Data or Trust? Why Trust Is Our Biggest Corporate Problem

Speaker 1 (00:07):

Welcome to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path.

Alexander McCaig (00:24):

Let's get physical. Physical.

Jason Rigby (00:26):

Physical.

Alexander McCaig (00:28):

Let's get philosophical, philosophical.

Jason Rigby (00:31):

Alex.

Alexander McCaig (00:32):

Yup.

Jason Rigby (00:33):

Jason, there's a new book out.

Alexander McCaig (00:34):

What's that?

Jason Rigby (00:35):

By Microsoft, a marketing executive at Microsoft.

Alexander McCaig (00:37):

You're a VIA guy? VIA?

Jason Rigby (00:40):

Viagra? What?

Alexander McCaig (00:41):

No, no. No, no, no. I say via.

Jason Rigby (00:43):

I'm old bro, but...

Alexander McCaig (00:44):

I say, ah, Gosh.

Jason Rigby (00:48):

Viagra. Viagra.

Alexander McCaig (00:55):

I'm shutting it down. You're a via, a via guy, but I say via.

Jason Rigby (01:01):

Yeah. Via.

Alexander McCaig (01:01):

Wia. Via.

Jason Rigby (01:05):

Stian Broader.

Alexander McCaig (01:07):

Don't talk to me like that.

Jason Rigby (01:11):

No, this is the author. Marketing tech at Microsoft explores the components...

Alexander McCaig (01:15):

You sick little Stian Broader.

Jason Rigby (01:17):

...and value of trust in the new book. Here's the book.

Alexander McCaig (01:20):

What's the book?

Jason Rigby (01:20):

The Business of Trust: how experiences build trust and drive business impact.

Alexander McCaig (01:25):

Okay.

Jason Rigby (01:27):

You trust me?

Alexander McCaig (01:28):

Of course I do.

Jason Rigby (01:29):

That's what the article said.

Alexander McCaig (01:31):

Oh. Do I trust that person in the article? I don't know. I don't know them. I don't know them. trust is one of those human things that takes time. And the second you start being untruthful, trust is gone. Okay. So truth is the key driver here. So if you're talking about your decision-making, you would hope that the data that is coming into you and your company is truthful. If it's not built upon truth, the foundation of trust, then you're just making decisions off of stuff that is essentially worthless. And it's going to lead you down a rabbit hole.

Jason Rigby (02:02):

But if we're all lying, and then we're going to work lying...

Alexander McCaig (02:07):

Don't talk about Facebook like that.

Jason Rigby (02:10):

Sorry, Mark. But if we're all lying, and then we go to work and we're collectively lying, then the information that we're getting...

Alexander McCaig (02:19):

And the information we're sharing...

Jason Rigby (02:20):

How truthful really is that?

Alexander McCaig (02:22):

Yeah. And is that evolutively beneficial to us? No, of course not.

Jason Rigby (02:26):

Why do we lie?

Alexander McCaig (02:30):

Why would you ask me such a deep philosophical question like that?

Jason Rigby (02:33):

Well I have the answer.

Alexander McCaig (02:34):

Why do we lie? Because it's easy. Why do we lie? Because it diverts focus from the thing that we don't like focusing on ourselves.

Jason Rigby (02:45):

Yeah. It's external.

Alexander McCaig (02:47):

Lying is very external.

Jason Rigby (02:48):

And there's a validation with it, too.

Alexander McCaig (02:50):

Yeah. It lacks a communication with the internal self. And if you don't know the internal self, then you're going to have a hard time being truthful. So if you're just walking around lying, it just tells me that there's a bunch of people that don't know each other, and we're making information off of people that don't know who they are. So then how can we know who we are if we're absorbing this information and then acting upon it?

Alexander McCaig (03:09):

I'd rather know when I'm not because that'll lead me closer to the truth. So the foundation of trust is a function of truth. That'll be the thing that drives us forward. And so even when you look at say TARTLE data, right, people are incentivized to be more truthful with the information that they share on the TARTLE marketplace.

Jason Rigby (03:29):

Yeah. They're incentivized and they know it's anonymous.

