← The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX
MERGE CEO Stephanie Trunzo on keeping essential human elements during your AI transformation
00:35:51
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- [00:01]
Jack Myers
What makes a leader worth following? What should you really care about in your job?
- [00:05]
Stephanie Trunzo
As technology is changing so quickly, is
- [00:07]
Jack Myers
it just gonna be about machines talking to other machines? I mean, should you quit your job and start something on your own, what would that take?
- [00:13]
Greg Kilstrom
What does success and risk look like
- [00:16]
Stephanie Trunzo
when we're all at the starting gate together?
- [00:18]
Jack Myers
These are the questions we answer each week on Lead Human with Jack Myers and Tim Spengler.
- [00:23]
Tim Spengler
Join us each week and subscribe at
- [00:25]
Greg Kilstrom
your favorite podcast platform and YouTube.
- [00:28]
Jack Myers
We'll tell stories, we'll hear from some of the best, and we'll try to figure this out together.
- [00:35]
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- [01:07]
Greg Kilstrom
Hi, I'm Greg Hillstrom, host of the Agile Brand, and here's a question for you. In the race to implement AI for operational efficiency, are we accidentally designing the essential human elements of creativity, judgment and trust out of our organizations? Agility requires not just the rapid adoption of new technologies like AI based solutions, but the deliberate and human centered redesign of the culture and the processes that support them. Today we're going to talk about why AI adoption is less about the technology itself and more about a fundamental cultural paradigm shift within your organization. Balancing AI driven efficiency with the essential human elements of creativity, judgment and empathy to to create superior customer and employee experiences and how complex industries like healthcare can serve as a model for using AI to democratize knowledge and empower consumers. Welcome to season eight of the Agile Brand Podcast. This season we're going all in on expert mode, martech, AI and customer experience, talking with the people and platforms behind the brands you know and love. Again, I'm your host Greg Kilstrom and I help Fortune 1000 companies make sense of martech, AI and marketing ops. Hit subscribe or follow to make sure you always get the latest episodes and leave us a rating so others can find us as well. This episode is brought to you by Merge. Merge is a marketing and technology agency built for the intersection of health and wellness. They help organizations navigate AI digital transformation and emerging technologies with a human centered approach using Storytelling and technology to create more meaningful connections with the people they serve. Learn more at www.mergeworld.com. tell me discuss this topic. I'd like to welcome Stephanie Trunzo, Chief Executive Officer at Merge. Stephanie, welcome to the show.
- [03:01]
Stephanie Trunzo
Hey Greg. I'm so excited to be here. We're talking about all of my favorite topics.
- [03:05]
Tim Spengler
Love it, Love it. Yeah, look at looking forward to it as well. Before we dive in though, why don't you give a little background on yourself and your role at Merge.
- [03:12]
Stephanie Trunzo
Yeah. So the CEO here at Merge. Merge is an organization that is kind of trying to really deliver on the promise of something we've been talking about as an industry for decades, which is how do you take technology and marketing and bring them together in a way that is actually serving the end user. So that's what we're doing here at Merge. And you know, I kind of come from multiple decade background of big tech and working in technology and thinking about how do we use technology to really drive effective change and outcomes for those end users.
- [03:50]
Tim Spengler
Yeah, love it. And to give a little more context as well. Who are Merge's customers? What are the primary markets and clients that you serve?
- [04:00]
Stephanie Trunzo
So Merge, we like to bring together the idea of understanding consumer born industries. So about 30% of our business is really consumer native, meaning, you know, companies like American Express or Subway. And then about 70% of our business is wellness and health. And we talk about health in the broadest way you can think about. So whether that's provider systems, payer, life sciences, animal sciences, but also wellness. So companies like Oura Ring, for example, who are kind of in that in between place, between consumer and regulated healthcare and healthcare property. So those are the people that we're really trying to help take advantage of these new opportunities that we've wished for years that we had access to technology that could do things like translate our messages to individuals that we could, you know, operate at the kind of accelerated pace that I think we're just starting to begin to see reality for.
- [05:03]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, love it.
- [05:03]
Tim Spengler
So yeah, let's, let's dive in here and we're going to talk about a few things today. But I want to start with really from the, from the strategic standpoint here and just this, you know, digital transformation was talked about for years and years and years. And then I came along, you know, generative AI came along. We'll, I'll just classify it and, and all of a sudden, you know, there's lots of talk about transformation, but there's a need to kind of redefine it. And one of the things you've talked about and written about is that AI isn't necessarily creating gaps, but it's revealing them. And so from that strategic standpoint, what are some of the most significant organizational gaps, you know, could be mindset, workflow, culture, all of the above that leaders are discovering as they begin to integrate these AI based tools more deeply.
