Podcasts about brighthouse

Episode Summary:Chuck Maldonado, a highly sought-after choreographer and creative director. Chuck shares his inspiring journey from a late start in dance at the age of 29 to becoming a key figure in the industry. He reflects on his early experiences with street dance and formal training, which eventually led to his involvement in the Centennial Olympic Games, where he worked with legendary choreographer Kenny Ortega. Chuck also discusses how key relationships, including a connection with Lisa Left Eye Lopez, helped propel his career forward, leading to major choreography opportunities for artists like Missy Elliott and Pink.Chuck delves into his transition from dancer to choreographer, citing his work on the film Stomp the Yard as a pivotal moment. He also talks about his latest venture, The Stu, a creative studio in Burbank, where he and his business partner Aliya Janelle offer a safe and supportive space for artists to rehearse, create, and grow. Chuck emphasizes the importance of relationships, mentorship, and trusting the process in building a successful career. Show Notes:(0:00) Introduction to Chuck Maldonado, Renowned Choreographer and Creative Director(3:30) Chuck's Early Start in Dance and Overcoming Challenges(8:45) Breaking into the Industry: Chuck's Big Break at the Centennial Olympic Games(14:20) How Chuck's Relationship with Lisa Left Eye Lopez Led to His First Major Job(19:00) Transitioning to Los Angeles: Chuck's Experiences with Missy Elliott, Pink, and More(23:15) Chuck's Favorite Projects: Working with Missy Elliott and Pink(27:00) The Shift from Assistant to Lead Choreographer: The Making of Stomp the Yard(33:45) Launching The Stew: Chuck's New Creative Studio in Burbank(38:30) The Vision for The Stew: A Safe Space for Artists and Dancers to Create and Connect(42:15) Chuck's Advice for Aspiring Dancers: Building Confidence and Overcoming Self-Doubt(46:00) Mentee Q&A: Staying Inspired in Choreography, Building Industry Connections(52:00) The Importance of Relationships and Mentorship in Career Growth(56:00) Final Thoughts on Trusting the Process and Staying True to Your Purpose in DanceBiography:Chuck Maldonado is one of today's most sought after Choreographers/Creative Directors in the industry. He has made such an impact in TV and films such as; Stomp The Yard 1 and 2, Step Up Revolution, House Party 5, Disney films G-Force, and Underdog. In addition, his talent and creative direction has also been used in shows such as; Dancing With The Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, X-Factor, and America's Best Dance Crew. Additionally, Chuck has worked on numerous commercials that include; McDonalds, Wendy's, Best Buy, AT&T, Hanes, Gap, and Target.He has also worked with several recording artists such as; Fergie, Chris Brown, Young Thug, P. Diddy, Ne-Yo, Usher, Pink, Khalid, and Missy Elliott. A four time award-winning Choreographer for his work on ‘Stomp the Yard,' ‘The NAACP Image Awards', ‘Chris Brown's Grammy performance', and Brighthouse's Network Commercial. Chuck has also devoted much of his time furthering his education. A Graduate of the historical North Carolina A&T State University, Chuck received his Bachelor's of science in Business Administration. Upon graduating college he received his first choreography job for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta.His recent projects include Paramount animated film Max and the Midknights, Bounce TV ‘Mind Your Business, MTV Movie and TV Awards for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the Netflix original film ‘Word Party', Toyota Commercials, Khalid ‘Roxy' Tour, and “In The Time It Takes To Get There” Movie by Zach Braff. Whether Choreographing, Creative Directing, Producing and now being a Studio owner, Chuck is known worldwide as one of the best in the industry. Connect on Social Media:https://www.instagram.com/chuckmaldonadohttps://www.facebook.com/chuck.maldonado1911Websitehttps://thestulosangeles.com/

In unserem Digital Pacemaker best-of bieten wir euch besonders hörenswerte Folgen aus unserem Archiv. In Folge #1 ging es am 22. März 2022 um das Thema Purpose in Unternehmen. Zu Gast war Dominic Veken, Managing Director von BCG Brighthouse. Dominic prophezeit Unternehmen ohne Purpose eine schwierige Zukunft und schlägt Wege vor, wie Unternehmen ihren Purpose finden und etablieren können.

Daniel Graff v. Brighthouse Life Ins. Co.

Special guest, Jeff Hughes, the Chief Technology Officer of Brighthouse Financial, takes us on a journey through the past five years of his professional life, where he played a pivotal role in successfully transitioning Brighthouse Financial to a new foundation. With over 200 transition services agreements and 100 programs and initiatives to navigate, Jeff and his team faced numerous challenges, but ultimately emerged victorious in their quest. On this episode of Life Accelerated, Jeff Hughes shares about the company's successful transition to a new foundation that involved exiting hundreds of agreements and initiatives. Jeff emphasizes the importance of a modern ecosystem in technology, particularly in terms of shifting from Capex to Opex in the transformation to SaaS and cloud technologies and how Brighthouse pursued this path and completed the transition to a 100% cloud-based and 90% software as a service environment. The company wants to be a best in cost company and heavily leverages third parties for technology-enabled business functions rather than outsourcing existing jobs.   Key Takeaways Adaptability and strategic planning is key. This highlights the importance of adaptability and strategic planning during major transitions. Focus on driving growth and improving the advisor experience. This emphasizes the significance of customer-centricity and innovation in staying competitive in the industry. Build a technology-enabled foundation. This showcases the importance of modern technology infrastructure and the strategic use of resources to enable cost-effectiveness and flexibility.   Timestamps [00:00 - 06:10] Introduction to Jeff Hughes and Brighthouse Financial [06:10 - 08:26] What Jeff has been hired to accomplish at a strategic level [08:26 - 10:27] Brighthouse Financial's transition approach and how it differs from others  [10:27 - 12:39] Critical decisions Brighthouse Financial made in 2017 for digital transformation [12:39 - 15:37] The principals that Jeff and Brighthouse Financial created when given the warrant to create new systems [15:37 - 17:55] The essential initiatives Brighthouse Financial developed to develop their own business ecosystem [17:55 - 20:54] What Brighthouse Financial's initiatives meant for digital transformation [20:54 - 23:04] What Jeff and Brighthouse Financial's three indispensable digital initiatives are [23:04 - 25:47] How Jeff would describe his management style and how he attracts and retains top talent [25:47 - 28:06] Areas where Jeff sees the controversial wisdom leading insurance [28:06 - 29:43] Closing   Resources Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffchughes/ Learn more about Brighthouse Financial  https://www.brighthousefinancial.com/  

The USAID Research Community of Practice Sub-Group on Food Loss and Waste (FLW) aims to share research and knowledge with USAID staff and implementing partners interested in the implications of and approaches to addressing FLW. In this episode of the monthly USAID FLW Podcast, Nika Larian, Food Loss and Waste Advisor at USAID, interviews Rusty Eason, a technical advisor with Brighthouse working with Food Enterprise Solutions with over 30 years of experience in the cold chain industry.Rusty shares the important role that the cold chain plays in reducing FLW and the challenges that exist, including transportation, which is the “weak link” in the supply chain most likely to break the cold chain. We explore the business case for the profitability of investing in and implementing cold chain technologies.For more information on the podcast or contribute to an episode, contact Nika Larian at USAID (Nlarian@usaid.gov).

Lack of Insurable Interest Makes Life Policy Void from Inception Policy Acquired as Part of a STOLI Fraud Never Existed as a Matter of Law RELEVANT FACTS AND BACKGROUND On July 11, 2007, the fictitious Mansour Seck Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (the "Seck Trust") applied to MetLife Investors USA Insurance Company (Brighthouse's predecessor) for a $5 million universal life insurance policy insuring the life of a fictitious man identified as Mansour Seck (the "Policy"), with a birthday of January 1, 1933. Seck was identified as a French citizen residing at 170 Academy Street, Jersey City, New Jersey. After confirming that its procedures and guidelines were met, MetLife issued the Policy on or around July 24, 2007. Pape Seck's Arrest and Prosecution In 2010, Pape Seck was the subject of numerous press releases issued by the State of New Jersey and other insurance industry publications; they stated that Pape Michael Seck, a New York City insurance agent, had been arrested and prosecuted for fraudulent insurance schemes. Pape Seck pleaded guilty to two counts of insurance fraud concerning fraudulent applications for Mansour Seck. T Litigation and the Superior Court Ruling In its opinion, the trial court declared the Policy void ab initio. The court denied Geronta's request for rescission and disgorgement, holding that rescission is not available where a contract is void because there is no contract to "unmake." After trial, the Superior Court ruled that Geronta was only entitled to restitution of the premiums it paid after it informed Brighthouse that the Policy was void for lack of an insurable interest. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/barry-zalma/support

To be a great business leader you have to bring your whole best self to your work.  Too often women feel that they need to conceal their emotions to avoid being stereotyped, but empathy is such a critical skill for success. Ashley Grice shares her journey to becoming a leader of purpose & impact at Brighthouse and how to nurture your authentic self.  As the CEO and managing director of BCG Brighthouse, Ashley Grice drives purpose, vision and impact storytelling.  As a dynamic business leader, Ashley shares the qualities that make a great leader and how to bring your whole authentic self to your work.  She offers an important reminder on networking—that it's so important to follow up and make sure to nurture connections rather than let them die out.  She also talks about the importance of setting boundaries and how having an appropriate balance of work and life is so important.  Don't be shy about setting those boundaries and working hard to maintain them.  Ashley's story is sure to be inspiring to anyone setting their sights on becoming a CEO who uses creativity and connections to solve complex problems.  Join us every episode with hosts Andrea Gallego & Corin Lines from BCG to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, technology and business. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Atlanta is a city known for many things: the food, the music, the culture. The traffic! But I don't know if Atlanta's really ever been seen as a design city like one would see New York or Chicago. That reputation is rapidly changing though, and that's thanks to Chip Gross. Chip is the managing director for Work & Co's newest office in Atlanta, and with over 20 years of experience under his belt, he's helping the city be recognized as a destination for design talent. We started off talking about his new position, including how it differs from his past roles, as well as the challenges of setting up a new office during a pandemic. Chip also spoke about growing up throughout New England and attending UPenn, starting his career in Chicago, and then moving to Atlanta for grad school. We also talked about Chip's experiences at IBM, iXL, Brighthouse, and AKQA, and how those prepared him for what he's doing now. Chip has put in the work and now it's time for him to take center stage!LinksWork & Co Atlanta OfficeChip Gross on LinkedInFor extended show notes, including a full transcript of this interview, visit revisionpath.com.==========Take our 2022 audience survey! We want to hear from you and learn what you think about Revision Path. The survey will be open until midnight on May 31! Take the survey at revisionpath.com/survey.==========Sponsored by HoverBuilding your online brand has never been more important and that begins with your domain name. Show the online community who you are and what you're passionate about with Hover. With over 400+ domain name extensions to choose from, including all the classics and fun niche extensions, Hover is the only domain provider we use and trust.Ready to get started? Go to hover.com/revisionpath and get 10% off your first purchase.==========Follow and SubscribeLike this episode? Then subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite shows.Follow us there, and leave us a 5-star rating and a review! Thanks so much to all of you who have already rated and reviewed us!You can also follow Revision Path on Instagram and Twitter.==========CreditsRevision Path is brought to you by Lunch, a multidisciplinary creative studio in Atlanta, GA.It is produced by Maurice Cherry and engineered and edited by RJ Basilio. Our intro voiceover is by Music Man Dre, with intro and outro music by Yellow Speaker. Transcripts provided by Brevity & Wit.Thank you for listening!

