The race is on: Web3, AI, and super apps with Blake Kuhre

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Narrator

At a crossroads of uncertainty and opportunity. How do you navigate forward? This podcast focuses on making smartchoices in a rapidly changing world. We investigate the challenges of being ata crossroads and finding opportunities that arise out of disruption. Listen in on future forward conversations with the brightest luminaries, movers, andshakers. Let's navigate forward together and create what's next.

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Lisa Thee

Hello, everyone, and welcome toNavigating Forward. My name is Lisa Thee and I'll be your host today. We loveto collect the most luminary movers and shakers in the industry to help youfigure out how to navigate forward in these exciting times. And this guest thatI'm bringing to you today is absolutely one of my favorite go-to people whenI'm thinking about innovation in the future.

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Lisa Thee

Blake Barrett Kuhre is the CEO of SWIM,which is a Web3 company that is really helping to make the metaverse a reality.And I'm so relieved to see him at the helm because we have worked in trust andsafety together at multiple companies for many years. And I think he's really going to help people make sure that the metaverse does not become the messy-verseright on the first go.

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Lisa Thee

So, for you business leaders, if you're looking for somebody that really understands not only the technology but the governance of the technology, he has navigated these waters in internationalcompanies for multiple years, including The Meet Group and Byte dance. So, thank you so much for joining us today, Blake.

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Blake Kuhre

Thanks for having me, Lisa. It's great. Thank you for such a warm introduction. Glad to be here.

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Lisa Thee

Oh, it's always easy to introduce you.I usually do like to drop your Radio Disney days, too, because that is still a verycool feather in the cap.

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Blake Kuhre

Now that that's true. That was where Iwas ten years ago. I would get up in the morning at 4 a.m. every day and comeinto work by 5 a.m.

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Lisa Thee

Your get-up-early job was way cooler than mine, managing the assembly line at General Motors. I still think you madethe right choice.

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Blake Kuhre

Oh my gosh. Yeah, see, you know what it's like to be an early riser. Anyway, that was kind of my Disney experience, but it really did lay the foundation for my career, and I learned a lot and very grateful for it.

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Lisa Thee

Yeah. I think one of the things that I always learn from you is just these forward-looking trends of, you know, when we first met back in 2015, it was how do we take advantage of these trends of live streaming? And then I saw that kind of wave come in and then now I saw you shift a couple of years back into this wave around the metaverse and Web3 and where those experiences can, will be going.

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Lisa Thee

So, for somebody that maybe isn't asexperienced and being at the leading edge of technology transitions and helping people come along with the change, can you share a little bit about yourperspective of why the metaverse is interesting, and what Web3 even is?

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Blake Kuhre

Sure. Yeah, it's a common question and everyone's still learning. I mean, I don't have all the answers. I’m in no way an expert in this, it’s just a field that I really feel is, is the nextfrontier of the internet. I liken it to if you can think back to the time where you were, you were still young enough to remember,

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Blake Kuhre

maybe not everybody is, but in likethe late nineties, early 2000s. That was really like, I think the precipice of where the dotcom era really started to change and everywhere and the Interne tbecame more accessible to everyone. You know, we moved away from dial-upInternet, which I had as a kid growing up, and it went from 2400 to 9,600 to 14.4 to 28.8, the speeds and 56 K, and these were the bits per second.

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Blake Kuhre

So, with more data, the faster it got,the more content you could get quicker to load, quicker to communicate. So, the really the way that the Internet was then is how the Internet is with Web3today. That was really the transition from Web1 to Web2. And so, the Web2 worldis where we've been living and where we’ve been operating and where we stil lare right now and talking to one another.

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Blake Kuhre

But Web3 is going to be that nextfrontier, and it's already just starting. And that, and so I'd say we're probably 1999, 1998 that, that era of time for Web3.

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Lisa Thee

So, Web 2.5.