- [05:53]
Stephanie Trunzo
Yeah, and I think, I think you just said it, Greg, which is that, you know, what I'm observing is that AI is a catalyst for so many things when we think about it as a paradigm shift and not just a new set of tools. That paradigm shift, I think, is creating a lot of visibility to gaps that already existed and new gaps that are getting created as we understand kind of how to use AI intelligently. The gaps to me are, you know, a framework that I think about a lot is the gap between expectation and reality. Right. And you can adjust either end of that equation, but if your expectations are greater than reality, you're going to be in a deficit. Right? I'm expecting, expecting it to do more than it's actually delivering. If reality is greater than expectation, you're in abundance. You're, you've got things that you didn't expect in terms of opportunities, promise and value. And I think, you know, the gaps that we're starting to see as people are embracing AI, or at least evaluating how to embrace it is, you know, that gap between expectation and reality. Are you being honest with yourself about which side of the equation you really need to adjust? Because I see, I see clients, I see people that I talk with in industry over rotate both directions. So over rotating to AI is going to solve every problem that I've ever had in my business without effort by magic. Right. And so your expectations are always going to outpace reality when you're hoping for something to accomplish goals that you haven't been able to accomplish, you know, with decades of humans. And I also see people who think, you know, reality is bigger than the expectations. And so they might be the folks that are leaning back a little bit because they don't quite believe that it's going to deliver on, you know, the promise or it's the people who, you know, truly are starting to embrace it and seeing outcomes where they are in a place that they can chart a path that is going to give them additional value and so that abundance kind of thinking. I see an opportunity, I'm a futurist, and I get really excited. And so therefore reality is bigger than expectations because I'm very excited by what is possible?
- [08:08]
Tim Spengler
Yeah, yeah, well, and I think, you know, to your point about there are, yeah, there is this not only divide, but I would even say some organizations are both just in depending on who you talk to and what you're talking about as well. And so there's, there's risk in, in both of those scenarios. What, what would you say to, you know, or what do you say to companies that are, you know, again, lots of companies risk averse, Lots of companies been burned by the latest that, you know, I'm sorry to, for anyone that did that but like anyone that over invested in the Metaverse, you know, let's just say we've gotten burned sometimes before with, with some of these trends. But I think the thing that's, I think different about AI, there's so much hype as well acknowledged, but you can actually generate real value from it too. So it's, it's complicated. Right.
- [09:07]
Stephanie Trunzo
I think about it like a pendulum, right? This is, this is one of the ways that I talk to our clients about it is you think about and you pointed out, you know, there's, you can go back and look at different waves of technology adoption or disruptors or catalysts in every industry and there is a time period where, you know, it's kind of going wild, like no one quite knows, you know. But if you think about a pendulum, you want to be at the point of control, not kind of down on the end swinging wildly in investment in Metaverse or whatever else you, you might be excited about in terms of innovation. And the way that I encourage people to think about it is that that point of control is your value prop, your strategy, your unique differentiators. And I think one of the gaps that ends up getting revealed is if you feel like you're getting whipsawed back and forth at the end of the pendulum, it's probably because you don't really have a strong true north or a strong way of making sure that you can describe what your strategy and value prop is. And I think of like a tell is when people say we need an AI strategy. Well, you need a strategy is what you mean. And then we can talk about how AI might be part of that strategy. So I think that gap, you know, kind of helping people calibrate where they are in that expectation versus reality is a lot about. And you kind of said this as well, shifting the hype from cost cutting, efficiency. I mean those are great words and we all love them. But towards hypothesis testing, like what are you trying to do? Do you have a strategy can you articulate it and what do we want to learn? If you can set up a hypothesis, I think that's where the story starts to change with AI because now you're looking at what is an outcome or an objective. I think this is especially important and at Merge we talk a lot about this, is that we've talked forever about the CTO and the CMO needing to be in the same room. But there's this Venn diagram and I think the more that those circles come together, the better off each organization is going to be. Is like, let's not divide budget, let's not divide attention and energy. Let's think about what can we do differently together because the world has changed around us and so conditions are different, but that's two different mental models also. So, you know, I think we have a confluence of change happening that is AI as a catalyst, but it's also churning up a lot of conversations. Digital transformation, transformation, change management. None of them new words or phrases, just different contexts.