In Folge #1 geht es um das Thema Purpose in Unternehmen. Zu Gast ist Dominic Veken, Managing Director von BCG Brighthouse. Dominic prophezeit Unternehmen ohne Purpose eine schwierige Zukunft und schlägt Wege vor, wie Unternehmen ihren Purpose finden und etablieren können. Diskutiert wird die Notwendigkeit eines Purpose als unternehmensweites, langfristiges inneres Anliegen, seine Vorteile im Hinblick auf Schnelligkeit und Flexibilität, Motivation der Mitarbeiter und Attraktivität als Arbeitgeber sowie Wege zu einem tragfähiger Purpose. Das Gespräch schließt mit der Frage wie ein Purpose langfristig und erfolgreich im Unternehmen etabliert wird. Vernetzt euch mit uns und diskutiert auf unseren Posts zur Folge mit: Ulrich Irnich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ulrichirnich/ Markus Kuckertz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markuskuckertz/ Dominic Veken: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominic-veken-837023131/ Mitwirkende - Hosts: Ulrich Irnich & Markus Kuckertz // Produktion: Daniel Sprügel & Anna-Lena Behringer, Maniac Studios (https://maniacstudios.com) // Redaktion: Marcus Pawlik // Kommunikation & Community: Anna-Lena Sodies // Team behind the team: Sonja Uller & Stephanie Nguyen Gia. © Digital Pacemaker Podcast 2022.

A new beer was created! And...The power of the mindWhat's my age again?Copper ParadigmOxidationCold water vs, warm waterTyson is the new Bill NyeSample DayPumpkin AleSeasonal DrinkingDiseaseNew planet foundSecret ServiceApple launches ItunesArnold becomes govinatorEarth is less brightHouse floated across the bayTestical bath birth controlGolfer ruins golf courseMan swallows entire phoneFloating House link https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/10/15/canada-house-float-Bay-of-Islands-McIvers-Newfoundland/4131634332278/

