Accelerating AI Adoption Through AI Week

Intro 0:01

Welcome to the She Said Privacy/He Said Security Podcast, like any good marriage, we will debate, evaluate, and sometimes quarrel about how privacy and security impact business in the 21st Century.

Jodi Daniels 0:21

Hi. Jodi Daniels, here, I’m the founder and CEO of Red Clover Advisors, a certified women’s privacy consultancy. I’m a privacy consultant and certified informational privacy professional providing practical privacy advice to overwhelmed companies.

Justin Daniels 0:35

Hi, I’m Justin Daniels, I am a shareholder and corporate M and A and tech transaction lawyer at the law firm, Baker Donaldson, advising companies in the deployment and scaling of technology. Since data is critical to every transaction, I help clients make informed business decisions while managing data privacy and cyber security risk and when needed, I lead the legal cyber data breach response brigade.

Jodi Daniels 0:58

This episode is brought to you by there’s no ding with gold the hair that’s more fun. Red Clover Advisors, that is who This episode is brought to you by, we help companies to comply with data privacy laws and establish customer trust so that they can grow and nurture integrity. We work with companies in a variety of fields, including technology e commerce, professional services and digital media. In short, we use data privacy to transform the way companies do business together. We’re creating a future where there’s greater trust between companies and consumers to learn more and to check out our best selling book, Data Reimagined: Building Trust One Byte at a Time, visit redcloveradvisors.com. Well, hello, hello.

Justin Daniels 1:40

Don’t you have a big day coming up? I

Jodi Daniels 1:44

do, but by the time this airs, it will have passed. Because we record, I see Yes, are we talking about? It’s not a big, big day. Just Sure it is. It is not okay. It’s just a birthday, but it is not a big birthday. Oh, okay, I’ll leave that for the old people over here on the right of me,

Justin Daniels 2:11

should I? Should I ask you how old you’re going

Jodi Daniels 2:13

to be? No, you will not. But it is not a every birthday is special. Every birthday is special. It is why October is the best month of the year, but it is not an extra special birthday, okay. Well, with that

Justin Daniels 2:29

fun aside, why don’t we jump into our great guest, who I got to know when I spoke at Atlanta AI week, which we’re going to talk about. So let me introduce Summer Crenshaw, who is the co founder and CEO of the Enterprise Technology Association, the national leader in AI and emerging technology adoption. She serves on multiple advisory boards and continues to champion innovation education and responsible technology adoption. Summer, how are you

Summer Crenshaw 3:00

fabulous, excited to be here with you both?

Jodi Daniels 3:03

Well, we always start with trying to understand how people got to where they are today. So if you can give us a little career journey, we would love to hear it.

Summer Crenshaw 3:13

Yeah, yeah. So originally, actually started in the entertainment industry. So I worked for major record labels bringing new artists into market. So I feel that foundationally, I’ve been a matchmaker my whole career, like that’s the through line. So, you know, I toured with Nickelback and on a tour for Jim Beam, you know, back in the early 2000s and then, you know, while I had to move back to Cincinnati, where I am from originally, instead of being out in the hustle and bustle of New York, I’ve pivoted into the tech industry. And where I landed at the time was at careerbuilder.com which was a startup actually at the time, and that startup really was foundational in bringing forth what you know we see today, the job boards of of of what we’re all used to now. And with that, I ended up seeing a lot of challenges where bias was starting to really come into the tech industry there, where folks weren’t getting jobs because, you know, maybe their, you know, job title or their resume wasn’t tweaked correctly, and then on the other side, employers were screaming, hey, there’s nobody there to, you know, fill this job. So I ended up actually building out a tech startup called Tilr, which was one of the first AI marketplaces for jobs that connected job seekers and companies on demand, and did it through skills rather than job title or resume. So, you know, here I built that organization, raised about $14 million for the startup, which was fabulous, went to 32 cities across America, and it was an amazing, amazing opportunity exited that in 2020 but one of the things that was really interesting in that process is that when you see everyone’s skills, you also have the luxury of seeing what opportunities are out there with employers, and you can see the disconnect, right? And so what I became. I’m just fascinated with was, like the skill gaps that were really there, and how easy actually it would be to close the skill gaps if you actually just had visibility into it. And so that’s really what unlocked my obsession with the education side of the house, and probably an area that I affectionately call just in time education, because I see this opportunity where so many of us are just near qualified for so many great opportunities, we just don’t know it. And so that’s really what’s led me into building and scaling enterprise technology Association, because we’re about AI and emerging tech adoption. And so for me, it’s just this natural evolution of seeing an emerging tech come to fruition and knowing that the biggest, most critical part of all of this is for all of us to become lifelong learners and to incrementally learn along the way. So that’s what we what we do in our business, and you know, one of our biggest opportunities to do that is through our AI Week events that we have across the US.

