The MarTech Developer - Sanford Whiteman

Justin Norris: 00:00:15

Now this may seem totally wacky to anyone born after

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1990 or so, but One of the main

benefits of marketing automation

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in the early days was to liberate

marketers from a dependence on IT.

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So the vision there was that marketers

could create their own emails and

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landing pages, make complex campaigns,

do all the cool stuff they wanted to do.

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And they didn't need to

know any code to do it.

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Did that actually happen?

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I think sure it did to some

extent, but we also saw a few

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other things in trying to do that.

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We saw forms that were breaking, we saw

systems that weren't scaling, integrations

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that failed, and just a lot of different

requirements that couldn't be met by

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the way platforms worked out of the box.

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So that brought us back to step

one, which is that we still needed

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developers, but we needed a special kind.

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Someone who had the technical

skills, but also a deep

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knowledge of the marketing domain.

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So effectively a martech

developer and for my money.

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Today's guest is the best

martech developer there is.

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He's a legend in the Marketo

community, one of the smartest

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folks I know, and a good friend.

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Sanford Whiteman, welcome to the show.

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Sanford Whiteman: Thank you, Justin.

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I was afraid that had

something to do with me.

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Justin Norris: So, Sandy, we've

known each other eight, nine

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years, getting dangerously

close to ten years at any event.

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And it's weird that I've never

really asked you too much

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before about your background.

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Could you just walk us through how

you got from point A to point B?

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Sanford Whiteman: Yeah, sure.

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I used to be an IT person.

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I mean, I was a security

and firewall person.

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I was the hard ass Cisco

guy who wouldn't let...

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Any, ports through the firewall, even

if, supposedly some, some mission

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critical app demanded it, I was paranoid

about, I still am, of course, I bring

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all of this experience to the table,

but I try to not be like that anymore.

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Nevertheless, I did have that background

first, that got boring and stressful

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simultaneously, as a lot of people will

tell you about working in security,

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you know, you're always thinking

that your phone, let's call it or.

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Pager or whatever, or whatever you have

at the time is, is, uh, you know, you're,

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you're basically, you're thinking I missed

something and any call you get, you know,

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you know how it is in our world now.

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But anyway, that was like

a nerve wracking thing.

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And I started working with

a friend on web app stuff.

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And we built this ridiculous

app that still exists.

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I hope nobody hears me say

ridiculous, but it's great.

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It's still runs.

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It's still used by people in the textbook

publishing industry of all the weird.

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Niche industries a Notoriously slow

to digitize world where our app built.

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I cannot tell you how many years

ago it would be embarrassing.

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Like my, my lips can't form the

number of years ago that it was

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built, nor the number of years ago

that it last had a version upgrade.

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But it's still the best one out there.

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But that got a little bit weird because

we couldn't find any more clients for it.

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We had like conquered the few enterprises,

I don't want you to think it makes

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a lot of money, but it's just like

we had covered every large publisher

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because there's so much consolidation.

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And yeah, somewhere in there,

my partner started working for

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a financial services company.

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And after a few years there, he brought

me in to look at their MarTech stack

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because he knew that I knew web stuff.

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So my first experience with

Marketo, my first experience

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was troubleshooting munchkin.

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Like I had never used, I had used

Salesforce or other sales, you know,

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CRM type stuff, but I had never

used a marketing platform before,

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but their munchkin wasn't working.

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It wasn't associating leads from

clicked emails, you know, the

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classic thing it's supposed to do.

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So I took this weird route in where I

was brought in not as the reluctant,

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you know, you get the web team and they

hate to work with marketing and there's

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all that kind of resistance to doing,

but it was like, you have to solve this.

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This is your job undistracted.

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So I kind of, you know, I want to say

reverse engineered, but but figured out

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a lot of things about the tech side.

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of Marketo first before

doing anything else.

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And the form side, like you said,

you know, seeing that there's this

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open, adaptable, customizable thing.

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This was still like forms 1.

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0 days, but I could tell, like,

this is a thing where there's

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nobody, there's no Martech

developer, there was no such thing.

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You know, I, I might've been one

of the few people in the world

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at that time that just was.

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Allowed to only do MarTech development,

but it was only because, you know,

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big shout out to my friend, Brian,

if you ever, here's this, he brought

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me in and he said, give this person

this project and this project only.

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And from there, of course, you know, I

got Marketo admin access and, you know,

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and then, and then there was a while

that people assumed that I knew how

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to use the Marketo UI, you know, smart

lists and smart campaigns and flows.

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And I kind of didn't, I knew how

to use the API and I was answering

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any question anybody had about

that I could answer, right.

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But it took me a few years to then become

the person that most of us are, you

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know, with the fluency on the backend.

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And yeah, so since then I've been

trying to be the master of, to retain

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the mastery, you know, of the tech side

and the backend campaign side, which is

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hard because you can go down a rabbit

hole of troubleshooting some tech thing.

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And that takes hours or days that other

people are using in the UI itself.

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But anyway, so that's kind of the arc.

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And now, luckily there's enough

little problems to solve all over

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the place that that's what I do.

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Justin Norris: So to zoom in on

that first experience where you were

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essentially, you know, it sounds

like locked in a room and said, don't

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come out until you fix Munchkin.

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I mean, the fact that you were given

that opportunity is one unique thing,

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but then I think a lot of developers

would maybe get it done and move on

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and somehow you, you sort of like to

take something apart, understand all

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the component pieces, appreciate it and

know how to put it back together again.

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And you didn't dismiss it as like, it's

just this crummy little marketing script.

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Sanford Whiteman: Right,

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Justin Norris: I'm kind of above that.

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Somehow you, you really saw

something to make you go deep into

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that and got interested in it.

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And I'm just curious,

where does that come from?

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Is that a you thing?

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Or did you perceive actually I

could really get good at this

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and then nobody else is doing it.

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Like, did you think of it that way

or was it just, this is interesting.

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I'm here.

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Let's figure it out.

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Sanford Whiteman: I don't deny

that there's a motivation.

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An unconscious motivation of probably

no one else knows how to do this.

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I don't think of that like, you know,

from a career standpoint, more of a

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I want to be the one who knows it.

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But I'm not even thinking that,

I'm just like, I'm feeling it.

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Before I did the Marketo stuff,

there was one other thing that I

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was like super expert weirdo in.

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And it was the Microsoft SMTP server that

came with IIS five and six and seven, I

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guess, but I had stopped by the time is

IIS six and I was on the MSDN communities

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and got so deep inside figuring out

how this closed source thing worked.

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I mean, you want like a

hard reverse engineering.

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It's like, you don't get to see

the Munchkin JS library and sort

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of try to unminimize it and figure

out what's going on inside it.

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Like you have nothing else to go on

except timing things and like the way

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it interacts with the file system and

windows registry and all kinds of little

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things like that, but I became obsessed.

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Like I wanted to be the one

who really understood it.

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Cause I kind of, I could.

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Kind of get the feeling like to your point

that there were people providing generally

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correct answers, but trying to gloss

over the fact that they really didn't

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understand why something worked or not.

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So that was kind of an automatic thing.

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That was probably the most immediate

precedent for my Marketo and Munchkin

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thing was like, I need to know how

this works because it feels like

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there's a missing store of knowledge,

even within Adobe then Marketo.

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You know, like that's, that's the tragedy

to me is like, I felt like no one, and

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this has grown over the years, no one

within the company that owns this product

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currently, at least knows how it works.

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And that is the kind of thing that just

irks me at some core level, I guess.

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So that's, what's kind of kept me going.

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If I felt like, and I think this

is kind of why I could never do the

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same thing for Salesforce because.

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Over at Salesforce, you're like,

okay, the engineers know how it works.

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You know, we're just playing around

in the community and trying to show

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off expertise or whatever, but it's

like, you're never really going

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to get, you don't get that feeling

like you're, you're going to reveal

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something to the people that work there.

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But I think with Marketo, there's that

sense of like, I can actually show

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the people who built it, how it works.

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And not just because of

institutional memory and.

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Stuff like that, or, or, you know,

people departing, but because sometimes

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they don't really, uh, and I say this

with as much kindness as I can muster,

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they don't really understand how

JavaScript and how browser stuff works.

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So they're not really front end people.

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So you really kind of do have to

say the way your forms library is

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built, struggles, or does interesting

things under these conditions.

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And it's not like you're have anyone

inside has been like, well, of course I

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knew that it's more like, yeah, well, we

kind of wanted to get it out the door.

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It is like a drive.

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It is that feeling of

like, no one knows this.

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I'm not interested in, in doing it.

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If I feel like someone knows it.

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Justin Norris: It's a mountain to be

climbed that no one has climbed before.

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I want to describe to you, from an

outsider's point of view, my perception

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when you came onto the scene.

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Because at the time it felt like there

were very few technical people, hardly

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anyone that I remember in the community.

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And it was really a lot of demand gen

marketers or former demand gen marketers.

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Some people maybe that self identified

as marketing ops and so people would

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come up with solutions and things or

maybe Speculate and it was always sort of

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impressive people who seem to have more

knowledge of the inner workings But they

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maybe didn't really know or didn't have

the expertise and then all of a sudden he

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emerged and it was like Oh, you're someone

actually technical and it was kind of

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like, you know a bunch of gophers trying

to drive a car or something and all of a

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sudden a formula one racer comes out and

is Like actually here's how you do it.

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So to your point, I think It was

a really valuable service and you

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alluded about your security leanings

and trying to purge yourself of that.

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But I think that's part of the recipe

from my point of view is that nobody else

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really even understood the principles of

what a DDoS vulnerability would be, or,

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or, you know, like those things, like

people just didn't think about that stuff.

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And then you, at least for me, as

an enterprise marketing operations

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consultant really helped give me

that vocabulary to then sort of

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absorb into my lexicon and take to

clients and be like, well, actually.

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To me, all those components became part of

the recipe of what you did that is unique.

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Sanford Whiteman: Yeah.

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I think you're right that one thing I

wanted to do is say, let's not guess also.

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That's another like painful thing

when you see like a really well

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intentioned person who nevertheless

is just putting up a best guess and

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it's like, I don't think it's that.

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Let's know as much as we can and like

have a good faith effort to really,

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you know, bring together knowledge

of databases and networks and just

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general enterprise architecture.

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I, I, you know, I give full credit to the

people who didn't have that background

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though, because they didn't have the, I

mean, frankly, like years of experience,

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which you can't make that up out of

nowhere, but they also had, they, they,

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you know, still most of the people in mobs

are technically minded, or I guess maybe

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I can say like logically expert, but they

don't have a hands on experience because

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they didn't really come from that world.

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It's hard to extract yourself from the

world where you're, uh, You know, the

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jerk in the IT bullpen who doesn't want

to do any work for marketing or sales.

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That was the thing that I was alluding

to at the beginning is like, I come

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from the original cohort of people

who, when you said you were going to

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move to a cloud CRM said, well, so

much for getting any help from us.

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You, you know, you do that.

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You'd say to the sales team, you

go to Salesforce, don't call us.

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Like I was that guy.

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Now it's silly because I'm

dealing with the IT people.

