I was very tempted to go fishing today, and leave this show to the machines.

If you have any doubt that AI could do my job and conduct a 30 minute interview with local business people, today’s show is going to remove that doubt. In fact, it won’t take the whole show, you’ll probably be convinced in 5 minutes.

Step one: meet Rich Simmerman. We first met Rich a few years ago when he launched a breakfast cereal company. Then, in 2024, Rich started up another company. This one is called Cantaloupe. It’s the same name as the fruit, but this company’s product is people. Specifically, people in the hospitality and construction industries.

Cantaloupe is an AI tool for interviewing people looking for a job in a bar, a restaurant, or on a construction site. Cantaloupe’s proprietary interviewer - an AI bot  called Clio - interviews prospective applicants then analyzes their responses according to the parameters an employer lays out, and decides whether the applicant would be a good fit.

Cantaloupe’s research says it’s more accurate than a human reading a resume and reduces turnover caused by early quitting by 40%. Cantaloupe’s technology has won awards and Clio is working for all kinds of companies, including multi-location restaurant groups.

I recently had a doctor’s appointment, and for the first time in memory, my doctor paid 100% attention to me. While I was talking, he wasn’t typing anything into my records, like he usually does.

When I mentioned it, he said he was part of an evaluation group who were trying out an AI-based system that would record our conversation and write it up for him as consultation notes.

The pressure is on healthcare systems to incorporate AI into its daily functions, to provide better patient care, and do a wide range of back-end tasks, from accounting to reading X-Rays. The problem is, if you manage a big hospital, or a small medical clinic, whatever skills have gotten you to your current position, they probably do not include a sophisticated knowledge of AI.

So, who do you call about that? The answer is a company called Benzait. They’re dedicated to implementing AI into medical practices, hospitals, and other parts of the healthcare industry.

Benzait’s Founder and CEO is New Orleanian Ralph Whalen.

If you went to sleep in 2020 and woke up today and needed a job on a building site and a doctor appointment - to discuss your sleep disorder - you’d barely believe the changes that have taken place in the last few years.

Your job interview is with a non-human. And the notes from your doctor appointment, along with recommendations for further consultations and a detailed treatment plan, are all available through your patient portal online before you even get home.

Ralph Whalen and Rich Simmerman are ushering us into a whole new world.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you’ve ever worked in corporate America, you may have had this experience: you’re having a perfectly normal day when you get an email from HR with the subject line, “Team Building.” Now, you might be the most fabulous team player in the company, but do you really want to spend a weekend doing a ropes course with your colleagues? No. You don’t.

But wait up. Read the email. This team building exercise is a whole other thing. It’s a workshop led by life coach Jaclyn McCabe and you get to choose whether you go to the workshop called “Dream It. Create It,” “Tame Your Inner Critic” or others that are a long way away from a ropes course.

Jaclyn’s workshops are based in creativity and self-expression, and they’re not just about making your work-life better, they’re about making your whole life better.

The nexus between business and creativity is also the wheelhouse of Kerrie Ann Nauseda.

Kerrie Ann is Founder and CEO and Chief Editorial Officer at a company with the enigmatic name, Good Coterie. Good Coterie isn’t a publisher. And Kerrie Ann isn’t an author. She’s kind of a life coach for authors.

Good Coterie works with publishers of books about business – mostly Forbes publishing – to  shepherd an author and a book through the many stages of its creation, from an idea on a napkin to a book on a shelf.

There are any number of encouraging words written and spoken about success being a team sport. “There’s no “i” in team.” “A rising tide lifts all boats.” And many more.

And most successful people are quick to acknowledge the role of others who have helped them along the way.

Having said that, achieving success in business takes, struggle, hard work, perseverance and determination. And when it all comes together and pays off – they’re typically the successful people we get to meet on shows like this. It's less often that we get to meet the people who these folks mention, the team members who helped make success happen for them. People like Jaclyn and Kerrie Ann.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s a term in psychology that also applies to marketing. It’s called “The Halo Effect.” It refers to how we can make sometimes incorrect assumptions based on a collection of pieces of information.

For a business case study let’s take a look at a lighting company that was founded in the UK in 2015, called Tala.

