017: A Tale of Two Languages, Two Master’s Degrees, and Two Homes with Aurora Losada

C: Podcast




Aurora Losada came to Houston, by way of Columbia University in New York, from Madrid, Spain. She worked many years in journalism and is now Microsoft’s Global Communications Manager for Latin America. With the guidance and support from some fantastic mentors along the way, Aurora has learned much about how to lead and utilize tools like generative AI and ChatGPT. In this episode, you’ll learn so much about how mentorship can drive a brilliant, hard worker like Aurora. 

Key Points + Topics

  • [1:30] Aurora Losada was born and raised in Spain. She knew from a young age she wanted to go into journalism and discovered the best school for that was the Columbia School of Journalism in the United States. It seemed so unattainable then, but she came to the US and got her Master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia. She enjoyed her schooling so much that she got a second Master’s from Columbia, this time in International and Public Affairs. She loved her time in the States so much that she decided to put down roots and became a US Citizen. 
  • [4:50] It was a significant change to move from Spain to New York and attend a school that centered so much on a new language for Aurora. She attributes her strength in making this leap to her father. He was very progressive and hard-working. He accepted that she wanted to become a journalist but knew she shouldn’t settle for anything less than the best. He saw a vision for her and encouraged her to go to Columbia for her degree. He was her first mentor and rock throughout her whole life. 
  • [8:40] Aurora’s father was the CEO of one of the largest publishing companies in Europe (the largest in Spain). When she was a child, he would bring her to work with him. She remembers the first thing he would do to start the work day was to visit the truck drivers waiting on their trucks to be loaded with whatever books they would be distributing. He would shake all their hands and knew them and their families by name. 
  • [9:53] While she notes she’s had many different mentors in her life, she’s realized a common thread among them – they were people who wanted to help her find her way with no expectations of gain or specific results. A mentor is someone who is just there for you, and they’re not expecting you to deliver in any particular way. They want you to know that you’re valuable, you can make it, and they’ll be there for you. As they invest their time and expertise in you, they’re creating a better world, one person at a time. It’s proof that you don’t have to be a politician or someone in the spotlight to change the world. 
  • [15:25] Aurora has had many influential mentors throughout her career. Anna Baron, an Argentine journalist, was the first to show her that women should support other women, even in a professional environment. Andres she first met as the editor for the newspaper at which she worked. He was always helping, guiding, and asking how she was doing and how he could help. Susan Dechav recruited her to work at the Houston Chronicle and was her boss there. She guided and coached Aurora, taking her under her wing, and taught her what she needed to know to be successful in her career. Dwight Silverman is the Technology columnist at the Houston Chronicle and Aurora’s dear friend. He is the one who introduced her to the world of tech. When she first began work at the paper, she was focused entirely on the Spanish language and Latin culture blending and promotion. But she wasn’t paying attention to technology. Dwight told her she couldn’t afford to ignore this and then taught her about the many facets of technology in journalism. Danny (the DM Mentor) gave a presentation on SEO to Houston Public Media while Aurora worked there. His way of communicating things was very impressive, so when ODEO Academy opened, she was among the first to join and knew it would be amazing before it began. 
  • [21:15] These days, Aurora mentors people on a more junior level than her at Microsoft, though not in an official capacity. As her mentors have been for her, she’s become their sounding board and answers questions and supports them. She’ll encourage them to try new things and will be there to accompany them on the journey. Microsoft has a great mentorship program. It’s brilliant and generates internal efficiencies and opportunities for people to share their expertise within the company. 
  • [25:20] When she was still working in journalism, Aurora was a mentor through the News Literacy Project of Houston. It’s a program that pairs journalists as mentors to young students. They teach them how the news should be reported and how to find trustworthy sources and discern real and fake news. She thinks this was particularly amazing during the “boom” of fake news. There was a genuine and deep concern that the next generation would be raised not being taught how to read the news critically and discriminate between what they see on social media and other, more reputable, new sources. 
  • [28:40] When it comes to AI and content generation, Aurora has many thoughts. She understands there is a lot of confusion, fear, and expectations surrounding the concept. At Microsoft, they work with these tools a lot internally. The goal is to make generative AI a tool that supports humans, not the other way around. It’s important to make the distinction here that we’re discussing generative AI, specifically. This type of AI generates answers and content exclusively from prompts given to it by humans. 
  • [34:50] Aurora recalls a particular project she worked on where generative AI was a game-changer. She was working on a client story for a company in Mexico. She had to coordinate photoshoots. In this case, she needed to schedule, get approval, and have the photoshoot less than an hour from when she began the task. With the help of generative AI, she found the location she needed, contact information for the business personnel she needed to reach out to for permissions, as well as suggested emails and texts to send to those contacts to solve the problem she had input into the program. Bing didn’t write the story for her. It didn’t have conversations with the individuals. It effectively served as her administrative assistant. 
  • [38:35] For AI in the content generation space, it’s an interesting conversation for Aurora. ChatGPT, in particular, uses large language models. Once given a prompt/question, it’s coming up with the answers by searching all over the internet. So, you must question the source of those answers and review the sources the program will provide. For her, generative AI is good for creating summaries, drafts, and brainstorming. You will always need to polish, double-check, and expand on the content ChatGPT creates. There will always be the need for the human mind. 
  • [42:10] As a bilingual user, Aurora notes that generative AI works AMAZING in multiple languages. It’s kind of scary how good it is. In Microsoft Teams, a video meeting platform, there is a tool that will automatically translate a person in real time and provide captions for you in the language of your choice.

