The Charleston Marketing Podcast

Connecting Content, Contacts, and Capital in the Southeast Tech Scene with Stanfield Gray

• Charleston AMA • Season 2

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Stanfield Gray, founder and CEO of Dig South, joins the Charleston Marketing Podcast to share his remarkable journey building the Southeast's premier tech ecosystem. As the visionary behind what he calls "the South's tech tribe," Gray reveals how Dig South has evolved over 13 years into a powerful connector of innovators, entrepreneurs, and investors.

With an infectious energy that matches his ambition, Gray breaks down his "three C's" framework—content, contacts, and capital—that forms the backbone of the Dig South experience. Rather than simply hosting speakers, Dig South creates a comprehensive ecosystem where attendees gain valuable knowledge, build meaningful relationships, and access funding opportunities. His membership model, Dignation, keeps the community engaged year-round, fostering connections that transcend the two-day summit.

What makes Gray's perspective particularly fascinating is his unconventional path into technology. Beginning in the music industry at Spin Magazine and working with recording studios, he witnessed the digital transformation of creative industries firsthand. This experience shaped his philosophy that technology and creativity work in tandem rather than isolation—"you wouldn't have Spotify if there wasn't great music to distribute via the platform."

Beyond Dig South, Gray shares insights from his other ventures, including MoveFlow, an AI-powered traffic modeling company, revealing how he manages multiple projects while maintaining focus. As Charleston Tech Week approaches with Dig South as its anchor event, he paints a vivid picture of how regional innovation hubs are changing the tech landscape, creating opportunities outside traditional centers like Silicon Valley.

Whether you're a startup founder, an established business leader navigating digital transformation, or simply curious about the future of technology in the Southeast, Gray's perspective offers valuable insights into building thriving tech ecosystems. Listen now to discover how you can connect with the South's most dynamic tech community at Dig South Tech Summit, May 1-2 at the College of Charleston.

Support the show

Presenting Sponsor: Charleston Media Solutions

Title Sponsor: Charleston American Marketing Association

Cohosts: Stephanie Barrow, Mike Compton,

Produced and edited: RMBO Advertising

Photographer: Kelli Morse

Art Director: Taylor Ion

Outreach: Lauren Ellis

CAMA President: Margaret Stypa
Score by: The Strawberry Entrée; Jerry Feels Good, CURRYSAUCE, DBLCRWN, DJ DollaMenu
Studio Engineer: Brian Cleary

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast, brought to you by the Charleston AMA and broadcasting from our friends at Charleston Media Solutions Studios. Thanks to our awesome sponsors at CMS, we get to chat with the cool folks making waves in Charleston, from business and art to hospitality and tech. These movers and shakers choose to call the Lowcountry home. They live here, work here and make a difference here. So what's their story? Let's find out together how do we look?

Speaker 3:

we look all right over there wide.

Speaker 4:

I want to get like this. What now? We have a face for radio.

Speaker 3:

I'd say that a lot about myself actually um hello and welcome to the charleston marketing Compton here. Co-founder and president of Roomba Advertising, a creative content marketing agency based out of Charleston in Tampa, and your incoming CAMA president, I'm excited to be joined by my co-host, stephanie. Say what's up, steph.

Speaker 2:

What's up guys? Stephanie here, the founder of Stephanie Barrow Consulting, a digital marketing strategy agency here in Charleston, and one of your Camo Pass presidents. There's a couple of us now.

Speaker 3:

There's a few. There's been a bunch. There's been a bunch. Before we introduce our guest Steph, have you heard of Ranky Tank, Ranky Tanky.

Speaker 2:

Ranky Tanky, ranky Tanky 100%.

Speaker 3:

Why am I just now finding out about Ranky Tanky?

Speaker 2:

So Ranky Tanky is is a two-time Grammy winning band that is from Charleston. I'm familiar with them number one because I had their lead singer on the Charleston Pops concert last week in the North Charleston Pops concert. They're awesome.

Speaker 3:

Bring the house down awesome If you want to be in a good mood and be moved and motivated during your day listen to Reggaetank. That's why I'm super excited right now you hear it.

Speaker 2:

I can hear the excitement. I got lots of videos.

Speaker 3:

Is it the coffee? Is it the coffee?

Speaker 2:

oh, I'm digging the vibes today.

Speaker 3:

He's feeling energetic and also they're coming to town too they've been to town and they are incredible.

Speaker 2:

You should get their tickets so anyways yeah, nationwide.

Speaker 3:

They're fantastic speaking of talents and musicians, we have ada pasternak coming into town. She's a kick-ass violinist based out of nashville introduced me to her and I'm.

Speaker 2:

I was listening to her stuff on instagram and she you know how I feel about musicians like especially up-and-coming ones. She is awesome so I want to invite her to north ralston pops she's going to be on the show stuff.

Speaker 3:

She's gonna be on the show.

Speaker 2:

She's from nashville good, I'm gonna be schmoozing her and uh just relax.

Speaker 3:

We just don't fan girl too much, uh, but you're allowed I'll do my best.

Speaker 2:

I'll do my best um you know what she has?

Speaker 3:

a foundation that provides music, education and instruments to underprivileged kids who come from abusive and broken homes oh, I love her how can you not love I'm obsessed so keep an eye out for her episode listeners, uh, and check her out at ada a, d a pastor neck p-aasternak, p-a-s-t-e-r-n-a-kcom. Now to our main event, our main man, the guy everyone speaks highly of. This is true, I've dropped your name a few times and everybody's like oh, he's great, so I'm super excited to know why you're so great. Stan Stanfield Gray, say what's up man.

Speaker 4:

Hey, Mike, what's happening? What's happening? Marketers, AMA, people. Stephanie, thank you for having me.

Speaker 2:

Of course, I'm excited that you're here, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Stanfield is the founder and CEO of Dig South. Can you talk about that? That's just that's right.

Speaker 4:

Well, dig South is the South's tech tribe is the way we think of it. Tech tribe Also the South's tech summit. So that's how it all began 13 years ago. We wanted to put together a circus, a playground of tech. No, I love it and think about what it would be like if startup ecosystems in the Southeast in particular could compete with Silicon Valley, boston, new York, other tech centers. And how would we go about that? So I had a lot of experience in technology and producing events and the music business. Put all that together, loosely modeled it on South by Southwest.

Speaker 2:

Okay, got her there, we go there, it is.

Speaker 4:

Ad Age Digital Conference yes, web Summit. And thought, let's do this, let's have it here in Charleston and see what happens. When is it? This year? Dig South Tech Summit will be May 1st and 2nd at the Simmons Center for the Arts at College of Charleston.

Speaker 3:

Nice, where can you get tickets?

Speaker 2:

Is it already sold out?

Speaker 4:

It is not sold out. We have many, many programs. It's digsummitcom, that's D-I-G summitcom, and it will also anchor the inaugural Charleston Tech Week tech week.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so talk to me a little bit about if you've never been to a dig south event like. What do you go in expecting? Is it like all day seminars and breakout sessions, like two? Days networking, all the things it's two days.