- [11:52]
Tim Spengler
Now do you think that and yes, I mean, you know, anyone, I've, I've got to say I've been doing this for a few decades myself and I've seen, you know, seen the trends in the cycles and you know, you live long enough and you start to see history repeating itself and all that. Do you think that some of the conversations that adopting some of these AI based tools and platforms, do you think they're generating better conversations or are we just kind of repeating ourselves from five years ago?
- [12:22]
Stephanie Trunzo
Yeah, I think, you know, and I just to reflect on what you just said, because I was thinking this morning about talking with you and I was thinking about some of the things even around agile, like, you know, when we had the conversations moving from waterfall to agile and then everyone cheekily was like agile fall because they couldn't really adopt all of the philosophies. And, and I was thinking, okay, yes, I've been doing this for decades as well. And I was starting to think, well, it makes me feel old. And I reframed that because what I instead feel is very privileged that I have gotten to experience these different waves of, you know, rapid technology acceleration, but also the waves of how we as humans adapted ourselves around those waves of technology. And so, you know, to answer your question, I do feel like we're recycling some of the discussions with one key difference which is in the past we recycled them with no new information, no changes in variables, and it was just a complete, you know, loop loop that had no breakthroughs, right? Or like no new opportunities to incorporate change. I think now we have the opportunity to break those infinite loops of discussions because we do have new variables. We do have changes that whether through force or choice, people are going to have to pay attention to. So I do see the conversation shifting. And even that overlap between cto, CIO and CMO necessarily has to change because we're talking about experiences at the end of the day and how other people experience your value prop, your brand, your service, whatever it is. And we can't isolate those discussions into a marketing lens and a technology lens anymore.
- [14:14]
Greg Kilstrom
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- [15:18]
Hayden
Howdy, howdy ho and welcome to Fantasy Fan Fellas. I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson.
- [15:26]
Jack Myers
And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball. But you can call me the Smash Daddy.
- [15:30]
Hayden
And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Stephen here has not read Mistborn before.
- [15:38]
Jack Myers
That's right.
- [15:39]
Tim Spengler
Hey hey.
- [15:40]
Jack Myers
So each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter.
- [15:44]
Hayden
And along the way we' do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong.
- [15:51]
Jack Myers
News flash, I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday and you can find fantasy fan fellows wherever you get your podcasts.
- [16:01]
Tim Spengler
Yeah, talking a little bit about then how we implement this and how we put this to practice. Another thing that you've talked about is AI creating smooth, smooth surfaces while humans provide the texture. I love that, that analogy, but I wonder if you could, you know, unpack that a little bit and maybe give a practical example of, you know, what does this look like in practice?
- [16:25]
Stephanie Trunzo
That I feel like is a, it's a felt thing and a scene thing, right? Like, I feel like when I work with AI, you can tell it's, it's smoothing everything out, right? It's ingesting a ton of information, synthesizing it, playing it back and doing it in a way that is as perfect and frictionless as it can possibly make it. Humans bring half baked thoughts. They bring, you know, ideas that aren't fully fleshed out yet. They bring content written or designed in a way that is not perfect. It is full of nuance and texture and richness. And I think that we as humans have an amazing capacity for incorporating billions of data points in every millisecond and discerning things that we may not ever be able to explain why we understood it the way we understood it. And I think humans are able to detect the difference between that smoothness and something that has texture in it. And so I find myself sometimes inclined as, as an English major of the past who used EM dashes prior to AI Like I find myself sometimes wanting to leave typos in an email or in a document just as like proof of evidence that I was there and this is something that I produced. So that texture that I think humans bring are, is what other humans will react to. It's where emotion comes in. It's where authenticity, you know, is important. And when we're, we're talking especially about things like regulated industry or cases where, like your health information or financial information where it's very important and private and personal, you want to make sure that, that people feel that connection and that emotion is part of the story and that we don't let it just get smoothed away into something that has nothing to hold on to. Then you need texture to grip, right?
- [18:37]
Tim Spengler
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I, I also, I, I do mourn the loss of the EM dash in, in much of my writing. I'm very self cons. I, you know, as, as someone who loved using them, I probably over you. Maybe that's part of why I write enough. I probably helped train a model there or something.
- [18:56]
Stephanie Trunzo
That's the way I think of it. I think, well, all of us amazing writers in the world who have been using punctuation correctly right now, we did the right thing. This is what a well Trained model should look like. I guess.
