Tameka Vasquez - Founder, The Future Quo

Tameka talks abot what it means to be a social futurist, how her diverse family origin has influenced what she cares about and Jason and Tameka dig in on tech for the sake of tech.

Tameka Vasquez is a social futurist, foresight strategist, professor, and speaker. She is Founder & Principal of The Future Quo, an advisory that supports visionary companies with concepts and tools for futures thinking. Tameka partners with startups to Fortune 500 enterprises who are driven by a heightened social responsibility and redefining their purpose to enact meaningful societal change. Tameka is also Associate Faculty for the Future of Work course at Columbia University. Before launching The Future Quo, Tameka was a marketing strategist who led brand and growth programs for global technology startups and enterprises for over 12 years. In her last role, she served as the first head of marketing for Sidewalk Labs, an urban innovation and sustainability unit at Google.

Download the latest report from The Future Quo, "Incubation: Concepts for Futures Thinking" at http://www.thefuturequo.com

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@tamekavasquez_

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Transcript

Jason Frazell: 0:00

My guest on the podcast is Tameka Vasquez. She's the founder of Future Quo. She's a social futurist. And I get that you're going, what the heck does that mean? We're going to find out Tameka and I'll say, I want to give you a shout out. It's 10 AM Monday morning, East coast time. Thanks for being here. You're braving. I don't know if this is early for you, not too early for me because I have a young, young child who gets up way earlier than that, but welcome. Good morning, Monday here in the East coast. How are you? I'm

Tameka Vasquez: 0:27

great. I'm ready. It's it's Monday. It's raining. But I'm always grateful that we get another chance to do this again Yeah, we

Jason Frazell: 0:34

get another chance to do this and wake up and do it all over again. So before we get into Social futurism and the things that you are passionate about. Let's first talk about your background, because I think that's pretty interesting. So give us the, you know, give us the short to medium version of your background, what you have done, maybe the companies you've worked for and what's led you to sit here with me today as the founder of the future quo. Yeah,

Tameka Vasquez: 1:00

for sure. I set out after high school to be a journalist. And so when I entered college, the entire intention was to figure out how to pursue writing professionally. And in the course of that did a bunch of internships and realized like, Oh, okay, I'm not gonna Make any money. Certainly not at 21 coming out of college. And it was interesting cause it wasn't like a hard pivot, but I was always very open to, you know, whoever told me you should do this thing or you should do that thing. It's kind of a very vulnerable age, but I think it's good to sort of have that malleability and that openness. And so I ended up at a startup tech company during my junior year. And it was just like a, you know, startup tech company, like maybe 10 people were working there and they wanted somebody who was just good at writing because for them, they were just like, we need someone who can just spit things out on the fly. Like if we needed to, you know, draft. A bunch of emails that we're going to send out in a series of email communications or someone who can help with a pitch deck or, you know, someone who literally ends up being the voice of the answering machine for the company. Literally that happens. I hope you got paid a big

Jason Frazell: 2:11

bonus for that. Oh, yeah. High stakes, high stakes gig.

