Stephanie 0:01 Today on the Curiosity Current, we are joined by Kylie Lessard, group product marketing manager for insights and strategy at LinkedIn. Kylie is a marketing and insights leader who leverages the voice of the customer to influence LinkedIn's multibillion dollar advertising business. Her work spans research, product strategy, and portfolio level go to market planning. Kylie has led large product strategy shifts, including the successful repositioning of LinkedIn's events product and has built insights functions that directly influence product road map and marketing strategy. Today, we're going to explore how to mature an enterprise research and insights org, how to ensure that insights are a core strategic function, and how to build systems that scale across the organization. Kylie, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here today.

Kylee 0:56 Thank you so much, Stephanie, for having me and for that wonderful intro. I wish I could bring you to every meeting with me and start

Stephanie 1:02 that way. I love it. Oh, well, to jump right in, uh, you know, I I talked about this with a lot of our guests, uh, and it's certainly relevant in your case. So you, in particular, it sounds like you started in content marketing and see SEO and LinkedIn, moved to product marketing for pages and events. You spent a year as interim chief of staff, and and now you're leading insights and strategy. It's not really like a typical career path that somebody, like, sets out and, like, maps out for themselves. And so I'm really curious to hear about your journey and, you know, how you ended up where you are and if there was a specific moment where you were like, you know, insights and strategy isn't just something I wanna consume. It's the work I wanna do. ath that somebody, like, sets out and, like, maps out for themselves. And so I'm really curious to hear about your journey and, you know, how you ended up where you are and if there was a specific moment where you were like, you know, insights and strategy isn't just something I wanna consume. It's the work I wanna do.

Kylee 1:48 Yeah. It's a really thoughtful credit question. Great place to start. Um, when I think about my journey, like so many people, it starts with you thinking one thing about what you want and where you're headed, and it and it morphs over time. And so my story is one of just being open to the various twists and turns that that come and trying to stay, like, stay curious and listening to myself about where my energy has drawn me. Um, I ended up in product marketing because I always knew I wanted to do some amount of, uh, marketing in the at at the intersection of technology. So I studied in college. Um, and before ever knowing what product marketing was, it was wanted to land that intersection. It's how I found my way to product marketing, um, after a series of roles in advertising sales. And then since landing at LinkedIn, I think the insights thread has been pretty consistent throughout all of these roles in you know, when you are on the client side of a marketing team, um, I was surprised to learn just how insights driven marketing needs to be. Of course, that's not surprising to be eight years in. But when I first joined, you know, you you kick off a marketing career thinking you might be building, like, splashy TV ads and, you know, you think about a lot of that visual stuff. But so much of marketing is driven by the insights and increasingly should be. And so even as a as a content and SEO marketer, you know, you're asking yourself what what pieces are driving the most traffic or conversion. Yeah. You move into product marketing, and you're thinking about what how would I prioritize and stack rank a set of product products or features that our customers are asking for, and what data am I using to make that decision? In a chief of staff role to a marketing VP, you're asking what's our market share, and how are marketers making decisions about share of wallet. And and then moving into, like, a product marketing leadership role, you're really asking yourself, where is the industry going? What are our differentiators? Um, and where can we play an outsized role in the future? And and how does that translate to product roadmap? So I've had the benefit of, like, touching insights throughout my entire marketing career. And then at every, um, inflection point, stopping to ask, like, of all the things that I'm doing right now in my day to day, where do I get the most energy? What am I most excited about? And insights and using that to drive product and business strategy, it's like I keep coming back to that. So fun. That's so interesting. Um, and as I've gotten more senior in my career, I've had the opportunity to help identify opportunities in the business, uh, where I could apply that thinking and that expertise. And so I've been able to kinda carve out this this interesting space for myself on the product leadership team. fun. That's so interesting. Um, and as I've gotten more senior in my career, I've had the opportunity to help identify opportunities in the business, uh, where I could apply that thinking and that expertise. And so I've been able to kinda carve out this this interesting space for myself on the product leadership team.

Stephanie 4:43 Yeah. It definitely sounds like it. And hearing you talk about it, it also sounds like it was just somewhat of a natural progression for you because you had had that sort of insights, uh, flavor through all of those roles kind of showing up as part of your part of what you were responsible for or at least, like, leaning into for metrics, decision making, things like that.

