Tech, Travel, and Twang!
Come for the thoughts, stay for the tea. The co-founders of Destination Innovate, Jennifer Barbee and Kristen Cruz brew up the latest industry tea every Tuesday - diving into simmering issues, hot trends, and special guests. Grab a cup and let’s spill the tea!
Tech, Travel, and Twang!
Tuesday Tea Ep. #2 | Bringing the Online Travel Experience to Real Life
Ever wondered how a simple weekend trip can transform into a gastronomic adventure? Join us as Kristen recounts her meticulously planned couple's getaway to Dallas, filled with delicious meals and perfectly timed dining experiences. Meanwhile, Jenn takes us through her "big think weekend" where documentary watching met family time and culinary creativity, leading to a tasty chicken enchilada casserole recipe that’s both easy and delightful. We also talk about our contrasting TV habits—from educational documentaries to guilty pleasures like Love Island and Jersey Shore, offering a little something for everyone’s viewing tastes.
But our journey doesn’t stop there. Discover the allure of upscale movie theaters that redefine the cinematic experience with luxurious amenities that go beyond just films. This sparks a broader discussion on how destinations are evolving to offer rich, multi-faceted experiences that attract both residents and visitors alike. We celebrate the growing genuine participation of destinations in Pride Month, emphasizing the importance of inclusivity and community engagement in creating vibrant and welcoming environments for all while staying away from rainbow-washed marketing tactics.
Lastly, we take a nostalgic trip down memory lane, sharing stories from past travels like our spur-of-the-moment visit to New York City in 2009, where we encountered the lively Pride Parade and had an amusing run-in with Neil Patrick Harris at Coney Island. We compare these unplanned adventures with the structured family cruise vacations, exploring the pros and cons of both. Wrapping up, we delve into the evolving nature of marketing and tourism conferences, the influence of AI on creativity, and the vital need to rekindle passion and innovation in our industry. This episode is packed with insights, laughter, and a few surprises – don’t miss out!
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The Tech, Travel, and Twang Podcast is hosted by Co-Founders, Kristen Cruz and Jenn Barbee with Destination Innovate. Learn More! https://destinationinnovate.com/about/
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Well, welcome to Tuesday Tea, our special edition of Tech Travel. And Twang, I'm Jen Barbie. Good morning Kristen.
Speaker 2:Good morning, Jen Barbie. Happy Tuesday.
Speaker 1:Happy Tuesday. We have purposely not spoken this morning, so this is the last time we'll break the fourth wall and talk to the audience, because the rest of this is just going to be what we normally do.
Speaker 2:Us dishing and you know, and you know, just crossing a whole lot of lanes honestly so what did you do this weekend? Well, I did a little couple's trip Nice, went to Dallas, did brunch, ate a lot, obviously Like that's the's, the. You know, when you plan a couple's trip, the first thing you plan out is where are we going to eat? And then, before you get there, you look at the menu and be like what are we going to eat when we get to the place we're going to eat girl, you're such a hallmark oh my god what's the cocktail menu.
Speaker 2:Look like what's their less busier times? I have you know, what's funny is that we have begun to like when we, when we do like weekend stuff, we'll totally like fast the morning time and we'll skip one, like we'll go straight into like three or four o'clock and then we'll go do something because it's so much it it's so it's much less crowded. You don't have to deal with all the people. Your service is better and the food, I feel like, is better. It's fresh. I feel like the staff focuses more on the food. It's just like that good window to eat.
Speaker 1:I just feel like that's the best window, oh my gosh. And now that you're concluding your Hallmark commercial meanwhile, and been married 30 years, land we, uh, we really had such a just like super chill. I called it my um big think weekend. I did a bunch of documentaries, you know, drew did his thing, the girls did their thing, we watched the movies together. Mostly it was cooking, so lots of.
Speaker 2:I did the easy, quick version of chicken enchilada casserole on Saturday and I did a fish fry yesterday, taught the kids how to fry catfish you're gonna have to share with me the easy, quick chicken enchilada casserole recipe, because I have a lot of fans in this house and I do not like the long process of chicken enchilada it is a bag of pre-roasted chicken from Walmart, like rotisserie chicken.
Speaker 1:Yes, rotisserie chicken. Just easy, fast, it's already tastes great. A can of rotel, can of cream of chicken, saute some bell peppers, onions, mix all that together and then you know blended Mexican cheese, and then I just layer it with tortillas, corn tortillas, and then bake it. Super, super easy. It's a cheater's way, but it's.
