Unveiling the Digital World: Insights on Tech, Education and Empowerment with Lisa Goodchild

00:00 - David Brown (Host)

Lisa, good morning, how you doing.

00:02 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Good morning, I am very well.

00:04 - David Brown (Host)

Welcome to the podcast.

00:06 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Thank you for having me.

00:08 - David Brown (Host)

So we met earlier this year at an event where we were talking about AI and sort of its impact on all sorts of different businesses, and I really liked when I met you. I really liked two things in particular. One is your job title, so would you tell everybody what you call yourself at work?

00:29 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

I am chief troublemaker.

00:31 - David Brown (Host)

Awesome.

00:32 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

In a good way. In a good way, then I only make good trouble.

00:35 - David Brown (Host)

I love it. I love it. I thought that was fantastic. And, second of all, I know you do a lot of work sort of with young people and with girls and you're very involved in sort of women in tech and that sort of thing. So that's another reason why I wanted to have you on, because I think it's one of the important things that we need to look at. Personally, I have a suspicion that AI is going to have an outsized impact, particularly on women in the workplace, because I think a lot of the jobs that women do are the types of jobs that AI is going to be really good at doing as well. So I'd like to dig into that a little bit, but in good podcast form. Let's maybe start off if you give everybody a little bit of background about what it is that you do and kind of how you got here.

01:20 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Gosh, it's been an amazing journey. So I started off in a very humble council state in South East London, I think as well I always had. I was always intrigued by technology. We were the bottom of the council state, so huge poverty. But we had interesting people around us. So my uncle was only young and he had, like he purchased the robotic arms and things like that but we sort of got given them because we didn't really get Christmas presents but we got given this tech and even like the Atari, you know, remember the 10th.

01:55 - David Brown (Host)

We got given that by him.

01:57 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

That was like his hand me down. So, as much as we were living in squalor like literally squalor criminal activity, everything, we had all these tech elements around us. And then I remember being at school and they had an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum and it was the Japanese exhibition and the tech there was phenomenal. It was only early days so it wasn't that phenomenal, but it was in my head, it was brilliant. It was like robotics.

02:24 - David Brown (Host)

But for the time it was amazing.

02:27 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Oh, it really was and it was. It just intrigued me and I was very I didn't really go to school because of my, my brilliant childhood, and I spotted this degree and my friend, mum, encouraged me to go to university. So I was lucky to have that. But I didn't have the GCSEs really to get in. I only had a. I've only got an English C, so the rest of it I mean my maths, I think is an E or D, something like that. Well, no, you know. Anyway, I didn't have the grades to get in and I contacted the lecturer at Greenwich University because I just saw this digital course. It was a computer science and I was like I need to do that. It just looked amazing.

03:07

I knew that the internet was something big and blacked my way on, did a maths and English exam, had an interview, got in there, sat at the front of the class. I was one of the only females. There was a few of us free. But that was brilliant because you know you had a lot of help by a lot of guys. It was, you know it was. It didn't feel there was an indifference. Actually, I always felt very welcoming. But what was interesting was that first piece of coursework that I got we. I got 92%, so I got the best in the class and that was a real level of for me. So it made me believe in myself. But that course was the pinnacle of my career. It really. It gave me the foundations. We did CD-ROM building we you know all of the early day stuff. We were building websites.

03:55

We were building music, was building databases. You know we were programming, it was so exciting. Came outcom crash, another exciting period, but was really interesting because I wear, because I came from the streets. You know you just hustle, you get through. So it was, it was. It was a great period of learning and I started building websites for footballers, state agents they were the ones going online back then.

04:22 - David Brown (Host)

And that was really, really it was lucrative. That was probably a good business. I was about to say, yeah.

04:26 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yeah, it was really good business and a great place again for learning and I was always. I was quite hard on myself. Actually I never wanted to like you know. It was the days of stealing code and, you know, ripping whole. There was actually code websites where you could rip loads of code and things, but I always tried to do everything so organically. So I learned so much and even from the failings and that was brilliant, because those early days of website building, you know they were great days, getting excited about a picture and some movement on the screen. A bit of flash loved old flash. Flash was one of my favorite tools until Apple Apple came and destroyed it.

05:05 - David Brown (Host)

It was so insecure, though that was the problem with it. It was it was.

05:09 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

It was insecure and also they couldn't monetize it, could they? I think that was their biggest thing? They couldn't monetize it, but it was. It was brilliant to learn. And then I moved into e-commerce. I worked with a guy called Dan Wagoner who bought the boocom software, and that was interesting times as well. Nobody was going online. E-commerce was new. I love new technologies, as you will see throughout my career. So we were getting mother care, Panasonic, all of those amazing brands online, and you know it was the times when people were going oh, nobody's going to buy online. They can't touch, Smell it, feel it? Well, yeah, really.

05:43

Because, we now know that the poor high street is slowly disappearing because they're not keeping With creating experiences. I believe that they just need to stick a sofa and a cup of coffee there and they would have people sitting there and chilling and actually purchasing online while they're sitting in their environments. You know they're not catching up. Top tip, top tip. Yeah, top tip For our retail listeners yes.

06:06 - David Brown (Host)

It's funny that you say that and not to derail the conversation entirely. But what's really interesting is that the discussions that they're having around electric vehicles are very much the same, which is because you know the concept of a petrol station or a gas station is going to entirely change, because now it's a much longer interaction that people have in that place, as opposed to showing up. Two minutes, you fill up your car, you walk inside maybe two minutes, you grab a snack and you're out. Now you've got to go in, you've got to sit down, you've got to wait. You know even the best chargers in the future are going to take, you know, the most advanced charging that we've seen or anything that even heard of. At this point it's like 10 or 15 minutes. So there's been a lot of chat behind the scenes about well, what does the new next petrol station look like?

06:58 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yes.

06:58 - David Brown (Host)

And it's exactly what you said. There's going to be places for people to sit down to do work, there's going to be coffee shops and places for people to eat and work, mainly, but socializing those sorts of things. And I agree with you, I think you know retail has a. They really need to look at themselves and see where they go next. So I think it's a fantastic idea. I think you're, I think you're spot on.

