Bridging Cultures Through Technology and Storytelling

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Thank you very much Audrey for that wonderful introductory. I'm very happy to be here and to speak with you and your audience.

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Yes, thank you. You are welcome. Now before we get started, let's let's open up with a couple of fun facts about yourself. Do you want to share with us?

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Sure. One of them that you already mentioned is I was born in Iran and moved to the United States many many years ago. In 1979 and I grew up in Los Angeles, but then I moved to Italy after 30 odd years to do my MBA. So I love to merge all these cultures that I've been fortunate enough to experience and live in.

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That's awesome.

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I love archetypes, the Jungian archetypes and how to use them in order for us to get to know ourselves. It's a hobby, I guess that turned into something very, very special for me as far as business wise goes as well. So I bring the archetypes in with AI and I love to have fun with AI and I'm not tech savvy at all. Sure, sure. But I decided AI was an embracer, so I took it. Took it and made it my best friend. And here we are today.

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Absolutely, yes. And what's this up? I read about British crime series.

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Oh yes. I forgot to mention that I love British crime series at this point in my life. I always look at those Instagram reels where they say this is me at 20 and then this is me at 40. Oh yeah, this is me at 50 sitting on my sofa watching when my downtime and before I, after a long day of working. It's my way of decompressing, let's say watching British crime series because they're so, they're so refined.

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That's fun. I like that. All right, so how can entrepreneurs harness AI to amplify their creativity while staying true to our, to our authentic voice?

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I think first, before we even answer that question, it's important to say that all entrepreneurs, all founders, all company leaders, CEOs, executives, whoever you may be, it's very important to understand your why and the story of your brand. Right. Because that in it is our why. And a lot of times we stay at the surface. So we say our clients pain point is they're looking to stay awake or they're looking for more energy when it comes to exercising. So let's put out these energy drinks and address these pain points. But the founder of that energy drink, if you go back and you read his or her story, if they really did go dig, dig deep inside, you'll understand that there was a moment in their life that happened maybe, maybe when they were a child, maybe the teenager or some point in their life where they realized they had that moment where they said I have to do this. And we've heard it in big companies. Apple has a great brand story. If you speak to small business owners, to founders, to individuals, they'll say what their why was for the longest time, for Example with DLISH, my gifting company, I could never understand why I wanted to start a gifting company around food, art and design. I mean, so abstract. Until I. I really went deep and understood my why. So once you have that, you become more confident in communicating your values, your vision, your mission, and everything becomes clearer.

Then you can sit in front of AI with confidence, knowing exactly what you're looking for, who your target audience is. And aside from that one pain point that you choose to address, there's hundreds of them that they don't even know about. And so you fill that gap while connecting an emotional. Connect. Connection with them, still using AI but we go back to the fact that you have to know all this so that you can do the prompting, the engineering. And there's a reason they call it engineering, right? Because it's so precise. I love to compare it to a pastry recipe because we know that baking pastry chefs, they call it a science because every little ingredient and every measurement has to be so precise to get the result.

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Yep, absolutely. Thank you. So you talk about bridging cultures and worlds. What lessons can leaders learn from your multicultural journey?

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First of all, expansion and opening our minds, realizing that if something works in one culture, it doesn't necessarily work in another culture. Looking at our commonalities before looking at our differences. And I think that's something very important. It's my lesson in life. Because as an immigrant going to the United States, there was a lot of hostility initially. And it wasn't until we started to gather around the table, my parents would share stories about our culture, about our history, about where we come from, this merger of the two cultures came together. And so you understand that, for example, the table or that common element of food is something that brings people together. Then you can learn about the differences. And then you say, oh, you know, that's so fascinating. Let me embrace it. Let me be inspired by it.

And so I think it's these kinds of moments in life when we all. Now we're living in a world where everybody's traveling. You go in and you don't take necessarily your culture with you, but you embrace the culture that you're living. So I know a lot of people that they'll go on holiday or they'll go on their vacations, and they'll go to resorts where the food is the same that you'll have in your hometown or in your country. It's these little small bits of. I know they may sound in a world of business, very, very small. But if you think about it, it's an progression of expanding your mind and opening your horizons. So then you can be an effective leader, strategist, visionary, because you have to be inspired from somewhere, right? You have to be influenced by something. So I think that's where it's important to be open.

