Podcasts about casey c

Casey C, employed by the Government, explains all recordings, journals and documents of the moon landing destroyed.  Casey is also the owner of mealprepbiz101.com, https://www.youtube.com/@mealprepbiz101 https://www.instagram.com/mealprepbiz101➔Please check out our Sponsors: ➔Hormone levels falling? Use MSCSMEDIA to get 25% off home test: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://trylgc.com/MSCSMEDIA⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ➔Fiji: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Fijiwater.com/mscs⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠$5 off free shipping Unleash ➔Monster Energy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.monsterenergy.com/us/mscsmscsmedia ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ ➔Aura: See if any of your passwords have been compromised. Try 14 days for free: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://au⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ra.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠MSCS⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Thank you to Aura Clips of all episodes released: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/mscsmedia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠|⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠mscsmedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠| ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.reddit.com/r/mscsmedia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

We can find power and strength in service, involvement, and commitment during turbulent times. Access the speech page here. Support the show: https://ldsp-pay.ldschurch.org/donations/byu/byu-speeches.htmlSee omny.fm/listener for privacy information.

Casey, formally working in the Pharmaceutical business, explains & tells the horror stories, and demands. The machine behind social media, commercials, programming, and more. Animal - Plant vs Man-made Synthetic substances. The blockchain being part of elections, the machine behind it all | the dirt micro doing from a personally formally in the industry. The pyramids, life after death, simulation, and how psychedelics were used before Big Pharma and other civilizations. Tech vs life, symbols, Elon Musk Telsa phone 2025? ➔Please check out our Sponsors ➔Horome levels falling? Use MSCSMEDIA to get 25% off home test: https://trylgc.com/MSCSMEDIA Ty LetsGetChecked. ➔Weston Jon Boucher - Lucery Men's Clothing At an Affordable Price Without Losing Quality: https://www.westonjonboucher.com ➔Fiji: https://Fijiwater.com/mscs $5 off free shipping Unleash ➔Monster Energy: https://www.monsterenergy.com/us/mscs ➔Aura: See if any of your passwords have been compromised. Try 14 days for free: https://aura.com/MSCS Thank you to Aura ➔ZBiotics: Get 15% off your first order of ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic https://zbiotics.com/MSCSMEDIA, MSCSMEDIA, at checkout. ➔Manscaped: Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code MSCSMEDIA at https://Manscaped.com ➔ Stay Connected With MSCS MEDIA on Spotify Exclusive: Watch all Mscs Media Video Podcasts UNCENSORED and UNCUT.: ► https://spoti.fi/3zathAe (1st time watching a video podcast on Spotify when you hit play a settings pop-up will show, tap under the settings pop-up to watch the video playing.) ► All Links to MSCS MEDIA:https://allmylinks.com/mscsmedia

You can listen on here on Substack, or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you may listen. If you do use either of these, give it a star rating so more people can see it!The guitar intro to this episode is an original piece performed by Casey. Casey is a friend and guitar player I met a few months back. I thought this conversation was going to be about music. It's not. That's the thing about having these conversations with interesting people, you never know where it's going to go. The topics are listed in the subject line above. I don't normally like to discuss politics, especially on my podcast. What we talk about here is sort of meta-politics, not choosing sides, but commentary on the game as we see it. From there we go in to all sorts of things.When it comes to politics, I've always tried to censor myself because I didn't want to risk offending anyone. But the reality is that most people don't fit into neat little boxes. So my censorship is not helping anyone, most importantly me. In my experience, most people have nuanced opinion, and most people are pretty reasonable. When you censor yourself you deny yourself and others the opportunity to listen and grow. You stifle your own maturity. There's plenty of other forces out there that are going to try to do that, so you need not do it to yourself. In the end, censoring ourselves doesn't do anybody any good. There is a difference between censoring yourself because you are going to say something rude and nasty (most rude and nasty people don't have that kind of self-awareness) and censoring yourself because you aren't sure if people are going to agree with you, or you're judging yourself to harsh, or whatever reason. What I m trying to say is, if you want to say something, then say it. If you want to text, then text it. Be honest, don't pull the rug out from under yourself becuase you even get started. Hope you enjoy this conversation. Rock and Roll, Tyler This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cannondispatch.substack.com

This is our Dennis Eckersley episode, our closing episode, the 3 balls and 2 strikes episode, the where'd my glove go episode, the where's my glizzy with mustard and onions at the ballpark episode, the swiftest 18 minute ride with LIKEITORNOT host A-Hyp and friends Kabenzie and Casey C. episode where Hyp misses the fireworks and plays a daunting version of the Field of Dreams theme song. He needs help y'all, call ol' Doc 'Moonlight' Graham somebody, LIKEITORNOT and don't forget to join us at the stadium August 28th for the TACOMA SUNDAY MARKETS BIG, HUGE FLEA MARKET!

