Linen Suit & Plastic Tie

What story can you tell about people when you combine psychology and data? This week, we are talking with Micah Lueck, Director of People Analytics at Qualcomm. Combining his expertise in psychology, mathematics, and statistics, Micah is leading his team to better understand the employee experience through the lens of data analytics. He tells us about People Analytics and its impact on how we tell stories about employment life cycles, the importance of injecting diverse perspectives into analytics, as well as navigating the data anomaly that was the year 2020.

We couldn't talk about storytelling without talking to someone with over a decade of experience at THE storytelling company, The Walt Disney Company. Our guest this week is Christopher Connolly. An entertainment marketing guru, Mr. Connolly has extensive experience in leading marketing efforts - at Hasbro early on, and at Disney more recently. At Disney, he led multi-million dollar marketing campaigns for Disney Parks & Resorts. He was also the CMO/SVP of Consumer Marketing at Disney Consumer Products, leading the campaigns for Frozen, Cars, Mickey, Spiderman, and other Disney merchandise.

A Hero lies in YOU! To verify that, we've brought in a clinical psychologist who uses comic book superheroes to help people. This week's expert storyteller is Dr. Andrea Letamendi. She is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, TEDx Speaker, Educator, Trainer, Mental Health Media Consultant, On-Camera Commentator, and Podcast Host. Dr. Letamendi is featured in Disney+'s Marvel 616, DC's FanDome, Batgirl #20 (2013), and many more publications. Interweaving her love for comic books and psychology, Dr. Letamendi shows us how fictional stories help us understand and cope with the perplexing world around us.

A Principal Engineer at Lyft, co-inventor of Norton Antivirus, and a college programming Professor? This week, we talk to Carey Nachenberg. From his experience as both a Software Engineer and Computer Science Professor, Carey shares with us why Engineers - who we may think of as recipients of stories - should tell stories themselves, as well as why Storytelling alone is not sufficient for innovations. Carey Nachenberg is Principal Engineer at Lyft, Computer Science Professor at UCLA, formerly Principal Engineer at Google, and the senior-most engineer in Symantec. He is also author of The Florentine Deception - a cyber-security thriller - and a rock climber.

How do you tell stories using AR (Augmented Reality)? This week's expert storyteller is Jeff Miller, Sr. Director of Global Creative Strategy at Snap Inc., former Director of Digital Strategy at Gatorade, and former Account Executive at Ogilvy & Mather. Jeff has spent years on top of the advertising industry by tracking technological changes and seeing how new advertising formats enable effective stories. While some view AR as but a shiny toy, Jeff is able to use AR as a way to enhance culturally relevant stories. Listen now to learn more about Jeff's career, how to leverage new technologies in advertising, and how to create impactful stories.

A game-changing Career Coach who used to be an Actor & Writer? This week, our expert storyteller is Larry Braman. Larry is Director of Career Services at UCLA Anderson's M.S. in Business Analytics (MSBA) program. Started off his career as an actor, Larry later applied his creative expertise to the corporate world, using his skills and experience as an actor to help young professionals tell compelling stories about themselves in job seeking. In this episode, we will learn why it is important to be bold, how to tell a story with your resume, how to utilize concepts in drama and the SOAR model to make your stories more structured and intriguing.

This week's expert storyteller is Wyatt Thompson. Wyatt is a Product Manager at Tesla, a former Product Manager at Dollar Shave Club, and Co-Founder of RomperJack (Top 1% of Shopify Stores). Wyatt used his non-technical background and Sociology degree to break into product management at one of the most technical companies in the world. In this episode, we learn how to tell a collaborative story, how to follow trends to build an audience, and how to use the power of “Why” to tell a more compelling story.

This week's expert storyteller is Dr. Tara Prescott-Johnson, a writing professor, author, and fantasy expert. At UCLA, Dr. Prescott-Johnson integrates comics, graphic novels, television, and other unconventional media into her lesson plans. In this episode, we will learn how to craft our own stories and find the power within even the most mundane experiences. Dr. Prescott-Johnson is the editor of Neil Gaiman in the 21st Century (McFarland), co-editor of Gender and the Superhero Narrative (University of Mississippi Press), and co-editor of Feminism in the Worlds of Neil Gaiman (McFarland).

Linen Suit & Plastic Tie is a brand new podcast where we talk to expert unconventional storytellers about their unique life stories, and how storytelling plays a role in their careers, business, and life. Our goal is for us and you, our listeners, to learn from inspiring and surprising storytellers to become better communicators, better collaborators, and to create great things.