Tala designs and sells lighting fixtures that are elegant, environmentally friendly, focused on sustainability - they’re able to be repaired, and if they have to be discarded they’re recyclable – and they’ve been featured in Architectural Digest. The company has an international reach, is widely admired, and is financially successful. The Halo Effect would have us believe their lighting fixtures must be exclusive and expensive, and the company must have its eye firmly on profit.

Well, the truth is somewhat different. Tala is what’s called a B-Corp – it’s a registration given to companies that focus on using business as a force for good, striving for inclusive, equitable, and sustainable economic practices. And Tala’s lighting fixtures are inexpensive – you can find them online at Wayfair.

And, to complete the expect-the-unexpected list of circumstances at Tala, the Chairman of the Board of this innovative and progressive company is New Orleanian, Anthony Robins.

We can make incorrect Halo Effect type generalizations about other businesses too. For example, when we hear “Wedding Reception Venue” we typically picture a high-school-gym kind of vibe, with a stage for a band or DJ. When we hear “Hotel,” we expect it to be something between a Holiday Inn and the Ritz Carlton – the only difference being the amenities and the cost. A local company called Workshop WDXL (pronounced in speech, "W.D 40") is challenging all of these assumptions.

The W.D. part of the name is the initials of the team’s principals, Jessica Walker and David Demsey, and XL is forty is in Roman numerals.

Some of the Halo-Effect-busting, non-traditional, New Orleans businesses Workshop WD 40 have created are, the wedding venue, Felicity Church, and the hotels and villas, The Syd and The Mitzie. All of these projects have won prestigious architecture and design awards.

When we talk about the environmental impact of human activities, we’re generally talking about burning fossil fuel, the use of plastics, pollution from factories and farms, and even the use of AC systems and aerosols. The one thing that does not seem to show up on these lists is lighting.

And yet, every single home on Earth that has electricity has multiple light fixtures and lightbulbs. And we know that inefficient bulbs burn more fossil fuels, light pollution reshapes ecosystems, and discarded light fixtures add to the world’s growing mountain of e-waste. One of the core values of Tala is to address these issues - and to package the solutions as elegant, attractive, and affordable light fixtures.

Most architects dream about designing cool, quirky, inventive buildings. Most commercial property developers are focused on budgets – bringing projects in on time and as cheaply as possible. Most real estate developers are looking for bells and whistles that will pitch a property as high up the price range as a market will bear. These three goals are often at odds with each other but Workshop WDXL, is juggling all 3 of these balls.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Blake Langlinais at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When people talk about the place of AI in the workforce, it’s mostly doom and gloom about how AI is going to take your job. I’ve even sounded the alarm myself about podcasts entirely produced and hosted without the contribution of a single human being.

My lunch guests today are coming at AI from a whole different angle.

As he sits here eating lunch, Daniel Crowley’s AI employee, Chuck, is hard at work, manning Daniel’s business, Hello Gravel. Hello Gravel isn’t a dating app. It’s a gravel delivery business. You know, gravel. Little rocks. Actually, there are all types of gravel. And before you order a truckload, you’re going to need to know exactly what you want. Chuck can help you with that.

Chuck – who, just to be clear, is not a human being - can also tell you how much gravel you need and answer any and all questions you might have about gravel. He’ll also take your payment and schedule your delivery. AI Chuck is closing gravel sales every day. Last month he brought in $150,000.

Dave Maher is part owner and Chief Digital Officer at a marketing company called Zehnder that’s headquartered here in New Orleans and has offices in Baton Rouge, Nashville, and Rosemary Beach, Florida.

Two things about that sentence:  One, Dave is part owner of Zehnder along with his 64 colleagues. Zehnder is what’s called an ESOP - a business classification that stands for Employee Stock Ownership Plan, in which all of the employees own the company. And, two, having an office in Rosemary Beach Florida is a little unusual. So here’s the skinny on that:

Rosemary Beach is primarily fueled by tourism, and it’s not the kind of place you go for a budget vacation. So, you’ve got a bunch of people with a significant amount of spending power, and there’s only so many hours a day they can spend on the beach. The rest of their vacation they’re looking for something to do that suits their personal interest. They might want to discover a good bookstore, a great yoga class, tennis lessons, or other activities they would enjoy doing on vacation, if they knew where to find them.