Tameka Vasquez: 2:16

Definitely free internship. But yeah, like they just needed somebody who was comfortable in a communication capacity. So. You know, I think if that did not happen, there is no way in hell I would have probably ended up in the business world in the way that I have and certainly not in the, in the tech industry, the way that I spent literally the last 13 years of my life. And so, yeah, that was my first foray into not only a business, but also specifically the tech industry. And I ended up working with them full time in my, during my senior year of undergrad and then. Just ended up staying in tech full time past that. So never pursued the journalism thing, but was able to use communication skillsets in ways that I would have. Again, you just, how would you know that? You know, no one figures that out in college. So that's what took me into the tech industry. And. It was interesting because I did not go the route of like consumer tech. I was actually in B2B spaces. And so I was selling, you know, business software to other businesses. It's not the sexiest of industries, but what it definitely teaches you is one, how to understand very complicated technology, you know, so I had to understand natural language processing and machine learning. I had to understand enough about this whole wide world of artificial intelligence and automation. I had to understand things like predictive analytics and all of these very seemingly complicated, generally unapproachable kinds of technologies to basically help companies sell them. And so being, you know, a marketer for the last, you know, 13 years is my background. I think like it makes perfect sense to me why that sort of led me to the transition that I'm in now. But, you know, for those who are just like, what the hell leads you from, you know, career in tech, doing marketing to starting this random business, let me just kind of give it a second to explain that. You know, being in tech, I think the main thing for me is. People always assume you have this like front row seat to the future. And so you are in spaces that are for all intents and purposes, they do move fast. For all intents and purposes, they are quite quote unquote disruptive. And so you do have kind of a sneak peek to where things could end up. And you know, those things are not just in terms of industries and businesses that are looking to do things differently, but it's also. you really have a sense of like, okay, if this were to really become the status quo, what effect is that going to have on society? And like, you understand it more than most people because you have to basically help sell the thing. And so I think for me, you know, over the course of, of the last decade plus, like, Working for a lot of different startup tech companies, working for also multinational enterprises. You know, my last full time job was I was the head of marketing for sidewalk labs, which was a subsidiary now is a subsidiary at Google that focuses on urban innovation and the future of cities and things like that. So like, I was so entrenched into this conversation around. Technology and the possibilities of technology. And so again, people see you being in tech as sort of having a front row seat to the future with that. It's like, there was something that I don't know. It wasn't because of the specific companies I was at. It wasn't because of my colleagues. It was literally just me. I think coming of age, coming into my thirties, you know, learning. More things about myself and hardening sort of my perspective on the world. And when I say hardening, I mean just being a bit more informed, right? Not, not being stubborn, but just being a bit more informed and like being able to understand things, not only through the lens of like looking at it from the outside, but planting myself in the world as a citizen of the world and trying to feel like what, what is actually happening around me. And I think in the transition, you know, for me coming into my thirties and, and sort of learning more about the world, traveling more of the world, being in this business environment, being in tech, I was just like, I got to slow down. And like something needs to start making sense about why we are creating the things or why we are seeking to quote unquote disrupt. Why do we want to be disrupted? Why are we using these lines, you know, this type of language what is it that we are actually trying to create? And I couldn't answer that question. And I started talking to a lot of people trying to find little bits of being able to answer that question. Like, what are we working towards? What is all this for? And I think for me, it was just like a wake up call where I was just like, we're actually not. able to answer this question. I want us to answer that question. I want us to understand what it is that we're designing for, what it is that we're building towards, why that matters to us, and how all the things that we are doing incrementally could lead up to that reality, that proverbial future, right, being our life. And I think for me that was important to be able to answer and it was important to support people who are also seeking to answer that similar question with just new ways of thinking and new methodologies and things that I had to adapt for myself. And I'm, I have a rule of thumb in life. Like if I don't give advice that I don't take for myself. Right. So like. As I am now, I started the future quo last summer and the entire premise was this is an advisory. This is a consultancy. This is an opportunity to open up conversations with people and I'm not going to give anyone medicine. I don't take. So I'm not in the business of, you know, telling people like you need to think about the future this way or being prescriptive or sort of being predictive in any way. I'm not interested in predictions at all. Yeah. What I'm interested in is deeper understanding and. Deeper connection to human development and how that's transpired over time and what have been the contributing forces over time and for people who are in businesses, which are by and large, where I still spend 99 percent of my time for people who are still in the business world, just being able to feel a little bit more connected to what they're doing, because my hope is that it ladders up into some larger thesis that you've thought about over time. And that yeah. Cultivation of knowledge and that thoughtfulness will help you create things that have a bit more meaning in society, that's my hope. And so a lot of what the future quo is about is that, you know, coming of age into understanding that the things that are happening in society are not totally accidental. They are by design and those designs are sometimes unintended and that's okay. But a lot of the times they're very purposefully designed. So I want to make sure that. In the course of looking ahead and looking in the future, we're not just thinking like, Oh, we're just going to slap more technology onto this thing and hope that it feels and looks different, but we're actually going to be a bit more integrated into the human experience and understand the things that we're bringing into that tools and technologies and ideas and create creativity, art, all the things that we bring into this human experience will ladder up into something. And that thing needs to be the thing that we actually want. Not the thing that we're subjected to. So hopefully that makes sense. Cause that's literally just the transition out of being in this tech environment, moving fast for the sake of moving fast and breaking things and being in a place of more intention, more thoughts more purpose and more meaning that that's my hope.

Jason Frazell: 9:55

Okay. I'm going to play devil's advocate. A lot of the things you just said, because I know that this is, these are the conversations that you're going to have, or you get, you talk about. I'm over here. I'm an investor and I want, and I invest because I want 10 X and I hear all that. And I go, that sounds amazing. And it also sounds expensive and it sounds long term. I know this is something that you hear a lot. Yeah. When I say devil's advocate, I agree with you on all these things. Just more interested. In how do you see this being a balance in business, or do you see it being imbalanced? And are there any companies that you worked with that have been able to put this together? Because when you're talking about, hey, it's time to get a bridge loan or raise our next round of funding. Because we're running out of money, our burn rate is too high. This is likely going to be a tough conversation to have a tough conversation and get it like survival vote versus future looking. How do you advise companies that you work with or have these conversations with founders? How do you balance