Speaker 2:That does actually sound good though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was great way, but it's that does actually sound good though. Yeah, it was great. I love my food. Yeah, food, I just feel like food just in general. You know, just it's it that's just at the forefront of all things these days. You know, just, you just kind of plan around because it's just more than food. It's like time together you get to sit down, enjoy a meal. Oh yeah, chaos and just over being overloaded with just like we're just overstimulated. So it's nice. Yeah, easy, chill weekend. I love the think weekends, though. I love the idea of a think. Your weekends involve documentaries and like things where you educate yourself. You actually learn something you probably didn't know before. My like, when I actually sit down to watch tv. I've watched the trashiest, like the most unnecessary. I need to tell you, though, love Island is like. That's like my. That's like one of those shows where you don't admit to watching it, but I secretly love Love Island.
Speaker 1:It's so stupid but it's so much fun and then like I told you how much if I told you how much Jersey Shore I watched at one point, you would not even like. We still watch the Jersey Shore family vacation. My tastes run from PBe Herman to Oscar Wilde, like you never know what's going to happen with me.
Speaker 1:But speaking of documentaries, I did watch one this weekend on Hulu which is actually ties into hospitality. It's on Las Vegas and it's a limited series. I think it's like six or seven episodes. It's about how Las Vegas came to be and I just found it like super fascinating.
Speaker 1:It gripped me for a lot of reasons, but one is, you know, as we're talking about like future destinations and all that, so it's interesting that Vegas really was born in the depression, so really became you know place and if you met, if you think about it makes a lot of sense and they continued to identify, even through different you know entertainment changes and all that, as being the capital of fun and that's all they ever had to be, you know. And of course, they started to branch out into families and things like that. Now, but it just made me think, um, one profile they did is on this this man, his name is Jay Serrano and he created Caesar's Palace because once kind of the big name, the Elvisey things, it was his concept to create this. It was the first themed resort hotel in the country and people thought it was insane because he made this like hedonistic seizures he had, the girls were going around in like the. You know the um roman times.
Speaker 1:Yes, people walking around in togas feeding each other grapes. They thought it was crazy. It blew up. So then he created circus circus. So completely yeah. So this guy's like a super legend like I'd never heard of, so I thought that was really cool. So Circus Circus was a whole different kind of immersive, complete experience.
Speaker 2:Girl. Yes, that's a whole topic. Like that's one of the things I wanted to dig into today because I saw some. I saw a few things over the past few days that really kind of caught my eye in terms of just just the, just the level that we're coming to in terms of the experiences and the immersiveness and just tying the pop culture and the things that we're into, you know, collect immersive is well think about why there's such a such a worry about ai right and metaverse and travel.
Speaker 1:It's because you can create an immersive experience over there and I love the fact that we're looking at you know, real, tangible, irl overall experiences. People want, like we talked about last time, individualized experiences and it just more goes into doubling down on the niche. May seem crazy at first but it pays off. We just did that um a little bit of information for that article about individualized experiences and creating avatars for short-term rentals. I mean mean you could create any niche, anything and have some sort of audience for it.
Speaker 2:You could have like a broccoli bungalow and it's still going to because it's right and you can adapt to that, like some of the things I saw, like there's, you know, there's Barbie is still like a big thing, right, that's a huge, themed, immersive experience that you can cross. That's a huge, themed, immersive experience that you can cross.
Speaker 2:So the Atlantis in the Bahamas did something like they did an entire like takeover at their resort on the Barbie situation. They have rooms experiences, there's poolside events, there's all these various things, side events, there's all these various things. And what's so funny is I saw a few days ago that Napa Valley the content team over in Napa Valley did a whole content series on it's like. It's like Barbie Napa or Barbie Napa Valley, and they basically took Barbie and they styled her and Kintu and all of her accessories and they put her in these different experiences throughout Napa Valley and it's like you could go from the Bahamas to Napa Valley with that experience and it's it's just such a I mean, pop culture is huge.
Speaker 1:I think there's so many and this just points to the activations being so clever and not always having to be, you know, multi-million dollar productions, which is cool on that side, but on the other like a couple of dolls and some creativity like that's amazing.