2007 Annual Report   Big Cat Rescue is more than just a place that provides permanent care for big cats.  It is a movement;  a change in the tide of human perceptions and is the combined effort of more than 74,000 supporters.  If you are one of them, you are a Big Cat Rescuer and the following is the great work YOU did!  If you haven't helped yet, you can do so now at the top right of the screen or here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/donate.htm   Big Cat Rescue's Mission Statement:  To provide the best home we can for the animals in our care and to reduce the number of cats that suffer the fate of abuse, abandonment or extinction by teaching people about the plight of the cats, both in the wild and in captivity, and how they can help through their behavior and support of better laws to protect the cats.   Advances:  Combined Federal Campaign Best of the CFCIn late November we conquered the web site issues that have made our site inaccessible to all browsers other than Internet Explorer resulting in a 33% increase in the number of pages viewed by the 2,510,255 visitors to our bigcatrescue.org site in 2007 and 1,147,174 visitors to our www.CatLaws.com site for a total of 3,657,429 online visitors in 2007.  Big Cat Rescue is increasingly listed in world wide publications as a “must see” in Tampa.  Began the permitting process for the wall we have been raising money to build for the past 4 years.   Big Cat Rescue has been accepted into the federal version of the Combined Federal Campaign. Where we could only be in the local books in years past, we will be in every book that goes out to government employees as a choice for their auto deduction giving. Not only were we accepted, but we were also awarded with the Best of the CFC seal. In the local market we receive upwards of $7,500.00 in donations, so we are hopeful that we will do even better by going national. We are extremely grateful for this opportunity and thank those of you who are participating   For the first time in our history, Big Cat Rescue offered a reward for information. When a tiger was found shot to death along side an apartment complex and busy highway in Dallas, TX on Christmas day, we announced a $5,000.00 reward for information resulting in the arrest and conviction of the people involved. The police and animal control authorities told us that they cannot offer such bounties and that our doing so greatly enhanced their ability to pursue the case. See the video plea http://bigcatrescue.org/video/b42008/5000reward.htm   Animal Care:  Rescued four tigers left to die at the now defunct Savage Kingdom.  (TJ, Bella, Modnic & Trucha) Watch this dramatic rescue here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/video/b42008/savagekingdom.htm  Built & remodeled cat-a-tats for them.   Rescued two lions (Joseph & Sasha) and two tigers (Nikita & Simba) from the now defunct Siberian Tiger Foundation which was nothing more than a thin guise for Pay to Play with tigers.  Read about that rescue and see the video here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/rescuelionsandtigers.htm  Built & remodeled cat-a-tats for them.   Rescued four native bobcats in four weeks.  (Ace, Chance, Kennedy & Will)  Read about their rescue and what is being done to send them back to the wild here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/rehabbobcats2007.htm  Built & remodeled cat-a-tats for them.   Rescued a Savannah cat (Diablo) who was abandoned and living in an animal shelter that was not designed for long term care of exotic cats.  Assisted in the rescue of another Serval and Bobcat and another two Tigers, finding them permanent homes in facilities that meet the guidelines set out at  http://www.sanctuarystandards.com/   Vernon Stairs finished all of the new safety entrances to cages.  He built tunnels on the lions cages, Precious Bobcat and The Great Pretender Bobcat, and others to enable easy shifting and introductions.  Vern doubled the size of Jumanji the leopard's cage and added a cave and mountain.  He joined a number of cages to each other to provide more room for the cats to roam.  Catera Bobcat got to move in next to his mom and dad in a huge double sided enclosure.   Began renovations to Auroara the tiger's 1 acre, lakefront home to provide better drainage and a hurricane room.  Began work on a hurricane shelter for Nyla leopard after moving her next to her brother, Simba after years of them being separated.   Moved Bailey Bobcat in with Anasazi and Moses the Bobcats.   Moved Rose Caracal to a double cage and introduced her to Cachanga Caracal.  Moved the African Civets to Bailey's old cage after it was civet-ized.  Reintroduced Dances with Wolves and Shatia the Canada Lynxes.  Our cats are altered so that no accidental births will occur from these groupings.  Spayed Zabu the white tigress and Bella the tigress.  http://bigcatrescue.org/video/00143.htm   Raked the entire park before freezing weather to try and kill fleas and eggs and may switch products again as efficacy is fading.  Refurbished all 18 pools and one of them twice thanks to TJ the tiger being an absolute maniac when it comes to chasing fish.   Every year the cats get pumpkins to smash after Halloween  http://bigcatrescue.org/video/00062.htm, but this year they also got Christmas trees  http://bigcatrescue.org/video/00162.htm.   Staff and Volunteer Training:  In addition to our monthly, on site volunteer training courses, Tiffany Deavor took several online training courses, Scott Lope and Dr. Liz Wynn are scheduled for Safe Capture course, Sharyn Beach, Howard & Carole Baskin and Susan Mitchell attended D.C. conference on effective grass roots efforts.  Carole continues to take online courses and audio seminars to enhance her efficacy in legislation and leadership.  Fine tuned some of our training methods and tracking.   Education:  Joined the International Tiger Coalition with the mission of preserving 10,000 tigers in the wild in the next ten years.  More about that here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/internationaltigercoalition.htm   Assisted WNET and SeaStudios.org in ascertaining the number of big cats in the U.S. for their film about a world without humans.  As there is no government agency responsible for tracking these animals, it falls to anecdotal evidence that we have been compiling for many years.   The illegal portion of the 15 billion dollar trade in exotic pets is second only to the market for illegal drugs. In 2005, some 210 million wild animals were brought legally into the U.S. and many more were smuggled, because there are just 120 USFWS inspectors to cover 39 International airports and all of the border crossings. In just the legal importations, that means each inspector must view and approve the health of almost 15,000 animals per day, every day of the year.  Big Cat Rescue provided the photos and resources for an eBay guide to let buyers and sellers know that it is illegal to trade in many exotic cat furs.     We also provided this information to the World Wildlife Fund in Poland to enable them to train their border guards to recognize endangered cat species that are frequently smuggled through customs. Provided bobcat and Canada lynx photos and info for a scientific training / educational presentation on wildlife awareness for Environment Canada.   Cambridge University Press selected Carole Baskin's article on Cause Related Marketing for their Professional English in Use Series textbooks called Professional English in Use – Marketing.  It is a new addition to the Profession English in Use Series that is a self study reference book that will be used for classroom work and tutoring. Cambridge included Baskin in their 2008 Who's Who Among Executive and Professional Women “Honors Edition.” as well.   We implemented our first Artificial Intelligence V-host on a page called Ask the Cat where you can type in any question and the virtual cat will answer you in an intelligent way:  http://bigcatrescue.org/askthecat.htm  All of our species information pages were recorded and now each page offers the visitor the opportunity to read and/or listen to the information.  This can be downloaded onto mP3 players as well.   Jamie Veronica's photos of cougars were requested by wildlife biologist Anna Huckabee Smith, AWB for use in her 5 year status report for USFWS and Wildlife Trends which will be covering the topic of captive cougars being turned loose when they are no longer wanted as pets.   We harnessed the powerful mapping technology available with google maps and posted online, interactive maps that show the accredited and non accredited facilities (mostly back yard pet owners) who keep dangerous big cats.  It took four maps to hold all of the information, but they can all be accessed online here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/map.htm  This was offered to the FWC as they had stated they would be releasing this data online soon, several months ago, and this saved them the time and effort.  It will be helpful to the media when tracking maulings, killings and escapes and to emergency response personnel in the event of natural disasters.  Until now, this information has not been immediately accessible to fire fighters, the police or animal services.   Visitors:  In 2007 Big Cat Rescue had 26,497 visitors for guided tours.  16,424 were adult tours that generated $409,587.03 which is up 2.62% from last year.  Our biggest leap was in our kids tours for families with children under the age of 10 and with 3,271 participants that was up 44.31% and generated $54,668.60.  All of our tours are guided and are educational.  Our Education Program also convenes camps, special field trips and such and those were attended by 4,969 and generated $66,309.71 which is an increase of 15.37%.  In keeping with our desire to give back to the community we provided 27 free field trips for Title One schools and others on a needs-based application.   Prices:  Because we were nearing  capacity at the end of 2006 we raised our prices considerably in 2007.  This slowed our growth sufficiently to keep the sanctuary a serene home for the cats but increased our bottom line.  Prices were raised from $20 to $25 for adults and from $12 to $15 for children under ten.  All of our specialty tours were raised to $50 from $25.  Our supporters understand that as word spreads about Big Cat Rescue being such a magical experience people have been flocking here, and that we had to raise the prices in order to keep the number of guests down to a reasonable roar.  The added benefit is that people who visit really are committed to the animals and we are not just another tourist attraction.   Legislation/Education:  Presented testimony, statistics and charts to the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commissioners in Destin, Key Largo and St. Petersburg, asking to ban contact with big cats and their babies and to allow counties to enact more restrictive rules to protect the animals and the public.  Presented testimony, statistics and charts many times to their staff at planning sessions before and after the Commission meetings.  Provided the same to the Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking.   Testified at a Congressional briefing about the need for Haley's Act, a bill to ban contact with big cats.  The International Fund for Animal Welfare liked the presentation materials so much that they asked permission to reproduce them for their own legislative use, which was, of course, granted.  Presented a slide show on using the secret, the law of attraction, to assist in lobbying efforts in the exhibit hall at the Taking Action for Animals conference in Washington, DC.  There were 950 registrants and many more visitors throughout the two day exhibit.   Through our online video marketing we are educating more people in a week than we have visit the sanctuary in a year!  We are changing the way people think about animals and as a result they are acting more compassionately.  The recent outcry at Michael Vick's involvement in dog fighting shows that people care about animals more than ever before.  As wonderful as that is, however, it isn't enough.   Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Legislation can't change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless.”  Knowing this to be the case, we are using our online marketing to change legislation too.   In December 2003 we had to turn away more than 300 unwanted big cats and every other year that number was doubling.  That same year a new law, that we helped pass, banned the sale of big cats as pets across state lines. The following year, for the first time ever, the number of abandoned big cats dropped to 160.  We decided, then and there, the only way to stop the suffering and abuse was through the creation of better laws that would ban the private ownership of lions, tigers and cougars as pets.  Thanks to the laws enacted below, the number of abandoned big cats in 2007 has dropped to 72.   By December of 2004 we launched a new section of our website www.CatLaws.com that would enable people to learn about pending bills and enable them to connect to their lawmakers to ask for laws that would protect our communities while ending the suffering and abuse of big cats.  We believed that if people knew what was happening and knew how to help that they would.   Directing the traffic to the legislative sections had to be more creative however, because by and large, people don't want to think about politics.  The cat's stories and their photographs had to be compelling enough to overcome this typical aversion to legal matters and we feel that we have had considerable success in doing that since we have been able to track 1,147,174 visitors to our legislative pages in 2007.  The combined number of visitors, between our main web site bigcatrescue.org and our legislative website, is now 10,020 visitors per day with an average of 4 pages viewed by each visitor or roughly 40,000 page views per day.  Our peak day in 2007 was March 15 with 55,184 page views.   The next step was to get a person to take action by composing a letter to their congressman and that is even harder yet, but we believe the numbers speak for themselves:  33,596 letters were successfully sent from the legislative site asking for better laws to protect the community and to end the suffering and abuse of big cats kept in backyards and basements.  The Legislative Action Center report shows a steady, quarterly increase.   The results are measurable in more than just statistics however.  In the past 2 years seven states banned the private possession and barter in big cats and the numbers we have to turn away continue to drop. The USDA has issued policy statements against the private ownership of big cats and against heretofore accepted practices such as walking a 500 pound cat on a leash in public and allowing people to pet big cats at fairs, malls, parking lots and schools.  Details on these here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/lawsbigcatbans.htm   USDI issued their new rules that went into effect in September 2007 that ban the transportation of big cats across state lines by non USDA entities.  They also defined a sanctuary as a place that provides a permanent home and does not breed, sell, trade nor allow public contact with the big cats.  Before now there was no definition of a sanctuary and many places that were adding to the problem were doing so under the guise of being sanctuaries.  The language used by USDI is practically verbatim from our web sites at bigcatrescue.org and SanctuaryStandards.com.  http://bigcatrescue.org/laws/lawscaptivewildanimalsafetyact.htm   In 2007 the Florida legislature unanimously agreed to impose a $10,000 bond on anyone in the state who exhibits big cats.  This bond is used as a surety in the case of injury to the public and can be used by the FWC to care for dangerous wild animals when they have been abandoned.  Big Cat Rescue had been a strong proponent of this bond and our supporters, via our CatLaws.com site had made their wishes known to their legislators.  On July 2 Governor Charlie Crist signed the bond requirement into law and the FWC drafted the rules to enforce the new law in 2007.   The Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission put together a task force to review their policies that still allow the breeding and selling of big cats in the state with only the addition of a $40.00 USDA permit.  Public opinion polls on our web site indicate that  76% of those polled would support a ban on all exotic animals as pets.  That same percentage also agrees that hunting should be outlawed.  Florida's Wildlife Conservation Commission is funded almost entirely by issuing hunting permits and permits to people to own exotic animals so the fact that they are reviewing their own policies in view of changing public opinion is certainly measurable  evidence of Big Cat Rescue's impact on this very serious situation.   The FWC staff announced that they are making recommendations to the Commissioners that include proposed rules:   1. Raise the classification of a cougar from a Class II pet to a Class I animal that may not be kept as a pet. 2. Prohibit contact between big cats and their babies in accordance with the new federal bill that is pending which would ban the practice. 3. Prohibit transport of big cats to flea markets, parking lots, etc. 4. Require that exhibitors have all of their animals on exhibit as there is a current issue of meeting the letter of the law by exhibiting one animal while warehousing dozens more in minimum size cages that would appall the public. 5. Require Class II owners to secure a $10,000.00 bond as is now required for Class I.   As mentioned above, there is a federal bill called Haley's Act HR 1947 that is gaining momentum in the U.S. House and is expected to pass this session.  This bill is being broadly marketed by Big Cat Rescue because it will ban contact between the public and big cats, including their babies.  Baby tigers and baby lions are bred to be used as photo props and for petting sessions and then are discarded when they get too big.  This bill would stop the unscrupulous breeding for this industry and ultimately would end the biggest cause of the over abundance of big cats in captivity.   