Tameka Vasquez: 10:59

all of that? It is like the most fascinating education I have received in a very long time. This is literally what I hear from everybody and the question of, you know, how do you balance this or how on earth am I going to think about this like long term future when I have to like run this business right now? My thing is like, I'm not telling you what to do, right? I'm listening to what you said, and then I'm repeating it back to you. And based on what you said, it seems like you have a vested interest in actually developing a longer term point of view. A lot of startup founders that I've, I've worked with in the last year. And I've been talking to in general, even before launching the future quo, just being in startup tech for so long, 99 percent of the time they're sitting there and they have a, they have a vision. They have a point of view about where this whole life experience thing can land. Right. And a lot of the times they're very macro and they're thinking and over time, they sort of become a bit more narrow for the purposes of actually thinking about viable business opportunities. Right. So like they have that skill, they have that knack. I think it's a big part of why I'm attracted to people like that. Right. So they tend to be very visionary, but they sort of bring it down to these very narrow spaces where they can actually develop business ideas. So whether that's in the space of. You know, agriculture or climate or, you know, automation or you know, more consumer tech, whatever it may be there, there's a way that they've been able to distill. I'm interested in what's been your process of distilling. I'm also interested in once you've distilled, how do you ladder that back outward? Right. Because I'm listening to what they say. They say things like there's a purpose behind this business. You know, I see the future being like this. I care about these, these causes. I, you know, want to form a team of people that are going to be energized and are going to be about this for, you know, the, the, the near to long term. Like they don't want people working at their companies, for example, that just look at this as a job. Right. Of course. Yeah. That's like, yeah, I can't wait to hire a bunch of people that are going to clock out at five o'clock. Yeah, of course. That's not what we want. So I'm not in the business of telling people like, Oh, you, you need to be caring. I'm literally listening to what you're saying. And what you're saying is you have an idea that you believe is going to be purposeful, is going to be forward looking, is going to create some level of impact in the world as we know it right now. You want to bring people into that. Who care enough about it to dedicate the next few years of their life, potentially to helping you build this thing and, and launching it. You want them to bring their talent. You want them to bring their expertise. You want them to be in a space of basically co operation, right? You want them to feel like it's just as much as their company too. And then you want to bring this thing in the world in a way where this business could actually sustain. And it can sustain in the midst of an extreme amount of interconnected changes and a lot of sort of volatility that are outside of your control, right? That's what I'm hearing. So if I'm hearing all of that, all my brain tells me is that that means you want to think about the future more intentionally. All that that means to me is that that means you actually want to develop a longer term point of view so that the work that you're bringing people into is not meant to just be a right now. This is just cool for right now sort of thing. You want it to have a deeper meaning and a deeper purpose in other people's lives. You also want to make sure that. You're not going to be subject to too much of the market volatilities that you literally do not control. You want to, you want to have a steady ship. The only way to remain steady in this life is to know who you are. And that's just a life principle, because if I know who I am, it doesn't really matter what's happening around me. I can stay the course because I know. The foundations that I'm standing on. And it's the same thing for organizations. When we bring people together in a space of business, right? Because we live in capitalism as, as the system that we've occupied for the past 500 years. If you live in that space and you are trying to develop something that's going to be steady and you want something that's going to grow and you want something that's not going to be. You know, it's not going to face so much turmoil, then you have to know you are, you have to understand the foundations that you stand on, right? Because it's a lot easier to respond to things when everybody's on the same page. When everybody is singing from the same hymn book, it's a lot easier to respond to things because you're not spending all that time sitting there trying to get everybody on the same page. And, you know, I can go on and on, but the point is I'm listening to these things and I'm hearing. All these startup founders say that I'm hearing people who work for large companies who have been, you know, at their company for 15 years. I've done a couple of projects this year with people who've been at their companies 15, 16, 17 years. And they're sitting there and they're, they're telling you like, yeah, I mean, we've, we've been around for so long it, we, we haven't really had to rock the boat here. It would be interesting to look at what is that sort of next generation? How do we start to bring new ideas and how do we get that spirit of innovation back into this place? Because at this point. We're just shuffling papers around. These are the things that we hear. So all of that, when you hear things like that, it puts you in a place where you're like, all right, first of all, I'm not crazy. Second of all, we were not crazy. We feel something, but we need to respond to what that feeling is. And that feeling is largely. The status quo as it is, is not serving us in sort of the, in the greatest capacity that it can, and certainly not for the greatest amount of people that it can. And so there's a way to navigate this world of what we have, take what you have and what you know, and just do something better, do something else. And it's the venturing into that. That is the work of futures thinking. It's the work of foresight. It's the work of, you know, helping people sort of develop an actual point of view, helping people think about organizational dynamics and the way that they're designed for people to get together to work towards something successfully. Those are all the principles that are integrated into the work that I'm doing under the future quo. So it's literally now, I think this is the first time and you know, you're talking to a marketer. So this is the first time in my professional career that I haven't had to package something up and make you buy it a place to be, but I certainly understand, you know, how it may feel. Like, Oh, this is just a nice to have, but everything I've learned, you know, in the last few years of getting deeper and deeper into futures thinking and future studies tells me this is an imperative. It's actually no longer a nice to have.