Speaker 2:And that's so. It's so crazy. Yeah, and I saw too that universal. You know I'm not like the kids always want to do. When we talk about Disney, we always talk about like the universal side, because to me I feel like my kids are a little bit older, so it's just a little bit more to their age range. But you know, they're adding a haunted house to their Halloween experience this year. That is themed a quiet place, so it's like they're taking that and pulling that experience that like frightening, everything is silent experience, and pulling that into like those types of things.
Speaker 1:More and more people want to have the experience that they're seeing on their screens. Another documentary, 15 minute documentary I watched this weekend was on Disney in Hong Kong with their frozen activation, or their frozen land. It's not really an activation when you talk Disney, but it is. It's the sights, it's the smells, it's the, it's all senses into these things Absolutely Immersive experiences it's. I think we're just going to demand more and more of that, because now we have a taste of what that can be like.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and so it's not going to necessarily be. We're changing the way that we as a culture interact when we travel, and that's just. You know, every destination is going to have to adapt to something like that within their destination and it could be very easy, simple things. It could be just a stop along the way, that just as a quick, immersive, something like. There's so many ways to incorporate that in. But I thought that was really, I thought that was really cool and I think too, at the same time there's there's so many like I always talk about Bridgerton's, another. I think like huge, obviously huge right now. But I really feel like Charlotte should do more with the connection to Bridgerton. You know, I feel like that is a destination. There's so much more opportunity there to really bring, yeah, that city, yeah, bring that, push them into a very culturally diverse destination. But there is an and there's an, there's a like an obvious connection there where there could be more immersion with that show.
Speaker 2:But yeah, summit that that's. It's really fun to watch these destinations come up with what they come up with and be part of planning some of them too. Like that's the fun part of just being able to connect digital to, like, the in-person and just bring that whole thing together.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You know, that can even be done in, you know, from a restaurant, a very themed, a very specific doesn't have to be a massive type of attraction.
Speaker 2:It could be a cocktail, it could be a themed cocktail, it could be the experience, that of the, of the person bringing you your cocktail, right, it could be so many, little, just little things. And those are again. We're an overstimulated society in general, so sometimes it's the smaller stimulation that we remember the most because we're overstimulated in in general. So sometimes it's the smaller stimulation that we remember the most because we're overstimulated in so many other areas.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And speaking of restaurants, one piece of news I saw this morning is retail is back on the rise. They've been hurting so bad, but a lot of that's mixed use retail and it's because it's the restaurants holding it up retail and it's because it's the restaurants holding it up. You know restaurants are seeing, thankfully, a great surgence of, you know, in-person dining and, you know, with the foodie culture and people having babies a little bit later, both of those things are contributing to this renaissance of restaurants. And so you know a lot of these mixed-use retail which I thought was interesting, the ones that are doing better, and occupancy, because we work with a lot of mixed use retail too and they face a lot of challenges. But what I thought was cool was ones who are adding activities like pickleball things that can make them stay longer.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, because it is like getting out and so you leave the house, right, and you've got small kids at home or you go someplace, like you actually travel to go someplace you're going to, you're more likely to get to get out of the house, get everybody together because you know how long that takes, right, but getting on the road and maybe going an hour, even a couple of hours, you know we sometimes will travel a couple of hours just to spend a day doing something. But if I know that the place I'm going to eat also has active, like we could be there for two or three hours and eat, do an activity, I really feel like. That's why, you know, we went to ipic this weekend and we saw bad boys. What's the new bad boys movie? What's the end of it? I can't remember. It's the new bad boys movie bad boys 600 they've had them.
Speaker 2:I don't know it's the, but I will tell you, to me it was much better than the last bad boys, the bad boys for life, which I think, yeah, much better, much better.
Speaker 2:But we saw it at ipic and you know, ipic is like they've got your, you've got your like little you're obviously you're like you're reclining seats and they bring you your food and all of that, but it's like your little isolated pod. You know, you kind of feel like you're at the movies by yourself. But in this Ipig they had pool tables. They have lounging spots. They had a little area where there was like music playing. They had a full bar, like you could go to Ipig an hour or two before have an entire like thing of activities they had. They had checkers and board games, all this kind of stuff. You can watch your movie for two hours, you could come out, you could continue to have a cocktail, play some pool, you could be there half the day. You know, like that to me feels like I'll make a trip for that movie theater, whereas a typical movie theater you're not driving more than you know half an hour and taking that time.
Speaker 1:That's a really good point. I like that too, because when I think about you know, we don't do pure activity. We have our families out blended. We don't do pure activities. You just don't go shopping. You're going to go shopping, you're going to check off some errand boxes. You're going to go shopping for the. You know, check off some errand boxes. You're going to go shopping, but then you're out. So you're going to have lunch and you might do other things.