Guest + Episode Links

Full Episode Transcript

Danny Gavin :

Hello everyone. I’m Danny Gavin, Founder of Optidge, Marketing Professor, and the host of The Digital Marketing Mentor. I am so excited for our guest today, Aurora Losada. We’ve been connected for so many years now in different ways and obviously we’ll get to that as we discuss. Aurora is currently the Global Communications Manager for Microsoft. In her career of 20 plus years, she’s led teams focused on digital and traditional marketing, social media and more. All in two languages, allowing her content to reach the United States and Latin America. She’s an alumna of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and School of International and Public Affairs. 2 Master’s degrees. Can you believe it? And she was in the first cohort of the ODEO Academy, successfully receiving her Digital Marketing Fundamental certification. Today, we’re going to talk about mentorship, AI, and content generation and storytelling. Hey, Aurora, how are you?

Aurora Losada :

I’m super happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Danny Gavin :

There’s no way that I could do a podcast without having you as a guest, so I’m glad that you are here today.

Aurora Losada :

Thank you.

Danny Gavin :

All right, so let’s jump right in. Let’s first talk about your educational and work background. How did you get here today?

Aurora Losada :

Wow, that’s a long story. I’m gonna try to make it brief. So I’m originally from Spain. At some point I knew that I wanted to become a journalist and to study journalism. I was looking around and found out that the. Supposedly to be best school journalism in the world was the Graduate School of journalism at Columbia University, which was at that point so such an unattainable goal for me in Spain. But it happened. So that was the beginning of a very long journey that end up with me staying here and never going back to Spain, to my family’s dismay, which they point out so frequently, but just joking. I stayed here because, number one, by the time I arrived here, which was in the nineties, there was so many possibilities around and it was a fantastic place for me to be. So once I did that first master’s degree that you mentioned, I actually loved it so much that I did the second Master’s degree in International Relations and Public Affairs. I loved it as well. I’m from there on, literally. You know, it was all the way to today. It was history. Like I started getting different jobs that I loved in many different areas and I made the decision to stay here. So I became a U S citizen, citizen in the end. But I think I got the best of both worlds, both my European, Spaniard, Latino world and the US American world. So that is a very, in a nutshell, very long story that I’m simplifying. But that’s how it all started yeah no, I love that. So, you know, obviously being born in Madrid, eventually coming to the US and going to Colombia, that’s a big transition. So tell me a little bit about like what did you have to go through during that, like transition from Europe to America?

Aurora Losada :

That was a lot. I was very enthusiastic about it, so I think that helped, but there was obviously a cultural shock. To start with, I was arriving to New York City in the nineties and i remember, so my dorm was on Riverside Drive, which is, as you know very well, very close to Harlem. And I remember arriving and the day when I arrived, I was just holding my suitcases and I was at the dorms entrance and they had just slain the students at the doorsteps. And I was like, Oh my God, what did I get myself into? But I honestly loved everything that I saw. Obviously there was a big adjustment for me to be up to par with the rest of my peers and colleagues, students at Columbia University. It was an amazing experience, but it was super demanding. Obviously English was not my first language and we were talking about journalism of all things. I have to say I had a lot of help and I was talking about mentoring and I had a lot of people around me that actually supported me. In that journey. And that for me was also a big discovery about the mindset and the mentality in this country that people usually help you if you are willing to work, if you are willing to go the extra mile. It was never something that I did just on my own. I had a lot of people around supporting me. But yes, it was a big adjustment and I ended up loving it and I think that’s part of why I never did. This latest effort to go back to Spain after that, and actually to the contrary, I made all the efforts to try to stay here.

Danny Gavin :

What do you think in your childhood gave you that strength and courage to go across country And then, you know, it’s one thing if you did a degree that didn’t have to do so much with English, but, you know, choosing journalism in English, there must have been something in your.