Jason Frazell: 17:57

Yeah. To make, I have a number of, I have a number of places that I got curious about. I'm just gonna, I'm going to make a decision on where we're going to go here and, but we're going to cover everything and the others are going to be a little bit of a surprise. Okay. First of all, I know you come from a really interesting background, like as a child and such. I'm just really struck by all this and I'm curious as to whether this was something you observed in yourself as a child, like like what I'm, because what I'm hearing in all this is one, you're very curious, which is by, you have to be curious to care about these sorts of things. You know, a lot of times. People are very, and children are very in the moment. So I'm curious if as a child, you ever told like, Oh, you're always thinking about things in the future or like, you're like, you know, I think as children, as a father too, you're like, it's like, Oh, you're such a daydream. Like it's like children get labels like daydreamers. You don't call them futurists. You're like, Oh, they're daydreamer. Like what's possible. Was this a, was this a personality trait in something you've always, you've, you've always been interested in, we're told as a child that like with people, you're people observed in you.

Tameka Vasquez: 19:07

I think so. I think so. Because. It's funny because like, I remember being in college and you know, you go to these interviews for internships or whatever, and people are like, Oh, describe yourself. I literally, and this is not even a joke. I literally used to describe myself as a daydreamer and a wanderer. And that is not how you're supposed to describe yourself, by the way, if you

Jason Frazell: 19:26

want to be like, you're like, so we're going to pay you to daydream. That sounds great.

Tameka Vasquez: 19:30

That's, that's not what you do when you want to like actually eat three meals a day, you know? But it, but it comes from a place where like. I think so, you know, my family is from a country called Guyana in South America and Guyana has an interesting history because it is a former British colony. It's also a former Dutch colony. And so you have this you know, just this just like It's just such an interesting place. And I'm still like, even though I was born there, both of my parents are from there. Like I have a long family history there. It's like, I still can't wrap my mind around this place. And I say that because it's a place where people have had to. Come into through different ways, right? So, you know, part of my ancestry came in from the transatlantic slave trade. Another part of my ancestry came in as, you know, groups of indentured servants from South Asia. You know, there's people that have been native to that land, indigenous peoples of that land. And then, you know, of course the, the people who have come over and colonized the land and things like that. So, you have this like... Wide range of groups of people who are multi lingual, multi ethnic, you know, they come from different faiths They just have different ways of being and they are sort of forced to coexist on this land And it's the story of a lot of the world. So it's not just Guyana But I think Guyana sits at it as an interesting example Of that sort of story. And so for me, it's like, what happens when people have had to co exist and co create over the course of time? Well, one, I get to be in the world, which is, I hope, a good thing. And two, you know, you get, you get just a different understanding of what is possible when human beings are rooted in their own existence. Their own survival, their own development and their own thriving. Like what is actually possible with that in place? Like, if that is your intention, I intend to survive. I intend to navigate these circumstances that I was either forced into or voluntarily came into. I am, you know, forced to learn about people around me because y'all are all I got at this point. Right. And you see that generationally you come into a place where like the way you see the world is. It cannot be linear. It's like impossible for me to think in a very linear way because as far as I'm concerned, all of this shit is made up in the first place. And I think coming from that background, you know, my parents moved to a tiny island called St. Martin when I was a, basically still a baby. And the thing about St. Martin is very similar. Multi ethnic, multi faith, multi lingual place to be. And it's this tiny dot on the map that not many people are familiar with,

Jason Frazell: 22:16

but Part French, part Dutch. It's split French and Dutch, yeah. Half French, half

Tameka Vasquez: 22:20

Dutch. And like, you know, being on that island, I think what's interesting is like, I've always been surrounded by people from all over the world. It's the type of place where like, People go on vacation and they don't leave. That's basically what constitutes much of that island. And so, you know, you have people from literally all over the world. And so for me growing up, that's all I've ever known. So I've never known these sort of like monolithic, I've never known monotony in any sort of way. I've never known sameness in any sort of way. And so my, my sort of understanding and navigation as. A child comes from a place where like, that is literally all I know. That's my background. That's my life. It's having to form a sense of self. In the midst of a lot of moving parts, but staying steady in something being rooted in something. And I think a lot of my rooting comes from, you know, just wisdom that's been passed over time. You know, the, the sort of like the sayings and the Proverbs that are passed down through, like, you know, Guyanese people have a lot of like ways of explaining things that will never make sense to you until you get older. And you're like, that's what my grandmother

Jason Frazell: 23:31

was. Oh, that's so good.

