I had the pleasure of listening to a futurist recently at a conference speaking about none-other-than AI, the most featured topic of 2024 and 2025. Steve Brown, a former Google DeepMind and Intel executive said “AI is better than ever, it will be the worst it’s ever going to be today.” The statement rang like a high-pitched bell in my head, not because he was referring to the greatest technological advancement in human history in the last 500 years, but that it made me curious to apply his statement to advancements, situations, products, experiences, services etc.

This self-indulgent journey into a middle-aged man’s romantic notion of ‘we did it this way and we liked it’, a throwback to an SNL skit about an ornery old man played by Dana Carvey who would make these bold statements about the way things were. He would start the ‘Grumpy Old Man’ skit/character with “I’m old and I’m not happy, I don’t like things now compared to the way they used to be, progress phooey! His commentary went from personal hygiene, to contraception, to the perils of modern entertainment, to technology. “In my day, we didn’t have ATMs. There was just one bank in each state, and it was open one hour a year! You were born, you got in line and you died! And we liked it that way!”, as he would slam his hand on the infamous Weekend Update desk. 

Can Nostalgia Replace Convenience..Kodak & Blockbuster

Soon you will mention the name Kodak or even that of Blockbuster to a room full of senior high school students and they won’t know what you are talking about. Blockbuster closed the last corporate store in 2014 after they filed for bankruptcy in 2010. While Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012, after having 80% market share in the United States for several decades. Much has been written about these two companies, the only true way to describe their fate is stone cold irony. Netflix approached Blockbuster with an idea to merge, and later Netflix founders Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph offered to sell their company for $50 million to Blockbuster, and they declined. Irony #2, Kodak invented digital photography in 1976 and shelved the project, which would later lead to their demise.

My question is does it always have to be an all or nothing situation. Both of these companies had a lot of infrastructure in place in and around what they did. Kodak made tons of money supplying film and Blockbuster was in every neighbourhood to serve the community. Would the earlier adoption of digital imagery really improve all facets of photography. I remember my dad taking photos of us throughout some sort of family event, we were never concerned if we came out okay in the photo, we lived in the moment and maybe subconsciously we knew that the event would be remembered by a photo, but was that the be all and end all? Did we stop what we were doing to take 20 photos, 5 vertical, 3 horizontal, 3 down shots, 2 up shots, 3 with a flash, and 4 without…NO!!! 

How things turned out was like a crap shoot, and nobody cared about its perfection. What was great was the day the film was picked up from being developed and we would all re-live the magic of imperfection of the family outing and laugh and laugh. 

My mom would squirrel the best of the best photos which depicted the day in an album. And on those rainy days when you just weren’t feeling yourself you would go to the photo album shelf and re-live those moments. You knew exactly where that event was in which photo album, today it could take you 10 minutes to find that exact photo on your phone with the other million photos that are just aimlessly stored there.

Nothing was more satisfying on a Friday night in December of 1993 to stumble across the last copy of the Special Edition of Terminator 2 Judgement Day. You have to remember that the movie Terminator 2 Judgement Day came out in July of 1991 in theatres and in video in November 1993, by that time it was like watching it for the very first time. The banter down the aisle at Blockbuster was magic, you saw your neighbours, we were armchair movie critics who told each other “don’t waste your time with that one” or “that movie was awesome, I watched it 8 times, 3 in theatre and 5 times at home.”

Are We In the Vortex of the Disruptors Dilemma?

In the late 1990’s a Harvard professor and business person named Clayton Christensen wrote extensively about how strong market share companies like Blockbuster, which had the ear of their shareholders who were addicted to late fees, missed the mark by not introducing new technology. His book The Innovator’s Dilemma (1997) chronicles companies who were faced with the unfortunate dilemma that both Kodak and Blockbuster had, that by investing in new technology could diminish or even destroy their existing market stronghold. Thus leaving it to another company which is based on a new technology platform which disrupts the marketplace. Many of us have conflicting thoughts when it comes to Artificial Intelligence, we know by underinvesting resources and time in tomorrow’s disruption which is AI, can lead to our demise. 

