#39 All About Non-Fungible Tokens

NFTs, Bit Coin and Crypto – Oh My!

You’ve heard of NFTs, cryptocurrency and Web 3.0 – but do you truly understand what they are and how marketers can use them to engage their consumers?

In this episode, Beth is joined by Dale Alexander, a fellow agency leader who has evolved his creative direction from words to widgets to wallets. Listen as he takes you through his journey and shares some insight into the evolving world of digital currency.

Biggest Takeaways From This Episode

Here are our biggest takeaways from this episode:

• We are a value-based species and attribute worth to the things (and brands) we love. Digital assets such as NFTs are just one more way to show (off) what inspires you.

• The most important thing a brand can do in this space is be truly authentic in its execution.

• Your brain might sweat a little as you learn, but remember when we didn’t know what the world wide web was? Innovation is the great driver of

· The magic comes from the ability to constantly connect through code. It’s like having a door that stays open for those with the key. As the brand has more to say – the fans are ready to listen.

Want your question to be answered on the generation social media podcast? Tell us what it is here!

Transcript

This text below is a straight up audio transcript of the episode. In our humble opinion, we think the audio podcast sounds much better in its original form. We have not edited the transcription below so there are indeed some grammar errors (some quite funny, in-fact).

Intro (00:02):

You don't have to be a millennial to be socially savvy. We believe anyone can join generation social media and your journey starts. Now, this is the Generation Social Media podcast by Chatterkick.

Beth Trejo (00:18):

Welcome everybody to another episode of Generation Social Media. I'm so excited to have our guests with us today, Dale. Um, I want you all to meet him and have him tell a little bit about himself, but we are gonna talk about the world of NFTs today and cryptocurrency and the web 3.0. And, um, before we get too far in Dale, I want you to be able to tell our audience a little bit of background about yourself. I had a chance to, um, look at your LinkedIn. It sounds like you have a very, um, vast background in the agency space, um, and in, um, with brands. So give us a little intro to yourself and what you've been working on.

Dale Alexander (00:59):

Uh, great. Uh, thanks for having me. And, um, yeah, I, I know all about, uh, peak and a creep and on other people's LinkedIn, especially these days, uh, just trying to, you know, check on people's, uh, backgrounds and, and honestly trying to find like-minded people with that sense of curiosity to where they may have been doing one thing for a good long while, but then they have this bug, this, drive, this something to go, uh, go off and explore and go off and pioneer, you know, something new. And, and I, I feel like that that's what we get to all enjoy right now here, you know, in the, in the, the 2020s. Um, so I started, I grew up, uh, overseas, uh, in Southeast Asia. I was born in Thailand and, um, and moved every two or two or three years. And I became fascinated with advertising because our family, they would record VHS tapes if people remember what those are.

Dale Alexander (01:52):

Yeah. And, uh, of like TV shows, you know, the Cosby show, golden girls and all this stuff. And I would, I would watch the commercials as if they were a show also, and just watching the tapes O over and over and over again. And when I grew up and finally realized like, wait, that's someone's job, like you get to make those like little mini 32nd mini movies. Um, and so I just loved the, the thought of advertising, um, not, not the selling, not, not that part, but creating the, the medium to create something that wasn't like a multi-year movie type thing, which I'm sure is, is great. But having that opportunity to, you know, really kind of reach out and, um, and just open people's minds to, to new things. And, uh, toy commercials was something that was obviously huge, you know, when you were young.

Dale Alexander (02:40):

And so I did join the agency world, uh, on the creative side, doing a bunch of things for, uh, Pepsi and Frito lay and pizza hut as some of the first things, which is, you know, a huge blessing to start your career off with some big clients. But then we had an opportunity to start working on Hasbro toy spots, which was like, my gosh, like dream job manifested it's all come together. So I was the crave director for all the boys' brands, um, for, um, five or six years for Hasbro. And we were literally making these little mini movies, um, because we realized that like advertising is like more, more tied to selling. And, uh, we wanted to actually create content, you know, we weren't calling it, oh, here's a 32nd piece of content that we're gonna advertise with, but that's what we knew that kids were into.