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And I'm the person saying, you

need to take this seriously.

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This is still part of the company.

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This is not.

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You can't actually ignore it.

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And a lot of that is coming not from

pure cost, I think, which sometimes

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is valid, but it's coming from that

still lingering, almost decades

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old resentment from the IT team.

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Why are we paying for a thing I

believe we could build in house, that

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I believe we had a better version

of before, you know, when I was.

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Young and strong and, you know,

had the energy to do stuff.

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That's a funny interaction sometimes.

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Cause people will say

like, we could build this.

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What, what does this thing do?

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We could build it in house.

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Like I've had people say that about

Marketo, which is just so insane to me.

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I'm like, how many developers are

you going to put on this full time?

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But again, the flip side is I

remember being that person being

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looking, especially the earliest

cloud solutions and thinking as a web

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developer, we could totally do this.

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Why are we paying for it?

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And, you know, those

questions still swirl.

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Well, you're paying for it because you

don't have enough time to have a full

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dev and QA staff working on it, and you

wouldn't save any money on that anyway.

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Justin Norris: build a workflow

every time marketing wants one.

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And,

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Sanford Whiteman: right, right,

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Justin Norris: a campaign.

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I mean, so speaking of these

developers, whether it's sort of your

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classic IT developer at like a big

company, or whether it's your cool,

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you know, Silicon Valley software

engineer type, these are smart people.

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And yet they, many of them, let's say,

have produced a ton of really bad work

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when it comes to MarTech, whether that's

Applications with horrible or unusable

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Marketo integrations that they've

built in house or, you know, people

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doing, people doing unspeakable things.

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But these, these are people who

had the same opportunity as you,

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let's say, to take apart Munchkin.

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They haven't stepped up to it, and

it's not, as, as you've said to me

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in the past, that they're, it's not

that they're like bad developers or

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something, but, like, what is it?

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Is it a lack of intellectual curiosity?

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Is it a feeling that it's beneath them?

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Why, why do traditional

developers struggle when it

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comes to the Martech stack?

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Sanford Whiteman: I mean I think

there is a disparagement of marketing.

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They don't think it's

doing anything really.

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If you somehow have told yourself that

SMTP, which they don't understand and

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landing pages, which unless they're real

front end people, they don't understand.

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And all the database and workflow

stuff and queuing stuff that a

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sophisticated MA has, you know.

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If you've told yourself that

that's not real technology or it's

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unsophisticated technology, then

you're going to keep sticking with it.

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Even if somebody shows you like I've

had this moment, maybe you have two

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where someone has been skeptical.

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They've taken that same view.

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Oh, what does this platform do?

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What, you know, it just looks

like it's a landing page

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builder or something like that.

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And you show them on a good day,

you show them some features and you

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can actually blow somebody's mind.

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Like I've, I've had to give like

some props to people who have

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evolved some people, like Didn't

realize how sophisticated the

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Marketo to Salesforce sync is,

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for example, although that's

still, you know, firmly within

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the realm of sales and marketing.

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It's still it's clearly a piece

of engineering that's well done.

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And, um, and I've seen people

like realize that they thought

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they knew how email works.

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And they don't.

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And that's one of those things where

they talk to the IT team and say, can,

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can't we just send this all ourselves?

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And the IT team will be like, well, not

really, because, uh, you can't really

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do that with, you know, Outlook, um, and

like, start to realize that there is a

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sophistication to the Marketo And, or,

you know, or, or HubSpot or anything, you

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know, queuing and resource balancing and

even the multi tenant architecture itself.

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Like I've talked to people who don't

really, cause they're, they're still

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like in house developers, so they,

they've never built a cloud app.

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So they don't think about

what it would be like.

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: 00:14:32

Now, Marketo struggles at multi tenancy

as we know, but nevertheless, the idea

293

: 00:14:36

that, no, it's not just, they don't

give you a machine, you know, like

294

: 00:14:39

that resource balancing across the

different customers is something that.

295

: 00:14:44

In house developers usually Don't care

about, they actually will have an app

296

: 00:14:48

that could be overwhelmed by one business

unit, but they don't really think

297

: 00:14:52

about that as a concern because they're

like, well, it's a fireball offense.

298

: 00:14:55

If you try to overwhelm the internal

line of business apps, we're

299

: 00:14:57

not going to worry about that.

300

: 00:14:58

But the fact is like doing that and having

a public facing site, all the reputation

301

: 00:15:02

management, email, reputation management,

the last internal it people or developers

302

: 00:15:07

in general understood anti spam tactics

and things like that was probably 15.

303

: 00:15:11

Years ago or more, I guess

there's a long way of saying.

304

: 00:15:14

To be optimistic about it, when

those complexities are revealed

305

: 00:15:18

to people, many of them have an

epiphany and they realize that it

306

: 00:15:22

actually is sophisticated technology.

307

: 00:15:24

But to your original point, I think you're

right that there's just the thought,

308

: 00:15:27

immediate thought is this is nothing.

309

: 00:15:29

It's simple.

310

: 00:15:30

Why do we even need it?

311

: 00:15:30

Just gets like caught up in

312

: 00:15:32

Justin Norris: The lightbulb that

just went off to me with what you

313

: 00:15:33

were saying is that through, like what

I mentioned in the beginning, like,

314

: 00:15:37

we're going to free you from dependence

on IT and you can do your own thing.

315

: 00:15:41

And then we did our own thing for a while,

and then all of a sudden IT forgot a lot

316

: 00:15:45

of that knowledge that they used to have

317

: 00:15:46

Sanford Whiteman: Yeah.

318

: 00:15:47

Yeah.

319

: 00:15:48

Uh huh.

320

: 00:15:48

Uh huh.

321

: 00:15:49

Justin Norris: And also, like,

like you said, that there is a kind

322

: 00:15:51

of primacy of back end developers

over front end developers.

323

: 00:15:54

Like,

324

: 00:15:54

Sanford Whiteman: Mm

325

: 00:15:54

hmm.

326

: 00:15:54

Mm hmm.

327

: 00:15:55

Sure.

328

: 00:15:56

Justin Norris: requires

more skill and expertise.

329

: 00:15:59

And yet, you can, you know, write

really crazy things in Python, but

330

: 00:16:04

maybe you don't know how to debug

a web script or figure out why a

331

: 00:16:08

form isn't submitting properly.

332

: 00:16:10

Sanford Whiteman: I mean, you spend

your time disparaging JavaScript

333

: 00:16:12

and saying it's a joke language.

334

: 00:16:14

That's, I mean, that's the

most ubiquitous language.

335

: 00:16:17

It is the language of the web.

336

: 00:16:18

You know, there are confusing

things about JS, but it sure

337

: 00:16:22

as heck is not easy to learn.

338

: 00:16:24

And I think a lot of those people are

just running away from how hard it is.

339

: 00:16:27

They just assume, especially now to get,

you were going to ask about like AI stuff.

340

: 00:16:30

They always think, Oh, well, I can just

run it through chat GPT to translate

341

: 00:16:34

my Python, but you can't because

there's no client Python that you

342

: 00:16:38

could write that would trend, you know,

like there's no, I think it's great.

343

: 00:16:41

It's almost like.

344

: 00:16:42

It's brilliant because it's a little bit

of job security too, because you, if you

345

: 00:16:46

don't have some JS skills to start with,

there's like nothing you can translate,

346

: 00:16:51

you know, automatically to that world.

347

: 00:16:53

You have to understand all of these

arcane and honestly, if you read like

348

: 00:16:56

the, the ECMAScript standard, where I'm

always going to like prove why things

349

: 00:17:00

don't work, whatever, the ECMAScript.

350

: 00:17:02

slash JavaScript standard or like,

you know, HTML five, like official W3C

351

: 00:17:06

standards, they're really hard to read.

352

: 00:17:08

Like you have to, you might wave

your hands and be like, Oh, I don't

353

: 00:17:12

need to know that it's dumb, but I

mean, it just doesn't quite work.

354

: 00:17:16

Like it's not, it's not dumb.

355

: 00:17:17

It's actually.

356

: 00:17:18

Arcane and hard and not

as satisfying as Python.

357

: 00:17:22

If you're doing like, you know, quant

stuff in Python or, you know, any kind of

358

: 00:17:27

backend work, you're probably going to get

more immediate satisfaction out of that.

359

: 00:17:31

But for me, coding is never

about immediate gratification.

360

: 00:17:34

For me, I think that that's one of

the things that makes people scared,

361

: 00:17:37

scared, like you said about, you know,

scared of troubleshooting a form.

362

: 00:17:39

Like, you know, somebody opens

a thread on Marketo Nation and

363

: 00:17:43

I'm always like, okay, I know I'm

going to figure out how this works.

364

: 00:17:46

I'm not going to let this just

sit there or, you know, why,

365

: 00:17:48

why, why the form is breaking.

366

: 00:17:49

But I'm also like.

367

: 00:17:50

This could take two to three hours and

sometimes it does just running it through

368

: 00:17:55

a proxy server, figuring out, simulating

the conditions that might have led to

369

: 00:17:59

a form sometimes not submitting and

sometimes submitting, you know, that

370

: 00:18:03

those, those anomalous or seemingly

random behaviors are some of the hardest

371

: 00:18:06

things you just don't really get that

if you're a backend developer, you don't

372

: 00:18:10

have, I don't want to generalize there.

373

: 00:18:12

I mean, you could introduce bugs that

create what seems to be anomalous

374

: 00:18:14

behavior, but there's nothing To

compare to the weirdness of web

375

: 00:18:19

development, like to the whole, like,

I think it's randomly failing to submit

376

: 00:18:23

the form, but then I'm always like,

there's no such thing as randomness.

377

: 00:18:27

It has something to do

with network conditions,

378

: 00:18:30

Justin Norris: truth is out

379

: 00:18:30

Sanford Whiteman: figure out what it

is, you know, but I talked to people

380

: 00:18:33

who are intrigued by my seeming

specialty as a MarTech developer, and

381

: 00:18:38

some of them are currently developers.

382

: 00:18:40

And I will say, well, one of the

first things you need to do is get.

383

: 00:18:44

your feet wet again in that thing you

probably ran away from a few years ago or

384

: 00:18:48

five years ago or in school or whatever

that thing you think is elementary you

385

: 00:18:52

can't skip the knowing how web browsers

work part of web development and that's

386

: 00:18:58

another thing i mean doing this stuff

for a long time i was there i wasn't

387

: 00:19:02

good at it i i mean i sucked at it but

i was there and in fact i was scared

388

: 00:19:07

because it was like early javascript it

was like too impenetrable to me when i

389

: 00:19:10

was you doing security stuff people that

were also like web developers out there.

390

: 00:19:16

There were, I know this guy, um, he'll

never hear this, Vince Allen, one of

391

: 00:19:21

the greatest JavaScript developers of

early JavaScript that I've ever met.

392

: 00:19:25

Like, like insane.

393

: 00:19:27

I can't even, the things that he could do,

he was, we worked for a startup together.

394

: 00:19:30

I was the back end database guy or

chief technology guy, whatever it was.

395

: 00:19:34

Short lived startup.