Speaker 1:So the stickiness and the longer you can keep, you know, your visitors engaged in your day. Visitors, I think, mean a lot. You know that's another transformation piece, I think, tipping in this industry of just the bed tax, you know, being the only driver, like a lot of our residents too, would much prefer, you know, a good, healthy day visitor that contributes to the economy, and it's that type of persona they want in.
Speaker 2:Huge, yeah, yeah. And there there are cities Appealing to new residents, like they're talking to a visitor, like when you come here, you can play here. Here's the restaurants that we have experiences we have.
Speaker 2:You know you don't have to travel to have a great time. You could play in your backyard, you could staycation, you know, every weekend if you wanted to, and have something new to do. That's huge for people. You know, just again, like we, we were. Well, I think it also stems from we don't we don't take vacations anymore in this country Like we should. It's very difficult to get away for a week or two, and so you do have your longer weekends. You know you do plan your three or four days away so you can't travel as far. You know you're not flying across the country typically or driving a ways to have three days off. You're really finding places that are close.
Speaker 1:Well, you're going across country when it's something you can't get right close, so kind of going back to because, as you were talking, it just keeps bringing me back, Like this Las Vegas story is. You know, Vegas wasn't always Vegas. We don't want to talk about them a lot because we can't compete with them because they are Vegas, but they weren't Vegas when they started in the thirties. They were just. We're going to create this. It's going to be a respite from all of this going on. They created identity that is now like can't be beat.
Speaker 1:So imagine what some small destination that's not really as relevant as their competitors are right now made a bold decision to step up to a very specific identity that answers society's needs right now. Because that's what vegas it was like. People were losing their homes, they were losing their jobs, but Vegas was that one place you could go and it was just, you know, as sin city, as much sin as you could do legally, and there were no consequences and you didn't have to think about your life. So I just love the fact that that. You know we think of it so differently now, but it was just this little dirt town in the middle of nowhere right.
Speaker 2:I remember seeing an old picture of it and I remember talking about how much that strip, that land where the strip is now, how much someone bought that for originally, and it was like it was compared to what it could have been, like pennies compared to like oh yeah, because no one imagine like you don't necessarily look at this, this like field of dirt and go imagine this could be. You know what Vegas is today? No one. Really it's hard to imagine getting to that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, but then they just kept attracting the right kind of entrepreneurs. I go back to Jay Serrano, right, and building on this thing, like who would have thought of turning a hotel or this massive resort the biggest resort in the united states at the time, to this massive resort into, like hedonist rome? You?
Speaker 2:know, right oh, I love it. I love it. Can we talk a little bit? Can we switch gears and talk a little bit about how exciting it is to see more destinations being such a huge part of Pride Month, in being being present with the visitors and the residents who are celebrating and supporting and just being part of this like this month long, which it should be. You know, we should be doing this all the time, but just focusing in on this month, it's so refreshing to see so much more, so proud too, because specifically for this, even when you had destinations who completely embraced.
Speaker 1:Do you remember we first worked with miami? I think we could say now because it's like 2004, 2003, and they wanted to embrace the culture, but it was in a whisper, like, can you make a microsite?
Speaker 2:you know, like they will, and it was like they, it was miami right so imagine these other destinations who you know, who just have not, not necessarily haven't been able to embrace it, but just don't know the entry point or what that message looks like or how much that immersion should be or how much. But just not even thinking about just going in and just making that, especially just these destinations where you don't necessarily, there's still places where you're not necessarily, it's not, it's not clear on how friendly, how supportive, how much you as an individual can experience in that destination.
Speaker 1:I know and I love seeing. I love seeing the communities to you know, step up and come out and I'll tell you what I fall like a baby when I see those. If you need a dad hug, or, you know, if you just need a hug from a mom, and they just are there for those young, you know young people.
Speaker 2:Do you remember when we were in New York with our kids? Oh, let's talk about this for a second, because I think it's so funny. What was this? 2009 or 2010? It was 2009. Okay, so just we were coming out of our hotel. This story is going to get us canceled, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:I love this story though, because it's such. It was like you know, we're from Texas and so you know, and not really not really having traveled to major cities and experienced like the explosion of how major cities do events, right, but but coming out of the hotel and not realizing that we're about to walk directly into the New York city pride parade, right With our kids, who were very young at the time, and it was well, there's two things. One, we had to answer a lot of questions pretty immediately, Like mom what, what, where?