Using the email targeting feature of the CatLaws.com site we were able to convince the Medieval Fair to not allow a shabby traveling circus to set up shop by having our supporters write Hunsader Farms, the owner of the property, and telling them how they feel about such abuse.  3,236 of our online supporters sent letters to the Chinese government urging them to ban the farming of captive tigers for their fur, bones and organs.  All of these advances have been made possible by getting our message out to the people who can make a difference.  See below how we got the message out.   Fundraising and Marketing:  We were in the press 85 times.  Howard Baskin was featured in the Nov. 5th issue of U.S. News & World Report for his charitable work with Big Cat Rescue. http://bigcatrescue.org/000news/aboutbcr/usnewsandworldreport.htm   Scott Lope was quoted in Newsweek about the escape of Tatiana the tiger from a zoo where she mauled three young men and killed a teenage boy. http://www.newsweek.com/id/82067/page/1   Awards:  In January of 2007 Big Cat Rescue was awarded the People's Choice Award by WEDU, our local PBS affiliate. We won again in Jan. 2008.  More than 80 charities competed in a 16 county radius for this award, but Big Cat Rescue took 31% of the vote.  Next year the contest is going national.  Won Parenting Magazine's Best of Tampa Bay Award.  In August Big Cat Rescue was Change.org's Pick of the Month.   TV:  Animal Planet show called Ms. Adventure aired our episode in March and Real Strange aired in Europe.  The first episode of “Big Cat Rescuers” ever aired on: April 11, 2007 cable channel 19 7:00 PM and April 15, 2007 cable channel 20 6:30 PM.  This one hour episode was created by our own Jamie Veronica, Brian Czarnik and Honey Wayton, and features several of our keepers, partners and of course, Scott Lope our manager. Our big cat expert Scott Lope was interviewed on the History Channel's MonsterQuest‘s search for the elusive big black cats that are frequently reported roaming wild all across the U.S.   Roar and Rolling:  Lindy Melendez with EGS Printing has generously donated a van “wrap” that is valued at $5000.  See the stunning artwork here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/images/EasySt/van/index.htm  The wrap was done with a lot of love from everyone at ESG Printing.   Memory Lane:  Our cemetery was transformed from a pitiful little hodgepodge of cage placards to a wall of memories created in stone and inlaid with marble headstones that feature a laser inscribed image of the cat, his or her date of birth and death and the sponsor of the plaque.  This was done as a fund raiser for the living cats and in its first year generated enough money to support a tiger for a year.  Thanks to Babs Riddle the grounds were luxuriously sculpted to include gardens, a shell path and benches where our volunteers can rest and reflect on the lives they have known who continue to inspire them.  Great marble lions that were donated to us now flank either side of the impressive entrance.  http://bigcatrescue.org/foreverremembered.htm   Google:  In today's fast paced environment we have to stay quick as a cat and be as entertaining as a basket full of kittens.  We have found mini videos, or podcasting, to be our most effective way of marketing our message.  On July 8, 2006 we launched our first video on google.  We now have 195 live videos playing and have had 183,514 viewers.  Our most popular video is an hour long film about all of the plights faced by exotic cats in the wild and in captivity and it has been played 51,357 times.  None of our tracking can tell how many times people play our videos on their iPods after downloading them.   YouTube:   (the fastest growing web site in the world) In August of 2006 we launched our YouTube account and have 72 of our videos playing that have been viewed 1,752,846 times.  We have 881 subscribers to our videos with more joining all the time and are the #2 Most Viewed (All Time) – Non Profit and #9 – Most Subscribed (All Time) – Non Profit.  In late December we launched two additional sites dedicated to our Educational Department and our Animal Communicator.   MySpace: myspace.com/1BigCatRescue In August of 2006 we launched our MySpace account and are one of the top ranked sites as we have 221,617,683 in our network who have visited our profile page 22,928 times and we have 4,276 subscribers to our videos there. MySpace has become such a popular portal that it now ranks in the top 10 list of referring sites that send visitors to our main website at bigcatrescue.org.  That ranks our own MySpace account just behind such powerful referrers as the google, yahoo and aol search engines.   VEOH:  In 2007 we began posting our videos to Veoh.com   We have 143 videos playing and these videos are getting thousands of plays each.  Veoh is the next generation in T. V. viewing.  Videos can be watched in low resolution for free, or for a fee can be downloaded in high resolution and watched on a television set or computer.  We post most of our videos as a free download, but post PSA's in high resolution so that the media can get b-roll from us instantly for less than the cost of mailing a disk.   We now film, edit and post 1-2 videos each week.  Our videos have been so popular that they have been picked up for use on Current TV and many online content providers.  In addition to our online video marketing we have been in the press 427 times and if you haven't heard of the Fur Ball, you don't watch TV, listen to the radio or read the papers.  We have been blessed with complimentary ads from all of the biggest media outlets such as Cox Radio, The Tampa Tribune, The Tampabay Business Journal, the Maddux Report and the St. Pete Times to market our biggest annual fundraiser each year.  We also have Public Service Announcements running on Brighthouse cable TV and nationally on Animal Planet.   Search Engine Ranking:  Our goal was to increase the number of web visitors by increasing our web site's visibility on the Internet.  The most dramatic breakthrough was in revamping the underlying html so that browsers other than IE could view the site.  The second more important feature was implementing navigation that enabled visitors to see every level of our 12,000+ file site.  Even though this was not accomplished until November the pages viewed increased 33% in 2007 when the even though the number of new visitors only increased by 12%.  For the first time in history we have risen to the top page of google's search page for the keyword “tigers” and are number 18 of more than 43,000,000 competing sites.  To see the ranking on our most important key words visit:  http://bigcatrescue.org/get_more_hits.htm   Party of the Year:  That's what a lot of people in the know call it.  The Fur Ball netted more than $120,000.00 with a sell out crowd of 700 people.  That's up $80,000.00 over last year!  See the entire recap including photos of Bo Derek and our colorful, cat themed guests here:  http://bigcatrescue.org/000archives/2007FurBall.htm   Saving Wild Places for Wild Cats:  The Jaguar Trust.  Trapping is the furthest thing from our mission, except when it comes to camera traps for tracking and aiding wildlife. Our own Big Cat Rescue president Jamie Veronica went to Guyana, South America with a fellow volunteer on a mission for the sanctuary. Jamie and Justin Boorstein were in Guyana for ten days setting new digital camera traps with video to track Jaguars, Ocelots and Pumas. Our partner, Foster Parrots, tells us that with the recent import ban of all birds into Europe, Guyana now finds herself in a position to change the long practiced wildlife export industry there. Many trappers are finding that there are no markets for their “products”! Many of these trappers now find themselves unemployed and the government may start to look at the potential revenues of eco-tourism to fill the gap. If we can make a concerted effort with our conservation project we hope to serve as an example and to garner the support of Guyana to create the world's premier rainforest destination. Our plans include the promotion of our project here in the US and a marketing strategy to heighten the visibility of this important move in Guyana.   Visitors to Guyana will have a choice of tour itineraries ranging from an ambitious 3 and 4-day Kanuku Mountains hike that will bring them to the realm of the Harpy Eagle, to more leisurely tours that will encompass sightings of Red Bellied, Scarlet, Red and Green, Blue and Yellow Macaws, Giant Anteaters and a wide variety of primates.   Horseback and canoe excursions will let tour groups experience the wilds of Guyana at an intimate level.  Visitors can also travel to Kaeiteur Falls to witness one of the world's tallest single-drop waterfalls of 741 feet.   Construction on the first of two planned lodge complexes, located in Nappi Village, has been completed by the local tribes with funds from Foster Parrots and Big Cat Rescue. Contact SaveTheCats@bigcatrescue.org to spend your vacation dollars saving the wildcats in the rainforest.   Africa:  President Jamie Veronica and volunteer Barbara Stairs also toured Africa to see the issues first hand that have resulted in game parks being virtually the only lands left that house wild cats.  She will work with relatives there to check out sources for offering handmade products in our gift shop that could help preserve wildlife there as we currently do in the Jaguar Trust.  (Barbara Stairs funded this excursion)   Since 2005 Big Cat Rescue has provided both funds and volunteers to the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya .  Lewa relocates problematic wildlife to protected areas and provides education to children in the area who would not otherwise be able to read or write.  In addition to the funds that Big Cat Rescue donates, we also provide a U.S. market for Kenya ‘s craftsmen and send clothing with our volunteers to distribute when they visit.  Our volunteers take their skills and attitudes of compassion for all life into these barren regions and share a message of hope.   China, India, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia and Pakistan:  Every year since 1997 Big Cat Rescue has donated to the countries that are home to the Himalayan mountain range where the elusive snow leopard is found.  One whole corner of the gift shop explains how the sale of items made by the villagers helps save the snow leopard in the wild.  In 2006, Dr. Tom McCarthy, the Conservation Director for the Snow Leopard Trust, came to Big Cat Rescue to explain just how crucial each sale was to protect these exquisite cats.   The snow leopard lives in regions where the average person makes the equivalent of $1.00 per day.  Most of the people who share the same highlands with the snow leopard are herders and to them, the loss of one sheep or goat can mean the difference in their survival.  Most of the snow leopards that are killed are retribution killings; meaning that the cat has been blamed for killing one of the herd and the herdsman has killed the next snow leopard he saw.  The herdsman can eat the cat and sell the hide for 25.00 which for them is a month's wage.  There are many other middle men along the way who are anxious to get their hands on a snow leopard pelt or penis for the Asian medicinal trade or for the black market.   The pelt dramatically becomes more valuable as it goes down the line and can cost $5,000.00 or more to the final buyer.   The Snow Leopard Trust members in China, India, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia and Pakistan work closely with the local people to find out what they need.  In some cases, they can create handicrafts like those we sell and make five times what they can make from herding.   The programs are structured with reducing reliance on Snow Leopard Trust funds for each consecutive year and to remain in the program the community must ensure that no snow leopards are killed.  If anyone in the community kills a snow leopard, the entire community risks losing their right to participate in the program for a year and that is enough to keep everyone watching out for the snow leopard.  Their claims of protection must verified by the game wardens and governmental agencies who actually have incentives to discover poaching because they are often paid a portion of the confiscation if they can catch a poacher.     Big Cat Rescue is the second largest retailer for Snow Leopard Enterprises.   We collected fecal samples from our captive snow leopards for the Snow Leopard Trust to use in training dogs to be able to tell one wild snow leopard from another just by sniffing the scat left behind.  This will greatly enhance conservation efforts and is a cost effective method as well.  The video we produced is being aired on our sites, and also being used as a marketing tool for the new program and the Snow Leopard Trust.   The U.S. State Department enlisted our help in saving the critically endangered Amur Leopard because of our ability to reach so many people who care about wild cats and their habitat.  You can learn all about what is happening with the Amur Leopard & Tiger here:   http://bigcatrescue.org/cats/wild/leopard_save.htm. For more details on our International work visit:  http://bigcatrescue.org/000archives/2007AttachmentAInternational.htm   Other:  Big cat breeders, dealers, collectors and exploiters hate us because as we educate the public about the truth behind their abusive practices such as breeding white tigers, ligers or babies for photo booths their profiteering opportunities are drying up.  There is no justification for their activities so their only recourse has been to file a plethora of false complaints with authorities who regulate us and to make false accusations to anyone who will listen.  The only gain they could expect was to keep us busy proving ourselves so that we would be diverted from our mission of ending the abuses that result in so many unwanted big cats.  Now the regulators are on to them as we have proven time and again our integrity which is illustrated in our perfect inspection reports and our continued accreditation by The Global Federation of Sanctuaries and the Better Business Bureau.  Only one media outlet in 2007 repeated their slanderous accusations, but the article went on for many pages explaining that the reason such libelous statements are made is likely due to our success in exposing the activities that result in Florida having the highest incidents of maulings, killings and escapes by big cats.   Created pages devoted to the cats who have live and died in cages here with tributes from the keepers who loved them and who work ceaselessly for their freedom:  https://sites.google.com/site/bigcattributes/home  Thanks to the work of our AdvoCat LaWanna Jones we added hundreds of new e-Cards here:  http://www.bigcatfun.com/ecards/  and added hundreds of new online puzzles, new bookmarks and hundreds of new free online games here: http://bigcatrescue.org/game/games.htm.    Then and Now  Our CFO, Howard Baskin, compiled a ten year snapshot of the sanctuary and its growth.  This is just a comparison between 1996 and 2007.   Wildlife on Easy Street to Big Cat Rescue   1996            2006 Visitors                                                                              85                26,497 Total Expenses                                             $1,686,386           *$708,607.00 Total Income                                                                     $0           $1,236,237.00 Total Net Assets                                       $148,455.00           $2,419,227.00 Spent on Program Services                               100%            91% ** *funded by Founder        **4% spent on Management and 5% spent on Fundraising   Officers and Members of the Board of Directors in 2007 and meetings: • CEO and Founder  Carole Baskin (not compensated by BCR) • President and Chairman of the Board Jamie Veronica • Vice President & BOD Cathy Neumann (not compensated by BCR) • Secretary Jen Ruszczyk (not compensated by BCR) • Treasurer Howard Baskin (not compensated by BCR) • Director Dr. Liz Wynn, DVM  (not compensated by BCR for her role as a Director)   Paid Staff:  We went from 3 paid staff to 7 and now provide worker's comp insurance.  We still can offer no other benefits than the peace of mind in knowing their work is changing the world. • Operations Manager & Volunteer Coordinator Scott Lope $35,000.00 incl. bonuses • Staff Manager, Editor & Creative Director Jamie Veronica $24,700.00 (compensated but not for her work as a member of the board) • Social Science Director Brian Czarnik $18,400.00 (leaving for Chicago early 2008) • Gift Shop & Guest Services Bridget Czarnik $18,400.00 (leaving for Chicago early 2008) • Gift Shop & Guest Services  Honey Wayton $22,800.00 • Intern Director & Lead AdvoCat Tiffany Deavor $25,000.00 • Education Directors Dr. Beth Kamhi & Coleen Kremer $14,000.00 combined • Vernon Stairs Cage Builder and Maintenance $35,600.00 All of our animal care is done by volunteers or by staff who also volunteer time before & after work.   Volunteers:  Big Cat Rescue had 107 volunteers in 2007 who clocked in 57,302 man-power hours in addition to staff and Volunteer Committee member hours.  Roughly the equivalent workforce of 27 more full time staff.  Created the S.A.V.E. award for Scratch's Award 4 Volunteer Excellence.  The recipients were January – Julie Hanan, February – Cathy Monroe, March – Tiffany Deavor, April – Glen Yancey, May – Kym Marszal, June – Merrill Kramer, July – Barbara Frank, August – Marie Schoubert, September – Edith Parker, October – Babs Riddle, November – Anne Canterbury and December – Angie Gabor (the first Red Shirt to ever win)  Winners of the S.A.V.E. award are allowed to direct $500.00 to the cat project of their choice.  Created pages devoted to our dedicated volunteers at:  http://bigcatrescue.org/hero/000hero.htm and our 2007 Volunteer of the Year is Barbara Frank.   I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/   I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.     You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile! Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile   You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org   Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue   Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.