396

: 00:19:36

He was the front end guy.

397

: 00:19:37

He was, he was way overqualified because

the, the app didn't really need the

398

: 00:19:42

skills he had in what we used to call,

you know, DHTML or, you know, dynamic

399

: 00:19:45

interactions and things like that.

400

: 00:19:47

So good.

401

: 00:19:48

And they were, and I was like horrified

at the idea of how far he was from

402

: 00:19:52

me or how far he was even from most

people building webpages at the time.

403

: 00:19:56

I think he went on to work

for Google internally.

404

: 00:19:59

He might've even retired by

now or something like that.

405

: 00:20:01

But yeah, there was that.

406

: 00:20:03

Period where you really had

to know what you're doing to

407

: 00:20:06

push early JS to its limits.

408

: 00:20:08

But knowing there were people who

were masters is really important.

409

: 00:20:11

And then you had the whole

period of frameworks and people

410

: 00:20:14

not, that's another thing.

411

: 00:20:15

People not really learning JS

happened 10, 15 years ago, they

412

: 00:20:19

would learn jQuery or Whatever.

413

: 00:20:22

And, uh, so because they never really

learned it and then you plop them into

414

: 00:20:26

something where it's like, well, Marketo

forms do somewhat unfortunately use jQuery

415

: 00:20:30

under the hood, but you're not going

to get away with just understanding the

416

: 00:20:34

core idea of like, you know, building

a jQuery and bootstrap powered site.

417

: 00:20:37

Like you have to get real jazz.

418

: 00:20:39

Like I said, again, The idea

of, you know, uh, those race

419

: 00:20:43

conditions, the timing issues,

weird cross origin security things.

420

: 00:20:46

You just knowing jQuery doesn't

help you figure them out.

421

: 00:20:49

And that's a lot of what I do because

it's this form, you know, we're not

422

: 00:20:52

getting leads because this form doesn't

submit, it doesn't matter how good

423

: 00:20:55

you are at jQuery, it's unlikely that

you're going to be troubleshooting

424

: 00:20:58

that at a code level, you know, you're

troubleshooting at a network level and

425

: 00:21:02

getting deep into browser internals.

426

: 00:21:04

Justin Norris: Reflecting back

on your comment about being

427

: 00:21:06

the person who will take...

428

: 00:21:08

Three hours to answer some

obscure question on the one level.

429

: 00:21:11

You're like, you have

a good billable rate.

430

: 00:21:13

Why would you invest that amount of

time, which represents money into

431

: 00:21:16

something obscure and maybe who else

will ever have that exact question.

432

: 00:21:19

And yet to me, it's because you

have figured out those things

433

: 00:21:24

that no one else has figured out.

434

: 00:21:25

That you're my phone, a friend, or

even to this day, I shared in some

435

: 00:21:29

community that we're both in, I was

having some trouble with an accented

436

: 00:21:32

character, not rendering properly.

437

: 00:21:34

And I'm like, I just, something in my

brain, I had my Sanford sense go off.

438

: 00:21:37

And I'm like, I think

he's talked about this.

439

: 00:21:40

I do my little site search of your site.

440

: 00:21:42

And there it is, was the answer.

441

: 00:21:44

And so it's like, it doesn't

matter until it matters, but

442

: 00:21:46

then it really does matter.

443

: 00:21:48

And if no one

444

: 00:21:48

Sanford Whiteman: Mm hmm.

445

: 00:21:49

Justin Norris: figured that out

before, then like, you're screwed.

446

: 00:21:52

You have like

447

: 00:21:52

Sanford Whiteman: I mean, yeah, it's like.

448

: 00:21:55

I will go maybe forever, but sometimes

for years before using one of my

449

: 00:22:00

discoveries for billable work.

450

: 00:22:02

Like you said, in the meantime, I can

help other people out like you with it.

451

: 00:22:06

What I don't want to be, I don't want

to be in the situation where there's

452

: 00:22:09

an emergency and I need to spend those

three hours on my own client's work.

453

: 00:22:14

So it's almost like a, and perhaps unwise

for my time management, but I'm like,

454

: 00:22:18

I'd rather spend three hours now on the

chance that I have something to have

455

: 00:22:22

in my pocket for two years from now or.

456

: 00:22:26

When a client has that question, okay,

I can only bill for an hour because

457

: 00:22:30

I'm not going to lie and say it took

me the three hours then, but at least

458

: 00:22:33

I don't have the panic that I would

have when I know that my client's

459

: 00:22:37

boss is breathing down their neck.

460

: 00:22:39

I know that the form doesn't work.

461

: 00:22:40

I know about the consequences.

462

: 00:22:42

It may be unwise.

463

: 00:22:43

Frankly, I'm not a very practical,

I'm not a practical person.

464

: 00:22:46

I mean, if you only knew, I

mean, I, the amount of time that

465

: 00:22:49

I spent like for things that.

466

: 00:22:50

Have no meaning at all.

467

: 00:22:52

But yeah, it's, if I have any defense

at all, which is rare, if I have any

468

: 00:22:55

defense, it's that someday someone will

ask me to do it, you know, and they are

469

: 00:23:00

my client and I get to give them the

immediate answer, what I really want.

470

: 00:23:04

I would love to be in

an advisory position.

471

: 00:23:07

Knowing this stuff is key

to product development.

472

: 00:23:10

But this is a frustrating thing

about the role that a MarTech

473

: 00:23:14

developer plays for a client.

474

: 00:23:16

I'm taking the load off the

internal product team, right?

475

: 00:23:20

Like sometimes if someone was contacting

me yesterday, it's a flourishing, you

476

: 00:23:24

know, well funded startup, whatever.

477

: 00:23:26

The head of product said we

can't ask their web devs to do

478

: 00:23:29

anything for marketing anymore.

479

: 00:23:30

So I'm going to ask you because

I know you know how to do it.

480

: 00:23:32

I was like, great.

481

: 00:23:33

But I also had that kind of sinking

feeling of like, okay, now I'll never

482

: 00:23:36

that's yet another isolation point.

483

: 00:23:39

You know, I will never know what the

product team is doing and whether the

484

: 00:23:44

product team could make use of deep

knowledge that is relevant to any web app.

485

: 00:23:49

And I feel like I do have a lot of

that knowledge, whether it be encoding

486

: 00:23:52

knowledge or, you know, that deep browser

timing knowledge and so on, that a lot

487

: 00:23:57

of commercial web apps suffer from not

having a person like that on the team.

488

: 00:24:02

But it's just, that's the way it is.

489

: 00:24:03

Like I'm, I'm, I'm there to take the

load off that team, not to Confer

490

: 00:24:08

with that team about issues of

the same type that their main site

491

: 00:24:10

might have, but it is what it is.

492

: 00:24:12

I guess that's that's another.

493

: 00:24:13

Sometimes it's like, you know, doing a

marketing thing on the never mind the app

494

: 00:24:17

part of it, but, you know, the corporate

site, the brochure site, if you will.

495

: 00:24:20

I have to kind of hold my tongue a lot.

496

: 00:24:22

I'm like, you know, it probably

would be good if you didn't

497

: 00:24:25

have a race condition for your.

498

: 00:24:27

Other stuff, or you didn't have, you

know, it would be good if you weren't

499

: 00:24:31

loading a hundred different remote

services on this page, but that's not my

500

: 00:24:34

business, my business is make sure the

embedded Marketo form works and that's

501

: 00:24:38

Justin Norris: tough, the tough part of

any consulting, you know, where you got

502

: 00:24:41

me like, I'm just, don't look over there.

503

: 00:24:43

Don't look

504

: 00:24:44

Sanford Whiteman: Right.

505

: 00:24:44

Exactly.

506

: 00:24:44

Yeah, it's the don't.

507

: 00:24:45

Yeah,

508

: 00:24:46

Justin Norris: ahead.

509

: 00:24:46

Sanford Whiteman: Well, well, you know,

you've been in this situation, you

510

: 00:24:49

know, when you're, you're building out

a campaign and you look at the email

511

: 00:24:52

content and you go, Oh God, that's so

ugly, but you can't say it because it's

512

: 00:24:57

not, or even like a new logo, you're

like, Oh, say nothing, say nothing,

513

: 00:25:01

Justin Norris: So, so this, this touches

on a question that I wanted to ask and,

514

: 00:25:05

and to some degree it was a motivator for

me to leave consulting, at least leave

515

: 00:25:09

it for now and go back in house, which

was in the role of being a technologist

516

: 00:25:14

that supports marketers, you're, you're

always coming in downstream of strategy.

517

: 00:25:18

Like there's always a strategy

and a goal and a campaign goal.

518

: 00:25:21

And sometimes, I guess I, I believe in

marketing, and you mentioned earlier, you

519

: 00:25:25

believe in, in marketing and its value,

it's not that we're saying marketing

520

: 00:25:27

is not good, but there is a lot of bad

marketing, or there's campaign ideas

521

: 00:25:30

that don't work, or there's things that

don't matter, and so you can architect

522

: 00:25:34

very elegant technical solutions, but

you're building, uh, you're building a

523

: 00:25:38

cannon, but it's being aimed at the wrong

524

: 00:25:40

Sanford Whiteman: yeah,

525

: 00:25:41

Justin Norris: it's never

gonna hit, and how do you feel

526

: 00:25:43

about that, just in general?

527

: 00:25:44

I

528

: 00:25:45

Sanford Whiteman: I mean, you

try to sometimes nudge people.

529

: 00:25:48

It depends on the

relationship with the client.

530

: 00:25:50

You know, sometimes you can say,

well, I've worked in this area

531

: 00:25:53

or I've actually done marketing

myself and kind of bring that in.

532

: 00:25:56

But yeah, it's.

533

: 00:25:58

It's painful because it's, it's not

what you're being retained to do.

534

: 00:26:02

And here's another thing the outside world

doesn't understand the difference between

535

: 00:26:04

marketers and marketing operations people.

536

: 00:26:07

I mean, you could dab 10, 000 people

off the street and one of them

537

: 00:26:11

might understand the difference just

based on their experience, right?

538

: 00:26:14

So.

539

: 00:26:15

But I think, again, it's almost a curse

of being an ops person with a good

540

: 00:26:20

design eye or at least, you know, non

zero design eye or campaign planning

541

: 00:26:25

or just audience understanding persona.

542

: 00:26:27

But I, I feel we're, we're

just going to have to shut up.

543

: 00:26:31

You know, I can, I can think of

countless times where I've talked

544

: 00:26:33

to a client and I'm like, well,

I don't know the industry well.

545

: 00:26:37

Or as well as they do, but I'm still

like this offer for these people.

546

: 00:26:42

This is non identifiable information

offering like a 10 Amazon gift card.

547

: 00:26:47

It's one example, just one of a million

examples, but it's another idea where I'm

548

: 00:26:50

like thinking about the persona purse.

549

: 00:26:53

Why is it that who needs the 10 car?

550

: 00:26:57

I know your B2B every one of your decision

makers is make mid, you know, six figures.

551

: 00:27:03

What?