Speaker 4:

We break it down like our three c's content, contacts and capital cute. Yeah, it's a nice clever nice easy box to put everything in as a reference point. On the content side, we have fireside chats, keynotes, workshops, panel discussions around emerging technology, all things related to whether that's health tech, supply chain marketing, ai, which, of course, is rippling through the entire economy.

Speaker 2:

A lot of different topics. Hard to keep up with all the things.

Speaker 4:

But the core focus is on emerging technology and scalable companies. Okay, so that's the the bulk of our audience. That, and so the content side. You're there for knowledge and know-how. What am I learning, you know? What am I paying attention to? What should I know in my job? How do I keep up? Do I need to pivot? What do I need to do to keep this business growing and alive? On the contact side, we have a membership community called Dignation. So in Dignation we trust. Ooh, okay, it's always fun to drop that in there, but Dignation we spun that up during the pandemic as a way to keep the audience together. You know it was events, of course, were some of the slowest to return and come back as a business, and DigSouth Tech Summit kind of fell into that category. So Dignation emerged and became this great way to keep people in touch year round.

Speaker 4:

So we produce monthly meetups. We have other content going throughout the year. You have a profile, whether that's for your company or the individual, in our Dignation member network. Today we're having an event with Ball Harbor at the pop-up called.

Speaker 3:

Skip and Shop. We got one set up for next Wednesday.

Speaker 2:

Excellent. I went to a salsa event there a week ago. It was awesome. Oh, is it cool.

Speaker 4:

It was so fun, oh okay, yeah, yeah, we've got a DJ there and our members will come out and have a good time. So that's's you know. But back to dig south at the summit. That's on the um, excuse me, the contact side, as people there to build relationships, do business right, get deals done. Okay. Then the third piece, the capital opportunities. Now, in some cases those are just people who are bootstrapping. They're learning to make more revenue. They're learning, you know, how to build a better funnel around the marketing channels, what that looks like. But then we have another group of companies that are coming from across the East Coast to pitch and are wild pitch during the summit. So they are actively raising funds. We have a VIP investor event for them. We have a startup alley exhibitor space. We have a lot of ways that they can engage, set up office hours with investors. Hey, and a shout out to all investors in the community who may want to come out and check out, kick the tires on some new startups.

Speaker 3:

I met a few members of the Charleston Angel investors. Those guys are so nice.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, so CHAPS or Charleston Angel Partners, are sponsoring our Wild Pitch this year.

Speaker 2:

Love it. Yeah, they're active right now. Oh, it's so smart. Have you partnered with EO at all?

Speaker 4:

We have. So this year we're working with EO to bring Mike Pollard, who's a high-level executive coach and all-around guru on growing scaling businesses. He will be giving a workshop and keynote at DigSouth Tech Summit in partnership with EO.

Speaker 2:

Charleston Love it Great keynote at DigSouth Tech Summit in partnership with EO Charleston Love it. Great guys to work with. They are great guys. So my question was going to be are most of these people local? Are you bringing like talent in from all over the country, or how is this, like this kind of event, working?

Speaker 4:

So our core markets are, I think, about a 400-mile circle around Charleston. So Atlanta, raleigh-durham, charlotte, greenville, spartanburg, you know myrtle beach, all the way up to dc concentrated around charleston. So most of our attendees come from that geography. And then we have some speakers that come in from new york and boston, even the west coast this year, and other locations that are part of the lineup. And then we have larger companies that are headquartered elsewhere, but they have representatives that live here, working remote or hybrid very cool.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, did you say charlotte? Was charlotte part of that? Yes, charlotte's big part of it. We, we're big in charlotte we have a lot of listeners we have listeners.

Speaker 4:

More listeners in charlotte than charleston so juan garzon, a good friend of mine, is kind of what's up, juan?

Speaker 3:

shout out yeah, juan is the king of the charl community, he runs.

Speaker 4:

Pitch Breakfast. Oh, and he runs Innovate Charlotte. Okay, and he will be our emcee for the Dig South Wild Pitch Wow.

Speaker 2:

That's amazing. So this is the 13th year you've done it. Yes, how many people do you expect in attendance?

Speaker 4:

This year our goal is 650.

Speaker 2:

Okay, that's a lot. Yeah, that's a big event. What was last year?

Speaker 4:

It was about the same At our peak in 19, 19. Uh-oh, 2019.

Speaker 2:

Right before.

Speaker 4:

Kevin Right, before I lost my mind, and Kevin Right, we peaked at about 2,000 people.

Speaker 3:

What are you talking about? That's a lot.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, which is fantastic Too much. It was also just kind of wasn't as focused, wasn't as concentrated around technology and scaling companies and and um, it didn't have the membership base. So now we focus around the membership base and growing that, notice that and connecting those people externally to whatever they need to grow and scale explain that, because I haven't seen that done in the way that you guys are doing it where you can come to the event, yes, but you're going to be a member that's right.

Speaker 4:

If you buy a badge the two-day all-access badge to dig south, yeah, you get a member profile and you become a year-round member that's cool, interesting, so it comes with it.

Speaker 2:

It's like an all-inclusive thing. Yes, love it so for example thing we should do for ama.

Speaker 4:

There you go, yeah, so with rnd with uh the harbor entrepreneur, which is where Dig South is headquartered. We're in that beautiful space. We partner closely with Grady Johnson and that organization. So our panel series each month, this series is called Coffee with Closers.

Speaker 3:

I heard about that.

Speaker 4:

I want to go, which is great, yes, and if you were a Dig South member, or you buy a badge at the summit. Those events are free, and so they're 20 a month, but you save all of that too by buying the summit badge.

Speaker 3:

Those are, they're free. You said too with the, that's great, with the badge, of course.

Speaker 2:

Of course you have booths and sponsors and that kind of thing.

Speaker 4:

So you can kind of like neanderthal around and meet people and yes, so we do have some exhibitor booths, but don't it's an expo? Sure, it's much more around the content and the summit part of it Professional development. Yeah, and the pitch pieces. But then we have these great breakout rooms we call lounges. So we have the Startup Demo Lounge, sponsored by Nelson Mullins, a law firm and in that one, founders can set up office hours with investors.

Speaker 4:

They can give a mini five-minute pitch to practice or to share whatever they're up to. So I have a couple of those lounges. And then we've also partnered this year with Charleston Literary Festival on bringing in author Benjamin Wallace. He's a New York Times bestselling author who's written a book about Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious and mythical founder of Bitcoin. Okay, Toshi Nakamoto the mysterious and mythical founder of Bitcoin. Okay, and so he spent 15 years investigating the origin of Bitcoin and trying to find and prove who the founder is what book is this called.

Speaker 4:

It's called it comes out. It came out March 16th. He's already a New York Times bestseller. It's called Finding Mr Nakamoto and it's about the mysterious origins of crypto and Bitcoin specifically. So that'll be a really fun deep dive with Charleston Literary Festival. It will be moderated by my friend, john Yerian. In addition to that, we have this whole. So let's say that somebody out there can't afford the whole summit. They are welcome to attend our Upload Charleston event. We have individual tickets for that. We afford the whole summit. Okay, yeah, they are welcome to attend our upload charleston event. We have individual tickets for that. We have a mentor matchup with charleston women in tech I was going to ask about charleston women in tech yep, so we're very proud to partner with them.