Dale Alexander (03:29):

And then that evolution was happening. And then I started to look around and saw, um, budgets, particularly for broadcast, you know, kept on, kept on, coming down, kept on shrinking the, so that's when I was trying to discover what else is out there. Like what other interesting things are really are people gravitating towards? And so that became kind of the sponsorship activation space. So I then transitioned to do things. Uh, I led all the creative endeavors at the agency. I was at the time, uh, for at and T, which they sponsor so many interesting things. Yeah. Um, across entertainment and sports. And so I was able to, to do that and bring things to life physically. And then, you know, you start to see like, oh, geez, I think there's another shift coming on. Um, and about 2017, that's when I, we were, there's a small group of us that would give these little, um, tutorings mm-hmm <affirmative> to the agency.

Dale Alexander (04:19):

And that's when this whole notion of blockchain something Bitcoin, Ethereum was going on. And we, you know, did our best to present this to the entire agency. But it was one of those moments where I was like, please don't ask me one question. I feel I didn't study up on over my sleeve. Yeah. Um, and, but, but I had this fascination with like, I don't totally know what it is, but I know that there's something there. Uh, I was then offered the opportunity to lead the, uh, we created for the Dallas Mavericks, the NBA franchise here in Dallas. And so I, I had, I had to explore that, you know, cuz there's only like 30 of those, you know, that ever exist. And so I did that, um, across, uh, about three seasons, um, there, but that's when, uh, the NFT, the, the DFI, the decentralized finance version of what it, where things were in 2017, uh that's where it's began to shift and have that creative twist to it, to where things, you know, it is easier to kind of wrap your head around the idea of like a digital collectible mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know, if you know what physical collectables are, digital collectables like, okay.

Dale Alexander (05:29):

I think I totally get it. And that's when I started to get even deeper COVID happened. I was able to, you know, um, really on my off time, you know, not having to drive in, I was able to convert that into really trying to find out what the underlying technology is and what you can do with it. Um, and then oddly, uh, being on the inside of a sports franchise, more stifling than being on the outside mm-hmm <affirmative> because you think you have all the access to all these, you know, different players and, um, opportunities there. But all of us on these different teams, we had our own little chat, you know, discord going. Um, but we couldn't do anything because all the rights are tied up for player likeness with the players association, with the whistle to whistle action, that was all tied up with the broadcasters.

Dale Alexander (06:12):

And so the team like kind of oddly doesn't have much, um, as, as far as like what we could bring to life for NFTs. And so last labor day, I made the, the, the jump from, uh, doing what I was doing at the Mavericks over to, uh, what I do now with zealous, which is we are, we have this syndicate of interesting things going on in the web three space, um, everything from a crypto Walla to an, a web three consultancy for brands, uh, to a comedy platform. So there's, there's, there's all, all kinds of interesting things, but it's so exciting. Um, because I feel like back in the day when the internet was getting going, I was too young and I missed it. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so I felt like I was like stuck on the beach as everyone's, you know, surfing the web. But now I feel like I didn't wanna be stuck on the beach again. So that's, that's the jump I made. And if that was surfing back then, like this is full on jet skiing. That's what I tell people, cuz it's like much faster. There's some real octane behind everything you get hit in the face with water constantly, but it's invigorating and you're gonna wipe out, but you get back on. And so I'm, I'm living my best, uh, jet ski wife.

Beth Trejo (07:21):

I love that. That is a great analogy. And just for people that may not have an idea, or don't even like have entry level knowledge, can you just break down like a couple of the vocabs for people NFTs crypto, which I think most people know, um, right. But any, um, of the other things that we are, we may talk about today, just so people, um, I was trying to describe this to my 11 year old the other day and I realized how much I needed to educate myself because it, it is a little bit tricky to communicate.

Dale Alexander (07:51):

It, it, it is very tricky <laugh> and the space has done itself, no favors with all the jargon and terminology and it'll make your brain sweat. And you know, in some of these conversations we've been in with some very high level people that are very accomplished and very good at what they do. And when we're talking, you can almost see like they're like wiping their eyes and they're kind of like ringing their hands because it's the first time that they, I feel like they're on their heels. You know, they've always had an idea of like where we're going and like, I know how to get us there. And like, let's all, you know, you know, team our way to the top. And now it's just like, I don't know what's gonna work. And like, I don't think anyone there, you know, I would never classify myself as an expert in this space, but I've allowed my, my natural curiosity combined with my intuition and just try to do our best mm-hmm <affirmative> and that's, that's the one thing before I even get to a baseline is take a breath.