552

: 00:27:04

Maybe they know better than I do, but

there's, but that would just be, again,

553

: 00:27:06

that was a very superficial example, but

it's the kind of thing where I have to

554

: 00:27:09

go, Oh, so how, Oh, today we're working on

the 10 Amazon gift card for CEOs campaign.

555

: 00:27:15

All right.

556

: 00:27:16

Justin Norris: the thing that's going

557

: 00:27:17

Sanford Whiteman: not

going to say anything.

558

: 00:27:19

Right.

559

: 00:27:19

Exactly.

560

: 00:27:20

It's like review.

561

: 00:27:21

It's also like review our, it's

the 10 Amazon gift card for CEOs.

562

: 00:27:26

If they provide a review on, you

know, one of the, I'm like, okay.

563

: 00:27:30

Let's figure out how we can

get the campaign timing to work

564

: 00:27:32

because I can't do anything.

565

: 00:27:33

And, but what, what do

you think about that?

566

: 00:27:34

I mean, like, is there any room for,

for expansion into that world or

567

: 00:27:39

are we just doomed to shut up and.

568

: 00:27:41

Justin Norris: I mean, I guess for me

that was a motivation to like return to

569

: 00:27:44

an in house role where ostensibly you

have some input on strategy and you're

570

: 00:27:49

having that discussion about what should

we do versus just how do we do it?

571

: 00:27:54

Like should we build this bridge over

there versus how do we cross this span?

572

: 00:27:59

Sanford Whiteman: right, right,

573

: 00:28:00

Justin Norris: it's important to have

both and yeah, this is one of the

574

: 00:28:02

things I wrestle with because You know,

there's sometimes there's people that

575

: 00:28:05

are like, we need to get over there.

576

: 00:28:06

And then there's the people

that say, let's do it.

577

: 00:28:08

And there's a division of labor there.

578

: 00:28:09

And it works for a reason, because if

you have, you know, the person that's

579

: 00:28:13

hitting rocks with a pick hammer

every five seconds being like, wait

580

: 00:28:16

a second, is this the right thing?

581

: 00:28:17

Like

582

: 00:28:18

Sanford Whiteman: right.

583

: 00:28:18

Justin Norris: So there's roles and

responsibilities for some reason.

584

: 00:28:21

At the same time, maybe I just

felt I needed to go outside

585

: 00:28:25

that for a bit, which results in

being less technically oriented.

586

: 00:28:29

Like I'm more distant from

some of the technical things.

587

: 00:28:31

Then I was not irreparably so,

but yeah, it's, it's, it's tough

588

: 00:28:35

Sanford Whiteman: Yeah.

589

: 00:28:36

I mean, often it's also like you

can feel the political, even if you

590

: 00:28:40

could say something you don't want

to, because you want, you don't want

591

: 00:28:44

to be blamed for making a suggestion

when it's not your role too.

592

: 00:28:47

Like sometimes I found that.

593

: 00:28:49

Uh, I have found that a client might be

genuinely receptive to your suggestion

594

: 00:28:53

and even skeptical in their own right

about things, you know, that have been

595

: 00:28:56

handed down to them from marketing.

596

: 00:28:57

But the moment you enter into that

relationship with them, you, you might

597

: 00:29:00

get the feeling that they're going to

say, well, Sandy agreed about this and

598

: 00:29:05

all of a sudden you're implicated in

making the suggestion that everybody

599

: 00:29:10

else from a strategy standpoint

rejected or something like that.

600

: 00:29:13

Justin Norris: To me the best form of

marketing is demonstrating expertise

601

: 00:29:17

in public and building trust.

602

: 00:29:18

If I need a MarTech developer, you're

the only person I'm going to reach

603

: 00:29:21

out to because you care a hundred

times more than any other person.

604

: 00:29:25

And you demonstrate it on a weekly, if not

daily basis, like more than anybody else.

605

: 00:29:30

Sanford Whiteman: I had a, an interesting

situation like this with a client recently

606

: 00:29:33

that is not directly related to marketing.

607

: 00:29:35

I was working with a party who

was working for their client.

608

: 00:29:38

You might have seen me post about

this on Mops Pro's Slack channel.

609

: 00:29:41

I did a little vent, a tiny one line

vent about it because I thought it was

610

: 00:29:44

so silly, but yet disturbing and silly.

611

: 00:29:46

The client had said that the Marketo

lead ID is PII and that It can't be

612

: 00:29:53

included in, it wasn't actually in URLs.

613

: 00:29:56

It was actually for internal

purposes that they couldn't key

614

: 00:29:58

things off the Marketo lead ID.

615

: 00:30:01

I found myself in one of those situations

where I couldn't hold my tongue because

616

: 00:30:04

it wasn't really a marketing question.

617

: 00:30:05

It was a, you know,

privacy strategy thing.

618

: 00:30:08

I'm not a specialist in privacy, but

something when it just sounds completely

619

: 00:30:13

preposterous and wrong, and you just,

you can't say nothing, you know?

620

: 00:30:16

So, and I still haven't

gotten a satisfactory answer.

621

: 00:30:19

I, I said they, they needed some.

622

: 00:30:22

Massive, yet insufficient workaround

because their client had told them

623

: 00:30:26

that the Marquette Elite ID is PII.

624

: 00:30:28

And I was like, okay, we can do this.

625

: 00:30:30

Maybe do this.

626

: 00:30:30

It's never going to be as,

it doesn't make any sense.

627

: 00:30:32

And I kept saying like, again, to repeat,

I really have never heard anybody say

628

: 00:30:37

anything like that in my entire career.

629

: 00:30:39

That

630

: 00:30:40

Justin Norris: Cause it's a system

631

: 00:30:41

Sanford Whiteman: Generate.

632

: 00:30:41

Right.

633

: 00:30:42

A randomly generated, well, they said,

okay, to be clear, they said the same

634

: 00:30:45

thing about the Marketo unique code.

635

: 00:30:47

So it's not, you might be able to, I

don't, wouldn't buy it, but you might

636

: 00:30:50

be able to make the argument that the

auto incrementing numeric lead ID has

637

: 00:30:54

some sort of predictability to it.

638

: 00:30:55

In fact, one of my clients once made

a good point about that, that you

639

: 00:30:58

can predict the sequence of lead IDs.

640

: 00:31:01

So whatever, it's still the same as

PII, but it's like a security thing

641

: 00:31:03

more than a privacy thing by any means.

642

: 00:31:06

The client applied the same fractured

logic, in my opinion, to the

643

: 00:31:10

Marketo unique code, a guaranteed

unique alphanumeric sequence that

644

: 00:31:15

has no meaning outside of Marketo.

645

: 00:31:17

And it's just hard to, once you hear

things like that, actually expand it

646

: 00:31:23

to a whole realm of like what other

poor decisions is somebody making?

647

: 00:31:26

So it actually, maybe it shut me

up more because I was like, okay.

648

: 00:31:30

If they're that wrong, I'm not

talking about other things, but I

649

: 00:31:34

thought it was a good example of like

something crossing the line where

650

: 00:31:37

I couldn't be quiet about it, even

though it's very far from the direct

651

: 00:31:41

responsibility that I had in the project.

652

: 00:31:43

I think that you, in your current

role, I would, I would imagine you're

653

: 00:31:46

in the room where people are saying

things like that, and Justin can.

654

: 00:31:51

Raise his hand and say, that sounds

nonsensical you guys, but you can't

655

: 00:31:55

do that as a consultant because

it's like you kind of just, okay.

656

: 00:31:58

Justin Norris: there's a flip side

to that because sometimes I noticed

657

: 00:32:00

this, not a commentary on my current

job, but when I first left my in house

658

: 00:32:05

role to go to consulting, there is a

prestige on the flip side that comes

659

: 00:32:08

with like, well, they're a consultant.

660

: 00:32:10

So there's this like halo, you

know, that surrounds the consultant

661

: 00:32:13

Sanford Whiteman: Uh, yeah, true, true.

662

: 00:32:14

Justin Norris: That you don't

have when you're in house.

663

: 00:32:16

But I think, at a company of my stage,

the questions are a lot more go to market

664

: 00:32:21

strategy than the thorniness of PI.

665

: 00:32:23

Not that we don't care

about PII, but it's...

666

: 00:32:25

I think it's maybe only in a

massive enterprise sometimes

667

: 00:32:28

where you have the luxury.

668

: 00:32:29

Sometimes it can become

669

: 00:32:30

Sanford Whiteman: things like that.

670

: 00:32:31

Yeah,

671

: 00:32:31

Justin Norris: a naval gazing

exercise for lack of a better word.

672

: 00:32:34

I want to ask you, I mean we both

have a long history with Marketo

673

: 00:32:38

and have based our careers in

various ways on that platform.

674

: 00:32:42

What's baked into the question is

that there's obviously a lot to

675

: 00:32:44

like about Marketo, we appreciate

it and all of that, but what's

676

: 00:32:47

your perspective on the platform?

677

: 00:32:49

Are the glory days behind it?

678

: 00:32:50

We talk about the things that are the

best about it and it's still like...

679

: 00:32:53

The smart campaign, the Salesforce

integration, like things that are really

680

: 00:32:58

from the early days when it had a lot of

vigor and energy as a product company.

681

: 00:33:02

And it's hard to think of innovations

that come close to that in recent time.

682

: 00:33:07

So I don't want to go down too far the

path of just venting against Marketo,

683

: 00:33:11

Sanford Whiteman: No, no,

684

: 00:33:12

Justin Norris: what's your product

outlook and what do you think they need

685

: 00:33:15

to do to remain relevant as a platform?

686

: 00:33:18

Sanford Whiteman: we were speaking

about these add ons like integration

687

: 00:33:21

with Adobe Connect webinars and the

seeming struggle of getting live chat

688

: 00:33:26

as a replacement for Drift and so on.

689

: 00:33:27

If I were in charge, I would shut

down anything that seems like

690

: 00:33:31

it's trying to be a look alike

for a pale imitation of something.

691

: 00:33:35

I think in both of those cases is a

customer retention concept, right?

692

: 00:33:38

Like they're not charging more

for those, which is both to their

693

: 00:33:41

credit and also makes it seem.

694

: 00:33:43

Even more bizarre, because the idea

is we're going to use this instead

695

: 00:33:47

of drift, and so we're going to save

all the money on drift, except it's

696

: 00:33:51

also nowhere near as good as drift,

so that's never going to happen.

697

: 00:33:53

Like, it

698

: 00:33:54

doesn't

699

: 00:33:54

Justin Norris: do live chat.

700

: 00:33:55

It doesn't do...

701

: 00:33:56

Yeah, I agree.

702

: 00:33:57

So actually, let's rebuild Marketo.

703

: 00:33:58

Like, we'll build their

roadmap on paper for free.

704

: 00:34:01

They can just take it and use

705

: 00:34:02

Sanford Whiteman: right, right.

706

: 00:34:03

Justin Norris: So we kill the

chat, we kill the Adobe Connect

707

: 00:34:06

thing, whatever that is, so

708

: 00:34:07

Sanford Whiteman: What, you

know, what would we build, what

709

: 00:34:08

would we build in its stead?