Kylee 5:05 Yeah. I think so. And and maybe to follow that, so many people could find themselves in this similar progression because so many of us in the marketing, insights, strategy world, you know, we all rely on on data to make decisions moving forward. So maybe what I'm trying to say is is, uh, I don't think my story has to be that unique. You know? Anyone could do this because likely so many people are already working with insights and strategy of some flavor.

Stephanie 5:34 Right. No. It's an it's a really good point. Well, let's take us back to a specific moment. Um, so you're you're building the the LinkedIn ads market research and competitive intelligence program from the ground up. Day one, let's say, uh, you're staring at a blank slate, making some assumptions here, obviously, but, you know, in this massive organization. Were there, like, uh, two, three, four, like, a set of early decisions that you made, that you prioritized and made, that you felt were really critical. And I'm curious if, yes, why those. t's say, uh, you're staring at a blank slate, making some assumptions here, obviously, but, you know, in this massive organization. Were there, like, uh, two, three, four, like, a set of early decisions that you made, that you prioritized and made, that you felt were really critical. And I'm curious if, yes, why those.

Kylee 6:12 Absolutely. Um, before I jump in, I have to credit. You know, I I come in I'm in an enterprise organization. So there's usually, um, a blank slate typically comes after a leadership change, major restructuring, or or strategic shifts. And so, um, um, I came in with a lot of historical work having done in these areas. So Gotcha. I had the benefit of a lot of, like, um, rich history in in this space. But there was a bit of that, like, slate in terms of leadership change, um, and no one had been owning this space kind of from a centralized hub standpoint for a long time. So I just wanna try to give credit to the to the many who'd come before me and and, you know, who I build on top of. But when I was looking at this opportunity to rethink our insights and strategy function for the LinkedIn advertising business, kind of sitting within the product marketing organization that adds a a particular lens. Um, but one thing we sought to do because this this we saw this gap, um, when I was in the chief of staff interim position. We were allocated our resources and made strategic decisions. And a gap we were identifying in our marketing organization was who can tell us the answer to some of these most pressing questions that we as a leadership team have. What is our market share, you know, triangulated against a number of sources? You know, high confidence. We certainly had indications, but did we have conviction in those numbers? Do we have conviction in the way that our our customers are making decisions about how they spend their money? Um, do we have conviction about that journey and what it looks like and the and the points at which we can influence that journey? There were so many strategic questions that we had signal on, and we knew who we could go to ask for pieces of the puzzle, but no one point of contact who could give us high signal, high conviction, um, response to some of these most important questions. And so when I rolled back on to the product marketing team, I raised my hand and I said, I would love to be responsible for making sure that when we have very strategic high level business questions like this, you know, we've either got an answer that we feel really strong about or it's on our research road map, and we know when we're gonna get that answer. It's a little bit about how the the role came to be. And so when you enter a spot like that, you know, we agreed that that there was room for this type of function. Um, I have, like, a recipe that I I have established over the years working at LinkedIn for now eight years. Um, it seems to work pretty well anytime you find yourself in a new position like this. And the formula is like it's simple. Listen and learn. So for me, that's like a listening tour of all the stakeholders who I might need to engage for insights and strategy. It's audit what has been done and where are the gaps. So what you're doing is building, like, a mental map of, you know, what are the perceptions? What are the objections? Um, where are the places that we have some leverage or momentum? Where are the gaps? So start with the listen and learn. The second is define and socialize a charter. So really getting it all on paper. Here's what the problem this role sets out to, um, solve for. Here's how we're gonna do it at a high level. Um, building that with your stakeholders, especially the ones you know who may be skeptical about Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What you're building. Um, that's certainly something I I encountered early days. It's just when you're introducing a new model, for us, it was a slightly more centralized approach to research versus, uh, diffuse and grassroots. And so there's there's a lot of questions when when you go to a more centralized model, a center of excellence style. Yep. So involving my stakeholders early in the process to make sure they felt comfortable what was what was happening, that they felt aligned. Uh, consensus building is so critical in an enterprise, especially one where there's rooted ways of working. Yep. So it's building that together, having it on paper, constantly referring people back to that, sitting down and presenting that via either like a walking deck or just sharing the doc and walking through it with those critical teams you're gonna partner with. To me, that that really helps instantiate any new function. The final thing in this recipe, step three, is, um, demonstrate early wins and build a little bit of momentum for yourself for so for us in the insights program, our step one was to say, hey, folks. We know if the problem is not, we don't have enough information. In a company as big as LinkedIn, who's been at this as long as they have, there's so much great research insights data out there. The problem, the biggest one, the first one, and the one that we can most easily solve for is does everybody have access to the same set of data? Are we all making decisions on the same shared reality? And so our first task was to try to democratize access to our insights through it sounds so simple, but sometimes the most simple things are like are just what's missing, uh, to build a strong foundation. We have we built a research repository. We filled it with, uh, everything that had had come out in the last year at minimum. Uh, and then we started a monthly cadence of sharing out. There's new research. Here's what it is for the entire business. And if you wanna see, you know, where it all is at all times, the research repository. That formula works for me every time. with, uh, everything that had had come out in the last year at minimum. Uh, and then we started a monthly cadence of sharing out. There's new research. Here's what it is for the entire business. And if you wanna see, you know, where it all is at all times, the research repository. That formula works for me every time.

