Perspectives With Mary Hubbard  ## Metadata - Author: [[Crossword]] - Full Title: Perspectives With Mary Hubbard - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/a7741073-d1e4-4276-aa8e-b34244078c4d ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **TikTok Shop's Social Commerce Insight** - TikTok Shop is innovating retail by blending social interaction with commerce, creating 'unintended shopping'.- This approach targets the next generation's shifting shopping habits, distinct from traditional e-commerce. Transcript: Jonathan This? Is TikTok Shop just a competitor for WooCommerce or is there more to it? Is there a bigger picture? Mary Hubbard Well, first I want to say that you're not too old for TikTok. I think that's a common misconception is actually TikTok is for the older folk now. It leans more towards millennials, millennials and Gen X. All the younger gens have already abandoned it for the most part. But when it comes to TikTok shop versus e-commerce i i don't necessarily think that they are direct competitors they might be indirect competitors absolutely but tiktok shop is um Tiktok shop is is forming an entire new type of interactive shopping whether you want to call it social commerce unintended shopping the the idea of that is the next gen and future shopping Itself um wow unintended shopping is not uh something i've heard of before it sounds dark well it's like the from a business perspective i don't think it has any dark patterns um but essentially It is i think it's when you meet a user or a customer at the exact moment of the type they need something or desire something or we fill a problem or a gap, it's right where it was supposed To be. And so I didn't intend to buy this, but it solves a problem that could either speed up my operation, my daily life, improve me in some way, shape, or form, and I didn't know it. And that's huge on TikTok Shop. Like the amount of small communities that exist there, like BookTok, HealthTok, things that people are educating themselves on that platform and just so happen to link out. And LinkinBio is still very prominent for WooCommerce with TikTok. Luke I was going to say like the BookTok is actually a good example. Because for me, one of the things I still love about going to a local bookstore is like the curation experience, the things that I wasn't looking for or intending to buy anyway. Because if I was intending to, I know where to get it. I can go to Amazon or I can go to my retailer of choice, but it's the unintended things. And that's the experience that I had when I'm not as active on TikTok anymore. But I found some really great stuff, like little niche communities of like, oh, interesting. Jonathan And that's a social experience. I've got you. I made the connection. Yeah, yeah. That's good. Mary Hubbard And it's interesting, too, because lives are very much a social experience. And people do want to interact. And we, society itself, I mean, social media and how we interact with social media as a society is changing and shifting. But as we move further and further into AI, the idea of you and me having a conversation or me dropping into a live interaction with you, your of a trusted individual become a lot more important Over the next couple of years. Like Jonathan and I talked about it at CloudFest. Like I really believe that the internet and your own personal website is about to have its day again because people and human voices are going to become much more important when the world Is full of AI. And very similarly, when it comes to a controlled platform like TikTok, you and me would have a relationship. These people feel like they have a relationship with those influencers, those content creators. And that platform has really flatlined what traditional celebrity is. And we'll continue to see it as algorithms shift and change you're going to continue to see an ebb and flow of more influential people depending on the on the you know area of which you Jonathan Are this is this is fascinating to me because it's like a confluence of two things that i didn't it's like putting two ingredients together that you didn't ever think oh they'll taste Good together and then it's a surprising result because I guess I'm one of these people. And I think a good chunk of our audience are people who you must've come across us before the social media abandoners, you know, the people who are like, oh, no, they're the bad guys, right? The Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, I wouldn't use those products. I'm all about the open web. I'm all about open e-commerce. And I wouldn't even want to use Shopify for my own store, you know, I want to do something open. And then at the same time, you know, you're talking about how bread and butter, blogging and the personal website, like, which is I'm passionate about that. And you've brought those two things together. Help me make the connection there because I love blogging. I think it's an art. I think it's personally really, really helpful to get your thoughts out. And it builds community if people would only just use RSS readers, you know. But at the same time, it doesn't seem to be thriving. I hope AI changes that. But how do you make this connection back to like the influencer style thing? Mary Hubbard Well, because I, I, I, how I put it all together is that I don't, I don't think it's thriving, right? But the, I would question why, why is it not thriving? Because who's controlling your access to the web? How are people finding you? And now it's become an ad-based thing to get your content, to get your information out there. It has been served. And it's a ([Time 0:09:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1091b4fd-8e1a-412e-827a-1cdcd6de30d9)) - **Evolving Access to the Open Web** - The open web remains foundational but is accessed through evolving platforms like Google, social media, and soon AI.