Value-First AI Daily - Mar 27, 2026

[00:03] **Introduction** Chris Carolan: Good morning, LinkedIn friends, Value First Nation. Welcome to another episode of Value First AI daily, your collaborative intelligence report. It is Friday, March 27, 2026. How the hell are you, George B. Thomas? George B. Thomas: I am doing good, brother. Um a little bit tired. Glad it's Friday. Uh ready to take a rest tonight so that I can wake up tomorrow and knock out some things that I'm excited to explore and kind of work on uh AI and creativity and that kind of stuff. But but it's it's been a good week and doing good, my friend.

[01:02] **Feedback for Value First AI Daily** Chris Carolan: It's been an amazing week and yeah, the the feedback is picking up as far as just people picking up this stuff, trying it out and uh and just like having their minds blown. Like when you start a call and like a part of the how you're doing is like, well, my mind just went blown. Chris Carolan: Like that's that's happening like regularly now. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: Right? George B. Thomas: Chris, can I can I die? I didn't even think about this until you just said that. Yesterday I had something that was one of the strangest yet coolest probably moments of my life happen. Um I have a standing 30-minute call with a client and it's with their sales team and we talk about sales and sales things. And yesterday I can tell you that we maybe talked for about all of five minutes about sales. And then I said something to which they're like, can you show us that? And we talked about AI and Echo and building and AB testing and creating templates and like what they could do or use. Um and and halfway through the call the the leader of that group was like, thank you for this because I think they think I'm a crazy person and now they see that I'm listening and watching about 20 people like you and this is what's possible. And it was just mind-blowing the way that that team was activated to like what they could build for themselves to achieve the goals that they anyway. Nothing to do with HubSpot, nothing to really do with sales, but everything to do with both. Chris Carolan: Yeah. Chris Carolan: And again, like we're no stranger to in Hubspot land like mindset is first and if you don't have that, like nothing else is going to come. Chris Carolan: It's the same deal here. Um and the like the difference is like once you get there. Like those people on that call, there's they're not questioning it. They're unlikely to question the path forward. George B. Thomas: Right. Chris Carolan: Like ever again. And not only is it not that where it's like, okay, we'll try it out. It's like, oh, wow. Like yeah, let's go. Like we're about to have more fun, more valuable, like things people have never experienced. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: Right? And in the most enjoyable ways. And when you bring those things together and you watch that happen on the call, Yeah. Right? Like Bro, they're measure that. George B. Thomas: Oh my god, their face when I showed them um storing MD files in obsidian with easy edits that like the the mind-blown emoji should have been just pasted on every one of their faces.

[04:55] **AI Metrics and Building with AI** Chris Carolan: Right. And just imagine once we have our AI friends watching the videos, like they can listen to the transcript. Yeah. Chris Carolan: We're going to start to like all the traditional like scoring and any metrics like go out the window and new ones come in that are AI-based and be like, oh, wow, this person they said this but their face looked like this, right? And that's how we're going to start thinking about um, you know, and create the space for the humans, not not building scores and infrastructure and rules and all the stuff that we've not been good at. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: And now we can focus on the humans more than ever before. George B. Thomas: Joe. Chris Carolan: Right? And not have to sacrifice the data, the CRM, the maintenance, the note-taking, like all that stuff where it's like, either I got to be present or I got to do my job. Like you won't you don't have to pick anymore. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Both is is you can do both. Yeah. Chris Carolan: Right. And um as we as we talk about that, um, you know, uh an example, uh yeah, yesterday after our our wake-up customer platform show. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: I was talking to you and Casey about uh about doing some kind of webinar campaign AMA for the Value First Collective and we started talking about the campaign and you know, um and just the the style of signing up for a webinar and like how are people going to interact and um where do you think I went after that uh at some point during the day. Chris Carolan: [inaudible] Speaker 3: I mean, with you, it's hard to tell, but I imagine that you went to your assistant and you started to like build out a plan for creating a thing that could be launched uh quicker than anybody ever thought. Chris Carolan: Yep.