Aurora Losada :

There was, and that was my father. My dad was a very advanced person. He obviously grew up in Spain when we were under a dictatorship with Franco and he was extremely advanced and his mindset was extremely progressive for the time. And he always told me I’m OK with you becoming a journalist, which was kind of not necessarily his cup of tea, but I would not settle for anything that is less than the best of the best because at the end of. You know of the road, you will find that is going to give you a big push. So at that point, I didn’t really understand what he was talking about, but I kind of understood that what he was trying to say is whatever decisions you make today to get the best education, to get the best experience, to be as much as you can on top of your game is going to be so beneficial for you down the road that everything that you do today is going to have an impact. And he could see for me. He could have the vision for me at that point. And he was the one who literally pushed me, which is now that I am a parent, is a lot for a father to do that. And just tell me go to New York, go to the US go to Columbia, do whatever you need to do not care about anything else. This is your journey, this is your career. And so it was a big sacrifice on his part because literally I never went back to Spain. But at the same time, I think it was a big satisfaction for him to see that he had been able. To kind of guide me in that way. And he was literally the one who accompanied me along the way, all the way. So he was the one wow i mean to have someone like that in your life, it’s crazy. And yeah, like as you know, we’re both parents to have that sort of self sacrifice in a way, right? To know that for your child that’s the best thing, but it can hurt you know, and be emotional. But to kind of overcome that. What a special person. And i know your dad passed away recently. I’m sure that’s been hard as well.

Aurora Losada :

It’s been extremely hard, Danny, because he was literally my rock. And you know it’s been hard because obviously when a father or a mother dies, that’s hard for any child. I think for me particularly it was harder because and again going back to mentorship that we’re going to be discussing later, he was my first mentor ever and he has been my constant mentor throughout my life for you know, the best and the worst situations and definitely it’s been a big loss even for my daughter, you know, and for her, obviously he was for grandpa. She did tattoo his initials on her forearm, you know, honoring him. So that is how big an impact he had in all our lives. And I’m not only that, but I have to say it’s great and I feel extremely fortunate to have had a father like that because it’s not just about the mentoring, but it’s also about the principles. That he would teach us and the many things that he would help us understand that I think if it hadn’t been because he was there for me and my brother to guide us in that way, I don’t know if I would be the person that I am today, you know? So yes, definitely. He for me has been large and alive of.

Danny Gavin :

Course, I often like, look at the parable of like a small person on top of giants shoulders, right? All the people who came before us. So we can, we’re really high, but it’s because we’re standing on them and it really sounds like your dad was a real giant in many ways absolutely No absolutely. He was and in any sense because he was also the CEO of one of the biggest polishing groups in Spain, in Europe, sorry, the biggest in Spain. And so from even from a professional standpoint, you know, he has been ethically speaking, you know, his work ethics and the way he treated people like very quickly I’ll tell you an anecdote that I will never forget. He was the CEO from time to time as we do here in the US He would bring the kids to work because it was like bring your kids to work there or whatever. So he would bring me and the first thing that he would do, he would take me to the garage where all the trucks were parked waiting to, you know, kind of load books or whatever it is that they were distributing that day. And he would go 1 by 1 to the truck drivers and he would know their names, their kids names. He would ask them for their families, you know, And he would always tell me, do never forget where you come from. Do never, no matter where you go, do never forget where you come from. And for me as a kid, that was kind of, I didn’t understand what he was trying to say, but curious enough has never left my mind. So those are all teachings that literally, you know, you need to be super lucky in life to have a friend like that to kind of guide you that way.

Danny Gavin :

After a mentor like that, I think everyone after that has a big shoes to fill. So I think that’s a good segue into Aurora. How would you define a mentor?

Aurora Losada :

You know, I think I’ve had many different mentors in my life, but I think probably the one common denominator is that it’s someone that helps you find your way with no expectations of retribution or gain or any results. They are just there for you and they’re not expecting you to deliver in any particular way. They just want you to know that you’re valuable, that you can make it. And that they will be there for you. And I think that is something that every human being needs at some point in their life. But particularly when you’re younger and when you’re starting, the other thing that I think mentor is someone that actually shows you that they believe profoundly in you and that helps you believe in yourself as well. So once they start investing their time and their knowledge and their experience. In you, I think what they are doing to some extent is creating a better world, a person at a time. You really don’t need to be a politician or sitting in the Security Council of the UN to try to change the world. I think mentors that every day in the wrong way. And so that’s one of the reasons why I think you’re so valuable.

Danny Gavin :

I love that definition.

Aurora Losada :

Well, you’re a mentor, so you can feel included in the definition.

Danny Gavin :

No, but I think. Going ahead and explaining it that like, you know, every individual is a world. And therefore if I, if I can come along and change one person’s life, it’s really like changing the world. And sometimes we think we have to, like I’ve got to be a politician, be in the public eye, I’ve got to change millions of people’s lives or thousands, but really doing one person at a time, you can accomplish the same thing. So that’s all. I’ve never heard that Aurora. So that is so exciting. I love that.

Aurora Losada :

You know, for me that has been my experience, every single mentor that I’ve had. It’s not just that they were my mentors. I knew that they were also mentoring other people as well. And that’s why it’s also so exemplary because these are people that you know, in whatever way or through whatever means, they made it and they really want to pay it forward, which is for me a big lesson as well. And that’s why. I always try to pay forward as well because that’s the way really to try to change something for the best, I guess yeah and we’re going to talk a little bit how you mentor others in a little bit. I know we’re about to talk about influential mentors, but in your life, obviously different positions, different cities. Did you intentionally find a mentor in each situation or did it kind of just develop naturally?

