Welcome to the newly anointed ReSI WINNER for Most Innovative Podcast / Blog in the Talent Acquisition space - that's right The Chad & Cheese Podcast won! Thanks to all of those who voted! #chadcheese :)
That being said, we're still licking a few wounds from a week in N'awlins, the boys started an IV of Pedialyte before sitting down to recap:
- TAtech NOLA - DEATH MATCH
- SourceCon and Joel's favorite takeaway -- KeywordShitter
- and Slack killing email.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level.
Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors, you're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast: Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast.
Joel: Hey boys and girls, and all you saints out there, time to put away those hurricanes, throw out that bottle of absinthe. We're back from New Orleans, bitches. Welcome to the newly awarded winning podcast we lovingly call the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm Joel Cheesman.
Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash.
Joel: This week we sum up our travels from last week including SourceCon and TAtech. Slack is literally killing email, and you'll never guess how Chad came home with more beads than me after a night on Bourbon Street. Jambalaya, étouffée and gumbo breath is coming at you after this quick word from Sovren.
Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors, you're listening to-
Joel: Wrong ad, sorry. Here we go.
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Joel: I think you gotta keep that faux pas in the final edit. Oops. Whoopsie.
Chad: Whoopsie.
Joel: We gotta-
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Keeping those bloopers in the show I think gives these idiots a real stupid appeal that our meathead listeners love.
Chad: I don't think we need more of that. That being said, I wanna get these shoutouts real quick. John Bell, CEO of Rethink Data, gotta give him a shoutout for calling us, you and I, Chad and Cheese, the Kardashians of the industry. No talent, but a ton of attention. Yeah, that's funny, John. Fuck you.
Joel: I'm sorry, I can't hear him, there's a ReSI award in my eye. Sorry, man. He's no relationship to Le'Veon Bell, is he?
Chad: I don't think so. If so they would be shopping his ass around much like they are Le'Veon.
Joel: That's a really specific shoutout for a really general week. I'm gonna give a shoutout obviously to Peter and Repete Weddle from the TAtech show. Again, another bang up, crushing it job by those guys, had a great time in New Orleans. These guys continue to do it right, and deserve a shoutout as my number one.
Chad: Oh yeah, no question. Thanks to Elan from TMP, you referred a great restaurant, I appreciate that. Because one thing we don't talk about on this pod enough is food, and one of the best places to get food in this great nation is New Orleans. So thanks Elan, we really appreciate that, and my wife thanks you as well.
Joel: I can't agree more, and for those out there that know my wife, she actually hates seafood. It's a burden on our marriage for sure, but when I go on the road without her, in New Orleans especially, I'm eating seafood. Ate out with you a few times, and I'm sure you noticed it definitely swam what went into my belly.
Chad: Oh God, yeah. Also shoutout to Nexxt, Talroo, AllyO, Canvas, Talkpush, JobAdX, and Uncommon for making me their billboard all week. Wore their swag, whether I was traveling, I was on site, didn't matter. Repping all the people who are a part of either Chad and Cheese or even the Death Match. So big shoutout to all you guys.
Joel: Shoutout to our sponsors is basically what you're saying.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: And I will second that. Love our sponsors, we see them out frequently. They feed us, they give us alcohol, they give us inside scoop, it's always great to see them, so I will second that shoutout as well. Shoutout to the city of Atlanta and the SourceCon conference for me, I was there Monday and part of Tuesday of last week before I went to New Orleans.
Joel: SourceCon, if you've never been, awesome show. It's the freaks and geeks capital of recruiting. The people who were just total wackos 10 years ago are now sort of running the whole recruiting department.
Chad: That's crazy.
Joel: In terms of sourcing folks. You know the names, Jim Shroud, Steve Levee, I could go on, but that's a great show, it continues to grow. Also a hint for ERE which is coming in October in Orlando, sounds like they've gotten a ... They've had more signups ... They haven't had as many signups on this show since 2008, so it's 10 years in the making that they finally matched the height of the show in 08, and if you remember ERE in 08 you knew it was a must-see show. So really happy for that team out there, and big shoutout to them.
Chad: Pretty awesome, pretty awesome. So I'm gonna go back to the alcohol references. Not a member, not a sponsor, but they know how to get shoutouts. Michael Odell from Nuevo, or Nuevoo, or whatever, for the Jack Daniels whiskey that I found in my mailbox when I got back from New Orleans.