Jodi Daniels 6:03

It’s really interesting to hear how you started. My nephew is in the music business and just getting started. And what I was thinking, as you were explaining, is, gosh, this will be fascinating to see where he goes very land. Because I just, I think it’s really interesting the hops that you’ve had, and that’s I just had in my head, gosh, what’s he gonna do?

Summer Crenshaw 6:26

It was, it was a fabulous opportunity. I will say there’s, there’s so many interesting things. Like, I mean, I play a massive events right now that is absolutely no different than the events, you know, I would experience at, you know, the concerts, right? Like, no difference. Like, I’m talking to my team about merch for our shows. I had to deal with merch, you know, at all of these different concerts. So it’s really funny the parallels that I now see, you know, 20 years later in the industry that I’m in now, yes, we have some of that merch in our house from some of the artists you manage it.

Justin Daniels 7:02

So Summer, you’ve been on the ground talking to business leaders all across the country about AI. And can you share with us what you’re hearing most often, excitement, fear, confusion, and what separates the companies who are actually implementing AI from those who are still stuck in pilot mode?

Summer Crenshaw 7:19

Oh, gosh, you know, it’s, it’s all three quite honestly, I like, I can’t say that. I’m hearing just fear or just excitement, you know? I think it’s honestly, like, day to day, people are trying to figure out what emotion to feel about all of this. I think, you know, this is one of those evolutions where we’re not able to separate our kind of, our personal and professional life, right? Like we are professionally wanting to use tools to accelerate our business and achieve great business goals and all of that. But at the same time, in the back of our mind, we’re also like, Uh oh, will this eliminate my job? Will this eliminate jobs that I currently have folks employed for? So I think that that’s, that’s what I see in market, is like this mix of all three sentiments. And I think it’s, it’s rightly so, it’s just, it’s a very different atmosphere than what I would have seen, you know, when we, when we first had the.com boom, or, you know, even when smartphones really came to market, and, you know, kind of the mobile app engagement really, really took shape this one. I think we’ve gotten more personal tie to it than we’ve seen in other, you know, other revolutions.

Jodi Daniels 8:27

I’d love to hear a little bit about some of the events that you’re creating. We talked about merch for the event. So if everyone wants to go and get great merch, clearly you’re going to want to hear about these events and then go. So talk to us first a little bit about the events, and then I have some follow on questions. Yeah,