07:21 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

And I would enjoy that. Yeah, box Park have actually done the elements of that and they've really caught on. But you know, we all know we do actually like it's quite a treat to go to the shops now. So make it even more of a treat and, yeah, it heighten in those experience. Have a band, you know Mark's and Spencer's with a bit of band a bit of food. You know, some free samples.

07:44 - David Brown (Host)

What sort of band would Mark's and Spencer's have?

07:47 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Oh, I reckon you know those little ladies doing a little. You know what is it? Flappers singing.

07:55 - David Brown (Host)

Yeah, that old school with the quiz Morris dancers or something. Yeah with the quiz. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, they do.

08:02 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

I mean, mark's is going down the wrong route for me as a retail shop. Actually, they're getting self-service and all that, and I think they should be going traditional, and you know.

08:12 - David Brown (Host)

You've seen the news then recently, because a lot of grocery stores are actually taking the self-service tills out, a because people hate them and B because there's so much theft, like the shrinkage that they're getting from those machines and it's even from, like, middle-class people. It's not like traditionally. I know that sounds bad, but you know what I mean. And what they found is is that I don't know if they've done it in your area, but even where I live in Tumbridge Wells, tesco has put these barriers in everywhere. So, like you can't, you know you have to walk through a till thing to get out of the shop and they've got security guards everywhere and, like I know, there's a lot of factors that go into that.

08:49

Right, the economy is terrible at the minute. You know groceries are extortionately expensive. We're suffering from shrinkflation. So you know the same product that used to be 100 grams is now 90 grams or sometimes 85 grams, but it's the same price or more. You know people are suffering while having a hard time and but they're still finding that. You know people are scanning and they're able to get away and you know sort of lift stuff through those tills. So I think maybe fingers crossed because I hate them, I absolutely hate them.

09:21 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yes, I hate them.

09:23 - David Brown (Host)

I'd rather. Just I just want to talk to someone. And you know, when I was a kid, that was my job, me too. I worked in a grocery store, me too, and I was a checkout kid, right, mike, I worked him up suspensives, yeah, there you go, there you go. But those are the kind of really good entry level jobs for people, right, and you know, and anyway yeah. I agree with you.

09:42 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

And hopefully we've maybe turned the tide on that a little bit, and but we'll see, yeah, well, also, you've imagined the new technology of those stupid systems and how much one of those stupid things cost, where you have to put your basket on the scales and you're like, well, what side? And they haven't anyway. So my career in e-commerce has been. It was amazing and it was a really insightful career as well, because it was the early days again. And then I got investment off of Dan for a beauty comparison website. He didn't materialize to what I wanted to. We bought two. My actual headphones are saying the battery is low on my headphones. I can't believe this. I'm going to have tech issues all the way through.

10:24 - David Brown (Host)

Yeah, so yeah.

10:26 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

So it's an amazing space to have been in all those new technology. But then I started spotting trends to that beauty comparison website. So you know, pre-reanna really, with also our different skin colors, you know we weren't talking about that in the beauty industry, which is a travesty, and as we've all seen now it's a massive trend. So we had this brilliant idea, we took it to Dan, dan invested, we created two shopping portals, 11 blogs and it all went a bit, you know, pear shaped in terms of what I was getting told was what we were materializing. And at that time I thought you know what? This is not going the route I want. I'm going to go down a different route. I could see social media was just amazing. It was this community. We were going into Hyde Park and doing tweet ups and it was exciting and I thought I'm going to set up my own social media agency. So I've had my social media consultancy for about 15 years now. It's been an exciting experience because I get to experience everything in terms of tech. You know, the creativity, the development, the touch points.

11:32

The social media is the internet and it's a bit like, as we're going to go on to the discussion about AI. You know it was these early days. No one was talking about it. Actually it was so loose and even now it's quite a travesty that our governments did not gain control and I don't believe in control. But with social media there's an element of you know the pornography, the crap that goes online amongst you know, when you're looking at your stories I'm a woman. They definitely target in the wrong demographic. I'm definitely not going to click on it. It's awful and it's just. You know the control. We know that comes with social media and I don't mind that. But it's the giving back as well. I don't see the social media companies giving back enough and I do believe they need to.

12:16 - David Brown (Host)

Yeah, 100%.

12:17

And I think, ironically and this is, you know, obviously one of the things we'll probably we could get into now even but I think you know the whole advent or not advent but sudden popularity of AI and the new AI tools, like your chat, tpp, GPTs and those sorts of things, I think and I've said this a few times on the podcast before, but I still believe that that's actually, I think, an erode the power and the popularity of social media, because the fun bit of social media were the crazy people and that you knew that there was actually a crazy person or someone funny or someone really insightful on the other end of that.

13:01

And in the beginning it really was. And you know, twitter, when Twitter first came out, and even Facebook, when Facebook came out, I mean, when Facebook originally came out, it was really hard to get on. You had to have an email address at a university or a school to be able to get on and then you had to have an invite from there. I mean, I, my very original Facebook account, I got like a super secret invite from someone and it was amazing and everybody was excited, but that was before, you know, sort of scammers got involved and then business got involved and it turned into this massive business which it has to do.

13:37 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

It was business that ruined it, because it made like you say. It had to do it.

13:42 - David Brown (Host)

It has to do it because that's unless you pay for it. So you know, I understand the struggle, but it's now. It's like comical, it's so bad at the minute and you know, even on Twitter or X or whatever we're calling it, I think it's hilarious that he's rebranded to X and everybody just calls it Twitter anyway. I think eventually he'll just change it back, but we'll see what happens. But it's just, yeah, it's like you can't, you're not going to be able to believe anything that you see. With all of the stuff like 11 labs and all the sound stuff where you can do voices, we could do amazing things with voice technology and AI and everything. I mean I can get the entire show translated, the one that's out, just the. It's going to come out the week before you.

14:28

So next week I talked to a lady who's a journalist in Poland and she's been a journalist for, like you know, 15 years or whatever, and I was talking to her about well, let's translate all the clips into Polish and I can literally take our interview. I can take the video, take a clip out, I can load it into a tool called hey Jen, if anybody's asking, and I don't get anything from it, but I'll put a link in anyway. But if you put it in hey Jen, and say I want to go from English to Polish, it will translate the sound in the voices of the people talking and it will redo the mouth shape.