710

: 00:34:09

What is the thing that isn't trying

to keep up with the Joneses in a

711

: 00:34:12

feeble way, but is actually, you know,

712

: 00:34:14

long desired?

713

: 00:34:16

Justin Norris: that, to me is

like the critical thing, right?

714

: 00:34:17

You know, it's the whole idea of getting

ahead of the market and where it's

715

: 00:34:20

going and understanding the needs, you

know, the Steve Jobs esque quality of

716

: 00:34:24

understanding the thing that people

could want before it even existed.

717

: 00:34:28

I don't know if there's anybody there

that is thinking about the customer

718

: 00:34:30

that hard and it comes back to the

question of building technical solutions

719

: 00:34:34

for things that don't actually...

720

: 00:34:35

Work that well.

721

: 00:34:36

A lot of it's like, does anyone care

about what is effective marketing and

722

: 00:34:41

what actually is revenue producing and

then trying to build solutions that

723

: 00:34:45

make that easier and more effective.

724

: 00:34:46

I think there are tools out there that

really work well, like the meeting

725

: 00:34:49

booking link things where you can.

726

: 00:34:51

Book a meeting on a website.

727

: 00:34:53

To me, that's a real customer convenience.

728

: 00:34:55

It's beneficial.

729

: 00:34:56

It takes less time.

730

: 00:34:57

It's removing friction

from the sales process.

731

: 00:34:59

It's a tool that solves a

legitimate customer problem.

732

: 00:35:01

And I wonder, is there any new

features coming out that actually

733

: 00:35:05

solve new customer problems?

734

: 00:35:06

There's all the, Oh, this

thing is inefficient.

735

: 00:35:09

Can we like clone flow steps or

save smart campaign templates?

736

: 00:35:12

You know, just little, little things

that all the convenience features

737

: 00:35:14

that people ask for that they never

make it to production because there's

738

: 00:35:17

like, well, what incremental revenue

is associated with that feature

739

: 00:35:19

aside from customer happiness.

740

: 00:35:21

There's like all that category of stuff.

741

: 00:35:22

And then there's like the big innovations,

which are really hard to think of.

742

: 00:35:25

And it seems that it's usually smaller

companies with dynamic founders who

743

: 00:35:29

care about the problem and obsess

about it, come up with those solutions.

744

: 00:35:32

Like, I don't necessarily know what

they are, but I haven't seen those

745

: 00:35:35

things coming out from any of the

big players in marketing automation.

746

: 00:35:38

This isn't just a Marketo thing.

747

: 00:35:39

Sanford Whiteman: Here's a

thing that we know from AWS.

748

: 00:35:42

I mean, Amazon's obviously been around

for a long time, but that idea that at

749

: 00:35:45

Amazon internally they use their own

APIs so they can't go around the APIs and

750

: 00:35:51

avoid discovering the bugs in the APIs.

751

: 00:35:53

I think that You know, Marketo and now

Adobe has never made that commitment.

752

: 00:35:58

They've never decided we're going to have

a flexible full featured API that we are

753

: 00:36:03

going to dog food for our own interface,

which would of course allow them to

754

: 00:36:08

allow you to create, Oh, here's a thing.

755

: 00:36:10

Okay.

756

: 00:36:10

I'm going to interrupt myself

because I do think this is something

757

: 00:36:12

that is, it is absurd that they

have not put this in the pipeline.

758

: 00:36:17

And it's related directly to the

idea of having a public Marketo

759

: 00:36:20

UI API or an SDK for building

visual add on to the Marketo UI.

760

: 00:36:27

Justin Norris: right.

761

: 00:36:28

Sanford Whiteman: That is, I've gone

from defending it and saying it's

762

: 00:36:31

not their business, they never wanted

to do that, to kind of thinking

763

: 00:36:34

it's shocking after all these years.

764

: 00:36:37

And to get back to our whole discussion of

front end developers, that an interested

765

: 00:36:40

front end developer, one who is motivated,

Can't even do it if they want to.

766

: 00:36:45

They cannot say I am going to spend

time customizing my organization's UI.

767

: 00:36:50

You can do it in Salesforce.

768

: 00:36:51

You can't do it in

769

: 00:36:52

Marketo.

770

: 00:36:53

That's a silly

771

: 00:36:54

Justin Norris: step, but really

like, like, like skinning and, uh,

772

: 00:36:57

and even like layout and stuff like that.

773

: 00:36:59

Sanford Whiteman: Well, I, I, yeah,

I think SSFS is actually a way of

774

: 00:37:02

avoiding these better technologies.

775

: 00:37:05

I mean, like SSFS is creating an API

that others can consume, but it's low

776

: 00:37:09

effort for Marketo themselves actually

rewriting and we know how hard this

777

: 00:37:13

Justin Norris: Like a visual

force page, the equivalent of a

778

: 00:37:15

Sanford Whiteman: Exactly.

779

: 00:37:16

Exactly.

780

: 00:37:16

With a move from classic to, you

know, the aura lightning components

781

: 00:37:21

in salesforce was a major, major,

major undertaking for salesforce.

782

: 00:37:26

I cannot imagine how many,

you know, hours pure expenses

783

: 00:37:29

they had to get to that point.

784

: 00:37:30

And it's not the greatest

thing I've ever seen.

785

: 00:37:32

But, but it does seem like adobe

is uninterested in that level of

786

: 00:37:35

customizability and extensibility.

787

: 00:37:38

It's not just custom.

788

: 00:37:40

It's extensibility.

789

: 00:37:40

It's the ability for

someone to say, okay, Okay.

790

: 00:37:43

I want to create a new reporting

all with my code, but consuming

791

: 00:37:47

the same back end data.

792

: 00:37:48

And I want it to appear as

a tab within the Marketo UI,

793

: 00:37:52

Justin Norris: It makes Marketo

more of a platform, right?

794

: 00:37:54

And less of like, well, that's just a

point tool of execution and it generates

795

: 00:37:58

some first party data, which I'm going to

take out and do that work somewhere else.

796

: 00:38:02

Sanford Whiteman: but I just

want to, I want to caution.

797

: 00:38:03

So I don't sound crazy as a

front end person, and I know the

798

: 00:38:07

reputation of projects like that.

799

: 00:38:09

Rewriting from scratch, which is what

this would entail, even if it's only

800

: 00:38:12

the front end, it's one of the things

that the greatest, you know, The

801

: 00:38:16

legendary programmers dedicate chapters

of their horror, you know, books of

802

: 00:38:21

horror to decisions, rewrite things

from scratch, which is fascinating

803

: 00:38:26

because it means that this notion

rewrite from scratch is like dismissed

804

: 00:38:30

by the greatest developers in the world.

805

: 00:38:32

It implies that a given product and

its current, like general iteration

806

: 00:38:37

cannot be rewritten in place.

807

: 00:38:39

It has to be rewritten

and, or there has to be.

808

: 00:38:43

A substantive evolution to

what constitutes a new app in

809

: 00:38:48

order to make such an effort.

810

: 00:38:51

And to not get slapped by the reality

and the disasters that always follow that

811

: 00:38:56

seemingly always follow such a decision.

812

: 00:38:58

So I, I get it, but it's, it's

such a funny thing to know that

813

: 00:39:02

it's like, if you say rewrite from

scratch, you'll get made fun of by.

814

: 00:39:07

You know, experienced gray

beard devs, as they say,

815

: 00:39:10

Justin Norris: So you have to

rebuild the car like one piece at

816

: 00:39:13

a time until you get a new car.

817

: 00:39:15

You can't

818

: 00:39:15

Sanford Whiteman: you can, yeah,

819

: 00:39:16

Justin Norris: car.

820

: 00:39:17

Sanford Whiteman: modular or you can say

it's a new app, but the idea is you don't

821

: 00:39:21

try to rewrite the current functionality

in another language or with another

822

: 00:39:25

framework or in another, another scenario.

823

: 00:39:27

And you might say dot,

you know, dot next can be.

824

: 00:39:32

And that's, you know, Mark

and I tried that with Sky and

825

: 00:39:34

Justin Norris: so I was just

826

: 00:39:35

Sanford Whiteman: the

whole idea is like rip it.

827

: 00:39:37

Right, right.

828

: 00:39:38

But they never really ripped it all out.

829

: 00:39:40

So,

830

: 00:39:41

um, they weren't, they were

831

: 00:39:42

Justin Norris: a lot of people wonder

why Sky failed, like, why did they

832

: 00:39:45

back away and leave us with this,

like, Franken UI that seems like it

833

: 00:39:50

will never be fully transitioned,

it's the weirdest thing, like, maybe

834

: 00:39:54

Sanford Whiteman: it is really weird.

835

: 00:39:55

Justin Norris: it had issues, but there

was a significant investment, there

836

: 00:39:58

was, like, it was going somewhere, it

seemed, and I don't think the reactions

837

: 00:40:03

were terrible to it in the community,

And yet they backed away somehow, maybe

838

: 00:40:07

for adoption reasons, and they're like,

let's do this in between, and you can

839

: 00:40:10

toggle, but we're gonna update, like,

parts of the UI at a time, and now,

840

: 00:40:15

I've gotten used to it, but if you

back away, it's a horrifying thought

841

: 00:40:20

to have a UI like that, like, for an

842

: 00:40:22

Sanford Whiteman: It was a,

843

: 00:40:23

Justin Norris: I can't think of

another app that looks that way.

844

: 00:40:25

Sanford Whiteman: I think that I

mean, look, I don't have any inside

845

: 00:40:28

information, so that's that, but

they decided to get away from the

846

: 00:40:34

XJS framework they're currently using

and try to use another framework at

847

: 00:40:39

the same time against the same API.

848

: 00:40:43

I think that's part of it.

849

: 00:40:44

They didn't, they didn't want

to like completely rewrite.

850

: 00:40:46

And again, that sounds like a bad thing.

851

: 00:40:48

I'm saying it's bad to like

completely rewrite, but they

852

: 00:40:50

didn't want to do a v next, right?

853

: 00:40:52

They wanted to do the sky on the

current, when I say like, it's like the

854

: 00:40:57

API for the front end, that is to say

the public API that isn't documented,

855

: 00:41:01

but allows for fetching things like,

you know, smart lists and flow steps

856

: 00:41:06

and all the stuff that happens.

857

: 00:41:06

I think they wanted to keep that

same API, but consume it using

858

: 00:41:09

a different front end framework.

859

: 00:41:11

And that falls into the

category of never do that.

860

: 00:41:15

That's, I think the most experienced

developers and product people would

861

: 00:41:19

say, no, you're going to have to,

you're, you're doing Marketo V2.

862

: 00:41:23

That's, you cannot do UI

V2 on top of Marketo V1.

863

: 00:41:27

You have to do a full evolution.

864

: 00:41:29

I don't

865

: 00:41:30

know why they didn't do that.

866

: 00:41:32

Like I've seen, I've seen that succeed.

867

: 00:41:35

I mean, MailerLite, small consumer

player, mostly, they've got V2, and

868

: 00:41:40

there are substantive differences,

but they obviously have a team

869

: 00:41:43

that I think it's, you know.

870

: 00:41:45

Privately held small team of

probably more loyal people and

871

: 00:41:48

less distraction and whatever.