Speaker 4:

This year we're going to do this great mentor matchup. Um, that will be free, but you do have to register. There's limited space and uh, then the vip investor event, the Upload Charleston event, the author event. So there are individual events for people who can't attend the two-day summit.

Speaker 2:

Cool. I bet the success stories that come out of this is crazy.

Speaker 4:

Pretty amazing. Yeah, we had one company raise a $2 million series B round through meeting an investor at Dig South, which was amazing.

Speaker 1:

That is amazing.

Speaker 4:

We had Good Growth Fund launch a $100 million fund at DigSouth.

Speaker 3:

All right.

Speaker 4:

Wow, I think that was 2022.

Speaker 3:

So you got actual investors there ready to put money down on some potential entrepreneurs.

Speaker 2:

This is like Shark Tank, but in.

Speaker 4:

Charleston. Yeah Right, shark Tank in front of a live audience in Charleston. But that's just one facet of it. So one facet are those early stage startup companies. That's probably 15 to 20%. The other 75% of the programs are based around what I would call mid-market or growth stage companies. So let's think 5 million to 50 million in annual recurring revenue or a headcount of about 15 to 400, somewhere in that range. So not the giant Fortune 500s and not the back of a napkin early stage startup, the core 400, somewhere in that range. So not the giant Fortune 500s and not the back-of-a-napkin early-stage startup. The core audience is really in that kind of sweet spot of mid-market companies.

Speaker 3:

Awesome, that's very cool.

Speaker 2:

I would love to attend that at some point. I know that sounds really really neat.

Speaker 3:

How can AMA help? How can we help? I mean other than this this is part of our helping, but great, great.

Speaker 4:

Well, we love to have.

Speaker 4:

This, of course, is huge, you know, just being in front of your audience also, um, you know, I don't know if you want me to run this by you live on the air, but why not? So, um, charleston, charleston tech week, which dig south will be the anchor, for that has a slew of great organizations that are hosting events and meetups from april 24th through may the 2nd, and you know I was going to pitch to you guys if you'd like to have a some type of marketing meetup. Either, you know, it could be a coffee, it could be a lunch, could be whatever makes sense around the schedule then, and it can be informal, or it could be formal, you know it could just be hey, let's meet here and talk about marketing. Love that idea.

Speaker 2:

I would love to be part of that. That's fantastic, great. Yes, we do. April 24th through May 2nd.

Speaker 4:

And let me go through that lineup real quick. So we kick it off with the Charleston Digital Corridor's I5K race.

Speaker 3:

Shout out to our buddy Ernest.

Speaker 1:

Yes, oh, that's right, that's right we interviewed, ernest yeah.

Speaker 4:

I want to do the 5k. So Ernest is on board with us and is going to kick off the whole Charleston Tech Week Love that, fantastic. Then we've got a cyber security meetup with Charleston County Economic Development that's sponsored by Trident Technical College and that'll be in North Charleston up at Garco. And then, moving through the weekend, we've got a bunch of pretty amazing stellar events, including Disrupt HR For people who haven't attended that. It's sort of TEDx style. One Million Cups for early stage founders Love those. Then we've got a Charleston Hacks AI Film Festival event.

Speaker 1:

Ooh film fest.

Speaker 2:

That sounds really cool, that sounds fun, yep.

Speaker 4:

So people will make 30-second AI videos. I'm all into that. That'll be a lot of fun. Reforged Gaming Lounge in North Charleston is having an Innovators and Game Changers night. We come in and talk about gaming. Compete in a tournament.

Speaker 2:

As in gamers. That's what I'm envisioning in my head. Hardcore gamers we need to invite our boy from Squeeze Marketing.

Speaker 3:

He is a gasser.

Speaker 2:

Gasser is a gamer and he's got a whole youtube channel about it.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, and then startup grind will be at code and trust, okay, um, that same week. And then, uh, we're peppering in different meetups, uh, throughout that in the build up to dig south on may 1st and 2nd. And then, oh, I forgot to mention, we do have two very sexy events. So the opening shindig will be in partnership with High Tide Music Festival. Okay, and that will be at the Moxie Hotel on Saturday.

Speaker 2:

April 26th. I'll be there on Sunday Cool High Tide Festival Nice.

Speaker 4:

So we'll be partnering with High Tide. We'll have DJs panels about how to be a DJj, how to be an influencer. That's gonna be fun. And then the closing finale will be at the harbor club at west edge.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, charleston tech week finale will be there how are you keeping up with all of this? The? Fact that you just streamlessly came out with all of this is very mind-boggling to me.

Speaker 4:

That's impressive like what you know. It is a lot of events, a lot of plates were spinning in the air. Um, but my background. So when I started in Charleston, when I first moved here, what year was that? That was 1998. From where? Well, from Mississippi. At the time I was in graduate school at Ole Miss and then New York. Before that, cool, cool.

Speaker 2:

I was going to say you no longer have an accent.

Speaker 4:

I was at Spin Magazine in New York, but I did grow up in Spartanburg. Oh okay, Spin is kind of dead now oh no, no, it lives deep in my heart, yeah. I worked at Spin.

Speaker 2:

That's cool, I love that.

Speaker 4:

So then I rambled around. But when I got here I worked for the City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs. So I ran operations and we produced 700 events in 17 days Whoa Wow. And we produced 700 events in 17 days, whoa Wow. And get this the contracts and everything we did were by fax machine.

Speaker 2:

I can't imagine the counting on that process Very few people had email and bandwidth was terrible.

Speaker 1:

Nobody had a mobile device.

Speaker 4:

I had my first Nokia at that time, I think around nine years. And anyway. So yes, charleston Tech Week will be exciting and big, but we're talking 20 events, not 700.

Speaker 2:

No kidding, I'm assuming when you show up you get a schedule of events that you can attend and that kind of thing.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, well, it's all at charlestontechweekorg Okay perfect.

Speaker 3:

Hey, Stanfield, where do we go? Where do I have to go for our?

Speaker 2:

meetup. What are we?

Speaker 3:

doing during that week?

Speaker 1:

We have to make our own place. You have to make your own place.

Speaker 4:

I didn't know if you had a headquarters that we go to Think of it like a decentralized festival. Charleston Tech Week is like each group is producing their event in locations that they've selected.

Speaker 2:

We haven't had a coffee talk in a long time.

Speaker 1:

They have a lot of competing.

Speaker 3:

We'll talk offline.

Speaker 4:

Yeah yeah, yeah, my wheels are already turning.

Speaker 2:

I'm excited to help. Super cool.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, we'll figure that out, and we have a lot of events that are free at almost every different price point, so there's probably five or six that are no charge. There's another five or six that are about $25, all the way up to the full VIP all-access badge for DigSouth Right.

Speaker 3:

My gosh.

Speaker 1:

So that's a lot right but wait, there's more.

Speaker 3:

Stephanie listeners. You don't know this, do you? But he's also the ceo of move flow, which we'll talk about here I want to know more about that and a reseller of of stroled and an aspen liberty fellow. Let's start with the aspen liberty. What does that mean?