- Society must adapt to new access methods while valuing personal identity and connection on the web. Transcript: Mary Hubbard Truly is. So will another platform emerge? Will another way to access this individual content come out? Who's to say? Think um yes i think that the human experience human thought that whether or not something is going to be coming from you as a human will start to become more and more valuable how it's Accessed will become a product what that means will will need to be built out and like um and it's a it's i lost my train of thought when i heard the birds, but, but what I, even, even more So, like, um, I've referenced eBay a few times already, and I usually do when I'm talking about this in a, in a theory, but I want to tie it back to TikTok for you in two ways. To talking to businesses who didn't want to come onto the platform. And their concern was, well, I don't want to come onto the platform. I'm an individual business. You're just going to take my traffic. It's like, well, we already have your traffic, dude. We dominate in traffic. And so you should use us as a platform as well as create your own identity. So you have your identity on the web. You know, you're a brick and mortar store. You are creating trust with me and we are in access. Use eBay as an access point. Right? So you start to see that with the open web. And when it comes to TikTok, for example, when we launched TikTok shop, I kept telling the team over and over again, we are training a society on what to do with this. You heard me say, this is unintended shopping. This is social commerce. This doesn't exist in the United States, but it's huge globally. Why? Because our society, our customers have to be trained on what it's like and what a good experience is to interact with an influencer, buy a product. We have to understand what that means to get the product here, how to surface the product up correctly. There's a ton of things that we are learning and teaching at the same time to move society in a certain direction. And now TikTok Shop is the dominant player for TikTok. It's no longer the global ads business. So when you think about those two things and where we are with AI, it's the same. We as open source people in WordPress are going to start to need to direct society on where to go. And a whole bunch of products to short fill that will emerge and die. But that doesn't mean that they weren't successful in that moment they served a purpose but but technology moves very quickly so you're going to see this you're going to see this individual Access to the webs you're going to learn and discover new monetization ([Time 0:15:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/db761585-8f0d-4b68-9039-28b457d89ab5)) - **WordCamp Community Beyond WordPress** - Many WordCamp Sydney attendees no longer work in WordPress but return because of the community.- This highlights WordCamp as a place for meaningful human connection beyond the platform itself. Transcript: Jonathan What about the catering? Luke Sometimes the catering is amazing and sometimes it's somewhat to be desired. But whereas I think some of the criticisms and concerns I've felt, it's occurring to me that those could come from someone else at a very different expectation. Whereas with meetups, it tended to be a lot clearer what that is. We're here to help each other and we're going to solve some problems and everyone walks away and it's clear what to do next. Was a – yeah. Mary Hubbard And what I think too from the meetups that I've experienced is that they actually do take time to just bond. Yeah. There's just a lot of this. And I think that that human level is very much needed. Like we tend to – we experience things very transactional but we're all very different and we experience the world very different. And I think that was one of the best things about meetups is especially when, you know, when you're, when you're a geeky person and you are behind a computer, like your communication Style might be short, you know, you're, you're not picking up on body language, there's tone. And then when you get to interact with people, you kind of feel that vibe, right? You understand how to work with people. And that opens up a lot of, I mean, for lack of a better word, it allows vulnerability. It allows you to see people as people and then understand how to work better with them. And I always thought that was great. And I think that that is deliberate. That's a deliberate action to try to go and interact with people at something like a WordCamp to understand how your communication style is, meet people face to face, be very mindful And focused on that, which shows a lot of value, I think. I think it's great to talk about nonsense because