Chad: Shoutout to Pia and Max from Talkpush who actually flew to New Orleans with mezcal for you and I, we have our own bottles.
Joel: Yeah, I've never had mezcal, so if anyone has cocktail tips or, do you just drink this thing straight? On the rocks? I don't know, so send us your mezcal cocktail drinking advice to #chadcheese, or hit us up at chadcheese.com. I'm always impressed about how you're legally technically not allowed to send liquids through the mail, but our sponsors do it anyway.
Chad: That being said, Kyle from Hireology is smart about that because he always buys us beer at the conference. Whenever we're getting ready to do a show, generally Kyle will show up with beer, so big ups to Kyle.
Joel: And let's keep with the TAtech references for Death Match, which we'll take on here in a little bit, how great was Bloody Marys and Mimosas during and before the Death Match the morning of? I thought that was just total ups on that, total props, total shoutout on that call.
Chad: It was perfect, it set the stage for what Death Match is supposed to be. Chilled out, a good time had by all, and all the contestants, Canvas, AllyO, Talkpush, and Uncommon did an amazing job on stage. And we're gonna put those out later this week.
Joel: Totally agree. Next Death Match we should make downing cocktails before the presentations a mandatory thing, and make it 5% of your grade is gonna be how you handle the liquor before the show. But that was a great time. You took all my alcohol shoutouts, I might-
Chad: You can do the JobAdX dinner shoutout.
Joel: Okay, JobAdX, great sponsor, great product, great company, great people. Second event in a row they've taken us out to dinner, so they must think we're a pretty good company, for some reason.
Chad: Dropping leads.
Joel: Your wife joined us, so that definitely upped the stock in value, bringing us to the last dinner. Mitt, Tim, Isabelle, great peeps, shoutout to all you guys.
Chad: And they were taking video during dinner, so I'd like to know what the hell they're gonna do with that video.
Joel: I'm not convinced it wasn't black and white, I think it's gonna look like ... It's gonna look like a Sting video, it's gonna ... Yeah.
Chad: I think we probably look better in black and white.
Joel: Good luck with the mileage on that. Are we done with shoutouts?
Chad: Yeah, let's do this, man.
Joel: All right, let's do the show, man.
Joel: All right, so TAtech, dude, start off with Death Match, start off with takeaways, what do you wanna-
Chad: Let's talk about really quick what TAtech is, because all of our listeners maybe they haven't attended a TAtech yet, so what's your thought on ... How is TAtech different from all the other conferences that are actually out there, and why do we go in the first place?
Joel: I love TAtech for a couple reasons, number one is its ability to evolve. It started as the IAEWS, which was the International Association of Employment Websites, which is a mouthful. But it was primarily a job board conference. A couple years back they changed it to TAtech, seeing the waves of change coming, that the job board industry was much bigger than just that.
Joel: So I love the evolution of the show, it still is a big pull for job boards and job sites, but it's also progressively becoming an all-encompassing tech show for HR. So if you go to HRtech, those companies are there, the job gates with all the job board stuff, they're there as well. It brings both of those together, so that's one of my takeaways.
Joel: Weddle is a lifelong recruitment icon, his value is immeasurable in terms of the industry, and he brings that to every show. It's always a party, which I think is great. Yeah, those are my takeaways from the show. I think if you are a vendor, even if you're looking to find out what the vendors are doing, what are the hottest companies, what are the old guard doing to stay relevant and alive, this is a great show to attend.
Chad: Yeah, and to be able to separate it from an HRtech, there are no background screening companies on boarding, it is talent acquisition focused, and that's the cool part about it. It has evolved from just job boards to machine learning, AI, chatbots, all the things that we talk about on the podcast is happening in a more intimate setting, and the beautiful part about it is they have this deal center kind of setup, so that when you're in HRtech and you can't find a place to sit down and have a fucking conversation for God's sakes, these guys have actual breakout rooms ready so that you can sit down and you can have discussions, and actually talk about deals and technology and so on and so forth.
Chad: So it's a much more intimate setting, it's more focused-
Joel: Yeah, and by the way, think of the heavy hitters they get to attend and present. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, a lot of shows don't get those people to present and be there and network with folks. Bogomil, I think the only speaking engagement he's ever had, and he's left Google Hire, but the only one I can think of that he's really had was TAtech in Dublin.