Summer Crenshaw 8:44

absolutely. So, you know, AI week is probably what I would call our flagship event. And you know, where the where the birthplace of that was, is my co founders and I, we went to an event, actually, up at MIT, and it was an event called imagination in action. And it was an event that was bringing all of the top leaders in AI. So, you know, you think, you know, the Gemini, the chat GBT, is all of, all of the big brains of the world, right? And they were able to pull that off in a couple of weeks. And, you know, one of the things that was just so fascinating to myself and my co founders of eta was that man, you know, they’re able to get people in the room do it quickly. They were activating deal flow like we had never seen literally. We calculated, at one point in time, we had talked to fund managers that had managed nearly a trillion, like dollars across the board in transactions they were making between the data centers, the startups, you name it all across the board, and it was very natural in the MIT space and in the Boston Market, that’s how they do business. Now we are coming from Cincinnati, Ohio, where we, you know, can be affectionately called a flyover state. And so, you know, in thinking through it, it was, it was something where we said, okay, it’s. Clear that this community’s thing is really important. But where, you know, places like Boston and places like Silicon Valley are amazing is that they have speed, and that is where most other communities just don’t have it. They, you know, they take six months to plan, nine months a year to plan some kind of event like that. And so we’ve kind of turned to each other and said, Could we pull this off in Cincinnati? And, oh, by the way, could we pull it off quickly? And so, you know, we basically went to a group of individuals in the what’s called Cincinnati AI Catalyst, and we said, hey, we’ve got this idea. We want to do Cincy AI week, and this was at the first week of May, and we said we’re going to do it next month. And everybody looked at us and said, Well, why? Why not wait till next year? You know, you have plenty of time. We said, no, like, that’s where everybody fails. It’s if, if we’re going to be a part of the national conversation, we need to do this and do it immediately. So since the AI week was in 2024 was our first show. Actually landed randomly on my birthday. So we did a three day event, ended up having over 150 speakers, and 1000 people attended that show. So, you know, from concept to reality and execution was five weeks. That was it. And so that was kind of that, that first step of, okay, we’re going to help this whole, you know, adoption phase of what we’re seeing from the technology perspective. Can we repeat this? Was this a flash in the pan? Is it because we’re from Cincinnati, and those were just, you know, our friends, we could rally enough people. So we said, Okay, let’s do it again. Let’s go a little bit farther away, you know. So we went up the street to Columbus, which is about two hours away from Cincinnati, and again, same scenario around the same amount of people showed up, same amount of speakers showed up, and it was all representative of what was going on in that community. So again, you know, it wasn’t just us pulling from our own little network. So the next phase was, okay, can we get, you know, can we get outside of our little bubble altogether? And can we do this in another state, in another region. And so we launched in Atlanta. And again, we had a very similar turnout, very similar engagement. You know, three days, 150 speakers, 1000 attendees, all representative the local community. So that’s kind of how it was. It was birthed out of a almost like a challenge to ourselves, and now it is just created this amazing momentum that we’re replicating across

Jodi Daniels 12:27

the US. It is very ambitious and very cool to have been able to create such a successful event in a short period of time and replicate it. So kudos to all of you. Your event experience. Definitely translate it through you can see that for sure. And one of the other pieces, I think that’s really important about your events, is they’re not always to technical audiences. You might have a non technical person who’s really interested in AI. So can you share how have you been working with executives and all the different levels of people to be able to make AI accessible. What is it? Maybe it’s about the speakers or the content or the method of how to get these teams to understand AI strategy and in an easy to understand way.

Summer Crenshaw 13:20

Yeah, yeah. I think one of the challenge of creating any kind of conference been, you know, is you have to start with the persona. And our persona was AI, that’s, are you interested in AI, is it affecting you in any way? And basically, we all can say yes, that’s one side of it. And then are you committed to your local community in any way, and so that that, that that was, what was the foundation of creating the persona. We then started to dive into what we were seeing locally manifest in terms of how AI was being adopted. We have found that every single city looks different, whether that be the industries that are very popular in the city, you know, Nashville, for instance, has a really, you know, big music industry, obviously, but they’re also really deep in health care. And Cincinnati, for instance, you know, we are in the, kind of the CPG capital of the world, with Procter and Gamble and Kroger Corporation, right? So we’ve got, you know, different industries that are served, and then, you know, all of the the sub industries that support that, right? So there, there’s that, that part of the equation. But then in it, in addition to that, it’s also what does adoption look like currently? You know, are folks still like dipping their toe? Are they talking about AI in terms of it being theory rather than practice? Where they’re, you know, they’re popping out the newest large language model, and they have all of the biggest startups, you know, getting billion dollar valuations, right. So for us, we do a really good overview of kind of the market at large. We dive into local community groups, and our goal is to actually be really like a sounding board for them, and give them an opportunity to speak in ways that may. Be, you know, they don’t normally get to cross collaborate, so getting a little bit of a pulse from there, and then from there, we kind of curate the, you know, the overall programming based on how how to tackle the things that seem to matter to the local community at large. So we do serve, you know, everything from a concerned grandmother, which I’ll never forget, in Cincinnati that was really worried about this whole thing on AI, all the way to C level executives from the fortune 500 companies, and you know how they’re approaching AI for for their organization. So we do that. It’s why we do it over a three day period. We do, you know, kind of tracks that look at things like AI for me versus AI for teams and organizations, and then jobs to be done. You know, are you a technical, you know, a technical expert that needs to dive in a little bit more deep into the nitty gritty of the tech side of it, or are you a sales leader that’s just saying, hey, I need to empower my sales reps to, you know, get in front of more customers more frequently. So it’s kind of the building blocks that we look at it, but it all starts first and foremost with conversations with local community leaders to say, hey, if we can give you a stage, what would you like to say, and then we build it around that.