Tameka Vasquez: 23:33

Yeah. It's the craziest thing. They have like sayings and I think somebody, maybe I need to document them one day, but you know, you sort of come into your understanding of self through that lens. And I think, so, you know, when my family immigrated to the U S I was still a kid, I was in grade school. I was in like the fourth grade going into the fifth grade the following year. And you know, everybody already has their friends. Everybody already has their clicks. Everybody knows how to commute. And, you know, I'm coming in, I had never even seen snow before, except on television. And so like, you know, you just learn how to adapt. You learn how to think on your feet. You learn, you know, a sense of survival instincts, but I don't, I don't want to say that all the time because I don't want that to be deemed as a negative, but you just learn how to navigate new terrains. And I think that's just how I am. So I think, you know, for me as a kid, it was like. I think I partially think, you know, the way I was raised as well contributes to that because my parents were the type of parents where like, I mean, I don't know that my parents have ever really told me what to do, if that makes sense. I think my parents have always been like, you know, I would like for you to do this essentially. And then they would tell me why. So like, if my mom wanted me to clean my room, she'd be like, you know, I really want you to clean your room because Cleanliness is next to godliness. Like my brain doesn't compute. Like you got to clean your room. Cause your mom said so. Yeah. To this day, my brain just does not conform to authority blindly. I don't know how to do that. So I think the way that I navigated life was through the lens of like, okay, well, everything around me is different than me. Everything around me is changing. Everything around me is moving. I could flow. I could be in this flow. I could be in this rhythm, right? I could still be myself without losing myself in the midst of this flow and all of these moving parts. And then if I need to do things, It's because I understand them. And if I need to, you know, follow rules, it's because they come from a place of care and they come from a place of wanting the best for you. So, you know, when you come into American society, like the U S has a lot of good things going for itself in terms of just ideologies over time. But the U S has also a lot of flaws in some of those ideologies as well. So like an example is like. Individualism is an ideology that I think has a lot of strengths, this idea that you can individually decide who you want to be in this world, and you can go out there and you can find the resources and find the ways of making that person possible, right? Like, that's pretty cool. Very cool. But then within that, you also have this sense of, you know, you flip that on its head and then you're like, well, what does that create? And oftentimes it creates a container where you are not as willing to look up and look around. You're not as willing and, you know, sort of authority or, you know, just ask questions in general. It doesn't even have to be of authority, but just ask questions in general. You're not as curious anymore. And so for me, you know, those transitions coming into a society like this, it's such, it's so dissonant. That I don't know 24, 25 years later that I'm, that I'm even able to do it even now where it's so dissonant that I'm not sure I could be in a place of not being curious or not wondering where something came from. Like I'm the person like, you know, I'll go across a bridge and I'm like, how the hell was a bridge like built? This is totally. That's just how my brain works. And so in the course of trying to, you know, way find and understand things and, you know, be rooted in self and all of these things, like you find yourself in a place where you can accept things as they are sure, but it doesn't come without questioning at first. And in the course of that, what you learn then takes you into places where you're like, wow, I just would have never thought of it this way. And now I'm open to this way of thinking, even if it doesn't become like, I haven't changed religions, right? I still only speak one language. Like, there's certain things about me that haven't necessarily had to change or evolve. But now I can sort of understand a person who may not speak my language or... I could be in environments where nobody looks like me or, you know, I can enter into spaces that quite literally were not designed for my existence and I can still be okay. And like, it's that sort of like intangible, just weird concoction of characteristics that I think have gotten me to this point. But to answer your question, yes, I think I've probably always been this way, but it's not. I think. Just me, I think it's environmental. I think it was cultivated and I'm, you know, I'm super grateful for it, for what it's worth.

Jason Frazell: 28:28

Yeah. Awesome. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna do a little ad libbing of some of the questions I ask here because something came up for me and I'm curious. What is outside of your comfort zone? What's

Tameka Vasquez: 28:40

outside of my comfort zone? Yeah,

Jason Frazell: 28:41

because you just listed a whole lot of things that we know are going to be outside people's comfort zone. Being in spaces that, that they know they don't belong. Yeah. Being genuinely curious. Like, some of those things are things people are really unwilling to do. So what's something that's outside of your comfort zone?

Tameka Vasquez: 28:57

I don't know, I don't know that that many things are like, I mean, blind conformity is outside of my comfort zone,

Jason Frazell: 29:07

which is very much inside of many people's comfort zone is tell me what to do.

Tameka Vasquez: 29:11

Cause I'm

Jason Frazell: 29:13

like, yeah, tell me, tell me, tell me what to do that. Like, please just tell me exactly what to do and I'll do it. Like so many people love that. Yeah.