Aurora Losada :

I think it developed naturally. I’ve been extremely lucky, Danny most of the times in almost every single job I’ve had. And in every single kind of personal slash professional situation I’ve had, I found some kind of mentor along the way and I was not really intentionally looking for it. I don’t know if at that point I would have been able to even know how to look for a mentor, which by the way, there are ways to that, but I was not so aware. But I was just lucky enough and fortunate enough to find people or just have people coming along in life. That will be there for me and then they will be really seriously and genuinely there for me. And so one of the things that I feel very fortunate about also is that a lot of these have been men. In professional environments. So I remember, just to give you an idea, when the whole me too movement came up, the first thing that I thought was, oh, it was about time that this could happen because really it’s a really bad situation. But then I thought, Oh my God, I’ve been so extra lucky in life that not only I never had that situation, but also some many of the men that I worked with actually became my mentors. And to this day they are still my mentors. I have a mentor. Who is really now a very high executive in Citigroup who keeps telling me just use me as your soundboard and he’s not expecting absolutely anything in return and he’s been there along the way. So you can tell these are people that are really invested in making things happen for you or be as much of much of as much help as they can be for you without expecting anything. So I mean, when you have that sort of example in life, it is impossible not to try to do something similar with others, right?

Danny Gavin :

Totally you’ve been really blessed. And I know we’re friends on social media and I often see posts that come up of, like, where you’re posting old friends, old colleagues yeah i think there’s definitely a knack to you where you naturally are able to connect with people and create those, like interpersonal relationships and that’s it. You know, it’s a wonderful thing that you have.

Aurora Losada :

Oh, thank you. I think at the end it’s all about the people. And I know that we may discuss this later when we talk about artificial intelligence, which is a V topic of the day. It’s all about the people when you are working or when you are studying or when you are in that position of even helping others because you have made it to some extent. And others are just starting. Even when you are interacting with colleagues or when you are interacting with those that report to you, it doesn’t matter what level you’re at. You can never forget that. At the end of the day, everything is about the people. For me it’s a very important connection. And I’m not saying that everything is, you know, Unicorn style and wine and roses and everything like that. But what I’m saying is that if you try. And if you genuinely express an interest in seeing how you can help, you know almost immediately there will be a connection there. So I love that.

Danny Gavin :

So I know we’ve covered two of your mentors already, but like, you’ve got a bunch and there’s so much to learn. Let’s go and talk some more about the mentors in your life. People like, you know, Ana Baroa and Andre Susan, Dwight love to. Dig a little bit deeper.

Aurora Losada :

You’re right. Anna Barone was one of my first mentors. She was an Argentine journalist, unfortunately deceased by now. And I remember her as the first woman that really showed me in a professional environment that women should support women. So she was a very seasoned journalist, newspaper journalist, TV producer. She’s been everywhere. And I was just starting and I remember her advising me and suggesting me things and kind of. Asking me wherever you need help or whenever you need help, just let me know, even if we’re not working together anymore. And she was true to her word and not only with me, as I said before about many mentors, but also with a lot of people around us. So she basically showed me, oh, women actually can support women in the workplace and it is a win situation actually goes beyond a win right. It actually expands the benefits. Andres is the one that I was talking about that is not a high executive at Citigroup. He has been amazing. I worked with him as my editor in a newspaper. He was always there trying to help and guide in. And even when we were not working together anymore, he would still. And to this day that happens. Check in from time to time and say, how’s everything? Do you need any help? Is there anything that I can help with? So that is mind blowing for me. Susan Bishop was the person that actually recruited me for the Houston Chronicle and she was my boss and she was a phenomenal, amazing associate editor of the Houston Chronicle and guided me and coached me and basically took me under her wing to teach me everything that I needed to do or to know. To be successful in my job, first as the editor of the Spanish language publications and later as one of the editors of the Chronicle, I’m fondly and deeply grateful to Susan because and again, she left the Chronicle and I stayed. And yet after that she would keep telling me if you need anything, get back to me. She’s been amazing. Not only that she opened the doors of her house and her family and everything. For me and my family and literally adopted me on a in a personal way, I mean an exceptional and extraordinary person all around. Dwight Silverman. You may know him. Dwight Silverman is actually the columnist, the technology columnist, the Houston Chronicle. And Dwight, who is a very dear friend of mine to this day, was the person who actually introduced me. To everything tech. So when I started at the Chronicle, I was so concentrated on my job, which was creating the Spanish language department, Spanish language publications, building app, A-Team making sure that I understood the differences between. You know that the US culture that I had to deal with because those were my bosses and then kind of acting as a bridge with the Latino culture that was my team. So there were many nuances to my job that I was very focused on, but the one thing that I was not paying enough attention to was technology. And so White was always there guiding me and coaching me and basically nagging me. And telling me this is something that you cannot spare. You really need to know about this. You really need to understand what’s going on. This is going to affect your life, both from a professional and personal standpoint at all levels. So you cannot afford the luxury of not paying attention to this. And he was almost like a father. He was like, you have to do it and I’ll be here and I’ll tell you, and if you have any questions, come and ask me. But you really need to do it. And I’m so extremely grateful. To him because he was the person that actually kind of opened that way and that path to me, and it’s not a minor, I mean it’s not really farfetched to say that I am where I am today, in part because of Dwight. You are another big venture of mine, although you didn’t mention yourself. But I want to do it. As you mentioned before, we’ve known each other since I was working at Houston Public Media and I remember you coming in to give us a brief training on SCO. And even though I was not fully aware of every single thing that you explained at all, naturally because now that I love SEO because of you, no, that is not so simple. But I remember that the way that you were explaining things and the way that you were communicating with us. Really very much impressed me. We didn’t see each other, I think until I became or before I became an Odeo Academy student. I can’t remember, but I knew by the time I enrolled in Odeo Academy it was going to be amazing. And I was not mistaken because the one thing that has always impressed me about you, Danny, is that you go above and beyond for your students and everyone that actually needs your help. And so you know this very well that we had also one-on-one conversations that were beyond SEO And Google ads and everything that you were teaching us in the digital marketing course. And I will be telling you, hey, I don’t even know what I’m going to do with my life right now, or should I go this way or should I go that way? And you were mentoring me in amazing ways that again, as I said with White before, I will say this about you. I think a big part of my being where I am today is because of what I learned with you at Audio Academy, but also because of the kind of person that you are. When you mentioned your students and your friends, so I’m very grateful for that.