Jodi Daniels 16:15

Very cool. Thanks for sharing. Yeah.

Justin Daniels 16:19

So from what you’ve seen, how do you convince leaders that governance, ethics and risk management aren’t slowing them down? They’re what make AI scalable and to be like on a personal level, I was grateful that you let me kick off Atlanta AI week in the way that you let me do it to kind of put all those issues front and center.

Jodi Daniels 16:40

Yeah, not everyone listening knows what you’re talking about.

Justin Daniels 16:45

I think Summer will set it up by the answer to her question, absolutely.

Summer Crenshaw 16:50

So, you know, with Atlanta and we had such a phenomenal group of local leaders that, you know, rallied that also, you know, part of, part of our, I guess insanity is also going to other communities and saying, You know what? There’s a story to be told here. And we’re going to bring people that you normally don’t have in the room together together, and you’re going to tell, you know, the big, the big, bold story there. You know, what I I see consistently is, instead of thinking that governance is a break. It should just be a steering wheel. And this is just a way, a mechanism, for you to do, to do the job that you need done, and to accomplish what you want to accomplish. We talk a lot about it, and we see it a lot, actually, in our shows where we discuss Golden Road, like, what’s that that path? If If you can give people the path with a little with a little extra, you know, steering grease, they’re going to do phenomenal things. Will they do it perfectly? Absolutely not. But I think when we look at a, you know, Imperfect Action beats out perfect inaction any day, right? Like we want to see people accomplish, you know, big, bold things, and so the leaders that are are looking at governance as a opportunity rather than a hindrance, I think are the ones that we’re seeing be a part of the success stories that are going on across the board.

Jodi Daniels 18:16

Are you gonna share the cool thing you did? Well, Justin’s allowed to do great.

Summer Crenshaw 18:25

And I bet I have a video or two of this as well.

Justin Daniels 18:28

Oh yeah, we have the video. I didn’t dress up, or I didn’t sing, but the presentation was all around AI, and the potential risks, particularly for kids, and so obviously, it’s an event to celebrate, AI, but to allow someone the stage to get up and talk about in a very sobering way. We had a deep fake of one of my presentations. I just thought that really showed a lot of confidence in the community, because I think it would be really helpful Summer is talk a little bit about how you go about creating these communities. Because one of the big ways that you do it is you actually go and you find leaders in every community, bring them together as part of a committee. And the event you guys did in Atlanta, I mean, you guys crushed it for the first time,