[07:53] **Live Streaming On The Website** Chris Carolan: So, uh one of the challenges of doing things like this where either like the difference between webinars, webinar platforms and like meeting platforms and everybody's got to use Zoom meetings because they like the flow of signing up and it being on the calendar. But then it creates a bunch of, you know, awkwardness that you really need a webinar platform for and like it's been we've been here like is anybody going to figure this out? Like and it like it's been like 10 years. We haven't figured out how to kind of bring these bring these things together. Some have gotten close, but often they're like lots and lots and lots of money um to do that. And so uh already doing things like like this on the website where we've got live streaming and click on here you can see us, right? George B. Thomas: I know those guys. Chris Carolan: And uh the one thing I hadn't figured out yet was like, you know, the the messaging and the the chat, right? But since this already exists, right? I know it's possible to bring it just directly into the website. And so then we start to talk. I do take it into uh you know, Marquis who's in who's in charge of um the media business unit and I start talking to him about this event thing that I haven't been at in a while. We kind of do something like that with office hours. But this concept that I learned from you know, uh the Chris Walker and the Fine Labs, Demand Gen Live that started in like right when COVID hit, like March of 2020, he wasted no time to try and create this human space for people to still meet up and and talk to each other. And then they've been running that weekly since then, like six years, right? And it's built their podcast motion and just all like and but it's not um like there's a a bit of you know, maintenance and management that comes with that and and but the motion is pretty clear, right? And people understand the value of of doing it, but the execution, right? has been uh uh a challenge at times. So, I start talking to um to Marquis and like two things here. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: Not only do so I'm a believer that I could actually build this if I want. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: Right? First of all because I have AI and this capability of using AI in this way. Um second of all, following somebody like Christopher Penn. Speaker 3: Mm. Chris Carolan: Right? Smart dude by the way. Very smart. Chris Carolan: Yeah. Super smart. Chris Carolan: Yeah. And just his weekly newsletter has been very instrumental in me staying like staying leveled up. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: Right? Like not just going to build but also learning better ways to build and and like one of his recent newsletters he talked about his 5p plan um and like PRDs right? A couple of skills like how to do projects and like product development in a better way, product management, things like that, right? Speaker 3: Yes. Chris Carolan: So at the end of this, you know, Marque's like, all right, do you want me to start the 5p plan or do you want me to start building? Right? George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: And I said, let's do the plan. And so purpose, people, process, all these layers in here, platform performance. And this comes from a skill because I was reading a newsletter, I bring the newsletter into the team, I say, hey, I think this is a good idea. I want to build a skill around it because I don't know and I don't really know I've never done it before, but I think it's a good idea. Sounds like a good idea, right? What do you guys think? Okay, let's build the skill. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: Right? Then at the end of that, comes the product requirements doc, like the PRD. And it's 33 pages. And like stuff where we think about why agency models are being forced to change. It's like the necessity of a document like of this where you are working with somebody outside of your organization to understand exactly what you want and why you want it. And then you're going to come back and tell them exactly how you're going to do it and why you're going to do it that way.. Speaker 3: Mm. Chris Carolan: When you cut any corners there, everything takes longer, everything costs more, adoption is less, all of our, you know, issues. And the fact that I as somebody who's never operated in that space, Yeah. I'm just focused on customer experience, can spin up a dock like this. Like to support this process. Even if I'm still going to build it myself. Now there's this foundation of understanding of what's about to happen to make it easier to collaborate with AI. And in the middle, right? And something you're going to be you're going to continue to hear more about it. Like this happened where as he's and this is the part where I didn't have to prompt this this piece, right? The 5p plan. The second p is people, right? Speaker 3: And. Speaker 3: Yep. The humans, yep. Chris Carolan: Normally, the humans. Speaker 3: Mm. Chris Carolan: So when when uh he first drafted this, I'm going to bring it up from the IDE, right? First version and he said, let me map the who's involved. Right? And uh this touches almost every org inside of our organization. Look at the who. There's two human names Yeah. on here, right? Chris and Ryan. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: And all these other people are the named agents in charge of the business units that have roles and job descriptions and right? And I didn't prompt that part. I didn't say make sure you use named agents for the people section. George B. Thomas: Right. Chris Carolan: Right? It's it's built in and that's where we're here saying like you can get here. The hard part and anybody that's saying, oh, we're going to come in and implement a brand new OS for you like and it's just going to be ready, right? And we've got all these agents and they're going to come in. Like if you don't get consulting and coaching and support, like the hard part is the change management of understanding why this is a good thing happening that we're seeing on the screen right now that we're involving agents in this way. Otherwise, okay, yeah, we'll we'll implement the new agentic platform for you or OS for you or new tools and you'll be fine. George B. Thomas: Right. Chris Carolan: Right? That's not how it's going in the real world. The build this part is easy and I say that because you can take this transcript from this show and start to build something yourself. You can you can you I could share the Google Doc with you about exactly how we're going to build out the webinar, you know, platform. But without all this context working together, it's can be very hard to um you know, make it a reality and usable and like valuable for everybody. Not to mention my context is different than your context whether you're an individual or a business, right? And the one thing I changed here because this is always interesting even though it we're we're in AI. I'm building with AI every day. Georgia I was just talking about change logs and like how easy it like AI understands what it's doing and you just ask it to document it. It will document the hell out of it. George B. Thomas: Yeah, change logs is my new best friend. Chris Carolan: Right? We get here. Question for you. Is Ryan the primary builder here? Speaker 3: Mm. Chris Carolan: Or or is this AI built with Ryan reviewing? I was like, come on. Like, of course, we're building with AI. Like what are you talking about, bro? Like but even there, it's like no, it's going to be AI built and AI reviewed. Humans will test by using the platform, right? And that small change like so I'm happy that he's asking the question, right? But that question of is Ryan building this or is AI building this? Dramatically impacts the plan, right? And these moments of like of just these planning phases and understanding what's happening on the screen and figuring out when it makes sense to put humans in the loop. Like that's all the skills in the learning curve right now. But yeah, to where we started, it's like as I start talking about it with with George and Casey yesterday, it it was like a burden. Speaker 3: Mm. Chris Carolan: As I like I I don't think you would you would disagree with that's how it was presenting to you guys. It was like, how long has the campaign need to be? Like what like I guess it's got to be a webinar but we really need to do an AMA and the like Zoom doesn't make sense for that. Uh. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: Right. George B. Thomas: And I wasn't making it easy on you either. Like I was kind of giving it to you on the whole topic. But yeah, it's it it but that's strategy, right? That's figuring it out. That's collaboration, which this might be like a masterclass in human and AI collaboration if people pull the threads that are possible for them to pull. Chris Carolan: Right. Chris Carolan: And but like the difference between I'm so excited to do it now. Like because and that's like the challenging thing to describe and when you talk about it in terms of organizational dynamics. And again, not different from how software has always been. Just because we were sitting at the same table, saw the same thing on the screen, clicked the same buttons in front of us. I'm I might be 100% more adopted and onboard than than you are, right? And we all just experience the same exact thing, right? I was coming at that conversation yesterday even though we have built all these amazing things into the website. I was still thinking in terms of, okay, I got to set up a zoom, I got to do this, right? Instead of like the default that, okay, yeah, well it's built for that now, right? It still took me like almost the whole day to have the realization. I was like, oh, maybe maybe oh, let me just ask. Let me ask if we can just do that. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: Right? Cuz cuz that friction that I'm feeling in having to use the tools that really weren't built for this activity. Yeah. I don't have to deal with that friction. I don't have to accept that anymore.