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Blake Kuhre

Yeah you could say that. That'sessentially what we're doing. And so, because of where you know the structureof corporations and business and economy, etc., you still have very much thegatekeepers, if you will, you know, like these are the boomers and up let's sayand then you also have, you know, the up and coming millennial workforce thatare growing up with this.

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Blake Kuhre

You know, for many, this is just likethey've never known a life without the Internet, which is very unusual for,say, our generation, which we did know. And so for them, it comes natural tohave a phone, always be in front of a screen. I know there's a lot ofcontroversy surrounding that and there's a lot of safeguards that need to betaken into place.

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Blake Kuhre

But that's something that, what'sexciting to me is to see where the technology is going so that we can sort oflay the foundation and lay the groundwork for it to be the right type ofenvironment. And versus, you know, one that's problematic. So that's where as acompany with SWIM, what we originally set out to do was to be essentially abridge between Web2 and Web3.

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Blake Kuhre

So a lot of the brands that we'reinterested in, say having a metaverse, having their own stake and their ownclaim of space and that kind of experience is now something that we have reallyfocused in on even more succinctly when it comes to our new project that we'regoing to be launching, that we're working on right now sort of in stealth mode,but we're going to be launching it at the end of June where we see this goingas more and more obviously, AI is now the hot buzz word and anything that has AIattached to it is going to be, people are going to sit up and take notice, youknow, try and

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Blake Kuhre

and get a piece of GPT right now. Imean, it's next to impossible. It's interesting. And that's a bit of aside fromwhere we are with Web3. But if you were to take AI and blend it into Web3, whata Web3 really allows, say a company to do is to break away from a centralizedtype of a platform to disseminate whatever their content or information is, andthey can do it themselves.

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Blake Kuhre

And it's not going to be reliant upon,a centralized platform requires a login and a password. What it really willcome down to is in many ways a wallet address. So, if you have a like asoftware wallet or a cold storage hot wallet that's connected to the Internet,cold wallet, that's not you're able to connect and then essentially transact.

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Blake Kuhre

And so, with transactions can comemany things. Obviously, crypto, we know it hasn't had the best time in the pastseveral months. Obviously, the market isn't doing quite well there. But what'sreally interesting, what everyone's been talking about anyway, is the utilityaspect of what that same kind of transactional layer can do. And then also youcan see it's very transparent because you can link back that ledger history toany type of interaction or transaction.

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Blake Kuhre

So that to me is really, I think,interesting to see how this is going to change and progress.

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Lisa Thee

So, the underlying blockchaintechnology allows an individual to control their interactions, not relying onan intermediary to be their representative into these virtual worlds. So, forWeb3, can you just give us a really simple difference between what Web2 is andwhat Web3 is capable of, just in terms of an example so that people that maybearen't as deep in the technology can envision why they would want to know moreabout where we're going, especially as a business leader?

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Blake Kuhre

Certainly. A great way to do that isif you look at you have a username and password for almost everything that youlog into or you have an account with, that's Web2. So Web3 does not requirethat you have a wallet address and you authenticate when you connect thatwallet to, let's say, a website or let's say you want to buy an NFT.

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Blake Kuhre

That's how it's already beenestablished and that's now linked to you. So, the transparency is also therenow because now you see how many users, what else what what's on their history?What's the ledger history look like, What's their transaction, what's theiractivity? And then you can easily tell how, say, active this particular user isas well.

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Blake Kuhre

There's still obviously a lot of workto be done in this way because anybody can create this. And so having that tiedto an identity is not as easy as it is to say establishing an account andsaying, okay, your name, your address, your phone number or your driver'slicense, there's always some kind of KYC.

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Lisa Thee

Yeah, know your customer.

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Blake Kuhre

Know your customer, right. So that's abig part of that. And that's still, you know, there's a lot of differentsolutions that are being looked at. But really the other great thing about Web3is the fact that you no longer need to require, let's say, for example, paymentprocessors, which are a huge thing if you look at every transaction that youconduct with a debit or credit card, it's anywhere between one and 3% of thatof the actual purchase price

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Blake Kuhre

of whatever it is you're purchasing. Youlook at Apple and Google on that and buy something through their store. You'regoing to, they're going to take 30% of that transaction depending on howsuccessful say, that app or that merchant does.