Alexander McCaig (03:32):

And they know it's anonymous. And what happens when you begin to lie, the companies or the people that are buying your data, they can choose to never purchase from that account ever again.

Jason Rigby (03:43):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (03:44):

So you're disincentivized to not be truthful. So TARTLE is asking you to take the sort of introspective look of yourself and say, where do your values actually reside? And because when you go to share information of truth, then those people can look at it and be like, this is a rich resource built upon truth. That's what this data is found in it. This is something that we can be very actionable about.

Jason Rigby (04:04):

Yeah. So why trust, not data has become the most important asset in the modern economy. This is the book answer.

Alexander McCaig (04:13):

Data drives the economy, but then the quality of that data sits on a foundation of trust. Right? If I get in the car with you, Jason, I know that, say the car is our data packet, but the person driving it, I have to trust isn't going to kill me.

Jason Rigby (04:28):

Yes.

Alexander McCaig (04:29):

They know the rules of the road. They are respectful of my life and their interactions with me in this life. So your data, you need to be respectful of that data and the people that are also interacting with your data. If you choose to do so, it's all of us are going to be driving cars off cliffs all day long. Does that metaphor work?

Jason Rigby (04:48):

Yeah, no. I'm trying to think of it in the sense of when we see leaders and we see organizations and how they're navigating data. But when we look at navigating trust, because here's my brain on an Alex...

Alexander McCaig (05:04):

I just don't...

Jason Rigby (05:05):

And when we look at a business that's built on lies, and then we have them doubling down on lies, and then you have the C-suite tripling down on lies...

Alexander McCaig (05:18):

Don't talk about Enron like that.

Jason Rigby (05:19):

Or their nose.

Alexander McCaig (05:23):

Or their nose, the fake blood machine. Here, we got two examples.

Jason Rigby (05:28):

BAnd we can see Lehman brothers. I mean, the list goes on and on. They doubled, tripled down on how many loan... Real estate.

Alexander McCaig (05:36):

Collateralized debt.

Jason Rigby (05:37):

Mortgages, death.

Alexander McCaig (05:38):

CMBO's.

Jason Rigby (05:40):

Yeah. So whenever you look at these companies that are doing this, and then we're wearing suits, we're walking into a door, we're smiling. We're saying hi to everyone and everyone's saying hi to us. We're saying, how's your day? And they're like, great.

Alexander McCaig (05:53):

Image, image, image, image. No depth, no truth. We're all just acting superficially. And then we are going to act superficially on the data that is also coming to us.

Jason Rigby (06:05):

But don't you think because we're living this life of just pure fake...

Alexander McCaig (06:09):

You're not living a life. You're living a lie.

Jason Rigby (06:11):

I posted this. I'm going to get really heavy here. This is going to be good.

Alexander McCaig (06:15):

Is this going to give us the old boot?

Jason Rigby (06:16):

No, this won't. This is really good. Somebody wrote this. What fascinates me is that hardly anyone is wondering what we're actually doing on this planet. Most accepted the work, eat, entertainment, sleep cycle as life, and have no desire for a deeper understanding of our purpose in this universe.

Alexander McCaig (06:34):

How many times have we talked about materialism?

Jason Rigby (06:38):

Yes.

Alexander McCaig (06:39):

It's a cause for a lot of these other things here. So how could that be? Let me ask you something. How could materialism be the solve in the true purpose of humanity if it's the thing that's actually crippling humanity? Riddle me that logic.

Jason Rigby (06:55):

No, that makes sense.

Alexander McCaig (06:55):

Do I need to say anything else? Enough said. Right? So there's something more. There has to be more depth that we need to focus and involve ourselves with. All right? And if that depth is a function of truth and sharing that truth is a function of data, that needs to be that focus. That forces all of us, our companies, people interact with those companies, people that support those companies, to be introspective into ourselves and what is of real value. Our future, our understanding of this world and the human beings that are within it, ourselves and our other selves are completely dependent on trust.

Alexander McCaig (07:33):

Knowing that somebody else will look at me in a non-dogmatic, nonjudgmental sense and accept me for what I am, and they will be open and willing to listen to the truthful information I'm going to share, because by me not sharing truthful information, what I don't want to step on someone's toes? This is who I really am. This is how I truly think. This is what really matters. This is where the truth is.