15:05 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

I was reading that yesterday I was reading it and the thing is as well. That's when it starts getting exciting for young people, you know, that's when that communication element, magical stuff can happen, can't it? You haven't got barriers like us.

15:19 - David Brown (Host)

No, exactly, I mean yeah, exactly, you know, for people who are older, like, who grew up before computers are at the very you know you were at. Obviously you were at the kind of cutting edge of computers when they came out. I mean I was my high school was the first school that had computers in Memphis, where you know, when I was growing up and you know, we used to write little basic programs in the basic language and stuff when we were studying computers. So we saw the development of that happening.

15:48

Kids now, I mean literally they can create a TikTok video, they can translate that video into 20 different languages and then put it out and they can start to pick up followers in other countries and do stuff in that language and it's not prohibitively expensive, particularly if they're short clips, and then if they can translate that into something that actually makes you know them a little bit of money all of a sudden, now that you know that activity pays for them to do that, and then they're off.

16:17 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yeah, we could never do that. No, well, also, we'd need 10 people to do that, wouldn't we With the equipment? Yeah, you know, I mean we all remember the first thing that happened the 32 megabyte computers that we used to sit there and pray at and go, please don't crash. You know the cassette tapes.

16:34

Yeah, exactly, you would actually need a lorry, a few humans, a translating human, yeah, yeah, all of those different roles and, as we know, ai is evolving and going to take some of those. It will help those roles. You know they're going to support some of those roles as well and we're going to talk about that more senior level in a minute. But, yeah, from working in the digital space and based on my background, that's where I got really passionate about helping young people understand the powers of technology, because I believe it gave me a route out of poverty Massively. You know I wouldn't have had that route and I want young people to be provided with the tools they need. And you know our charities.

17:18

ence has been around from the: 1950

17:50

I mean even social media they haven't even got to grips with that. Necessarily, they haven't even. They're not even putting the things in place to educate young people about their digital footprint, when you and I know that footprint is so important. Now you know explaining to young people that you wouldn't give away your house keys to someone on the street, so why would you give away your password? It's getting them to understand and that's where I think the dangers are and the acceleration of the technology is so fast. Our schools have no idea about the digital 10 years ago, so how are they going to cope with what's coming?

18:28 - David Brown (Host)

No, I agree, but I also think on the flip side of that there are a lot of educators in particular who are who are really using the technology. And I mean I've had a couple of educators on from sort of at the very high university level education, kind of Cambridge and that sort of thing, talking about it from a university perspective. But I've also had on or I've had some conversations with people even at like primary school level.

18:55 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yes.

18:55 - David Brown (Host)

And the stuff that they're doing.

18:56 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yeah.

18:57 - David Brown (Host)

And there's a guy named Byron who I'm hoping to have on the podcast soon and he's an assistant head teacher at a primary just a normal primary school in the UK and he's doing amazing stuff. So he uses chat, gpt to help him write better lesson plans and to help him develop additional information that he then puts into 11 labs and has 11 labs do a voiceover to it and he makes it into like this AI podcast that he then shares the links to the kids with the kids.

19:28

And then he said they love it because it's like a totally different thing and it's like, you know, they can kind of hear their teacher on this thing. That's like a podcast, because they all know what podcasts are, even though they're like 10 years old, and he's like it's amazing. And so the kids are really engaging with education in a different kind of way. And so I think there are some, some educators that are really pushing the boundary and trying to say, okay, how can we really use this to support it? And I know there's other, I know there's other students who are using it to help them do better on their GCSEs and their A level exams, because they can practice their answers and they can get the AI to grade their responses, which is amazing. And the teachers love it, because the teachers have been double checking it just to make sure and they're like the stuff that it comes out with is great.

20:18

And it means we don't have to spend so much time trying to grade mock exams and stuff. We can literally set the kids off on using the tools and they can just practice over and over and over again.

20:31 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

So those are brilliant.

20:32

But what my concern is as you mentioned, that's a lecturer at Cambridge or Oxford and it's the. It's the digital divide. So we all know that this digital divide's getting bigger and bigger and that is where my concern is. You've got brilliant teachers doing stuff, but few and far between you know they're the real magic makers, they're the ones really pushing the boundaries, but it's not getting sift through, it's not getting passed around. And I know a lot of the private schools. You know they're lucky enough to have the resources and maybe even the parents. You know, because when you're in, say, an inner London school who's connected to a council state, the job roles within that, within that community, are low level job roles and they're really, really. You know they're tough and they have no idea about technology. But what's really like? You say, like you're saying as well, what's interesting about our young people? Actually they are, they're born into technology. They're not like us. They do know how to use it, but it's guiding them into understanding the power of it and how to use it in the right way, that digital footprint and being able.

21:37

My thing is helping young people to understand. We offer ever learning and do not ever wait for a school to teach you to learn, because they haven't got the equipment. They're caught up with numbers. They cannot help. You know, in terms of young people with neurodiversity, they just can't meet those needs, whereas we know that artificial intelligence ago it's going to really help with that. It's going to really help a young person that may be dyslexic and start understanding. Okay, so they're dyslexic, but they're magical in a different place. Right, let's start getting them building up that skill. Whereas we've been going okay, here's a. You need to be smart on this level and we all know it. So it's ridiculous. How can we, how can we think that somebody's intelligent based on their accent? I mean Boris Johnson, you know because he's posh, it's on a different level.

22:30

But and I hope that our AI tools will not have that element of them they will understand through assessments, through different ways of testing people, not just by looking at them from face value and listening to a voice and going, well, they're stupid based on an accent because they come from Birmingham. When we know that actually four of the most amazing entrepreneurs that you know Jim Box and all of it they're actually all from Birmingham, from that school that you know the traditional model 15 years ago, we'll go that that kid's a bit of a troublemaker and they're not. You know they're not going to make it and where they've got to be entrepreneurs.