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Lisa Thee

Oh, I remember when we were deployingin the App Store, realizing there was a 30% transaction fee and being like,wow, every company that's a small business is interacting in this way, it is anabsolute barrier for entry. This is required of you. So, I think that's areally good point. I think the other thing I would mention that I've heard as asimple way to understand it is Web1 was more like read capability, Web2 is kindof read/write capability, and Web3 gets you into the read, write, and editperspective of being able to interact.

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Lisa Thee

Do you agree with that summary of whatthe possibilities are in terms of just leaps forward, in terms of capacity?

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Blake Kuhre

Yeah, I think that's a good way tolook at it. And also, just I think the number one thing is just thetransparency of never before have you been able to take a say, identity or alogin of someone and just run a quick check on to see what time have theyinteracted or what have they transacted?

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Blake Kuhre

How much. All of those things are veryidentifiable. Now, linking it to the individual is another thing entirely. Sothat's why I say there's a lot of work to be done in this way. But what'sreally exciting about it is that is the utility aspect of, let's say, theauthentication of you have a pass that wants to get you into a festival or aconference or a concert.

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Blake Kuhre

Now you have that pass that's going toopen a door, get you entry to say, or it could be a rental car. There's a lotof different ways. You know, hotels are doing this with NFC technology, butagain, that's more centralized. So, like when you look at a company like Nike,for example, that signed a massive deal with Roblox, that's also a centralizedplatform.

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Blake Kuhre

So even though it's saying themetaverse and this sort of like nomenclature that's a little bit more of aoptics, I think play, it's a quick fix. You know, like let's get into it. Let'sjust go into this platform. It exists and then we can put out a product and nowwe look hip and hip and cool, sort of like a Web3 facade behind a Web2 layer.

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Lisa Thee

Okay. And what does SWIM do in termsof, as a company for major brands that are interested in either having thefirst step in the crawl, walk, run of a facade of having the metaverse oractually getting into it more deeply. How does SWIM interact with theecosystem?

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Blake Kuhre

Well, before, as I mentioned, what wewere focusing on was being that bridge between Web2 and Web3. So, let's say acompany wanted to say have their own NFT drop. Then they would partner with us,and we would help build out, let's say, an NFT drop, an entire campaign thatgoes around that. It's shifted away from that quite a bit, as you've seen with FTXfallout in November and that's NFT are now sort of becoming, I wouldn't say adirty word, but they are not probably the best foot forward, I would think, inthis particular environment right now.

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Blake Kuhre

But what we are aiming to do is reallyredefine or should say, reimagine, what it what it's like to the advertisingand advertising landscape in particular is going to change. Because what you'reseeing, for example, with obviously we've been past the point of skippingthrough like your DVR, you don't have any more TV commercials to watch and beinundated with.

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Blake Kuhre

You have to pay for that privilegewith YouTube, for example. But what if you were in a place now where you don'thave to have any of those considerations because now the advertising isdirectly targeted and in a very meaningful way that's interactive, that's alsoengaging, and it's not reliant upon an actual human. And what I mean by that iswhat we're looking at right now are synthetic influencers.

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Blake Kuhre

And so that is something that we arereally going to be focusing on for this year because we've already seen this tobe a success with a few occasions. There's a few companies that arespecializing in avatar creation, but there's not really one that hones in on,let's say, an influencer that is literally created and then is then promoting aproduct or has a story behind it, and then the audience doesn't really care ifthey're real or not.

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Blake Kuhre

They just want to be entertained. Andif they're, say, wearing a new article of clothing that is yet to be releasedfrom a major designer and that influencer is showing it off, then maybe theycan buy that without even having to worry about the unpredictability orcontroversial nature of a human influencer, which we also know is a very bigissue.

