Erika Anderson, Chief Customer Officer at Storytell.ai

it’s a pleasure to welcome you Erica to our inside the workflow podcast um Erica is the chief customer officer at

storytelling background um she has taught writing at NYU and published in the New York Times in Vanity Fair and

now at Story Tell She’s the Visionary behind clean communication a framework

that helps Foster authentic Communications and connections through feedback she runs the Humane Tech Meetup

in Silicon Valley and she helps entrepreneurs and Industry veterans explore how technology can support

Humanity um and with a background in content strategy and her role running founder culture Erica has empowered

countless entrepreneurs to tell their stories so I’m excited to be able to ask her more about her story today um she’s

also passionate about ethical Ai and excited to learn more about that so

excited to have you with us Erica super excited to be here and yeah always always a privilege to have what’s become

as close as we can get to in person face to face yeah that’s right um seems like we’re

doing more and more of less and less of that um so well to get started I I would

love to know um you know you you’ve heard a lot of different advice over the years um would love to hear your

favorite piece of advice or like one of your top favorite pieces of advice yeah I you know as um advice is

funny um because yeah it actually brings to mind uh a crowded Auditorium with the

author arand duti Roy who’s the author of God of small things and all these

writers in the room uh were asking you know for her advice she’s like I here’s

what I do with advice I don’t give it because sometimes it’s really hard to

match exactly the situation that someone else is in um so I think a truism that

really comes to mind around this is Henry Ford’s Maxim whether you think you

can or think you can’t you’re right and to me I think especially you know as a

co-founder of a startup um and being in the startup space this whole am I coming

from a I can or am I coming from a I can’t um whether that’s with customers

you know with a deal um with employees with building out a process Etc um I

just think it applies to to so much and and there’s this whole like paradigm

shift within you know that building zero to one that’s starting from scratch and

um and so David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech back in 2005 at

Kenyon um where he’s got he’s speaking about these two fish so the it’s called

This is water and so there’s two young fish swimming along and um and this

older fish comes through and he’s like hey how’s the water and they look at each other and they’re

like what the hell is water and so how can we like realize the

Paradigm we’re in in order to do a paradigm shift so to me these are the two big things like I can versus I can’t

and start a land and like how you know like oh now I’m out of the box oh no I

was still in a box now I’m really out of the box and I was just talking about this with my co-founder um and CEO tro

like oh it’s really easy to bring a Perfection mindset to startups and like that’s that’s a recipe for a

failure um and versus a spirit of Adventure and this like out of the boox

nness so to me it’s like how can I approach the day with I can’t and with a

spirit of Adventure and and be able to see the water that’s that’s beautiful one one of the things that um my my

daughter Ray’s kindergarten teacher always says to her when she says I can’t

or I can’t do it she always adds comma yet so she’ll say like I can’t do it yet

Anda I like reflect on that all the time and I’m like wow that kindergarten teacher really got to me with that one but um those are beautiful I think those

are really great points and I think it it’s especially helpful in a startup context where everything is hard and you

just have to do it you have to try it and you have to keep after it so that’s that’s really great um you seem like a

great Storyteller so you know you you’ve helped craft stories for companies and platforms of all these you know

different sizes um tell me a little bit how you know you use storytelling in

your roles of leadership and then also just sort of you know maybe in peer or mentorship kind of

activities yeah I think you know I’ll actually bring up something here that I know we’ve all heard about for at least

probably 20 years but Simon sinx start with why I find incredibly valuable um

we talk internally as we’re like training our teams that

storytelling out and then zooming in so like what’s the larger context why are we here why are we doing this whatever

it is um you know why are we interested in learning how to give each other

helpful feedback what is what is the point of that internal Focus time um and

then going into the details and um and doing it in a way that’s uh

collaborative in that’s like hey Scott are you with me like how’s that Landing

for you what what’s going through your mind as I bring this up so how whether I’m on a call with a customer or with a

direct report like how can it be a dialogue as opposed to like information

delivery and and I think so often communication we assume is information

delivery but it’s actually a story and and so and you’re a player in that story

and the more you see yourself inside that story The more we can build something together H interesting okay so

um I think it feels like one thing that I I’ve been kind of wondering as I prepare to talk with you is you seem

like a very empathetic um you know human- centered person like you mentioned in your biology uh biography

on like ledin and and some of your focus around AI um it seems like AI in some ways is very