23:11 - David Brown (Host)

I think there's another subtle thing as well that goes along with that, which is, I think, for a long time there's been this it's been this idea that you must go to university and if you don't go to university, you're stupid.

23:25 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yeah. It's a failure.

23:29 - David Brown (Host)

It's always bothered me. But you know, I come from the South, I'm from Memphis, I'm in sort of that's deep South in America. You know, people have always thought that we were stupid because we talk slow and whatever, which was great, because when people came from the North, we, you know they'd get in and they'd all be in a hurry and they'd want to do everything. So we just let them do it, which, you know, which was fine.

23:50

But I think it and it's devalued the trades and things like that, which, again, I think, in pulling the slightly background to AI and some of the things, is, you know, nothing's ever come for the smart people. So I think what we're going to see is we're going to see a resurgence in the trades because people aren't going to university as much anymore. They can't afford it. It's so expensive to go and unless you really want to do a job where you have to have the knowledge that you get at university, you know, if you want to be an engineer or you want to be a doctor or you want to be, you know, there are some specific skills where you really need that higher level of education, but nine out of 10 jobs don't require that.

24:35 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Well, actually, the: 1970

25:17

I wrote the wrong bloody tense, it was all over the place. But if I had had chat GPT as a kid from the cancer state with no adults around me that could help me, I've got my friends to go. Oh, you know, I've got Dottie to say help, it's fire over a question.

25:36 - David Brown (Host)

Help me with that flow.

25:38 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

So it's a real it's. It's and that's what's so magical is getting young people to not wait for school. Do not wait for school, wait for you. And also, when I'm 80, 90, which I hope that I live to that age pretty health and you know, healthy because, yeah, I've already said to my daughter what to do if I don't get pretty healthy with my body, which was the edge. She was like mum. Seriously, you know, I will always be learning. I've always said I will never retire because I really I know you can't know it's brain and that's you know it's like AI AI is forever learning.

26:17

That's what human beings need to do and I'm excited for our young people, as long as they've got the skills to understand. That is, for them to step forward, to understand what their passion is and to teach themselves, which is not what we've enabled schools to do, and we know that the school system was set up for a particular reason.

26:36

The school system was set up to shove people into a factory and do the nine to five and those days are gone. And you know I wouldn't actually advise we as a charity, as a didgy learning. We actually advise our young people to look at different routes, to look at degree apprenticeships, to look at apprenticeships because you and I know I wish that every single room in the world and we know there's enough old computers hanging around in dumps shove them in the school and let the kids play with the wires and a couple of chips. You know we need to understand that the computer is completely relatable to the human body form. That's where artificial intelligence came from. All of these things are born from humans, from being human.

27:22 - David Brown (Host)

Yeah, yeah, no, it's a great point and so so tell me a little bit more about the charity, like, specifically, what is it that you're doing?

27:31 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yeah, so we work with young people and we're teaching them three key level core levels. So first is personal development so understanding what they want in life, teaching them about their digital footprint, that financial footprint. They don't realize that there's credit scoring. They don't understand that there's interest rates on credit cards, all the essential things that we need to know. So that's that holistic, that first piece personal development. You might not have adults around you to tell you those, to guide you through, so we're that piece. Then we have level two, which is all about business. We have companies like TikTok come in and talk about how they actually make money. You know these young people. They play on TikTok but they don't understand the mechanics that go on behind TikTok. They don't understand using AI for everything within TikTok and understanding those streams and how they're using them for the algorithms and how they're. And actually you know when you do see a picture is to make money. It is. You know. Let's get to grip, go into primary schools and go social media is to make money.

28:29

Let's not get away from it being community and let's share. You know those elements. That was the organic, real purity of the original element. But I'm afraid, yeah, we all know that the way the world works is money. But yeah, so we're working with those young people with that middle piece to understand industries. The financial times will come in and talk about publishing and how that's evolved as well into the digital format, and then our last level is about jobs and business.

28:58

So if they want to set up a, to set up a business, we will help them, or they, a lot of young people have side hustles, so it's just helping them realize how powerful those side hustles are and that if you are from a really, really tough background, to understand that adversity creates and builds these amazing skills, that pushes you forward, and if you can use those skills from adversity and from those difficult challenges that all of us go through even the very privileged go through adversity and you can use those skills for your career and to build that career.

29:34

So you know, we work with lots of organizations who provide us with jobs, and then we have our experiences. So I'm a believer that young people need to be part of experiences. So we met at the AI event that we attended, fearless, and our young people attended as well. So the amazing ladies at Fearless are also part of a group that I founded with another six phenomenal females called Digital Leading Ladies, and what's brilliant about that group is we all we've actually I'm setting up the AI division actually, which is DLL.

30:10

Yeah we've got DLL pets, we've got DLL gaming, so we're looking at that. But what's brilliant is that network for our young people as well into connecting them to the new technologies, creating those experiences, providing tickets. We had Digital Leading Ladies lunch this week. Our young people got to attend that lunch and talk to fellow females. Although we do love men, obviously we need allyship and we know a lot of men are out there supporting us as well, but we've got a terrible problem of women not going into tech, which is a big travesty. So, yeah, that whole thing of experiences and meeting that one person that changes your life, that one person that intrigues you, that one person that gives you that piece of information like you and I meeting. You know, david, you're never gonna get me, we're gonna be friends from that one event.

31:01 - David Brown (Host)

No, no, no. That's good. That's good. I really like what you're doing. I like the energy that you bring to all of this. The Digital Leading Ladies thing is that the thing that Victoria is involved in as well.

31:12 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Victoria Usher is a very dear friend and actually her PR company supports our charity. But, yes, she is one of my founding ladies alongside myself, and she's very passionate as well, you know about. Ai and technology and announcements, because we need to ensure that everyone rises together.

31:33 - David Brown (Host)

Shout out to Vic. I think she's episode three on the podcast, so she was one of my very early believers in the show, so she was very kind to you know, to share some time with us. I'll put a link in the show notes back to that again, just to go back. I should catch up with her again, though. It's been quite a while now and I think things have moved on a lot. We should probably touch on that at some point, so don't let me forget, but all of the goings on that have happened over the past week this is for everybody listening. I don't know when you'll listen to this, but this is the Friday after Sam Altman was fired from OpenAI last week and is now back in charge.