Speaker 4:

How do you become?

Speaker 3:

an Aspen Liberty Fellow.

Speaker 4:

So South Carolina is very fortunate that it has its own fellowship called the Liberty Fellowship and it is affiliated with the Aspen Institute or the Aspen Fellowship, and so it is a very, very unique fellowship where they select people on every side of the political spectrum and, like in my group, the attorney general was part of it, alan wilson at the time, many other people who worked in business and politics and government, and you have common readings and then you show up and you hash the stuff out. So you debate and you try to reach common ground and think about what would it look like we actually solve this problem, instead of being like, oh, you've got a D by your name, you've got an R by your name, let's fight.

Speaker 2:

I love this, oh my. So you're just basically in a room together having these pivotal conversations.

Speaker 4:

Yes, so for two years you meet multiple times. At those sessions you have a moderator that's sanctioned or trained by the Aspen Institute, you have the common readings and then you go on a global trip where you meet people from all over the world that are in other fellowships. And so the idea is, how do we really find common ground, talk about these things and, you know, get out of the the?

Speaker 2:

WWE wrestling ring. So is the end goal to implement something after these retreats?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, so so good question. So everybody does have a project that they work on individually, and mine was tech related at the time. Yeah, strange, right. And some of them are nonprofits, some are for-profits that are solving different societal issues and you report out on that, and some of them continue to this day. There are people who build companies around the project. That grows out of the fellowship. How?

Speaker 2:

did you start? Did you just decide to become involved in this?

Speaker 4:

You have to be nominated. My good friend John Warner nominated me for that many years ago Super lucky. Then you go through a process where it takes a couple of years I didn't get in the it takes, you know. You interview, it takes a couple of years and, like I didn't get in the first year and the second year you interview again and they build a class that they call the mosaic, and so the idea around the mosaic is picking very different kinds of people you know different ethnicities, different religions, different political persuasions, and so they're very intentional about how they build a class why?

Speaker 3:

why do I assume it's male only?

Speaker 4:

what, no, no, why did I? Why did my 50, 50 chauvinist head? Why?

Speaker 3:

did my male chauvinist brain? I'm not answering that question, mike. That's silly right aspen liberty fellow, I love that yeah, it's a remarkable organization.

Speaker 4:

Good so, men and women, anybody. Anybody yes that?

Speaker 2:

was my point, a functioning man, high functioning.

Speaker 3:

Well, so MoveFlow. What's MoveFlow? Talk about that.

Speaker 4:

MoveFlow. So with MoveFlow our tagline is move smarter, flow faster and make more revenue Basically produce more profit. So the idea there is Everybody's into that.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, move flow is an ai powered company that builds synthetic models around traffic, transportation and humans anything that moves in a physical environment interesting yeah, and so the idea is like, let's say, john's island traffic is terrible, right, and you want to put in a new exit ramp or a fork, or a developer wants to put in a new um you know large housing complex. We have a model that we can input all of the data sets around that everything from department of transportation data to census data, micro census data, camera feeds and tell you what's going to happen within what it would be the impact of that build out the day it opens, and so with that, with about 92 degree of accuracy, we can model that. And then you can say wait, what if I move the entrance over here? Well, it's all cloud-based, ai-powered. We can change the model almost instantly with the new input and say, well, if you move it over there, traffic's going to be 20% better or 30% worse. Wow.

Speaker 2:

This is like a constant topic of conversation in my household because my husband is a civil engineer and he uh works like a lot with on the board of the department of transportation and all the things we're constantly talking about. Like if everyone just was in, like teslas or whatever, we would have none of these issues and it's really it's that's. That's cool that's really.

Speaker 3:

What are you talking about, teslas, and what do you mean?

Speaker 2:

like cars that you drive. You just get in and you sit there and they're driving for you and you don't have to drive because they're automatic, automatic driving cars, that kind of thing.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I mean. Google's waymo is already driving around atlanta and new york and miami, and and very successfully. A lot safer than human drives. No kidding when the time comes, I am here for it.

Speaker 2:

Just, I just want to say it I'm all in.

Speaker 4:

It's coming right, stephanie, it's coming, it's coming and I'm good with it, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Well, because of human error. You know what I mean. Because of human error.

Speaker 2:

Cell phones scared of the little bit of rain in Charleston, that kind of thing. Oh my gosh, it's like oh, it's raining.

Speaker 3:

Now five minutes to go, 10 miles. I'm like we're coming.

Speaker 4:

We're not from you, we're coming.

Speaker 3:

As you can tell, no, binyas, we love it here though right, yeah, we do.

Speaker 2:

I mean today's weather, that's really cool. So how do you keep up with everything you have? Hold on, I'm not done yet what about stroll it?

Speaker 3:

this is okay, more so with straw they're.

Speaker 4:

They're just a partner I'm a reseller with that company, but it is a brilliant technology. So straw lid, the guys are from Boston, strong and solid, straled right, so I love it, easy to remember and they built a technology platform that powers like Carvana, carmax, cardiolars, and it is a call center software. Then they invented a new internet protocol called a VCon or virtual conversation. It's run through a piece of software called a conserver that wraps in in a packet so that it is compliant with all privacy issues and then you can extract all the data and info out of it you want. So let's say, all the car dealers in New Jersey can't figure out why the blue Corvette isn't selling, but it is selling in Ohio and it is selling to people who are 22 years old, 30 years old. So we can get all of that out of the emails, the phone calls, the SMS etc. And help predict and determine, you know, solve the problem around the sale.

Speaker 2:

So are dealerships buying this data from you?

Speaker 4:

Yes, so dealerships buy a subscription to that. It a sas model and now we're spinning that out into other industries. So I am working with straw and to introduce them to people, primarily call centers, but it can be anybody with a high volume of call you should really go after the home services home services I say that I work with a lot of

Speaker 2:

them because, like for instance I work with an hvac client and you're wondering, okay, why is someone comfortable paying this price for this model, not for this? And then you look at the data across. That would be very successful for you.

Speaker 4:

I love it, and those guys will be at Dig South this year, so they are coming.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they're coming, that is neat, that is neat.

Speaker 3:

Amazing. So you've got all of these full-time jobs.

Speaker 2:

Spending lots of plates. Spending lots of plates.

Speaker 4:

A lot of plates, a lot of plates. So in my world, among many, many startups who are our members and attendees, et cetera, everyone has two or three side hustles Multiple, multiple, yeah, yeah. And so it is very tough. You do have to focus and concentrate for one of them to be successful. But there's also a tremendous amount of mission creep and excitement, because we're constantly talking to people who are launching and scaling and doing something, and every day I'm like, wow, wouldn't that be cool? Yeah, you know, for me, digsouth Tech Summit and Charleston Tech Week are the core focus. The love of my life, so to speak, outside of my beautiful wife, sunny, of course, and my kids, but those are the core focus.

