Rust Belt Startup

I’m in week 9 or 10 of work-from-home and quarantine at this point, and things are settling into a rhythm. At least the sun is starting to come out and working from home also includes working in with the laptop in the back yard.

Today is another toolbox episode that was inspired by a Scott Galloway post on what he calls Functional Speed/Functional Acceleration. It’s this idea that when everything around us is slowing down or on pause due to the COVID19 pandemic, how can you accelerate or speed up to grab market share or build what’s next for your career? That doesn’t necessarily mean just doing MORE.

I’m combining this line of thinking with a great TED talk from Guy Kawasaki where he uses the history of ice to illustrate how to think about where innovation comes from.

So this pod is very much a remix and I hope you enjoy. Stay safe.

Today we’re going a bit tactical. I’m taking with Gary Maples about chatbots – now before you tune out, we should start to understand what a chatbot is and what it isn’t and most important – how the tech is really democratized and how small businesses and organizations can build their own with minimal expertise. 

We’ll get into what goes into building a chatbot, what you can do with it and where the tech is going in the future. Thanks to Gary for his time and you can learn more about what he’s up to at http://garymaples.com

Over the weekend I wanted to catch up with urbanist Arian Horbovetz in Rochester, NY. I’ve been enjoying his podcast The Urban Phoenix and wanted to dig into what cities might be like after the COVID19 pandemic.

We get into urban planning, last mile transport, remote work, the changing commercial real estate market, and the impact of EVs on cities amongst other topics.

If you’d like to learn more abut Arian and his work, visit him online at
theurbanphoenix.com

Devin Mahoney is a Utica, NY native who spent a decade working and writing for TV and Film in LA, on shows such as Scrubs, before returning to upstate NY with the mission of taking over the Uptown Theater and turning it into a punk-rock version of a Fine Arts School. The theater is now known as the Uptown Theater for the Creative Arts (UTCA) and has become a hotbed of comedy, improv and music within the city.

In our conversation we talk about working and writing for TV, why network TV has gotten so bad, the decentralization of media, and how improv can build a community.

To learn more about UTCA visit their website at https://utcany.org and maybe even consider a donation.

I’m hunkered down at home on self-imposed quarantine (no symptoms, just staying safe) and have been thinking about how COVID19 is not only disrupting all of our lives, economies and governments, but what lasting change is it going to have on work culture, real estate, meetings, education and politics. Here are some of my hot takes, with the help of some recent blog posts from Seth Godin and Scott Galloway.

Posts/Pods mentioned in this show:

Pivot 03.17.20: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pivot/id1073226719?i=1000468660334

Stay safe out there.

Today on the pod, I’m sitting down with Tim Giarrusso, CEO of Human Technologies to talk about empowering people with disabilities, holistic employment, building trust and how to create communities. HT is a $60M company that is powered by people with purpose, creating jobs and an inclusive environment, while still turning a profit. Tim is also the founder of Rochester Community Inclusive Rowing – which started as a way to get veterans out on the water, and has grown into something much bigger.

Lots of great takeaways in this episode, whether you own a business or work in a place where the corporate culture needs some TLC. There’s plenty more info at Human Technologies or Rochester Community Inclusive Rowing,

It’s been a minute – today’s podcast is a toolbox episode rather than a conversation and hope you dig it.

So we’re a few months into the new year and wanted to bring you up to speed on some of things I’ve been working on, tools I’m using to create space and time, and trying to build the best year yet.

Some topics I cover: 

– Reading goal for 2020 and tactics to read more

– New Habits (Digital Dieting, Optimizing Content Delivery, and Apps I’m using to try to Create Time)

– Saying NO and creating Immovable Objects in my Schedule

– More food and drinks with creative folks

More conversations in the can and ready to go – coming soon!

How often do you talk to Alexa or Siri? Voice tech is quickly becoming a facet of the way we operate in our daily lives.  And while you may not have a smart speaker in your home or like to talk to a virtual assistant, it will become a primary way your kids will interact with computers.  And synthetic voice will test our views on what’s real, and our view of AI.

Today I’m talking with Geraint John, host of the Voice for Voice Podcast all the way from across the pond in Brixton, UK. Geraint is neck deep in Alexa tech, developing skills for clients and is really in tune with what’s next in voice. 

We talk about building Alexa skills, privacy synthetic voice and the future of voice tech. Tune in.

Follow Geraint on Instagram – and check out the Voice for Voice Podcast to learn more.

This week I’m sharing a conversation I had with health/wellness blogger and influencer Georgie Morley. I first discovered her photography of Nantucket (a beautiful island off the coast of Massachusetts) on instagram and was always curious how she built her blog and turned her journey into her career. So I reached out and Georgie was incredibly generous with her time for this interview.

In this conversation (which we conducted over Zoom) we talk about how she started her blog and grew a following without being in a big city, how to work with brands and run your blog like a business, getting comfortable sharing your story, the art of selfie photography and much much more.

You can follow Georgie on Instagram at @georgiemorley and @greyladygirl or check out her blog at InIt4TheLongRun.com

I’m a huge fan of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and laughed my tail off at the episode about Chiitan (and Chiijohn). And I was even more surprised to hear that the costume of Chiijohn came from a little place called Geppetto Studios in Utica NY.

I was lucky enough to get to hang out and have a conversation with Scott and Will of Geppetto Studios in their ‘Warehouse of the Weird’ where they create high-end costumes and puppets for TV, film, music videos, trade shows and much more. They’re masters of their craft and we dug into how they got into this niche business, their move from Brooklyn to Utica, and some of the wins and fails they’ve had along the way. You can learn more about what they do at GeppettoStudios.com