Tony Seale has been at the forefront of linking data, combining creativity with technical expertise. His pioneering work integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) and Knowledge Graphs within large organizations has garnered widespread attention, primarily through his popular weekly LinkedIn posts. This ongoing contribution to the field has earned him the title ‘The Knowledge Graph Guy.’

Tony’s journey into AI and Knowledge Graphs began as a personal project, secretly developed from a computer under his desk while at an investment bank. What started as a passion soon transformed into deep expertise, enabling him to deliver mission-critical Knowledge Graphs into production for Tier 1 banks, helping them unlock the full potential of their data.

Today, as the founder of The Knowledge Graph Guys, Tony is dedicated to helping organizations harness the power of their data. His consultancy develops cutting-edge Knowledge Graphs that fuel innovation and growth in the rapidly evolving Age of AI.

Where to find Tony Seale:

* https://www.knowledge-graph-guys.com/

* https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyseale/

What You Will Learn

In this episode of the Graymatter podcast, James Gray interviews Tony Seale, known as the Knowledge Graph Guy, to explore the significance of knowledge graphs in business strategy and AI. They discuss the foundational concepts of knowledge graphs, the role of ontology, and the importance of data relationships in leveraging AI effectively.

Tony emphasizes the urgency for organizations to build a strong ontological core to navigate the impending AI revolution and maintain their competitive edge. In this conversation, Tony Seale discusses the importance of knowledge graphs in modern data strategies, emphasizing their role in achieving total data connectivity and the need for decentralized approaches. He explains how organizations can create semantic data products and develop their ontological core iteratively.

The conversation also addresses the challenges organizations face in collaboration and the management of intellectual property within ontologies, highlighting the necessity for a strategic approach to data integration and innovation.

Key Takeaways

* Knowledge graphs represent data as interconnected nodes and edges.

* Ontology is crucial for capturing the semantics of data in a business context.

* AI's effectiveness relies heavily on the quality of underlying data.

* Organizations must focus on their data strategy to leverage AI effectively.

* Large language models thrive on rich relationships within data.

* Knowledge graphs can be used to train proprietary AI models.

* LLMs can assist in building and refining ontologies.

* A strong ontological core is essential for organizational identity.

* Organizations must consolidate their data to avoid being outcompeted.

* The AI revolution presents both challenges and opportunities for businesses. Knowledge graphs are becoming increasingly recognized as essential technology.

* Total data connectivity is crucial for effective data management.

* Connections within data provide context and meaning.

* Organizations must stand up their data products for effective integration.

* The development of an ontological core is an iterative process.

* Engagement from all levels of the organization is necessary for success.

* Organizations need to identify use cases to test knowledge graph strategies.

* Collaboration between IT and business teams is vital for overcoming data silos.

* Intellectual property within ontologies must be managed carefully.

* The evolution of the ontological core is essential for ongoing innovation.

Episode

00:00 Introduction to Knowledge Graphs and Tony Seale

02:07 Understanding Knowledge Graphs

04:16 The Role of Ontology in Knowledge Graphs

06:24 AI and the Iceberg Analogy

09:40 Data Strategy as the Core of AI Strategy

11:16 Leveraging Relationships in Large Language Models

13:41 Training AI Models with Knowledge Graphs

17:31 Using LLMs to Build Ontologies

19:19 The Ontological Core and Its Importance

20:43 The Urgency of Building an Ontological Core

29:07 The Strategic Advantage of a Strong Ontological Core

36:26 The Rise of Knowledge Graphs

38:55 Decentralization and Data Connectivity

41:30 Creating Semantic Data Products

46:18 Iterative Ontology Development

50:56 Practical Steps for Implementation

56:05 Challenges in Organizational Collaboration

59:32 Managing Intellectual Property in Ontologies

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Summary

In this episode of the Graymatter podcast, James Gray interviews Chris Tidrick, CIO at Gies College of Business, discussing the critical aspects of leadership in IT. Chris emphasizes the importance of understanding the people side of technology leadership, the significance of hiring individuals with strong interpersonal skills, and the need for leaders to support and uplift their teams.