Chad: Yeah, I think one of the first ... He might have, but there's no question he definitely felt like he needed to be there. So yeah, if you haven't come to a TAtech definitely check it out. We enjoy it, we go to a ton of different conferences, but definitely it's one of the reasons why we wanted to partner with these guys to be able to get the word out about Chad and Cheese.
Joel: Yep, they get it for sure.
Chad: The venue was on Bourbon Street, which was frickin' awesome, we were right next to the Absinthe House.
Joel: Absinthe House, yeah.
Chad: That was prime location. We actually heard a presentation from Art Zeal, the CEO of Dice. Personally I thought it was really somewhat high level and focused on retention, which is more HCM than TAtech, so it was interesting why he would pick TAtech to talk about human capital management retention and that kind of stuff. What were your takeaways from his presentation?
Joel: It was a total snoozer, dude. I was so mad I got up for it. It was just very vanilla, it wasn't anything about ... I wanna say the title was like Surviving in an Ever-changing World, or something, and I was expecting what Dice is doing to revive its brand and its business, its growth plans, advice for other job boards, yadayada. And we've seen that when we met with Monster, our stuff's kinda broken, here's what we're doing to fix it, and this is why we think it's a great thing, and I was hoping that Dice would give us something similar.
Joel: But it was a total vanilla, just sleepfest, and I was kinda mad that we left. And then I was mad that we went up to Art and said, “Hey dude, let's do an interview,” and he sorta gave us the “Oh yeah, that sounds great, I'll be here all week”, and I never saw him again. I think he bounced right after he talked.
Chad: Totally ducked out. Yeah, hopefully, don't hold our breath, but let's try and get this cat on the podcast, and then we can talk about real, real shit, not just this kind of overview of boringness.
Joel: Yeah, Art, the guy before you sat down with us, it's time for you to step up. Get on the line, tell us what's up at Dice. Q&A with ChadCheese, let's do it.
Chad: Let's do this, goddamn it. Also, thanks to Shane Gray for stepping in last minute. We all three actually had to step in because unfortunately, George Larocque had a medical issue that popped up and we totally hacked up his presentation. So appreciate that.
Joel: Is George okay? I guess I didn't know it was a medical thing. I thought it was something else.
Chad: Yeah, I think he's doing okay. I think he's going to make it.
Joel: If you haven't heard our interview with George, go to archives and check that out. That was a great interview that we had with him.
Chad: That's good stuff, good stuff.
Joel: Do you have any takeaways from that session?
Chad: Yeah, no question. I think the money's still pouring into the job board space, but there're reasons behind that. The big reasons are, there's a brand there. There are huge candidate databases. I mean, there's data that you can work off of. Not so much in these brands have revenue that are already flowing in relationships that they've already connected and have had, for in some cases, for decades.
Chad: So yeah, why is money flowing into a dying platform? And some of the job boards got pissed off at us for saying that. But at the end of the day, there's the opportunity to evolve out of this old, classified online bullshit, and turn it into something new and different with the data you have available. So, I see some great opportunities for job boards to become something entirely different, either through VC or partnership, or whatever. And we talk about it all the time on the pod.
Chad: That was something that really did surprise me, that, that much money, I don't want to say the lion share, but a very large portion of the dollars that we're seeing in VC are going to the job board industry itself.
Joel: Yeah, I think one of my broad takeaways on the investment side is that it's becoming more global. We're seeing more money flow into French companies and German companies, Australian companies. All of those markets are very unique in terms of where the job board industry is, and how healthy is.
Joel: So, one of the examples was, someone from Germany stood up and, "Things are good in the job board industry." ... Apparently in Germany, yes, life is very good for job boards. I don't, as you don't, have a real core competency in every single country outside of the U.S. and how their markets are, but certainly in certain places it's better than it is in the States. So we tend to come from it as sort of myopic in just North America.
Joel: It's great to go to a conference and get multiple opinions on that. I think the money flowing into job boards primarily, is on a global scale, and people trying to gain market share. I mean, job boards in Africa for example, are super new. So there's a lot of opportunity there that is not in North America.
