Sage Colleague Rachel Fisch takes the lead on a conversation about questions that professionals, indeed all businesses can ask themselves during a business interruption. This conversation is a companion to a blog post by Ed Kless. 

Sean Stein Smith is a professor at the City University of New York – Lehman College. He also is the chairperson of the NJCPA's Emerging Technologies Interest Group. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance, where he co-chairs the Accounting Work Group. Sean is on the Advisory Board of Gilded, a TechStars ’19 company. He was a Visiting Research Fellow at the American Institute of Economic Research during 2019. Sean has been named one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting by Accounting Today.

Nicole Ripley is a Senior Manager, Technology Consulting at Armanino LLP. She is a Certified Project Management & Change Management professional living in Austin Texas. She graduated with a Business degree from Concordia University in Austin Texas, with an emphasis in Human Resources because of her desire to know, understand and help the people side of organizations. During college, she worked in a Marketing and Communication department as a Project Manager. After graduating, she began working with technology firms to help them realize their strategic visions and eventually she went into consulting. Working as a PM for consulting firms and seeing the pain clients went through during times of change spurred her to expand her expertise and use her intuition to its fullest extent by obtaining her Organizational Change Management certification. As the Change Management Practice Lead within Armanino, she provides clients with methods and tools they can use to lead their organization through transformation with an increase in employee engagement and change adoption which directly influences successful outcomes for their projects or strategic initiatives.

Lyle Tard is the Founder and CEO of IMPACT Servant Leadership which he founded in 2018. He has recently completed a 20-year honorable commitment in service to his country and is now a retired United States Air Force member as of January 2020. Lyle has obtained his undergraduate degree in Human Resources Management from Ashford University and is completing his certification as a Senior Professional in Human Resources.

The placebo effect is one of the most striking examples of idealism – that is, mind or consciousness creates reality, or physical reality is created by consciousness. We also discussed the article “The weird power of the placebo effect, explained,” from Vox, by Brian Resnick (July 7, 2017), documenting six placebo effects. In Dan Ariely’s book, Predictability Irrational, chapter 10 is: “The Power of Price: Why a 50-cent aspirin can do what a penny aspirin can’t.”

Chris Meade is one of the Founders and CRO of CrossNet, a four-way volleyball game invented by Chris and two friends in 2017. Since then they have grown to a $2 million business with the game available at Target, Walmart, Scheels and Academy Sports. 

Hat tip to Paul Dunn, our VeraSage colleague, for sending Ron this new subscription offering. “Panera debuts $9/month unlimited coffee and tea subscription,” from Fast Company, February 27, 2020.