Ashley Grice, CEO at BrightHouse, a BCG Company joins Patrick to talk about the importance of purpose. We explore what it is, why it matters, and how it will help you and your organization to thrive.

On this week's Block Party Seth Kushner talks with NFL Hall of Famer Derrick Brooks about the bet he made with Julien BriseBois about learning to skate, if his Hall of fame bust looks like him, the story about a lady in Publix who thought he worked for Brighthouse, his favorite player on the Bolts, what makes Tom Brady so good and which is a better trophy - the Lombardi Trophy or the Stanley Cup?

Why? This question is central to Mr. Doug Shipman, an Emory alum, the founding CEO of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, and former CEO of BrightHouse and the Woodruff Arts Center in downtown Atlanta. Mr. Shipman grew up in a small conservative town in Arkansas, curious about the world he had only read about. In this conversation, Mr. Shipman and I discuss his childhood memories, his undergraduate years at Emory University, and how he became passionate about social justice and politics. He shares many stories about the social justice campaigns happening at Emory in his time, leading the project for the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, his thoughts on the Civil Rights Movement(s) and #blacklivesmatter on social media, and how he learned to always ask questions. Our conversation takes us from social justice to philosophy to religion and back to social justice, showing how complicated, yet interconnected, the topics we cover in this conversation are. I hope you enjoy this 60 minute episode about our desire to always ask questions and how to respect the answers we receive!

My guest today is Matthew Quale, president of Bask Bank (the only bank to offer American Airlines Loyalty Points in lieu of interest). This is Part 1 of the interview where we dive into Matt's career and path to CMO. Tomorrow we will explore how he grew the Bask business.As a subscriber-only podcast you will need to subscribe to the a private feed to get it in your podcast player. You only need to do this once. Simple instructions here.Transcript:Edward: My guest today is Matt Quale. Today we cover Matt's career and path to CMO. Princeton, General Mills, McKinsey, American Express, MetLife, and Brighthouse. Matt is now the president of Bask Bank and we're lucky to have him here today. Matt, many of my guests had a roundabout path to CMO but yours is more traditional than most. You started your career as a marketing assistant at General Mills. You took on progressive responsibility, but let's talk a little bit about the last two steps. First, you moved from a sales enablement role at American Express to running all the marketing functions at MetLife, how did you do that?Matt: What's interesting is you really do need to think about your career progression and plot out what are the pieces that you need. To your point at a very traditional marketing career, I've done a lot of stuff, print advertising, TV advertising, et cetera. As I was talking to my mentors, one of the things they talk about is you really haven't done enough technology. An opportunity came up with American Express to run sales enablement for the merchant business that included managing the Salesforce instance and gave me access to a tech team. When I think about what really drives the market today, I think about a three-legged stool. I think about data and analytics, I think about core creative, but then, I think about delivery through technology.For me, I felt good about my data and analytics from my time in consulting, I had the core creative. What I didn't have was technology and so much of marketing, particularly during the time on financial services, is that interaction between marketing and sales. For myself, one thing I always talk about is that marketing is a multiplier on sales activities. Having access to the CRM and having access to that tech team was really important for me in terms of actually building that tech muscle because digital is just going to be bigger and bigger going forward.Edward: Did you have the marketing skills to run all of the marketing prior to AmEx? I'm getting to the fact of why did MetLife take a person who is doing sales enablement and put him in charge of everything?Matt: Yeah, and also somebody who is in a different industry, who was an insurance person. Much of this also gets back to relationships and making sure that you are building a legacy, performance, and credibility. I had a boss at American Express who left for MetLife. He called me up and said hey, there's this great opportunity here at Met. He was really the one who introduced me to the opportunity and vouched for not only my market credentials but more of the fact that I was a strategic thinker and a transformation agent. As I went and interviewed with MetLife, who was really coming across was, they weren't looking for a traditional marketer. They've done that. They saw plenty of candidates who are in the industry. They're looking for somebody to really transform the marketing organization, in a lot of ways making more digital. For myself, the heavy technology and the heavy sales enablement played a really big role for them and something that they're very excited about.Edward: How did you develop those other skills? Because you're in charge of more than just moving them digitally and doing sales enablement. Things like branding and performance marketing and all the other things you weren't doing before, how did you pick up those skills?Matt: I guess when you actually take a look at a lot of my career, a lot of branding in places like General Mills. When you're working on brands like Cheerios and Kix, I've done a lot of repositioning work. Obviously, when I was with McKinsey, part of the marketing practice, doing a lot of marketing projects across a wide swath, but at the same time, oftentimes you are doing new things. I'd say no matter who you are, getting that next job, oftentimes your skills you don't have. That's really around building a team. I'll be the first person to say that I don't know every single piece of marketing, I don't have every single skill set, but what I can do is assemble a good team. That team really includes both your agencies as well as your internal folks.Oftentimes, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to hire people who are better at things than I am. For example, even some of the core creative, I ended up hiring some great folks out of P&G and really my other brand came from P&G. I said, look I want to be my creative eyes. I think you're better at this than I am. One of the things I always try and do is trying to figure out where my weaknesses are and how do I build from there.Edward: For MetLife, you became the CMO of Brighthouse. At MetLife, you still reported to a CMO who controlled Snoopy and the blimps, but in Brighthouse, you ran the whole show.Matt: Yeah, I was dot and line at the world of CMO organization for Met. At Brighthouse, we were spin-offs. We talk about one of the largest spin-offs in history. We had $240 billion of assets under management. You're right. I mean, I'm sure there are definitely some moments where the president who became the CEO of Brighthouse said, “Do you need to go out and hire a CMO from someplace else, or do I have the talent internally?”Much about this—I think for your listeners of the podcast—is that a lot of this is about performance over time and making sure you're somebody who's seen as a good team player, somebody who's reliable, and somebody who's delivered. When you do that, people are willing to give you the opportunity for the next step up.Edward: Okay, I want to go back a little bit on your path to getting there. As regular listeners know, I have a theory that things that happen to people when they're 12–14 affect them their entire lives. What were you passionate about at that age?Matt: I think what's interesting is for me, it probably goes back even further. My mother owned an advertising agency and my father was a financial adviser. The odds I'd be doing marketing for financial service firms are probably pretty high. But I think about the things I think about at 12 or 14. This is what came to me in my mind was both doing a lot of strategy games—Risk, Axis and Allies, Roman Conquest—but also a lot of fantasy baseball. These are back in the days where my friends and I would get the box score and every week somebody had to hand calculate everybody's scores. We rotated around who had to calculate across the box scores and give the scores.It was really just this idea of looking at baseball in a different way and thinking about performance in a different way. Often, you had these traditional stats that probably didn't really measure the impact of the players. For myself, I think as I've continued to move into marketing, I've certainly been the kind of person who said, how can we actually make sure this is having an impact? How can we make sure this is having a measurable impact on revenue? I think that's really been something.And then obviously the strategy. All these strategy games are very much about how do you allocate your resources in the most efficient way possible, where do you want to enter or exit that's going to be effective. Much of what you're doing in marketing is really making choices. You're making choices all the time and you need to be able to measure the impact of those choices.Edward: You went to the University of Princeton. How did you come out different than the way you went in?Matt: Well, I met my wife. Certainly, if I hadn't gone to Princeton, I wouldn't have met her. I think what's interesting about Princeton is you're surrounded by a really bright set of students who work incredibly hard. I think for myself, I really had to dig in. Going from high school to college (I think) was quite a shock in terms of both the workload and intensity. For myself, I really had to figure out a way to elevate and raise my game, and I felt good about that. I felt good about the fact that I was able to achieve and do well there. I think in a lot of ways, it taught me a little bit more about how to work even harder.Edward: What would happen if you hadn't gone to Princeton? Say you'd gone to a local regional school instead. How do you think your life and career would have been different?Matt: It is really, really so hard to know how it would have been different. I think I probably would have gone to some of the same places. But obviously, I talked about my wife, and I saw some of my best friends from university times. I think in a lot of ways it's about the relationships. I think I probably still would have pursued the same career in marketing, but certainly having companies like General Mills come to Princeton and recruit gives you a really good opportunity and knock that first job.Edward: Your first job was at General Mills in marketing. Were you looking for any sort of corporate job, or was marketing something you were looking for when you started your job search?Matt: That's funny because I did investment banking in the summer before senior year. The thing I felt about investing in banking was the kind of thing that anybody who sat in that seat was going to come up with the same set of answers. What I really liked about marketing was the choices you made. The choices you made for that brand were very distinct and unique. I think my path, in a long-range, has always been moving to that leadership position, moving to that P&L ownership position. Really, the question was what's the best way for me to go get there? You always want to play to your strengths and figure out where you're differentiated.For myself, even though CFO is probably the more traditional path to getting to CEO, my financial skills are mediocre at best. It was interesting being at business school, where I was pretty average in terms of finance, but things like marketing and strategy were really where I excelled and was able to differentiate myself. I always knew marketing was quite a better place for me to play because you want to play with your strengths.Edward: You left line roles after business school to join McKinsey. McKinsey is known for, among other things, doing a lot of PowerPoint presentations. How did that experience affect your later marketing career?Matt: I think what's interesting is, I really enjoyed wanting these different brands, but at the same time, it oftentimes is very micro. I wanted to take a position where you're taking a look at the company holistically and thinking about resource allocation, cross-functionally, not just within the confines of a single brand, and you're making a different set of strategic decisions. I think what was great about the McKinsey experience was it really teaches you how to think strategically, teaches you how to problem solve, and a lot of ways teaches you how to communicate.We talk about PowerPoint. PowerPoint is just a vehicle. When I work with my team, I'm a big fan of written documents. I don't care if it's Word. I don't care if it's PowerPoint. I don't care about email, but what I've always found is that anything written down ends up getting shared more broadly and also really makes people think. They have to think about what they're going to write down and you end up getting a better response. I've spent time at companies where the written word wasn't as big. It was more just about talking and people walked out of a meeting with a completely different view of what was accomplished versus everybody's lined up around a piece of paper, saying I agree with these words. You've got a lot more alignments.Edward: Amazon argues that you should do that on a Word document rather than a PowerPoint document. Do you have a strong opinion on that?Matt: I definitely use both. I think it depends on the kind of presentation you're doing. I had started moving probably more to a Word document for a pre-read than on the PowerPoint. What I find with PowerPoint is if you're making a bigger presentation, where you're projecting, I think PowerPoint is a lot more effective. The thing that I honestly also really like with PowerPoint is, I was always a big exec sum guy, and you can almost do the entire presentation off of the executive summary. But really, the executive summary is almost just a Word document.Most people don't want to go through all these pieces. When I was a consultant when I moved in and now I had consultants present to me, I'm like everybody else. Who wants to go through a 50-page PowerPoint presentation? You want to go through just a few key pages that are really critical and you want to have a conversation drive some decisions.Edward: After McKinsey, you focused on sales enablement at American Express. I often see a tension between marketing and sales organizations. Was that your experience?Matt: Absolutely. It's been interesting, some of the organizations I've come into where marketing and sales are just completely apart. The word I'd often use is there's contempt between the two organizations. Marketing is off in their silo working on brands, and sales up doing their thing thinking marketing's not helping them at all. I do think as a marketer, you need to take a step back, swallow your ego a little bit, and understand that you need to be customer-backed. Now, this depends very much on the category. I know we're going to talk about the last thing which is really direct-to-consumer, but when you're an organization that's more B2B, your salespeople are really your best channel, really your most effective channel. Instead of thinking about sales as a separate organization, think about sales as one more channel that you need to work with. Really getting the sales team running and working closely with marketing, you get a huge multiplier effect across those enterprises.Edward: How do you do that? How do you get sales and marketing working so well together that they feel like they're on the same team?Matt: What's interesting at Brighthouse is the sales guys are really, really started getting along marketing. What's interesting is when they're recruiting, salespeople say, marketing's our secret weapon. They would actually talk about marketing to go higher. I think the big thing for marketing is your job is to drive sales productivity. When they understand that all you're trying to do is candidly help them make more money, they are on board.  Where we're very successful was launching pilots with sales and then putting it up in front. I always give an example and oftentimes, it's small tactics that work. Trigger-based emails. I talked a bit about how important the CRM is but one of the things that we did was build trigger-based email campaigns. I've never met the kind of guy who's going to say, you have to do this. Instead, I'm going to find a portion of the sales organization that is going to embrace what we're trying to do. We found a group of salespeople who are open. What we found when we did the test and measure was that those people using trigger-based campaigns were selling a lot more than those who didn't. Whenever we have the national sales meeting, I would get up and say, here are three different tactics. We actually put the sales organization in quartiles, those who used this the most versus those who used it the least. You can see those using the most made more money than those who didn't. You find pretty quickly that the sales organization starts embracing what you're doing. You really need to build, test, learn, create that case for a change, and then you go sell it through.Edward: Matt, what were your biggest failure points in your career? Where did things not go as expected?Matt: Much of those moments came oftentimes from external activity, where something happens to you that you're not expecting. When I was at American Express, I was in a strategy role. My leader left. They left the company. When that happened, they decided to shut down our organization. They said you know what? We've built this around the leader. The leader is gone. You guys are all going to be displaced. We got to go find new jobs in American Express. It's one of the things you're not expecting. I think my wife was pregnant at the time. You feel like you're doing good work. Really, what it made me reflect on was the importance of both your network, but also managing your career. A phrase my father-in-law would use was managing your career is as easy as PIE. PIE stands for performance, image, and exposure.Your performance can be great but if you don't have broad exposure across the rest of the organization, you leave yourself in a situation where one person leads, or some situation happens where you're not going to be in a good role. The team that AmEx had done good enough work that we had three offers that day going to a new role. Now, as part of the way we ended up in the sales enablement team. Part of the reason I talk about the team is that some people at AmEx are still working with me 10 years later. Really, what you want to do is you want to build a really good team of folk you work with.Edward: Matt, what are your productivity tricks? What do you do to be productive that most people don't do?Matt: For me, I spend less time thinking about my own productivity and more time thinking about the team's productivity. I think as you get more senior in your career, [...] start getting these organizations that are 100 plus, your productivity is pretty small compared to all those people you have working for you. I really think about three things and it's interesting, but it's very much from prioritization, consistency, and culture. What I've used to great success is OKRs. You're probably familiar with OKRs but laying out the OKRs, the objectives, and key results for people, it really helps people understand what you're prioritizing and what they should prioritize, so they're not wasting motion someplace else.Then, I use the word ‘consistency' a lot, and that is both strategic consistency and emotional consistency. What's interesting is, you can really whipsaw your team even inadvertently, like coming up with different ideas, and you need to let people finish things through. The worst thing for anybody is when they start-stop-start-stop. I remember a lot of times when I was a junior in my career somebody walking into my cube saying hey, we need to do the analysis on what happened in Florida with the hurricane. Your whole day is burned and shot. It's hard to get to those basic strategic objectives.The other thing is just emotional consistency. What's interesting is you hear from people, we didn't want to talk to so and so because we're worried they weren't in a good mood. When people feel safe and secure, and they're not worried about whether or not the boss is in a good mood, it really allows them to go thrive. That last piece then starts playing into culture as well.Edward: This has been fantastic. Thank you so much for your time. We're going to continue this tomorrow with a dive into your experience at Bask Bank. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marketingbs.substack.com