Dale Alexander (08:47):

And everyone just, just enjoy the learning process back when like your, whatever your favorite class was in college or high school. Like everyone, even if you hated school, there was at least one teacher, one class that really flipped the switch for you. And so I advise people to, you know, don't just start Googling, you know, web three, uh, terminology or crypto terms. You really, if you love macrame, if you love golf, there's probably already a project out there that's kind of sniffing around the space and it's so much easier when you have those nouns. Yes. That you're already interested in to then contextualize, oh, okay. Now I get it. What was, this is now this over here. So the, the most baseline thing is if you hear web three, it is basically classifications of the earliest iterations of the internet. You know, kind of like the nineties mm-hmm, <affirmative>, let's say that the nineties that's when people first started getting, you know, some access that's referred to as the information economy.

Dale Alexander (09:52):

So that is where there their risks, uh, centralized sites, like Yahoo's main page AOL's, you know, start page and they were all centralized because if you, there, there wasn't even like really a browser, like there wasn't key word search back then you had to like key in exactly, you know, yahoo.com/and you had to get in the HTTP, right? Otherwise you didn't go anywhere. Cuz it was like one to one connection kind of, you know, not even peer to peer, just like user to the platform. And so that's the web one. So all the information was controlled by, you know, whoever it was, Yahoo AOL and you, the user were going there and just taking whatever, you know, you could get all information based, shifting more to the proliferation of technology. Mobile plays a big part in web two, which is kind of like the platform economy.

Dale Alexander (10:42):

That's where you started to see these megalith, you know, entities, uh, create their own platforms. So there wasn't just like an information page. It was an opportunity for someone like at Facebook, you know, named at the time to where you could go there and it wasn't just read only you could actually write, you could actually, you know, curate your own stuff. You could actually form little groups and you could do all these different things. Um, but it was still centralized and control. And that's where the whole phrase of like, you know, if you're not buying anything, if it's a free service, that means you're the product. And in a sense it was, if you're putting content out there, um, they are using your content to inspire or entertain other people. And the monetization was, you know, okay, at best, you know, you hear stories about people on YouTube that are making tons of money.

Dale Alexander (11:32):

Sure. That's the 1% of 1%. Right. But the average person who's like really trying to grind it out. You know, they're not really able to monetize it because the house <laugh>, the house always wins. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so to speak, that's web two web three represents this decentralized economy to where, uh, instead of going to a fully owned entity to do any type of reading, any type of writing, any type of interacting, it's a decentralized thing to where no one truly owns the platform. You know, if it's a truly, you know, web three decentralized entity, it's, it's a conglomerate of different cohorts to where even the processing, even the backend computational power, even that's decentralized. So it's not set up on like an AWS, you know, server rack that's in, you know, it takes up acres in New Mexico or wherever it's, um, it's actually decentralized by all the people, you know, you hear Bitcoin mining. So the mining is referring to just the processing of the transactions and the computational power that this decentralized group of people are doing to basically support and create that technological backend.

Beth Trejo (12:41):

Yeah. That's a really great ex explanation of all that. I think there's a, um, I've heard a lot of different descriptions of, well one, two and three, and I think you really nailed it there. Um, I do you also think that web three is interesting because of the currency that's playing into it where it was like web one, internet web two peer to peer platform and then web three, we have peer to peer like no more platforms and then we have money. We have finance, whatever, however, currency, basically that, that layers onto that, um, piece of the internet.

Dale Alexander (13:17):

Well, I think, you know, when you hear currency, it really all comes down to, you know, what is a store of value? You know, we are a value based species and people put different levels of value on certain different things, you know, um, like some people value experiences, right? And some people value money and some people value baseball cards and some people value gold coins stamps, you know, fill in the fill in the blank. And that's essentially what creates these little micro markets. And so now you have we're in this day and age where faith in different stores of value is starting to there's attrition going on. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know, there's softening and we're seeing it, you know, right now, just on the macroeconomic scale, uh, every single sector, every single market is down. You know, the whole crypto world is, is down big time also because the, the faith in those systems, um, has eroded a bit.