I have very good news for many of us who provide a service that is infrequent like being a real estate agent or a mortgage broker, or a family lawyer, AI is not out to take your job. AI doesn’t want it, but it does want to help you do it better. The key going forward is not to allow it to take over your business but it should be something which augments your business. In the words of futurist Steve Brown, AI is designed to take the ‘SUCK’ out of our jobs. If we decide to lean in too much, it could also take out the ‘VALUE’ in what we do. So imagine if Blockbuster and Kodak would have understood the strength of the experience they gave to consumers and coupled it with leading edge technology?? What could these companies have accomplished, and what can we learn from the nostalgia of Blockbuster and Kodak and apply it to our own businesses.

When The Face-to-Face Is Your Best Tool

According to 21st Century collaboration expert Erica Dhawan, 3/4 of face-to-face collaboration is non-verbal. So ask yourself when you are consulting with your client, how often can you really read your client’s body language. I have a theory that part of the reason that transactions are down in real estate is the lack of in-person contact, and the rise of technology which removes the ingredient to true collaboration, which in turn makes things happen. Look at corporations going back into the office, these titans know something that we as service providers have completely abandoned. More gets done in-person!!! I remember driving to my clients home at 11:30 pm with a signed-back offer and together through the body language of the moment we got a meeting of the minds (or my client’s were operating sleep deprived). Fast forward to today, and people say let’s deal with it in the morning when I’m at work, and we can do it by DocuSign, or let’s forget it all together.

The Non-Negotiable Face-To-Face Communication

• Initial pie in the sky, needs assessment, brainstorming client meeting
• Client on-boarding (listings, buyer consult meeting)
• Communicating bad news (price reductions, transactions not firming up)
• Communicating very difficult sign-backs
• When a client asks for a new strategy, or they are frustrated.
• Anytime you are discussing worst case scenarios
• Delivering great news (when a buyer/seller transaction has become firm)

Hybrid Face-To-Face Communication

• When introducing partners to the transaction (lawyers, mortgage brokers etc.)
• When reviewing analytics around listings, competition updates etc. 

The best exercise is to do a list of all of your client interactions and apply the type of communication which works best to enhance your client’s experience. Think for a moment if you always call with bad news and text or email when you have progress or good news. What kind of expectation does that leave for your client?

How Deep Is Your Engagement?

It seems the name of the game is engagement and the more connections you can make the higher the chances we can engage more. But how deep are these connections, just because you have 1000 followers on Instagram doesn’t mean you have high quality connections. And to add more fuel to the weak connection fire as artificial intelligence takes over some of our lead nurturing then how deep will these connections be. We all need to move away from the lure of a transaction mindset powered by AI to a deeper connection mindset. Dhawan, goes on to say that 70% of connections are dynamic, meaning there is a presence of a physical force or energy, so how do you expect to achieve stronger connections with existing clients and future prospects without physicality?

At this point, I have a hunch as to what you are thinking after reading this. For those who stuck with me until the bitter end, I have ten main points to remember when you are trying to balance connecting with more people, prospects and past clients versus connecting more deeply and more productively:

1. Respect people’s time.
2. Identify digital early adopters vs digital detractors within your sphere.
3. Sometimes responses are not immediate, let things marinate and set parameters around a response which could mean “respond next day”.
4. Automate the routine, but remember to put more resources into physical one-on-one communication.
5. Protect the emotional because that makes you human and that’s your main differentiator.
6. Communicate with clarity, care and consideration (send some sort of a multimedia pre-list with some seller to do’s making the listing presentation more of an action plan).
7. Strategize/plan in person, digital conversations lack empathy and understanding.
8. Use AI to aid in trend development, this is the gold standard of advice for consumers which will win you a lot of referrals.
9. Inform in a timely manner, providing clients with information in the moment for the moment is critical to building trust, don’t get sidetracked with your own insecurities to knowledge dump, that only adds to confusion and mistrust, stay on their track, not your own.
10. Make always being prepared be your primary focus.