Curious & Cuirky

In this session, we discuss:  

*The Disney Juggernaut Back on Track: Disney has been in the news lately for a lot of reasons, but the rehiring of former CEO Bob Iger seems to signify a doubling-down on the organization's legendary customer focus. Let's take a look at the strategic reasons behind Dinsey's latest moves, with a particular emphasis on the Disney+ streaming service and the implications to Netflix and other streaming competitors.  

*What's a "Prompt Engineer?" The rise of generative AI tools is creating a need for what is being called "prompt engineers" ... people who write questions and prose for AI chatbots to test and improve their answers. For instance, the company, Anthropic - which Google has invested $400 million into date - currently has a job opening for a prompt engineer with a salary of $375,000. Wow!

*Is Brick-and-Mortar shopping here to stay? We will explore this question through the lens of customer value and ask another question - Can all value be home-delivered?  

*How Will the Future Space Economy Impact The World?

Hosted by: Tim Boyd

Produced by: Tracylynne Williams

In this session, we discuss:  

*Why did Tesla slash its prices by up to 20% on its cars earlier this year? Why now? Pricing strategies are critical - especially when an industry is shifting. How much pricing leadership do you have?

*In his book, Hit Makers, The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction, author Derek Thompson recommends a strategy for creating hits by leveraging the principle of "familiar surprise." What will be some of the "familiar surprises" we'll be seeing this spring and summer, and most importantly, how can we leverage this same principle of a familiar surprise to create our own hits? Let's find out.  

*Some companies are still struggling to hire workers resulting in the current low Labor-Force Participation Rate. Can the solution be found in defining your Employee Value Proposition?  

*Skills as the new currency for work and accounting for the impact of generative AI.

*Innovation requires failures. Some may look at yesterday's SpaceX launch as a failure, but it isn't. It was a data success with an opportunity to learn the unknown.

Hosted by: Ravin Jesuthasan

Produced by: Tracylynne Williams

In this session we discuss:  

*How can you tell the difference between a Trend or Fad? How can Beyond Meat provide lessons for B2B Technology Companies? If you are on the "receiving end" of a potential trend that could disrupt your business - are there ways to mitigate your potential risk?  

*The Future of Team Ideation.. Part 2! How might the new visual AI content creation programs affect the design and facilitation of team ideation (or brainstorming) sessions? Let's find out!  

*The World's Most Admired Companies of 2022 - What makes them admirable?

*Generative AI and the Future of Work - How is the new generation of AI transforming work and what does it mean for organizations and their talent?  

*How Platforms can Power the Circular Economy.  

Hosted by Tim Boyd

Produced by Tracylynne Williams 

*The Brighter Side of Risk - whether it’s war, pandemic, inflation or recession, managing risk is essential in today’s business world.  But if you could turn risks into new offerings, perhaps you would view an uncertain environment as the best time to compete.  

*The Future of Team Ideation… How might the new AI content creation programs affect the design and facilitation of team ideation (or brainstorming) sessions? Let’s find out!

*Burning Bridges at Work - Is it Ever the Right Decision? - As Prince Harry’s book breaks sales records, it’s worth exploring this question.

*From Hot Dogs to Astro Turf, How Supply Chain Issues is Impacting the Super Bowl.

*Can space-based solar power solve the world's energy crisis?

Key Words:

Risk, Super Bowl, Space-based Solar, Energy Crisis, Supply Chain, Ideation, Future of Work, Platform Strategy, Transformation, Organizational Leadership, Marketing

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Hosted by Tim Boyd
Produced by Tracylynne Williams

*“Kidults” an emerging segment since the pandemic, driving $9B in the toy industry (25% of US toy sales and 60% dollar growth). Learn how Legos and others are leveraging the trend and what it might it mean for your business strategy.
 

*The Best Inventions of 2022… Part 2! From Time magazine’s list of the 200 Best Inventions of the Year. We’ll get the details on several of the most interesting, important, entertaining, and fun inventions. We’ll also be looking at the creativity – and innovation – strategies behind them!

*Supply chain problems hit New York’s Broadway show industry hard… and result in stage design innovations. With shortages of everything from lumber to flameproof paper, producers of large Broadway shows are struggling with broken, post-Covid supply chains and talent requirements necessary to construct stage sets and lighting designs. The new Broadway mandate… “find innovative ways to support these shows” because the show must go on, with or without supporting supply chain partners.

*2023 Trend Analysis:  At the turn of the new year, many organizations publish trends and perspectives that they anticipate will be significant in the coming year. The most common trends address retail, eCommerce, macro, tech, and Web3. There are also trends covering b2b marketing and sales, AI, mobile apps, APIs, and ESG.  I will highlight 5 trends that are particularly relevant to platform professionals.

*Crisis in the Air: Southwest Airlines suffered an "operational meltdown" that wasn't seemingly handled that well. There were many narratives that the leadership wasn't in control of which caused continued frustration with their customers.  We will discuss some effective strategies that if employed could have significantly improved their crisis management response.  

Key Words:

Supply Chain, Kidult, Southwest, Trends, Inventions, Innovation, Marketing, Platform Strategy, Future of Work, Transformation, B2B

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Hosted by Tim Boyd
Produced by Tracylynne Williams

 

*Kroger Buys Albertsons For $25B - Will It Work?  This latest mega M&A deal has us wondering:  why do many such deals fail?  Let’s look at the Marketing and Sales reasons why many promising combinations of two smart companies often fall well short of expectations, and what can be learned.  
 