Speaker 2:what is what kind of what parade is this? It was very cause. It was very flamboyant, it was very loud, it was just like Pride parade.
Speaker 1:Pride.
Speaker 2:Here at the corner right, I love it. And then it felt so much like, wow, we got to experience the pride parade with our kids when they were so young. Like before you really came to the pride parade as a family, right, like this was like there was no other kids anywhere. It felt very much like. I felt very cultured at that point, like okay, come on, let's like, let's like let's get in here. Like how did we get in here and have some fun? I loved it.
Speaker 1:I thought it was such a fun experience I did too, and how we were embraced, like the more we walked down, the more like people were talking to us, and you know it was just like, like for just a second.
Speaker 2:We were cosmopolitan new yorkers, you know, right, that was so much fun, like they were so immersed so quickly and it was just like it was just such a fun experience, not even be planned to go, but just step right into it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we continued to support too when we went back to the mermaid parade. Remember the mermaid thing, yeah, we were like, we're thinking like pony island.
Speaker 2:Okay, that was an experience, that was a true. That was a true Long Island New York experience.
Speaker 1:It was hot, there was so many things memorable, though like especially here's where I'll out you too, especially with your ex-husband, left your baby on the boardwalk to go chase down.
Speaker 2:Neil patrick harris it was the most random. Like here we are walking right and here's neil patrick harris and sal was such a fan of neil patrick harris and he he's pushing elise in the stroller and he turns around. He's like that was neil patrick harris and he literally she's continuing to roll and he turns around and he runs after neil patrick harris for a picture and autograph and I'm standing like our baby's continuing to roll and he turns around and he runs after Neil Patrick Harris for a picture and autograph and I'm standing there like our baby's continuing to roll down the boardwalk. You just left your baby rolling for Neil Patrick Harris.
Speaker 1:That was so much fun.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, what a day, so much fun. Those are the experiences and here's why I love also going places without a plan Again like the overstimulation and also just feeling like you're on a schedule. It's nice to walk into a destination right, and just not for a weekend even and not have this rigid. Okay, today we're going to do these five things and then we're going to start here and we're going to do this and we're going to stop here, but just to go and just experience, just take in whatever the destination is going to start here and we're going to do this. So we're going to stop here, but just to go and just experience, just take in whatever the destination is going to give you, whether it be like you step into the pride parade without realizing it, or you're on Coney Island and you get to meet Neil Patrick Harris on a different pride, like there's so many, just a different experience. I feel like to me. I remember that more than I remember that rigid scheduled.
Speaker 1:Hey, me, I remember that more than I remember that rigid scheduled hey, here's our itinerary of things we're going to do.
Speaker 1:Disney was originally planned and I know how Seaside is planned but how it wasn't. And I know now we're like over planner Disney right, we gotta see this, we gotta see that, we gotta see the other. But the point of the park and the architecture is for you to just wander in and you know the the planning on it is really that way and you know, because in seaside in florida is a planned community, that way too for tourism. You just wander in the downtown and there's tons of things to happen. Of course that goes back to the downtown stuff, but you know, I think those planned, you know, I think those planned. You know we've gotten away from planning our communities and planning our experiences for our guests and I think that's that's going to make a revival with pop culture, though with some of those activations you talked about, I think.
Speaker 2:Oh, I totally agree. Yeah, there's so many things. It's really nice to see some of the resurgence of experiences that we thought were going to be handled differently because of the pandemic and all of that, but now that we're seeing it's, it was nice to see. It's nice to see full movie theaters again. Again, it's nice to see, you know, retail and restaurants just being so lively.
Speaker 2:It's just, it's nice. It's just, it's nice, it's really nice to be able to see some of the experiences of the things we get to market and we get to help plan and promote come to life, like be there in real life to experience that. It's really fun.
Speaker 1:It is. It is. But just like people are, you know, our travelers are chasing the drag and they want more, better experiences, more experiences. So you know we also have to think about upping our game, because it's never enough. It's always going to be a moving target for the industry, you know.
Speaker 1:I agree, yeah, but then I feel like there's that other side of it where you have more of your need for that relaxed getaway, where you're not looking to be stimulated, you're looking to unplug and disconnect and reset and, you know, take in the destination, but in a different way, where you're not immersed in a and I think that's, and I think that's spading younger now for for that, for that appetite, because you know I know my um early 27 year olds, I know if that was me we're like trying to go do spring break stuff still, and you know, shove everything in and they just want to go sit on a river with their friends and chill.