S1E7 – SPECIAL: ShopTalk 2022 Recap – Retail's Great ReunionWelcome to Season 1, Episode 7, a special episode of The Retail Razor Show!For episode 7 we've changed things up a bit and Ricardo and Casey bring you a recap of the ShopTalk 2022 event in Las Vegas, which has come to be known as Retail's Great Reunion! Sure, you've probably heard plenty of recap shows on this year's ShopTalk, but this show doesn't just tell you “what” happened, we also explain “why” it matters and what that means for retail's future.I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University's Center for Retail Transformation, and lead partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.And I'm your co-host, Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock and slayer of retail frankenstacks!Together, we're your guides on the retail transformation journey. Whether you're thinking digital and online, mobile, or brick & mortar stores, we'll help you cut through the clutter!And big news! Our podcast is holding strong on the Feedspot Top 60 Retail podcasts list! We're sitting strong at #21, so please do give us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts or Spotify Podcasts if you like the show! With your help, we'll be on our way to a Top 10 spot! Check it out here: https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/The Retail Razor ShowFollow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazorConnect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazorJoin our club on Clubhouse: http://bit.ly/RRazorClubListen to us on Callin: https://bit.ly/RRCallinSubscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTubeSubscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShowRetail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPodHost → Ricardo Belmar,Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmarConnect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmarRead my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWRBelmarCo-host → Casey Golden,Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCaseyConnect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICaseyRead my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCaseyTRANSCRIPTS1E7 ShopTalk 2022 Recap - Retail's Great Reunion[00:00:00] Show Introduction[00:00:20] Ricardo Belmar: hello Retail Razor show listeners! Welcome to a special season one bonus episode. Our 2 Part Shop Talk 2022 recap episode. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar a RETHINK Retail, top retail influencer and lead partner marketing advisor for retail and consumer goods at Microsoft. [00:00:38] Casey Golden: And I'm your co-host Casey Golden CEO of Luxlock obsessed with the relationship between a brand and the consumer. I've spent my career on the fashion side of the business and moved over to supply chain technology slaying Frankenstacks![00:00:53] Ricardo Belmar: So once again, we have changed things up a bit and interrupted our regularly scheduled episode to bring you our thoughts on what we saw, what we learned and what surprised us about last week's shop talk event in Las Vegas. [00:01:06] Casey Golden: Everyone is reinvigorated to be working in retail. So let's head to the floor.[00:01:11] Ricardo Belmar: All right. Let's give a listen to part one, which we recorded live about a day and a half into the show. [00:01:22] Live from ShopTalk, Part 1[00:01:22] Ricardo Belmar: Hey everybody welcome to retail razor show live from Shoptalk 2022. This is a special live version on Callin. I'm here with my cohost Casey Golden. [00:01:32] Casey Golden: Hello everyone. [00:01:35] Ricardo Belmar: And it is a pleasure to be coming to you live from the show. This is a new thing for us on the Retail Razor Show. Isn't it? Casey. [00:01:42] Casey Golden: It is. And it's a new thing for the record attendance increase at shop talk as well. It's standing room only at retail's biggest reunion. [00:01:51] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I've heard everybody calling it that- retail's biggest reunion. I think the, numbers I've heard of, up to 10,000 people maybe. [00:01:58] It's pretty incredible. [00:02:00] Casey Golden: It's pretty incredible. I mean, I think we actually got New York together again.[00:02:03] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly.[00:02:08] It's like I can't go down a hallway. . Every time I take 10 steps down the hallway and suddenly there's somebody looking back at me thinking, Hey wait, do we know each other? We haven't met in the last two years, but it feels like we know each other, [00:02:19] Casey Golden: you know, I have to say , I'm really glad that, we got our LinkedIn pictures that we're just trying to place, but then when everyone started switching their, their Twitter photos to NFTs, I'm like, I don't remember what you look like. [00:02:31] Ricardo Belmar: what do you look like? You don't look at all like your NFT on Twitter. [00:02:35] Casey Golden: No, not at all. I've been like glancing at badges, but - you know, I, this is a first for me. This is my first shop talk.[00:02:41] So I guess I'm starting at the top here[00:02:44] it's, it's really great. So many brands, so many people everybody just really pulling. It's going to be a big year this year. Like everyone's excited. [00:02:55] Ricardo Belmar: There's a huge amount of energy here. It's like everybody has been dying to get back together. See everybody they haven't seen for two years in this industry.