Danny Gavin :

Well, you are welcome. I do appreciate it. However, the way I look at it is it’s me opening up the door and in the in the end of the day you’re the one who has to walk through. So I appreciate you giving me a little bit of credit, but you know Aurora, a lot of it is due to you.

Aurora Losada :

Well, opening the door is important.

Danny Gavin :

So it’s a partnership, right? We both got to do what we need to do.

Aurora Losada :

That’s true.

Danny Gavin :

With this amazing team behind you, let’s talk about now how you mentor others you know in your current role at Microsoft. You know who are you mentoring? How are you mentoring?

Aurora Losada :

So you make a role. I won’t say names. Oh, by the way, one of the things I didn’t mention that I really want to say is that all the opinions that I express here are my own, not my employers. But so with that said, I mentor people who are at a more junior level and the way I do it is not necessarily in an official manner. But we work together, and as I said before about my own mentors, I become their sound board. Basically, I’m there for them if they have any questions or if they want my advice, or if there are things that they are considering doing in a different way and they want to run them by me. I’m not pushing them in any direction. I’m not doing something aggressive. I’m just being there. I’m there for them and they know that I’m there to support them. I also try to encourage them. To do different things and I will be involved in kind of accompanying them in experiencing and experimenting both with those. But the one thing I have to say and honestly it’s one of the things that I love about Microsoft, they have had a great mentorship program and so you can become a mentor inside the company just by signing up to that program and. You do not necessarily pick your mentorees or your, you know the person that are going to need you. But you are there for anyone who thinks that they might benefit from being mentored by you. And I think that’s absolutely amazing and it’s brilliant even from a professional standpoint because what that means is that you generate kind of internal efficiencies by doing that. But also you give everyone the opportunity to also share with others what they know. And you know, their own experience and I think mentoring in a big part is also satisfaction for mentors. So, you know, I think it’s a virtuous circle that is being generated there. What I try to do all the time when I’m in the capacity of doing that is giving people opportunities, not so much now because I’m not in a position where I make a decision about how people are going to be positioned themselves. But in the past, it was a big satisfaction for me when I was in that position in that capacity to actually see how people would go up or would be promoted or you know, will just do things that will make them shine. That in part was because they believed in themselves, because I was there to support that. So it was all about them, as you just said. But it’s a big satisfaction to see that happening for sure.

Danny Gavin :

Yeah, it’s funny because it’s a little, if you think about it’s little selfish, right? But it’s not because it’s amazing that when your satisfaction lies and the success of others, yeah, a little bit of selfishness is there, but it’s beautiful, right what? What could be better than helping people out and getting the joy to see people grow and being a professor at U of age for the past 15 semesters, which is crazy. I can’t tell you like all the different people that I’ve seen and accomplished and. It’s so cool. It’s like just a gratification that’s hard to describe and I love it sounds like you love it as well.

Aurora Losada :

I love it and it also kind of develops, in my experience at least, into some sort of personal relationship in terms of there is a bond. That generates between someone that is being mentored and their mentor, particularly when that person keeps achieving, you know, goals and kind of reaching milestones and getting places. There’s something there about Okay. You believed in me, you told me that I could make it. You actually kind of helped me find a way and that is kind of an indestructible bond and in my experience, that is how it works. So I think it’s beautiful, really.

Danny Gavin :

So you’ve noted in the past that you’re a mentor in the News Literacy Project of Houston. How did you get connected with this program and what is the setup like?