That’s where Dave’s AI creation, Ask Seemore, comes in. Rosemary Beach is in Walton County, Florida, and Seemore the turtle is the logo of Walton County Tourism. Dave Maher’s AI version of Seemore is on your phone. He’s on vacation with you. He knows where you are, what you like, what you probably want to do next, and where to do it. Ask Seemore is like going on vacation with a local who totally gets you.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lists used to be the stuff of clickbait. Now even venerable outlets like the New York Times regularly publish lists. Including the Times’ list of the 25 best restaurants in New Orleans.

Those of us who live here know there are so many good restaurants and so much good music in New Orleans, we could make every episode of Out to Lunch about food and music and never exhaust the list of great places to eat, and great music to listen to.

We’re not going to do that. But to make some sort of headway we’ve come up with an efficient idea: talk to someone who owns seven restaurants, and to someone who makes ALL of New Orleans music.

You might be saying, “Wait up. How does one person make ALL of New Orleans music?” Scott Borne does, simply by owning New Orleans Record Press. It’s the city’s first and only independently owned and operated vinyl record manufacturing plant. And these days almost everybody puts out an O.G. vinyl record when they’re releasing new music.

Rami Bader,  along with his brother, owns seven New Orleans restaurants. They’re grouped under the banner of the Oceana Grill Group, and they include The Oceana Grill, Bobby Hebert’s Cajun Canon, Olde NOLA Cookery and Mambo’s Restaurant and Rooftop Bar.

One thing Scott and Rami have in common – besides both being involved in fundamental planks of the New Orleans economy – is, the market for both of their products is, literally, insatiable. No matter how much we enjoy a meal today, you can guarantee we’re going to be hungry again tomorrow. And no matter how much we enjoy listening to a record, you can guarantee we’re going to want to listen to another one.

Even with all the changes and challenges in music and hospitality, the rewards of their hard work are shared by all of us who take away the memory of a great meal, or a record that lives forever.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Theoretically, we understand the difference between success and happiness. But there’s a big gap between theory and reality. What bridges that gap is often, courage.

Suppose you worked hard, have a great job in a competitive field, are well paid and highly regarded, but you’re not really happy…  Would you have the courage to walk away from your success and take a chance doing something that might bring you very little, except, possibly, happiness?

That was the question Skye Jackson answered with, “Yes.” Skye was an entertainment lawyer in Hollywood. She had a great job at The Walt Disney Company. Until 2024. That’s when Skye traded her well-paid job dealing in the precise meaning of words in legal contracts, for a low-to-no pay job dealing in the ambiguous meaning of words, as a poet.

Today, Skye is a published and well-recognized poet, a professor of creative writing, literature and poetry at Xavier University, and Chairwoman of the New Orleans Poetry Festival Board.

When it came time for Crystal Burke to make a change, she wanted something different not just for herself, but for every other woman in the country.

As a registered nurse practitioner for over 15 years, mostly in the fields of oncology and palliative care, Crystal knows a lot about the functioning of the human body. But when she started experiencing symptoms of perimenopause in her 30’s, she was blindsided. Finding that her symptoms were influencing almost every aspect of her life, and simultaneously discovering that doctors, even OB-GYN’s, didn’t seem to know how to treat her, or other women in her position, Crystal decided to do something to change that.

In 2024, Crystal and her medical doctor husband, Steven Youngblood, founded The Menopause Clinic. It’s a tele-health-based clinic where any woman with an internet connection can consult with medical providers who specialize in recognizing and treating perimenopause – which is a phase of pre-menopause - and menopause.

You’ve no doubt noticed there are a lot of memes out there encouraging  women to empower themselves. “You Go Girl.” “You Do You.” “Live Your Best Life.” And plenty more. One of the reasons these women-centric slogans exist at all is, in many walks of life, things are still predominantly male dominated.