872

: 00:41:50

And yeah, but that was, that

was, uh, that's super weird.

873

: 00:41:53

I feel like if I had to put

something on the roadmap, it

874

: 00:41:56

would be the customizable UI.

875

: 00:41:57

It would be the ability to say you

can now build directly into the UI.

876

: 00:42:00

That's the kind of thing where

you could get your Salesforce

877

: 00:42:03

lightning developer interested.

878

: 00:42:05

That's where you get a front end person

to go, Hey, this is actually cool.

879

: 00:42:08

I can plug into the menus.

880

: 00:42:10

I can, you know, bring this data in

and visualize it in different ways.

881

: 00:42:13

Another thing I would do if I

were in charge of product is start

882

: 00:42:16

looking at whole database metrics.

883

: 00:42:19

And you and I worked on this

together for when we did that time

884

: 00:42:23

with the time series thing, right?

885

: 00:42:25

That the fact that we did do

that together for the listeners.

886

: 00:42:29

This was a way of pulling a database

into an external time series

887

: 00:42:32

database through which we could do.

888

: 00:42:35

Things that seem simple, like sorting

the people in the database by their

889

: 00:42:39

level of, let's call it, web engagement.

890

: 00:42:42

So we could say that they

were in the four quartiles.

891

: 00:42:45

You could say this person is in the top

quartile of web engagement, or you could

892

: 00:42:49

say this person is in, you know, the third

quartile of email clicks, or whatever.

893

: 00:42:54

It's not that Difficult to do in a

modern database, even one that is not

894

: 00:42:59

specifically designed for time series

data, the one that that you and I use,

895

: 00:43:03

Justin, is obviously a time series

database, but you can now do it in

896

: 00:43:06

Postgres and in, I think, to some

degree in MariaDB, which It's like

897

: 00:43:10

MySQL, which Marketo uses, but for

whatever reason, they never thought,

898

: 00:43:14

hey, maybe somebody wants to see the

database, see the relationships between

899

: 00:43:18

people within the Marketo database.

900

: 00:43:21

To me, it's like the lowest hanging fruit.

901

: 00:43:22

If I had all the Marketo data in a

modern Postgres 11 plus or whatever

902

: 00:43:27

version it would have to be, if I had

all that stuff and I wanted to write a

903

: 00:43:31

cool query that would blow somebody's

mind for a new evolution of Marketo.

904

: 00:43:37

I mean, that's what I would do.

905

: 00:43:38

I would do split by quintile, you know,

basically letting the leads in your

906

: 00:43:43

database interrogate each other as to

which ones are higher or lower value.

907

: 00:43:48

There's some degree I think that they

do that with like the heat ratings

908

: 00:43:50

and, and relative scoring.

909

: 00:43:52

Yeah.

910

: 00:43:53

But,

911

: 00:43:53

Justin Norris: and

912

: 00:43:54

Sanford Whiteman: but it's not, but

it's, but it's like, it's opaque.

913

: 00:43:57

It doesn't need to be opaque.

914

: 00:43:58

You should.

915

: 00:43:58

I mean, that's kind of needlessly,

it doesn't need to be magic,

916

: 00:44:02

kind of fake AI, right?

917

: 00:44:03

You should be able to run those queries,

I think directly split the database

918

: 00:44:07

by any number of time based, you know,

contributions to the value of a person.

919

: 00:44:13

But I don't know what stops them

from doing that because here I am

920

: 00:44:16

quite sure their backend supports it.

921

: 00:44:18

They just never kind of think, well, like

we don't want to give another dashboard.

922

: 00:44:22

We'll say you can pull

the data out yourself.

923

: 00:44:25

And they do actually, you know.

924

: 00:44:26

You know about the

activity stream feature?

925

: 00:44:28

I haven't used it.

926

: 00:44:29

Justin Norris: no, what is it?

927

: 00:44:30

Sanford Whiteman: The activity stream

feature, which is supposedly free,

928

: 00:44:34

lets you syndicate the rows of the

activity log in near real time to

929

: 00:44:40

a web service of your choosing.

930

: 00:44:41

Justin Norris: So this

is like an API feature?

931

: 00:44:43

Sanford Whiteman: Yeah.

932

: 00:44:44

But the cool thing is it's outbounds.

933

: 00:44:45

It's like a streaming API

934

: 00:44:47

where you give it an

endpoint and it will send.

935

: 00:44:51

The activity log lines to that end point.

936

: 00:44:53

I mean, it's asynchronous surely, but

it's like roughly as they come in, they

937

: 00:44:57

get relayed to an external endpoint.

938

: 00:44:59

This is the kind of thing that

939

: 00:44:59

Justin Norris: got the

notes up here, the developer

940

: 00:45:02

Sanford Whiteman: you can kind

of see as a database architect.

941

: 00:45:05

I know that those features like

change data capture and row based

942

: 00:45:09

replication and that kind of thing

are all part of modern databases.

943

: 00:45:12

So it seems like it was something that

makes sense for them to have introduced.

944

: 00:45:15

The thing is it still requires

that you have in house people

945

: 00:45:19

and you build a service that can

receive, you know, it's, it's.

946

: 00:45:22

It's the furthest thing you

can get from a new dashboard.

947

: 00:45:27

It gives you the building blocks to build

real time dashboards in outside, you know,

948

: 00:45:32

in third party utilities by streaming

the data to them, but it contains

949

: 00:45:35

nothing else except the raw log lines.

950

: 00:45:37

So it's

951

: 00:45:37

like,

952

: 00:45:38

Justin Norris: is a good feature.

953

: 00:45:39

I'm just looking through the notes.

954

: 00:45:40

This is a good feature.

955

: 00:45:41

I clearly haven't been following closely

956

: 00:45:43

Sanford Whiteman: Oh no, I

mean, look, I haven't had it

957

: 00:45:45

enabled in any of my instances.

958

: 00:45:47

So I'm

959

: 00:45:47

Justin Norris: this just come

960

: 00:45:48

Sanford Whiteman: know,

um, six months ago, maybe.

961

: 00:45:50

Justin Norris: Okay, well I

962

: 00:45:51

Sanford Whiteman: Yeah, I'm

going to, I'm going to try it.

963

: 00:45:53

Yeah.

964

: 00:45:53

So, I mean, that,

965

: 00:45:53

that, that,

966

: 00:45:54

Justin Norris: really, because like it

says, it solves a lot of problems where

967

: 00:45:57

you're constantly auditing and, you know,

or polling rather for changes and the

968

: 00:46:03

backlog that that creates and, you know,

the challenge with real time triggering.

969

: 00:46:07

So my top two, for me at least.

970

: 00:46:09

There's always the limitations

that you encounter in the

971

: 00:46:12

raw workflow capabilities.

972

: 00:46:14

Like, oh, you can't quite

manipulate data that way.

973

: 00:46:18

If I think of Workato, which

to me is like Marketo, but

974

: 00:46:21

split apart into 12 dimensions.

975

: 00:46:23

'cause you can work across multiple

systems and also the data pill capability

976

: 00:46:27

and recipes, the ability to hold in data

from a previous step, interrogate it, use

977

: 00:46:31

formulas to manipulate it in various ways.

978

: 00:46:33

Kinda like what mu munchin or munch.

979

: 00:46:36

Whatever

980

: 00:46:37

Sanford Whiteman: Yeah, yeah,

981

: 00:46:37

Justin Norris: munches, that very short

lived and obscure thing where you could,

982

: 00:46:41

I guess kind of what Flowboost tries to

do, but inside of Marketo, to me again,

983

: 00:46:46

is like a very obvious thing to do.

984

: 00:46:48

The ability to better manage race

conditions, I think you know, like

985

: 00:46:50

a lot of the gray hair you get in

Marketo, if you care about doing

986

: 00:46:54

your job well, is how do I make sure

that I'm not tripping over myself?

987

: 00:46:59

There's a lot of different ways to do

that and a lot of different hacks and

988

: 00:47:02

things but the kind of feeling that you

can never fully have the system under

989

: 00:47:06

control and maybe this is an impossibility

you tell me as a developer to like that

990

: 00:47:10

you always have this multiple layers

of the database and things committing

991

: 00:47:13

at various times so you can never fully

have perfect control but then the ability

992

: 00:47:17

to handle that in some more elegant way

than like doing your best but always

993

: 00:47:21

feeling that there's an outside chance

that something might trip over itself.

994

: 00:47:24

Sanford Whiteman: hmm.

995

: 00:47:25

I mean, I do think it's kind of an

unsolvable, even though it's it's

996

: 00:47:27

not like a distributed system where

distributed systems have even, you

997

: 00:47:31

know, increased impossibility of

getting of having a predictable

998

: 00:47:35

settled state at any one point in time.

999

: 00:47:37

But I think.

: 1000

00:47:38,486 --> 00:47:42,626

The Marketo design philosophy seems

to be to dumb things down and not

: 1001

00:47:42,636 --> 00:47:46,546

expose the reality of what's happening

under the hood to the end user.

: 1002

00:47:46,576 --> 00:47:50,466

And I think that just knowing

that, I mean, maybe this is crazy.

: 1003

00:47:50,466 --> 00:47:53,486

I don't know if any commercial

platform has ever done this, but.

: 1004

00:47:54,021 --> 00:47:56,991

Having visibility in database

changes have yet to be committed.

: 1005

00:47:57,081 --> 00:48:02,341

You know, imagine a super awesome spy

view where you could see as, leaving aside

: 1006

00:48:02,341 --> 00:48:07,331

the overhead of providing this view that,

but like where you could see in real time

: 1007

00:48:07,331 --> 00:48:09,061

as things are written to the database.

: 1008

00:48:09,486 --> 00:48:12,266

Or or or databases as databases.

: 1009

00:48:12,266 --> 00:48:14,116

Don't pretend they're

not databases, right?

: 1010

00:48:14,186 --> 00:48:16,846

And I caution people about like

I say, don't call the custom

: 1011

00:48:16,846 --> 00:48:18,286

objects, a custom object table.

: 1012

00:48:18,296 --> 00:48:19,466

So I'm kind of a hypocrite here.

: 1013

00:48:19,466 --> 00:48:20,996

Like I'm saying, like,

don't call it a table.

: 1014

00:48:20,996 --> 00:48:22,396

We don't know how it's implemented.

: 1015

00:48:22,396 --> 00:48:23,366

It could be four tables.

: 1016

00:48:23,366 --> 00:48:26,056

It could be, you know, joined together

relationally, whatever it could be.

: 1017

00:48:26,206 --> 00:48:31,191

But Surely there is a happy medium between

this dumb, down, I don't really know

: 1018

00:48:31,191 --> 00:48:35,701

what's happening under the hood, I just

have to guess, based on the fact that

: 1019

00:48:35,701 --> 00:48:39,531

it's got a database with, like, there's

gonna be a row level lock, right, like,

: 1020

00:48:39,541 --> 00:48:43,011

that's the kind of thing you and I know

about for, for years now, it's like,

: 1021

00:48:43,441 --> 00:48:50,021

it's a SQL database, so we know Only

one row is being updated at one time.