*GE’s New Focus - the Great Break Up.  Once the poster child of conglomeration is now breaking into GE Aerospace, GE Vernova and GE HealthCare to focus.  What can the magnetic effect of focus possibly do for your business?
 

*What are the best inventions of 2022? From Time magazine’s list of the 200 Best Inventions of the Year… we’ll get the details on several of the most interesting, important, entertaining and fun inventions. We’ll also be looking at the creativity – and innovation – strategies behind them! (This will be the first of two parts.)

 

*Return to Office - How social media is being used to make coming back to the office look inviting to young professionals.

 

*It’s time to dust off your “failure resume” - Embracing failure is becoming increasingly acceptable in the world of business with studies showing failure early in your career leads to more future success. How can we best leverage our failures to drive future success in our businesses?
 

Key Words: Kroger, Albertsons, GE, General Electric, Remote Work, Inventions, Failure

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Hosted by Tim Boyd
Produced by Tracylynne Williams
 

In this session we discuss:

*Have you checked out a Return Bar yet? We have been enjoying the trend of free online returns for a few years. The problem is that returns are not free to the merchants - the average retailer has $166 million in returns for every $1 billion in sales.  What can companies do to minimize costs & regain profit?  There are some great lessons if your business is looking for creative ways to cut rising costs and keep your customers happy.
 

*At Google’s AI event this month a new prototype writing program named Wordcraft was debuted. Unlike other AI writing tools like Jasper and Open AI, Wordcraft was built to help writers create works of fiction, even complete novels! What might some of the ramifications of the new AI writing tools be for business productivity, creativity, talent recruiting and culture building? Let’s find out!  

*As the tech industry cuts jobs, it shines a new light on an old question: Is there a right way to downsize?

*The Unforeseen Impacts of Unconscious Bias on your Business

Diversity in the workplace is becoming increasingly popular. Are businesses participating because of the favorable optic or because they realize the value it can have on their financial success?

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Hosted by Tim Boyd
Produced by Tracylynne Williams

In this session we discuss:

*Over-engineering Insight Programs

Companies are investing more money, time and effort than ever in trying to generate insights into customer buying behavior and market dynamics.  In the process, they are creating vocabulary, definitions and tools that are having the opposite effect; causing companies to miss insights that they could leverage.  Here’s how to avoid over-complicating your insights program.

*The 4 Day Work Week - Is it Possible? Other countries have proven that a 4 Day can definitely be successful.

*Delivering on a Living Wage During a Recession

Many organizations around the world have committed to providing a living wage. How will they navigate this and their other ESG commitments when their bottom lines are under pressure like they haven’t seen for many years?

*Does your mayo need a mission statement? Can a condiment change the world? What does it mean to have a purpose driven organization?

*Why Supply Chain Problems are Not Going Away Soon

Jim Farley, CEO at Ford said in a recently in an AOL interview, “It feels like supply chain whac-a-mole!” He of course was referring to the never-ending sequential crises hitting supply chains across the globe. Pandemic, inflation, currency volatility, logistic imbalances, talent shortages, restrictive tariffs, energy shortages, hurricanes and other natural disasters are forcing supply chain managers to rethink their strategies almost daily. Such replanning requires both a resilient culture and a resiliency  tools to support daily replanning efforts.  The big problem is that if your company is not a true resilient enterprise, it may be too late. Let’s talk about strategies if your business falls into this last conundrum.

*The circular economy meets marketplaces

When we think of marketplaces we typically think of large diverse marketplaces like Amazon selling new goods.  However, there is a lot of movement regarding secondhand marketplaces.  For example, this month Goodwill launched an online shopping site, that will sell all sorts of secondhand goods including fashion labels like Guchi and Prada.  There has also been growing M&A activity.  Naver, the South Korean tech platform, will acquire fashion marketplace Poshmark for $1.2B.  The move follows Etsy's acquisition of the fashion resale platform and Poshmark competitor Depop for $1.62 billion last year.  If we are, in fact, heading into a recession then these marketplaces may do quite well as consumers become more frugal. But it may also speak to a deeper trend which is two more effective reuse or what some call the circular economy. A circular economy keeps materials, products, and services in circulation for as long as possible as the need for more sustainable modes of production becomes more pressing.  Marketplaces are great ways to realize the circular economy by matching the supply of reused items with needs.  

*Reflecting on the past with the James Webb Space Telescope

Looking backward is crucial to helping us move forward. How the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will radically transform our understanding of the universe and how it has already shown us why we continue to dare to do big things

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Hosted by Tim Boyd

Produced by Tracylynne Williams

In this session we discuss:

*Bed, Bath & Beyond – are they ANOTHER example of a company not updating their trend analysis? Are they the latest “Pandemic Darling” to meet troubled times in the post-pandemic world (e.g., Peloton, Netflix, Wayfair)? What lessons can B2B companies learn from this case?

*What is tenniscore… and why has it become such a hot trend? As important, how can any company leverage the “innovation principles of success” behind the tenniscore phenomenon to create their own “next big thing?”

*Is “Quiet Quitting” a new phenomenon in the workplace or has it always existed and is just getting louder? Is there anything companies can do about it?

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Hosted by Mary Abbazia
Produced by Tracylynne Williams