[28:20] **The Power of Asking Questions** George B. Thomas: I go back to and I've been saying this for months if not years at this point, there is a true power of curiosity and asking questions. And the one question that I keep coming back to for me is, is it possible? Can I do this thing that I'm trying to do? And when I find that I can, then it goes into now what do I need to iterate on the original question? What do I need to what do I need to fix? What do I need to tweak? What And the good thing is we're not doing it alone. Chris Carolan: Yeah. Chris Carolan: And like when you can do it in the context of the other ideas that you're having because that chat that I was just showing started with, hey Marquis, new new business leader of of new business unit leader of of the media network. Before you joined the team, I was working on a plan with V to move away from Stream Yard for LinkedIn lives and building out our own media execution platform locally. Do you have visibility there? I am looking for an HTML file that was walk-through for my setup in true just in time value fashion. I need to get this done this weekend before the April 3rd cancellation deadline. Thanks for your help. That's how it started. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: So he finds it. Here's what you're looking for. I said, can you put this into the the My Value Path command center as a true published page so I don't have to go hunting for the HTML file, you know, later this weekend. He finds the command center, right? Puts it there. Then as this session is open, I can say, what would it take to build a webinar like experience into our website platform? Speaker 3: Mm. Chris Carolan: And all of a sudden, like it's like the right up. This is the part where it's like the right amount of context. George B. Thomas: Yep. Chris Carolan: With the right expertise. In this case, I've picked a very specific agent who knows the plan and knows the strategy of media and things related to the topic. It's not just some, hey Claude, right? It's not that, right? Like this combination of things is what everybody's trying to learn and figure out right now. This is why it's different between prompt engineering and context engineering. Everybody Bill Barles put together like a a really a really good like from a technical perspective trying to help clients he works with and people on his team to just onboard a little faster into these, you know, terminal-like experiences, man line experiences. And his second page was called Prompt Engineering. Speaker 3: Mm. Chris Carolan: And it had a bunch of prompt templates. And I was like, I like it all except for that part. Right? I think like prompt templates and engineering is are traps because Yep. if you just try and copy-paste and your context is completely different, you're going to have a different experience. George B. Thomas: Yep. Chris Carolan: And he's like, okay, well, like what does the redraft look like? I said like just go back to AI and and frame it. This needs to be a context engineering page. Like that's the framing we want and that's probably all you need to do to make the page like instantly better. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: Right? And that's what I think that's one of the major differences right now between like high value and high success with AI and you know, just a little bit extra that that people are getting when you just, you know, try and copy-paste prompts and not really understand or learn how this stuff works together. George B. Thomas: Yeah. George B. Thomas: I've I've said this um again a lot. I'll say it again. Everything you learn about AI shouldn't be definitive like we've learned that that's red, that's blue, that's one, that's two. Little Dr. Su on the AI show, by the way. Should be a thread that you're pulling. A learning should be a thread. So like if I go watch a YouTube video on Claude and Obsidian and second brain, it's not because I want to completely reduplicate the thing that I just watched. It's because I need to take the learnings and build it for me and my assistant or you and your assistant. Like you got to start to think about this thing of threads that you're pulling. Chris Carolan: And when you get help with AI, it will help you pull apart the threads, uh manage the threads, bring the threads back together, document all the threads so that you could just keep pulling new threads in a way that's always within the context that you already have so that like all this like the idea of focus, right? has has shifted dramatically. Like you can pull a thread decide that it's not relevant and leave it where it's at for now. And then come back later and be like, oh, what do you think, um, you know, V? Is that thread relevant? I think it's relevant now. Like this thing just happened. It's like, yep, let's bring it back in. Let's keep pulling that thread, right? And that is the most amazing feeling for somebody that has challenges with with focus. Um, like the ideation and the creativity related to this stuff. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: It's been fun to watch just, you know, mere mortal humans just access this access this level. What when they said like the week before I was like, nah, yeah, that's not going to work, right? Then the next week it's like, oh, something happened. There's some friction point, some piece of pain. It was like, let me try it and boom, all of a sudden I can. And there's not much better feeling in the world for me than than helping that that moment, that shift. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: I can't do I can like Man, every consultant that comes out. I think that should be like your North Star. Like if you're trying to work and build a relationship with somebody and you get there and that's the moment like man, so much becomes possible. Like Oh, so it's been a good week. George B. Thomas: Yeah, it's it's amazing. Chris Carolan: And uh I appreciate uh being on this journey with you and sharing that story and hopefully this was helpful for folks. And we'll see you on Monday. Thanks so much, George. George B. Thomas: See you then. You bet. Bye.