Dale Alexander (14:12):

But the, the exciting part is when you're able to shift to this, this more digital form of currency, um, a couple easy things happen that the, you know, the efficiency of the, just the way we interact, uh, increases, but then you have these much more novel and just very innovative approaches to where, you know, if you are just parti a participant in a group or a club you're able to receive, you know, coins for your, your contributions, just to a conversation. So previously, like, I don't know about you, but like I've never been in a cocktail conversation, but, and someone's been like, you know what, that's a great point. Here's a $5 bill. Okay. That was great. Right. That joke was hilarious. Here's a $10 bill. And, but now, um, you know, even in some discord groups that I'm on, there's a tipping system set up and, you know, uh, one group in particular called jump, you know, it's officially a Dow, a decentralized autonomous organization and we're able to tip each other with jump coin.

Dale Alexander (15:15):

And so that's, you know, we are attributing value to, uh, people's, you know, you know, worth to the community, which I've, I've never really been a part of before. It's been very transactional. You know, if I do this, you do you give me that? Um, so that's where the digital currency, um, you know, that you would refer to more as like a monetary piece, but there's also social currency and that's, what's the really driving force, I think, to a lot of the NFTs, the non fungible tokens to where people are putting converting real us dollars. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> into a cryptocurrency like, um, uh, you know, prob probably Ethereum or E right now to buy, you know, some type of, you know, lack of better terms, a, a JPEG it's a smart contract associated with the JPEG that you're Al that's also part of the ride, which brings, you know, it's utility.

Dale Alexander (16:08):

So it isn't literally just a JPEG, but that's where you see popping up on Twitter. And even some, you know, some people are changing their profile picks in LinkedIn as that social currency, that social flex of I have either I've been so in, on this space that I got in cheap and I bought, you know, a, a board eight yacht club, you know, uh, NFT. So I'm able to signal to people that I'm in the know mm-hmm <affirmative>, or I have a million dollars to spend on a JPEG NFT. Um, so that's that other social currency, um, that is a very real factor. You know, that's the reason why some people buy super fancy shoes and drive super fancy cars, right? Not because like, oh, I just love the performance of my 16 valve sports car. It's because you wanna rev the engine at a stopwatch <laugh> and you want like, check out your, your yellow sports car. That's why you do it.

Beth Trejo (17:03):

So let's talk about use case, because one thing that's really interesting for me, and I don't know the rational and reason, it could probably make some guesses, but it feels like marketers tend to be like ahead of this. Um, and I don't know if it's because they're working with brands that tend to innovate. Um, and so they kind of really, um, push forward some of these new ideas and innovations and technologies, but I am in agency groups and there is so much noise and just good information really about the NFT space and about web 3.0, um, what's some examples of how brands and businesses are using, let's just take the NFT, um, space because maybe that will help our listeners understand, like, what could this mean to my business, even if it's not a, you know, giant conglomerate or big brand.

Dale Alexander (17:52):

Right. But I I've classified the, the, where we are right now as the cotton candy phase. And if you look back just even in your own career, um, there's always some new technological innovation that, and they always have a cotton candy phase. So when the iPhone came out and app development was exploding, like the number one app was like a beer pouring app, which is like, what are you gonna do with that? Like other than like, Hey guys, check this out. That's a very cotton candy use of mobile technology back in the day. So right now, you know, that cotton candy phase comes in the form of, uh, very creative, very artistic driven projects that right now the people haven't totally, I think, capitalized or figured out like the, the they're there mm-hmm <affirmative>. So you have, you have these collections that come out and it's just like, we've made 10,000 of these awesome looking things. And someday just you wait someday

Beth Trejo (18:55):

They'll be worth money.