Alexander McCaig (07:56):

But when you lie, people can't learn from one another. There's no learning that happenings. It's a deevolutive process for us in humanity. Trust is going to be fundamental to that, but that requires an internal growth, a huge internal growth in consciousness and understanding of our place in relation to others and this planet.

Jason Rigby (08:15):

Yeah, he wrote this in the book. Nurturing trust as a constant endeavor, yet one that can be derailed in the fraction of a second. That's especially true in the digital age, where social platforms act as catalysts for spreading information and search engines are permanent collective memory.

Alexander McCaig (08:31):

Yeah. So you have permanent collective memory, and then you have 30% of tweets are about people complaining. Or what are the statistics on that second page down there? Do you see it anywhere?

Jason Rigby (08:42):

What did he say? 85% tell others about their experiences. 33.5% use social media to complain about their experiences. 20% comment directly on the retailer's website.

Alexander McCaig (08:50):

Okay. So 80% of people say, here's my experience. I'll share these photos, right. Then someone will come in. Well, what's your flavor of that experience? Either I hated it or I really enjoyed it. And then the other people are like, I'm going to go direct to the person that ruined my experience and let them know. Great. Why is it that direct communication is the absolute last thing? Why is it that we have to be so indirect and beat around the bush? It's not just being direct about it, lacks sort of it's the less truthful, less evolute response.

Jason Rigby (09:24):

Yeah. And they talk about, he talks about in the book tech lash, which was a term coined by the Economist Magazine, great magazine, by the way, about this negative reaction or backlash against the largest technology companies. And we had Russia, social media platforms, 2016 elections, Cambridge Analytica, misuse Facebook data for political purpose. We had Google that's going to put a trust...

Alexander McCaig (09:46):

You put profits first, you pushed away morals and ethics, and you lost people's trust. Why? Because you put profits before people. That's where you went wrong. You did not respect people for who they were. You went through a process of lying about how much you care about their data and how much you protect it and used it solely for your benefit. You think you're going to get trust from that?

Alexander McCaig (10:11):

Let's think about a function of human nature. Okay? You do 99% of the things right in your life, but when you do one thing wrong, that 1%, people typically, they magnify it. Do they not? People are not very lenient about mistakes. So people don't want to be truthful. You know? We're going to get hammered, even though we've been doing everything right. But we did one little thing wrong? That could just cripple all the years of work that you've put into building trust with people.

Alexander McCaig (10:38):

There has to be flexibility. There has to be truth sharing, and there has to be understanding. We have to be understanding and we have to be truthful at the same time. Otherwise, no trust will ever exist.

Jason Rigby (10:49):

Yeah. And =he talked about how, Levi's, Ben and Jerry's, the North Face, which I love, Ford motor company, Unilever, Verizon, Coca-Cola Starbucks, Microsoft, Disney, all these monster companies began to spend less with fake Facebook. 30 million less in July over year.

Alexander McCaig (11:06):

What did you just do?

Jason Rigby (11:09):

Even for Facebook, that's significant hit to the bottom line.

Alexander McCaig (11:11):

Of course it is. And Jason, you just said, I love North Face on a social media thing. You're a part of that 30 percenter. You actually didn't go to their website. You did it secondhand right here. I'm not making a bad example. I'm just making an example of that statistic right now that just happened.

Jason Rigby (11:27):

Yeah. No. And it's a hundred percent, and they said this. When you examine, I want you to listen to this, Alex. When you examine the cause of tech lash, it can be traced back to one thing. So he's narrowing it down.

Alexander McCaig (11:39):

I like this lot, very deductive.

Jason Rigby (11:40):

The proliferation of data. He said one thing.

Alexander McCaig (11:45):

Because as data became the proliferation, the amount of sharing, how this thing was collected and stored and then abused, this tool, data, opened up the flood gates for people to say, well, do I want to use this sword or this tool for good? Or I'd want to use it for bad. And we've seen that there's been a backlash, because people have chosen to use it for bad rather than the more ethical, moral approach that they should have taken in the beginning.