like not empathetic it’s not at least so far right it seems very inhuman and

robotic and it gives you what you want and um I I’m I’m curious like how you’re

thinking about making AI more human centered what that means is that making

the AI more human- centered is it making the content is it making how we interact with it the outputs like what does that

mean can you tell us some more about that yeah no I love that question and I

know with AI it’s so easy for like these Terminator images to pop up or you know

or just robotic interactions with chat Bots I think I would kind of step back

here into Humane technology as a whole and and going back to instead of us

working for technology how does technology work for us and um there’s

this incredible nonprofit the center for Humane technology that has a free online course found found ations in Humane

technology and it it all begins with this question um how can technology

treat our attention and intention as sacred and you know so there’s that I’m

like oh my god I didn’t even know people would use the word sacred as they talk about technology but also technology is

not neutral it’s not like oh we’re we’re just building what people want like okay how can we um instead of take advantage

of like the worst of human nature or how Evolution molded us towards

vigilance um and an actually support human nature or help us make better

decisions of like oh do I want do I want to be on this platform for you know

social media platform for four hours a day maybe I don’t how can it help me set

limits that are supportive of my mental health and my sleep patterns and so forth so I think we start to see some

examples like with um the iOS on you know iPhones saying like hey do you want

all notifications uh batched or do you want them to just come as they go um so just

starting to have some choice so that’s like super high level not not at the AI something that um we’re doing with our

product is we’re starting to build in some the clean communication Frameworks of like hey um feelings and needs like

what are what are the feelings expressed in this call or the unmet needs and it’s

interesting Scott because it’s actually where we started we started with a slackbot um you know before chat tvt

came out and people were running it on their Zoom calls and the part that it

was the Storyteller reports and the part that we heard the most feedback around was feelings and needs it was like hey

what was everyone feeling on our team call today like I really want to know so

I think there’s always that like anything can be used for good or for bad

and and so I’m sure people could look at that like oh no there’s like big brother

watching over us but I I think as we live in this remote as you were saying

at the beginning this like largely remote or distributed Workforce um we’re just getting on calls

with each other and we’re not there in person so we’re missing things and so I think with whether it’s our AI or

another um there’s ways where it can help us be closer to each other and

understand each other better um so I don’t know that’s initial initial

thoughts I don’t know what that oh I I I love that I mean like I you know it’s funny is um there’s like like you said

there’s iOS Instagram screen time FaceTime all these apps screen time excuse me where it sort of like gives

you some control but you have to take that first step and you have to enable it um I have a home automation system

for my home it’s it’s called home assistant it’s open source and I have these little automations that go off at

like 900 p.m it’s like turn off the TV turn off the lights I have Alexa say okay it’s time to go to bed guys and

like you know me and my wife are like ah darn Alexa is telling us to go to sleep like it helps but it’d be so cool if you

know my TV did that automatically for me um but it doesn’t and and that’s a really simple place where I could easily

spend my evening watching sci-fi or drama or whatever um I love I love the idea too of like the

context of how people feel in a meeting um especially as we’re doing more of

these these zooms very super super interesting um okay so you you’ve been working on Bots and Ai and introducing

um this this style of communication and bringing some um I guess more emotive or

like helping you see what’s happening in these meetings and calls um but what are some of the biggest challenges you’re

finding as you implement the AI and actually bring them to companies and customers is it like they just don’t use

these tools yet they’re reluctant it it doesn’t quite get them where they want to be what are some of the biggest challenges and and maybe you know you

probably have some really granular specific ones but also some high level ones yeah definitely it’s so interesting

Scott because I’m sure as you’ve seen and maybe experiences how you’re using AI like it’s really um changed so much

in short period of time like last year felt like the Enterprise the big no from

Enterprise like AI is not safe Chad TBT is banned a little bit like good luck

with that a lot of people are using our product in your companies you know how do you actually control what people are

using especially when like oh there’s this massively powerful tool but guess what you can’t use it so that didn’t

last um that didn’t last so this this has felt like the year of yes like I I

kind of maybe it’s a somewhat tentative yes but realizing oh my God we as an

Enterprise will be left behind if we’re not using AI um that said there’s uh

there’s something that we bring which is like where are you on your scale with AI your relationship to AI are you more in

the avoidant um are you cautious are you

enthusiastic and we help people see like okay where am I Vis A V Ai and what do I

need or what do I want to move to a different stage and um so so I think

there’s the there is some like personal uh stance towards AI that

either we overcome or we acknowledge okay you’re in voidance stage this isn’t you know AI isn’t for you right now but