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So then you've built businesses that bridge different worlds. So what's your vision for the future of human connection in an AI powered world?

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So they say the antithesis of AI is human connection. We're not at a stage right now at least, I mean, aside from the China platforms that have come out or the agents that have come out, which I haven't used because you need codes. But I have to say that there's always going to be a need, at least for the near future, a need for that human element. Mainly because we're bridging the traditional with the innovative. And you can't do that without that human connection. So that, let's say that bridge is that human. I know there's a lot of people out there that are afraid and they say, you know, AI is kind of destroy my world. I'm not going to have access to my, I'm going to lose my job. This is going to happen. I'll be. We're already living in a virtual world. We're going to become even more isolated and go into our hermit mode. And I don't necessarily agree with that. I think we had Covid and everybody was afraid, but now everybody goes out and they want to experience shopping. Not necessarily e commerce, but go and experience.

So if we get creative with the experiences that we offer, even merging AI with a dinner, for example, or we created a guide where you tap into that traditional wisdom or that ancient wisdom of archetypes. But you're using the innovation of AI so it's a way of connecting first with ourselves and then with others. I'm very optimistic. I believe that we can do so much good with AI and that's how we live it. At my agency, Blue Apples, and I personally live it. So I say I love to have fun with it, so why not have fun with AI? Why not embrace it? Why not do abstract things with it that you would have never thought and it enhances your creativity. I never thought I was creative, I always thought I'm not. Thought I was that person that lived in the box because I, I. You go to business school, you go to get your mba, you work in a corporation. They say it has to be like this. These are the rules, you have to follow them. It's only in the past, I don't know, let's say five, ten years, that we're, we're becoming so vast in our imaginations and if we just keep cultivating that and nurturing that, I mean, I think the possibilities are beautiful and endless.

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I think the best way is to just sit in front of your LLM, your ChatGPT, your whoever, whatever it is out there, Claude, and just play with it, have fun. Like I said, I never knew there's a possibility to have fun while you're working. But if you sit down and you just ask an abstract question, type in who is Audrey Wiggins? You type that in and see what it says, then teach it, Then say, you know what, what do you recommend I do based on the information you have about me? What do you do about this? How do you do this? Ask. I have my nephew who's 8 years old that sits in front of it and asks all the questions that parents, during my generation, my parents couldn't answer. Why is the sky black, dark at night? Why, why does it rain? You know, these little things that you engage with AI, so you engage with it so you're not afraid of it or intimidated by it.

I think it takes 10 minutes, 15 minutes and you're hooked. Not in a way where it becomes negative and over overpowers your world, but in a way where when Google first came into the market or any of the search engines back in the days we were before, we would go to the library or we would look at reference books, encyclopedia. Here you are saying, you know what, let me sit in front of Google and say, tell me where I can. Why the Grand Canyon is one of the seven wonders, for example. And so it's one of these things, it's these kinds of just embracing it and having fun with it. There's nothing, there's no worst case scenario, really. Worst case scenario, you shut it, you never use it again and you walk away from it.

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Absolutely. So the next couple of questions I'm going to ask you about Blue Apples and I'm going to ask you About DLISH What inspired you to create Blue Apples and what is your vision for how it will impact entrepreneurs?

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So Blue Apples actually was inspired because of DLISH. As entrepreneurs, we know we're always trying to bootstrap. About two and a half years ago, when I got exposed to chat GBT, when I understood about ChatGPT, I sat down and I said, okay, why don't I just figure it out, play with it. And then I realized it was really a helpful tool for creating content. And so I went deeper and deeper with the content. Then I started to ask for ideas. And as ChatGPT grew, I grew with it. So learning how to use it in a most efficient way. And I, and I have to say something. I think we get overwhelmed with all the noise. So on Instagram you see a lot of people trying to push things on you, saying, you know what, by this 28 day guide and you'll master AI. It's not necessarily the case.