Speaker 2:It's very, it's very difficult. This economy has really forced our younger generation to really get on the ball a lot quicker. You don't have a lot of oh, let me go party and hang out in my early twenties. No, you're full on in your career in your early twenties at this point, like you're starting a career while you're getting educated for your career.
Speaker 1:You know you got to.
Speaker 2:You can't educated for your career you know, yeah, you got to, you can't afford not to. You know you got to be like in, you know, a very certain class to be able to really enjoy, you know, destinations in that in that age range, um, the way we used to, but yeah, it's, it's much, it's just a different, just different day and age, it's just a different, but it's so fun to see the evolution it is.
Speaker 1:It is and summer travel promises to be, you know, the biggest ever, like what we have been since the pandemic, but, just to your point, the biggest ever. But people are taking less like disney type vacations and taking more like connecting and relaxing cruises are super on the rise and I really would love to take a cruise, but I'm petrified we talk about it.
Speaker 2:Every week we had, we had a couple of our friends take their kids and they came back talk. It was like the best thing ever and Josh and I are like should we test it out like? Should we go on one together and like test it out and make sure that we could actually take care of our kids if we actually? Could you imagine if we took like the first ever and it's the family and I'm like because I am super seasick and carsick and well like I just have motion sickness in general. So I feel like I would do terrible and I feel like Josh would have really high anxiety with the cruise because he's just like in the, not an in the middle of the ocean kind of guy. So could you imagine if we're both just like, completely like, and then our kids are like what a great cruise we're on, you know?
Speaker 1:that's how my kids would be like. My kids would be whatever and drew would be super chill. But I just I can't do, I cannot. I would be just in a perpetual panic attack.
Speaker 2:I feel like we should try it. I feel like it is something and we, maybe we do it together, maybe we combine our families and let's go on a cruise and let's just try it, you know. So if one of us is having the worst.
Speaker 1:Thing ever.
Speaker 2:That's horrible, but I think that we have been. You know what. Facebook has really messed us up with the cruise. I feel like there are more videos of the cruise fails than there are of the things that really happen on cruises. You know the fun part.
Speaker 1:We should try true true, but just so you know, if we go together it's going to be repeated. The Grand Canyon I get anywhere near that edge. I can't do that.
Speaker 2:That's what it is for me. I just want to experience the cruise life we'll see you know, not having to worry about much, just being able to. Like there's so many things on these cruises for kids these days to do too, like they have a fire. It's like a huge kids camp kind of vibe, like they've got all these activities and that's the part that I would love. Like it's nice to go, like you want to go and take your kids on on vacation, right, but you also want somebody else to entertain them on vacation, so your vacation is very limited because you want your kids to have the most experience.
Speaker 1:I saw a great commercial on that too. I'm pretty sure it was an Airbnb commercial. It was like you know, if you want to go on a cup, you finally go on a couple's vacation. Why are you staying in a place with all these kids? It's a hotel pool, right, and so it shows them, you know, in an Airbnb. And I was like that's so right. But that's why these cruises? Because you can't like let your kid go on their own at Disney, but on a cruise you're like have fun, you can drop them off at the kid zone.
Speaker 2:There's like so many things they have set up that are very safe for kids to do and they're taking care. You know, I probably wouldn't take my younger, like my very younger, my kids are younger I probably have, you know, anxiety about it, but now that they're a little bit older, yeah, yeah, doable, doable, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2:Any other news stories you saw recently Well, one thing I thought was interesting and I think we should do a whole podcast on this. It's not really like news story worthy, but with all of the marketing colleges and all the tourism colleges and all of the various events and conferences that are popping and for different states and for different, you know, just regions and whatnot, they're all over the board but they're so so much more immersive these days with just what they're concentrating on, like one of them I saw had a whole track on AI and it was like for your leadership, ai for your marketing teams. I feel like we should dig into that and really kind of find a bit more about these colleges and these you know, just these conferences that focus in for your more collaborative environment.