The conversation explores how to select leaders, the cultural norms that foster effective leadership, and the balance between technical expertise and management skills. Chris shares insights on promoting growth within teams and the importance of candid conversations about career paths in technology. In this conversation, Chris Tidrick shares insights on leadership, team dynamics, and transitioning from a technical role to a leadership position. He emphasizes the importance of supporting teams, understanding client needs, and building organizational relationships.

Tidrick also discusses the significance of communication and storytelling in IT and the need for personal creative outlets to maintain fulfillment in leadership roles. In this conversation, Chris Tidrick and James Gray explore the intersection of leadership, creativity, and technology. They discuss embracing creativity beyond work, finding personal fulfillment, and transitioning from self-focused to other-focused leadership. Tidrick emphasizes the value of leadership training and how AI can serve as a powerful tool for personal and professional growth, ultimately highlighting that the future of IT is about people, not just technology.

Takeaways

* Leadership in IT requires a balance of technical skills and emotional intelligence.

* Hiring for leadership roles should prioritize interpersonal skills over technical expertise.

* It's essential to understand the business context in which technology operates.

* Candid conversations build trust and transparency within teams.

* Transitioning from a technical role to leadership can be challenging but rewarding.

* AI can serve as a valuable tool for leaders to enhance their decision-making.

* Creating a supportive environment is crucial for team success.

* Leaders should focus on uplifting their team members.

* Understanding team dynamics can help resolve conflicts effectively.

* The future of IT leadership will increasingly focus on people rather than technology.

Sound Bites

* "Hire good humans."

* "You can lead from wherever you are."

* "We need to understand the business."

Chapters

00:00: Introduction to Leadership in IT

05:32: Selecting Leaders: The Balance of Technical and People Skills

11:16: Evidence of Leadership: What to Look For

16:32: Candid Conversations: Supporting Team Growth

22:18: Promoting Growth: Testing Leadership Skills

27:28: Elevating Teams Through Leadership

36:12: Understanding Clients and Building Relationships

41:04: Cultivating Connections and Communication

47:33: Finding Personal and Professional Creative Outlets

52:47: The Balance of Purpose and Personal Fulfillment

1:00:40: Leveraging AI for Leadership Growth

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Hey everyone, it’s James here with a fresh dive into Google NotebookLM—an AI research assistant quietly reshaping how we interact with our own ideas and documents.

Imagine having a brainstorming partner that never tires: upload your documents, ask questions, and let NotebookLM (powered by Gemini LLM) uncover insights you didn’t even know you needed.

You might have seen demos on the Audio Overview feature—a podcast-style discussion between AI hosts. But today, I’m sharing something hot off the press: a new beta feature that landed in my NotebookLM instance this morning.

In this video, I’ll show you Interactive mode—a game-changer that lets you dive into AI-generated conversations in real-time. It’s like stepping into the chat and steering the narrative.

Curious about how AI can amplify your thinking or help you create new forms of content for your audience? Let’s explore what makes this tool so intriguing—and maybe even transformative.

Google NotebookLM is free, and I suggest you take it for a spin.

I’d love to hear how you’d use it. Drop your thoughts below!

- James

Graymatter by James Gray is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🔥 Last week, Google dropped the Gemini 2.0 Flash experimental model, and it’s nothing short of revolutionary. One standout feature?

The Multimodal Live API—a game-changer that can see, reason, and interact with you in real time through voice. 🚀

In this demo, I take you into Google AI Studio to experience Gemini 2.0 in action.

Here’s what you can do:

1️⃣ Talk to Gemini through your microphone and have it respond instantly.

2️⃣ Use your webcam to show Gemini what to focus on and watch it process visuals on the fly.

3️⃣ Share your screen and let Gemini reason and interact with your content in real time.

This is next-level AI you’ve got to see to believe.

🎥 Dive in and I hope you find an interesting use case for this.