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Blake Kuhre

And there's just a lot of costsassociated with that, too. So that's where we're focusing on as a company isgetting into a synthetic influencer mindset because that is going to reallytake, I think, the way we have looked at not just influencers but alsoadvertising and completely reimagining it.

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Lisa Thee

So, it's almost like being at a radiostation when high School Musical is out there, you know where the trend’sgoing. You see it going down the field with synthetic influencers. The businessmodel supports that for multiple reasons. How are you guys looking to make itreally easy for companies to take advantage of this new trend and be early inthe process to be able to help others that are interested in their productsdiscover them?

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Blake Kuhre

Well, you know, it's a great question.If you look at how going back to sort of the gatekeeper mindset, you know, itis very difficult. And for any entrepreneur to come up with a new product andto have it immediately adopted by, let's say, a major brand, and that takes alot of time. And so, one thing that has been a passion project of mine for along time and I have a fortunate experience in the international markets, isthe fact that oftentimes you will find that something is a success and anothermarket needs to be established there first before it would say make its wayinto the US market, the North American market.

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Blake Kuhre

And a case in point for that is we hadsort of a teaser debut for this, for our project in Istanbul in November. Andafter we had the presentation and we came off the stage, we had, we were sortof inundated with lots of people coming up to us and saying, you know, Oh,you've created a monster, or Oh, this is really the right way to go, or Yeah,which is actually great.

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Blake Kuhre

That's a great reception to have. Ilove to hear that there's already that element of shaking things up and thereis some disruption from because, you know you have a success that people aretalking about you no matter what it is generally, as long as it's not damagingin any way. But that kind of told me we were on to something and that wasresonating really well.

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Blake Kuhre

But one gentleman came up to us inparticular and said, do you realize that the majority of content, for example,that Netflix is now putting across their platform is actually content that hasbeen acquired in foreign markets, international markets outside the U.S.? So,to an American audience like Squid Game, for example, there's one right there.You look at the success of, you know, or Parasite.

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Blake Kuhre

That movie, for example, went on towin Academy Awards. Like you look at the success of a lot of the formats andshows, even Shark Tank, it started out as Dragon's Den, and it wasn't even ahit here in the US until it had already made its way in other markets first. So,to us, we're really looking at embracing the emerging markets and developingmarkets to have this adoption and to prove it out in many ways before it canland in the U.S. And we understand that we can't waltz into, let's say, a majorentertainment company and say, here's what we have, let’s go.

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Blake Kuhre

They are looking for something that'smore established, that's going to be to provide them and their shareholdervalue and that they have a track record.

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Lisa Thee

They’re a little later on the adoptioncurve. They're not typically innovators. They may be early adopters or in mostcases, the early majority. Right. That technology has to cross the chasm. Andso having the background that you have from your experience with Bytedance,which is the parent company of TikTok and with your experience with Meet Group,which is the back end of most online dating that's available, you've alreadybeen able to see around the corners of where some of those tricky places can bewhen you are connecting communities with third party content.

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Lisa Thee

So, I personally am really relieved tosee you at the helm because you have a very educated approach to trust andsafety as we go into this, this new step. What trends do you think we shouldall be paying more attention to when it comes to how we're moving forward inthis way?

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Blake Kuhre

I think what we don't want is to havea social credit score system that's implemented. You know that that's the longgame with this. That's what I don't want to see. I know I'm probably, I don'tknow if I'm in a minority or majority in the way I think that. I think that themajority of consumers already have enough watchdogs and checklists that theyhave to abide by in terms of where they rank and this and that.

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Blake Kuhre

This is something that is already avery real reality for, you know, for example, in China, this is this has beenlike this for many years. It's a reality that you may not be able.

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Lisa Thee

It’s beyond the Black Mirror episodes.

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Blake Kuhre

Know, it's actually it's actually real,right? So but, you know, having that experience and working in China forseveral years and understanding how far ahead they are with technology, I thinkthat the trends to look for that you had mentioned are going to be, you know,how much is AI going to be part of our lives? How comfortable are you having AIas part of you know, it would seem to be the case that many are comfortablewith having, you know, Alexa or Siri that's sort of always on in thebackground.