those are passionate things. Like when we were at CloudFest, we sat on the couch for an hour talking about random stuff. But then all of these passionate ideas come out and you see what motivates people, how people are driving forward. It's great. Jonathan Yeah, I guess we call that the whole way track, don't we? I've recounted this story a few times, but it, I mean, it's really stuck with me. It's really made an impact. At WordCamp Sydney, the previous WordCamp Sydney, I met a whole bunch of people there who I hadn't seen since before COVID because I hadn't been to WordCamps, you know, it was the first One back. It was so good to see all of these community members. And I said, so what are you doing these days? And I reckon half the people I spoke to said, oh, I actually don't work ([Time 0:24:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a4648796-ea37-43ce-934c-dd9a77827375)) - **Parental Guidance for Algorithm Use** - Parents should monitor children's use of platforms like TikTok closely or avoid it completely for them.- Users can reset and control algorithms to tailor safer, healthier digital experiences. Transcript: Jonathan Do you have any ideas or guidelines or suggestions on how we can use AI right? Or do you know of any wrong ways to do it? Do you know what I mean? Like, this is something I'm thinking about a lot because, I mean, for me, it's about my children, you know, and about anyone who I have the privilege of teaching in like a home education Context, I'm often thinking about, well, should AI write this essay or not? And it's not always super clear. Mary Hubbard I mean, again, we'll go back to product. We had talked earlier, right? We talked about dark patterns. Dark patterns exist in everything we build. They will exist and do exist in AI. And so understanding what that is, how design choices can be manipulated, how it can put you into an endless loop, how it can shift or make large amounts of people think in a certain way. It matters. It matters a lot. We need to understand what would be that ethical standard, what is ethically shady. I think a lot of these conversations are happening um but algorithms don't have values right um if you're using something that's algorithmic i'd recommend you adjusting it and shifting It often i actually was at disney world uh with my children we were on this waiting in line with snow white ride and my daughter started interacting with this other little kid and so of Course you know there's an old adage like we end this line together right like you start talking to people yeah um and uh she was asking me questions around tiktok's algorithm and whether It was safe whether it was safe and so my advice to parents like first of all, children should be on anything that's not monitored flat out, flat out. My children aren't on TikTok. My children aren't on any of that. But you have the ability to reset your algo instantly on your screen. You have your ability to change your algorithm. You have your ability to put in blocks. You have the ability to not log in. So you are seen as only a miner's view, right? So there's a lot that you could do to control that. And you should be the advocate of it. Luke Well, that's such a great example, because if I think back to what I really loved about my TikTok experiences, I went into it with that mindset that I was going to quickly, I wanted to see How well it would do. And it did a great job, based on my selections and a couple of searches to quickly give me an algorithm that I valued. I like to see standup comedians. I had interest in particular, like types of like particular games that I enjoyed playing. And within a short period of time, it was giving me more of that. And if I thought about this through the lens of like, I'd want my kids, I've started talking, my oldest is 15. I've started talking to him about like the Instagram algorithm. And like, I want him to understand that because it's like, it's not inherently bad, at least from my point of view. But the challenge is when you're not aware of what's going on. And then it's just feeding, you end up getting into this little bubble of your own creation without realizing that you created it. Mary Hubbard Well, and let's take a moment to recognize ([Time 0:32:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3b439494-ccf0-44ee-8540-d24ed847daa5)) - **Generational Tech Literacy Differences** - Early computing challenges nurtured a generation that learned to debug and explore technology deeply.- This contrasts with younger generations raised on user-friendly tech, impacting technological literacy. Transcript: Mary Hubbard Well, and I think it's different when you're thinking about a software platform and the hardware that accelerates it. You can understand how the platform works as a child because you want to be a YouTuber, and you can understand how to make a YouTube content viral versus what they're doing on the dark Pattern side of that, or even have the emotional maturity or intellectual maturity to understand the effects of that throughout your life, right? Which is where parental guidance and maybe governmental guidance should come into play. But yeah, absolutely. From a platform perspective to the unique understanding of software and how software is built or how hardware is built. Luke It's interesting to me, I want to pull on this thread for a moment of like, what I'll describe as the counterintuitive, counterintuitive user experience or the ramifications of it. I something you said there, Mary, like, I think it's partly because it was so like hard to use. You're right. Like when I look at a computer problem, like I immediately go into debug mode. And I remember at a young age, that's I noticed that that differentiated me from the older folks around me is it didn't ([Time 0:39:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/635e93ee-d636-4084-afd7-cefab207cf9c)) - **Mastering AI Prompting Skills** - Learn to prompt AI effectively as it's a form of critical thinking and tool interaction.