Speaker 4:

Moveflow is a startup, so we're working on our product market fit and the MVP. I've got two partners in that. One lives in Berlin, our CTO. The other lives in Oak Ridge, tennessee, works for the Oak Ridge Lab, and they're both PhDs in transportation and population data management, and so we are spinning that up now and it's going very well. And then, in the case of Stralid, because of the nature of a 13-year network of DigSouth, I have three or four different reseller referral agreements with companies where we partner, and I'm with a client. I say you know what their product could really help you. What do you think? Can I refer to that? And they do the same for me and they say these people should sponsor DigSouth or attend or be a part of it.

Speaker 3:

It all kind of overlaps, obviously in the tech world and even in the AI, especially in the AI world too.

Speaker 4:

I am very careful about any new project and the ones that you just named. They do overlap very strategically, so they're a lot of the same audience, the same people, same kind of Same staff working on these things. Yes in our case. So Mel Trong is on my team and she is handling. She's our partnership director.

Speaker 3:

What's up Mel?

Speaker 4:

Yep Mel is amazing, Also, a person who can spin a million plates. Carrie Glasscock is incredible our producer We've had for many years, so she's handling a lot of the nuts and bolts of executing on the events. And then my wife is still involved, sunny Gray, the marvelous woman that I made a living paradox.

Speaker 3:

Sunny Gray, I love that. Sunny Gray, that is a cool. You did that right, you did that.

Speaker 4:

So I made her a living paradox. But sunny um, you know, only jumps in as needed. With dig south she launched her own very successful gift box company, called essentially charleston.

Speaker 2:

Of course she did yeah, and that's stephanie's heard of yes, he knew, I had heard of it. I have clients in boston and I send them stuff from your wife.

Speaker 4:

Amazing. So she has over 200 local vendors, everything from Callie's Biscuit Mix to jogging boards and honey.

Speaker 2:

You would be surprised how much the people in Boston love Callie's Biscuit Mids and those Benny Wafers. They like think about that stuff and they're like, is it Christmas time? I want my Benny Wafers.

Speaker 4:

I'm like, okay, they're coming. I think Sunny sells a million Benny Wafers.

Speaker 2:

I'm like okay, they're coming. I think sunny sells a million benny wafers.

Speaker 4:

They are charleston staple yeah it is really remarkable, it is yeah, they went, cool business they built too yes, so that that, uh, if you, if anyone needs a gift any time of year, you know, essentially charlestoncom yep, that is wild, perfect, so you guys aren't busy at all.

Speaker 3:

How many kids do you have?

Speaker 4:

you see, a plural we have two, yes, my daughter, stella, is at the University of South Carolina studying retail merchandising Go Gamecocks and she will be home this weekend again, which is fun, cool. And then my son, garrison Gray, is at the Academic Magnet High School, nice. He's a senior there and he will be also at South Carolina and the Darla Moore School this fall.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, that's where I want my kid to go. She's nine, but that's what we're pushing right down the street two hours for mommy, right, yeah yeah, so I think they make great choices.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, good school. It's a really good school. That's amazing. So let's go back to to old, young stanfield you know, I say old, young, old, young, stanfield, when was your aha moment, that you wanted to get into tech, because it feels like you literally dove in and surrounded yourself with us great question.

Speaker 4:

So, wow, there's so many pieces of this story basically growing up in spartanburg and then, you know, going to the university of south carolina myself. Um, I was one of the very first classes to even have email, but no one used it right because nobody was on, I graduated.

Speaker 3:

I'll go. I'll be the first. I graduated high school in 97. College started in 98. Graduated college in 2001.

Speaker 4:

Right Same time period.

Speaker 3:

Stephanie, you're ish right.

Speaker 2:

I'm a couple years younger than you, just a couple, though.

Speaker 4:

I was very passionate about music, which is how I wound up at Spin Magazine.

Speaker 2:

Oh sure, playing in bands and doing all that sort of thing you just brought me back. I love Spin Magazine. Oh sure, Playing in bands and doing all that sort of thing.

Speaker 4:

Oh, you just brought me back. I love Spin Magazine, yeah, yeah. And so in my mind, you know, technology was how we recorded and what was very interesting about music. So the evolution of you know Pro Tools. Yeah, I had a four-track recorder I think it was a Tascam or something Nice when I was younger, the days of Napster In Napster. So that was a critical piece, oh, yay, napster. So when I went to grad school at Ole Miss, I got a job with Sweet Tea Recording Studio, a day job with Dennis Herring, a fantastic producer. He produced Counting Crows, modest Mouse, buddy Guy a bunch of great artists Love it. And I worked for his studio, just kind of managing the books, bringing people in and out. I was not an engineer but he let me play with the stuff.

Speaker 3:

Where is this again?

Speaker 4:

It was in Oxford, mississippi, cool.

Speaker 3:

Mississippi.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, and that was at the exact same time that Napster was a thing, and so when they were out of town, we were all ripping files.

Speaker 2:

I ruined definitely ruined my college career with Napster.

Speaker 3:

Napster just sold again for 270 mil, did you hear?

Speaker 2:

that who's still on Napster. That's impressive.

Speaker 3:

It was just on the Morning Brew podcast that I listen to. They do a really good job.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if you guys are into Morning Brew.

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Great podcast. Yeah, yeah, I'm like Napster. Why is people still on Napster?

Speaker 3:

That's wild, they're turning it into more of a 3D meta experience where you can go watch concerts and shows on the virtual that's neat.

Speaker 2:

I hope they don't completely rebrand, because I like their Lego.

Speaker 3:

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2:

It's iconic yeah, yes, it is.

Speaker 3:

So that's amazing. Okay, so what brought you into the tech business was music.

Speaker 4:

Yes, so a good friend of mine, russell tillett, moved to san francisco when I moved to oxford roughly the same time, and he got a job with it. You guys remember the song she blinded me with science yes, oh yeah, so thomas dolby took that money and rolled it into technology smart company that made ring for him for nokia oh, ringtones man, I feel it all day so russell became a developer for um the interns are bored.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah, she's like and then I, and then this is around 2000 I wanted I was going to move out there but sunny had launched a business that was doing well and franchises to multiple cities and um you know, and I got an interview that was going to meet the guys at Beatnikcom where Russell worked, and a couple of other interviews and then the dot-com crash happened, the first one.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 4:

And some guy from South Carolina with no resume in tech was not going to get hired because the sky was falling at the time and so I thought, well, I'll go back out in a few years. And so I, you know, remained in Charleston. Gratefully love Charleston, Um, but it was difficult at the time. It was a very much a BYOJ or bring your own job kind of thing.

Speaker 4:

Yes, it still is to be honest, it is, it is. But I I've fortunately got a job first with the city, then with the College of Charleston. In that role I was kind of the MacGyver of the institution. Any project that nobody could figure out who it should go to.

Speaker 3:

Because this is circa.

Speaker 4:

This is 2003 to 2007, 2008.

Speaker 3:

Yes, yes, yes, love it.

Speaker 2:

That's a good time.

Speaker 4:

This is a great time in technology too, so Facebook launches. Like 2005 or so, I had a edu, which was because I was an employee, so that was interesting, okay, and so we started experimenting and then, believe it or not, I had a Newton Apple's first failed smartphone device, newton, yeah, and then a couple of other.