Speaker 1:I really like that tier kind of approach too, because I was just ranting in my head on Friday about the conferences having this. It's almost moved from like good strategy to like tactics. It's like if they could tell you how instead of why. It irritates me, especially with this AI part coming in. It's like tactic, tactic, tactic, tactic, but no one is ever really speaking to a higher level of strategy. So I love the fact that you know, know, that's breaking it out in tears. Like if you want to learn the tactics, great, like go do that. But you know, at a you know general stage session conference, that's not what we're getting. We're getting all this here's how shoved at our throat. It's too much to take in. What do you do with that? So I'm kind of I've been so over these tactical sessions yeah, I know, and it feels very surface level too.
Speaker 2:It's like you can only if you're trying to cover so many topics over two or three days. You're only going to be able to go an inch deep on these things. 30 to 45 minutes, right. It's like they try to cover so much content or so many areas.
Speaker 1:There's just too many areas of marketing these days, too many areas that we that's why I think digital is so boring sometimes now to me because it's the same things, but now it's like so far and our audience is supposed to know much more about it and our sessions are feeding a whole different piece, like I just think it's. It's the wild West in the bad way right now with this education on these digital pieces. In my opinion anyway, I'm just like and maybe it's just because I've been in it for so long kind of boring.
Speaker 2:Well it's. It also feels like we're constantly trying to one up the last thing we were doing in digital it was like it's. It's a never ending cycle of how can we continue to transform and evolve and do this differently and make that better. It's just. It's just a movie.
Speaker 1:We're thinking in inches and not miles, and I think that's what gets irritating. We're thinking in inches, like this number has to be better than this number last year Well, how does that happen? But we're not catching up in all these areas. Instead of catching up, we need to be thinking in miles and going forward, and I think that just comes to. We've gotten really used to and, I guess, privileged by all the tech and all the digital marketing that we have at our fingertips, so we haven't had to stretch our creativity and so that's kind of oh gosh, that could be a whole other podcast on transformation and where that goes, because it when it was new and exciting, it was something you know my pop culture thing.
Speaker 1:I read this article this weekend about Steve Jobs versus Elon Musk, like who's like? Who's a better icon or bigger or whatever and it got me thinking. It kind of meshes into what we're just talking about. Digital is what Jobs did that was so special is he showed us something we didn't even know could exist, and it was a lifestyle. It wasn't even the tech, it was a lifestyle. Exist and it was a lifestyle. It wasn't even the tech, it was a lifestyle. And to me, I'm not a huge Musk fan, even though he's books right there. I have read it, but you know, I feel like he's like building on other creatives, you know, ideas and so back to that, the perspective of. I just feel like you know, we've lost a lot, lot of that creativity and that's something I'd love to help foster back, you know, in our industry, with our colleagues, with our own team members, not on a grand scale, just on an individual like foster back to thinking at a whole different level and give ourselves time to be creative.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of it is just we rush to be first to do this and got to get on that bandwagon. Oh, I saw this, and it's this FOMO cycle of not really giving ourselves time to really be creative.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine?
Speaker 2:what that's doing to our cortisone. Oh, it's awful, like the amount of it's awful. This is why we're such an inflamed society. This is why I continue to drink my magnesium water.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, it's you, it's, we're a. Don't get me. That's a whole new podcast, that's a whole series that we could do on that. But yes, it is. I feel like we. It would be nice to take our time and really immerse ourselves in just these different pockets of what we do in marketing, versus trying to cover 15 different topics in 30 seconds or 30 minutes and say, okay, we talked about that, we talked about that, like what, what, what? What've?
Speaker 1:just been thinking more and more about you know how this is an art form and not a science and some of those things come together Like science is going to inform a lot and you know, be remiss or get us canceled if I didn't talk about how awesome data is, but it's like how it's interpreted and how that information then turns to wet clay, that then turns to a sculpture that then people want to have. You know, there's like the missing artistic component to it that I'm just maybe because I'm getting older, but I don't think.
Speaker 2:I think it's because of. I think it has a lot to do with AI and just in general, just AI takes the soul out of art, like it's like you're producing a piece and that's fine, that's production art, yeah, commercial art is fine, Right, but it's soulless.
Speaker 2:You know, like there is no like person or passion behind it. It's really I don't know. I think that there's going to be a lot. There's so much more with AI. Now. I saw this weekend that they're creating AI powered strollers Jennifer AI powered strollers. Jennifer AI powered strollers so you could buy a stroller for your kid right, and it's programmed to follow you and do the movements that you, as the parent, do, so you never have to push the stroller. The stroller is constantly with you or following you in some way. The stroller knows what it needs to do. I don't know how it knows what it needs to do. I don't know how it knows what it needs to do, but it knows. But how do you let ai stroll your baby around?