Graymatter by James Gray is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Hey everyone, it’s James Gray here, where I will guide you through agents - the hottest thing in AI. 🌟

What are they?

Why do they matter?

And how can you leverage them—whether you’re a technologist or a non-technical business leader.

In this short video, I’ll demystify AI agents and show you how to create an agent experience from your desktop using tools like Claude.

From frameworks to real-world applications, this is your simple guide to tapping into the future of intelligent systems.

💡 Whether you’re leading a team, running a business, or exploring new tech, this is your chance to stay ahead in the AI revolution.

References:

* 📝 Google Doc instructions on how to set up your desktop.

* Anthropic Claude - https://www.anthropic.com/claude

* Model Context Protocol - https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol

* Model Context Protocol (Official Documentation) - https://modelcontextprotocol.io/introduction

♟️ Data and AI Strategy: use AI agents to automate and accelerate workflows that reduce cost and time-to-market while integrating them into products and services that boost customer willingness-to-pay and premium prices.

🤖 The best way to learn AI is to build and use AI.

🎥 Watch and let me know your thoughts below!

Expand your intelligence in data and AI strategy to accelerate business and career innovation.

Welcome to the Inner Quest podcast, where I share career strategy concepts to help you craft and activate an intentional career that unlocks your full potential. 🚀

P.S. You can edit your section subscriptions if you do not want to receive updates from the Inner Quest section of the Graymatter newsletter.

When people feel the need for career growth and change, they often go directly to looking for a job. This approach may work, but in my experience as a leader and coach, I often find people are not 100% clear on what they want and why.

They lack a clear and compelling vision to guide their job search. They lack the self-awareness of how a role fits their broader career and life goals.

Time is precious, and an empowering vision can help us travel further and faster towards our destiny.

What is Career Vision?

In BE 2.0, Jim Collins describes vision through the Collins-Porras Vision Framework:

* Core Values and Beliefs - a system of fundamental motivating principles and tenets. Core values and beliefs get instilled by what you do, by specific, concrete actions, not by what you say.

* Purpose - the fundamental reason for a company's existence - its ultimate reason for being. A crucial aspect of purpose is that it's always worked towards, but never fully achieved, like chasing the earth's horizon or pursuing a guiding star.

* Mission - a big, hairy, audacious goal (BHAG). Your mission must meet one overriding criterion: it must be compelling.

While his focus is on the business context, the same ideas can be applied to us as individuals. We can fine-tune the concept of leadership to "self-leadership."

An important concept and mindset here is that vision drives strategy and tactics. 

This means your immediate focus is not on “how” you achieve your vision, as that will eventually come. 

It’s most important first to articulate your vision of what you want and why.

Focusing too much on how will constrain your vision as you will think about why you can earn and make it a reality.

Why is Vision Important?

Having a vision for your career and life is crucial for several reasons. Without a clear vision, you may face numerous challenges hindering your progress and satisfaction.

Some common problems include:

* Lack of Direction: Without a vision, you may struggle to make decisions that align with your long-term goals, leading to confusion and inconsistency.

* Wasted Resources: Time, money, and energy can be squandered on activities that don’t contribute to your desired future, causing frustration and burnout.

* Missed Opportunities: Without a clear vision, you might overlook opportunities that could advance your career and personal growth.

A clear and compelling vision can help overcome these problems by providing:

* Focused Decision-Making: A vision is a guiding star, helping you make choices aligned with your long-term goals and values.

* Efficient Resource Allocation: Knowing where you want to go ensures that your time, money, and energy are invested in the right places, maximizing your productivity and satisfaction.

* Motivation and Persistence: A vivid vision of your future can inspire and motivate you, giving you the strength to persevere through challenges and setbacks.

💡Ultimately, a well-defined vision empowers you to live a purposeful and fulfilling life, steering you toward your true potential and desired outcomes.

I hope the podcast provides you with a nugget that catalyzes you to craft a compelling vision for 2025 and beyond.

Thanks for reading Graymatter.

- James

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This first Inner Quest podcast overviews the Inner Quest cohort course, designed to help people craft and activate an intentional career strategy.