32:17

A lot's happened in a week and I decided as a intentionally to just to not comment. I shared a couple of articles on LinkedIn that I thought were were very well thought through at the time, but I just didn't put any comment because I just wanted to kind of see what was how. You know what would happen, and I knew that that we would, that a lot of things would change and they have. So we would be remiss if we don't spend five or 10 minutes on that at some point, but I don't want to lose our thread that we were talking about a second ago, the thing that when you were talking about women, you know, and particularly the women in business, and then looking at AI and everything else, one of the obviously this is the creatives with AI podcast tonight, but I talked to a load of different people about all sorts of different industries. So what I'm actually setting up now is I'm going to set up the I'm calling it with AI FM, and what I'll do is I'll have different channels for different specialist topics, and women with AI will be one of those channels. So I definitely want to follow up with you on that, because I think there's a whole podcast specifically around women and tech and AI and the advantages and the disadvantages that that brings.

33:36

And I think you know I was at a fringe event with the AI summit that was in the UK. I went to the women's women with AI fringe event. So I was the only guy there and I've said I felt like quite a usurper in the group, but it was amazing and there were women there who were founders of businesses that use AI. There were data analysts. There were, you know data engineers. There were software engineers. They're, you know they women, women who are working in the field, and you know it was sponsored by a VC who specializes or really has an interest in funding. You know, women founded and women run businesses as well. So I want to try and pull all that stuff together and see if I can find a great host, because I shouldn't be the one to host that.

34:23

I want to find a great woman who can host the podcast and then I'll help produce it and get it out and that sort of thing. But that's sort of my idea is to do a couple of different verticals.

34:32 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

So I've got a sort of a marketing or marketers with AI through NaughtyO and some of the other stuff that we're doing, and I've got sort of you know, some ideas about how to set up those various channels and then we'll have that Maybe we could do a young person one as well, because I think that Gen Z you know we do a lot, everyone does a lot of talking about Gen Z and they don't actually get part of the discussion, and they're so you know, I get to work with them all the time. They're so intriguing, they come up with great ideas. But, yeah, in terms of women as well, the passion I've got, obviously, because I just think it's a travesty. I mean in terms of investment, it's BC investment has gone down to 2%. It was 3%.

35:13

And actually there was a stat. What was the stat? So a strong culture increases net income by 765% over 10 years.

35:25 - David Brown (Host)

Yeah, A strong culture. What does that mean?

35:27 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

So it means having women in the mix. It means having diversity in the mix to increase a business by that much and we all know the stats around women founders.

35:38

I mean it's one of the biggest. But also we need women to realize their power. We need women to get passionate about tech. When you walk into a toy shop, you still see the same old you know, the Nerf guns, the Mades in Engineering, mekano, and all of that in the boys section. In the girls section it's dolls, which you know. I love my daughters, but my husband loves my daughters as well and he wouldn't have minded you know we create this at the childhood element.

36:11

I was lucky that I had a brother. I was lucky I had a dad that would be his mechanic. So you know, it was shoved by the cars with a load of oil. I do love a bit of glam. I am. You know, I'll sand down the door and I'll paint the door in a second, and I think that's it as well. It's that whole Elon Musk which is, you know, I think his name is becoming a swear word now, it's really anyway, but his whole thing about putting an engine in. He's got a school, his own school, because he didn't agree with the education system.

36:42 - David Brown (Host)

Yeah.

36:43 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Putting an engine in there and letting kids play with it. That's the purity and the realness. But that's what needs to happen with women. You know, we've been swayed away from getting oh no, she's got to look pretty. No, no, no, we need to get gritty. And also it's what tech does for women in terms of, you know, having the best of both worlds. They say that you can have that, but you need balance, you know you need. I'm lucky, I've got a great partner who knows what I'm like and knows that I go off for a week to New York to go to a tech event, and he's completely acceptable for that. But a lot of women don't have that, and men as well. You know, there is a balance of both. But we have to empower women because when people grow up in adversity, or we know that women have lots of things they have to deal with, they come up with the different ideas. And that's what life's about. It's about having different ideas in the room.

37:35 - David Brown (Host)

It's not about them just rubbish.

37:36 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

having a single view, that's all from the same background.

37:40 - David Brown (Host)

No, you're absolutely right, and I think a couple of things came to mind. One is is that sanding down the door and looking pretty don't have to be mutually exclusive? Yeah, exactly Right. Like, like anyone can do both. Right, like, okay, yeah, maybe your fingernails won't be perfect or whatever, but do you know what I mean? I think we have as a society, we have this image, and it works equally for men as well. Right, like, if you're a car mechanic, that you know that you're going to fit into, and it doesn't mean you can't clean up and go to a nice bed.

38:15

Or or whatever, yeah it, and I think I think we're getting past that. Yes, I mean, I have. I have daughters that are in their thirties now. Yeah, but, and I wasn't around a lot when they were raised, so you know I didn't have as much sort of influence as I would like. But certainly if I had daughters now, they would 100%. You know, when they were about five or six years old they'd be in jiu-jitsu classes. You know they'd be doing some physical activity. I would encourage them into sport, I would encourage them to do all those sorts of things, because I think everybody should do that. I encourage my son to do it as well.

38:53

But my son also knows how to sew and my son also knows how to cook. Yeah, like my son says, he says better than anyone in the house. But again, they taught him that at school, which I thought was amazing, because in the in the UK, like in the US, you would never, ever get that anymore. But the school that we sent him to in Tumbridge Wells shout out to St Greg's. You know they have a wood shop and they still teach kids like shop classes, and so you know, you learn how to build things, even if it's only for a few classes, but they get them in there and they have them build something. They have cooking classes, so they know how to make basic things. They know how to use a stove and how to boil water and how to like make scrambled eggs, Like, and I think that's the kind of stuff that we need to get back to that we used to teach people.

39:42 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Totally.