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Blake Kuhre

But then if you combine that with anautonomous system that can literally think for itself, you know, there aregoing to be, I think there’s going to have to be guardrails and somehow a killswitch, you know, for lack of a better word, because you don't want it to growfaster than you can control. Because ultimately that, I mean, that sounds likesort of sci fi, but there is really an AI race that's going on right nowbetween, you know, geopolitically, between the U.S. and China.

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Blake Kuhre

And so, their technology is quiteadvanced. And you saw that for yourself when you visited a few years ago. Andbeing able to pay with your QR code. And by the way, QR codes only reallystarted, as you know, to become popular here in the U.S. with the onset of thepandemic, because it was sort of a contactless way to pay for things.

00:21:01:14 - 00:21:29:29

Blake Kuhre

But that is something that, you know,everyone from a major retailer, you know, Starbucks, you can pay with your QRcode down to a street hotdog vendor to, you know, something at the Gap,everyone takes it. And so, you can pay for utility. It literally is an all-encompassingapp, a super app. And there was sort of this thinking that that was whatTwitter was going to become or is going to become a super app which controlsall of these elements of your life.

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Lisa Thee

Blake, when I was in Beijing with youin 2019, I remember we had a heavy reliance on WeChat for transacting. Is thatthe kind of the vision of what something might evolve to in the US, an all-inclusiveapp for social as well as payments, as well as communication.

00:21:49:29 - 00:22:14:26

Blake Kuhre

Right. So that is, so the parentcompany of WeChat is Tencent. They have over a billion monthly active users. Thatis a super app, that is THE super app. And WeChat is something that, you know,this is what the discussions have been about, what Twitter could become. Youknow, there's been a lot of articles published in stories that this couldbecome a sort of like a WeChat where that everything…

00:22:15:01 - 00:22:33:19

Blake Kuhre

But here we go again with this isgoing to be centralized in a Web2 fashion. This is not going to bedecentralized in a Web3. So Web3 allows the user more autonomy and moreflexibility, but if it's all centralized within one platform, then it's reallynot getting into that, that next step.

00:22:33:28 - 00:23:17:06

Lisa Thee

And that's really where Web2 hasgotten us, most of the major platforms out there that are now the top tencompanies in the world are all the centralized platforms that have beentransacting and collecting data on consumers for many, many, many years aheadof what people probably understood that they were providing because in order toget your search capabilities, in order to get your package delivery, in orderto get your software updates, you have been feeding into their algorithms andtheir training models for a long time with data that you need in order to getvery advanced AI, you need millions and millions of examples of things in orderto be able to train it.

00:23:17:06 - 00:23:27:02

Lisa Thee

So, we have been centralizing thepower within these private corporations and Web3 allows us to evolve a bit pastthat. Is that what I'm hearing?

00:23:27:23 - 00:23:46:07

Blake Kuhre

Yeah. And if you look at the data, ifyou were to be able to look at the data, if you have that capability to see thekind of data that is collected, essentially through just your user behavior inthese apps, you would be probably I think everyone would be quite surprisedjust because you know everything from how long did you hover on this image?

00:23:46:07 - 00:24:08:04

Blake Kuhre

Did you zoom in, did you text it tosomeone? Did you go back to it? You know, there's a lot of stories. I mean, wedon't have to go into all that. But the point is, is that this is alsosomething that why Web3 is attractive is because there is a lot moretransparency in this way, because you really can see where what activity hasoccurred based on, you know, an address, a wallet address.

00:24:08:04 - 00:24:42:04

Blake Kuhre

So that that to me is, I think, apromising feature within Web3. But if you're looking at the, a super app typeof ecosystem that that's going to be, it's quite an undertaking for that, too.There has to also be, you know, mass adoption. What's interesting about WeChat,since you brought it up, is the fact that as a American with an American phoneor an American plan, you can't link an American credit card or a U.S.-issuedcredit or debit card within your WeChat app.