Summer Crenshaw 19:20

yeah, yeah. So it’s, it’s, I will say, we do the we do it the hard way. It’s definitely, you know, it would be a lot easier, I think, to do a traditional conference where you just land, yeah, advertise the crap out of it, you put out the programming, you fly people in, and you just do it that way. And that’s not been our approach, and I think that that’s what has made our show so successful, in that people leave and they talk about it for not just weeks after the event, months after the event, you’ll see people talk just like you’ll go on a LinkedIn and, you know, we use, you know, hashtag, whatever city it is, AI week. And if you look up any of our AI weeks, you’ll see. People talk weeks months after the event, and they’ll talk about unlocking a part of the community that they hadn’t seen, and it being so authentic to the local area. And it’s because we do create what we call our host committee, and we have a host committee and a coordinating committee in every single city we go to. Our coordinating committees are those that we’ve identified as, you know, the true leaders in the community, in whatever expertise they may have. You know, sometimes that looks like, you know, a professional organization leader that you know is running it from that side of the house. Then we’ve got those that are running on the nonprofit side. And then we’ve got, you know, little meetup groups in there as well. Everybody has it has a voice, and they have a purview of what’s going on in the community. And so to me, it becomes very authentic and a reflection of of what’s going on really. Now, do we bring in people from other other areas? Yeah, absolutely. We’ve got speakers that come in from other, you know, other areas of the country, but I would say about 80% of the speakers are local to the local community, which, again, is different, because most of us are used to going out to trade shows and flying out to Vegas or wherever. And you know, you’re used to, you know, being people that are on stage that you likely will never have a conversation in life with. But this is, wait a minute, these are people that I didn’t even realize were down live down the street. For me, they’re doing really big, bold, amazing things that likely is could be visible on the world stage, but you didn’t know they were in your backyard. And so the only way we’re able to accomplish that is by going to these local leaders and saying, hey, you know, can we get your commitment to, you know, give us that Intel and make the introductions and tell us who to talk to. And then, oh, by the way, can you help guide us on making sure the program looks and feels like a local produced it. And then, you know, how do we ensure you know? Now, in our year two and year three markets, you know, we’re now even rolling out awards to recognize what’s going on in the local markets. Because we do think it’s really critical in telling that story and and by and large, to the other part of the equation is, is looking at this and saying, okay, instead of letting the Silicon Valley of the world, you know, kind of lead the way, can we ensure that everybody’s flag is raised and, you know, in whatever expertise that they have, that they own that, and then are we able to cross pollinate and cross connect between all of these other cities that we’re serving? And the answer is yes, and we’re doing it in really cool ways now, where we’re taking that, you know, offline experience, and putting it online, digitizing it and and even in March, we’ll be going out to DC and having our first AI Congress, which is going to give representatives from all of these community groups across the US an opportunity to go to DC and really have their voice heard in a great, meaningful way as well. So these are all little pieces of the puzzle, and like I said, this is not the easy way to do it. So if anybody’s looking to create an event, don’t do it this way, because it is very time consuming, very challenging. And you’ve got, you know, you know, herding of all the all of the cats, all of the personalities that exist with it as well. But I think, you know, the end result is pretty amazing when, when you’re at the shows,

Jodi Daniels 23:18

you gave a little bit of a hint of what you’re thinking for next year in 2026 and you’ve also shared a lot about how so much of these conversations around education and innovation and what is happening tell us a little bit more about what you’re thinking for 2026

Summer Crenshaw 23:35

I think this the conversation is going to pivot, And it’s, we’re not. We saw it in 24 where it was theory, right? Like, ooh, the shiny object is coming. And some people are using it. Some people aren’t, you know, like, that was really interesting. And then 25 came in, and people are talking a little bit about use cases, you know, I use this, and I’m getting, you know, doing this, getting this result right. I think what we’re going to see in 26 is going to be more human in conversation, and we’re going to hear a lot more about impact, and impact can be both positive and negative. I think we’re going to see and hear a lot about organizations that are downsizing because of, you know, the emerging tech getting rolled out. I think we’re also going to hear a lot of impact on some of the deep fakes that are out there, people, you know, with Sora too, even just being released, you know, it’s pretty amazing, the level and scary, quite frankly, the level of video you can now create at a moment’s notice that has real, true human impact. And I think between that and now the the fact that we all have to adopt to a world where AI is not going away. It’s basically like, you know, getting access to, you know, our electricity, right, like this isn’t going anywhere. So how do we educate ourselves and our employees and our. Businesses in a world where this no longer goes away. And I think too, you know, in the conversations I’m having with a lot of leaders, you know, really, where I’ve had the best conversations has have been around, you know, there was a study that came out this past year from MIT that said 95% of AI projects fail. And you know, so with that, you’re like, Well, then why is anybody using it? What’s up with that? And it’s like, well, like, let’s ignore the 95% let’s talk about the 5% like, what does it mean to be a 5% leader? And I think where we’re hearing the best success stories from that are, you know, these leaders that are saying, Okay, I have to treat AI like it’s a teammate, that I have to manage it just like I would a human because now we’ve got these little agent, Agent robots that are doing things, and I’ve got to manage it alongside my human counterparts. And so those are the types of conversations that are, you know, really starting to take shape, even as we’re deal, we’re building the programming for our shows, our shows next year, and it’s, it’s about leveling up in a way that is very much human centered and human in the loop, I think, fascinating.