Stephanie 12:08 No. I can see why. And you know what's so interesting? Because while there were things in your recipe that I recognize and are very familiar to me and I think are in a lot of, like, insights leaders toolkit. There there were things that you mentioned in the way that you talked about things that I could really hear, like, your product background having influenced the way that you think about work in a way that I think a lot of people who come up more directly in insights don't have. Even just that kind of systems thinking and understanding context is so important, and I I don't think you necessarily get that. It it isn't as formalized in research as it tends to be in product, I think. So I wonder if you feel that way that product gives you kind of a leg up in that way.

Kylee 12:56 That's a really interesting question. Um, I have, yeah, two sort of unique flavors that I bring to the insights and strategy world, especially not coming from, like, a market research background. Um, flavor number one is the product marketing background. And what I think that helps me do is triangulate, like, what's important. Like, what are the most important questions we could be answering right now as it relates to current business priorities and kinda like where we're headed in the next three years. That's what I'm always trying to keep in mind when I think about the research road map, when I think about scarce resourcing. You know? Yeah. Until very recently, market research has been relatively expensive. It's worth we consider it a premium insights resource. Yeah. And so when we think about all of the questions and hypotheses we have as a business, it's like trying to filter and stack rank them, which are most related to priorities and where priorities are expected to go. And then making sure those most important and and correlated to business strategy questions are going through premium, uh, research and insight forums, like market research, like our customer advisory board, where we're interfacing with decision makers directly. Whereas maybe slightly less, um, priority business questions can move through more informal channels like a voice of field insight gathering mechanism. Um, so, yeah, that that helps me triage, like, the vast universe of insights that we could collect. The systems thinking, I think, has come from the chief of staff's background, um, where you need to make sure everything, like yeah. It it it all connects, and it all feeds the greater machine of the business in a thoughtful, consistent way. It's I hadn't thought about it, but it's a it's a cool reflection. ld collect. The systems thinking, I think, has come from the chief of staff's background, um, where you need to make sure everything, like yeah. It it it all connects, and it all feeds the greater machine of the business in a thoughtful, consistent way. It's I hadn't thought about it, but it's a it's a cool reflection.

Stephanie 14:46 Yeah. It makes a lot of sense like that. Well, you know, you've been talking a little bit about, like, insights being part of of or or informing strategy. Uh, and it seems like to me that, you know, as insights foreign insights or or function to truly mature, they have to move beyond, you know, mere merely being like checkpoints to pass or reports that come in after the fact and really become part of strategy, uh, by by being part of the process earlier. How did you ensure that insights were really woven into that decision making process and not not delivered, you know, just in time or just after the fact? Um, and if along those lines, is there a particular kind of example that you could share? Where research just, like, really changed the direction of what you were going to do or a go to market type of decision?

Kylee 15:36 Yes. I love this Maybe this is actually something that, um, um, a market research professional will have an edge over someone who comes up in the less traditional track because I remember and I have to shout out my my market research partners. You know, they've they've said this forever. It took me a while to get here. Every research question that you are answering should seek to influence a business decision. If you can't pinpoint the business decision that needs to be made as a result of this research, it begs the question of how important is the research.

Stephanie 16:23 Right. this forever. It took me a while to get here. Every research question that you are answering should seek to influence a business decision. If you can't pinpoint the business decision that needs to be made as a result of this research, it begs the question of how important is the research. Right.

