Show #2

Interview with Brandon Uttley

Taylor Busby interviews Brandon Uttley

February 11, 2019

About This Episode

In this episode of the Always On podcast, OkClear CMO Taylor Busby interviews VP of Marketing Brandon Uttley. They discuss the evolution and adoption of technology, particularly mobile devices, since the 1990s.

Transcript

Brandon Uttley: I'm Brandon Uttley.

Taylor Busby: And I'm Taylor Busby.

Brandon Uttley: Welcome back to the Always On podcast from OkClear.

Taylor Busby: So Brandon, we've been talking a lot about what it means to be "Always On," and as a couple of seasoned marketing vets that probably means something a little bit different to some folks in their 40s--some of us maybe in their 50s--but when you entered the workforce in the '90s, when did you get your first connected device and what was it?

Brandon Uttley: That would have been a Palm Pilot back in the late '90s, I guess.

Taylor Busby: And were you like the early adopter or did other folks have it? I guess there was a kind of a status anything associated with folks that had things like, you know...

Brandon Uttley: ...the big smartphones and the car phone or whatever.

I was [an early adopter] actually for that particular device...one of the very first people I knew that had a PDA. I was actually working in a big ad agency here in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I was kind of a freak. People didn't know what it was.  I remember my boss literally laughing at me one time going, "What is that?"

And I liked to be super organized. So the real reason I first got it was because it was a device that you could put notes in, you could put calendar stuff in there. It was kind of neat from that perspective.

Taylor Busby: And PDAs--people had these Personal--what did it stand for, Personal Data Assistant or something like that?

Brandon Uttley: Yeah. I don't even remember.

Taylor Busby: A couple of gurus here.

But people also had cell phones, right? But seeing as I recall, most folks that had cell phones back in the day were typically like the high-powered executive the C-suite ...

Brandon Uttley: Right and cell phones were, you know, Number One expensive--and also they were not smartphones. So you can just basically make phone calls with them, right? And so by their very nature, if you are into making a bunch of call they were great. Otherwise, they were in your pocket or not being used and quite frankly turned off a lot.

Taylor Busby: So your PDA that you were using, it's not like you had this big network of folks that you are communicating with on a regular basis.

Brandon Uttley: No, not at all.

Taylor Busby: And when did you see that shift starting to take place?

Brandon Uttley: Really when the iPhone came out in 2008 and you know, I begrudgingly joined that revolution because again, like I had a Palm and I was trying to stick with that device and that universe and I was comfortable with it.

Taylor Busby: You didn't have a cell phone at all, you'd didn't even have your own flip phone or anything at that time?

Brandon Uttley: My Palm was my cell phone, and it was a crude device all the way around, but it was decent enough at that time. And I just didn't want to switch to a different network to adopt the iPhone for a bunch of different reasons, but the Palm was so bad that I'd literally took a new one back and went and got an iPhone to join the crowd.

Taylor Busby: Was it mind-blowing when you first--what was that experience like?

Brandon Uttley: Yeah, it was. Some people just can't even fathom, you know, now because you're talking about generations--and the younger generations have been Always On since they came out of the womb practically, right?

But for all the rest of us, it was as Steve Jobs said "magical," you know to paraphrase the joke or whatever. But it was just like all the stuff that you could then carry around with you. But at first that was just a novelty, right? It didn't dawn on me right away that gosh this now means that I can't escape

Taylor Busby: And it seems like when the iPhone came out, I know Blackberries were in use by a lot of organizations. And so there was this this aspect of being connected to a much larger pool of people for things like email and obviously cell phone usage. But when did you start feeling like the pressure that you couldn't just leave your work life behind. Well, maybe for you, there wasn't ever a really clear separation between your work and personal life, but did that increase over time? Was there a sudden moment in which you were like, " Man, I feel like I'm always working and there's never any kind of downtime.