let’s let’s see if at some point it is um but I think that the the standard

question that everyone has been coming to calls with with this year as we’re

doing initial demos and so forth is are you training on my data and so a lot of

really understandable concern uh about that and we are not so categorically

that’s just not something we’re doing and um we use Enterprise apis and those are not training on any data so the

sanctity of of data is is definitely key and an understandable hurdle um and then

beyond that I really feel like it’s Behavior change you know going back to those stages of it’s not just okay this

is the latest accounting tool um let’s let’s download this and and I’ll use it

on our team um but this is a different way to work and to interact and and so

we’ve done so much AI education and I’m sure we will continue you to do that um

just around like oh when you don’t get what you want on the first try iterate

because again if we’re accounting software and it gets a number wrong like uh I don’t think we can use this you

know this this is not working um versus oh I’m gonna I’m G to reach into the llm

and and find the value that I’m looking for and I’m going to learn how to reach into the llm so again then around

prompting so how do we lower the barriers around prompting so um you and

I can both get great results whether we’re experts in prompting or not in

some ways I think I I totally agree with the the code prompting or like the prompting of the LM um when I pick up my

kids from school I say how was your day and they say fine and I think man that was a terrible example of a question and

I have to I have to revisit it or it’s like a detective who’s trying to ask somebody they’ve you know brought in and

and ask some questions and they’re sort of trying all these different angles until eventually they get to the truth but I think that is one of the biggest

challenges is like actually you know going back to to your answer earlier it’s like it might not work yet but if

you work at it you keep pushing it’s eventually going to get there um super interesting so okay so like and let’s

say once you get your customer or your your your customer to actually use storytel and they’re implementing your

product and and using AI at least and they’re they’re like aware it could help them how are they talking to their

customers how are they engaging with them what are some of the the really cool and interesting ways that you’re you’re seeing either the potential for

or the reality already yeah I think along those lines about what’s possible with AI when

interacting with customers is the level of personalization and I feel like

personalization has been like a meme or a trend for two decades and it’s like well is it here yet like okay I can

design my own Nikes um you know but beyond that is it really here and at

least largely with any pitches that I receive um it it’s it’s not been it’s

like okay this is just a standard template this is not speaking to me and for instance um we have a user who

creates proposals just all day long and um and that’s that’s because he’s the

one doing the work so he’s the has the technical Acumen so it used to be a go to market team but they just they didn’t

have the depth of data to really create solid proposals and so he’s using our

product to create extremely personalized proposals and he’s getting most of them

accepted and and so he’s like whoa I have a way higher um acceptance rate and

I’m making one I wouldn’t have even done this before you know says the difference between doing it and not doing it but

then it’s like I did that in half an hour or 12 minutes and you know this

potential customer just said yes so it’s I think bringing a lot of ease in in

this like oh you get me I so I think that you know the people that he’s making the proposals to is like oh this

this shop like intimately understands our business and so it makes it an easy ass

it’s really interesting like thinking about when so I I’ve been in sales my my entire life and when I have a sales call

with a sales rep who is really great the first thing I always notice is that the pitch check they use very simple It’s

like got my company logo and like that’s not always the case it’s one of these things where you would think after I

don’t know 10 20 years of BB SAS or however long we’ve been doing this like just the act of personalizing that first

slide with my face or my name or my company or something but like not everybody does it and it really it

really does set you apart right away super super fast um how about you how

about for you personally I think one of the things I’m excited about is like you know um obviously helping your customers

but like one thing I I’ve really appreciated about working with you and then drodo is that you guys are like

power users of these tools and you’re always figuring things out um what what’s been most impactful for

you I think like for me with uh with AI for instance yeah um yeah I you know I

appreciate you saying that I think you know we have like Market signals or Northstar is one of our values that

story tells so it’s like be very very user Centric and and everything we do

and we have to know what we’re talking about so we need to use the tools and it’s fun to use the tools so one I’ve

got many stories I could pull from but um the one I’ll share is around

essentially code switching so you know a term that often people of color are

using but anytime that we’re switching from one environment to another and how

how you talk to your friend um after work is going to be different than how

you talk on a sales call and and so forth and this like sometimes is gaining

purchase into a world where you might not otherwise feel you belong and um as

a female co-founder and there’s way more female co-founders now with AI there’s

been a big jump I think about 20% um with this whole rise of generative Ai

and so how I normally speak in conversation which is around you know

like connection and so forth that doesn’t always land really well with

like uh the tech exec landscape in Silicon Valley and so I actually um yeah

just created prompts around like rewrite this so that you know I am this I a

female co-founder in cicon Valley I need my male peers to respect me rewrite this

message um in a way that it will really land and I did that and I tricked drodo

so he saw my mess he’s like oh my God amazing like that’s the way to be

co-founder and I was like so about that you know it’s to to an external

party but um so that’s I I think in terms of like like how can it be more

than I think I can be going back to that like I can mentality AI is incredible to support us

with that right and I think I think a lot of the time it’s it’s like trying to figure out what you don’t know about

this group or this environment that you need to know in advance and so like it equips you like you said to pretend and

to try to become and impersonate I think a lot of us myself included I go into room with other CEOs and I’m like man