Speaker 4 (12:15):

Yeah. And he doesn't like that. And we've done podcasts on this, where data is the new oil. He says that's too deceptively simple. Listen to this. While true that data, like oil, powers much of the technology we use today, unlike oil, it is more susceptible to misuse by bad actors.

Alexander McCaig (12:31):

Of course it is. It's more fungible. Oil, I have to literally move it around in a huge drum, transport, all this other stuff. I can move data across the globe at the speed of light or close to it. That's the difference. Fungibility, flexibility. Its ability to adapt. Oil does one thing, lubricates. That's all it does. It's a lubricant. That's all it's good for. And if you're burning it, that's a problem.

Alexander McCaig (12:58):

But that's the focus here. So when you look at that proliferation of data and you say, yeah, data is the new oil, we say data is the new gold. Because gold is a real asset. Oil is a commodity. It's not a commodity. It has more than that. And data is way too variable in it's depth, granularity, truth factor, all these different things that define it characteristically as something that is really more than just what you would call it being a new oil. Oil is oil. It is a lubricant. Data is an infinite number of things and all sizes shapes and forms.

Jason Rigby (13:31):

Yeah, which we love. He talks about first party data and he says this. First party data stays with the company, because he says no company would sell their first party data to a competitor. So first party data stays with the company where it was generated. And if used appropriately, notice that word, this data ultimately benefits the consumer in the form of personalization. This then helps to build trust.

Alexander McCaig (13:51):

Okay. So you're saying if a company is collecting all the data and they don't sell it to third parties or share it, that the company can then in a round about process benefit the user?

Jason Rigby (14:01):

Yeah. And he says trust-

Alexander McCaig (14:01):

Why can't they... Let me, okay. Why does the company not trust people to manage the data themselves? The hell? What do you got to to manage it for? Why do you want that liability? Remove it. Put that in the hands of the people, and then collect it directly from them because you trust them, and then they're going to trust that you manage it properly, and then go back to them with information where they saw how it was collected and what was collected to deliver them something. Now you have a full life cycle approach of truth, driven through data that's beneficial to both parties. Rather than say, we'll hold it as a centralized effort. We won't sell it, but we'll deliver something good for you out of it. I'm going to contend with that author right there.

Jason Rigby (14:40):

Yeah. And he says trust is the currency and experiences of how we transact trust. So how do brands build up their trust banks?

Alexander McCaig (14:48):

Trust banks.

Jason Rigby (14:48):

Through delivering meaningful and memorable experience with impact. People will give you their trust if you give them the right experiences, and leaders need to be thinking about every possible experience. Every interaction is an opportunity.

Alexander McCaig (15:01):

Experience does not give people trust. Trust, for one, receives trust from the other. It's like for like here. It's not some sort of, oh, you delivered me an experience I like, I trust you. That's a bunch of crap. Now, I trust you and your data. You trust me in the handling of your data. Now we have a relationship built on trust, not where one person trusts and the other person just gets an experience.

Jason Rigby (15:26):

Yeah. Because here I'm thinking of it. You remember the old movies where they would have to negotiate, and it would be like, maybe it's lots of Scarface, lots of cocaine, and this guy's going to come in into the room, and they're going to do a negotiation, and he brings all his bad guys and he brings all his bad guys.

Alexander McCaig (15:44):

Do I trust that no one's going to shoot each other up?

Jason Rigby (15:46):

Yes. Yeah. There's a lot of tension there. And in that room, it's like, can we trust each other enough? Even though we're sworn enemies and we'd love to see each other die, can we trust each other enough that we can negotiate this transaction? That it's mutually beneficial for both of us?

Alexander McCaig (16:03):

Yeah. To what me, this sounds like we don't actually trust the other party.

Jason Rigby (16:07):

And the experience around that. They could be in a mansion in Miami, because I'm picturing Scarface with their Panama.

Alexander McCaig (16:15):

Yeah. It's got the painted background. You remember? Palm trees and the sunset.