There are women though – Skye and Crystal are two of them – who are – for want of a better expression – taking the bull by the horns. Crystal's The Menopause Clinic is a revolutionary idea for women’s healthcare that seems way overdue. And Skye has a voice that resonates with a lot of people, especially young Black women - Skye's poetry seems to give them both her perspective and a vocabulary to reflect on themselves.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Generally, by the time someone gets invited on a show like this they’ve figured out how to tell the story of their business in a way that makes their journey seem like a steady climb from humble beginnings to current success.

In telling these histories, entrepreneurs will talk generally about setbacks, but they don’t typically elaborate on specific obstacles. Like, for example, this scenario:

Suppose you’re a startup entrepreneur with a new product, and you get the call you’ve been waiting for, from Walmart, with a giant purchase order.

Now, instead of spending $10,000 on raw materials, you’ll need $200,000. Your shipping costs are going to go from $5,000 to $50,000. And you’ll need 10 more people to pull this off, which is $1m in new salaries.

You can borrow this money, no problem, right? You’re going to be able to pay it back - you have the Walmart purchase order to prove it. But you discover that no traditional lender, like a bank, will lend you money unless you’re (a) profitable and (b) have 2 years of receipts. You don’t qualify in either of those categories.

So, what do you do? Well, one option is you go to a national company that’s headquartered here in New Orleans, called Republic Business Credit.

Republic Business Credit specializes in what’s called Accounts Receivable Finance. Basically, they will loan a company money based on a purchase order – up to $20 million. Or, in a practice called "factoring," they’ll buy the purchase order off a company – minus a fee – so the company gets cash immediately and when the purchaser pays the invoice, the payment goes to Republic Business Credit.

Leigh Guglielmo has been helping companies finance their business at Republic Business Credit since 2011. Today she’s the company’s Senior Vice President of Business Development.

Another thing you hear a lot about in a typical startup success story is, the Power Point pitch.

Andres Barcelo and his wife, Ashley Webb, moved to New Orleans in 2017 to be closer to Ashley’s family. Three years later, when they had their lives derailed by the pandemic, Andres and Ashley started gr owing vegetables in their 9th Ward neighborhood. When they discovered that okra, beans, cucumbers and peppers grew well, they grew more of them. Till they had so much that someone suggested they could start a farmers market. So, they did.

Then they began adding products from other local folks - like bread, hand pies, candles, soap, pickles and jam. And before you know it – without a single Power Point presentation – Andres and Ashley had built a business.

Today you can find Barcelo Gardens Fresh Market most days of the week in varying locations, including their flagship location on Piety Street in the Upper 9th Ward, and at pop-ups and markets in The Irish Channel, The Marigny, Harahan, and Napoleonville.

There’s a saying people use in general conversation to describe how today is pretty much like every other day: “Business as usual.” Interestingly, you don’t hear a lot of people in business saying that. Mostly because business is typically anything but business as usual. There’s almost always an obstacle, a wrinkle, a problem to solve.

Leigh is in the business of solving the biggest problem of them all for most businesses – operating capital. And Andres' business is dependent on the most fickle of all fundamentals – the weather. One thing they have in common is, without a lot of fanfare, they’re both doing something vital for our local business community, and community in general.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show at itsneworleans.com.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As human beings, we have many shared experiences. Most of us, one way or another, get a haircut. And most of us appreciate the fleeting beauty of flowers.

You might think those two mundane observations are devoid of any kind of potential entrepreneurial re-invention. After all, whether your mom cuts your hair or you go to a salon, a haircut is, well, a haircut. Right? And whether you pick your own flowers or buy them from a florist, a week later they’re dead and you throw them out. Right?

Wrong on both of those.                                              

When you go to a hair stylist and you sit in the chair, most of your time is spent with the hair stylist snipping at your hair with scissors. Actually, hair stylists don’t use plain old scissors. They use specially designed and sharpened types of scissors, referred to as shears. To cut hair, the stylist moves the shears on all kinds of subtle angles. They continually adjust the angle by very fine, delicate, flexing movements of their hand, wrist, arm, elbow, and shoulder.

Everything flexes. Except the shears.

For 25 years a hair stylist in New Mexico, by the name of Bill Brenton, along with his buddy and partner, Murray Roth, a hair stylist in Madisonville, Louisiana, worked on designing shears that would flex. Bill died in 2008. But Murray kept the dream alive and today Murray Roth manufactures and sells Flex 360: ergonomic, patented shears used by hair stylists across the country and around the world.

