#16 Coreyne

A brilliant talk with Coreyne Woodman-Holoubek in this the 16th episode of The Only Constant. Starting off nice and quiet, our conversation becomes a true tour de force in how to understand and add perspective to human creativity, what it takes to make impactful change and how we need to ensure humans are included as a key part of the loop whenever we add technology to our processes.

Read more about Coreyne at the bottom of this newsletter.

As always, I am very happy that we once again managed to make an episode that explores more than it explains ??

Listen to the episode here:

Apple: The Only Constant on Apple Podcasts

Spotify: The Only Constant | Podcast on Spotify

Google: The Only Constant (google.com)

Spreaker: The Only Constant (spreaker.com)

What made this episode special to me?:

Coreyne kept saying she's a tech utopist - that she really believes that technology will make us better. During our conversation, however, I sometimes got the feeling that this is a mantra she is adopting to have the right focus. Because Coreyne is definitely also cautious about keeping technology reined in. But perhaps this is also the hidden truth here, that is so often overlooked in our discussions on AI: that you can be a utopist, but that doesn't mean you should be na?ve. Technology takes time, effort and curation to work with humans, and we probably shouldn't solely focus on making it the other way around.

In our preparations, Coreyne also pointed out that she was a bit wary of my nerd-analogies, having listened to me go deep in LOTR references before. She made clear she had not watched LOTR, so hoped I would not do any of those... regardless, Coreyne managed to reference a lot of other nerd culture elements, like Prometheus, Bicentennial Man and... Boss Baby... I am not sure we will have many references to the latter in future episodes, so make sure to listen in to hear how on earth she gets that reference in!

This episode also takes some very significant detours and turns during our conversation, but we always manage to steer it back and in the end it all feels extremely satisfying. I truly enjoyed relistening to the episode after our recording.

My key post-recording deliberations are:

• We need to bring the human back to work with AI. Coreyne shares a great story of an AI product she liked recently, which got absolutely terrible overnight. When she asked the customer support they informed her, that the product she had liked was a beta product that had a human review what it produced before sending it to her, while now it was all AI... and a human in the loop again was a pay-feature. Quality, and knowing what is quality, and especially what is edgy and relevant, is still something we absolutely excel at.
• Hyperpersonalization is creepy. The paradox that is automated personalization is likely to get a significant boost from the use of GenAI, but treating humans this way, customers and employees, as though they matter so little to you that you'd have a bot chat with them, might not be the best way forward. Plus all the customer data you'd need to make it work is a recipe for creepiness...

I hope you all enjoy the episode and that you'll share some of the insights you gained from listening to our conversation.

About Coreyne Woodman-Holoubek :

Coreyne Woodman-Holoubek is the Founder of Progressive HR, a LinkedIn Top Voice in Company Culture, and a HR Tech and Work Tech influencer. She is also a Human Resources executive, a TEDx speaker, an event producer, and regional television personality.?