Aurora Losada :

So this program, actually, I’m not doing that anymore. This program is for journalists that are willing to mentor kids and students about how news are supposed to be read and found. What accuracy is, what fake news are and the distinction between real news and fake news and how to actually be able to make that distinction. So the setup basically is, well, they before COVID, I really don’t know what the setup is right now, but before COVID they will have specific sessions and they will have journalists going to classrooms and group of students to discuss this issues. I believe probably they have something online now. I don’t do that anymore because I’m not acting as a judge. Journalist anymore. But I think it was an amazing thing to do, particularly when the whole boom of fake news started to show and pop up well as we all know with Facebook and you know other social media platforms and in general even you know what in what you would consider mainstream media. So there was a very genuine and I would say deep concern that the next generations of kids, students and you know, potential adults. Will not be raised in an environment that actually teach them or shows them how to really read news and kind of discriminate between what they see on tik tok and what they see on reliable sources. So and teaching kids and helping kids understand that it’s at the very again. Changing the world a person at a time and a day at a time. It’s really also a big satisfaction because you think at the very least, at least some of these kids are going to listen to what I’m saying and maybe that those kids will also help other kids to understand that it’s a very noble and great cause, really.

Danny Gavin :

Yeah, and having that journalistic background, I’m sure it was, you know, at the point when you were a part of it sounds like right up your alley in a perfect fit.

Aurora Losada :

Yeah, and you know, for me also it was, I have a daughter who is a college student, as you know, and has been raised by a mom who was a journalist. So she’s been surrounded by that, by that kind of philosophy around nothing new to her. And yet I find myself discussing these things with my kid and she’s going to be 20 this year because the pervasiveness of some of the things that are being published on social media is really deep. And so even for someone like my daughter who was raised in this kind of environment, sometimes it’s confusing. So Danny, imagine for kids, you know, have not had that kind of experience. It’s particularly minorities and low income kids. They come from a place where they don’t have, they’re not surrounded by so many mentors or they don’t have as many possibilities, right. So I think that is an amazing thing to do and that literally will help them. We think about critical like critical thinking or you know, even applying those concepts for other things in their life, not necessarily new.

Danny Gavin :

All right, now we’re going to pivot to your area of expertise, AI and content generation. Before we jump in, I’m gonna just give a little bit of a definition. In a nutshell, AI content creation means using tools powered by artificial intelligence to generate content AI chat bots like chat gbt. Use a language based model, meaning it will respond to the text you input and then generate outputs based on the data it gathers. Now people might wonder, okay, why do you want Aurora to talk about AI? So first of all, obviously you’re part of Microsoft and chat gbt to many is the best and being what they’re doing. I mean, it’s crazy. But on the other hand, like what we spoke about earlier, you were in journalism and which is I’m not saying it’s a dying art, but for many, right, a lot of people haven’t been able to stay there but you. Shifted and moved, got more into technology, got more into SEO communications. So for anyone who’s used to a big thing coming to change things and moving on to the next thing, like who better to speak about that than you? Because you’ve shown these changes throughout your background throughout your professional journey. So I’m really glad to have you here today to talk about AI and conda generation i’m.

Aurora Losada :

A big fan. And I’m not saying this swear to God, because I work with Microsoft. I really love it. And yeah, i’m super happy that we have a chance to talk about it.

Danny Gavin :

So, having worked in digital marketing and traditional media companies like the Chronicle, KPRC in general, what is your stance on the use of AI for content generation?

Aurora Losada :

So the one thing that I want to say, and again this is all my opinion, not Microsoft, is that. I understand that there is a lot of confusion out there. Naturally this is super new and it’s been fast and furious and it’s by all means and there is no question about that technological revolution. So you know obviously that generates a lot of confusion and that generates a lot of fear and that generates a lot of expectation from where I see it. And obviously as you can imagine, we work a lot internally with these tools and particularly because I’m in the communications department. We ask communicators in inside the company work a lot with these tools. The purpose here is actually to make generative AI a tool that supports humans and not the other way around. So when I hear, and again this is me speaking, when I hear things like, oh, we’re all going to lose our jobs because of this, or this is the time when we’re all going to be wiped off. With or by a I and everything that A I is going to bring along with it. I understand the fear again and I understand the concerns. But for me they are totally unfounded because one of the things that is super important to make a distinction about is that generative A I is a very specific kind of A I, as you know very well Danny. And So what virtually generative A I does is that it will create, but it will create with prompt. And the problems need to come from a human brain. So to give you an example, we just did a story i was kind of managing a storytelling project that was amazing for me, very dear to my heart about three different Microsoft plans in Latin America, in three different countries in Latin America that are actually in the fintech industry. And they are using a I to generate financial inclusion in Latin America, which is really low. And when we were interviewing the three of them, the three of them across the board will say. The thing with a I that a lot of people do not understand yet is that this is a human brain directing a I. So whatever prompts we put into this system or whatever queries we put into this system have need to come from someone that is a human thinking being. Otherwise, you know, a I would be of no use. So the first thing that I would say is that the main purpose is to actually help us. Be more efficient, be more productive, be more creative. From that standpoint, I absolutely love it. Concerns are still out there and I would include myself when I say concerns, maybe not so much like a concern, but kind of a realization that there is still a long way to go in terms of polishing certain certain things. Obviously it has to be used in a very responsible manner and it has to be presented in a very responsible manner. Which again, by the way, that is something that Microsoft is not only very aware of, but really working a lot into And again, not talking about the company, I’m just you know, telling you my own experience, but it’s true. And that is something that obviously comes in faces. That is not something that is going to be there from the get go. But what is undeniable is that it’s well used and it’s properly used in ways that actually can help us. This is an amazing tool. So usually what happens is people concentrate on things like, oh, but it completely lost it when, you know, there is this famous anecdote of the New York, new york Times journalist that spent hours talking back and forth with GPT And then at the end of the day, GPT ended up declaring its love for him and asking him to basically leave his wife. And marry GPT, which is, which is really, you know, you understand that at some point is like, OK, this actually went off the rails because they were us talking with each other. I mean, this guy was talking with GPT for about an hour or something like that. And so these are the ways to tweak things and make them better because it’s like a trial error process. And you are experimenting, but that is something that actually gets a lot of attention in the media. What I can tell you are the things that I have been experiencing with when I’m using AI that has made my life amazingly, I would say, easier, more efficient in so many different ways. And definitely think that for what I want to do, which is concentrating on my goals and the results that I want to create, is almost like having an executive assistant on your side that will do a lot of those menial jobs for you that otherwise you need to spend a lot of time doing yourself.