The engineering trick to the flexing shears is - the loop you put your thumb through is on a swivel.

And so, to flowers. Sometimes you pick a few flowers or buy them from a florist or supermarket, to brighten up your living or work space. But other times, that bunch of flowers is more than just a dash of color on your coffee table. They might be the bunch of flowers you held at your wedding. Or flowers from the funeral of a loved one. Or flowers from any number of other occasions that mean something to you.

If you’ve ever wished you could keep those flowers forever, now you can.

Stephanie Tarrant is a florist and an artist. She combines her talents by taking flowers and preserving them. They look as real as the day they were picked, and they retain their same vibrant colors - forever.

Stephanie preserves whole bouquets in resin. She takes flowers and incorporates them into pieces of jewelry. And into dishes and trays.

Steph’s company is called, The Crypt Flowers. Its slogan is, “All flowers deserve forever.”

Innovation is often born out of frustration. Most of us, when we’re frustrated, complain about things being the way they are. Successful innovators, though, are people who don’t just complain, but decide to do something to change the status quo.

At either end of the spectrum - whether it’s something that grows continually, like hair, or something whose life is fleeting, like flowers, both Steph and Murray have been able to improve on what appears to most people to simply be the way of the world.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When you walk into a home, a room, or a business, you typically have a single sensation. A place feels a certain way. That specific reaction is actually the culmination of a whole range of perceptions that include observations about dimensions, light, color, furniture shapes and sizes, painting on the walls, decorative touches, rugs, even scent.

You take most of these cues in at the same time and your decision about how you feel about the place can be almost instant. But the creation of an intentionally designed interior space can take months of planning and execution.

Chad Graci is a native New Orleanian who spent years creating interiors around the world and across the country – including 6 years in New York – before returning home and founding Graci Interiors in 2009. Today, Chad still works across the country, and  you can see his designed spaces in both homes and businesses locally here in New Orleans.

While Chad is working on creating subtle visual cues, Nate Shaeffer, is doing the exact opposite. He’s looking to make an instant impression on you that’s bright and colorful.

Pretty much all you have to know is the name of Nate’s company for you to get the picture. It’s, Big Sexy Neon. Nate is an artist and craftsman who hand-crafts neon – both signs and works of art. He’s one of only 300 neon artists in the US who work in neon.

There’s definitely something magical about neon. Maybe it’s the vibration of the light, maybe it’s the association with something exciting, like the Vegas strip or Times Square, or cocktails, donuts, or beer… Whatever it is, Nate is doing everything he can to keep it alive here in New Orleans.

Chad is likewise making the city a brighter place, but with less red and green amd more cream and white. That very balance - a bright exterior and sophisticated interior - is both a metaphor and literal description of life in New Orleans.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fewer than 400,000 people live in Orleans Parish. Every year we  also have around 19 million temporary residents. Also known as “tourists.”

New Orleanians tend to think of these two populations as distinct – even at odds with each other. But in fact, our local economy is entwined with our tourist economy in ways you might not expect.

A great case study is a business called Chateau Sew.

Chateau Sew is a fabric store on St Charles Avenue. They sell sewing patterns, supplies, and specialty fabrics. The owner of Chateau Sew, Laura Fenner, also teaches sewing classes. There’s no bar at Chateau Sew. You can’t get  a hurricane. Or a muffuletta. Or a New Orleans T-shirt. But when it comes to customers, tourists outnumber locals. Apparently, they’re mostly a lesser-known sub-genus of tourist, called “quilters.”

When out-of-town quilters visit Chateau Sew they’re looking for unique fabrics they can’t get anywhere else. Fabrics like the creations of New Orleans fabric design company, Marillyn In The Moon.

Marillyn In The Moon’s fabrics are in stores in New Orleans, across Louisiana, and in Mississippi and Alabama.

The designer and manufacturer at Marillyn In The Moon is native New Orleanian, Robin Brou Antin.

Robin’s fabric designs are rooted in New Orleans culture, inspired by her family’s history of 9 generations in the German Coast of Louisiana, and her fabric is manufactured by a specialist in high-quality production in South Korea.

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.