In follow-up episodes, the podcast will teach you each of the career strategy concepts and how to put them into practice and thrive in a career you love.

My aspiration for this podcast series is to make it a convenient and effective way to learn these strategy topics while you drive, walk, or do errands around town. Each podcast will focus on one concept so you can digest each of the Inner Quest framework concepts in a bite-sized way.

If you want to take your learning to the next level and accelerate your transformation after listening to these podcast episodes, you can join an upcoming Inner Quest cohort, where I will guide you through the journey over four weeks with assignments and personalized coaching.

👉 https://maven.com/james-gray/inner-quest

But first, my goal is to share the concepts broadly to help you learn and start applying these concepts in small ways right now!

Feel free to post questions and comments for this episode.

I look forward to hearing how you leverage strategic visioning to craft a unique career that empowers you to thrive.

Thanks for listening to the Inner Quest!

-James

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Hello, everyone, and thanks for subscribing to my Graymatter newsletter and podcast to learn about data, AI, and how to thrive in your career. 🙏

I am excited to share that I am extending my Substack with a new section dedicated to an idea I call the “Inner Quest.” Essentially, it’s an inner journey to build self-awareness and a strategic mindset that guides your choices and brings out your full career potential.

I have been fascinated by this topic for many years, given how critical it is to shaping economic success and overall well-being. It influences the books I read, the podcasts I listen to, and how I coach people.

The Inner Quest section of my newsletter will include ideas, strategies, and book references to help you develop self-awareness and resilience and learn proven career strategies that deliver results.

You can edit your section subscriptions if you do not want to receive updates from the Inner Quest section.

I am so passionate about this idea that a few months ago, I created a cohort course on Maven.com to teach and guide people through the frameworks for crafting and activating an intentional career strategy.

If this sounds like a priority for you, check out my Inner Quest cohort course.

I have two upcoming Inner Quest cohorts:

* 📅 Month cohort: October 21st - November 22nd

* 📅 Weekend cohort half days: October 26th / 27th

I would love to hear your feedback on career strategy topics, challenges, and ways I can serve you. Your feedback will guide me on upcoming topics on which I will produce content.Thanks for reading and listening. I would appreciate it if you shared my content with people who could benefit from it.

-James

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Google NotebookLM is a personalized AI research assistant powered by Gemini Pro 1.5 that becomes an expert in your information. NotebookLM lets you read, take notes, ask questions, organize your ideas, and more, helping you do your best thinking.

You can upload various documents, including Google Docs, Slides, PDFs, text files, and web URLs. This provides the language model with additional context, such as private content that is inaccessible on the internet.

NotebookLM is a web UI that enables you to ask questions about your sources, generate creative ideas, and analyze information. It’s similar in concept to OpenAI custom GPTs that enable you to upload documents that ground the ChatGPT models with additional context.

Virtual Instructor Use Case

I experimented with NotebookLM to create a virtual instructor for my “Inner Quest: Crafting an Intentional Career Strategy” cohort course on the Maven platform. The course materials include Google Docs and Slides. I easily uploaded the Inner Quest course syllabus and lessons for the first week of the cohort course from my Google Drive. There is currently a limit of 50 files that you can upload.

When you upload a Google Doc, Slide, or a local PDF or text file from your computer, the NotebookLM copies the original file. NotebookLM will notify you if the original Google Doc or Slide has changed, and then you can refresh the content if you desire.

Within a few minutes, I had a chat experience grounded in my course materials. Responses to my questions included citations to my course documents.

NotebookLM also generates new content from your source content. The Notebook Guide will automatically generate a summary of your sources and suggest three high-level questions that you can ask to explore the material. These three generated questions are positioned above the chat box.

You can also generate more detailed guides that will give you an overview of the source information in different formats:

* Table of Contents - an organized summary of your content

* Briefing Doc - an executive summary of your content

* Timeline - chronological list of the major events discussed in your uploaded source

* FAQ - questions and answers

* Study Guide - quizzes and an answer key

The “notes” feature is another way to curate unique content. Notes are spaces within a notebook where you can copy and paste AI responses and key passages from your sources or write down thoughts related to your notebook.

