Humans & Technology: A Discussion With 1 of TARTLE's Sherpas

Alexander McCaig (00:10):

Welcome back to TARTLE Cast. There are some important things we should do, right? And those are the voices that are heard, the people behind the scenes, the ones that make it happen. And I want to bring the studio today someone who had in the company a couple months ago, his name's Matthew Smith. He's a data specialist. Matt has learned the ins and outs of TARTLE. He knows intimately everything that's going on. It's pretty much his first time on the mic here, right?

Matthew Smith (00:34):

I've been on the mic a few times, for walkthrough videos.

Alexander McCaig (00:37):

Oh, for walkthrough videos. So you're filming this yourself, right? So really what you do is when you film content or create that content, you're doing it to educate others, right?

Matthew Smith (00:45):

Correct.

Alexander McCaig (00:46):

Okay. Let's run with this Matt and bring the mic closer to you, don't be shy, just yank it right over your face.

Matthew Smith (00:51):

Okay. What's going on?

Alexander McCaig (00:52):

All right. So let's start this off. When you're creating this content, what is the importance of education? Why does this occur? You see the help tickets all day long, you see these things that are naturally occurring with our user base, which is quite large across a lot of countries, how are you perceiving things like that?

Matthew Smith (01:10):

Well, our website's in English so most of these users may not understand the verbiage or how things are interpreted. Doing walkthrough videos is another outlet to learn how to do simple things, such as delete your account or verify email, how to sell a packet, how to fill out a packet, what autosell means and all those different aspects of the TARTLE marketplace.

Alexander McCaig (01:37):

So our technology's growing, we have advancements, things that ship every single week, new changes, ones that are seen are unseen. So you have to keep abreast what those things are going on, and essentially translate that to the end user so that as those changes occur, you can bring them up to speed and help that empower them through their process. Correct?

Matthew Smith (01:54):

Right, because there'll be new features that they may not know of and once they start utilizing that, it'll make their experience a lot easier.

Alexander McCaig (02:02):

And what is so important about that experience? How do you see the value that it experience for them? What does that mean to you?

Matthew Smith (02:12):

Repeat the question.

Alexander McCaig (02:14):

That experience, so when you do this stuff, are you doing it just for the paycheck? Do you have that end user in mind? How is it that you visualize this thing? You know what we do at TARTLE, how does that translation go into your work?

Matthew Smith (02:33):

To make the user experience easier because it can be frustrating if you don't understand what you're doing and you need money to feed your families, feed yourself. And so if the process is really difficult to understand, then you don't want to do it. So if I can make that process or alleviate any headaches in getting you some money to feed your family or feed yourself, that's the drive through it.

Alexander McCaig (02:59):

So if I understand then from what you're saying, the work you're putting in, the educational material that you create, tries to remove as much friction as possible to get people over the goal line to say, "You joined because this is what you were looking for an outcome and I'm here to support you in that process, using this new tool, which you've never seen before and I want to get you there so it can help you, it can help your family and you can feel those outcomes so that you can continue to evolve."

Matthew Smith (03:30):

Yes. That's the goal.

Alexander McCaig (03:32):

Is that something that makes you get up in the morning? Is that something you constantly remind yourself of?

Matthew Smith (03:38):

Yeah, it is. It's a definitely a big motivator, because you're not just doing it for yourself, you're doing it for others.

Alexander McCaig (03:46):

Yeah. And it's not often you got to come on the air like this and express what you're doing, right? And I'm just dragging you in hot, like this is what we're going to do.

Matthew Smith (03:54):

Yeah. Totally unprepared. So a lot of fun.

Alexander McCaig (03:57):

Well, when things are unprepared, they're typically more authentic, right?

Matthew Smith (04:01):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (04:01):

So Matt, I'd like to ask you, as a data specialist, and you've grown a lot in your position, where do you see the future? What does this mean for the world going forward when you see people using it? What are your hopes and outcomes for the community at large?

Matthew Smith (04:24):

It's to help as many people as possible, I think. For what TARTLE does, there's nothing else like it. And technology has been around quite a while, I feel like, and no one's thought of helping others lesser than them. But the goal, I guess, would be to have a lot of companies getting their data ethically from individuals and incentivizing those individuals for their work.

Alexander McCaig (04:58):

And has there anything that's happened in your own personal life, and you can share it whether or not you want to, that you think helps translate into the work you're doing so that you can kind of share that going forward, kind of pay it forward to those individuals? Are there any struggles you've seen that you say, "I can also help alleviate those struggles that other people are going through"? It could be something simple, it could be going into a business, customer service, anything like that.

Matthew Smith (05:30):

I think probably on the customer service side, making sure they get their problem solved if they have any problems more so.

Alexander McCaig (05:44):

Right. So if somebody wanted to solve your problem, you have a problem, you want to come to somebody, how do you expect to be greeted when you have something that you're trying to get fixed? What are your expectations?

Matthew Smith (06:02):

Talking to a real person that can relate to what I'm going through.

Alexander McCaig (06:08):

Essentially establishing that sort of relationship with that person, right?

Matthew Smith (06:11):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (06:12):

Because it's all people at the end of the day that come together on this.

Matthew Smith (06:15):

Rather than getting a chat robot who can't answer my question.

Alexander McCaig (06:19):

Right. And I mean, it's all well and good to have like AI in there to say whatever the name is that pops up and has a list of basic questions, but there are nuances to these things. It actually requires a human touch.