39:43 - David Brown (Host)

And and yeah, I mean I totally agree and I think you're right. I think there's a young people's you know sort of podcast. I think there's also an education. I have a few people that I've been talking to where I might be able to have that one up and running, hopefully. So I'm aiming to to kind of get all this stuff lined up this year and then early next year to launch a few of the channels, and then we'll just have different channels, that'll. That'll kind of run on specific topics, and I think that might be a really good way to to move forward.

40:10 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yeah, I think that's a brilliant idea and definitely the way to move forward, especially for all people you know. Podcasts are so easy to tune into. Yeah, and multi-discount in the world we live in today.

40:20 - David Brown (Host)

So I'm just looking at the time we're four sort of 45 minutes in now. Yeah, so we need to start thinking about winding up. But Sam Altman, oh my God, what has happened? What's your opinion Cause? Cause you know you've you're a business woman in your own right, so you kind of know how these things work. You've been in business for quite a long time. I I have my own thoughts about what's been going on there, but I'm curious to know what you think Once you know about it A and then B, what you think might be happening.

40:57 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Well, I've been reading bits on it. I've been trying to sort of stay away from it. It always intrigues me because the stories I watched the rim film recently, you know Blackberry on the plane on the way to New York and it just intrigued me and it it took me back to the Steve Jobs days as well. And these brilliant, brilliant, and you see it consistently with big companies and big corporations. You know, sorry, microsoft, you bought Skype and what happened. You know like there's terrible.

41:31

And we saw it with is Bebo. You know, there's all of these technologies that we know that these big courts went. Oh, I couldn't do this, and I think that's what's happened at the top of there. They've got the people that think they know it. The board and this happens consistently with boards and the board is usually not diverse in terms of every which way, in terms of gender, in terms of socioeconomic. That it's so. They're not getting views. So it's normally.

41:57

You know, I'm a fine and I love white men. My dad is one and so is my brother but you know, it's a group of older white men that make a decision and go. We know what we're talking about and I think there's they needed to listen to him. They obviously didn't, and what I love is that the whole company rebelled. And when we're going, and I just that's the movement that I want to see our young people do into governments, that's the movement I want to see the world, you know, going. Well, we're not going to have it. We're going to sit here. You know, women's gender, the women's gender gap, for instance, we should just sit down. Just sit down and go. We're not going to work today.

42:31 - David Brown (Host)

You know it's well, that's what they did in Iceland, wasn't it?

42:34 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yeah, it wasn't, it worked.

42:36 - David Brown (Host)

Yeah, 100%. The other thing that was interesting about the the open AI board is that there were a couple of women on the board and they were ones that have left as well, and I know it had a really unique structure because the whole point was to have this sort of a board that was completely uninvolved and it was a nonprofit. And then was this quite you know, it was set up in a way to be able to work, ironically, the way that it did, and if they didn't like what Sam was doing and the company was doing, then they could get rid of him, and then they got rid of him, and then the whole thing completely fell apart because, yeah, I think in the end, more than 700 of the 770 employees said we will resign if the board doesn't resign and get Sam back.

43:23

And I mean that type of loyalty as well, is incredible.

43:28 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yeah, well, actually that is a whole thing about Gen Z and feeling, belonging and feeling, and he obviously is a great leader and people. Gone are the old days of this corporate nine to five. We're sitting there we're in work churning it out.

43:43

It's just, and great leaders make their employees feel amazing. Why are we making it? School should not be crap, and nor should work, because these are things that we, mundane me, do daily for such a huge amount of our life, so we have to make them fun. It shouldn't be crap, and he is. I would love to. I'd love to be a fly on the wall to see his leadership skills, because he must be great to have that following.

44:06 - David Brown (Host)

Yeah, I agree, I mean I've met him. I met him when he was in London. Yeah, I agree, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I was there with, you know, 700 other people. It wasn't like I sat down and had a coffee with him or anything, so I don't know him as a person, but I didn't get particularly, you know, sort of warm and fuzzy vibes from him and I didn't, you know, he wasn't particularly engaging when he spoke. But again, you know, it was the. I think it was the environment that we were in and the event that we were at. It was. You know, it was very much a fireside chat with kind of predetermined questions and whatever. But yeah, it's, it's, it's been amazing and stuff keeps just coming out and coming out and more stuff is trickling out over time, but it just feels like it was a. I mean, I saw it about the second day and I said I just looked at my wife and I said this is nothing more than a pure old fashioned power play.

44:57 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yes.

44:58 - David Brown (Host)

That there's a couple of people in the company who feel slighted that he's getting all the attention and they wanted him out. So what they did is they got a few of the other board members on their side, they did a bit of politicking behind the scenes and then literally said let's have this emergency vote. They didn't tell any of the investors. Nobody knew it was all very clandestine when it happened and then the investors freaked out, the employees freaked out and they completely misread the room. And you know who knows?

45:29

Now, over time, there's more stuff coming out. So now I saw a story just last night talking about where they think that they've made a huge step forward in some of the AI in the background, Whether that means they've got an actual AGI that's running. I suspect they have something that's, if it's not that, it's very near to that, and I suspect that because the engineers allegedly some engineers wrote to the board and said we're really worried because we've got this new thing that's running and working and we're very concerned, and I suspect that Sam probably went nah, nah, nah, it's not anything to worry about, and that's where they started going. Well, we can't trust Sam because the engineers are saying one thing, or who knows. All I know is that this is going to be studied to death in business schools for the next hundred years, If there are business schools in a hundred years, but it will. I mean this will be a massive case study to look at, you know.

46:31 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Well, I think you're right. Actually, there's a lot of egos that go on and it's normally the board that causes. Whenever I've worked in many companies or we've, you know, got investment myself or friends who have got investment, or friends that work for companies that are getting investment it's always the board who you know are usually the most out of touch, don't understand what's really going on. That causes a lot of the problems.

46:57 - David Brown (Host)

Yeah and I maybe we can use this also to review, because there's been so much chatter on LinkedIn about what's the board and what's the board there to do and I think the employees revolting and essentially saying to the board you have to go or we're leaving.