Kylee 16:23 So we have made a really firm point in our program of working backwards from major decision points. And it and it applies differently to different layers of our organization. Um, our product marketers might be engaged in sort of micro decisions all throughout the year. So they're working backwards, you know, from a in quarter decisions. Whereas at the leadership level, we really orient things around a biannual planning cycle. So major decisions are made about about go to market strategy, about the product roadmap on a biannual cadence. And we know as a leadership team, that's when our leaders need access to high quality data that they are all exposed to. We call it like a shared reality and a strong perspective from their insights partners on how to think about the stack rank of problems Right. Relative to the, you know, to the various audiences that we serve. So for us, it's all about working backwards from these product planning timelines. Um, and you asked about, like, a kind of a very tangible artifact Yeah. Process or or shift that we've landed in the business. One that I'm very proud of because it started small, uh, as an idea for my our former VP. Um, the idea is called a market report. And the idea was, like, that product marketing is learning so much about our customers, about our competition, uh, from the field about the industry through the course of their day to day work. Um, if you're an inbound product marketer or if you're a full stack product marketer, part of your job is really having a finger on the pulse of what's happening with your customer in your space for like, against your product.

Stephanie 18:15 Right. about the industry through the course of their day to day work. Um, if you're an inbound product marketer or if you're a full stack product marketer, part of your job is really having a finger on the pulse of what's happening with your customer in your space for like, against your product. Right.

Kylee 18:16 And so we needed a mechanism to wrap up all of those insights that the product marketing team was gathering over the last x months. For us, we chose six months to match the biannual timelines. Right. Um, and we needed a way to consolidate that, like, um, package it for each layer of the business, you know, starting on the ground with folks who are closest to day to day decision making, customer conversations, um, go to market execution. You know, there's a layer of intelligence that's really helpful for that that level of the business. There's a layer of intelligence that's really helpful when packaged up into sort of, like, big bets or higher order priorities. Yep. So we make sure that our process kinda synthesizes at that level. And then finally, there's a really helpful layer that is truly like an executive summary that helps orient the, uh, the VPs essentially of our organization when they have to make important decisions related to funding or three year strategy. You know? There's there's a different altitude of information needed. So this started small about two years ago where PMM just started packaging, um, and sharing out to their r and d partners, largely their PM partners. We've now repeated that for four or five cycles. And every time we we seek to optimize just a little bit more, bring in more of our insights partners, you know, involve product operations, involve UXR, make sure market research is really well woven in. We've sought to bring in more, uh, kind of recipients to the report. So making sure we're not just reading out the product, but it's we've got engineering in the room. Um, we've got our marketing team in the room. We've got ops people in the room, people who are making decisions for the business. The more that we have these people operating on the same set of same set of data that's been sort of rigorously synthesized Yeah. And filtered signal to noise. Yeah. Um, that's become a really well ingrained rhythm of our business now and something that we celebrate biannually through insights week. It's a three day live reach out.

Stephanie 20:37 Cool. Yeah.

Kylee 20:38 Yeah. And you just you get all of these rich conversations cross functionally trying to make meaning and sense of of, you know, new information that we've gleaned and and what does that mean for us collectively, where we need to go next. It's become this really cool touchstone for our business, um, that that's grown far beyond product marketing and is really like a joint effort between all the insights partners.

Stephanie 21:04 That is fascinating, and I love to hear about it. I'm I'm very curious. Uh, culturally, were there things that you kind of rubbed up against at at LinkedIn when you were kind of trying to establish this process and framework? ng and is really like a joint effort between all the insights partners. That is fascinating, and I love to hear about it. I'm I'm very curious. Uh, culturally, were there things that you kind of rubbed up against at at LinkedIn when you were kind of trying to establish this process and framework?

Kylee 21:26 Something that's come up repeatedly and we're still perfecting at well, I don't know if we'll ever get to perfect, but we we keep chipping away at is a few things. One is signal versus noise. So we've gotten feedback that, you know, it's awesome that we do this exercise. But if the final product, if your final market report executive summary cannot clearly distinguish signal from noise with a set of principles that we all agree are the right filtering criteria for how the decisions are being made or the recommendations are being filtered, then it is pretty hard for me to action on that, um, which I think is really fair feedback and really that when I got that feedback, it really helped push me from an insights professional into more of a strategy professional.

Stephanie 22:26 Yeah.

Kylee 22:27 Because I always think about this, uh, when when asked for my, like, definition of strategy, there's a million of them. But one that I really like is strategy is choosing a set of coherent options among many good options. And that's what we, like, have been trying to work towards in this in in the way that we communicate the recommendations and the way we influence the business. We've been trying very hard to get better at saying not this, solve for this. And the second part of my answer is in how you frame the do this, not that because there's there was a in the beginning of our journey, we as product marketing again, here's my product marketing background showing through. Spent a lot of time saying build this, not that. And over time, one, we learned that that doesn't land incredibly well with r and d orgs who are I don't want to do that. Yeah. Responsible for making those decisions. Um, you can often be a much more helpful partner to your r and d org by helping them understand solve this problem for this audience Right. Not that problem, or don't focus on that audience. And really grounding that in things like, uh, market intelligence, persistence differentiators. Those are the two vectors that I think often are are really helpful to ground that type of recommendation in.