[00:03:03] And it shows, it shows that they're, I don't think there's been another show yet for retail. That's been able to do that. [00:03:09] Casey Golden: No, I mean, we started off in day one. The vibe was electric. We literally with electric bands and presentations, and we've got Flo Rida here, which is exciting. [00:03:22] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. [00:03:22] Casey Golden: I know Fabric's doing a big party tonight.[00:03:25] Ricardo Belmar: Yep. There's that too. There's that too, lots of I think every night there's so many things you can't keep track of how many different activities there are? [00:03:31] Casey Golden: No, I mean, I'm, I'm pretty impressed so far. [00:03:34] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. So let's talk about some of the sessions so far. I'm going to call it day one. Maybe we should call it day one and a half. It was like a half day yesterday, I guess. [00:03:42] Casey Golden: Unknowingly. It was a half day. I arrived quite early. [00:03:47] Ricardo Belmar: I arrived late. So I missed part of yesterday. That was kind of unfortunate. [00:03:51] Casey Golden: You missed a lot of waiting.[00:03:56] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. How many people did you say there were two, [00:03:57] Casey Golden: a couple of breakfasts. A couple of lunches. It's like, oh my bad. [00:04:01] Ricardo Belmar: Right? Exactly. [00:04:02] Casey Golden: It starts in what time? [00:04:05] Ricardo Belmar: So I did, I did manage to hit a couple of the keynote sessions yesterday. There was some good, good experiences given out by Kath McLay, the CEO at Sam's Club on their pandemic experience and how they started changing how they think about customers.[00:04:20] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, that, that was like, it was nice to see the opening with just like three amazing women opening up that stage for conversation.[00:04:27] I spent my, my morning over at the shark reef, [00:04:32] Ricardo Belmar: of course. [00:04:32] Casey Golden: Yeah. Lot of great startups, you know, it was just, it's so nice to actually just be around a pitch competition where everybody's a retail tech startup. [00:04:42] Ricardo Belmar: Yep. [00:04:42] Casey Golden: It's so exciting. There's so much going on. There's so much innovation happening and.[00:04:48] All of the pitches were really well. [00:04:49] Ricardo Belmar: Very cool. And then I think just finishing now, by the time we're recording, I think there was a whole series of metaverse related keynotes going on, right? [00:04:59] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, I think maybe everybody will know what an NFT is and what the metaverse might do by the end, by what?[00:05:06] Tomorrow by the end of the week. [00:05:07] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. [00:05:07] Casey Golden: I think brands and techies might just have been able to cross the chasm here. [00:05:12] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, definitely. [00:05:13] Casey Golden: The Superbowl, ahh QR code was not lost. He's alive and well here. [00:05:19] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, no kidding. No kidding. Yeah.[00:05:22] Casey Golden: So some of the tracks we've got, developing tomorrow's retail, innovating growth opportunities, global shopping experiences, love hearing that global shopping experience. And the shark reef startup pitch. So, I mean, these are the way that they're kind of running the day based off the theme and then going down with new speakers, I think it's really great.[00:05:42] Just being able to really dive into these themes because all the brands seem to be aligned on key initiatives. [00:05:48] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. [00:05:49] Casey Golden: You know, [00:05:49] Ricardo Belmar: everybody seems really focused. [00:05:50] Casey Golden: It's really focused. And. Just all about the technologies and customer experience, and everybody's really just ready to go outside of their box and learn.[00:06:01] I think that's the biggest thing is so many meetings about, tell me about what you do, how do you want [00:06:07] to do it? Right. It's a, [00:06:10] Ricardo Belmar: everybody's genuinely interested and there's a lot of focus. Everybody wants to learn more. And everyone's just so excited to see each other. It's just, [00:06:19] I know that's right. That's right.[00:06:21] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's a good, if you're at this show, then you're coming away thinking it's a good time to be in retail tech[00:06:30] Casey Golden: by golly. It took long enough Katia Walsh from Levi's they had a great talk yesterday. On attracting and developing and retaining top digital talent. Where's Ron, when you need him. [00:06:40] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Shout out to Ron. [00:06:42] Casey Golden: Yeah. There was a lot of people that were coming out of that just feeling really invigorated and excited.[00:06:47] Ricardo Belmar: yeah. What else, what other cool sessions have you been to so far?[00:06:49] Casey Golden: You know what I've gotten pulled out of a lot of sessions for meetings. Today is really gonna be focused on sessions and tomorrow the first day I was just so excited to leave my apartment. [00:07:01] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I've been hearing that a lot from everybody, everyone I run into. It's so good to be away. [00:07:06] Casey Golden: Yeah. I wanted to meet as many people as I could.