I’m such a joker compared to all these other guys and you know I I’m like okay Scott take a deep breath put on the

Persona of CEO and let’s go and then you know obviously like as you have these conversations you break down some of the

communications and people realize like all right we’re kind of all working on the same thing we all feel the same way

so that’s that’s amazing I actually had never heard of that freeze before either code switching so that’s add that to the

the brain I love it um let let’s switch a little bit to talking about leadership um you know

you’ve you’ve let a you your cousin custom experience team you have your clean communication framework um I I

have always loved the idea of you know receiving feedback asking our customers our team sometimes though I worry that

they’re not giving me the feedback that I need and and I worry that I’m not going to hear their hard feedback um H

how do you help I guess Foster or create an environment that like you can actually give the feedback and then you actually can receive it in a way that it

works great yeah I that is a great question and I I feel like we’ll always

be wrestling with this you know like Humanity will always be wrestling with

this um because you are counteracting culture and hierarchy and um different

work cultures around the world which you know some of those cultures are like you

you can’t talk to your elders that way that’s you can’t talk to someone in a position higher than you that way and so

so something um one book we really love it story tells Radical cander by Kim

Scott and um and she has a question that we’ve brought into her one in ones of

like what’s one thing I as your manager could do or stop doing that would make

it easier to work with me so I find that to be a really powerful question now in order to break

through those different cultural barriers to actually like give that

feedback that I think that’s still a work in progress but we very much invite

it from each other and as co-founders we try to model that by having regular feedback sessions with each other where

it’s like okay I’m G to take a half hour to look at a pattern I think feedback is

most helpful when it’s not one-offs or goas you know like oh I’ve been seeing

this you know and then we do paraphrasing so we have a whole process of like hey are you open to feedback

okay yes you know if it’s not a scheduled feedback time I could spend a lot of time on this I’ll I’ll try to

summarize myself but so then it’s okay Scott what are you hearing me say so

then you’re paraphrasing it back and then okay and how is that Landing for you it’s like okay I see the truth here

I’m not seeing it there okay where do we want to go from here or this is what I need from you how do you want to get

this I I I’ve noticed you know kind of going back to the the um one of the comments

you made about establishing a pattern um I’ve noticed when whatever the context whether it’s at home with my spouse and

we talk about things that we’re frustrated with you know hey Scott you didn’t wash uh do do the dishes like one

of my main jobs is I’m like the dishes guy and so you know if I miss a couple days in a row it’s like we start talking

about it or when I worked at Facebook I had a great manager her name was Monica dracus she talked about this idea she’s

like typically when I give you feedback I’m going to have wanted to see it happen three times before I actually

bring it up with you because I I have noticed that the first thing everybody says is when have I done that give me an

example of that you know it’s it’s always like hearing feedback is tough I think in a work context we’re often more

open or careful to receive the feedback but still there’s that visceral emotional reaction U which is which is

really hard to get asked so I I love the idea of the pattern trying to identify obviously like if the person’s stealing

money from the business maybe just like don’t do that right away yeah that’s not feedback that’s the feedback is uh we

have contacted the authorities yeah exactly exactly um

that’s super interesting okay I love that and and I actually have not read radical cander other than like seeing the quotes I I think that’s a great book

that I’m going to take away and and read from there um okay so let’s let’s talk about I you know um let’s say for

example we have an outcome that we’re trying to achieve we’re trying to grow Revenue or grow customer base or release

a new product um how do you balance the sort of like I guess you know

communication style the empathetic work culture and then also like the let’s go

let’s go let’s go let’s get it and and get the results so so how how are those

how do you build a culture that cares about results and giving feedback and

making sure that we’re not at holes together or to each other excuse me right right right completely um

and so that that’s the what Dro you and I I mean that’s very much part of our experiment with company culture at