Dale Alexander (18:56):

<laugh> yeah, they'll be worth money. And, and the roadmap, like now that we have $10 million for this sale, like we're gonna be building this game, we're gonna be building this metaverse, we're gonna be doing all these interesting things, but just you wait and that's where some people get excited. And then some people start to get nervous because you have people who may have this may have been their first love, you know, actually programming in some of these languages, um, for some of these blockchain technologies, but that doesn't make them a good video game creator. Mm-hmm <affirmative> that doesn't make them a good marketer that doesn't make them all of these different things. And so there's a lot of people that are, frankly, just winging it. They're they come from. I wanna think that most come from a good place, you know, they aren't trying to scam people.

Dale Alexander (19:40):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, out of, you know, you know, their money, but you do hit that. The reality, you know, the reality plank has been smacking some people in the face recently to where people and these that have bought into these collections realize, oh, there, there, there is no, there, there, and these people are not gonna get me there where I think brands have the biggest opportunity. It's very similar to when mobile app development was a thing when real interesting, you know, web experiences were a thing, a lot of those were kind of financially backed by brands mm-hmm <affirmative> cause you would find this like tiny little, you know, digital studio or this great agency in Iowa that has a thought and a premise and a prototype. And it was brand funding that was able to like really put some kerosene on it and push it into reality.

Dale Alexander (20:24):

We did that a ton with at and T they were an excellent partner in innovating things in that space. So I think what we've been, um, in our discussions with different brands is whatever you do, even if it's a test and I definitely encourage doing these small little tests mm-hmm <affirmative>, but it has to be so tied to what your brand represents and what people recognize your brand for. Otherwise, it's just gonna be a total, you know, head scratching, WTF moment for people. Um, so that's, that becomes an interesting exploration to where again, you have the hand ringing moments where people like, oh my gosh, what is our brand like? What is our authentic, you know, what is life? You know, you have these existential moments where people are trying to figure out as a brand, who are they really? And does that actually mesh with who people think you are?

Dale Alexander (21:15):

And, but, uh, but out of that, you do get some fruitful territory of, with this technology and being able to have not a physical do dad that you hand out, you know, at a sponsorship activation, but a digital one that is now in their, you know, someone's wallet. So all these tokens have to be held in a crypto wallet that you're able to have this different consumer relationship with them on a wallet to wallet basis, wallet to brand basis, versus just an email Lister basis versus just another CRM program that you might have already had, you know, historically. And so that's where you start to figure out that if you have a programmable piece of software, which is essentially a token in someone's wallet, could it evolve over time? Could the graphic, you know, Starbucks, you know, they came out and they're like, oh, we're doing NFTs next, next, uh, maybe this year, who knows, but I'm very curious, like, what is that gonna be? And how does, you know, whatever they do from an NFT space, will that encourage me to like the brand more, will that encourage me to try a new drink? Will that encourage me to up my thing, you know, from one more drink per week, that that's, that's where, um, it's like a new tool and everyone's toolbox to just, just tinker with, but at the, at the baseline of that, it has to be authentic to that brand's DNA.

Beth Trejo (22:36):

Yeah. And I, I see this in terms of how some of the brands are doing this, um, is almost just like opening another line of communication and a connection point, um, to their audience. And it's probably because there is some technology behind it. It's probably more tethered than like, let's say, if you have someone like your Facebook post and, you know, you, you still have a way and a method to communicate, but if you have a connection to them through this NFT world, it feels like that tether maybe a little bit stronger. And, um, maybe the future opportunities could be a little bit, um, more vast. Let me break this down because I wanna make sure that I'm understanding this correctly. Um, and I've heard this analogy used, and I'm curious to know what you think so sure. To simplify NFTs to me in my brain, they kind of feel like, like if you had a piece of artwork and I am the artist and I make the piece of art, and I say, I'm gonna have 10, like replicas of this. And the people that get this artwork now are in like a, a membership to my next opportunity. If I do another painting, or if maybe now I wanna invite you to an exclusive art show or I can communicate. Um, and that is like your ticket to get in. Is that correct? Does that kind of how a lot of these brands are kind of viewing this? It's almost like a royalty on that kind of quote unquote artwork. Um, that technically is probably a, like you said, a JPEG or an actual graphic file.