Matthew Smith (06:30):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (06:31):

And there's a lot of people that are on TARTLE, but it doesn't mean we can't implement that element that needs to be there, which just that human touch. So the way I see it going forward is that I would hope you, or people that work with you, take on that responsibility to bring in that sort of element, that human element that needs to be there because people need the help. They will always ask questions. There will always be a need for understanding. And I think education is first and foremost one of those priority things.

Matthew Smith (06:59):

Right.

Alexander McCaig (07:00):

Right. It's almost like, wouldn't it be great if we could have a podcast with every single one of those individuals.

Matthew Smith (07:07):

Be a fun show.

Alexander McCaig (07:07):

Yeah. But in considering the fact, when I think about it, there's a lot of empathy that can get baked into working with these people. You can feel their frustrations because they want the opportunity bad. So it's interesting how much of a relationship you have to share with so many of these people because you are in a form of direct contact with them. So how does that change the element of that work? The fact that you are establishing that relationship and you are responsible for getting them to that point where there is not that friction, where they can truly start to help themselves?

Matthew Smith (07:46):

Ask that question again.

Alexander McCaig (07:47):

Yeah. What I'm saying, you feel those relationships, right?

Matthew Smith (07:53):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (07:53):

I know podcasting's different, right? Because I'm saying a lot, there's a lot to think about and you're like, "How should I chew on that?"

Matthew Smith (07:58):

Three sentence questions right there. And I'm like, "Wait, I'm still on the first part."

Alexander McCaig (08:03):

No, the way I look at this is that if you go to establish a relationship with those individuals through customer service or whatever it might be right, there's a lot of empathy baked into that. There's a lot actually with a relationship that begins to occur because you want to remove those frictions for them. How do you deal with that personally? How do you take in all these things that people will be complaining about? How do you put it through a lens where you can be like, "Okay, how do I help them? I understand something is going wrong or there's a misunderstanding, how do I and empower the person?"

Matthew Smith (08:38):

Well, I have to think about more so, does it align with TARTLE? What are they asking for? What do we need? What are we missing?

Alexander McCaig (08:46):

Hold on, align with TARTLE, what do you mean?

Matthew Smith (08:49):

They could be asking me to pay them more money when they haven't worked for that money.

Alexander McCaig (08:54):

Interesting.

Matthew Smith (08:55):

So I can understand that, sure, they need the money, but did they do it properly? Did they go through the process-

Alexander McCaig (09:01):

Go through the process.

Matthew Smith (09:03):

For earning that money. And so there's a lot of checks I need to have, although I don't have a face aligned with, it's more like an email address or something like that aligned with tech. So it's some of times hard to separate that, but you also got to understand there's not always good people in the world, so you can't always trust them. But when you do see those stories of them emailing in how much TARTLE has helped them or what they've been able to do with TARTLE, it's rewarding for what we're doing.

Matthew Smith (09:40):

The way I handle it though is this is why I come to work every day, why I do what I do, why I want to do what I want to do and expand more on that customer service side, making it better for those individuals to be paid and making sure those buyers know where their money's going.

Alexander McCaig (09:59):

Which is fundamentally important because when someone spends a resource, they want to know that it's going where it says it's going to go.

Matthew Smith (10:04):

Correct.

Alexander McCaig (10:05):

So that level of education's important. So when you come in and you look at the culture, right? I speak about culture all the time, how do you feel during the work day about that culture? How do you feel internally about TARTLE, what's going on? And I'm just throwing it at you on the spot.

Matthew Smith (10:22):

I get reminded every day and not just by you guys, but I try to remind myself of that as well, but it's not to get medals or make a ton of money, it's more of just like the recognition of helping others.

Alexander McCaig (10:39):

Love that.

Matthew Smith (10:39):

That's the culture, helping others and not just people across the world, but each other as well.

Alexander McCaig (10:47):

Well, Matt, that makes me feel that makes me feel pretty good, I know that makes you feel good. And listen, I appreciate the long pauses, I appreciate you chewing on. I know I ask complex questions, there's multiple layers to it.

Matthew Smith (11:03):

Brain works really fast.

Alexander McCaig (11:04):

Yeah, and it's double edged sword, right? It's helpful and hurtful at the same time. You know what I mean? Talking to me like, "What just happened? What's going on?" But I was asking, I'm building upon it, I can feel it occurring, right? So having sort of feeling, that's the thing, it's the human element. So whether we're doing it on the podcast or it's the millions of users that are on TARTLE, it's people over the world, different cultures, we all got to meet each other where we are and we all got to find that understanding. And bringing employees on of TARTLE to talk about their understanding, how they feel about it, no matter how comfortable they are or not uncomfortable, how well spoke are not well spoken, paused or not paused, whatever it might be, it's important that the voice is heard and people see who are the people that are actually working to make this thing happen. So I appreciate you jumping on today.

Matthew Smith (11:51):

Who's next?

Alexander McCaig (11:53):

What do you mean who's next?

Matthew Smith (11:54):

Who's next on the podcast?

Alexander McCaig (11:55):

Yeah, who's next on the podcast. Yeah, that's a great question. Who do we want to bring on next? I'll probably bring on our chief revenue officer, Martin Harrick, so you can see behind the scenes. You said for those enterprises that are spending the money and they want to know where that money's going to go, well, we need someone to explain to them again on top of that in a very high touch environment, how's it get from point A to point B.

Matthew Smith (12:17):

I guess we'll see.

Alexander McCaig (12:19):

I guess we're going to find out. Thank you, Matt.

Speaker 1 (12:31):

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?