Brandon Uttley: Yeah. It definitely started to escalate I think probably again from 2008 on but probably by the year 2010 for me. So it didn't happen overnight, but I started to realize that there were certain people that I dealt with especially professionally that couldn't turn it off. So they were constantly texting or emailing and or calling or all three at one time, in the case of this one individual I can remember--but like that was his mode of dealing with people. And he expected you to jump on any type of message that he had, and he would scold me and others if we didn't jump right on it, you know and get right back to him. And so that really kind of opened my eyes to hey, this is no longer really useful, it's actually causing anxiety.

Taylor Busby: And what did you do about that situation

Brandon Uttley: You know, we had a lot of tough conversations. I ultimately left that company for other reasons, but that was a big factor in it, honestly. I was an entrepreneur and I didn't get into the business to have to feel like crap.

We had two small kids. We had a newborn literally, in 2010, our second child. I wanted to go home and I wanted to spend time with the family and I wanted to separate. And when I was starting to have that overlap between this person who is constantly riding me and feeling like hey, you know, I can't deal with this--that was definitely a factor in my decision that yeah, I want a better life and I don't want to have to be pressured into using this technology just because it's there.

Taylor Busby: You know, it's interesting because I think there are certain people that are able to always be on who have a high energy level that seemingly are constantly working, and they do it with grace in some weird way. And there are other individuals that do the same thing as it relates to just this manic work environment, but it has a totally different impact on you as a subordinate, for example. Do you ever feel that and are have you seen examples of that?

Brandon Uttley: Yes, I have over the years and I think that like you said everybody is a little bit different [and] marches to the beat of a different drummer. I also think some of those really energetic, "always on," can't- turn-it-off type people fool themselves quite a bit. And they don't take time to step back and assess the situation from somebody else's perspective and go, "Gee, am I leaving a trail of damage behind me based on the way I'm doing this, or am I missing out on something other than constantly being glued to a screen and a keyboard.

Taylor Busby: Well, you know technology has let that genie out of the bottle, and it's never going back in. So we are always going to be connected one way or the other.

So what advice would you have or what have you done in your own personal life to try separate the two for your own sanity--your work life and your personal life?

Brandon Uttley: Well, I have taken those moments where I took a step back and said whether all my own volition or somebody else telling me, "Hey, you're spending too much time on that."

As a good example, you may relate to this: you know around the family dinner table. I don't know about you guys, but we typically try to limit the use of devices between us and the kids. "Hey, don't use your iPad or iPhone." You know, years ago in the early days when we were all just giddy with the stuff, I remember my wife and kids several times saying "Daddy, you know, can you turn your phone off?" We're trying to talk to you." And we're eating dinner or whatever, and I'm trying to justify it--"Oh, you know, I'm working. I'm doing something productive." And they're like, "Yeah, but can you just not stop for a few minutes?" And yes, the answer is yes, you can and you should because do you want to look back and go, man, I really missed out on some beautiful moments with family--OR [remember] "Oh man, I was on top of those emails! That was awesome."

What's your feeling on that?

Taylor Busby: Certainly. I mean being "present," right? It is the term that everybody uses. And we did the same in our family, you know--that we have certain rules about smartphone usage.

But I find myself at times making up those rules for the sake of my children, not necessarily for me, which is totally bass-ackwards, right? And there would be a lot of eye rolling right now if [my wife was in the room--because I am constantly on my device and I try to separate the two things out and I just don't do a very good job at it. My New Year's resolution this year was to make sure I'm off [devices] and do not check social media after 10 o'clock at night. Something stupid and obvious, but it makes a big difference.

Brandon Uttley: Absolutely. I think the good news is a lot of these manufacturers now--for example Apple--has put in some good stuff on the phone with the respect to Do Not Disturb as an example.

And you know, I really respect that. I've started using that. So in the past, you know, I could never not keep my phone right next to the bed I think pretty much everybody does that--it's probably on all day long, right? But at least now, I know the thing is not going to ring in the middle of night-- but I'm not disciplined enough to go put it in another room or something like that.

I can't go that far. What I have done is stop checking email first thing in the morning as an example.