47:18

Also, probably a huge message and a lot of other board members at other companies maybe slightly worried now and they're going to have to think about what their role is. And I don't think that's a bad thing because I do think boards should be more involved. Yes, I understand you need sometimes you need people outside the company and blah, blah, blah. But you know the boards are there for the company and for the employees and to make sure that that, you know, goes well and I think that they would do boards all over would do well to remember that.

47:49 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yeah, also speaking to the employees, david, did anyone? Go and speak to the employees. It was something.

47:55 - David Brown (Host)

I don't think so.

47:55 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

To Pete Mackie over at Boots. He's the CMO, he's a brilliant, absolute top dude and I was saying to him the travesty about you know the front like we're talking about retail, that front of service. They are so important and vital. You know they hardly get spoken to. They're forward-facing, they're talking to your customers, they are your company.

48:16 - David Brown (Host)

Exactly.

48:17 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

And did anyone in that organization go and talk to? You know, actually have a conversation, and this is the problem. The boards are normally. You know, individuals that have got out of touch have got put on a pedestal. Oh, people have walked around going. Yes, you're amazing, you're so amazing. You know they're great people, but there is an out of touch element. They need to get on the ground. They need to serve people on the tills. They need to, you know.

48:41 - David Brown (Host)

Exactly, Exactly. Okay. What else did we? What else should we cover? Well, we was looking at we've covered I think there was one thing that you mentioned that we were going to come back to, which was something about senior leaders or something.

48:59 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yes. Well, senior leaders, yes, and those you know what the jobs are evolving into now. So I think what we'll end up with like artificial intelligence, people understanding that that still needs to be developed and that still needs to be monitored and overseen, and you know the gaps filled and you know that filler and that sanding down and that making sure that the finesse is there, and I think that's where those senior levels are going to go. There will be the people that are going. Oh, we need to keep an eye on this, but I also it is. We know the money talks and that's where my concern is.

49:42

It's similar to healthcare. You know, I'm a believer that all healthcare should be free, because there shouldn't be a person in the world who has cancer and is scared to go into the doctors to get treatment. That's just not. It just doesn't sit with me morally. If we are going to fund anything as a democratic society paying taxes, it should be that.

50:04

And you know, with AI, what are we doing? We must make sure that the funding's there, the right people are there and the right people in the right way as well, so it can't just be all tech people like that diversity of, so those people who are overseeing it need to be those connectors and overseers. But yeah, we're gonna need a lot of them. We're gonna need a lot of the policymakers. There is none of that. I mean, biden's just introduced some form of policy, hasn't he? But do they really get it? I remember when Facebook had that whole Cambridge Analytica, you know, and they were in Congress and they were like, oh, my daughter's on Facebook and they need the experts as well, they need the experts, but then they also need the experts in the teaching element.

50:54

They also need to come together to be able to oversee and to put these policies in place to make sure, but we do need those people at that top level that are going to be the overseers, because this stuff does need to be overseeing as we've seen with the social media. It gets out of hand and it is a free-for-all. It's a cowboy nation, you know.

51:15 - David Brown (Host)

Yeah, and it's already getting out of hand and it will get more out of hand. I mean, this was the flip side that we started to go down way back at the beginning when we were talking about social media and how social media is going to change, and that was, yes, there are huge advantages that we have to this, but there's also all the potential downsides and we need to be really careful. I think the Kirstarmer tapes that came out that I don't know if you heard that, but there's supposedly secret recordings of him swearing at his staff and stuff that were pretty much resoundingly decided that that was fake. So somebody tried it on, but they didn't try it on very well and so you know, everybody was able to sort of uncover that that wasn't real.

51:56

But I think this election will be the last election in the UK and the US that will be able to believe anything. I think, moving forward, it's gonna be a real challenge and we need to figure out how we're gonna try and navigate that. So that's gonna be crucial, right? So give everybody, give a shout out to your charity, tell everybody where to go if they wanna support you, what they can do, that sort of thing. So let everybody know where to go.

52:25 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

So we are Digi Learning. It's digilearningcouk. We're on LinkedIn Digi Learning. We're on Instagram Digi Learning HQ and on TikTok. We need support for our young people, so we need mentors, we need master classes. We want our young people to be at the pinnacle of tech. We want them to understand what's going on. We want organizations to be desperate to get our young people like the football space. So the football space has always been. It's evolved over many years. But they start off in primary school, even nursery. You're kicking a ball, you're learning, and then we have coaches that coach them all the way through to adulthood and spotting that talent and helping them develop certain elements of talent. And I think that's what we need to be doing with technology and that's why we are so passionate at Digi Learning. It's making sure our young people understand how important artificial intelligence is, but also understand how to create artificial intelligence, Because when you're making it, when you're creating it, it's the same as when you bake a cake.

53:28

Or that whole example of going to university and learning to ride a bike from a ball. You're just not gonna learn. It's doing, it's application. So our young people is getting them to do that and apply it. And obviously we always need funding. We've got some great companies like Channel Factory, who are. They have ad tech in for YouTube. They are phenomenal and support us. But we need more. We need more people, but we need also it's the skills. It's if you've got a skill that you can share with our young people, then please do get in touch Because, as I said, these young people are from underrepresented communities. We need to close this divide. We can't have this divide and also we're losing the greatest minds. When you think of the music industry as well, like the Stormsies, or the football industry, like Marcus Rashford said, they could still be on account of the state, they could still be gang banging.

54:25

Well, they didn't. They were lucky to have got out of that, and that's what we are so passionate about is getting these young people, because they're the ones that will think different as well. If you grow up on accounts of the state, you've got nothing. You understand how to hustle and how to create something, and if we channel that into things like artificial intelligence, we will create the best builders, the best makers, the best you know, the futures, the future people.

54:52 - David Brown (Host)

Love it. And where are you operating at the minute?

54:56 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

So we are international, so we predominantly have our. We do lots of face to face in the UK but we are international. So our two programs, girl Rise and Digi Rise, are online. So 70% are from the UK predominantly and 30% are from the rest of the world.

