How to Start Using AI in Your Dealership

THE OPPORTUNITIES ARE WAITING FOR DEALERS OF ALL SIZES.

Since late 2022, the subject of artificial intelligence (AI) has received and generated billions of words, ideas, articles, and businesses. AI, through the introduction of ChatGPT, is the hottest thing going with promises of razor-sharp efficiency and warnings of the deepest, darkest sort; dystopia or utopia, more likely, both.

Now, let’s pivot to a seemingly unrelated yet intrinsically linked domain: office technology dealers. What’s the common thread? Initial resistance to embracing revolutionary technology. Here’s what some dealers are saying today about adopting AI in their businesses:

“I don’t need AI in my business…”

“I’m going to wait it out and see what happens…”

“I’m not technical, I still use paper…”

See Our Future in the Movies of the Past

The world, observed from above, is a wild, turbulent mix of influences, gravity, beliefs and processes.

We have always tried to make sense of our place through stories and myths. Call it 'programing' - after all, we watched 'programs' on TV 

Everything we want to know, understand and predict about Ai has already been said because Ai isn't just about silicone, quantum, hallucinations, and bias. It is about Us.

My thesis is simple. The dots connected, these movies,  reveal a pattern in the past and a clear picture of the future.  The near future.  Taken collectively, ALL sci fi movies act as that Crystal Ball everyone is searching.  The Fight for the Future is seen in our past.

For example, Colossus, HAL, Proteus in DemonSeed, Robby the robot, Deckard the BladeRunner, and David from Prometheus - the list is endless(Samantha from Her, Lucy, etc.) - each character of a synthetic entity can be seen in today's Ai/LLMs.

One Ai meets another and together, they rule over mankind providing peace and prosperity. While others, Robby and HAL, self destruct or go crazy when presented with a human dilemma and moral conundrum. Deckard and David reveal our soul, our hubris, and struggles of becoming gods.

These fictitious personas are just the beginning.  The issues of today, were illustrated, addressed and sometimes resolved, in the collective imagination of the past.

See for yourself.  I dare you to watch each tome. I bet you'll look at the world today in a whole new light.

Earth Day. Was 1977 all that Different?

It's a wonder the sun still comes up.  The first Earth Day was in 1977.

Back then is was litter, Give a Hoot, acid rain, save the Whales, No Nukes & the coming Ice Age.

Lakes were cleaned, toxic soil removed and reasonable legislation initiated.

Back then it was positive and effective.  All very positive.  

Or Was it?

"We Are the Gods Now - I haven't been struck down. I take that to mean I'm right."

"My Name is Peter Weyland And If You'll Indulge Me, I'd Like to Change the World"

Technology advancements:

• 100,000, BC: Stone tools.
• 4,000, BC: The wheel.
• 800, BC: Sundial.
• 9th century, AD: Gunpowder. Bit of a game-changer, that one.
• 1441: The printing press -- only slightly less impactful.
• 19th century: Steam engine. Railway. Eureka! The light bulb!!
• 20th century: The automobile, television, nuclear weapons, spacecrafts, Internet.
• 21st century: Biotech, nanotech, fusion and fission, and M-theory -- and that was just the first decade.

"We wield incredible power -- the power to transform, to destroy and to create again. The question, of course, before us is, "What the hell are we supposed to do with this power?" Or, more importantly, one should ask, 

"What are we allowed to do with this power?

Work From Anywhere Movement Moves Forward

The commercial real estate establishment is fighting for its life, literally. Publishing slanted studies as evidence that "it is time to get back to work".

Dozens of articles, and interviews projected in an attempt to make us not believe our eyes.  The buildings are empty.

There will be more. 

Reflections of The Industry

John the Baptist, incorporating elements from the Island of Misfit Toys, set in a 1960s science fiction and splatter art style. 

Let's Talk About Copiers

As I roam the landscape of copier, printer, output, digitization and organizational impact of office technology, I RARELY find anything more than a sponsored marketing piece disguised as neutral, self-aggrandizing tome regarding the greatness an organization selling copiers, or a collection empty words and sentences void of substance metastasize into rant.  

Exhausting.

I don't know if it was the eclipse or simply the universe colliding and spawning a three body solution for the mundane, we've got a cool triple-start over at The Imaging Channel.

Ai Will Solve the Climate Change Problem

Ai Anarchy, Now.

This is why I don't want any of these folks regulating Ai or attempting to "remove bias" from Ai.

Ai will prove climate change is a farce - a fake.  This is one of the MANY narratives at risk and those who spin the web, are not scared, they are activated.

Salespeople: What do you do When 'Everything is stalled'?

The infamous 'clogged sales funnel'.

Don't ask you sales manager about stalled deals because it will all come back to you:

"You have six stalled deals?  You should have 12 in the funnel.  Get on the phone and close something now."

"You have six stalled deals? But you told me they were all 80%! Get on the phone and close something now"

"You have six stalled deals? Let me give them a call."

Art and I start with this issue and go on from there to peel off labels and earthquakes and the bogus inflation report.

Good stuff, here.