Stephanie 24:09 Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And I think that's a challenge that probably a lot of insights professionals can can relate to. Right? It's it's it's all in that communication. Right?

Kylee 24:19 Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. ften are are really helpful to ground that type of recommendation in.

Stephanie 24:09 Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And I think that's a challenge that probably a lot of insights professionals can can relate to. Right? It's it's it's all in that communication. Right?

Kylee 24:19 Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Stephanie 24:22 Yeah. Well, to bring us back to kind of the the present, how has the role of insights and strategy within, you know, the product marketing team evolved? Like, you know, from starting where where when you had the, you know, historically, uh, supported but but currently blank slate available for you to today's date. Uh, you know, how have things changed? And I think in particular, what is the biggest difference between how teams, internal clients, if you will, sort of engage with research and and your team now versus earlier in your career?

Kylee 24:59 Yeah. What painting the picture of of before or when I stepped into this role because, of course, the the way, you know, of work treats research and insights, it it flexes so much with where the business is at, what what leaders enroll. But the picture of when I when I stepped in was it was, um, the way we were treating research and insights is that it was certainly happening. It was happening in pockets, um, somewhat scattered pockets throughout the marketing organization. So, of course, never just in product marketing, though product marketing is a is a large driver of business and product insights. And I think what that scattered nature does is it makes it such that your impact is a little bit less consistently understood or felt across the business. So that's a little bit how I would characterize it. Um, we like, the the way we would go about requesting research was pretty ad hoc. Uh, you just flagged to, like, the market research team where you spun up your own project. Yeah. When you distributed research, it was typically a little bit more siloed. Um, whoever was on your distribution list, you know, is who found out you did the research, which means you can sometimes have overlapping initiatives, um, that can lead to wasted resources.

Stephanie 26:21 Oh, yeah. our own project. Yeah. When you distributed research, it was typically a little bit more siloed. Um, whoever was on your distribution list, you know, is who found out you did the research, which means you can sometimes have overlapping initiatives, um, that can lead to wasted resources. Oh, yeah.

Kylee 26:22 Um, you might have people following, like, different methodologies for very similar questions, um, which can be confusing when you interpret results. So it's certainly not that it wasn't happening, but I I kinda describe it as, like, scattered and inconsistent impact. And so what we tried to do coming into this role, we're we're proud that we're at two years later, is we operate with a much more centralized from a much more centralized position. Um, and I think centers of excellence are they're a hard transition for orgs to make, especially orgs that have been traditionally very, uh, grassroots, um, very self directed. But as I've seen LinkedIn mature over time, I've seen us move to centers of excellence for a lot of this work that just, like, you know, is consistent across many teams. And I'm a big fan of centers of excellence. Um, so Yeah. That's the direction we took here. Not everybody loves them. Uh, it is a it's a meaningful shift. And again, why some of that, like, uh, consensus building and alignment at the top really helps. But now we have a centralized intake and prioritization process that we have, um, invested in alongside our our chief of staff, the the permanent one. Um, we have, like, kind of predefined stage gates for research. You know? Mhmm. When you think about what goes into strong hypothesis building and validation, especially for really important business questions, helping people understand. Like, it starts with understanding a a strong audit of, like, what's out there externally and internally, moving into sharpening your hypotheses and then stress testing that in a couple of conversations with your target audience, then maybe moving into scaled qual, then maybe moving into scaled quant if it's necessitated. So just helping people really understand, like, there is a a process, and it depends on how important your question is, what type of audience you need an answer from, um, how to build sharp hypotheses. So just investing in a little bit more of the acumen. We have now just like these defined, um, share out mechanisms and cadences so that there is a little bit less of that siloed information. Of course, you can't control who actually reads the emails or shows up to the readouts. But they are there. Um, and something that we've been increasingly investing in is, like, you know, the power of AI to, like, put a conversational overlay on everything that you have in your repository. Right. Super powerful for helping people access it at the point they need it versus being forced to intake the information when it's not relevant to them and remember it later. asingly investing in is, like, you know, the power of AI to, like, put a conversational overlay on everything that you have in your repository. Right. Super powerful for helping people access it at the point they need it versus being forced to intake the information when it's not relevant to them and remember it later.