What impact will the virus have on corporate insolvency? There have been two recent high profile failures, Carluccio's and BrightHouse and more landlords are looking to serve winding up petitions...

"You don't want a job, and you don't want a career. What you want is a calling." Welcome to Season Two of the podcast! On this episode, I have a conversation with Mr. Joey Reiman, a successful entrepreneur who founded the first purpose-driven consultancy, BrightHouse. Joey and I have a conversation about purpose, the magical moments in life, and our shared interest in the Law of Attraction. We discuss that as a child, we were enthralled with the magic of the world. We asked “why” and “why” and “why." But, as we grow older, we tend to stop asking “why” and accept the world as it is. The world stops being magical, and we become preoccupied with what society expects of us. Mr. Reiman and I discuss how not asking "why" can lead to failure, and how this simple question can change one's life. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did, and you begin to ask yourself what your purpose in life may be. Thank you for listening!

Dominic Veken ist Werbeprofi und Philosoph - vielleicht für sich genommen schon ein Widerspruch in sich. Aber bei Dominic passen diese beiden Welten sehr gut zusammen, denn er ist Unternehmensphilosoph und beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, welchen Sinn eigentlich große Unternehmen verfolgen und wie sie die Mitarbeitenden und Kunden von der eigenen Mission überzeugen können. Bevor er sich als Berater und Speaker selbstständig gemacht hat und Managing Director der Sinn-Beratung BrightHouse wurde, war er bei der Werbeagentur Kolle Rebbe für Kunden wie Otto, Bionade oder den Wahlkampf Angela Merkels zuständig. Wir diskutieren mit Dominic darüber, warum es manchen Unternehmen wie beispielsweise Apple oder Tesla gelingt, die eigene Marke mit einem regelrechten Kult aufzuladen, während andere Unternehmen über ein extrem schlechtes Image verfügen. Ist ein sinnvolles Produkt auch automatisch ein nachhaltiges Produkt und wo zieht Dominic für sich die Grenze bei der Auswahl seiner Beratungsmandate? Außerdem sprechen wir mit ihm darüber, ob es verwerflich ist, wenn der Trend zu mehr Purpose eigentlich bei Unternehmen aus der Motivation heraus gefördert wird, um produktiver und rentabler zu werden. Ist Sinnhaftigkeit nur der neueste Trick des Kapitalismus, um uns alle bei der Stange zu halten? Dominic ist aufgrund seiner Erfahrung und seines akademischen Hintergrunds ein spannender Gesprächspartner für diese kontroverse Debatte und wir sind gespannt auf deine Meinung - schick sie uns gerne! Wir stecken viel Arbeit und Herzblut in ‘Geil Montag’ und müssen diesen Aufwand auch refinanzieren. Wenn Du möchtest, dass wir den Podcast auch zukünftig regelmäßig veröffentlichen, hast Du unter www.geilmontag.de die Möglichkeit, einmalig oder monatlich wiederkehrend einen finanziellen Betrag deiner Wahl beizusteuern. Wir bedanken uns sehr herzlich für deinen Support! Herzlichen Dank auch an unseren Supporter Africa GreenTech. Wenn Du Interesse daran hast, mit einem Investment ab 250 € nicht nur eine solide Rendite zu erzielen, sondern auch die Energiewende in Afrika voran zu bringen, dann erhältst Du unter www.africagreentec.investments alle wichtigen Informationen. Mit dem Gutscheincode “Geilmontag” bekommst Du außerdem einen 5% Nachlass auf deine Fundingsumme. Wir empfehlen dir auch unsere Podcast-Folge mit dem Gründer Torsten Schreiber! Risikohinweis: Das hier vorgestellte Crowdinvesting in Africa GreenTech stellt keine Anlageberatung dar. Wir weisen dich ausdrücklich darauf hin, dass ein Investment mit Risiken verbunden ist und von dir vorab gründlich überlegt sein sollte. Im Zweifelsfall kann es zu einem Totalverlust des von dir eingesetzten Kapitals kommen. Unseren Gast Dominic findest Du im Netz: www.veken.de Alle Infos zum Podcast und die Literaturliste findest Du auf: www.geilmontag.de Zu erreichen sind wir per Mail: fanpost@geilmontag.de oder bei Instagram: www.instagram.com/geilmontag oder über unsere eigenen Websites: www.goodjobs.eu www.lassekroll.de Foto: Dominic Veken Grafik: Kristin Fichtner

SPECIAL GUEST: VALERIE MUNDY, P.E.-NABWIC MEMBER Owner and Managing Partner at Global One Networks, LLC IF YOU’RE NOT IN POLITICS, YOU’RE NOT IN BUSINESS - HOW TO LOBBY FOR YOUR BUSINESS Ms. Mundy is a licensed specialty electrical contractor providing installation of voice and data cabling, Security and Access Control, CCTV, Voice over IP, Avaya, Nortel, Cisco telephone systems and other low voltage applications. Continuing/On-Call Low Voltage Contractor for Orlando International Airport, Orlando Utilities Commission and Orange County Public Schools. She is also engaged in workforce training, instructing adults on how to transition into a career in telecommunications from a telecom technician, cable tv technicians with Brighthouse and Directv, Networking, customer support and helpdesk, and Video Production Assistants. Ms. Mundy is an active NABWIC member who has been intricately involved with organizing political events, including NABWIC's Annual Mid-Year Congressional Black Caucus Reception.  This year's reception will be held Thursday, September 17 from 5-8 PM  on ZOOM. You want to attend NABWIC's 2020 Congressional Black Caucus Virtual Reception. Join MC Yolanda Cash Jackson with special guest speakers Nyami Mandindi, Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence, US Army Corps of Engineer's Patricia Sweeney & more. Specially invited guests include Congresspersons Al Lawson, Hank Johnson, Karen Bass & others. Register at nabwic2020reception.eventbrite.com or visit nabwic.org, Any Questions: 4075762642

This episode of Sustainability Leaders focuses on a company's purpose and why it matters for sustainability. A company's purpose matters now more than ever, and social purpose and social impacts have taken a front seat these days as COVID-19 changes the landscape for all economies. Our guests today are experts in creating purpose statements and leading companies on the journey to find their purpose. Cathy Carlisi, President-America, Ashley Grice, CEO, are with BrightHouse, part of the Boston Consulting Group. They've helped many companies, including BMO, to develop a purpose strategy and drive it towards sustainability outcomes. They discuss what a discovery process for purpose looks like, how culture, business strategy and brand alignment are needed for executing purpose well and who should be involved. We also discuss how purpose and ESG are linked and how getting uncomfortable is necessary to discover purpose. 

Our episode today focuses on a company’s purpose and why it matters for sustainability. A company’s purpose matters now more than ever, and social purpose and social impacts have taken a front seat these days as COVID-19 changes the landscape for all economies. Our guests today are experts in creating purpose statements and leading companies on the journey to find their purpose. Cathy Carlisi, President-America, Ashley Grice, CEO, are with BrightHouse, part of the Boston Consulting Group. They've helped many companies, including BMO, to develop a purpose strategy and drive it towards sustainability outcomes. They discuss what a discovery process for purpose looks like, how culture, business strategy and brand alignment are needed for executing purpose well and who should be involved. We also discuss how purpose and ESG are linked and how getting uncomfortable is necessary to discover purpose. 