Jason Rigby (16:19):

Yeah. And that experience around them, that doesn't really matter whenever you're getting into the heart of negotiations. They could be sitting in a warehouse with one of those one lights coming over and a portable plastic table and have the same thing. Or in a meat locker where it's freezing and have the same conversation. So wherever they're at in that experience, it doesn't matter. It's how are both parties feeling? Because it's all about feelings when it comes to negotiating. How are both parties feeling towards this? Am I feeling like when I'm going to get hostile is when I feel you're taking advantage of me, and you're disrespecting me.

Alexander McCaig (16:59):

So how do then we look at the feeling of the negotiation between me giving you my data and you using it?

Jason Rigby (17:07):

Yes. It's communication.

Alexander McCaig (17:10):

This tells me that the way this dude is writing this is saying, I trust the company more than the person. You think people are that dumb, that you will need to deliver an experience and you don't need to have mutual trust? Mutual trust is key. The way that it's described lacks balance. If a system lacks balance, it will fail.

Speaker 4 (17:29):

You're putting too much into the company and brand loyalty. People nowadays, and you're in my neck of the woods now. People nowadays will switch brands so quickly.

Alexander McCaig (17:39):

Yeah. We'll do it. They'll do it faster...

Jason Rigby (17:43):

Experience will cause that. Experience will cause them to switch brands.

Alexander McCaig (17:49):

And it may not be because they don't trust you, it's just like, oh, this delivers a better experience. that's all.

Jason Rigby (17:57):

Yeah. He said this, this is really cool. The willingness to trust others is built into our DNA. Working together has always been key to the survival of our species. Having faith in one another is in the best interest of both the individual and the collective.

Alexander McCaig (18:10):

Do not use the word faith. Faith is a function of belief. Belief says I do not have the facts. I don't want to sit here in a system and believe that people are going to do the right thing. I want to know people are going to do the right thing.

Speaker 4 (18:25):

We have number six on our big seven is government and corporate transparency. So if I'm believing that a government or corporate identity is going to be transparent and they're not clearly articulating that...

Alexander McCaig (18:37):

How many times have we been slapped in the face with that, believing it? I want to know for a fact... If I know how you're going to use my data and how you want to collect it and I know that I have the power to relinquish it and control it when I choose to do so, now we can build a platform of trust because there's transparency. There's education, there's knowledge. There's no guesswork. There's no faith.

Alexander McCaig (18:58):

Do not apply my genetics and my ancestors' genetics to faith. That is not how that works. This is a function of cause and effect. And if this person truly understood what genetics were all about, they wouldn't make such an outlandish, ridiculous blanket statement and to say that it all boils down to faith.

Jason Rigby (19:16):

Yeah. And he says this. Trust has always been the foundation for durable relationships.

Alexander McCaig (19:20):

Yeah, durable.

Jason Rigby (19:20):

The power at play in the development of every positive aspect of our societies. So, and I like this. He ends it this way. Trust is a foundation on which every business, organization or team should be built.

Alexander McCaig (19:33):

Why does he have to, and then you drop the obvious. You say three stupid things and drop the obvious.

Jason Rigby (19:39):

But I think, I'm all for. I like marketing. I'm all for a marketing executive at Microsoft to write a book on trust. It's great. It's great that you can... Can I share something with you, and something that I've been thinking about?

Alexander McCaig (19:58):

Can you please be truthful to me?

Jason Rigby (20:02):

Alex, I'm always truthful, but I'm going to be... You know the reason I'm truthful with you, this is really interesting, and why we have mutual trust for each other is because you're not going to judge me in what I say.

Alexander McCaig (20:14):

You know I won't.

Jason Rigby (20:15):

Yeah. So you're the CEO. If I come to you and I say, Alex, I failed in this and this did not work, you're going to be like, okay, Jason, I know you failed. You may pitch me some shit a little bit, be sarcastic, which we love. I love that. And then you're going to be like, how do we fix this?

Alexander McCaig (20:33):

Correct.

Jason Rigby (20:33):

And how do we not have this happen again? But you're not going to look at me as a bad person.

Alexander McCaig (20:38):

No. And if I relied strictly on faith for you and you broke my faith or belief, what good is that? I have no foundation, no real data. I'm looking at you in a sense of cause and effect. That has built the experience of our relationship.