: 1022

00:48:50,131 --> 00:48:54,931

We know that if two low steps try

to update the same row, one of them

: 1023

00:48:54,931 --> 00:48:58,491

has to go first and the other one

has to go second, even if they're

: 1024

00:48:58,511 --> 00:49:02,101

updating the same, or especially

if they're updating the same field.

: 1025

00:49:03,066 --> 00:49:05,316

cannot specify the order of those updates.

: 1026

00:49:05,406 --> 00:49:07,476

I don't know what kind of visualization

you could have of that, but it

: 1027

00:49:07,476 --> 00:49:10,996

just seems like there's been a

concerted effort to like conceal

: 1028

00:49:11,056 --> 00:49:13,216

these essential database realities.

: 1029

00:49:13,466 --> 00:49:16,926

I think you put it really well when

you said you never really feel like you

: 1030

00:49:16,936 --> 00:49:19,706

know what's going on with the market

and it's like, you don't, you don't.

: 1031

00:49:19,956 --> 00:49:23,886

I feel, and less of a Salesforce

person, but I feel more secure about

: 1032

00:49:23,886 --> 00:49:28,736

what's happening, the state of a

Salesforce org at point N in time.

: 1033

00:49:29,011 --> 00:49:30,451

Than I do about Marketo.

: 1034

00:49:30,481 --> 00:49:31,861

Like, what's really happening?

: 1035

00:49:31,861 --> 00:49:33,301

What's, what's in a wait step?

: 1036

00:49:33,301 --> 00:49:34,351

What's waiting to commit?

: 1037

00:49:34,351 --> 00:49:35,611

What's about to be overwritten?

: 1038

00:49:35,701 --> 00:49:36,031

Right?

: 1039

00:49:36,031 --> 00:49:38,731

Like, what, what looks the

way, certain way right now?

: 1040

00:49:38,736 --> 00:49:40,201

But when I refresh, it's

gonna look different.

: 1041

00:49:40,201 --> 00:49:42,241

There's, there's, there's,

there is that uncertainty.

: 1042

00:49:42,381 --> 00:49:43,811

Justin Norris: no debug log, right?

: 1043

00:49:43,811 --> 00:49:47,481

So you give marketers these developer

tools, but it's not like a MailChimp

: 1044

00:49:47,481 --> 00:49:50,431

where it's just like, here's a glossy

interface and you have these little

: 1045

00:49:50,431 --> 00:49:53,541

boxes that you can play with, but you're

kind of, everything else is locked down.

: 1046

00:49:53,861 --> 00:49:55,501

It does actually give you a tool set.

: 1047

00:49:55,501 --> 00:49:56,451

And I think that's why.

: 1048

00:49:56,781 --> 00:49:59,671

I love Marketo, why lots of people

love Marketo, it's like, whoa,

: 1049

00:49:59,671 --> 00:50:02,661

like I can, I'm not a developer,

but I can do developer esque

: 1050

00:50:02,896 --> 00:50:03,186

Sanford Whiteman: Yeah.

: 1051

00:50:03,256 --> 00:50:03,546

Yeah.

: 1052

00:50:03,661 --> 00:50:06,151

Justin Norris: this platform, but then

you're like, whoa, actually developer

: 1053

00:50:06,151 --> 00:50:09,121

esque things are hard, because I have

enough rope to hang myself with, and I

: 1054

00:50:09,121 --> 00:50:11,851

can screw things up, and it's like, okay,

I'm going to get better, and then I'm

: 1055

00:50:11,901 --> 00:50:15,601

going to learn from folks like you who

really understand developer principles, so

: 1056

00:50:15,601 --> 00:50:20,451

things like dry, you know, not repeating

yourself, centralizing things, or word of

: 1057

00:50:20,451 --> 00:50:23,771

operations concerns, or You Whatever, all

those kinds of things that I've picked

: 1058

00:50:23,771 --> 00:50:27,051

up, but then at the end of the day, it,

it only goes so far so that you don't have

: 1059

00:50:27,051 --> 00:50:31,401

like the full control that maybe I presume

one does in the code application where

: 1060

00:50:31,401 --> 00:50:32,631

you're really writing things yourself.

: 1061

00:50:33,061 --> 00:50:33,871

And so I guess that's it.

: 1062

00:50:33,891 --> 00:50:37,671

It's like, maybe it's unrealistic to

think that you really could ever do that.

: 1063

00:50:37,671 --> 00:50:38,831

Like have your cake and eat it too.

: 1064

00:50:38,841 --> 00:50:42,811

It's like, I can go so far, but

no further within this interface.

: 1065

00:50:42,941 --> 00:50:43,841

Sanford Whiteman: I think that.

: 1066

00:50:44,186 --> 00:50:48,276

The design principle of make it

seem like it's a technical person's

: 1067

00:50:48,306 --> 00:50:49,396

platform, which it is to do it.

: 1068

00:50:49,396 --> 00:50:51,366

Well, you have to have technical gifts.

: 1069

00:50:51,406 --> 00:50:52,006

There's no doubt.

: 1070

00:50:52,056 --> 00:50:55,136

I think that a person who can build

a great instance like you, you

: 1071

00:50:55,136 --> 00:50:58,306

know, other others of your caliber

could also be great developers.

: 1072

00:50:58,316 --> 00:50:58,636

If you.

: 1073

00:50:58,951 --> 00:51:00,451

Want it to be bored out of your skulls.

: 1074

00:51:00,656 --> 00:51:01,656

Justin Norris: In a separate timeline,

: 1075

00:51:01,881 --> 00:51:02,161

Sanford Whiteman: Yeah.

: 1076

00:51:02,301 --> 00:51:05,851

And I think there's a sense that it

doesn't satisfy anybody completely.

: 1077

00:51:05,901 --> 00:51:09,351

If you're a not very skilled or

don't have those gifts, you're

: 1078

00:51:09,351 --> 00:51:12,991

going to be overwhelmed and

basically have a continuous anxiety.

: 1079

00:51:13,041 --> 00:51:16,261

I mean, it's a brilliant platform

because it kind of sells itself

: 1080

00:51:16,261 --> 00:51:18,781

based on its technical flexibility.

: 1081

00:51:18,811 --> 00:51:22,321

If you don't disclose how much

consulting help you might need after

: 1082

00:51:22,321 --> 00:51:27,851

you buy it, it seems like the solution

to really any B2B marketing needs.

: 1083

00:51:28,156 --> 00:51:31,946

Justin Norris: let's close with the buzzy

question, which is around AI, and of all

: 1084

00:51:31,946 --> 00:51:36,086

the people that I personally have a chance

of interacting with on a semi regular

: 1085

00:51:36,086 --> 00:51:39,376

basis, you're probably the person that

maybe best would understand what actually

: 1086

00:51:39,376 --> 00:51:43,946

might be happening with AI, which has

become just horribly hyped, and everything

: 1087

00:51:43,946 --> 00:51:45,706

has those two letters attached to it.

: 1088

00:51:45,823 --> 00:51:49,093

Marketo's tried to use what was

formerly called machine learning.

: 1089

00:51:49,148 --> 00:51:52,868

A number of times, I think, mostly

it seemed unsuccessfully, like

: 1090

00:51:52,908 --> 00:51:56,588

predict your audience or deliver

the right content to the right time.

: 1091

00:51:56,638 --> 00:51:59,688

Maybe those capabilities are more

achievable now in a meaningful

: 1092

00:51:59,688 --> 00:52:02,268

way with the tools we have today,

the technology we have today.

: 1093

00:52:02,268 --> 00:52:05,291

But I guess even beyond Marketo,

just in the broader realm of

: 1094

00:52:05,291 --> 00:52:06,911

MarTech, is this hype to you?

: 1095

00:52:06,921 --> 00:52:11,631

Is this a real thing that is going

to have an impact on our discipline?

: 1096

00:52:11,651 --> 00:52:12,361

What do you think?

: 1097

00:52:12,901 --> 00:52:17,541

Sanford Whiteman: Well, I mean, I'm not

one of these, you know, scoffers who's

: 1098

00:52:17,561 --> 00:52:19,761

like, Oh, it's just one big database.

: 1099

00:52:19,821 --> 00:52:21,891

It's just the most powerful

database ever created.

: 1100

00:52:21,971 --> 00:52:25,481

Speaking of LLMs and you know,

in general, I'm intimidated by

: 1101

00:52:25,491 --> 00:52:26,671

and impressed by a lot of it.

: 1102

00:52:26,671 --> 00:52:30,551

But from a, again, from a marketing

that's much marketing ops standpoint,

: 1103

00:52:30,781 --> 00:52:36,121

my first, the first dread I got wasn't

about what I do for a living or what

: 1104

00:52:36,121 --> 00:52:39,231

you do, but the idea that people

are like, I'm just going to feed.

: 1105

00:52:39,531 --> 00:52:44,681

I'm going to ask at GPT to write my,

uh, you know, taglines to write my

: 1106

00:52:44,701 --> 00:52:49,271

content for my, for my page based on,

and I'm like, and people are obviously

: 1107

00:52:49,271 --> 00:52:54,071

doing that by the thousands, taking a

critical eye on the output of, you know,

: 1108

00:52:54,121 --> 00:52:58,071

chat, GPT and, and, and others from a

marketing copy standpoint, it's like,

: 1109

00:52:58,191 --> 00:53:00,451

I have not seen evidence that it's.

: 1110

00:53:00,876 --> 00:53:05,896

Better, faster, or, I don't know,

impressive than a copywriter

: 1111

00:53:05,906 --> 00:53:08,826

would be, but the idea is to

put copywriters out of business.

: 1112

00:53:08,876 --> 00:53:10,486

It's the same thing that's

happened in many industries.

: 1113

00:53:10,526 --> 00:53:12,826

It's not that the technology is

actually better than the people.

: 1114

00:53:12,906 --> 00:53:17,296

That, I think we need to get past the

fallacy that it's better than people.

: 1115

00:53:17,711 --> 00:53:20,431

But what it could in theory

be is way cheaper than people.

: 1116

00:53:20,451 --> 00:53:21,241

And from a,

: 1117

00:53:21,801 --> 00:53:25,081

you know, business standpoint,

that's, that's all that matters to me.

: 1118

00:53:25,281 --> 00:53:28,971

It's like, don't try to sell me on

AI written documentation being better

: 1119

00:53:29,011 --> 00:53:30,411

than handwritten documentation.

: 1120

00:53:30,781 --> 00:53:35,191

You can sell me on it being faster

and almost right in certain cases.

: 1121

00:53:35,201 --> 00:53:37,911

But what concerns me, even, even

from the standpoint of documentation,

: 1122

00:53:37,911 --> 00:53:41,081

where you kind of do think that more

is better, you know, that's like

: 1123

00:53:41,081 --> 00:53:43,631

with documentation, the less is more.

: 1124

00:53:43,971 --> 00:53:45,381

Concept is completely false.

: 1125

00:53:45,531 --> 00:53:46,491

Absolutely not true.

: 1126

00:53:46,531 --> 00:53:48,501

I am firmly opposed to that.