Danny Gavin :

Do you have any specific examples that you can get that you can share with us?

Aurora Losada :

Actually a very recent one, so. I was trying to, for this particular story that I talked about, I was telling you that I was managing. It’s a client story that is on our website, and it involved three different clients that we were interviewing, one in Mexico, one in Brazil, one in Argentina. So I was obviously coordinating all the photo shoots in all those three different countries. So for the one in Mexico, as it happened, I needed to coordinate a photo shoot. In less than 15 minutes. This is a long story and I’m not going to bore you with that, but for different reasons, it had to happen in less than 15 minutes. I’m in Houston, this had to happen in Mexico, and I needed our person that was going to be photographed at a specific Walmart that was close to his offices and I needed permission from Walmart to have this person in there with my photographer to take the photos. Imagine doing this in less than 15 seconds and I’m in Houston and I didn’t even know where to start with, so I went to Bing. It sounds like a commercial, but I swear that this is true.

Danny Gavin :

It’s real.

Aurora Losada :

I went to Bing and I said I need you to find the closest Walmart to this particular address in Mexico City. It did. It gave me the map. It gave me The Walking and driving distance in terms of distance and in terms of time and. Once i had already settled my in my image okay this is doable. I mean this guy doesn’t need to drive for about two hours to get there. The next thing that I asked was okay. Can you give me the names and contacts of every single person in the Walmart communication department in Mexico that I will need to touch the base with just to ask for permission and just gave me the roster of names and contact info? And without my asking, it came up with suggestions of different communications or emails that I could send for this particular task if I wanted to do so. And so in 5 minutes I was calling the right person at Walmart Mexico to ask them for permission. And so I can tell you this, because I know this, if it weren’t because of being at that particular point, it could have taken me hours to do the same thing so bing was not writing the story for me, you know, Bing was not doing anything for me that I didn’t want Bing to do. Bing was assisting me with information that otherwise could have taken me a long time to find around the Internet, you know, So it’s those are the things that I’m still learning to use Bing in that way, but those are the things that literally. Blow my mind every day. And now that we have Copilot that you have probably heard of, which is basically applying these for Microsoft three sixty five, it’s absolutely mind blowing because you can go into a meeting and just, you know, tell Copilot, okay give me all the notes from previous meetings with this client or this person and just summarize the notes and then make a PowerPoint for me so I can share it on this call. And it will be like, boom, boom. So for me, it’s like, oh, I always wanted to have an executive assistant in my life. And finally it’s happening, you know, but Copilot will not talk for you in that meeting, will not make business decisions for you. That need in. So I think that is a very important distinction that needs to be made when we talk about generative AI.

Danny Gavin :

Most marketers seem to agree that AI content won’t replace human copywriters and content writers. What do you think is the sort of upper limit on what you would feel comfortable generating with AI specifically from a content perspective?

Aurora Losada :