Chad: Right, I think you take a look at some of these in the different organizations, like StepStone. So Wolfgang was from StepStone, he was talking about really, I mean, they built everything, everything from the ground up. They didn't partner to allow those Trojan horses to prospectively to happen within their actual system itself. So, as we talk about partnership to be able to grow quicker, to be able to be more sustainable, possibly. It was interesting to get his take on, we watched America, watched the U.S., and we watched all this partnership which was pretty much laden with the opportunity of a Trojan horse to pop up, like Indeed, and really take your market share.
Chad: Where they, were pretty much, hey, we're going to build everything, and we're really not going to partner as much to be able to build core infrastructure. So that was an interesting way to insulate yourself from the rest of the market, to an extent. Until you can't move fast enough, that's the biggest issue.
Joel: Yeah, I think one of the questions was, "What are companies doing to balance out or provide value to employers?" And my answer was, most of them are building technology. You know, Monster, with video, or mobile, or whatever it is, like, they're becoming technology companies.
Joel: So, if you're listening in another country, if you want to get ahead of the curve, start thinking about new tech that you could be providing or building for your audience, and for your long-term health and sustainability.
Chad: So what about those ReSIs, what do you think about those?
Joel: The ReSIs are awesome. For those who don't know, recruiting, I don't know what it stands for, but it's an award ceremony. And it started out almost as a red carpet event with tuxedos and gowns and stuff. It has evolved into cargo shorts and flip flops. But, it's a great event, and I think it mirrors the audience and demographic pretty well.
Joel: So a variety of awards. I think you did a shred of breaking down all the winners. So, if you want to know the winners, you've got to subscribe, check out the shred, either coming soon or it's already published by the time you listen to this. But most notably, you and I and our podcast, was the nominee for best blog/podcast. There were three other contestants, or nominees, and we won. And that was great. So thank you to our listeners, those who voted. We definitely begged enough, to get enough people to give us some love. But, I'm blown away.
Joel: When we started this thing, I thought a few dozen people might listen. The fact that we've been able to touch so many lives is pretty awesome, without getting too cheesy. So it's always nice to get an award and be recognized for the work you've done, and the popular that you're enjoying.
Chad: And thanks for all the love and sarcasm on the socials out there, people. Really appreciate it. It was great. I mean, it was great! It's funny, because you were talking about how it was black-tie, and it's the most like, you know what, this industry really isn't, it's more a flip-flops and cargo shorts, to an extent. So I think it was good that it's finding where it should be, this award. But man, it's a good looking award. I mean, I've slept with it every night that I've had it. It's been awesome.
Joel: I will add that there's only one trophy between the two of us. So I'm not sure how we're going to juggle.
Chad: You already have one. You already have one, you're fine.
Joel: I like two, man, common on dude. Peter, if you're listening man, give me a price on my own ReSI award. Because I know Chad's never going to let me see the light of day.
Chad: I'll send you pictures, it's okay. I'll let you hold it when you're in the house.
Joel: I don't think I've even touched it. I think you grabbed that thing and held it like a baby, and probably did not let go from the time that you got the award.
Chad: No, because it's got sharp edges, and I don't want you to hurt yourself.
Joel: I appreciate that.
Chad: So Death Match. Let's talk about Death Match.
Joel: Death Match, it was, yeah, okay. So for those who don't know, right? We did our show in Vegas at the last TAtech. And it felt kind of flat. We don't know why. It's Vegas, people are hungover, lunch happened, there was kind of a Debbie Downer at lunch apparently. So we powwowed, and we said, how do we do something that's going to get people out of bed, get them excited, get them engaged, yadda-yadda.
Joel: So we used our Firing Squad, or Shark Tank is kind of an example. And we got four startups in the space, four relatively different businesses, I think. And had them come on stage, 15 minutes, two-minute pitch, Q&A, and at the end, the judges got together and selected a winner.
Chad: I think the biggest piece was, on Firing Squad, we in some cases, ripped the startup to shreds and nobody was going to want to do that on stage, right? So we were smart about it, at least we thought we were. We took it down to 15 minutes, so two-minute pitch, and 15 minute total, with Q&A, and then the next contestant came up.