00:24:42:13 - 00:25:05:26

Blake Kuhre

And that's pretty clever from thestandpoint that they know, as in Tencent knows, that the transaction fees thatwould come along with that would be probably pretty heavy. And if you can justlink a bank account in this case to our Chinese bank account, it can just betaken out of that like an ACH clearinghouse, like, you know, everyone's paiddirect deposit that way and then you bypass those fees.

00:25:05:26 - 00:25:31:09

Blake Kuhre

So, it all comes down to, well not allof it, but a big majority of it comes down to eliminating the transaction fees,sort of that middleman that stands in between you and whatever it is that youwant. That's what was, I think that's one of the most interesting things aboutthe pandemic was that everything really went direct to consumer because peopleweren't open.

00:25:31:09 - 00:26:01:26

Blake Kuhre

They couldn't even have their shopsopen. And retailers were struggling. How can we find a way to still reach ourcustomers and to get them to continue being a customer? A big part of that isgoing to be just what we're paying in transaction fees alone is staggering. So,if you can find a way to, and this is why more and more acceptingcryptocurrency as a form of payment, even the entire country of El Salvador,for example, you know, El Salvador was a country that was on the brink of allkinds of violence.

00:26:02:09 - 00:26:11:29

Blake Kuhre

There was just an incredible amount ofpain and suffering, so much of a mass exodus. Now, the country has really beenturned around.

00:26:12:02 - 00:26:22:08

Lisa Thee

That was a lot of corruption andinflation in centralized banking, right? So, this gave people an alternative tobe transacting that wasn't dependent on a system that wasn't functioning well.

00:26:22:08 - 00:26:44:07

Blake Kuhre

Right. So, you could look at, if youwant to point to a place that say, has had a massive turnaround and has reallybenefited the population in a significant way and improved their way of lifeand their lifestyle and their quality of life. You can look to El Salvador as aas a sort of a beacon for that as a use case, honestly.

00:26:44:15 - 00:27:10:26

Blake Kuhre

And more and more countries willlikely take that same approach that aren't so intertwined and say anestablished hierarchical system. But I think that there's going to be stillflexibility with a lot of these major brands, banks in particular, that aregoing to have to be involved with this, and they're going to have to figure outhow can they do it without threatening their business model.

00:27:11:14 - 00:27:32:10

Lisa Thee

Yeah. So, what I think I'm hearing isfor business leaders that are thinking about making their steps in, there's adirect impact to the bottom line of being able to reduce or eliminatetransaction fees for your products or services. You have a consumer base moreprimed to be accustomed to that direct-to-consumer model today, you know,post-pandemic.

00:27:32:10 - 00:27:55:13

Lisa Thee

And you're a company that's helping toease that transition by having the right experience and wisdom to put theguardrails in place so that they don't make any big missteps as they're taking thosesteps forward. Can you share a little bit with me about what you would, whatyou would guide recent college graduates coming out of school to be learningabout in order to stay current?

00:27:55:13 - 00:28:13:02

Lisa Thee

Because I think, you know, there usedto be a paradigm where you would come out of college and your skills would berelevant for quite a few years before you had to start upskilling. But I don'tthink that's going to be the environment that this generation is going into inthe workplace. You've had to come along with many big ways of technologicalchanges.

00:28:13:18 - 00:28:18:04

Lisa Thee

What advice would you give to a 21-year-oldabout being career ready for the future of work?

00:28:18:27 - 00:29:03:08

Blake Kuhre

Well, I think I was offered this pieceof advice that I unfortunately ignored after I graduated, but that was take asmuch time as you need before you enter the real world. And I think if you lookat what's the phenomenon,  to us it's aphenomenon, to the rest of the world it’s not, a gap year of essentially beforeyou immediately want to have a role and a company, you should really take thattime to figure out, you know, you should travel, you should see other culturesgo to other countries they are interested in and try and be as big of a spongeas you can and just listen to...