- [19:08]
Tim Spengler
I know. Yeah. So, you know, another, another key part of implementing is, is experimenting. And I think, you know, you touched a little bit on that. I, I think I've personally, you know, with the companies that I work with, I've, I feel like I've seen a resurgence of marketers thinking about hypothesis and stuff. Not everybody, it doesn't come naturally to everybody. Some people need to learn or whatever. But I do feel like there's a little more of that going on. But also, you know, your, your team at Merch for instance has AI garage to, to do some internal initiatives and things like that. I think things like that are, can be incredibly important. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, what, what have you done with that? How does, how does that work and how might somebody apply something similar?
- [19:53]
Stephanie Trunzo
Yeah, so we do, we have an AI garage. Our AI garage has a couple different objectives, I think about dividing things up a little bit between the experience of using AI and what AI produces. Right. So it's the production of the tool and then what the tool produces. So the AI garage for us is as much about, I think early on especially enablement. Like we can't expect people to pick up tools that they've never used before and automatically have like expert level skill sets on how to use them. And I think how to use them isn't just feature function discussions, it's mental model conversations about how you think. You know, if, if search gave us the ability to consider poetry. Right, because you're condensing all of your thoughts into something very short. AI is giving us the ability to write prose because it's systems level, it's conversation level, it's bigger. And I think that we have AI garage for us is about helping people really think about how this is a paradigm shift rather than just here's a set of tools. So yes, you can go, you know, our AI garage has set it up so that anyone at Merge can log in and see everything that is available for them. We've made a secure moat around it so that it is self safe play basically. And then the AI garage is also developing platforms and agents and tools for us to be using as Merge employees and for our clients. So it's both inward and outward facing. And I think it must be because that is what a mental model requires is change inside and outside.
- [21:45]
Jack Myers
Yeah.
- [21:46]
Tim Spengler
Let's talk a little bit about measurement as well here. And I want to talk about your team evolved its account based marketing ABM approach using AI tools to move beyond you know, to use your words, you know, beyond lazy demographics to real human signals. You know, what is, what does that mean? And how do you measure a success, the success of this more nuanced approach?
- [22:14]
Stephanie Trunzo
Yeah, and I'm so glad you asked about that because I think it is also one of the conversations I'm having very frequently is how do we measure this? So people are wanting to use, just like always, KPIs from the past. But, you know, like, even the measurement, horsepower, you know, you think about like, where did that come from? It was a psychological bridge between a model that people knew, which was horses, and the steam engine in this case. Right. Does it help anyone to measure horsepower? No, it was just a way to help move people's brains from what they knew to what today looks like or the future in that case. And I think we're in the same situation right now, which is, what are the new KPIs? I don't know yet. What we can say is we can define a hypothesis and here's how we'll know whether that thing we're trying to learn, did we learn it or not? And I think people by and large are trying to leverage the existing KPIs that they have to justify investment or decision making in, you know, how they're going to apply their, their funds and innovation. And I think people need to get comfortable with the unknown right now because assuming I can say we're going to have a 15% decrease in budget, sure, we can make up these KPIs, but we have absolutely no evidence until you start the work of understanding truly, is that going to give you the value that you need? So, you know, to your question on ABM and kind of looking differently at the way we identify individuals, we don't have to rely on Personas, have a place and a purpose, and they're very useful. Journeys are useful, but they are not practical and real. Right. They are abstractions and they are concept. And so now we have the ability to use those to drive our understanding of reality and find Greg and find Stephanie and understand more about us as individuals than what a flat Persona or, you know, an ideal journey, when the reality of a journey is, is never linear. Right. Like we're living our lives in 3D. So.
- [24:29]
Greg Kilstrom
Right.
- [24:29]
Stephanie Trunzo
That's a lot of the work that we're doing is, is helping people and, and ourselves. We have a big drink your own champagne mentality here at Merge is that we have to always be our own first customer. We should learn and that share that with our clients. And a lot of those conversations truly are about, I know this is how you used to measure your business clicks eyeballs. These are not the things that we need to be measuring anymore. And I think that is also a really exciting moment because just like horsepower and just like, you know, when, when agile became kind of the first order of conversation, you start to realize what value do you really want to measure? And that doesn't come until you are in the process. You can't know what you're going to measure until you kind of get into the work a little bit.
- [25:20]
Tim Spengler
Yeah. And I think that that gets to just the, the complexity of these things. And I know again, predating AI transformation, digital transformation was certainly, you know, many organizations tied up in that for years, some successful, some not so much, but all of them doing something. So it's, in a sense, it's not that we're necessarily doing something completely different than we were five, 10 years ago with some of these transformation things. But the ROI of an AI initiative is often tied to transforming processes, transforming entire systems. How do you begin to measure things when it's a work in progress, but also it depends on so many changing pieces. Right.
