Envoy Recorded Radio

While we're confirming rumours that Ace has been fired, Dr. Alan Dow joins Scott to debate...

• Ozempic changing ideas of what bodies should be and reducing exercise.
• Shifting focus from "shape" to health.
• Can we make incrementalism hot (probably not)?
• Former presidents as worm warriors and cracky uncles.
• Running teams at 85%: Breaking through the contradictions of flex work.
• Scott as the worst corporate employee.
• Rewarding the undramatic.
• Depression in the highest performers.
• The "cheering" experience.
• The best stories are no fun.
• Missing wads of cash.
• Totalitarian jerk scores.

See you next week, maybe.

From London and Washington DC, this week we're asking... Can hotels bring us a human touch? How do we value the lives that we try to save? Will AI democratize or mediocritize our life experiences. And we cover:

• Ace's love of Dutch hotels and their language.
• It’s not your fault if your dad is rubbish.
• Juneteenth: Freedom from the Free.
• (Economic) dominants in subs.
• If you just “think” an experiment, does it count?
• What will we do with the time freed up by AI?
• 5 Rants in 6 minutes.
• Blowing Maltesers.

This week, we change format a little and self-indulgently ask each other questions for the episode. It soon turns into a bit of a therapy session.

1. Why are we always the a**holes?
2. If you had to choose to die right now or live forever, which would you choose?
3. Is there a god and where do they live?
4. Which cryptid is most likely to actually exist?
5. Did it feel weird at the beach last week?
6. Snap your fingers and solve one societal issue, but you don’t get to design around any unintended consequences, what issue?
7. If you could be any nationality other than American/British, which would you choose and why?  Would you choose that over being US/UK?
8. Do you hug your mates?

This week's edition, sponsored by Bud Light, maybe.

From a rooftop in LA this week, discussing...

• When should we resist normalisation?
• Ratings are meaningless - we give five stars to be left alone.
• Apple Vision Pro - how to overcome looking ridiculous.
• What if 2nd amendment rights only applied to women?
• A school shooting doesn’t count if graduation is off-campus.
• If AI can precisely predict the life of our spouses, is it logical to hedge?
• Black language dictionaries.
• App improvements that will never happen.
• Wisdom to children from Uncle Ace and why he hates San Francisco.
• Will the backlash to Bud Light supporting trans influencers have stamina?

A total of 50 Euros worth of generative AI model building, 90 minutes of time, a few Instagram connections and we have digital “wallet litter” to suggest that we’re a married couple living in Key West, we had cameo parts in Peaky Blinders, and that Scott just got back from the G7 Summit in Hiroshima.

Every image on the page, every geotag, every statement is fake, presented as a primary source. The “Post-Truth Era”? Yes, we think we’re there already.

We discuss access to generative AI, along with coffee invitation etiquette… unisex bathrooms like the one in your house… drone warfare via Alibaba.com…. ignoring advice from those who offer it… and clone sex on this week’s Envoy Recorded Radio. 

If you don’t listen to the whole thing, listen to the last minute of the sounds of Kiev at night: a soundtrack appropriate to the week of Memorial Day

On this week's ERR...

• The killer trailer.
• The Penguin Rule.
• Chasing specificity (and stop with feedback sandwiches).
• Scott the racist.
• Cash as the next innovation.
• Subways and machetes - when is offense actually defense?
• Selfie fences... only the "right" type of tourists please.
• Digital cretin factories.
• Swinging too far... let authors be authors.
• Turns out Ace is a decent (rant) date.

This week, ERR is “live” (delayed) from Tampa, where we waddle through…

• Generating “primary sources” and faked real moon landings.
• The hotel you can’t stay in and AirBnB having to live in economic reality.
• YouTube links and LinkedIn (don’t do it) and surviving Ace on a first date.
• Etiquette: devices on planes and trains and Americans at food buffets.
• Something slower, please: Flickr is back, maybe Tumblr too.
• Trigger Warnings… well intentioned, but missing the mark.*
• On the radar: the collapse of great American cities. 
• And, of course, Penguin love.

*We may need a trigger warning for the codename of the source.

This week, “Live” from San Antonio de Valero Mission of The Alamo.

• Bow-legged cowboys.
• When losses become celebrations (Alamo, Pearl Harbor, Dunkirk).
• Switching protagonists on historical stories.
• Illegal American immigration into Mexico.
• Embracing AI hallucinations to break groupthink.
• What if CERN hadn't given away the web for free 30 years ago?
• The worst newsroom movie... Slacking in your pajamas.
• Reverse Innovations: soap and shower gel.
• Is a corporate social impact campaign cleaner than funding a charity?
• Empowering up vs. Empowering Down (Scott's going to be even more unpopular...)
• Selfish leadership might be best (Ace may be more unpopular).
• Peeing Personas.
• Copyright traps and manifesting destinations.
• Robert Rogers Rules of Ranging, rules.

This week... we recognise how lame our episode closes are, and...

• Intended exploding starships and lessons for corporate innovation.
• Airlines living in a parallel reality.
• Locomotion cultures.
• Hiring for potential vs current capabilities.
• Servant-Leadership is borderline abusive (we just lost all our HR clients with that line...).
• Drop the gift cards, embrace the red envelopes.
• Grammar class: less dignity, fewer friends.
• American sneeze protocol.
• SNAFU vs FUBAR.
• The No-Mow Movement (and Scott's clover obsession).
• Ace's camp cup rant and his delicate knuckles.
• Searching for eudaimonia in Oxford (Professor Kringlebach's cat?).
• We're done with lame episode closes.

Ace claims to have invented the Lonely Planet Guide.*

What you should be listening to instead of this.

Murder of nuance and the manslaughter of context.

Transgender nonsense and is any issue binary?

Thrashing Lawrence of Arabia.

Ace advocates to start smoking.*

The career case for Ozempic.

Ace discovers the difference between American and British Suspenders.*  

Ace visits Pity City and defends CEO bonuses.*

Indian is a company, rather than a country,* but its digital payments are incredible.

Bunkbeds on planes.

Psychological reactants and fingerprints on the Elgin Marbles.

*Not a good week for Ace