[00:07:09] I made so many new friends on Twitter over the last two years from clubhouse where these conversations started. Yeah. I've got a whole crew of like new BFFs [00:07:22] Ricardo Belmar: and they're all here. [00:07:23] Everybody's here. That's amazing. [00:07:24] Casey Golden: Being able to spend time to actually talk to people and socialize rather than I got 30 minutes for zoom.[00:07:35] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. [00:07:35] Casey Golden: There's nothing like real life. [00:07:37] Ricardo Belmar: And it's like standing and it's like standing room only. Like you want to meet with someone around here. There's no space. So you gotta find like where where's the empty space that you can kind of huddle around to meet with whoever you want to meet. Yeah. In the next minute.[00:07:49] Casey Golden: Yes. [00:07:49] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. [00:07:50] Casey Golden: It's like, I'll meet you in the corner of here and there. We'll just sit on the floor. It's good. [00:07:56] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. And then I got to say about half the people that I've met with, every conversation starts with , I feel like I don't remember how to do a conference any more and , I'm so lost.[00:08:07] I had a dozen people say to me, I forgot how far away everything is in Las Vegas. You think it's right across the street and that's not a five minute walk. I was like, oh, we want to meet in which room? In the convention center. Oh, that's just down the hall, except that the hall is, you know, a thousand feet long.[00:08:22] Casey Golden: Yeah. oh, I'll be right there. And it's like 10, 15 minutes. It's my bad. [00:08:26] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, exactly. So let's see [00:08:28] Casey Golden: oxygen this way.[00:08:33] Ricardo Belmar: Let's see what other, what other trends I'm hearing people talk about sustainability again, I'm hearing more and more talk on retail media, which was one of our predictions for the year, understand there's that there was Instacart session. They talked a lot about retail media advertising on their platform, and that makes sense. You'd expect that [00:08:50] Casey Golden: Yeah, getting much more targeted. A lot of people want to diversify from the Facebook, Instagram ad models and find some new channels to really reach their customers and build on a lot is getting lost in those customer acquisition costs and really being able to actually acquire those customers.[00:09:08] Ricardo Belmar: Right. [00:09:09] Casey Golden: Everybody's on the same platform. So people are getting really creative. Super creative.[00:09:13] I am super impressed too, to see there's a lot of Silicon valley here. [00:09:17] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. [00:09:18] Casey Golden: I was, I was blown away. I'm walking by, I'm like, wait, what Andresseen Horiwitz just took the whole sec. Okay. They're there on almost every panel. There's somebody almost on every panel from Silicon valley, which is, we're just pretty easily.[00:09:34] That means, you know, everybody knows that this is going to be the next 24 months in retail is going to be a big deal. Yeah. And we'll get to see how all of this kind of shakes out what the customers think right in what, 2024.[00:09:51] So this is all for 2025 right now. It's all for 2025.[00:09:56] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. And then as usual for a shoptalk, right. A lot of big brands on stage , besides Sam's club and the opening, I think there was Macy's and Target today. A lot of big names talking about what their vision of the future of commerce. I haven't walked the show floor yet [00:10:11] Casey Golden: across the gamut. I mean, going from Ralph Lauren to Albertsons. [00:10:15] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. And everything in between.[00:10:16] And if there's one phrase that almost every single session repeats, it has to be meeting our customer where they are being able to let them transact any way they want anywhere they want that. That's, there's like one theme that's hitting every single session.[00:10:31] Everybody's got [00:10:31] that talk, track that enablement. [00:10:34] Casey Golden: A lot more about enablement rather than necessarily building the solution. It's all about how you connect with other solutions. [00:10:39] Ricardo Belmar: Right. Right. [00:10:40] Casey Golden: So a lot of API builds here coming up, [00:10:43] and just a really big rise and a headless. I mean, you can't really walk through here with, without the entire, all the walls talking about headless commerce, but I think there's going to be a lot of interesting changes here going in with.[00:10:55] Some, some replatforming to be able to have that flexibility to connect to all of these new emerging technologies.[00:11:01] Ricardo Belmar: Yep, absolutely. That is a big, big theme. And I've just even, yeah, I can looking forward to walking through the show floor and checking out all of these different companies that are doing just that if I gauge, just by what I see, all the photos I see from the show floor being posted on social. It's like every other one is something related to headless commerce.