Ryan Alford

I worked 20 years plus, 15 work for other agencies.

There's no better silo world than the ad agency business.

I imagine it's gotten better, but I'm 10 years removed from it.

Ryan, you're going to get this.

Much like I was out of fish out of water in college, I was a creative, strategic account guy at an ad agency.

I was a good writer.

I think in headlines, I'm a big idea guy, but I'm actually pretty organized, pretty good account guy, and I understood strategy.

It served me well because I was in a very entrepreneurial agency that actually took advantage of my skills effectively.

In most agencies, a fish out of water.

I bring this up through my own context because, Ryan, you got that.

Now with AI, it used to be, okay, how can we get the most out of this person at the cheapest possible?

Give them seven hats.

And it was just financially driven.

But now with AI and the abilities, people can sit in a lot of different boxes because AI unlocks a lot of abilities and skills, agentic or otherwise, that allows them to do those things.

Ryan, as we close out here, I got a little rapid fire for you, if you don't mind.

Three things.

Most overrated skill.

Coding, unfortunately.

Most underrated skill.

Yeah.