Stephanie 29:09 And in a low low pressure way that, like you said, is conversational, it really does and it it it is sort of seeds us to have a very different relationship with data and and the full historical context of our data when it can be touched and accessed in that way, which we've never, you know, had. So very exciting

Kylee 29:29 in that way. I agree.

Stephanie 29:31 Um, I I wanted to make a quick plug, by the way, for centers of excellence as well. And I say that from the supplier side of and truly lots of reasons, of course. But what it allows suppliers to do for, uh, for brands, though, is really build products that are, like, uniquely customized to how you decide you want your research to look. Right? So anytime, uh, our clients show up with the center of excellence or let us know they're building them and it's, you know, becoming increasingly popular, I get excited because it means somewhere in that org, I have a work partner or two who's gonna help me design products for for that org, and that's exciting. So

Kylee 30:12 Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. We've seen that to be true. Um, we've seen it we've seen it ebb and flow, though. You know? It is, um, centers of excellence also come with their own challenges such as Yeah. Budget ownership. And so we have run into challenges that we've had to sort of adjust for over time where there are a few exceptions where some teams lead their own research outside of the center of excellence because they don't necessarily need hand holding from a market research partner. They have their own vendor relationship. So I'll call out that it hasn't we've not been able to, like, maintain pure center of excellence, but it started that way. There's lots of reasons for it, and I personally believe it's a very strong lever as your business matures. Yeah. And we use it across far more areas than just than just research and insights.

Stephanie 31:02 Yeah. No. That's a great point too. Makes a lot of sense. Um, you talked about AI a little bit or or we did together. Um, it sounds like you are a a fan of AI. Like, how would you place yourself or or your organization's your functions relationship to AI? han just than just research and insights. Yeah. No. That's a great point too. Makes a lot of sense. Um, you talked about AI a little bit or or we did together. Um, it sounds like you are a a fan of AI. Like, how would you place yourself or or your organization's your functions relationship to AI?

Kylee 31:23 It is our biggest priority to be either on the curve or ahead of the curve. And so, like, I just got out of a an AI studio. It's a monthly thing our our marketing team puts on, and we we predetermine topics and have someone from the team come and present and share us. So we're all kinda learning together at all times. I make it a point to to be as ahead of the curve as I can. I'm fortunate to be in San Francisco where all of this is happening. I'm fortunate to have a husband who is obsessed with the space and and sharing developments about AI with me over dinner whether I want them or not, that they are helpful typically. We can relate the end. Um, so I am who can call themselves who can know where they fit on the curve? But I'm really trying to spend a lot of time very excited about AI. Um, so, yeah, that's where I'll put myself.

Stephanie 32:20 Yeah. Yeah. That's a makes sense. It's a good spot to be. And I think, you know, it we're all sort of like we're not at the peak moment where we figured out exactly how we're gonna plug it in, and it's going to be create maximal efficiency, right, even for what it is now. And then on top of that, it just continues to evolve. So it's it makes it challenging to stay on top of.

Kylee 32:41 I I can tell you a few ways we're, like, we're experimenting with AI in our research and insights program. Um, some some, you know, shifts that we made that they feel small in the grand scheme of what AI we know AI can do. But, again, just because they're small doesn't mean that they're not powerful. Totally. So a few of the ones we're playing with right now are using LLMs like a perplexity is, you know, we've played with a few. Perplexity tends to be a little bit more oriented towards, like, factual accurate, um, web sources. So using perplexity prompts, schedule tasks for, um, daily and weekly market and competitive intelligence, getting hyper customized about the prompt for our very specific priorities, competitors, um, areas of interest. You know, what what kind of, like, analysis do we want them the, uh, LLM to perform on our behalf and getting that right to our inbox? Game changer. Because it's like Yeah. Instead of a Google alert, which will just it's just keywords. Right. This is, like, 2,000 characters worth of, like, purpose built, custom built for your needs. So that's a really small powerful shift that we're rolling out to our PMM team. Um, if insights professionals aren't yet, like, taking advantage of Gong's AI features, that is a very rich place to look. It looks like you you you've got plenty of people going on.