Chad: So four contestants, Canvas, AllyO, Talkpush, and Uncommon. Those guys did incredible. It was funny because Max from Talkpush had boxing gloves, and he had this Rocky Balboa apron that he had on. Yeah, he's from California for God's sake. He had this frickin straw cowboy hat. They were throwing out merch as they were going up. We were playing Saliva's Ladies and Gentleman before it started.
Chad: The entire production in itself, was just to have fun, drink a Mimosa, drink a Blood Mary or come get some beer from us, that Kyle provided, and let's have a blast. That's really what it was. And this was 9:00 in the morning on the second day of a conference.
Joel: In New Orleans.
Chad: In New Orleans. And we filled the fucking ... We pretty much, I'd say, three-quarters of the people were there.
Joel: And let's not forget Aman Brar from Canvas, serenading judges. And also, making it rain with Canvas stickers all through the show. That was awesome.
Chad: Yeah, to be able to listen, we're going to actually put all the Death Match segments out there, 15-minute segments, we're going to put them out, two this week, and two next week. So look for those to drop.
Chad: Canvas did end up winning. You'll have to wait to actually listen to all of the pitches and the Q&A, and all the fun stuff. But they all did an amazing job. To be quite frank, I mean, to sit back and to listen to you guys fight it out on who was going to win, was, I think that was just as entertaining.
Joel: Yeah, and I think we missed a really important shout-out, a shout-out to our co-judges in Death Match. So we had Faith from College Recruiter, and we had Deb from, I guess now, Shaker, right? So it was great to have different perspectives. We had the agency perspective, the job board perspective, and of course, we chimed in as necessary.
Joel: I thought it was a home run. We're definitely going to be doing it again in future shows. It was great. The feedback I got was fantastic, so big ups on Death Match. It was a great success, and good job Canvas, for winning the first one.
Chad: Yep. And great job to all the contestants. I'd say probably the next time, we'll be doing this in Lisbon, Portugal.
Chad: But just to round out for TAtech, this was an incredibly well put together show. So again, Peter, and Pete, just the logistics of all these moving parts, and assholes like us, to make sure that we have our shit together, that was amazing. Everything, it just, was incredibly smooth.
Joel: All right, let's take a quick break and come back and talk SourceCon, Sirius, Pandora, and Slack. Sound good?
Chad: Yep.
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Joel: All right, so quick word on SourceCon. You weren't there, I was. I wasn't there for very long, because I had TAtech, but I was there for about a day and a half. Saw the opening sessions, the main keynotes from day one and two.
Joel: These are my four takeaways from the conference. Are you ready?
Chad: Bring it.
Joel: Feel free to chime in. Okay, number one, in-mail suck, apparently. As well as does email. There was an overarching opinion that LinkedIn's in-mail was very ineffective, which I think is a great segue in learning that Canvas won our Death Match. TextRecruit, we talk about a lot. Emissary, you know, texting is clearly how more and more companies and recruiters are connecting with candidates and job seekers. So, that was an underlying theme of the time that I was there.
Joel: The second thing that was interesting to me is, VR, or virtual reality, might actually become a thing.
Chad: Oh geezus.
Joel: Stay with me here for a second. Intuit, there were two bigwigs at Intuit that presented. And, Intuit, most people don't know as a brand. They know some of their brands like there's tax. There are brands that people know, so when they recruit, it's hard for them to like, "People don't know us. We're in the valley. People want to work at brand names that they know."
Joel: So anyway, they aggressively are using virtual reality at events, college recruiting, job fairs, et cetera, to showcase the company. People put on a headset, get their phone, whatever, and tour the company through VR. So I thought that was interesting you don't hear a lot about that. I'm not saying it's the next big thing, but if more and more companies use VR to brand themselves and create an experience, that could be interesting. Oculus by Facebook, you know now is a standalone, less expensive product. We'll see how that does at Christmas time. Maybe it'll catch on, I don't know. But so, VR was a highlight from this presentation and I found that interesting.
Joel: SEO-
Chad: What?
Joel: SEO. Not as, like, optimizing jobs but optimizing ... taking tools in SEO to build a recruiting strategy was a very interesting piece of one of the keynotes. So what they'll do is, let's say, I don't know, PHP developer or something, right?
Chad: Right.