Dale Alexander (24:14):

The, I think that's a great example. Um, one that, um, that has been, has been done to where now you do have these, these artists, you know, three years ago, there's some digital artists that were like probably driving for Uber or door dash just to make ends meet. And then suddenly they have this way for their work. Not only to be, to be seen, but also procured in a much more, uh, much easier and more efficient way. And they're able to also build, you know, these very, almost zealot like fandoms, but it is the, the smart, the smart contract, the, you know, the, uh, the lines of code and data that are tied to that visual layer, the pretty picture, that piece of art, that's the visual layer mm-hmm <affirmative>, but the underlying piece of, you know, tiny software that's at the, the contract level that's attached to that layer.

Dale Alexander (25:02):

That's where you're able to, uh, to prescribe a royalty to that. So not, there's never been a time in the history of mankind where artists have been able to continue to make money off of the initial sale of an art piece. You know, like van go, I like, he like died, I think penniless, but now you have every single time one of his work sell whoever the previous owner is, they made like 20%, if not more, just on that. So now just with, with your example, you are able to associate like a royalty, so secondary sales, you know, 5%, 7%, whatever is able to immediately draft back over to whoever the, the progenitor of it, you know, the artist, you know, they would be continuing to collect that, but then just like you said, it, there are, you can also associate a membership model to where this digital thing you bought the real world.

Dale Alexander (25:53):

The I R L opportunity is I'm gonna be in Miami for a physical party first look of my, my next, you know, showing. And the only people who have access is, are our people that bought my original, you know, NFT artwork mm-hmm <affirmative>. So that ends up being something that I think a lot of people, um, and a lot of artists and a lot of communities have been flipping the switch on to where digital is gonna have, uh, transferable physical upside. And I think the convention space, uh, is another one that you're gonna start seeing, you know, more and more ticketing comes in the form of NFT. And they're able to, you know, lock in your identity, your, you know, your passport, if your international, your driver's license to the NFT. So it really becomes kind of like a one stop shopping to where this NFT is now, not only your ticket, but we also have verified your identity.

Dale Alexander (26:46):

And it's also your Sapphire club membership, right? That gets you behind the red, you know, the red rope, um, that those are the different things that, again, people are just trying to, trying to experiment and tinker with to see like, what exactly can this new technology do, but by all means we are on the, if this is a new, big bang, like we have just kind of exploded into it. So I think it's only gonna get cooler, more innovative, um, theoretically more, more price efficient, cuz things right now, and people, you know, hear about that's so expensive, you know, gas, which is referring to the transaction fee. So all those, the decentralized minors out there, you have to incentivize them to process your transaction. And that comes in the form of what's called gas. It's all a transaction fee right now. It's still kind of expensive.

Dale Alexander (27:36):

There's this sustainability issue. So people know that computers use a ton of electricity and these Bitcoin mins and these rigs generate tons and tons of heat, but even that's gonna get better. It already is better than it was, you know, three years ago and even a year ago. Um, so it's just like every technological cycle it's gonna get, uh, better, faster, cheaper, cooler. And you can just connect the dots if just even your phones, like how crappy at the time the iPhone was amazing. But if you look at it now, you're like, this thing is like tiny. I can't read anything that really works very well because it just, everything gets better.

Beth Trejo (28:13):

What do you think? Um, as we kind of round this out here, I know we gave people a lot of information. If you're a business owner listening to this, where do they start? Because obviously there's a lot of learning that needs to be done in some of this, these spaces. And depending on your business model, right? A B2B manufacturing company is going to have a very different use case than a consumer, um, package. Good item. Um, so where do you think that people should start

Dale Alexander (28:41):

The, I, I think you have, you have to do it for real. You, if you feel like you have, you know, a gun to your head, that is not a good spot. If you feel like you, like your job is on the line, or I gotta figure this junk out, that's, that's not, that's not the, uh, the mindset I would encourage people to have. I, this sounds, this sounds weird, but what I used to do is I would go upstairs into our office and just kind of be by myself. And just like that first time I went into a library or like a Barnes and noble bookstore. And you're just like, well, okay. So I can just really wander around and look at the cover of all these different books. I mean, that's where the internet is a fascinating resource to where, like I said, whatever topic you're into, if you just add, uh, web three or NFT, or some of those other words to your search, you're gonna get something back, you know, you know, Google's amazing to what they do.