- [26:10]
Stephanie Trunzo
And I think that acknowledging what you said is the first step. And this is a big part of, you know, we say digital transformation, we say change management. You know, change management, I think for many years was a throwaway phrase of like, if there's a little extra budget, we will allocate it to change management. Otherwise we're just going to roll these things out and change will happen by magic. And I think again, AI is a catalyst for revealing some of the gap there, that this isn't a nice to have. We can call it, label it something else, but acknowledging that an ROI on an AI investment is not a technology ROI on a tools decision. It is ROI against all of the change that needs to take place, whether that's organizationally, whether that's defining new workflows, whether that is, you know, like I said, it may even be the whole way back up the stack upstream at making sure you know what your strategy and value prop is. So it's very difficult to measure all of those aspects. But I do think that the first step is at least acknowledging that you're aware as an organization that all of those things need to be touched and that you do need to think about how they're all going to come together. I also really encourage people, like we talked about the Pendulum, a little bit like, pick a couple fun projects that are not going to impact your core business or your value prop and use them to learn on like you can set measurement against smaller scoped projects and learn from them and let that ladder up into your bigger transformation story. You know and I think a little bit that that two mental models also coming together between technology and marketing is additional complexity on top of everything that we just described here. Because you've got, I think if you come from a technology lens, you believe in iteration, you believe in continuous improvement. You it's baked into your DNA that there is no such thing as done. Like you are always moving right? And in traditional advertising, you know where marketing kind of came out of, there is a sense of done because at some point the thing goes up in Times Square or the ad is right and like there is this notion. And so those mental models also are pretty different. You know, we from a tech lens you identify a scope and then you figure out the budget. Marketing figures out budget and then identifies scope. Like it's a two different worlds coming together at the same time. This big collision of exciting things are happening in the industry around us. And I think it's also, you know, back to your earlier question. It's a reason why these conversations can't continue to just circle a drain. There are too many new variables and new things that need to be considered that I think we're going to be able to unlock a bunch of decade old hopes and dreams in the next, I don't know, five months. Let's see how fast acceleration really is happening. But fast.
- [29:19]
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- [30:22]
Tim Spengler
We can't just be focused on the technology. We can't just be focused on the platforms and some of these other things. What's the, what's the capability or, or even the mindset that, that orgs need to be fostering within not only their leadership but the, the people doing the work to get through what, whatever. The next thing, you know, the. There, there's going to be a new, you know, a new anthropic model tomorrow and a new, you know what. But like that's, those are details in the, in the scheme of things. What's the, what's the capability that really needs to be built to navigate all this?
- [30:57]
Stephanie Trunzo
One thing is that we need to be redefining what leadership skills are required in this moment. Resilience, the understanding that change is hard and good and that you can't sit still, that evolution is a critical. There's no business anymore. It does not matter what industry you're in. You know, we work a lot with regulated industry, which is even more complex and adds additional layers on top of all of the layers that we've been discussing. But I think that, you know, really leaders who understand how to bring their organization with them through major changes like this, it is not command and control, it is not giving five year plans, it is being in the moment and reacting in the moment. And yes, having a North Star, having a stable point that you can reflect back to, but helping people through that change. I think too people need to start thinking a little differently about the order of things. I think about things like test driven development. You know, there's a, there was a moment in time where it was like this was the last thing we do. Well, how about instead you start thinking about it, you know, earlier in the process and then that changes the dynamic. And I think we're going to see the same thing with AI like we're doing, you know, AEO and GEO and all of these things that are looking backwards at things that have been created already or structures that are already in place to now make them AI friendly in some way or optimized. But if you're optimizing something, it's because it already exists and you're going back and applying new constraints to it. I think we're going to start to see, and we need to. And we are starting to think about how you pull all of those things earlier in the cycle. Right. How do I make sure. And sure, I definitely do this for fun in my spare time I write text messages in a way on purpose so that when they get summarized to my intended recipient, right, they're either funny or they're Making sure that they actually pull out the right information. And that's just because our brain is starting to learn, right, as you see it often enough, what that translation is going to look like. So I think a big shift is going to be pulling a lot of these concepts earlier in our conversations, in our strategies, in our content production and, and, you know, back to why that's all uniquely human is those ideas and the advice and encouragement I give. Right. Is that we should never outsource creativity. That is something that is uniquely human, that is part of texture, that is part of like, don't outsource ideas, don't outsource your thinking, your critical judgment. Those are all things that they need to be core and most important as we leverage AI.