00:29:04:00 - 00:29:24:06

Blake Kuhre

I think listening is very important,especially when you are finding yourself in a place where it's new andunfamiliar and being out of your comfort zone is also very important because,you know, it's something that there's there was there's a lot of a rush to goand land a job and to pay off your student loans and all these other things.

00:29:24:06 - 00:29:55:05

Blake Kuhre

But then it also comes into question,is higher education something that, is it for everyone? You know, is it reallygoing to be the path forward for you to go to a four-year institution and haveall of these commitments and obligations afterwards? It may not be foreveryone. And I think that we're starting to see that more and more in ourcountry, and especially where, you know, where a lot of this is headed in theadministration is has kind of hinted at this, that trades are going to becomemore and more sought after.

00:29:55:27 - 00:30:18:13

Blake Kuhre

If you can obviously find the peopleto do the work, you know, because that that's been another issue. If you lookat how the pandemic has treated. And really this is a terrific opportunity forrecent graduates, I think probably the best in our lifetime, because it'stotally reset the entire work-life balance as we knew it before. It iscompletely gone.

00:30:18:27 - 00:30:42:05

Blake Kuhre

Like if you were to go down on SixthStreet in New York City and you were to see how many vacancies there are inthese high rises, you would be amazed. Right when I was in New York City andfor a conference in March, like literally days before the pandemic was declaredby the World Health Organization, I was just walking around, and I couldn'tbelieve how I didn't see anyone else.

00:30:42:05 - 00:31:10:06

Blake Kuhre

And this was in early March of 2020.And it's because now everyone has adapted, and people have proven themselvesthey can work from home. And so, to have a type of office setting isn'tnecessary as much as it was before. But I think finding the kind of work thatreally is meaningful that you feel like you have some kind of impact in andit's not going to just be a job, because that is really passé.

00:31:10:08 - 00:31:31:16

Blake Kuhre

Honestly, if you look at it'simportant to have a foundation for sure and to have a North Star, for everyonethat's different. But if you're going to make it a point that you need to goand immediately find work right after is probably doing yourself a disserviceunless it's an absolute necessity, which obviously is understandable for manysituations.

00:31:31:16 - 00:31:59:17

Blake Kuhre

But it's just best to really find it,because it's going to set the tone for many, many years after what you'redoing. And that is true. Someone told me, I remember when I took this, when Itook this job at Disney, which turned out to be ten years at the Walt Disney Company,fantastic time. But I remember it was another it was another job offer fromsome small station; I think a TV station in the Carolinas.

00:31:59:26 - 00:32:18:28

Blake Kuhre

And he said to me, I just hope thatyou know what you're doing because this is going to set the tone for the restof your career. And obviously, I was very pleased with my decision. But that iskind of true. If you look at it from what you're getting yourself into, it isgoing to determine like those next steps of what you surround yourself with.

00:32:18:28 - 00:32:25:01

Blake Kuhre

So, you have to be very careful withwhere you find yourself and who you align with, who you work with.

00:32:25:11 - 00:32:53:15

Lisa Thee

But I love that. I love that guidancethat you're giving, which is the more exposure you can have to differentcultures, different ways of doing things, different experiences and havingenough time to process and hear your own wisdom about your processing thoseexperiences. It allows you to be a more inclusive leader. It allows you todemonstrate more 21st century leadership skills because talent is evenlydistributed.

00:32:53:27 - 00:33:09:21

Lisa Thee

And if you don't know how to tap intotalent that doesn't look and sound like you, you're going to be left behind inleadership in the world. So, with that in mind, can you share with us what yourwhy is? What is your mission that gets you inspired to keep leading the charge inall these cool transformations?

00:33:10:09 - 00:33:31:12

Blake Kuhre

I think you should really have astandard of excellence and you will be able to define what that is. I thinkbeing aware of what's already out there but not being obsessed by it. I read aquote many years ago that's one of my one of my go-tos, which is, I think itwas in the Financial Times.