Jared Anderson of Brighthouse Financial joins Cathy to discuss some of the newest innovations in developing income for retirees.

Listen to research about companies that trade on the stock market as an audio recording!

Brad White joins Patrick in the ‘lab’ to discuss the importance of purpose. The term purpose is thrown about, but rarely understood for its importance. Brad shares what purpose is, why purpose matters, how to ‘excavate’ to find your team or organization’s purpose, and what you can do to keep purpose alive in your daily work.

Previously the MD and Talent Manager of Brighthouse (now known as This Way Up), Nadia has worked at Gitlab since 2017 simultaneously recruiting to scale the company from 75 to 767 hired team members and building up her career in People Operations at the company. She moved into a management position at Gitlab a couple of months ago. All 767 Gitlab employees work from home. It was decided from the start by the founders that the company would always stay remote. “If we say all-remote, we really mean it. We have no offices anywhere in the world.” How does Gitlab maintain a productive remote company culture? Nadia lists some handy tips and tools. When she interviews people in different countries, she can almost immediately tell if it will not work out depending on how open the person is to other cultures. As a global all-remote team, it’s imperative to be able to get along with people from diverse backgrounds. “We are non-political at work.” The Values-driven work at Gitlab is not only the responsibility of the management. It’s very bottom-up as opposed to top-down and Nadia reckons it’s up to everyone to help each other stay aligned. Currently Nadia’s team is working on on-boarding and off-boarding and making sure it’s more of an experience than “train-stopping” for the employees entering and exiting the company. In a discussion around Hi5 pulses, Nadia mentions it could be better to run 90-day pulse surveys than to run bi-annual 360 degree reviews. It’s also great to go back to what was said in the crucial time of on-boarding in the first 90 days to assess growth and alignment to values. “Sticking to values-hiring as opposed to ‘bums in seats’ has definitely been game-changing.”‍ Timestamp notes: 0.11 — Intro 2.35 — About being an all-remote company 8.15 — Scaling the culture at Gitlab 13.28 — An average day for Nadia 15.12 — What she’s reading at the moment: The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins. Crucial Conversations by Al Switzler et al. 16.07 — On employee feedback & bi-annual 360 reviews 18.37 — Favourite productivity software? Gitlab for building tables and for onboarding, her calendar for blocking time on schedule. 20.46 — How to reach Nadia: Twitter, LinkedIN, nadia@gitlab.com. If you have any feedback, comments, ideas or suggestions, please get in contact with us on twitter @giveahi5 or email us on podcasts@get5.io. ‍Want to run 90-day employee pulses? Check out Hi5 Pulses

Mitchell is continuing with the theme of solutions to the profoundest issue of them all, Climate Change. This week, Mitchell interviews Dr. Katharine Wilkinson, Vice President of Communication & Engagement at Project Drawdown, where she is advancing the organization's message, reach, and Climate Change Just Ahead sign with bad day on backgroundinfluence around the world. She was lead writer for the New York Times bestseller Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming—the #1 environmental book of 2017. Katharine's interdisciplinary background cuts across research, strategy, advocacy, and thought leadership. Previously, she was Director of Strategy at the purpose consultancy BrightHouse. She has taught at the University of Oxford and Agnes Scott College and worked for The Boston Consulting Group and Natural Resources Defense Council. Her first book, Between God & Green: How Evangelicals Are Cultivating a Middle Ground on Climate Change, was called “a vitally important, even subversive, story” by The Boston Globe.global-warming-climate-change-tree_1big_stock2 As an international public speaker, Katharine's perspective has been featured by Aspen Ideas, Skoll World Forum, Talks    Google, and The Weather Channel. Katharine holds a doctorate in Geography & Environment from Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and a B.A. in Religion from Sewanee—The University of the South. She is happiest on a mountain or a horse or perhaps both! A Better World is bearing down on the story behind the damage humans have done over hundreds of years to our precious eco-system, the extent of it, and what we have as solutions to reverse Global Warming, which should really be called Global Heating or as Robin Williams called it "Global Grilling".  A Better World is doing all it can to restore equilibrium to our eco-system. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/abwmitchellrabin/support

Jeremy Adams built two businesses that each do multi-million dollars in revenue before turning 27. He was named as one of Influencive’s Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30 and won the “Best New Business” award by Brighthouse in Central Florida. He’s done business with Kevin Harrington, a past investor from Shark Tank, and his current venture is Unicorn Innovations.   Quotes To Remember: “Find your own Kevin Harrington.” “Everybody definitely starts somewhere.” “Figure out a way to add value and figure out a way to build trust.” “We can reach max production and max fulfillment just from local strategic partnerships.” “It’s very realistic to generate quality revenue and quality income for yourself just with a handful of super high-level strategic partnerships.” “You really have to, in many cases, be persistent.” “99% of people’s problem really is not a big deal.” “Education is the new currency.” “Sales is one of the most powerful skills in the world that you can learn.” What You’ll Learn: How to Lay a Good Foundation for a Business Achieving Multi-Million Dollars in Revenue Building a Strategic Partnership Tips to Achieve Rapid Growth   Key Links From The Show: Jeremy’s Site Prestige Food Trucks Kevin Harrington’s Site   Recommended Books: Content Marketing Secrets by Marc Guberti The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter Second Chance by Robert Kiyosaki Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff   Support Breakthrough Success On Patreon Please consider supporting Breakthrough Success on Patreon. I publish five episodes per week which I carefully prepare for, and I choose to not run ads in my podcast to enhance the listener experience. I offer my patrons various perks, and even a donation as small as $1/mo would make a big difference for growing and maintaining Breakthrough Success. You can support Breakthrough Success by going here.

Dr. Katharine Wilkinson is Senior Writer at Project Drawdown, where she collaborated with Paul Hawken on the New York Times best-seller Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. Katharine’s interdisciplinary background cuts across research, strategy, and thought leadership, with a focus on exploring, amplifying, and invigorating action to address climate change. She is a Guest Lecturer in environmental leadership at Agnes Scott College. Previously, she was Director of Strategy at the purpose consultancy BrightHouse and worked for the Boston Consulting Group and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Based on her doctoral research at the University of Oxford, Katharine published Between God & Green: How Evangelicals Are Cultivating a Middle Ground on Climate Change, called “a vitally important, even subversive, story” by The Boston Globe. Her recent fellowships include Aspen Ideas and Summit LA, and her voice has been featured by The Weather Channel, Talks @ Google, and on campuses including Columbia, Princeton, and Yale. Katharine holds a doctorate in Geography & Environment from Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and a B.A. in Religion from Sewanee - The University of the South. She is happiest on a mountain or a horse. Links mentioned Project: Drawdown - 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming Book: Drawdown - The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming Katharine: Speaking Drawdown: Solutions Katharine's book: Between God & Green: How Evangelicals Are Cultivating a Middle Ground on Climate Change Let's create a climate fit for life: Interface carpet manufacture Paul Hawken’s Book: The Ecology of Commerce Kick-off of the Eco Challenge Contact ​Katharine Wilkinson A Path Forward on Climate Change. Writing. Speaking. Strategy. Facilitation. KKWilkinson.comEmail KatharineOn Facebook Purchase the podcast’s namesake Eco Music album "Let’s Talk About The Weather" on iTunes or Bandcamp.

Meet the group of leading experts from fields that can have the biggest impact on financial professionals and their clients: economics, psychology, future trends, and financial advice.

Chris Taylor is one of Austin’s most successful bootstrapped entrepreneurs. He founded Square Root, which ranked number two on Fortune Magazine’s list from Great Place to Work of the 25 Best Small Workplaces in the country. Square Root makes store relationship management software for Nissan and other customers. Its software helps automotive sales managers run their dealerships. And the company has recently entered other markets in the retail industry. Before launching Square Root in 2006, Chris held operational and strategic roles in several Internet and software companies, including TrueCar, US Digital Gaming, Pricelock, CarOrder, Wayfare Interactive, Brighthouse and Trilogy Software. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Carnegie Mellon University with degrees in Computer Science, Mathematics and Psychology.

Ultimate DVR We have been using DVRs now for the past 10 years or so and they have come a long way since when they were first introduced. But with that said there are still a few features that could take the DVR to a whole new level. We have a few ideas for the Ultimate DVR and so do you. Pause In One Room And Pick Up In Another Most of our DVRs can already pick up recordings in different rooms at the last played spot but it's a bit cumbersome. The way it works for most of us is to turn on the TV in the other room go to the recording list select the show and then hit resume. We would like to make it simpler. How about when you hit pause you are given an option to select another TV for continuation. Then you turn off the TV and go to the other room and turn on the TV. A dialog box will already be displayed on the screen asking you to hit play to resume. With a single click of the remote you are back in business! User Profiles User profiles would make life much easier for homes with multiple inhabitants. The interface should allow for quick filtering of the recorded programs based on users. That way we don't see the shows that our children and/or spouses recorded. Anytime a new program is added to the season pass manager it will show up in everyone's list until you accept or reject it. You can also show the full unfiltered list with a simple toggle.   But the real power will be in tracking where you were in a program. If someone in your household watches a show that you also have in your list it should not indicate that its been watched by you until you watch it. If someone else is 30 min into the show and you are 15 min into the show the DVR should keep track of that as well. True iTunes/Netflix/Amazon/Youtube Integration It would be great if you could log in via your DVR and then whatever subscriptions/TV/movies you have purchased would show up in the program list. Sure you can switch over to a Smart TV application or external set top box. It would be really cool if they just show up in the playlist. Listeners Ideas I would like to be able to record 4-6 shows simultaneously, watch DVR from my phone, set recordings more easily (too many steps), watch from any TV/device.   Thanks!   Shawn Faherty Stafford, VA via Facebook   Due to there being so much content out there to watch, some intelligence can be added to recommend shows that you would like based on what you record and shows that you watch via the "Catch Up" feature. I find that there is a lot of good stuff out there, but we just don't seem to find it and if we do find it, the shows are a few episodes in already.   For shows that you generally record, highlight them within the "Catch-up" section. I prefer to watch via "Catch-up" then via the recorded shows since then I don't have to skip commercials.   Glen South Africa via Facebook   Cloud based dvr so that recordings are available to view on all devices. Could be practical now that dsl speeds are much higher these days.   Integration of catch - up and on demand within the EPG. This could allow for scrolling 'back in time' through the epg to launch a catch up show, straight from the epg itself.   Duncan via Facebook   In today's day and age, if a game runs late, the dvr should automatically adjust   @409SWH via twitter   An interface that's easy to use with less clicks. The @XFINITY X1 DVR is example of poor/stupid UI.   @HiFiGuy528 (and many others!) via twitter   Honestly, way before any fancier feature, I'd just like the damn thing to work SMOOTHLY. My Comcast box is just slow enough responding to button presses that it drives me crazy. I spend an inordinate amount of time just trying to fast forward through commercials without overshooting the beginning of the next program segment. Then, rewinding... Then, oops, back forward... Then back... Then screw it, I'll just watch this last commercial. At the end of a program I hit stop and WAIT for the option to delete, then hit OK and WAIT for it to delete, then WAIT for it to respond to the "exit" button for the DVR menu to go away. Then I'm about 10 seconds away from smashing the remote. Also, on the Comcast DVRs, you have to add about 3 minutes to every recording because the thing acts squirrelly near the end of any recording, in ways too specific and weird to explain here. Oh, AND, for no reason, they changed the play button's function during playback from simply showing the play timeline to now pausing the program. GRRR.... So the feature I want the most? JUST WORK RIGHT.   The next complaint is simply the guide / schedule. Program reruns show up as new and either don't get changed to a rerun listing until right before it airs, or never change and get recorded, filling up the drive. And our local PBS station CONSTANTLY has errors in listings. On other stations, series recordings just disappeared for the upcoming season, and we had to re-create them. Nuts.   So then after all the basic stuff, I'd like one DVR that remembered where you were in any recording, no matter how you were playing it back (recorded or on demand), and could play back to TINY little players around the house, or as DLNA to anything that uses that standard, or to mobile devices wherever I am. But mostly I don't want big ol' boxes with every TV simply to be able to see HD. That's infuriating, and one of the reasons I was so excited to recently read about efforts to set a software standard by the FCC that could be licensed to whomever, so we don't all have to rent so many infernal boxes! :-)   Lee Overstreet via Facebook   I would like DVR's to go away. All shows should be available from any device at any time, including FF/RW capability. My cable company (Brighthouse) only has shows available from the current season and FF does not work. The capability to download a show to a mobile device so it can be played off-line should be available as well. So far, I have only seen this from Amazon.   Andy Cohen via Facebook   External HD with no size limit (user upgradable/replaceable) easy downloadable recordings (for archiving)   easy way to backup all settings to an external computer   Bob Tar via email  