Tameka Vasquez: 29:20

I've noticed

Jason Frazell: 29:22

that you're speaking to somebody who has people hire them. Then they go, tell me what to do. And I go, well, that's not real. You probably worked with companies. They're like, so glad you're here as a consultant. Tell me exactly what to do. You're like, no, no, no. I think you missed the, I think you maybe missed the overarching point here. I gotta

Tameka Vasquez: 29:37

listen first, you know, like I can offer you some things, but I need to listen first. Blind conformity is something I'm deeply uncomfortable with. And again, I'm not like a rebellious contrarian type of person. Like I'm chilling 90 percent of the time, that I cannot handle, you know, this idea that we're just going to sit here and act like everything was not made up. Like, yeah. So there's that. I would say, I mean, not to make this like, you know, harping on the whole tech thing, but tech for tech's sake. Is deeply uncomfortable to me like tech for the sake of just more tech, like, you know, I, I have this thing that I always say where it's like the future cannot be just a slight iteration of, of the past with shiny or shit, like, can you

Jason Frazell: 30:19

handle that? I don't want to name any companies here. We're not going to do that. We're not going to name any companies here. We don't want to cease and desist. Yes. But I am curious if there's like a general example of a tech like, I mean, there's a million, I can think of a hundred things right now too. But like, what's an example of just a space where you're like, there's just tech for the sake of tech. Like it's not actually, if it's not even that useful, like, is there anything that comes to mind for you?

Tameka Vasquez: 30:46

I mean, there's, there's a lot of stuff. I don't even want to like harp on because I feel like, so when I say tech for tech sake, right, I feel like a lot of things are super cool and I do think things are worth exploring because they're cool. But then I think you need to get into a space of understanding what is critical. And like, so for example, you know, when you think about like. Everybody's talking about generative AI now, right? I'm like, purposely not talking about generative AI because everybody's just talking about it. I think in circles. But that's an example. Don't worry, that's

Jason Frazell: 31:16

coming up next. I'm going to get deep into what you think about generative AI. No, we're not. What is, we're going to end this episode and be like, so Tameka, to wrap up, what are your specific predictions about generative AI in the next 12 months? You'll be like, oh, sorry, internet. Yeah. Laptop dead. Internet's gone.

Tameka Vasquez: 31:34

Sorry. Love would have loved to answer

Jason Frazell: 31:36

it. Sorry. Yeah. So ready for that, but I couldn't do it.

Tameka Vasquez: 31:40

I mean, like generative AI conceptually is really cool. It's so cool that you can use technology to create something and. You know, that's cool. But then you get into a space of it being critical. And I'll tell you, I was on a panel last week, early last week, and you know, the, at the end of the panel, you know, we're all done, everybody's like hung up. And then the, the, the producer who was sort of managing things behind the scenes was listening as much as he was like managing things. And he asked everybody on the panel, he was just like, you know, I was an aspiring writer at one point, Just And he's like, you know, a big part of why I didn't, why I didn't go down the path of becoming a TV writer, you know, a comedy writer, like all these areas of interest that he had was largely because someone like was editing his stuff. Like he, he gave me an example of like, you know, someone was editing his stuff and by the time it was done editing, it just didn't sound the same anymore. It wasn't as connected to what he. meant to say, it didn't sound like him. And so it, it deepened a lot of his insecurity about the value that he could create in the world. And this isn't a new story. This just happened to be something I heard from somebody last week, but I can't tell you the amount of times I've heard this throughout my career. You know, I, I teach part time, so I'm always at some business school teaching some course. Cause I I hear similar things from students. You know, I hear similar things from talented people that I've had to manage over years where they feel a deepened sense of insecurity. And, you know, one school of thought is you could be like, all right, well, let's work on your confidence. Let's just learn how to suck things up a little bit and, you know, focus on who you are and like, whatever I can do that. Sure. But within that, there's a bigger conversation that's happening because just because this thing is cool doesn't mean it's critical because in, in the course of it being brought into society pretty callously, I would say, because it, I don't think a lot of these tools and technologies are launched with a certain understanding of. Humanity. I don't, I think they're brought to market very callously because it's like, Oh, cool. Launch it. Right. Let's see what happens. But I would argue people who are, and I'm only saying this from coming from tech. Yeah.

Jason Frazell: 34:02

And in marketing. Yeah. Involved in lots of launches. Yeah.