55:13

So a brilliant example is one of our poster boys, brandon Louis, was a data analyst in Barbados, couldn't get a job. He was studying at university, didn't really want to do it anymore. He came and joined us for Digi Rise four years ago. He got a job through an amazing lady called Shirley Smith who presented him with a role, who was his mentor. He's worked at that ad tech company, 59a, for four years now. He also invited three of his girlfriends from Trinidad and Tobago to join our Girl Rise program. They are all into data and they're 59A as well and they were the pinnacle of creating the foundations of that organization. They're competitive, just sold for a lot of money. And my young people we're hoping they get equity and they become very, very wealthy from working with a phenomenal company who thinks outside the box, who realizes as well that they can employ people in different places and they're paying them a London wage but getting that, those people that think different. Again, that diversity of thought is really important.

56:16 - David Brown (Host)

Amazing and I have. You may have noticed me sort of licking off the screen there for a little bit. I have a contact who runs the program and you probably know him already and I've completely blanked on his name and I can't remember it. So I will make a mention of it in the show notes. But and I've mentioned it before, but I met him on a train randomly, amazing, but anyway.

56:39

But he runs a program where he takes kids who've sort of been kicked out of school, that sort of thing.

56:45

He takes them in and he gets them in a big group and he has them work on tech projects together to develop like programs and tools and things. But what he does is he's like these kids don't wanna sit down and do like normal programming, training and whatever he's like. We show them how to go and download some pre-written code to edit it a little bit or to buy a template, then go in and just edit the template to do the little things that you need to do. You know we don't. You don't need to know how binary works, you just need to know how to get in and tweak this thing and the way he funds it is. He does training for large organizations, and part of the money that the companies pay he uses to fund the education bit that he works with, and I cannot remember his name for the life of me, so but I Well, I'm good to meet him because he sounds cute, I'm sure you know him already.

57:38

If I said his name I bet you'd know who he was. I wanna say he's like a CBE or an OBE or something as well. So anyway, I'll send that through and I know this is super frustrating for all the people listening, but I will put something in the show notes around it. And awesome, that's amazing. So hopefully some people will come and help. I will pick up and follow up with you again on sort of on the podcast idea, cause I think there's a way that we can do something around that.

58:04 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Also. Next year, girl Rise is all around artificial intelligence. So getting Awesome. You're getting them to understand why they should use the tools, getting them to create the tools, getting them to understand what to use them within their you know, in their working life or just go to a job and understanding how people are going to use those tools to assess them.

58:23 - David Brown (Host)

So Awesome, cool couple of quick questions right before we go. Yes, in your mind, is AI male or female?

58:34 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

I think we're just human Cause they were created. It was created by humans, so yeah it was. Human. Human. If you want it to be a girl or boy, it's up to you, your preference, but I think human Well, that's yeah, obviously because they can multitask and do such amazing stuff. You know it's not be a woman, but I'm not going to go, yeah.

58:53 - David Brown (Host)

ve usually seen in films like: 2001

59:31 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

Yeah, I was like you're right. Yeah, was it Superman that had the computer that came out? Rrrrr.

59:37 - David Brown (Host)

The Matrix. I think that was the Matrix, wasn't it? Anyway, right. So when you have your AI personal assistant that helps you live your life and do everything for you, what are you going to name it?

59:53 - Lisa Goodchild (Guest)

My other half's name's Lloyd. I'll call it Lloyd, because I need Lloyd to do more in my life.

:: 00:00

So then it's male.

:: 00:04

I have to call it Lloydette.

:: 00:07

Linda, there's something. Yeah, okay, all right, I like that. I have a new question this week as well, so somebody mentioned this to me and I think it's a really interesting thing to ask. So, if you have a personal assistant and you're working with it all the time yeah, at what point do you think you develop a relationship with it? Do you think it's, do you think it would be possible to develop a real relationship with a tool like that? And would you like, if you're a partner, if Lloyd had an AI assistant that was female and he talked to it all the time and was messaging it all the time and was sharing stuff with it all the time, is there a point that you would think that this is inappropriate? I don't know. It's an interesting question about do you think it depends what he's asking- it depends what he's asking, but yeah you know, it depends what the conversation's about, but still it's yeah, it's an interesting but does it?

:: 01:16

I mean, it's just a program, right.

:: 01:19

Yeah.

:: 01:20

I don't know. See, this is the. It's an interesting question. When you start to dig into it a little bit, on the surface it seems kind of shallow, but if you think about it a little bit and you start to dig into it and then you start going, well, no, it doesn't really matter because it's a program, and then you go, but it depends on what conversation it's having.

:: 01:37

And then you're like, well, okay, Well, it could be coaching them to do something you know.

:: 01:43

It could be, who knows?

:: 01:45

Yeah, you'd have to know the algorithm behind it, like who built it, because that's the problem, isn't it? It's whoever built. It is the importer. That is still human. Well I know it's learning, but yes, or no. It's learning from the data that's already out there. It's a hard one.

:: 02:06

It is a tough one.

:: 02:07

Yeah.

:: 02:08

That's one to think about over the holidays or something. Yeah, no, it's like. It was just kind of like you know at what point does it become a relationship with like a person.

:: 02:18

Well, it also like a little voice in your head. You know, like we have, you know that Mildred or the, you know the one, that's the soups that lists you and sort of kick ass.

:: 02:26

I think my friend Emma Harris calls kick ass. She's a kick ass. So, yeah, do they become that, you know? But I do think there are a lot of humans that would not see the difference and would actually see them as a friend. And that's where, yeah, it could, and that's where it could get complicated, because who's running that, who's behind that? Because there's always a route to the end result.

:: 02:54

Yeah, it's an interesting one to think about, I think, so maybe we'll leave it there for the day.

:: 02:59

Yeah, amazing.

:: 03:01

Awesome. That was amazing. Thank you, great conversation, I loved it. I love the stuff, I love the work that you're doing, I love all the things that you're up to, and let's stay in touch and hopefully I'll have you back on the podcast sometime soon and we can talk about some of the other programs that you're doing as well.

:: 03:16

Yeah, that would be amazing. Yeah, we could get some of our girl rise on there as well. The girls.

:: 03:20

Let's do it. I would love that Brilliant. Thank you very much, Lisa. Have a great weekend.

:: 03:25

You too, Thank you.

:: 03:27

David.

:: 03:27

Bye-bye, bye.