Talk Cocktail

There once was a time when technology was sold just to business to help create new and “softer” consumer products.  Today, we know there is a mass market for technology itself and it’s often sold directly to consumers.
Given that new, particularly disruptive, technology usually begins with a blank page, an audience of zero for products that did not exist, how has the market for these products changed and what’s the nexus with our habits and adoption of the technology itself?
Geoffrey Moore’s book Crossing the Chasm, has long been the bible for entrepreneurs  bringing products to larger and larger markets...but what’s different today.?
Moore is just out with a new and updated volume, Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers.
My conversation with Geoffrey Moore:

Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

At this point in our history, it should come as no surprise that the adage “follow the money,” applies not just to tracking down criminal activity, but to virtually every aspect of our economic and political system.
In a world where free markets are expanding, where economic and political stability are closely linked,  where nations compete for the free flow of money around the globe, where bankers cozy up to leaders and leader cozy up to bankers, sometimes those relationships can be out of balance.
To understand how,  it’s worthwhile to see how we got here and look at the 100+ year relationship between Wall Street and the administrations of 18 Presidents, of all political persuasions.
In her new book, All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power, financial journalist Nomi Prins explores how a small number of bankers have played critical roles in shaping a century's worth of financial, foreign and domestic policy.  She examines how these relationships have influenced events from the creation of the Federal Reserve, the response to the Great Depression, and the founding of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 
My conversation with Nomi Prins:

Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe

When we talk about drugs, or see the myriad array of pharmaceutical ads, we usually hear about a whole range of unique side effects.  These are not just side effects, they are real effects with real medical consequences.

This is true not just for the complex, highly marketed drugs, but even from our most basic antibiotics. While we’ve come think of this class of drugs as almost free from consequence,  the truth is they may have bigger and more far reaching consequences than the drugs that may cause individual problems.  For these drugs, the side effects may be to our whole species and to the ancient human microbiome that makes up a large part of who we are as individuals and as a species. We may be seeing these consequences every day, in the increase in childhood asthma, autism, obesity, and certain types of cancers.  

This discovery has been the life's work of Dr. Martin Blaser.  He examines this in Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues

My conversation with Dr. Martin Blaser:

In almost every way, today's workplace is very different than the world of Mad Men.  Yet one thing seems to be consistent. The nexus between the culture of an organization and its performance, is direct and powerful.

But what constitutes that culture, and how can it be changed?  It’s ironic that corporate culture often seems both immutable and fragile.  One jerk can seemingly ruin it, and yet CEO’s often spend whole careers trying to change it.  How can both be true?

We look inside organizational culture, not in a Dilbertesque way, but through the eyes of dozens of leaders and CEO that have talked with Adam Bryant, the creator of the “Corner Office” feature in The New York Times and the author of   Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation.

My conversation with Adam Bryant:

Progressive and social activists are too often portrayed as latte drinking,  sushi eating,  Volvo driving, arugula eating, white wine sipping, Birkenstock wearing, NPR listening, New York Times reading, tofu eating…etc.  You get the idea.  

This isn’t just another ordinary line of attack,  because what it does, what it means to do, is to drive a wedge between classes.  Class groups that often have common goals, shared values, and a true desire to solve real problems.

But the attacks often work because sometimes the leaders of social movements themselves, forget that while goals may be shared, many groups and different classes bring very different experiences and approaches along with different worldviews to solve similar problems.

So how can this circle be squared?  How can these groups not work against their self interest in a “What’s the Matter with Kansas,” kind of way?  Betsy Leondar-Wright gets to the core of the problem and potential solutions in her new book Missing Class: How Seeing Class Cultures Can Strengthen Social Movement Groups.

My conversation with Betsy Leondar-Wright:

Progressive and social activists are too often portrayed as latte drinking,  sushi eating,  Volvo driving, arugula eating, white wine sipping, Birkenstock wearing, NPR listening, New York Times reading, tofu eating…etc.  You get the idea.  

This isn’t just another ordinary line of attack,  because what it does, what it means to do, is to drive a wedge between classes.  Class groups that often have common goals, shared values, and a true desire to solve real problems.

But the attacks often work because sometimes the leaders of social movements themselves, forget that while goals may be shared, many groups and different classes bring very different experiences and approaches along with different worldviews to solve similar problems.

So how can this circle be squared?  How can these groups not work against their self interest in a “What’s the Matter with Kansas,” kind of way?  Betsy Leondar-Wright gets to the core of the problem and potential solutions in her new book Missing Class: How Seeing Class Cultures Can Strengthen Social Movement Groups.

My conversation with Betsy Leondar-Wright:

The task of bearing witness to war and terror, even for a journalist, is not to reduce events to our own understanding, but by acknowledging and reporting them, to serve both the dead and the living. Thierry Cruvellier has done this as one of the only journalists to have attended the trials of all of our contemporary international war crimes tribunals.  

Yet few such trials are more powerful than that of a mild mannered math teacher who was one of the principal executioners of the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge and the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia in the 70’s.  He tells that story in his new book The Master of Confessions: The Making of a Khmer Rouge Torturer.

My conversation with Thierry Cruvellier:

Few things are more ubiquitous than money.  Yet what seems so simple, can often become so complex.  Money is far more than just the notes and coins we carry in our pockets.  It’s part of a complex system of debits and credits and clearing. Just look at the workings of Bitcoin and you start to see how those notes and coins are really just tokens and symbols that represent a much larger and more complex world of money.

That's the world that Felix Martin ushers us into in Money: The Unauthorized Biography.

My conversation with Felix Martin:

During what was once considered the “golden age of radio," from roughly the late 1920s until the late 1940s, advertising agencies were the most important source of radio entertainment. Most nationally broadcast programs, on network radio, were created, produced, written, and/or managed by advertising agencies.

For those old enough, you might remember something like  Kraft Music Hall, or Maxwell House Showboat. 

When television came along, again it was the advertising agencies that produced and drove the entertainment decisions and production. If you’ve been watching Mad Men, you’ve seen the evolution of this.    It’s funny how today, in some ways, we seem to be coming back full circle, to this old notion of “branded programming.”

Cynthia Meyers, takes us back, to this time gone by, in her new book A Word from Our Sponsor: Admen, Advertising, and the Golden Age of Radio.

My conversation with Cynthia Meyers:

From High School biology class, to treating the most complex diseases, evolution lies at the core of our existence.  Whether we’re trying to figure out world conflict, medical breakthroughs or even what might happen if we encounter alien beings, evolution provides the foundation.

Today, with the world moving so rapidly, with technology so much a part of shaping that world, it seems more important than ever, that we all, especially young people, understand our roots, where we came from and what it might mean for our future. Few do this better than UCLA Professor, and Pulitzer Prize winning author of Gun, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond.

In his latest book, The Third Chimpanzee for Young People: On the Evolution and Future of the Human Animal, he brings young people deeply into the discussion.

My conversation with Jared Diamond