Jason Rigby (20:52):

But here's what I wanted to really get to an understanding. That's a side note. Whenever you look at Facebook, Microsoft, when you look at Google, we always do this. I'm going super macro. Whenever we have a technology that comes on the scene, here's my optimistic view. And you tell me if I'm wrong, or push back on it. We always seem to, in evolution, figure this shit out. So we always take something, and I'm taking nuclear energy, for instance, which unfortunately we need to get over the whole a situation in all and how horrific that was, embalming cities. And we need not to tag. Now, we need not to tag nuclear energy with bombs and missiles and stuff like that. t's only portrayed as negative.

Jason Rigby (21:46):

I listened to one of the leading rocket scientists, and she's a CEO of a company and absolutely amazing. She goes, if we could get over the stigma of nuclear, that is our answer to getting into space. Sure. So we look at that and we attach a bias and a stigma to it, but we're going to evolve to the point, because this is what I see. We haven't done that. No country has done that since then. We got this new technology. Awesome. So great where we got it from. We won't go there.

Alexander McCaig (22:18):

I don't need to get into any conspiracy stuff right now.

Jason Rigby (22:21):

No, you got the shirt on.

Alexander McCaig (22:25):

The answers on my chest.

Jason Rigby (22:27):

But we got this. We used it in a horrific manner, horrific manner. And then we kind of somehow fumbled the ball. We're holding it on the 40 yard line. And we kind of fumbled in a fumble of filament and we evolve, evolve, evolve, and we've done a pretty damn good job of not releasing a nuclear missile since then.

Alexander McCaig (22:51):

Do you know why we made them in the first place? Because somebody with a lot of resources and power didn't trust another person. That's it. You chose to take your technology and use it adversely. Technology is technology. It's like data is data. How do you want to use it? What are your intentions?

Alexander McCaig (23:11):

Your intentions became ill because of a lack of trust. That was the foundational thing. That's all. It You can defend yourself. All life should be defended. But when you chose to take a lot of lives at once because you don't trust, you're going against somebody's free will.

Jason Rigby (23:29):

You're going against collectively a whole city collectively's free will.

Alexander McCaig (23:32):

And then that puts a bad mark not only on those people that did that, but the people that are associated with it. And on top of that, the technology that was actually used. Nuclear technology has done amazing things. Amazing things. It has allowed for supporting the growth of a lot of our systems. Ones that you don't even see, you don't recognize it, aren't very obvious to you. But that trust is so important that when you do create a new technology, that the people who are using it or facilitating that resource in whatever direction, have the best intentions.

Jason Rigby (24:13):

But don't you think that will, and it may not be the best intentions, but don't you think we'll go from worse to good to better? Maybe not best, but I'm taking Microsoft, Facebook, Uber, all of them. I just see humanity. We're moving in this beautiful direction. I think we're becoming more aware. There's more self-awareness. Especially in the younger generations. So it's like the younger generations, number one worry they have as climate stability. So whenever we look at this young generation and they become so proficient in technology, it's like, are they going to take? Is this young generation that's getting schooled up, are they going to take what we're concerned about at TARTLE, the big seven, and then implement that into these companies? Or would these companies just become irrelevant? I think new ones will be generated.

Alexander McCaig (25:02):

Adaptation is always a solution.

Jason Rigby (25:05):

Yes, exactly.

Alexander McCaig (25:06):

If these larger firms do not adapt with great flexibility to the change in humans generation by generation, you will cease to exist. That's it. And then the greater, more pronounced egalitarian, humanitarian values of these newer generations will flourish. And that takes time. Good things take time. We as human beings are hard learners. And we have allowed a lot of people to make bad decisions for us, because we haven't taken the power onto ourselves that was rightfully ours in the first place. So we need to wake up as individuals and as a collective and fix it.

Jason Rigby (25:50):

Are you going to let that government agency, let that corporation, take your power from you and use it for profits? Or are you going to go to TARTLE dot co, T-R-T-L dot C-O, sign up and take your power back?

Alexander McCaig (26:08):

Are we going to share in that together in shared decision-making?

Speaker 1 (26:20):

Thank you for listening to TARTLE cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future, and source data defines the path. What's your data worth?