Joey Reiman: The Medici's Are Coming! Reading this via email? Click here to LISTEN NOW! Joey is CEO & Founder of BrightHouse, the International Center for Applied Purpose, which was recently sold to the Boston Consulting Group, and is the author of a number of books, most recently Thumbs Up! We had a wonderful conversation… Read More » The post Joey Reiman: The Medici's Are Coming! appeared first on Gareth J Young.

Joey Reiman never thought something as small as his thumb would change his life forever. After a paralyzing accident in 1975, he was told he may never move his hand again. Refusing to accept this prognosis all Reiman wanted to do was move his thumb. He thought, "If I could just raise my thumb, the rest would follow." With this seed of what he calls "optimalism," believing that optimism creates optimal outcomes, Joey did it. He gave himself a thumbs up. Within his new book, Thumbs Up! Reiman aims to provide readers with the inspiration and tools they need to take their circumstances, which may be negative at the time, and turn them into  positive, productive experiences. Additionally, he offers readers applicable tools they can use to live more meaningful lives, including the framework on how to find purpose in one week. Joey Reiman is founder and CEO of the International Center for Applied Purpose and global consultancy, Brighthouse, a company whose mission is to bring purpose the the world of business. Reiman has emerged as the leading expert in the areas of purpose-inspired leadership, marketing and innovation. Joey Reiman is a frequent marketing and branding guest expert on CNN. Mahatma Gandhi's grandson, Arun Ghandhi and world renowned professor Philip Lotler call him "The Moses of Marketing." He has been named one of the 100 people who will change the way the world thinks. Joey will be with us today to tell us how to activate our dreams into actions. To learn more about Joey Reiman, please visit http://www.joeyreiman.com  

Joey Reiman: Business Mindfulness Reading this via email? Click here to LISTEN NOW! Named One of the 100 people who will change the way the world things by Fast Company, Joey Reiman is CEO & Founder of the International Center for Applied Purpose and global consultancy BrightHouse, a company whose sole purpose is to bring… Read More » The post Joey Reiman: Business Mindfulness appeared first on Gareth J Young.

When is the last time you met a perfect person? Do you have a perfect friend? How about a perfect client?  How about a perfect product? Do you know of a perfect brand? The truth is you can never be perfect. Humans are not perfect. Each one of us makes mistakes. We each have a unique wackiness about us. It's our quirks, scratches and bumps that make us human and that help us connect with one another in simple, meaningful and memorable ways. Brand can never be perfect because they are made up of human beings, which are not perfect. Many business and marketing leaders avoid embracing social technologies and methodologies because of their desire to be perfect. They fear making a mistake and looking like a fool in front of the social universe online. When they do make a mistake some of these same brands run and hide instead of owning the fact they made a mistake and showing their human, imperfect side. Your customers, audience and online community will appreciate the fact you are human and aren't afraid to show it! They will be happy to see you own mistakes. How you handle these mistakes can help your brand shine and nurture relationships if done right. It is time that marketing and business leaders embrace imperfect perfection. Embrace what makes your brand human. Let your brand shine from the inside out. Your brand is going to be exposed from the inside out before it is transformed. Waiting to embrace the latest social technologies until you, your brand and your team is perfect is going to do nothing but waste time. Social media is about relationships and connecting one to one with other human beings. It's both art and science. It's imperative brand and marketing leaders learn now how to embrace the human factor and quit expecting their teams to be perfect or to develop and launch a perfect social media program. In this episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast Pam Moore, CEO Founder of Marketing Nutz, full service social business, digital marketing, branding, content marketing agency discusss why you must humanize your brand in a way that enables relationships to be built with the people within your business. She also share case studies of two brands (Brighthouse and HostGator) who boldly embrace imperfect perfection and have earned the loyalty of our agency, Marketing Nutz, time and time again. Podcast Episode Highlights Why brands must embrace imperfect perfection Two case studies of brands being human and owning their mistakes (Broighthouse and HostGator) Why business leaders must quit expecting employees to be perfect Importance of brand humanization How social media will reveal your organization from the inside out before it transforms it Why you must own your mistakes and how to do such to increase brand equity and nurture relationships Invest in your employees and loyal brand advocates

My guests today are Joey Reiman and John Brenkus. Reiman, who runs Brighthouse, has been called the “father of ideation”. He's emerged as the subject matter expert in the area of purpose inspired leadership, marketing, and innovation. His breakthrough purpose methodology and frameworks have been adopted by the likes of the Boston Consulting Group, Procter & Gamble, The Coca-Cola Company, McDonald's, KPMG, and many other Fortune 500 companies across the globe. As an adjunct professor at the Goizueta School of Business at Emory University, he teaches tomorrow's executives his revolutionary theories and applications for purpose-inspired profit.  Brenkus is the host of the ESPN show, Sport Science. Sport Science is an ongoing television series that explores the science and engineering underlying athletic endeavors.  The topics are marketing and sports science. In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss: Covel and Reiman discuss Reiman's background and mission in life; looking for meaning; figuring out your “why”; the process of teaching, and the areas where certain people may get tripped up; looking back to your beginnings; the destructiveness of outside voices; calmness and contemplation; solitude vs. aloneness; “money doesn't create ideas–ideas create money”; why daydreaming isn't necessarily a bad thing; creativity and environments; changing the world through changing your routine; routine and creativity; thinking with your heart as much as your mind; Apple vs. Google; raw talent, creativity, and environment; lucky people and “yes” people; the power of “slow”; and the importance of storytelling. Anything about statistics and science has the potential to inspire Covel and with John Brenkus, he goes straight into it; Also discussed: what triggered the science and sports connection in Brenkus' brain; science and martial arts; measuring human performance; why success doesn't follow a straight line; Brenkus' college experiences and how they are relevant to his work today; the idea of physical limits being reached; why Brenkus became a crash test dummy; the advantage of applying science to any aspect of life; and the Iron Man competition. Jump in! --- I'm MICHAEL COVEL, the host of TREND FOLLOWING RADIO, and I'm proud to have delivered 10+ million podcast listens since 2012. Investments, economics, psychology, politics, decision-making, human behavior, entrepreneurship and trend following are all passionately explored and debated on my show. To start? I'd like to give you a great piece of advice you can use in your life and trading journey… cut your losses! You will find much more about that philosophy here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/trend/ You can watch a free video here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/video/ Can't get enough of this episode? You can choose from my thousand plus episodes here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/podcast My social media platforms: Twitter: @covel Facebook: @trendfollowing LinkedIn: @covel Instagram: @mikecovel Hope you enjoy my never-ending podcast conversation!

Michael Covel talks with Joey Reiman and John Brenkus on today’s podcast. First, Joey Reiman, who runs Brighthouse, has been called the “father of ideation”. He’s emerged as the subject matter expert in the area of purpose inspired leadership, marketing, and innovation. His breakthrough purpose methodology and frameworks have been adopted by the likes of the Boston Consulting Group, Procter & Gamble, The Coca-Cola Company, McDonald’s, KPMG, and many other Fortune 500 companies across the globe. As an adjunct professor at the Goizueta School of Business at Emory University, he teaches tomorrow’s executives his revolutionary theories and applications for purpose-inspired profit. Covel and Reiman discuss Reiman’s background and mission in life; looking for meaning; figuring out your “why”; the process of teaching, and the areas where certain people may get tripped up; looking back to your beginnings; the destructiveness of outside voices; calmness and contemplation; solitude vs. aloneness; “money doesn’t create ideas--ideas create money”; why daydreaming isn’t necessarily a bad thing; creativity and environments; changing the world through changing your routine; routine and creativity; thinking with your heart as much as your mind; Apple vs. Google; raw talent, creativity, and environment; lucky people and “yes” people; the power of “slow”; and the importance of storytelling. The second part of this episode is with John Brenkus. Brenkus is the host of the ESPN show, Sport Science. Sport Science is an ongoing television series that explores the science and engineering underlying athletic endeavors. Anything about statistics and science has the potential to inspire Covel and with John Brenkus, he goes straight into it; Also discussed: what triggered the science and sports connection in Brenkus’ brain; science and martial arts; measuring human performance; why success doesn’t follow a straight line; Brenkus’ college experiences and how they are relevant to his work today; the idea of physical limits being reached; why Brenkus became a crash test dummy; the advantage of applying science to any aspect of life; and the Iron Man competition. Want a free trend following DVD? Go to trendfollowing.com/win.

This Week On Radical Grace Radio, since Brighthouse networks can't figure out how to keep my internet up, I'm uploading this from a remote location.  It feels like I've gone rogue!  Either way, This week on the show, Radical Repentance, Fred Phelps dead at 84, Mark Driscoll is sorry, More Christian Reality Television, The Alban Institute Closes, and will "Noah" sink?