Speaker 1:I was just about to say, like that's a whole other two issue I've got about like are we just going to, you know, program ourselves out of being mothers at this point? Like, can we?
Speaker 2:not be bothered. There's so many that technology with ai right now is going bonkers Like. I have seen so many crazy things.
Speaker 1:I think you just choose what works for you, right, like I do I. You know I'm obviously huge like adopted attack and those sort of things, but like I only choose the ones that integrate and work for me, although I did get one of those creepy something's listening things happened this weekend, what so? I was laying um, laying in bed with drew in the morning and I don't know why we were talking, talking about different movies. Anyway, I mentioned too long food because he'd never seen it, and then later, when I uh came to just chill out, fire my roku up because it's documentary day. The first promo is for two wong food. How obscure my roku like. So it was like alexa in my bedroom and my roku in my office oh yeah, it happens all the time, but the office I don't even mind those like.
Speaker 1:For me it would go back to that. I don't mind it.
Speaker 2:I'm like oh cool, that was convenient because I would have forgotten I talked about it yeah, yeah, and and, surprisingly enough, it wouldn't have been even creepy if it had added it to your watch list, because you had mentioned it to Drew. Like oh, we heard you and Drew were talking about too long food. It's now on your playlist to watch later. I wouldn't even be surprised by it. Be like oh, thanks, like that's we are. That is where we are in 2024. Like.
Speaker 1:I don't think I'd be doing the stroller thing Like the car thing doesn't bother me and you know they have a lot of them over here, the driverless.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you know I was talking about that this weekend too, because we had to walk like four flights of parking garage stairs and I was like no, but there are things that I would appreciate happening.
Speaker 2:But yeah, the stroller thing was just. That's the thing that I was like okay, no, I don't know. That feels like we're taking this a little too far, too quickly, like, let's, let's iron out things in this arena first, before we step over and start doing all these other things, just like everyone's trying to be the first to use it in all these ways, and I don't think we're quite ready as a society for all that no, we're not.
Speaker 1:We're not because as a person, we're really smart, but people are dumb and ignorant together. So just wait just wait till we have you know, we start getting ai and robots on the street. There's gonna be some like hate crimes that happen in the beginning, like come on, bubba's not going to like it.
Speaker 2:No, no. But yes, I love the tea we spilled today. I love the topics we covered. I feel like there's so many things we could podcast all day.
Speaker 1:We could talk all day about all the things there is. It's interesting, it's just interesting. It's an interesting time and you know my kids have been asking lots and lots of questions. My younger ones, my tweens, have been asking a lot about like what were the 80s like? What was this like? Like they're super, super interested best generation ever.
Speaker 2:It was just the best time here, I feel like between 80 and 89 it was like the best, the best we're gonna get so then, speaking of activations, then you know like that would be really smart to have more like 80s themed things happening yeah, well, they're beetlejuice. Beetlejuice is coming out. There was another movie that I got. Was it back to the future? Are they doing a new back to the future movie? Did, did I hear that?
Speaker 1:I don't know if that one's confirmed or if that's like the AI you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but there is something um that they're doing with the breakfast club.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well that needs some updating Cause that did not age well.
Speaker 2:I feel like that's what they're working on and they're doing like. You sent me one this weekend that was um isacock. That's doing the new. Um, uh, jason Voorhees, friday the 13th camping camper oh, yeah, yeah, it's Peacock.
Speaker 1:I was like I don't even remember what I sent you, like it's been too many days, yeah yeah, uh.
Speaker 2:What was the camp called on?
Speaker 1:crystal lake like yeah, there's a new show.
Speaker 2:I love those like spinoff shows. I watch that chucky show like I think it's big, it's the nostalgia.
Speaker 2:It just takes you to a different time where you're like okay, like you can like breathe out so much and it doesn't feel like I have to be educating myself at the same time, like this is just like in one ear out, you know, stimulating out the other. And don I have to be educating myself at the same time? Like this is just like in one ear out, you know, stimulating out the other and don't have to worry about it later on.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. It's going to be a great week, girl. We got lots going on too. I'm excited.
Speaker 2:It's going to be a good week. It's going to be a very good month. Actually. There are so many things happening Like this is the uptick of summer travel. It's the uptick of there's so many announcements coming out on just different things happening the rest of the year. Different experiences that, oh, I'm so excited, I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. We will see you guys next week.
Speaker 2:Bye guys.
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