- [33:59]
Tim Spengler
Yeah, I mean, I think the opportunity, I wouldn't say it's a guarantee, but the opportunity is, I think of the, the term shift left from like engineering and testing and stuff that describes, I think, what you're. What you're talking about, which I will say, I think a lot of people, myself included, like I've. Everyone considers themselves strategic, I'm sure. Right. So nobody wants to say they're not strategic. But I've noticed that I have been more strategic in some areas because of exactly what you're talking about is like, I benefit by thinking 10 steps ahead. I've always done that in some things that I do when I'm intentional about it. But I find myself actually doing it more with more things. And my hope would be many more people can adopt that approach as well because they have the tools that can then do some of, frankly, the less glamorous parts of this work down the road and they can actually afford that mental.
- [34:59]
Stephanie Trunzo
Yes.
- [35:00]
Tim Spengler
Real estate for it.
- [35:01]
Stephanie Trunzo
Totally. And I, I think that, you know, the, the idea of pulling some of this stuff earlier in the cycle does give you a different frame of reference for how to think about strategy and create some space for it. I also think that, you know, I heard something or read it, that if you can't describe a concept in 60 seconds, you shouldn't have an opinion on it. And I loved that because I think a lot of what we see right now is are people that have opinions on things that they have themselves not ever learned about. Right. So I am also always encouraging, especially folks in the C suite who maybe don't have a ton of time, but you need to get your hands on things and play with it yourself because it is the only way I feel like people are going to really get. Where is the value for them. You Know, how do they think about it for their company and their audience? And, and so if you haven't picked it up, you know, built an app for your family to track the shows they're watching or do something that is just for fun like, you know, measure the, the growth of your plants in your garden or I don't care, whatever interests you, do it in your spare time so that you actually have an informed opinion. Because I think a lot of the struggle that I'm watching play out and even that pendulum swinging is coming from people who don't know. They truly just do not know and they need to invest a little bit of time themselves in learning.
- [36:29]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah.
- [36:30]
Tim Spengler
Well, Stephanie, thanks so much for joining today. Really, really appreciate you sharing your insights. Got a couple, couple last questions as we wrap up here. First one, if we were having this interview one year from today, what is one thing that we would definitely be talking about
- [36:46]
Stephanie Trunzo
a year from today? I think we would be talking about how insanely advanced we've become in understanding our own health, our own bodies, our own data, how much in a year we have leapfrogged decades of attempts at untangling some of I, you know, we already see it. So I can only imagine in a year what it is going to look like for individuals who truly want to take control of their own health journeys. I think also in a year, my hope is that AI is only in the second sentence, not the first sentence that we are talking about the objective of what we're trying to do and what is the reason that, that we care about this and what is the virtuous goal for a population? And the second sentence is and here is how we're using AI or how AI is helping us achieve that.
- [37:43]
Tim Spengler
Yeah, love it. And last question for you. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
- [37:52]
Stephanie Trunzo
I am an extremely curious person. I love learning. I like new things. So I'm one of those bizarre people who changes like a joy. I love it. So it's easy for me. But I also, I practice yoga. I offer that to my employees and to Merge and anyone whoever wants to practice. But I do feel like a lot of it is, it is agile in the sense that you yourself need to believe that learning, growing, being curious is good and it is something maybe you're just pre inclined and drawn towards.
- [38:29]
Tim Spengler
Yeah.
- [38:30]
Greg Kilstrom
Love it.
- [38:30]
Tim Spengler
Well, again I'd like to thank Stephanie Trunzo, chief executive officer at Merge for joining the show. You can learn more about Stephanie and
- [38:37]
Greg Kilstrom
Merge by following the links in the show notes, this episode is brought to you by Merge. Merge is a marketing and technology agency built for the intersection of health and wellness. They help organizations navigate AI, digital transformation and emerging technologies with a human centered approach, using storytelling and technology to create more meaningful connections with the people they serve. Learn more at www.and thanks again for listening to the Agile Brand podcast. If you like the episode hit subscribe and drop a rating so others can find the show too. And if you're interested in consulting, advisory work, or if you need a speaker for your next event, feel free to reach out. Just visit GregKilstrom.com that's G R E G K I H L S T
- [39:30]
Tim Spengler
R
- [39:32]
Greg Kilstrom
the Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link, a Latina owned, strategy driven, creatively fueled production co op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Until next time, stay curious and stay agile.
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