Speaker 1:

I can't remember what the other device was.

Speaker 4:

And so then cloud computing starts, is very nascent, it's emerging, yeah, but the Apple Store launches in 2007 and 2008. Okay, and then it's open to outside developers. So I had some friends that were web developers and they were experimenting in VR and a little bit of AR, and so I brought them in and we launched the first mobile app for the College of Charleston and it was a walking tour app and I led that project and I was like this is excellent, really fun, you know, super cool. And then the college, you know, launched many other apps and did other things and technology. My role was not a technologist for the institution, it was more in content and marketing and that side. But, you know, this project fell in my lap and, um, out of that, they sent me to the adage digital conference in new york, which, in 2011, which blew my mind with and it was obvious, all of this was coming to the southeast.

Speaker 1:

Eventually, eventually, it was already happening and you know just like the valley in new york.

Speaker 4:

Yeah right, just like the people, and so that is really the aha moment. I'd always loved technology. Let me clarify I don't draw a distinction between the technology and the creativity and the content, like some people do.

Speaker 2:

It all works in tandem.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, like I don't think the tech would have been built or a lot of it wouldn't exist. You wouldn't have Spotify if there wasn't great music to distribute via the platform.

Speaker 2:

I love that you have that distinction because a lot of people look at it kind of in silos and I'm a big believer that I market through Spotify and that kind of thing. It's just as important to go in the back end and look at the analytics and make tweaks as it is to put out excellent music that people want to listen to, but a lot of people don't look at it that way. They're like they're music first. I'm like no, all of it's got to work together or you're not going to be a success.

Speaker 4:

Yeah so it's very helpful just to knock down those walls or assume that they don't exist. Right, because they really don't. You better learn it if you're not.

Speaker 2:

If you're putting yourself on those platforms, you better become immersed within everything, because the capabilities in the back end are really cool. Even when we look at our analytics for the podcast, it helps like gear with our speakers and that kind of thing. It's neat. It's really neat.

Speaker 4:

Sometimes I'll meet a person and they'll ask me why they should come to DigSouth and they'll say I don't work in technology. And I'll say, oh, okay, well, let's talk about what you do every day. Do you have a laptop? Yes. Do you have a smartphone? Yes. Are you using a crm? Yes. Are you using a cms and right press? Yes.

Speaker 4:

And then every question is yes, and I'm like you work in technology you're perfect you might call the the career or something else, but every single thing powering and enabling your job is a tech platform right.

Speaker 2:

I love that. I love that you're not just going after people currently in tech. You're looking at small business owners. That kind of thing. Everyone's invited.

Speaker 4:

Yes, yeah, kat Warner from Warner Strategies is doing a panel for us at the Tech After Dark event. That is very much about like that Don't know anything about tech. Well then, that's why you should be here.

Speaker 4:

Right be here, right, you know she's going to go through, um, some fun things with some influencers and some other. You know folks who work in technology to kind of say why you should pay, be paying attention, especially with ai. You know some. There's kind of two camps so the camp that's terrified of it, that's going to wipe everything, and the other, the other camp, that's all in 100, boom, let's do it. I'm in that camp right because I've seen it happen.

Speaker 4:

To get you know. Oh so, my very first startup. I skipped this part. Oh yeah, um, I left the city and for six, months.

Speaker 3:

City of oxford no, sorry this.

Speaker 4:

I left that office of cultural affairs with the city of charleston oh, yes, yes and uh 2001, I think and you were marketing I was doing operations, yeah, and so I left to launch a startup, my first one, with, uh, you know another friend and the. We were building web templates, just websites, and we were. We had this thing we thought we were so genius called a digicar. Well, we would videotape you and embed it on those little mini discs. I love.

Speaker 3:

I love the mini desks. This must be 2010. A little tiny one 2009.

Speaker 4:

No, no, this was early and they weren't even round. They had a little slit there. I can't remember what they were called, but they were about the size of this.

Speaker 2:

I feel like you're on the forefront of all the technology we might not have been exposed to any of.

Speaker 4:

And we sold like three, yeah, so we shoot a video of you we embed it on the in print your name, so that would be your business card. But hardly anybody had the player and you had to go to a desktop and maybe you had the player and then the website. This is hilarious. So we went up and down king street pitching to every possible business why they needed a website, and their people would say that nobody needs a website.

Speaker 4:

They read the city paper there was no mobile phone oh, have times changed yeah, wi-fi, you know, didn't even come out until like 1999, so really people with laptops really didn't have it. The bandwidth was terrible and so it was hilarious. Everybody would say, nobody, tourists don't look at websites, they don't. Nobody needs that. And we were just beating our heads in because we're like, oh my god, if we lived in san francisco we'd be selling 10 000. Yeah, yeah, but, but it was. You know, it was obvious it was coming this way what was who?

Speaker 3:

who bought in on? For who was the first buy-in? Do you remember? Wow, who's the first buy-in? Put you on the spot there.

Speaker 4:

Well, okay, so, because you must have been really excited about that. So the very first client you know thanks to my contacts with the city was the city, because I don't know if anybody remembers this, but they were when the hunley. There was this battle between three different municipalities on who was going to get the hunley museum. Was it going to be at Patriot's Point, was it going to be downtown, which is where the IM is now, or was it going to be at North Charleston? So each municipality made a pitch and we shot the video for that, embedded it on the card and made a little website for that pitch. There you go?

Speaker 2:

Does it still exist? That would be amazing.

Speaker 4:

I have no idea. It's probably in some storage bin, jammed somewhere in the closet.

Speaker 2:

I love being like this age group that we're all in, because we've experienced like the AOL messenger days and now we're like Even pre.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like Not me. Stone age almost like days and then I was given blood.

Speaker 2:

Speak for yourself.

Speaker 3:

I was given blood the other day and the girl's next to me. I'm writing 1978 on the information there. And I'm like why, do I feel antique when I write 1978? Because we are baby, we are I should be worth more.

Speaker 2:

I feel like we have historical knowledge that we bring to the table for our business and for other businesses. Because I can speak eloquently, hopefully to like a 20-something, just like I can a 70-year-old who's like I hate this, I run this shop, I hate this, I run this shop, I hate technology. I need you to come in here and do all of it for me. I'm like I got this for you, but I think it's fun that you have that perspective, because you probably take all of that with you and, yeah, I'd love for you to. I'd like to be a keynote on one of your speeches one day.

Speaker 4:

Well, thank you. Just like I mean I never feel like I'm caught up though every single day, isn't that?

Speaker 2:

what's fun about technology though it is, and marketing for that matter, that's the best part really not knowing seeing what's coming.

Speaker 4:

I mean, there's a famous quote the future has arrived, but it's not evenly distributed.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

You know, and so once it's distributed, everybody's like oh, of course we use this, of course I have a mobile phone, et cetera, etc. But until it has right, you know, you're not sure, is this a thing? Is it gonna fly right? Literally, I don't have a flying car yet right, no, it's coming, it's coming we're all waiting on it.

Speaker 2:

I'm waiting, the barrow family is waiting on it.

Speaker 3:

All right, so with all you got going on stanfield. What do you do um to give you know for fun, like.