storytellers rodeo in in the startup land I definitely came in with some

ideas that uh didn’t didn’t totally match up we were so focused on so these

two aspects right of like creating a product to believe in and a place belong

and um and so that’s something that I I like wisdom that I got from I Su Odo and

and and drodo as well just things that that they’ve shared with the world and many Founders through founder culture

and we realized we’re so focused on creating a place to belong that we weren’t doing enough right at the very

beginning around product to believe in so we had to do a whole re of like we’re not at the resort stage of a startup

we’re not all sitting here hanging out on the beach um it it is go time and so

I really like I see clean communication as an umbrella term to like anything

that’s providing Clarity So like um Ary which we refer to as racy the decision

making framework um actually swap people say racy we say Ary but um like I think

that’s part of clean communication who’s the accountable party who needs to be consulted who needs to be informed when you don’t have that clear like whoa

there’s just a lot of conflict but I think so much of it is hey let’s all

know where we’re headed we need to know our mission our vision like our product road map where we’re trying to get to in

this quarter where we have to get to for our next Rise um what our roles are to get there and then operations just like

everyone’s getting you know paid on time the trains are leaving on time Etc if

you don’t have those set up it doesn’t matter how much empathy you want to do with each other so I think even like

Humane technology so much of it is table Stakes of what’s a really good SAS product what’s a what’s a really good UI

and ux what products do you love to use they’re probably following a lot of Humane design principles and um and yeah

with our companies it’s like okay are you operational are you focused you know where you’re going great

great like how do you weave in like empathy through that but you’re not a

personal development company you’re trying to achieve objectives with customers right you’re you’re trying to

take story tell and build it into something you know incrementally incredible that helps your customers so

like yeah um that completely makes sense I I I think the idea of working

somewhere that you know cares about you and has a big mission is excited to to to go out and Chase it like I think

everybody wants that um so let’s say let’s say you uh either meet your goal

or you’re you’re making great progress towards building this incredible product it’s at storytel um how are you

envisioning AI storytelling together um helping enable your customers to either

connect communicate or just be way more productive like what are some of the things that you hope to see or expect to

see yeah well our like our reason for existing is to make life meaningful by

making work meaningful and so what what we’ve seen with our product the date and

it’s like different Industries different roles um people just finding joy in

their work um finding work life balance feeling like a superhero making things

possible that were just not possible before um finding product expansion

possibility by like really understanding their customers and and so there’s

something really meaningful about I’m not just a cog in the wheel I like I’m

here and I this is you know some level of work that I need to do and then

here’s the work that I want to do and so story tell really enabling the need to

do in a way that’s actually joyous so there’s something around um this

superhero at work is essentially our like Northstar metric like how how many

people can we turn into superheroes that’s beautiful I I talked with uh the COO of one password

yesterday and one of the things he mentioned is that their focus on creating a product people love has

enabled their growth and their expansion and their Market potential but if they

had just created any other product that people had to use it might die as that that person goes to another company and

so like you know thinking about your product if you can build something that enables you to be a superum version of

yourself you’re going to be more productive you’re going to be happier you’re going to be like less flustered and tired I mean there’s like infinite

potential there um so let’s let’s wrap up with just talking a little bit about

you know story tell and some of the specific things that you guys are excited about some of the areas that

you’re excited about that you’re working on right now um yeah I think that uh

when like so I’m GNA go Broad and then I’ll go specific great so like with AI

in general I think there’s this incredible opportunity for Behavior change like we read books listen to

podcasts Etc but then like actually changing behavior is really really hard

and um and so something uh along those lines is you know why are we called

stories hidden in our data that we don’t even know about and so like surfacing

those stories and sure we run on data but businesses really run on stories and my ability to speak to you in a way that

resonates for you um versus someone in a different role or at a different company or in a different part of the world and

so something we’re building out right now is bringing in storytelling Frameworks um so that it’s like okay

maybe you read a book about storytelling with data but how do you operationalize

that how do you um start you know speaking to the board of zeit in a way

that’s telling a story in the way that they’re really going to be able to hear so that’s something that we have in

progress right now I’m excited about I think also that analyzing feelings and needs as we really look at um how to

integrate you know Humane technology into and the new wave of like how do we reach

Humane Ai and how can Storyteller be a part of that in a way that you know like

achieve business outcomes awesome sounds very exciting um

well it’s been great talking with you Erica from storytel and um yeah thanks for joining us on inside the workflow

yeah yeah yeah my pleasure and for me really big takeaway around the word yet and just like the power of yet so thank

you for bringing out oh cool all right