Notebook Sharing

Like other Google products, you can share a notebook with specific people, but there are current restrictions:

* You are not able to share a notebook as public.

* You can only share notebooks with other users who have the same email domain as you.

* Personal Gmail and EDU accounts can be shared with a maximum of 50 individual users and can't be shared with Google Groups.

* Google Workspace Enterprise accounts (like "[email protected]") can be shared with an unlimited number of people and Google Groups. This feature works great for my course since I use Google Groups (including any Google account) to secure access to course material.

* When you share a notebook, you can grant either "Viewer" or "Editor" access by adding their email address. Viewers have read-only access to the shared notebook, meaning they can read the source documents and notes but can't make any changes. Editors can view, add, or remove sources and notes within the shared notebook. They can also share the notebook with others.

Podcast Conversation

I requested a podcast conversation be generated to provide an overview of the Inner Quest course. I think the synthetic podcast in this post did a better job than me explaining what this course is about and why it’s valuable!

Potential Use Cases

* Research Assistant: NotebookLM can be very helpful for research projects, especially those involving many different documents. You can upload various file types like PDFs, Google Docs, text files, web pages, and even Slides into NotebookLM, and it can answer your questions based on the information within those documents

* Help Center/Onboarding Guide: NotebookLM can create help documentation or onboarding guides. Combining a chat interface with information pulled directly from the source material can effectively provide users with the information they need.

* Meeting/Interview Transcript Analysis: If you often work with transcripts from meetings or interviews, NotebookLM can help you analyze and extract insights from them. NotebookLM allows you to upload these transcripts and then ask questions about them.

* Working with Books and Long-form Texts: NotebookLM can also be a valuable tool for researchers who work extensively with books and other long-form texts. Instead of manually combing through pages of notes, you can upload excerpts or key quotes from your readings into NotebookLM.

* Content Creation and Brainstorming: NotebookLM can also be helpful for content creation and brainstorming. It can help you generate ideas, create outlines, and draft content.

How to Learn and Try

Google NotebookLM is experimental and free.

The best way to learn AI is to use AI.

Try it at: https://notebooklm.google/

🧠 Thanks for reading Graymatter. I look forward to hearing your feedback!

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Stoic philosophy is full of guiding wisdom that will change your daily life. I started learning and practicing Stoic philosophy in 2017 when I faced a challenging situation and needed tools to help me take control of my life. The core idea of focusing on what you can control radically shaped how I interpreted events, where I spent my time, and the behaviors and habits I needed to change to get what I wanted. The first Stoic book I read was Obstacle of the Way by Ryan Holiday. Since then, I have read his follow-up books, including Stillness is the Key, Courage is Calling, and Discipline is Destiny. Last week, Ryan Holiday released Right Thing, Right Now, the third book in the Stoic virtues series of Courage, Temperance, Justice, and Wisdom.

I started reading Right Thing, Right Now this morning, and I love the stories that reinforce how to apply these Stoic ideas of character, decency, honor, and integrity. These concepts are timeless, and by integrating them into our mindset, we improve the habits and rituals that deliver the outcomes we seek.

A few weeks ago, I visited Ryan Holiday’s Painted Porch bookstore in Bastrop, TX, outside of Austin. I was curious to explore the books on display, which included many from authors on the Daily Stoic podcast.

I highly recommend you check out Ryan Holiday’s book collection if you want more control, discipline, freedom, and honor. His books easily fit in your hand, and chapters are often short with clear ideas that can be put into practice. I also listen to his books on Audible to refresh and calibrate my memory with ideas that shape my destiny.

Good values, good character, and good deeds. Adopt and demonstrate these concepts through your daily actions. Your reputation must proceed you. Your friends, co-workers, and family need examples of living the good life. It’s contagious. Do the right thing, right now.

Thanks for listening. Please share my newsletter with others in your network who can benefit from it.

- James

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