Dale Alexander (29:42):

You're gonna get something back and you just have to click through curiosity and start to, to read. There are lots of, um, great minds that have been at some of these big corporations doing more web web toy type stuff, but E but they've been fascinated and they've been pulled over and they've left incredible jobs in order to go pioneer something new in the web three space. And they've been writing things on medium. So medium is a platform where people, uh, it's kind of like, you know, word what WordPress was. WordPress is still a thing, but you have things like medium and sub stack. And so it's all these great, great thought pieces that are basically free. Yeah. You can subscribe to some people, but that's how I did a lot of my, my tutelage and learning, but it's also, you, you will find your brain will sweat and you have to be comfortable with it. Just like when you go to the gym, if you feel like you're like, man, I I'm kind of outta shape. I need to like skill up. I need to, you know, build my physical body. This is, you're building your, your professional, your mental body, and you're not gonna get there, Scott free. It's gonna take sweat equity to put into it, but I guarantee you, if you do it, it it's, you just, you just start to pick it up.

Beth Trejo (30:57):

Right. And I think

Dale Alexander (30:57):

There's that, that, that,

Beth Trejo (31:00):

Sorry, go ahead. I think that what you said is so powerful and going back to the workout and gym analogy for businesses, you don't wanna like start running the day. You have to run a race. And that's my biggest, right. Um, I think tip to businesses is you, you gotta start train, you gotta understand the vocab. I love your tip of just Google, the word that maybe makes sense to your business plus NFT web 3.0. So if you're in B2B trade shows, I bet they're all thinking about, um, conventions, as you mentioned, this stuff, um, you know, different pieces of your business and audiences, it'd be a really great just exercise for people to, um, explore within their business category. So I think that that's some really great advice, Dale, anything else before we, we, um, close it down, I really appreciate your time today, Dale, and, um, sure. If people wanna connect with you, um, Dale Alexander, what, what's the best way to get a hold of you?

Dale Alexander (32:01):

The, uh, probably LinkedIn, that's the, um, I'm always there by the way, LinkedIn, that has become another great resource, an easy resource. If, if you're already, you know, semi-active on there. Um, if you just start following a couple key people, your feed will start to have some of those, those nice migratory, you know, thought pieces that people do. And I say migratory, because, you know, I don't think it's a, it's the, conversion's not gonna be a flipping of a switch of web two to flip web three switch like that. That's, that's not gonna be a thing. It is absolutely gonna be a migratory process and shift. So if you just go to LinkedIn and just, you know, start following, um, someone in the space, your feed will start to have those people and then things that, that person, you know, commented on or liked. And that's where you're, I, I think it's a good tow dip into, into these waters. And again, like you, they, if you are on LinkedIn, that's probably, you know, a resource that you're already getting some value from for what you're doing right now, especially, you know, B2B, it's a great resource. The, uh, crypto Twitter is absolutely a thing, but it can be a bit, it

Beth Trejo (33:09):

Can be a bit, it can be a bit messy <laugh>

Dale Alexander (33:11):

Yes, because they even see even me sometimes I'm just like, what are we doing here? I'm like, what happened? This is the best in the worst of the internet in one, in one place. <laugh>, um, isn't

Beth Trejo (33:20):

That Twitter though, generally

Dale Alexander (33:22):

My guess at your audience, uh, is that LinkedIn, um, will be a good, uh, starter set to check it out. Um, but I, I also leave everyone with this. Like, you absolutely can do it. That doesn't mean that you're gonna like open up a terminal and write, start writing smart contracts and solidity. Like that's not, that's not a, you, that's not your thing. And don't convince yourself that that has to be your thing. You are absolutely able to find your thing in this new future state.

Beth Trejo (33:52):

I love it. That's some great parting words. And thank you so much for being on our show generation social media podcast today. Um, we really, I learned so much, um, and had a wonderful time visiting with you. So I know our audience will as well. So with that, um, join us next time for another episode of generation social media, and we'll catch you there.

inspiration, BusinessChatterkickAugust 8, 2022internal team, DEI, Podcast