Speaker 4:

You have to have some kind of For fun, right, right. So I play in a rock band called what. No, you don't I do.

Speaker 2:

All of me knew something musical was coming. I could feel it. Oh my gosh, she almost exploded just now.

Speaker 4:

I'm excited, so it's called the Speed of Sound or SOS, and so it's a bunch of old dads and moms yes, and we just have.

Speaker 3:

Where do you play? I want to play.

Speaker 4:

We've been playing at lo-fi brewing okay that's a great spot yeah, and we've played um container bar and we mainland container. Excuse me, always mix up those two, okay, and then, uh, we've played holy city brewing a couple of private parties there that's awesome.

Speaker 2:

Do you have like a facebook page, instagram page? We?

Speaker 4:

have an instagram page. Uh. Speed of sound dot band speed of soundsoundband listeners, Look it up.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so it's a six piece. I don't know when you sleep Where's.

Speaker 4:

Lo-Fi. Lo-fi is almost on the line of North Charleston and Charleston.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, okay, I think I've been there, you go up the neck Meeting Street Extension.

Speaker 4:

Yep King Street. Which one is it?

Speaker 2:

It's kind of where we used to go to your trade on the water right. Isn't your tradesman brewery kind of north of that?

Speaker 4:

yeah, yeah, you keep going north like you're driving to park circle on main street extension past beve bene. Rest in peace, yes yeah, and it's almost underneath the overpass, very close, oh okay, I gotta check that out all right well I love it, my gosh.

Speaker 3:

My last question, and and, stephanie, you can obviously have more questions too, but with all the other stuff you've got going on, the rock band is really cool, right, and then that's a whole other job too, pod oh my gosh, you've got to book the bands.

Speaker 2:

Now. Are you on Spotify?

Speaker 4:

We are not. We are on SoundCloud.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I love SoundCloud. Yeah, it's great. So what are you doing as far as, like you, do, you have an intern do?

Speaker 4:

you have an assistant, like how are you making it all happen, prioritizing, right so um? I live in kind of the world of fractional experts. I would say so the whole fractional thing is really cool, yeah, and so as, as we ramp up a project, we have a large base of people that are very talented that we can call upon and to execute on that, and I'm recently I read the book who, not how, if you guys have heard of that one.

Speaker 3:

Okay, writing that down, dan sullivan there who who not?

Speaker 2:

how, who, not how. I have it.

Speaker 4:

I haven't read yet but it's very short, easy to you know read.

Speaker 4:

Digest big letters, yeah, but it's big letters yeah, yeah, for the old guys like us, really really big type and the gist of it. It's pretty, it's really simple, but it's it's important to remind yourself. It's like every time you say, oh, how am I going to get this done? You're, you really should say who. Who can do this, I love that. Who can do it better than me? Who can do it faster? You know, I like because I have a tendency, like a lot of people, that feel like I need to do it all myself yeah and you cannot scale doing it all yourself, amen, it's impossible, amen.

Speaker 4:

And so I, I'm really trying to, you know, absorb that book as as my new, my new little mini bible. Who, not how?

Speaker 3:

I can't wait. I can't wait to get that on my hands, on that book. I'm gonna.

Speaker 2:

I'm gonna buy a ticket to dig south because I feel like you for I mean, I, I went. I remember now going, a couple years ago um, with my old company that I used to work with, trio Solutions, who's also in Harvard. Oh yeah, trio is fantastic and we went and I learned a lot. But the whole AI thing, like I'm embracing it, I use it for, you know, grammarly, sometimes copywriting checking, checking my grammar checking, making sure I'm not saying incredible too many times Perfect.

Speaker 3:

Great, there's so much Awesome.

Speaker 1:

I'm not saying incredible too many times Perfect, great, there's so much. Perfect, he knows. Awesome, all the exuberant adjectives.

Speaker 2:

This is awesome. Yeah, I'm horrible about talking, and that's the way I speak, so that's the way I write.

Speaker 4:

No, you guys are doing an amazing podcast, you're flowing.

Speaker 2:

Hey, exactly, I mean the podcast.

Speaker 4:

I think you're selling yourself short. I'm hearing clear articulation over there.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, it's a labor of love. We're three years in almost.

Speaker 3:

If we didn't pick on you, then we didn't like you.

Speaker 2:

I know, but I'm excited because I think I'm going to learn a lot and I'm going to leave inspired. I think a lot of that is. Even if you have this knowledge, having it reiterated in your brain is an important part of my process for creativity. Like I want to be around people who inspire me to come home and do great things Right. So, especially because I'm a solopreneur, so I'm excited to attend. I am coming and I have the dates and we're going to have an AMA event there.

Speaker 4:

I love it. I mean, that really is the fuel that excites me the most is other people getting inspired.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 4:

I'll give you a recent story. My friend, kevin Harrison, called me up and he's a partner. He's an artist, amazing guy. He's a partner in a company called Gentleman Smugglers Cool. Another cool name you have to have them on this podcast.

Speaker 2:

Gentleman Smugglers.

Speaker 4:

And so this is a legendary story that goes back to the 70s. The founder of Gentleman Smugglers was a smuggler. He was the largest pot dealer at the time on the East coast, okay, it was. He was caught up in, I think, operation, lost trust or I can't remember what the name of the, the big sting was, but anyway he um out of that after serving his time and getting out and, and you know, he formed this company once Canada started becoming legalized and THC and all that sort of thing and these are very smart guys and they're doing it, you know, ethically and smartly and and they grew a company on this.

Speaker 4:

But kevin attended dig south, was blown away by several of the speakers and said he that day he's like I am starting a company and it's going to be.

Speaker 2:

This is what it's going to look like, and he went met these guys and did it that's cool, that is cool, I'm envisioning the logo and it's like very good, fellas, it is very good Score.

Speaker 4:

I'm like, oh, Fedora has it and they'll be at Excel as well. That is awesome.

Speaker 3:

I would feel remiss if I didn't ask this one last question I'm coming up with. Sure, ask away. Make it up on top of my head.

Speaker 2:

I love him.

Speaker 3:

But you're the guy. So like us, like me. You remember the time before all the digital stuff right Like I have nine-year-olds now, and the whole digital age is huge and very scary right as a parent, I will tell you.

Speaker 2:

you just interject, real quick with the ccsd um, the computers now, canva and cap cut and all the tools that I'm using to make my business thrive my nine-year-olds are using it is embedded in the ccsd software. Now, interesting, interesting, that's cool on the education side of things, right.

Speaker 3:

My question to Stanfield, because you've raised kids too. While all this is coming up new and fresh with everybody, how did you navigate as a parent limiting your kids.

Speaker 1:

Or managing it. I don't want to say limiting but, managing it.

Speaker 3:

I'm about to read a book called Digital Detox. It's like a two week detox of you know, nintendo Switch and YouTube.

Speaker 2:

Roblox is a big problem in my life. Dressed to Impress, I just bought the Bark app. What now the Bark app.

Speaker 4:

So the founder of Bark was a speaker at Dig Sound oh that's cool she actually emceed our Dig South Really. She actually.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's cool yeah.

