logo Contact
3 stages in 15 days

Strivenn Thinking

Pull up a seat at our
digital campfire
where story, strategy,
and AI spark
new possibilities
for sharper brands
and smarter teams.

 

Leadership

Three Talks in 15 Days: What I Learned About AI, Audacity, and Turning the Volume Up to 11

By Matt Wilkinson

Fifteen days. Three stages. One wild ride from the lecture halls of Leicester to the architectural marvels of Paris, and finally a grid of faces on a SAMPS webinar. It felt a bit like being back on stage with my college band, purple hair, bass guitar, and the thrill of cranking the amp to eleven. 

 

In that heady blur of travel and tech talk, I discovered more than slides on AI’s impact in B2B marketing; I rediscovered why performance, practice, and a dash of audacious weirdness make every message stick. Buckle up as I unpack the three lessons, and how I've been trying to turn every talk, every audience, and every idea all the way up to eleven.

 

Lesson 1: Young Minds, Old Assumptions

 

At Leicester, I sat down with Strategic and Digital Marketing MSc students to discuss how AI reshapes buyer behavior. I hadn’t hands‑on tested their proficiency, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Universities need help to adopt AI and encourage students to do so as part of their learning journey so they are fully prepared for the world they are about to enter. 

In education, the use of AI is often seen as a slippery slope towards plagiarism with harsh penalties applied for its use. While it's essential for students to learn to use the tools responsibly, they also need opportunities to practice using AI, so they graduate prepared for an AI-literate world, not fearful or unprepared for its impact.

After sharing Andy Crestodina’s 7 Stages of AI Proficiency, one student asked, “How do I move up the AI proficiency index?” 

It hit me that students are craving a clear playbook, yet few are using AI tools to generate their own structured learning paths. They were looking for step‑by‑step guidance, rather than discovering how AI could help them map and accelerate their own journey. Or indeed feeling comfortable with experimenting in how to use these powerful assistants.

 

Lesson 2: Cement, Soup, and the Human Condition

In preparation for my talk in Paris for Saint-Gobain, I researched a number of case studies of how AI is being applied across the construction materials sector. 


In doing so I found a fantastic story of a cement supplier’s challenge to get purchasers to use an ecommerce app. They decided to trial a WhatsApp-based AI chatbot that was integrated with the ecommerce system. 

During an early rollout, someone cheekily ordered a side of gazpacho soup alongside several tons of cement. Of course, I immediately started laughing.

When I shared that anecdote on stage, the room lit up with laughter and knowing smiles - after all, these are sales leaders and psychology experts, they know how customers will always try to catch out technology. 

Beyond the gazpacho prank, there were lots of fantastic AI programs being developed and rolled out across the commercial team - with AI sales conversation coaching being a real highlight for me.

 

Lesson 3: ABM, AI, and the Illusion of Perfection

During the SAMPS webinar on account-based marketing, an attendee flagged an AI-generated slip-up they encountered, reminding me how we hold machines to an impossible standard, even though every human makes mistakes, and every writer is improved by their editor! 

Despite calling out the need for a human-in-the-loop, some participants were skeptical about reviewing every piece of AI-generated content. Often the concern was about having the time to review “even more content”.

That surprised me - but also reaffirmed my belief that while AI can generate more and more content, the need to find the time to review and not just create “fluff” is a big barrier to adoption.

 

Encore: Channeling the Rock Star Within

Before my first Leicester lecture, I felt both nervous and excited. To shake off the “corporate adult” fear, I channelled a teenage version of myself, the 18‑year‑old with purple hair playing bass guitar in a couple of college bands, including the aptly ironic (and short‑lived) “The Immortal.” 

Back then, stepping on stage meant dialing my presence up to the max. Today, I try to tap into that same raw energy to command rooms and screens alike.

This year, inspirations like Mark Schaefer, Ann Handley and Teresa Dukes have encouraged me to remove the mask and lean into the weirdness that makes me unique, rather than hiding it. That mindset shift helps me embrace the rock star ethos: louder, bolder, unapologetically authentic.

Backstage, my ritual remains simple: relentless practice. I rehearse until the material is second nature, so that when I step into the spotlight, whether in front of forty students, one hundred sales directors, or a grid of Zoom faces, I can crank the energy to eleven without thinking. Just like those early band rehearsals taught me, practice fuels confidence, and people remember confidence , they often overlook the little fumbles we might make when speaking.

Here’s to owning our quirks, and always turning it up to eleven.