Joel: So they'll use tools like keyword tools, sites that will search ... sourcing tools that will search LinkedIn and other products or other platforms like that, but so, like, what other things are people searching around PHP developer to find those people? And those might be sites that aren't easily found by other keywords. I just found that kind of interesting, that SEO is sort of permeating the recruiting business in that way.
Chad: So research tools, really? I mean, they're looking for-
Joel: Research tools, yeah.
Chad: ... SEO research tools, okay.
Joel: Yeah, so like keyword tools were big. I'll just ... one that was definitely stood out, it was called KeywordShitter. So you put in a keyword and then it shits out related keyword terms. So that was memorable, and kudos to the people who made that site because it is memorable. keywordshitter.com if you're interested in that.
Joel: The last takeaway from SourceCon was, business is good. Similar to my takeaway from HR Tech, the good times are rolling, man. Money's being spent, companies need people, they're willing to spend money-
Chad: Right.
Joel: ... and just as that was very evident at HR Tech, it was very evident at SourceCon. A lot of people there. I think they said it was, like, 750-ish registered attendees, which was great. So business is good, and that was one of my definite takeaways from SourceCon in Atlanta.
Chad: So it's funny, you talk about VR, and there's this GEICO commercial that's out there now, where this kid has this VR headset on he's doing all this shit, and his Dad's back and he's talking to Flo, he's like, "What's happened to my kid?"
Joel: Yes, I have seen that. Yes, and the drones come in. It's a total technology dump on the kid, right, on the family.
Chad: If I went to a job fair, I wouldn't want to put on some headset that some other slimy, greasy-headed bastard had put on, to be able to take a walk-through of your corporate offices. I mean, to me it just seems so stupid. If you want to talk about branding, you want to talk about these different things, let's do that, okay, but this just seems ... It seems very Second Life and stupid.
Joel: Fair enough. But if you sit down with these two from Into It, they're going to tell you that it was very successful, so yeah.
Chad: I'd like to know what their measurement of success is and how that actually got them more individuals to become hired, and was success actually equates to outcomes.
Joel: Yeah, I think it was brand awareness, net promoter score for the ... I don't know how to explain that, exactly, but basically a marketing score between, like, negative 100 and plus 100. I think they were able to take their net promoter score from negative 30 to plus 60, I think, and they gave credit to VR as part of the way that they were able to do that.
Chad: And how sustainable is that? Let's go to every fucking job fair that's out there and let's see how many times we can get a head into these things. I mean, it just, to me, scalability ... none of this seems ... It seems like just a little blip in the, "Oh, look, cool," Second Life bullshit radar. I just ... so what?
Joel: VR definitely has to hit it big for this to matter. Like, super big. Like, in every house there has to be a headset that people are using to do whatever, for this to really be a thing. If it continues to just be like, "Oh, I went to this event, and I put a headset on, and I saw this company that was kind of cool," that's very forgettable.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: But if it becomes a thing, then it's a different ballgame, but we're way away from VR becoming, like, every household is using virtual reality to do stuff.
Chad: Yeah, agreed.
Joel: Not going to happen. SiriusXM ...
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Is it just Sirius or SiriusXM now?
Chad: SiriusXM.
Joel: Because it used to be XM and they merged.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Okay. So SiriusXM is now rumored to acquire Pandora.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: This is one that you're hot on.
Chad: Hell, yeah. I mean, so SiriusXM has an app right now and it sucks, so this provides a much broader platform of content which can become a part of the SiriusXM content ecosystem. I mean, if you think about it, so the number one podcast serial, which is now being sponsored by Zip, it's exclusively on Pandora, or that's one of the things that they're actually pushing out there. Content is huge. We've always talked about how content is king. That's something we've talked about for over a decade. This is a new look at content and content delivery systems, and XM being in the car and having an app where they've tried to get you outside of the car to continue to utilize their services, and I think they've really failed. So therefore, being able to pull Pandora in, who has a very large free and paid listener base, to start to try to incorporate their content with Pandora's content and really create this ecosystem of cool shit to listen to, and obviously start to drive revenues from it.