Stephanie 34:21 Fan personally. Yeah. I don't have to attend every sales call to know, like, how to scope and talk to about a project that someone's gonna run. aren't yet, like, taking advantage of Gong's AI features, that is a very rich place to look. It looks like you you you've got plenty of people going on. Fan personally. Yeah. I don't have to attend every sales call to know, like, how to scope and talk to about a project that someone's gonna run.

Kylee 34:29 Yeah. The world we're in where, you know, you can have a weekly perplexity download from everything that happened outside of your walls. And then you can have a weekly Gong email about everything that happened inside of your walls around what priority areas. Like, your ability to quickly triangulate what is going on as an insights leader is, you know, you have 50 x, a 100 x your, I don't know, your the pulse that you have your finger on. So those two alone are so powerful.

Stephanie 35:06 That's so true. That's a really good point. And I think that has a lot of implications too for, like, fully remote companies, which which mine is. So that's the reason I'm, like, perking up a little bit. Because I think, you know, when we talk about that, the view of what's going on within your walls, it's very hard to do at fully remote companies. You might, you know, you might miss a Slack channel and miss an entire initiative that happened, right, that that was relevant to you. So I think having those ways, uh, to have that information put right in front of you, made accessible, you know, and summarized bite sized relevant pieces is game changing.

Kylee 35:44 Yeah. And and that, it's the personalized. Like, getting to customize Yeah. Know exactly what you see. Uh, it's it is a whole new ballgame. Um, we're interested in tools like like AI moderated tool like, all these AI native research tools that are coming out, synthetic research. You know, we we're testing and learning with all of these. I I assume there will be a a use case and place for all of them in any mature enterprise org in the next twelve months. Um, we use a lot of glean for for that conversational overlay like I talked about. You know, when you wanna give people who are not data research experts ability to engage with your data and research

Stephanie 36:34 in

Kylee 36:34 a conversational way, uploading stuff to glean, um, and exposing that to to your sales or to your marketing team at large. Like, that's been a really helpful lever. Everyone's doing deep research reports, you know, making that your first stop. Whereas desk research used to be stop number one, now it's a it's a deep research report. Uh, just bounding that for hallucinations is is really simple lever that I'm sure most people are taking advantage of.

Stephanie 37:03 That's a good one. Well, if we can for a moment, Kylie, and especially as we're coming up on time, I wanna take you through a recurring segment that we do here at the Curiosity Current, um, called the Current one zero one. Um, I'm just gonna ask you, uh, two questions. The first one is, what is one researcher insights practice that you think organizations really need to let go of? And then what's one capability that you think every maturing Insights org has to have on their radar or be building? rent, um, called the Current one zero one. Um, I'm just gonna ask you, uh, two questions. The first one is, what is one researcher insights practice that you think organizations really need to let go of? And then what's one capability that you think every maturing Insights org has to have on their radar or be building?

Kylee 37:38 Needing to let go of and something to add. I think I'd be the obvious answer here is, of course, the, you know, adapting to an AI environment. But I'm going to guess that's been well covered. I think maybe, like, the more macro reflection in my mind is the role of the insights and strategy professional is increasingly centering around your ability to separate signal from noise. The ability to like, almost no one's problem going forward is I don't have enough data.

Stephanie 38:30 Yes.

Kylee 38:31 Most people's problem is I have too much data, and I don't know how to make a decision about what's important versus what's not. For sure. And I don't have a perfect answer yet, but things that I am thinking about in this space are getting really crisp on what are our strategic filters that we will filter all of this data through to find the signal. Um, and you can think of a strategic there's this really great LinkedIn learning that I would recommend to anyone who wants to get better at strategy. I think it's just called it's it's something very basic, like creating foundational strategy. Um, I watched it in my chief of staff position, and I've returned to it many times in this role because it is like it's the way you stick the landing on insights is by helping people understand the so what. What do we do with all this? And what do we do with all this in context of all the other things that you've shared with us? So what's out is just more information and more data.

Stephanie 39:49 Fair enough. Yeah.

Kylee 39:50 And what's in is really helping your business crystallize on a set of strategic filters by which you will make decisions and then leverage like, orienting your research road map to make sure you have the right data to filter through those those criteria.

Stephanie 40:11 Yeah. No. I think that's that's great feedback there. And then I think just to round us out then, and these questions are tend to be a little bit related, but I there's a lot of value for our listeners, I think, in asking you this last question, which is just, you know, for somebody who's earlier in their career than you are, who might be really drawn to this idea of making a mark with strategic insights work, but isn't sure how to move from, you know, maybe a more tactical role or phase of their career. Um, what's the most important lesson that you've learned about building influence, let's say? And what would you, you know, what would you tell that person? What would you tell your younger self if they asked? insights work, but isn't sure how to move from, you know, maybe a more tactical role or phase of their career. Um, what's the most important lesson that you've learned about building influence, let's say? And what would you, you know, what would you tell that person? What would you tell your younger self if they asked?