The one thing about chatbots like GPD that are AI generated and as you said before, particularly with GPD, it uses large language models and as you know very well, the information that this particular tool is coming back with once you generate a prompt or ask questions, comes from searching around the web, right? So the first concern obviously is accuracy. Where is this coming from? Where is the source? What is the source? How do I know that you know this is a reliable source? I would say if you ever try Bing in this way you will see that once it gives you the answer or answers, it also gives you know different numbers of this is source one, This is source two if you want to link on. If you want to click on the link, here is the link for you. But still you know it’s i would say it’s a decent concern to have. The other thing is. One of the things that I think is great that GPT is great for on, in this case Bing, because as you know, it’s the same model, it’s the same technology, it’s basically creating summaries or drafts or even generating at your prompt ideas the things you will always need to Polish that. You will always need to double check that. You will always need to expand on that. So it’s i would say it’s a great Kickstarter, but that’s not the end of it. There’s always again the human brain that needs to jump in and needs to tweak things and need to massage things and need to make sure that everything is correct and needs to make sure that the right information is there. I would say that down the road, probably because all these tools will only improve and will become more intelligent. I think probably down the road what we will see is better uses of Bing or GBT in kind of at scale right now, although there is a lot of fun and we also do that like write me a poem about this and that and. I want to write a book about this and that, so give me the plot or you know, that’s a lot of fun. There’s still a way to go when we want to use artificial intelligence in that way. What I completely agree on with you, and I am absolutely convinced of, is that none of this will replace anyone working any human working on creating content, on supervising content, on understanding other humans brains, on understanding importance of interaction and rapport. On you know, someone who is interviewing other person. That is something that GPT is not going to do for you. If you are thinking about an audience and how to generate content for an audience from a marketing standpoint, you need to know your audience and you need to understand what takes your audience and you need to understand how your audience is going to react. Again, great tool for a system. I don’t think that is a tool for replacing.

Danny Gavin :

But it sounds like that if you don’t embrace this tool, you might be out of a job, right? Because if everyone else is using it. You’re going to be at a totally disadvantage.

Aurora Losada :

I totally believe so. Not just applying the tool, but with the whole adoption of the tool also comes a changing mindset and I can tell you that applies for me as well. So once you start playing around with it and experimenting it and understanding how amazing this can be in many different ways, it changes your life and it changes your mind. But if you resist it and if you dismiss it, that is a problem.

Danny Gavin :

Yes, and because you’re bilingual and you’re dealing with Latin America, do you have any experiences with how multiple languages play into the content output from AI?

Aurora Losada :

It’s amazing. It’s really good.

Danny Gavin :

So whether it’s English, whether it’s Spanish, it’s on, it’s good.

Aurora Losada :

It’s perfect. That’s kind of scary.

Danny Gavin :

You know, it’s funny because, you know, i don’t know if you’re a scifi person, but in Star Trek, the idea is how come all these different nationalities can speak to each other, understand. Because there’s this like universal translator, Yes, you know, and with these types of things, you understand well, it’s going to happen where we’ll, you know, have something in our ear and when people are talking, you know, we’ll hear exactly what it is because no longer our language is a barrier, but it’s all the same using tools like this absolutely actually, it’s funny that you say that. Well, as you know, Teams, which is Microsoft’s tool for video calls, is what we use of course. And one of the things that I found out when I first started working with Microsoft or for Microsoft was that when you are on a Teams call, there is a tool inside Teams that will automatically translate the conversation in front of you and will create captions. For you. So if you are talking with someone that’s in China and they’re talking in Chinese, you can have teams automatically translating that for you and creating closed captions for you in your language. And the same for the person on the other end of the screen, so. Literally what you are saying is absolutely true. This is you know the language barriers with artificial intelligence are literally gone. It’s also a matter of how we’re going to use those basically will it will this be something that actually we will capitalize on to expand our professional horizons or our. You know relationships with others just because now we can communicate in their own language and they can communicate with us in our land in our own language. So that that’s great but and as I said it is perfect. It’s you know first time I was literally trying being and GPT in Spanish and I was literally kind of okay, bring it on. I’m gonna try to look at all the different things that you’re going to do wrong. And when it came back in perfect Spanish, I was like, holy cow, this can’t be happening. So it’s great.

Danny Gavin :

So the crazy thing is, I’ve got questions literally for a whole another hour, so we’re gonna have to do a Part 2 yeah But.

Aurora Losada :

Before we wrap up today, I’d love to hear Aurora’s top three podcasts. What do you recommend people listen to? One of the podcasts that I love lately is The Hard Fork by the New York Times. These are all tech podcasts. Not all of them, but most of them. The other one that I really like is on with Kara Swisher. It’s on Spotify and also kind of. It’s very much concentrated on tech, but it’s very much it’s funny as well. So if anyone is interested in listening to that one, it’s also very entertaining. One of the podcasts that I used to love and it has been discontinued is there to lead with our brain around and I said our because she’s from Houston, it helped me a lot to understand leadership from human standpoint and the empathy. That brene Brown is always trying to recommend that leaders use in everything they do. It’s been discontinued, as I said, but still on Spotify and all the episodes are there. If anyone is interested is really a great one.

Danny Gavin :

That’s an awesome list. So where could listeners learn more about you and your business?

Aurora Losada :

Well, I’m on LinkedIn and it’s Aurora Lozada my name. Everything that has to do with me and my business and my professional interests is there, so if they want to find me there and connect there, I will be more than happy to so.

Danny Gavin :

Love it. And obviously everything Microsoft related, you know where to find it, but make sure to use Bing. And we won’t talk about the other guy, Aurora. It’s been such a pleasure. Like I said, we literally could go on for another hour. Thank you so much for being a guest on the digital marketing mentor and thank you listeners for tuning in to the digital marketing mentor. We’ll speak with you next time.

Aurora Losada :

Thank you, darling.

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