Joel: I think that Pandora is a little-known, particularly with recruiter advertising, medium, that's really effective and cost-effective as well. I can remember a few stories about companies that were using Pandora to ... Let's talk about job fairs again. They were pushing events through Pandora, which is ... Pandora, in terms of targeting, it's almost just like Facebook and social media. You know what people listen to, you know their basic information, their age, you know what kind of music they're listening to for targeting, you know where they are because most Pandora listeners are on a mobile phone. If you haven't looked at Pandora as an advertising option, you really should, whether it's recruiting or not. So do you think that you'll need one account for both Sirius and Pandora? Do you think Pandora will infiltrate cars that are using Sirius? Any guesses on what this thing will look like?
Chad: Yeah, I mean, it makes sense, because Sirius right now, they promote that they
have all these channels that don't have advertising, right, because it's paid for by the subscriber. Same thing that Pandora does. I mean, that's the exact same model from a music standpoint, right. But being able to deliver different types of content, which SiriusXM has started to do, but not even close to the amount that Pandora has, so I would assume what they would be looking at is really a SiriusXM-Pandora kind of a platform, where you pay that monthly fee, like you do on Sirius, and you get all of the content. So it really explodes the amount of content that you can listen to, either in your car or on your mobile phone, wherever you're at, and that's the beautiful part.
Joel: And by the way, this only helps strengthen the podcast ecosystem. So if you're thinking about a podcast or you are podcasting ... and I don't know of many employers that are having a recruitment podcast or, like, life fit company podcast. I think they will come eventually, so this is definitely a move to strengthen, I think, just audio and how you connect with people in that fashion.
Chad: Well, and again, for us, it just makes a hell of a lot of sense because this ... again, this just demonstrates that podcasting and audio is exploding, and if you can transcribe that kind of information, it can also be indexed by the Googles of the world, so I mean, you can really win in all different areas because it's more portable.
Joel: And by the way, ZipRecruiter, we're still waiting for that sponsorship from you guys. All right, let's talk Slack.
Joel: Slack.
Joel: They've acquired Astro, the dog from The Jetsons. Astro is an email service. I don't know much about it.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: What's interesting here, like, Slack is literally killing email. They're literally, like, figuratively ending it because companies are using Slack more. Many companies use Slack more than email, but now they're literally acquiring email companies and then shutting them down, which is what they did here, but there's a little more to it than that.
Chad: Yeah, I don't see them shutting this down. I think them actually ... Here's my kind of long term vision for this, is that Slack will start to gray what email is versus messaging and texting, overall, and there's going to be a platform, which is Slack, in which you can do this in a very simple manner. So you can pipe all your emails, all your messaging, all your texting, everything into Slack. It all boils down to one thing, it's all communication. So why do I have to go to my email for this type of communication, my phone for texting, or messaging, or Facebook, or whatever it is? Why can't I have a single platform pull all of my messaging, my communication, together ... I think. This is just ... looking at Astro and what it's doing, that's what I think Slack is trying to go toward.
Joel: Yeah, there was a writer ... The Verge covered this and the author, I think, summed it up for me pretty nicely. He said, quote, "The fact that Slack is shutting down Astro's app makes it pretty clear where this acquisition is going. It seems less like Slack plans to launch an email app of its own and more like Slack plans to include ways to work with your email inside of its chat app. That could include basic email management, but the real key would be features that let you collaborate on email, so using that chat thread instead of a reply all chain for internal messages or directing a customer support message to the correct Slack channel to be answered right there," end quote.
Chad: Yeah, well, think of this too, just from a messaging standpoint, and also being able to really rip all that data and content into Slack. If companies aren't integrated with Salesforce, and all of their emails going into Salesforce in a database and logging all of that, this is perfect for Slack to be able to start taking over there.
Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative), or scare the hell out of organizations like Microsoft.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Bom-bom-bom.
Chad: Yes, and last but not least, last but not least, here's the message to all the companies providing apps into Slack. You're in a test-bed, that's really where you're at, so if your app gains enough traction, there's a good opportunity that you could become acquired, especially if you're aligned with Slack's roadmap.
Joel: Amen. We out?
Chad: We out.
Joel: Happy birthday to my daughter, Stella, who celebrated number nine this past weekend, and in her honor, outro by Stella.
Chad: Stella!
Stella: Hi, this is Stella Cheeseman. Thanks for listening to the Cheese and Chad podcast, or at least that's what I call it. Anyway, make you sure you subscribe on iTunes, that silly Android phone thingy, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to give buckets of money to our sponsors, otherwise I may be forced to take that coal mining job I saw on monster.com. We out.