Jodi Daniels 26:09

Time will tell, and we’re almost there, just a couple months away.

Justin Daniels 26:14

So Summer, can you share with our audience if you have a favorite privacy or cyber security tip, especially in light of what you’ve learned about AI and how that impacts our privacy and security?

Summer Crenshaw 26:25

Yeah, I think one of the, I guess scarier, is probably the best word for this, is that I was in a room, actually, in preparation for Great Lakes AI week that’s coming up in November. And so I was up at Bowling Green, Ohio, and I was in a room with a lot of individuals that were probably, you know, kind of Boomer generation, you know, 65 plus. And one of the women, I guess, she runs an organization that helps empower, you know, seniors like how to navigate the world of of technology. And, you know, she stood up, and there was a panel discussion of folks in the room, and she stood up and she was like, Well, what do I tell like my seniors about this? Because they’re really scared and they don’t know what to do. And the scariest thing was that the entire panel all giggled uncomfortably. And the answer I was probably the most shocking answer I had heard was that the person said, Well, I’m going to answer, give you an answer to another question that is not the question you asked. And he went on and answered a totally off topic question. I was like, you just turned the conversation away from something that somebody was very concerned about. And so, you know that’s, I bring that up because that’s, these are the types of conversations that are happening in every room across the world. And so from a security standpoint, I I think we all have to go a little bit deeper personally with our own families and those that we love and say, how do we protect ourselves together? So like the most basic thing is, do you have a security code or a security number between your family, so that if somebody does do a video or a audio that’s spoofing you you know? Do you have a way to know if that’s true or not? Right? Like that’s one might like minuscule way that we should all be thinking about, how do we connect our safety and security to one another. But I think that, if nothing else, like, start there with your own dang family, stop stressing just about work, like we’re in a world now that we’ve got to protect ourselves in our, you know, our seniors, in our in our life, as well as our kids, right? So yeah, I think that that’s, that’s for me, is like step one, do you have a, you know, a security word and security code for your family to start out

Jodi Daniels 28:42

with, and when you are not planning events, what do you like to do for fun? Yeah,

Summer Crenshaw 28:48

I love working out. I’ve been a weightlifter for my you know, for forever, since I was young. One of the other things my husband, he is a retired combat veteran. And you know, because he was deployed to Iraq and was there my first full year of marriage, it can be very challenging for us to communicate in meaningful ways, in the way that others, I think traditionally, would communicate. So we actually do Jiu Jitsu together. So we take Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classes together, and that has become our, what we affectionately call our therapy. Because what better way to, you know, figure out how you’re going to deal with your spouse than making them tap out in a in a headlock, right? So that’s something that we do together. That’s, that’s a lot of fun. My son also trains, trains in BJJ as well. But that’s, that’s something that you know we like, we like to do together.

Jodi Daniels 29:49

That might be one of the more unique what you like to do for finance

Justin Daniels 29:53

joy, putting you in a head lock in new taffy.

Summer Crenshaw 29:56

Yeah, you’d be surprised. Yeah. Women can be. A can be very, very strong when, when you know you learn, learn the right

Jodi Daniels 30:04

techniques. Well, Summer, we’re so glad that you joined us today. If people would like to learn more and connect, and especially to know, what are the cities, yeah, that you’re planning on hosting next year, where

Summer Crenshaw 30:14

should they go? Yeah, go to join eta.org and all of our studies are there. And we also have some other events going on, like future tech forum and and we have some other interesting things rolling out for our digital community as

Jodi Daniels 30:26

well. Amazing. Well, we’re so glad that you joined us today. Thank you,

awesome.

Summer Crenshaw 30:30

Thank you.

Outro 30:35

Thanks for listening to the She Said Privacy/He Said Security Podcast. If you haven’t already be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes and check us out on LinkedIn. See you next time.