Speaker 4:

Tanya she actually emceed our Wild Pitch? Really Twice yeah, no, I'm fascinated with it.

Speaker 2:

I just signed up. I'm putting my girls. They don't have phones yet. They're nine and 10. We're not doing that, but we have iPads.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

The Roblox thing. They now number one. I play with them, so I have my own. I'm very high ranked on dress to impress you're welcome. But um no, I got bark because I was tired of it feeling like it was almost altering their, my, my specifically not from, not for my stepdaughter, for my daughter, her personality, because she's so competitive by nature, like she just wants to be the best at everything, that's's including Roblox and Bark.

Speaker 2:

You can put two hours tops on Saturday instead of when she goes to her father's, and then she's playing for eight hours. All right. Because it's just too much. It's too much. But, bark, that technology is very cool.

Speaker 3:

The dopamine. Does that kind of translate?

Speaker 4:

It is a dopamine hit yeah FOMO, and you name it yeah. Pick your acronym right, right.

Speaker 2:

The one thing that's cool about Roblox is that they can log in and play with their friends. Okay, so it's kind of like Amelie is not into texting or anything like that, but she'll go into Roblox and she'll play with her friends from school. She she'll go into roadblocks and she'll play with her friends from school to play with her sister who lives in georgia, sure, and so it's like a community that they're building.

Speaker 2:

But you get really addicted to playing it, because not only the community aspects, but just being behind the screen and being good at it ranking higher, yeah, yeah my son was really into minecraft and yeah, mine, and then nba 2k.

Speaker 4:

And what was cool was he had a lot of friends through his cousin in atlanta and they maintained that friendship, especially during the pandemic, through those games yes and they were, and they were like you know, and I would question them look at, make sure they weren't letting other people into the space that they didn't know, and and they were strong about that. So that was good. But I, you know, did we do my wife and I do a good enough job with it? Probably not. I was really naive when twitter said oh, the arab spring came, we caused that look how great yeah it's gonna be, and and then google's don't be evil.

Speaker 4:

And facebook, and then they all became these monopolies yeah, you know it's too much it was. Yeah, it was very surprising to me and not really the way I didn't know the internet was going to let trolls dominate the world oh, it's a real problem so, and I believe the social media could stop it if they wanted to, and they choose not to because it generates eyeballs and clickbait, and you know and money and right and remedy.

Speaker 2:

Don't even talk to me about ticket master and the clickbait and bots and all the whole.

Speaker 4:

Yeah right, it's horrible right, so's horrible, right, so, but you know.

Speaker 3:

You just got to dig it, you got to do it. You just got to do what your gut tells you, you know, and there's a lot of parameters now as a parent, that you can put in place to protect your children.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yes.

Speaker 2:

Or you can be a dork like will go on there and she'll be like hey, mommy. And some random crazy person be like hey, I can be your daddy so that's the problem I had with meta that's the problem, because we got, we got a meta quest three for christmas yeah and the kids got an hour head start, sure, before I did, and then I got on that night I'm like, oh, this is really cool.

Speaker 3:

And they were like, oh, we're daddy. Hey, we played spin the bottle.

Speaker 2:

You're like no.

Speaker 3:

Did I tell this story already on air? I go oh my gosh, please tell me you didn't play. Like what did you guys do? Well, we were all in this room and all of a sudden you get picked to play and you spin the bottle and whoever the bottle points at you shoot them.

Speaker 2:

Nope you shoot them. Nope, like for me, that's a hard pass with a gun, mommy would be playing dress to impress.

Speaker 3:

I'm like, okay, well, that's a little bit better than the kissing game that it was in my head, right, but even still, but still like no, we're not playing that game, and then you could hear everybody yes so then they're having inappropriate conversations that I want my nine-year-old to have.

Speaker 2:

It was probably another 10 year old and then a 13 you don't know who these people are, so I had to figure out how to how to mute you can mute, all that so, but there's still chats, depending on what you're part of, and so I, if my kid is playing, I'm taking an hour out of my day and I'm playing beside her because you're legit, you, you stop right then and that you want to play.

Speaker 3:

Amelie, I'm going to play with you right now.

Speaker 2:

Let's play, yeah I know it sounds like micromanaging or whatever, but Matthew's got a cat too. Shout out to Matthew his Roblox cat he does he likes to be the pretty ladies. Have you dressed in presses like you put on clothes?

Speaker 3:

you change outfits and they give you things.

Speaker 2:

Wasn't going to ask, but yes it's cool, you know, it's very like. Appropriate for tween, tween people, but some of the people that go on, obviously not appropriate, right right, the content itself is appropriate.

Speaker 3:

It's just making parenting all that harder and I hear I'm bitching about that. Right, it's a blessing to be a parent, but it's just this whole digital age is making it.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I mean, I grew up a latchkey kid Just come back when it gets dark, the lights come out. And I grew up a latchkey kid Just come back. When it gets dark, the lights come on.

Speaker 3:

And that's how I'm trying to have the boys too Right.

Speaker 4:

But there's this but there weren't a million creepers that could find me.

Speaker 3:

We were playing Sega and Contra and those type of shoot-em-up games. I don't know Anyhow thanks for your time Stanfield.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, Mike. Stephanie, do you have anything?

Speaker 2:

else do you want to close up? No, I will be. I will sincerely buy tickets to dig south. I'm excited to attend and I'm excited to collaborate on some kind of efforts with ama for us to have like a coffee talk or something.

Speaker 3:

That'd be great we'll get margaret on board. We'll get the team um with some ideas we'll sell.

Speaker 4:

I'll get you on an email well, dig south has an incredible amount of support from over a dozen organizations that are on that charlestontechweekorg app. A ton of our partners and sponsors and it really is just a labor of love to help this community scale and grow very cool tech companies.

Speaker 3:

That's amazing. I love that. That's what we are doing here Labor of love, just trying to scale our marketing companies yeah that's true Our marketing community, and so I think that there's definitely a symbiotic way that we want to help every year, so just sign us up every year that I'm involved with AMA. Again. Stanfield, you're the man Appreciate. You got a lot going on, but yet you came here and talked to us for 45 minutes to an hour.

Speaker 4:

Really appreciate it. I love it, my pleasure. Thank you, Mike. Thanks Stephanie.

Speaker 3:

Before we leave, we need to say thanks to our sponsors. Charleston Media Solutions. Whoop, whoop, Jerry Feels Good. The DJ.

Speaker 4:

Yep, yep.

Speaker 3:

Love that guy and, of course, the American Marketing Association. If you want to sponsor or be a guest on the show, reach out to podcastcharlestonamaorg and we'll get back to you. Stan Stanfield, Is there a LinkedIn or is there a? How do we get a hold of you? Is there a A DigSouth email? You can?

Speaker 4:

give out Info at DigSouthcom.

Speaker 3:

Perfect Info at DigSouthcom Easy to remember. And then, yeah, digsouthcom, if you want, I'll get it All the handles, love it yeah. Sweet.

Speaker 2:

Alright, thank you for being with us. Charleston We'll.

People on this episode

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Mike Compton

Co-host
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Stephanie Barrow

Co-host