Tameka Vasquez: 34:05

I've had to launch a lot of stuff. People who are developing, you know, a lot of these technologies and people who are behind the scenes, they absolutely understand the capabilities. Okay. I'm not buying it when people are like, Oh, well, I didn't know this was going to upend democracy. I had no idea. It's like, it's like, dude, come on. You know, not that I'm talking about a dude, but like, but you

Jason Frazell: 34:27

probably, but let's be clear. You probably are. Yeah. Statistically, you

Tameka Vasquez: 34:31

are. Yeah. It's just like, come on, like, I want us to do better. I want us to be more thoughtful. Like we, I think, understand anyone who works deep enough in the tech industry, understands ethics more closely than probably most people. They understand morality and how fickle that is, you know? And there's just a level of like, we can't be in this world, you know? So going back to the example from the panel last, last week, the guy was basically saying, you know, I didn't venture into this career path. Because of that deep seated insecurity that my stuff wasn't good enough. And he's like, I can't imagine, you know, he was probably maybe in his forties or fifties. So he was saying, I can't imagine if I was coming of age now, and I was interested in the same career path now, what the onset of all of these technologies would have done to my self esteem. And he wanted to know like our thoughts on it. And, you know, I don't know that any of us were able to really fully answer it in the moment. So I actually ended up writing him a letter. At the end of last week, because it sat with me the entire week. And I just wanted to find a way of answering the question, you know, that he had about, you know, how, what do you tell a person, you know, who's navigating this space or what is the real potential of these technologies? And, you know, I want it to be able to answer those questions. But I also wanted him to just know, like, you are absolutely not alone. And so much of what you are saying right now is what people are saying beneath their breath. And they don't feel like they have a right to say it because they're supposed to be into the next coolest technology. They're supposed to latch on to every, every trend that You know, hits the market because who wants to feel like they're left behind? Nobody wants to feel, you know, but simultaneously it's like, if we don't start having those conversations, you're never going to get to really understand the, the deep seated effect that these things have on people. And if you don't understand the effect on people, then what are you doing? And that's what I mean when I say tech for tech sake, it's like launching it just because it's shiny and cool, but with no real. Intention to cultivate a better human experience or no real understanding of what this can do to human development. And if you say like, what it does is absolutely my intention. Cool. Great. Go ahead. Right. But I do a lot of people don't actually have that intention, but they may not feel the courage that it may take, you know, to say, like, I don't want. This to happen. And so I'm going to work backwards and maybe work on this thing a little bit longer to make sure that it does not have that effect on society. And maybe it means that you're not first to market, but it's certainly in my perspective means that you will be among the last ones standing because you thought about this, you would have been intentional about this and. People, the way they sort of navigate these technologies would be through the lens of what is actually going to enhance their lives, not get into these weird spaces that we've been. I think in the last, I would argue in the last 50 to 60 years of putting human against machine, like that's not. Yeah.

Jason Frazell: 37:41

As we wrap up here today, let's talk about, or. Not advice, but let's say that you've got founders listening and they're listening to this conversation and they go, this really resonated for me. And I know I need to do something, but I'm not sure how to start. Or maybe I'm not. And I know this is, you know, not doing a commercial for you. Cause I know you help people with this, but they go, Hey, like, I just want to start having a conversation with my product team or with the board about this. How would you suggest that people? Start this line of thought process that gets you out of the quarterly product release, product market fit. Like you said, kind of the tech for tech sake, what do you suggest?

Tameka Vasquez: 38:26

I suggest kind of going back to the drawing board, you know, and not in the sake of, like, I'm not saying throw away everything you've done, but I'm just

Jason Frazell: 38:35

saying founders are like, I'm not doing that. I'm going to tell you that right now. Nope. This person has, no, they're like, wait, yeah, just start over. I've

Tameka Vasquez: 38:43

just seen like in times of, you know, in times of like just frustration and chaos and confusion, like. A lot of the times, like, how do you, how do you navigate that? You go back to why did I start this in the first place? No, what made me interested in this in the first place? And just being able to start there and have that conversation and ask that question to yourself, the ways that I think you'll find so much deep encouragement and deep hope you can use that to then take that next step, which is to then figure out what is your actual point of view. And if you don't have that point of view, that's okay. There's analysis that can sort of get you there, right? We can start to look at what are the varying sort of, you know, macro forces of change that are out in the world. There's technology, but there's also the environment. There's also the legal and political landscape. You know, there's also socio economic development. There's a lot of moving parts. And so I think. That in and of itself is great work. Just being able to start to analyze what are those sort of macro forces of change, what's really driving a lot of the change beneath the surface in the spaces that I'm occupying, that helps you cultivate your point of view. Once you have that sort of point of view, Then you can get into a place of understanding like, okay, if what I'm building now is inconsistent with that point of view, or it's counter active to that point of view, what are my opportunities to start course correcting? Or what are my opportunities to start innovating in a different direction that does not take away from what you're doing right now? Because, and again, this is why I love founders. I love startups. I love these spaces These are people where they, they can recognize that a lot of what they're doing is experimentation and, you know, a lot of what they're doing is for the purposes of learning something new. So once you learn something new, awesome, that creates opportunity that opens up a wider road for you to travel on. That's a good thing. So. That would be my first step is go back to the drawing board, try to figure out why did I start this thing in the first place? What have I learned since then? What have been the sort of, you know, core truths that have emerged since then? What are the driving forces of change that I can start to analyze and wrap my mind around? And what do I do with that information now that I have a clearer point of view, right? That's the starting point. So I won't go on past that just to sort of answer the question, but that really, really is the starting point. Well,