We're still at a stage where when we do Blue Apples therefore was inspired by DLISH because we saw the need for it and how many entrepreneurs needed it, especially small to mid sized businesses. So we said, okay, why don't we start helping people the way it's been helping us? But what ends up happening is we think that we can just sit down in front of it and do it. You have to know that there is still some kind of expertise that needs to be given. So when we do our training programs, for example, half day training, full day training, this is one of the things that we address with companies when they want their employees to be trained on AI. Because you do not want to lose that authenticity that is unique to you. Whether if it's your brand voice, your style, how you communicate, all of those things have to be maintained. You still have to be competitive with your competitors. Because remember, if you're doing it alone and your competitor is doing it alone, the probability of you producing the same generic content is very high. And so what ends up happening is you become one of the 4 billion that was recorded last year of content, and this year it's predicted to reach 8 to 10 billion. So it means that everybody's sitting in front of AI creating content blogs. Let me, let me search. Rank higher. Rank higher, rank higher.

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Right, okay.

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But you're, you're generic, so you're not going to rank higher. You still need the human being with the list.

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You define luxury gifting. You know, how can storytelling elevate the way businesses connect with clients and partners?

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DLISH is my baby, and I'm very proud of it. It's a gifting company that I started about six, seven years ago around food, art and design. And the whole idea is where I said it's a part of my story of feeling safe around the table, safe to express your emotions, safe to share stories, safe to feel, safe to do whatever it is that you want to do. And as I went on to university and moved out of my home, I took that with me. That element of bringing people all together around food and sharing my culture. So it made me proud of my culture. It made me proud of where I come from and all the different pieces that have been input it in me, all the different archetypes that I now possess and I, I nurture, let's say.

And so entrepreneurship is in my blood and I wanted this I. So I thought, how beautiful to put gift boxes together as a gift because there's always a scarcity, right? We don't know. Or they're all, again, we go back to generic where everyone puts the same food hamper together, the same design, how whatever, book lover, hamper, all the, all of them were all the same and they were all quite undesirable. And so we decided, let's elevate it. Let's make it fun. Let's add an element of style to it. We're not for everyone. We're tend to be bold. Our products are quite unique, so our prices are a little bit higher, but we have that uniqueness that no one can take away from us. And to this day, I have not found a competitor that shines the way we do. And so I'm very proud of it.

And from that, because the table is so special to me and the conversations and the stories and the food and the wine, everything that all the music, all the senses that are stimulated during a gathering, I wanted to also expand DLISH and do gift experiences where we curate experiences around the senses. So that's how delish came to be.

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When you say luxury gifting, is it food or the tangible products or what Is it?

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Yes, it's. There's always a food product, whether that's alcohol, non alcohol food, like a, I don't know, pasta box. But there's always a design piece as well. So we work with artisans, we work with craftsmen, we work with designers, we work with local producers to curate for corporations, for weddings, for individuals. We have a vast network of vendors.

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Wow, that's awesome. So that's going to segue into, you know, how we can learn more about you and Blueapples A and Delish. So how can we find more information?

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You're more than welcome to look at our products at DLISH, which is D L I S H dot us and then Blueapples with an S dot AI if you'd like to learn more about the AI aspect and just set up a discovery call, get to know us, understand how AI can help you, and then me personally, you can find me on LinkedIn.

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Okay, great. And you have a course then on your side as well for AI?

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Yes, we have to determine that the date is to be announced, but it's a free course around AI and marketing.

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Okay, that's awesome. So Mona, as we come to a close, would love for you to...you've been really like sewing into us since the beginning of this interview. But what advice do you have for the chop squat?

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I highly, highly recommend having fun because as soon as that happens, it's as if the, the clouds have gone away and the sun has come out and you just realize that why you're on a journey of entrepreneurship or leadership and how you can impact other people. So my advice is just have fun because I didn't for so many years and now in my latter years of my life, I'm trying to learn how to have fun.

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Very important. Oh my goodness. We just want to work 60 and 80 hours a week and you know, it's like, no, that's not why you got into business. We had dreams and goals and aspirations. So with that, thank you again, Mona, for pouring into us on the business chop and chop squad. You make sure that you log in, log on, and really connect with what Mona's doing there at Blueapples AI and also delicious, add some fun to our personal landscapes. Thanks again, Mona.

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Thank you very much, Audrey. It was a pleasure.

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You are so welcome, Mona. Take care.

collaboration

Vision for Human Connection in an AI World with Mona Bavar