Kylee 40:53 I like this question a lot because I can picture my younger self, you know, the lead PMM on LinkedIn events. The year is 2020. We we've just decided to launch an in person events product. And I'm leading the alpha. And I know. Um, and and April hits and an in person event product is no longer viable in market. However, a virtual events product has, you know, extreme opportunity to capture all of these events that need to go online because of COVID. And at that time, I was still very junior in my my product marketing journey. And I was responsible for blitzing the market, having roughly 51 on one conversations with event marketing professionals to understand, like, how could we credibly pivot this product from in person forward to virtual forward. And what you don't realize in that moment is that nobody knows more about the customer or the problem or the right solution as right as you can get it, you know, with all the data. No one's closer to the data than you are. No one's closer to the customer. And the most powerful person in any room when it comes to strategy and decision making is the person who's closest to the customer. We talk about this all the time at work, and I think it's, like, it's so important to bear repeating in an increasingly digital world. If we're gonna move into more synthetic research, if we're gonna do more AI automated interviews where you're taking yourself out of the the position of talking to the customer,

Stephanie 42:36 Or even the customer out of the situation of talking to the customer?

Kylee 42:41 Yes. Yes. That's a risk. That's a real risk.

Stephanie 42:44 It is. Yeah. if we're gonna do more AI automated interviews where you're taking yourself out of the the position of talking to the customer, Or even the customer out of the situation of talking to the customer?

Kylee 42:41 Yes. Yes. That's a risk. That's a real risk.

Stephanie 42:44 It is. Yeah.

Kylee 42:45 We can't lose sight of that. And in fact, it's it's only becoming more important. And typically, the, uh, when you are, like, boots on the ground early in your career, your access to the customer is very high. So your perspective is very valuable. If you can figure out how to marry that level of access with some of the most important and influential data that there is in business decision making with business acumen, as I think the piece that can be, you know, harder to access as part earlier in your career. But often it's as simple as if I was running this business, trying to make the most money, you know, thinking about all the all of the things, not just my slice of the universe, but, like, everything, uh, that is under our leader's purview, or you can simplify even further. How how can I make decisions and recommendations here that drive business revenue? That either help me get that new or protect, you know, whatever the risk or the opportunity is identifying. Are we more is there more of a risk? Is there more of an opportunity? Um, relating the insights that you have to the very specific annual goal that your team is working towards, whether it's product adoption or downloads or MQLs. Like, tying those two things together, you might be the the most strategic person in the room, and you just have to, like, bridge that gap and have the confidence to share like, form and share your perspective. Our our VP of product has this amazing quote that I often think about when I'm, like, I'm nervous to share something, but I know that I've done I have the data and the, like, the sources to back it up. He says, I might be wrong, but I'm not confused, which gives people permission to have a perspective built on all of these insights. And younger people often have just such they have so much access. They just need the conviction.

Stephanie 45:02 I think that that is such a great answer because so often I ask that question, and I I understand this, but it's that we are almost always highlighting skills that will need development. Right? And I think you're calling out such an important thing, which is that you're carrying around something incredibly valuable. And that should be a part of what gives you the confidence to then go out and learn what you need to learn about, you know, influencing and and really having a voice. So what a cool point to highlight. I love that.

Kylee 45:35 Thank you.

Stephanie 45:37 Yeah. Well, uh, it looks like we're, uh, we're getting close to time here. Uh, Kylie, this has been an absolutely joyous conversation to get to have with you today. I really appreciate you coming on the podcast, um, and and kinda talking with us about all these things. 0:45:35] Kylee: Thank you. Yeah. Well, uh, it looks like we're, uh, we're getting close to time here. Uh, Kylie, this has been an absolutely joyous conversation to get to have with you today. I really appreciate you coming on the podcast, um, and and kinda talking with us about all these things.

Kylee 45:53 Likewise. Thank you so much for having me. It's so fun to talk about everything we've built, uh, the journey we've been on, um, and to just connect with, yeah, other insights professionals who face similar challenges. It's a it's a really fun and rewarding space. And, yeah, it's just been a pleasure to get to to deep dive on it.

Stephanie 46:15 Yeah. For sure. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again.