Jason Frazell: 41:10

yeah, and we were catching up before we pressed record. You have some, you have an interesting research project that you've been working on that you're about to release. So let's Let's talk about that and then we'll make sure that we'll make sure this is available to all the listeners here. So let's talk about what do you have coming out here in the very near future and by near future? I actually didn't know this or I didn't remember this. I think we had a previous conversation but you have a report coming out, I believe, tomorrow or maybe even today. So like let's talk about what that is and where people

Tameka Vasquez: 41:39

can find it. Yeah, for sure. I'm very, very excited about this report. It's something I've been working on for five months now. Just about a little bit longer if you really add up all the conversations I've had, but basically I conducted a study of People who are at the helm of leadership at a variety of companies. So people who are at startups, people who are also at much larger companies. And I take them through a series of 15 open ended questions and some kind of like associative behavioral exercises and the whole notion behind it was like, I wanted to understand like how people contemplate. And conceptualize the future. Like, how do they navigate this very nebulous concept of the future? And so a lot of the questions were basically meant to just get them talking about a variety of things, whether it's their work, whether it's their personal lives, whether it's their perspectives on, you know, society, whether, like, literally anything. The questions were sort of purposely all over the place. And then from that, I sort of just analyze some of the patterns that I saw across the board and some of the tensions that I was also seeing, you know, between different clusters of conversations that had been had. And this is with, you know, just for, just for you guys to understand, like this is 25 interviews. These are all business leaders. Ages, you know, I would say 35 to 55. They're living in cities across the U S the UK. I interview people in Ghana, India, you know, these are people who are working in marketing sales, HR products. They're in agriculture, they're in consulting, retail, finance, like it is like such a broad representative sets. And so the research was really meant to understand how they navigate the future. The report is basically the reveal of some of the findings that came from this study in addition to some of the concepts of what I think is really going to help to unlock futures thinking. In this business community and it's, you know, I call the report incubation and when you guys hopefully download the report, you'll see why, but a lot of it is also me sort of, you know, I've done a lot of work over the past year, but I'm sort of doing what I tell people to do. I'm coming back to the drawing board. Why did I start this in the first place? And I'm using this as an opportunity to sort of incubate a new series of whether it's, you know, products, services, ideas that I can sort of bring to market to better support this emerging community of leaders.

Jason Frazell: 44:03

Last question for you here. I think I always say that. And then I end up with like 25 more questions, but I think this might be it regarding the report without spoiling too much. Was there anything surprising in this report? Or is anything surprising in your findings?

Tameka Vasquez: 44:15

Oh my God. There were, there were a lot of, a lot. Give us, give

Jason Frazell: 44:18

us a little, give us a little, two, little two minute teaser. Yeah. I

Tameka Vasquez: 44:23

think the most surprising thing for me was, so the final question that I asked everyone I interviewed was, I asked them to close their eyes, and I asked them to imagine an impossible and fantastical future. And they were supposed to just like sit with that for a few seconds, and then they opened their eyes, and I told them to just give me that stream of consciousness, what came to mind. I thought I was going to be getting like poetry, and I mean in some cases kind of poetic. But like literally people said things like We have enough food to go around People are healed and they will no longer inflict pain on each other. There's clean fresh air Like the things that people were saying was so so so simplistic in nature that I was almost like in tears because I was like guys How is this our impossible future? So that is by far, and you know, I, I have a collage actually of all the responses to that question in the report so people can see it, but by far the most, like, just like moment of me feeling like astounded by like, I really thought I was going to get a different kind of

Jason Frazell: 45:28

answer. Amazing. That's so cool. Well, congratulations on everything you've done, what you're going to do. We will put a link in the show notes to the report to any or all the other ways people can reach out, get in touch with you. Really appreciate you being on. Glad we made this happen. Keep doing what you're doing. I know it makes such a difference in the world and it's, it's a different conversation that, that I know that I have with most people and I think most people are having. So I always like new perspectives, new point of views, and yeah, just thanks for doing good in the world. Really appreciate having you on Tamika. Thank you. Take care.

46:02

Thanks for listening to another episode of Talking to Cool People with Jason Frizzell. If you enjoyed today's episode, please tell your friends, follow us on Instagram and Facebook, and give us a shout out, or take a moment to leave a review on iTunes. If something from today's episode piqued your interest and you'd like to connect, email us at podcast at jasonfrizzell. com. We love hearing from our listeners because you're cool people too.