: 1127

00:53:48,531 --> 00:53:51,071

I'm, you know, that I hate

when things are dumbed down.

: 1128

00:53:51,131 --> 00:53:55,061

The idea of expanding product

documentation via AI is fascinating

: 1129

00:53:55,061 --> 00:53:58,641

to me because it sounds like

super awesome, great net.

: 1130

00:53:58,976 --> 00:54:04,256

When something's wrong in the

docs, the load on people for doing

: 1131

00:54:04,256 --> 00:54:08,656

that thing wrong might actually

on net, you know, be negative.

: 1132

00:54:08,666 --> 00:54:12,216

So it's hard to say like the

Marketo product docs have

: 1133

00:54:12,646 --> 00:54:15,166

errors in them that an AI.

: 1134

00:54:15,426 --> 00:54:19,536

Based doc generator couldn't make so

that that's actually, that's something

: 1135

00:54:19,536 --> 00:54:23,296

where I have to, I have to concede, you

know what, if those docs were written

: 1136

00:54:23,296 --> 00:54:26,706

by chat GPT, it couldn't make certain,

I'm not saying it couldn't make new

: 1137

00:54:26,706 --> 00:54:27,936

errors, but it couldn't make the errors.

: 1138

00:54:27,936 --> 00:54:30,576

Like there's a, I don't know if you've

noticed this in the product docs, like

: 1139

00:54:30,626 --> 00:54:34,456

they're curly, uh, curly quotes in the

code samples that have to be straight

: 1140

00:54:34,456 --> 00:54:36,326

quotes, or it's going to be a fatal error.

: 1141

00:54:36,366 --> 00:54:40,516

They're like errors in the MIME

type structure for the Marketo that

: 1142

00:54:40,516 --> 00:54:44,236

could never happen, but with a, an

AI, you know, documentation library.

: 1143

00:54:44,711 --> 00:54:48,411

But would it make other mistakes and

assumptions that would then become the

: 1144

00:54:48,431 --> 00:54:53,161

stuff of support tickets and confusion

and the need to have it gone over by

: 1145

00:54:53,161 --> 00:54:56,071

someone and, you know, you know how

technical documentation is, there's

: 1146

00:54:56,111 --> 00:54:59,521

maybe one person in the world who

knows whether something is true or not.

: 1147

00:54:59,621 --> 00:55:01,021

From my perspective, like.

: 1148

00:55:01,581 --> 00:55:03,681

You know, Martech development,

like front end stuff.

: 1149

00:55:03,781 --> 00:55:07,191

I would love to know that some of the

stuff that I've written on my blog

: 1150

00:55:07,191 --> 00:55:10,731

and put out there in the world ends

up being digested by chat TPT and

: 1151

00:55:10,731 --> 00:55:13,691

becomes part of the corpus of things

that other people are learning from

: 1152

00:55:13,701 --> 00:55:14,871

because it's open source anyway.

: 1153

00:55:14,871 --> 00:55:19,041

And, you know, I hope that people

are able to use other people's

: 1154

00:55:19,251 --> 00:55:21,431

work and get good code out of it.

: 1155

00:55:21,766 --> 00:55:25,416

That's kind of the advantage of all

the time that I spend diving into the

: 1156

00:55:25,416 --> 00:55:28,756

underpinnings, the internals of Marketo

stuff or just browser stuff in general.

: 1157

00:55:29,076 --> 00:55:34,166

If you publish that and it becomes part

of Chat TPT's learning, I think that's

: 1158

00:55:34,166 --> 00:55:35,936

great because it has more of a payoff.

: 1159

00:55:35,966 --> 00:55:38,626

That sounds to me a little bit too

rosy, but in a way it has more payoff

: 1160

00:55:38,666 --> 00:55:41,266

to spend three hours on something

and know that people will be able

: 1161

00:55:41,266 --> 00:55:44,536

to learn from that in their own code

bases as opposed to having to search

: 1162

00:55:44,536 --> 00:55:46,186

for you and find it on your blog.

: 1163

00:55:46,186 --> 00:55:47,066

That's, that's a positive.

: 1164

00:55:47,466 --> 00:55:47,956

How about you?

: 1165

00:55:48,021 --> 00:55:49,181

I mean, what's what's

: 1166

00:55:49,296 --> 00:55:51,686

Justin Norris: I'm, broadly

aligned with your point of view.

: 1167

00:55:51,716 --> 00:55:54,936

The way I've started to think about

AI a little bit is like, I'm a Star

: 1168

00:55:54,936 --> 00:55:58,376

Trek fan, probably not familiar with

the computer on a Star Trek ship.

: 1169

00:55:58,766 --> 00:56:00,966

You know, where you're like,

computer, create for me a model

: 1170

00:56:00,966 --> 00:56:02,256

of X, Y, Z, and then do this.

: 1171

00:56:02,266 --> 00:56:05,036

So it's just like, you're

giving it props, it's performing

: 1172

00:56:05,046 --> 00:56:08,686

computation and it's producing an

output, which is very convenient.

: 1173

00:56:09,086 --> 00:56:12,726

And so I think with things like that,

where it's providing convenience

: 1174

00:56:12,736 --> 00:56:17,486

and allowing you to interact with

information and do things with it and

: 1175

00:56:17,496 --> 00:56:21,436

model things in a, some kind of virtual

space that would otherwise be hard to

: 1176

00:56:21,436 --> 00:56:26,156

do, or summarizing things for you, or

like, you know, providing, distilling

: 1177

00:56:26,166 --> 00:56:27,926

action items from a call, whatever.

: 1178

00:56:28,291 --> 00:56:28,711

Totally.

: 1179

00:56:28,741 --> 00:56:33,861

The idea that it will ever

produce marketing copy or content

: 1180

00:56:33,921 --> 00:56:34,291

Sanford Whiteman: Mm hmm.

: 1181

00:56:34,791 --> 00:56:37,501

Justin Norris: that is useful

seems really hard to imagine.

: 1182

00:56:37,511 --> 00:56:40,021

A, because all the stuff I've

seen it do is just like really

: 1183

00:56:40,331 --> 00:56:42,121

basic and uninteresting.

: 1184

00:56:42,131 --> 00:56:44,541

And B, because it's

guaranteed to be average.

: 1185

00:56:44,551 --> 00:56:48,511

It's always taking the average of

the average of the average of a

: 1186

00:56:48,921 --> 00:56:49,481

Sanford Whiteman: Mm hmm.

: 1187

00:56:49,531 --> 00:56:49,841

Justin Norris: points.

: 1188

00:56:49,841 --> 00:56:52,158

And so, does evolution just stop there?

: 1189

00:56:52,288 --> 00:56:53,878

Because it's not going to...

: 1190

00:56:54,338 --> 00:56:58,138

It doesn't have that spark of

intuition or understanding of human

: 1191

00:56:58,138 --> 00:57:01,368

nature that's going to say, like,

here's like a really funny video.

: 1192

00:57:01,428 --> 00:57:03,868

Is AI going to be capable

of that sort of creativity?

: 1193

00:57:03,868 --> 00:57:05,338

I just doubt it.

: 1194

00:57:05,348 --> 00:57:09,228

So the idea of using it to

generate content to me is, seems

: 1195

00:57:09,448 --> 00:57:10,708

contradictory on the surface.

: 1196

00:57:10,898 --> 00:57:11,568

Who knows

: 1197

00:57:11,698 --> 00:57:14,848

Sanford Whiteman: No, I, I, I,

no, I, I, I, I tend to agree.

: 1198

00:57:14,848 --> 00:57:19,028

I mean, I'm, I'm, uh, I do follow

a couple of very funny comedians.

: 1199

00:57:19,078 --> 00:57:21,198

Um, they're really more

like written comedians.

: 1200

00:57:21,198 --> 00:57:27,028

Like, You know, punchline Twitter

comedians who, who show the futility of

: 1201

00:57:27,038 --> 00:57:30,838

chat GPT at understanding jokes sometimes.

: 1202

00:57:30,868 --> 00:57:33,888

And it's very like, it

definitely supports your concept.

: 1203

00:57:33,898 --> 00:57:37,448

They're like, they'll feed it

an ancient vaudeville joke and

: 1204

00:57:37,458 --> 00:57:39,208

ask it to explain the joke.

: 1205

00:57:39,308 --> 00:57:44,088

And it just hallucinates a

completely wrong reason that

: 1206

00:57:44,088 --> 00:57:45,038

it's supposed to be funny.

: 1207

00:57:45,098 --> 00:57:47,418

Justin Norris: But I think to cap

that point, I think humor is the

: 1208

00:57:47,418 --> 00:57:53,098

perfect example of like something so

basic that a child of two or three

: 1209

00:57:53,523 --> 00:57:55,093

can understand a joke and laugh.

: 1210

00:57:55,133 --> 00:57:57,733

And yet that the most

sophisticated computer models

: 1211

00:57:57,918 --> 00:57:58,268

Sanford Whiteman: right,

: 1212

00:57:58,553 --> 00:58:01,553

Justin Norris: properly explain, which

to some extent is a reassuring notion

: 1213

00:58:01,553 --> 00:58:05,513

that there are some things that always

will remain sort of beyond that reach.

: 1214

00:58:05,813 --> 00:58:08,443

I think we do have to wrap, but this

conversation is everything I hoped it

: 1215

00:58:08,443 --> 00:58:11,233

would be, in the sense of just the,

: 1216

00:58:11,288 --> 00:58:11,808

Sanford Whiteman: it was great.

: 1217

00:58:11,928 --> 00:58:13,048

I could do this all The time.

: 1218

00:58:13,173 --> 00:58:16,379

Justin Norris: lateral thinking, the,

various topics that we covered, and

: 1219

00:58:16,394 --> 00:58:19,006

I'm glad to be able to share that

with the world first and foremost.

: 1220

00:58:19,016 --> 00:58:22,746

Second, I appreciate you and all, all that

you give to the community and that you

: 1221

00:58:22,856 --> 00:58:26,166

help me with personally being my phone

a friend, more times than I can count.

: 1222

00:58:26,726 --> 00:58:28,606

And, uh, and sharing

your knowledge so freely.

: 1223

00:58:28,606 --> 00:58:28,956

So,

: 1224

00:58:29,236 --> 00:58:29,596

thank you,

: 1225

00:58:29,791 --> 00:58:32,421

Sanford Whiteman: Well, you know, I

mean, you taught me originally the

: 1226

00:58:32,421 --> 00:58:36,531

stuff that made me able to pretend to

understand Marketo from the back end.

: 1227

00:58:36,531 --> 00:58:38,521

So I think you did, um,

: 1228

00:58:38,616 --> 00:58:39,236

Justin Norris: we're a fraction

: 1229

00:58:39,281 --> 00:58:40,821

Sanford Whiteman: uh,

way, way, way, way back.

: 1230

00:58:41,031 --> 00:58:46,731

Um, but no, it's really to be on, I

think it's my first official podcast.

: 1231

00:58:46,871 --> 00:58:51,271

So that's something if I ever start one

of my own, I will ask about your tech

: 1232

00:58:51,271 --> 00:58:53,131

stack once you get it figured out here.