of as we're people of community that look for belonging. And again, I feel like one last thing I may want to say is for non profits, I think we're such a. We reward risk, you know, aversion so much.
- [38:23]
Julia Campbell
Yes.
- [38:23]
Tim Lockey
And it's actually hard to find places where we reward innovation until it's proven. Once it's proven to be good, then everybody's excited about it. But until then, people are like, I.
- [38:36]
Julia Campbell
Don'T we want to try something new that no one's ever done? But wait, does it work? It's like, well, no one's ever done it, so how can we know?
- [38:43]
Tim Lockey
100%. 100%. And so I think that there's. And I don't like, I don't see that changing anytime soon. What I do think can change though, is to recognize that a lot of the policies written in early 2023, as a reaction to, you know, hallucinations and the rest, I think it's important to go back and review those and pull out the cybersecurity elements of that, pull out the data privacy elements of that and really start to look at how do we create positive, beneficial based policies and AI governance around what could this do positively for us instead of just a reaction to, I think a lot of fear at the time that a lot of those were written. So I would say that that's maybe one place to go with it.
- [39:29]
Julia Campbell
Wonderful. So tell us where people can connect with you online and learn more about you. I'm sure you're going to get a lot of questions and connections.
- [39:38]
Tim Lockey
Yeah. Thank you. So I'm very active on LinkedIn. Not this month, but most months. So I will be back on starting in March. And so I'm very active on LinkedIn. There are two ways to get involved, to learn more and up your skills with AI with me. One is the course AI for anyone. I wanted to create a $100 course that would take about an hour to complete just to get people from Square and Unsquare one. So that's AI for anyone. And thank you so much for promoting that with me.
- [40:10]
Julia Campbell
Yes, I was going to put the link in the show notes. I think it's a fantastic resource.
- [40:15]
Tim Lockey
And then because AI is moving so fast, like a month after I released that, some of the content was already changing. And what I realized is the Base core content of what is AI. And all of that is really solid in that course. But if you want to go to the next step and really start upgrading your skills, I'm not putting out a course for that because it would move too fast.
- [40:37]
Julia Campbell
Yeah, move too fast.
- [40:39]
Tim Lockey
So instead what I've got is weekly coaching, live coaching community called the Upskiller, where people can come and upskill with me. I'm just doing that in an hour. The price point on that is really affordable. It's really meant to help individual fundraisers and others that at nonprofits be able to afford that. And so would love to have people look at joining the upscalerator as a way to just come along and see what I'm learning. So I'm working on this today. Earlier when we did this, it was focused on how to build workflows in Cassidy. So really is very practical. And boots on the ground, fingers on keyboards. How do we do this?
- [41:22]
Julia Campbell
I love that. I think that's so important. And what I love about AI for anyone especially is that it's learn how to use it, not just about it. So it's really, you know, the fundamentals are there, but you actually are going to get your hands dirty and really start to, to level up your comfort level with the tools and experiment with them and especially in like a safe place, you know, where you feel safe and you feel supported and there's other non profits and other social change agents around you. So I think that's really helpful. And Tim, I just value your friendship and your colleagueship. I know we might not see each other in person this year. It's maybe not my year to see anyone in person, but I'm really hoping, you know, that we can, we can hang out again soon in person. So thanks so much for being here and being so generous with your. Just with your thoughts and with your expertise.
- [42:16]
Tim Lockey
Yeah, absolutely. Such a pleasure to be here and yeah, we will. We'll catch up as soon as we can and in the meantime, we'll probably be in a couple of events together virtually and yeah on LinkedIn chat, so that'd be great.
- [42:36]
Julia Campbell
Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or a review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to. And then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back back soon with a brand new episode. But until then, you can find me on instagram @julia campbell77 Keep changing the world, you nonprofit unic.