00:33:31:22 - 00:34:10:19

Blake Kuhre

It was “comparison is the source ofall misery.” And if you were to compare, let's say, what it is. It doesn’t reallyneed any explanation. If you know, if you know what is right and you don't needto have it. And it's very difficult to do right, because obviously the culturethat we find ourselves in, where everyone is glued to a screen constantly and,you know, social media platforms are abundant, even professional platforms likeLinkedIn have become almost social, where you would say, but there's noboundaries, there's no guardrails there.

00:34:10:19 - 00:34:31:01

Blake Kuhre

You can pretty much write your own ticketin terms of how you want to do that. But I think it's important to know what itis that's important to you and to focus on that and not be distracted by it.And, you know, and it may not be in front of you. That's the other thing.

00:34:31:01 - 00:34:56:29

Blake Kuhre

If you are wanting to do something andyou're passionate about a particular cause or work and you're not finding itwhere you are or you're not appreciated, even more so doing it where you are,then you need to pack up and go somewhere else. And we certainly have seen thatto be the case, right? I mean, just with the pandemic as an example, states, USstates are now becoming competitive for work.

00:34:57:15 - 00:35:26:10

Blake Kuhre

You don't, you no longer have to, oh,I've got to go to New York. No you don't, no you don't. New York,Massachusetts, California. These are states that are very hard to be anentrepreneur in. So, you're going to find states that are more welcoming, likeTexas, Florida, Nevada, for example. It’s amazing that we're in this now whereyou can be a success pretty much at home.

00:35:26:19 - 00:35:47:22

Blake Kuhre

Yes. It's important to go out and meetpeople, face time. Nothing can take the place of meeting in person, andeveryone wants to go to events. That's another thing that we've recognized thatin our, at SWIM, is that a big part of our new focus is we're really focusingnot so much on the screen, but so much on in real life experiences.

00:35:48:02 - 00:35:58:10

Blake Kuhre

And it hasn't really been done before,what we're looking to do. And that's still a focal point. People still want tohave a reason to go somewhere if it's worth it to them.

00:35:58:21 - 00:36:22:14

Lisa Thee

Yeah, we are hardwired for connectionand being able to have those digital indicators that somebody is looking for ananalog experience can be one of those moments that matters, that builds abrand, that creates that experience and that that customer loyalty, becausethey're getting treated to something that is so memorable and makes them feelspecial and makes them feel part of a community.

00:36:22:14 - 00:36:30:22

Lisa Thee

And I think we all struggle a littlebit with disconnection after the times that we've lived through, and there's ahunger for that. I think you guys are really on to something.

00:36:30:22 - 00:36:31:08

Blake Kuhre

Thank you.

00:36:31:10 - 00:36:39:03

Lisa Thee

So, Blake, for people that are moreinterested in learning more about what SWIM does and more about you as aleader, where are the best places to connect and follow you?

00:36:39:03 - 00:36:59:24

Blake Kuhre

I would say right now, LinkedIn, asmuch as I just talked about it in terms of being so social network, I thinkLinkedIn is probably the best, the best way right now. We're going to berelaunching our website pretty soon, SWIM.eco. But in the meantime, LinkedIn isa great resource. I mean, I think more people get more information now fromLinkedIn than they do even a company website.

00:36:59:24 - 00:37:05:07

Blake Kuhre

Like if you really want to dig in tosay a product announcement or feedback, you know, it's a good place to go.

00:37:06:04 - 00:37:18:20

Lisa Thee

That sounds great. So, thank you somuch for joining us today, Blake. I never leave a conversation with you withoutthinking in a bigger and bolder way and having a broader perspective. So, thankyou for bringing that to our audience. I appreciate it.

00:37:19:10 - 00:37:20:22

Blake Kuhre

It's my pleasure. Anytime.

00:37:22:22 - 00:37:33:22

Narrator

Hey, everyone. Thanks for listening tothe Navigating Forward podcast. We'd love to hear from you. At a crossroads ofuncertainty and opportunity, how do you navigate forward? We'll see you nexttime.

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