- Constantly question AI outputs and refine prompts to improve understanding and results. Transcript: Luke Right. Mary Hubbard Well, but it's also why we continue to talk about how it'll be more and more important for you to learn how to prompt. Because prompting is critical thinking, right? It is actually using it as a tool to go back and forth and saying, okay. And also how you're interacting with it is just a curiosity of thought. Like you're like, okay, hold on, this isn't working for me. Let's go and go and go and go, which might be a personality trait, but also where we need to push people to start prompting effectively. Like you should be asking these things. Yes. It's how you will learn it. Yeah. Yeah. Jonathan In the same way that like learning the YouTube algorithm, ([Time 0:42:12](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bedd4a5c-7d86-4034-872e-ef482cb1faa7)) - **AI Challenging Traditional Art Value** - The value of art may shift more towards emotional impact rather than its human creation alone.- AI-assisted art challenges traditional notions but can enhance creative expression. Transcript: Jonathan Case that with all of this AI, we seek out and value human written content or human designed apps or human made drawings or things like that. I know my son, you know, he loves drawing. He wants to be an illustrator and is completely frightened about, will this even be a job in the future? But it sounds like you're saying that maybe it might be even more of a job than it is now. Mary Hubbard I believe that it will. People aren't, you know, making bets right now on it because they're too afraid to see where society will go with it. However, like, you can go into large philosophical conversations around, you know, what is art? You code, code is poetry, right? This is something that we believe is true art. Who else in the world does? It it's very it it becomes a point to where like a person has something in their mind and ai helps them put it pen to paper in an artistic format that they could have never have done before Your son's an artist and draws and now feels that he might not be able to be an illustrator ai even if you look i could spot an ai image from a mile away right most people like are learning It's going to get more and more intelligent. Sure. So what is art? Why are there certain people paying 20 million per painting? They see it as valuable. They see it as something that moves them. Is it artistic? Is it artistic because it was drawn by a human or is it artistic because it makes you move? And I can't answer that for people. You've got digital printed art all over. You got mass produced art, right? ([Time 0:45:33](https://share.snipd.com/snip/985fcff2-e2e1-415f-8d6f-b74d430115bc)) - **Value of Small Social Groups** - Modern social media platforms often overwhelm with information and pressure for immediate response.- Small, intimate, person-to-person interactions provide more genuine human connection and relief from overload. Transcript: Luke I'm curious if you have any thoughts on that, because I think part of it is these big things, maybe this is part of what was so interesting about the algorithm and experiences like TikTok Is that it gives you something that feels much more personal and curated. I don't know. It's something I've just been thinking more about lately. Mary Hubbard I'm not on any social media and I'm passively on TikTok. But I use TikTok as an entertainment platform, not as a social media platform. So I don't think that those platforms have value i don't think facebook has value i think interconnectivity is exactly what you were saying so if you if you have my phone number and you Text me and we're in these conversations i much i appreciate those much more i think the platforms um are there for a purpose and the majority of the people I know who are still on Facebook, It's because of what you had just said. Oh, to catch up on family, to see photos and really, I don't know. Like how, you know, it's like long lost cousins. I don't, I do see people just going back. There's, there's something to be said about how overwhelming we all feel. Like we are overwhelmed with the amount of information we see on a daily basis, like with the amount of context, how easily accessible. Like I don't think that we were meant to be so accessible to everybody all the time. And then we've somehow created this need to respond immediately and bringing it back to these books, right? Like there's a theme in all of those books about stillness and ([Time 0:51:33](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0ea05bff-03f3-415f-9a6f-d2f680e365fb))