Taylor Busby: So connectivity at home and in your personal life-- I mean we could talk for days and days and days about that whole issue. It's constantly evolving. You put children to the equation[and] it escalates things to a different level. But what about technology, connectivity and productivity in the workplace?

We have all these amazing tools and applications at our fingertips that intend to help us work smarter. But I feel like there's this illusion of productivity that's out there that might be telling a different story.

Brandon Uttley: Yeah, I totally agree. I think that we have all heard that phrase "app fatigue," for example--you just look at your phone and you can scroll through and go, "What are these apps that I downloaded?"

I was so guilty of that for years, getting all the new and cool things, shiny objects. And then just in the last couple of months looking back. I don't even know what 90% of the stuff is. And I think that we have too many apps, and so we've sort of already gone over the tipping point...more apps don’t help.

We need to just kind of scale back and make sure what we are using is efficient as possible and working together without requiring a rocket science degree for all that to talk together.

Taylor Busby: Yeah, I think that app fatigue is one thing, and I do think it's very easy in today's working environment to be "busy" all day long. But at the end of the day, you're not being very productive, right?

And so I think that's something that managers of businesses are going to have to address and again it seems like there's no end of the applications that are being created to address that need. Do you think they're contributing to the problem or do you think they're truly helping to solve it?

Brandon Uttley: I think there are a lot of problems still being created. But good news is again, some forward-thinking companies like Apple and others--Slack--realize "We built it this way in the early stages for reasons, But gee, after having used this and seen what it's doing for people, we realize there's not always positives to that."

So [with] Slack, we use it here--a lot of people use it--but that creates issues. Because you know, there are a lot of studies where people find that they're less productive with Slack on all day because they're constantly interrupted. And those disruptions as we blogged about-- there's so many studies around every time you get distracted, it takes you mentally much longer to get back on task. So to your point, you may feel busy and that you're running around doing a bunch of stuff, but you're not getting the real tasks done.  

Taylor Busby: But one last kind of series of questions for you, Brandon. And you know as the oldest guys in the room now, it's crazy.  It's like I blinked and all of the sudden I was you know, the old guy…mature. Yes, very mature, always.

What do you think that the folks that are just entering the workplace and just graduating from school--or people who've entered the workplace in the past decade that have always been connected...what do you think their perception is of this issue? Because we can look back and remember the days in which you know, I left work and if I went to go play tennis, there's no way my phone was gonna ring in my bag because I didn't have on and neither did my boss. So there was this really nice clean break between your work life and your home life. How do you think the younger generations are dealing with that?

Brandon Uttley: I think there's probably a lot of culture shock issues. You know, the younger folks obviously are very comfortable with these devices. They practically from day one had something in their hand. They're comfortable with the technology itself.

But they've been doing that through their youth and college years for personal reasons. They're playing video games. They're chatting with their friends, they're doing all the fun stuff. And it's going to be a little bit of a reality check when they enter the workforce and they realize their boss is not paying them to look at Instagram or be in Facebook all day or SnapChat or anything else.

Taylor Busby: You're sounding kind of old, Brandon…

Brandon Uttley: Yeah, exactly. And I'm also sounding like a boss right? Like, I ain't paying you to sit around and screw around.

But I think there are also going to have to be more conversations and probably some interventions [with] people coming into these companies and mediating these discussions and saying, "Hey guys, we all need to realize like you said, the genie's out of the bottle-- we have all this stuff but here's what it's doing to all of us."

And we need to set some boundaries about when you're at work what's expected [and] when you're not at work what's expected...and just open that dialogue and discussion so that at least people are aware of it. And [they] can voice their frustrations or understand how they're being perceived when they're staring at their screen all day long and not having a conversation with their boss or whatever.

Taylor Busby: Well put. Well, Brandon, thanks so much for joining us on the Always On podcast. It's kind of fun to be interviewing you for a change. And thanks everybody for joining us. We look forward to talking to you again soon.