[00:11:22] Casey Golden: I mean Fabric's doing some killer job right now. Yeah. Commerce tools. It's getting really interesting. I mean, I know a lot of brands right now that have a lot of headless commerce projects in the works which is just opens up so much flexibility for being able to deploy new innovation. [00:11:39] Getting off of some of these. Proprietary systems.[00:11:42] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. And then I'll have to come back to metaverse again, because there's so many sessions today on that. I have a feeling that as soon as we leave this recording, all we're going to hear people talking about in the hallways is which brand did what? In a metaverse experiment so far this year.[00:11:56] Casey Golden: Yeah. There you either see a smile or like some eyes rolling, [00:11:59] Ricardo Belmar: right? Yeah. It's like one extreme or the other, right? There's no one between, everybody's either on the one extreme of, I gotta try more. Or are there on the other side and rolling their eyes, thinking, why are you even doing that? What, where do you hope to get from that?[00:12:11] How are you making money from that? [00:12:13] Casey Golden: But this is where we find the utility, right. Is being able to get to experiment. [00:12:17] Ricardo Belmar: It's just like when we did our predictions episode, right? If they're not experimenting, you're not learning. And if you're not learning, you're not going to get anywhere. [00:12:24] Casey Golden: If you're not experimenting, the learning process is not fun. [00:12:29] it's a lot of complicated reading. You just learn as you go and experiment. It's much more fun to learn, by trying and just, you know, go buy an NFT. Go get some Oculus goggles, join discord, [00:12:42] Ricardo Belmar: sign on to Roblox. [00:12:44] Casey Golden: Right. But it is, it's definitely the theme. I just, I just hope that it doesn't turn. You're just this marketing puff. Right. You know, where we do things everybody's talking about it. But then at the end of the day, nobody executes against the plan[00:12:58] Ricardo Belmar: and it all falls apart.[00:12:59] Casey Golden: And we talked about it, but nobody did anything. So I'm really hoping that this really fuels that conversation into the future and really looking at all the priorities that these companies have. Cause I mean, I think.[00:13:12] We're coming into the beginning of April and a lot of projects have already been tested out for the entire rest of the year.[00:13:19] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. Yeah. [00:13:20] Casey Golden: So if you're trying to get into a company to implement technology, you're trying to get a new piece of software approved. A lot's already been allocated.[00:13:29] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. [00:13:30] Casey Golden: A lot's already been allocated. So if anything, if there's a big takeaway here, hopefully there's some slush funds that are created just for innovation on the fly because everything's changing so fast. [00:13:41] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that's right. That's right. The key is to keep experimenting and trying it. The other thing that I've noticed too, more people talking about that this wasn't true.[00:13:51] Not, not even just a few years ago is the idea of sharing the knowledge and collaborating with others that you might've thought, oh, I don't want anybody to know what I'm doing because it's my competitive advantage, to a shift where, well, that's not your competitive advantage, right? The fact that you're thinking about doing these things and experimenting, that's not your advantage, your advantage is going to come when you actually get it done and how you do it and how well you execute it.[00:14:14] That's going to give you your advantage. But if somebody else learns along the way, it's one of those rising tides lift all boats, right? So if everybody in the industry starts doing it correctly in a meaningful way, then more and more consumers get interested in this. And then everybody wins. [00:14:28] Casey Golden: But this is one of those things,[00:14:29] Ricardo Belmar: it's not a zero sum game.[00:14:30] Casey Golden: No, this is the, the more, the more people that kind of come together and start doing the same thing, the stronger the whole entire initiative is going to be rather than keeping things so tight, [00:14:40] Ricardo Belmar: right, . Yeah. . I think that that's something we have, I don't remember seeing in past shows, pre pandemic. So I'm wondering if [00:14:47] Casey Golden: there's not even in a culture period. [00:14:50] Ricardo Belmar: No, it wasn't. So I think that's a new takeaway. That's coming from this. And I kind of feel like a lot of it has to do with everybody. You know, everyone in this industry has been around in so many ways, people know people , which sounds silly to say, but it's so true.[00:15:04] Right. That's why everybody, you see this happening right. In every hallway at the show, people just running into each other. I haven't seen you in two years. And I think that's just caused everybody to want to share. [00:15:13] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, what have you been up to?[00:15:15] Ricardo Belmar: Exactly, exactly. [00:15:16] Casey Golden: Being able to take those conversations into just not what the agenda was for a call. Yeah. You know, and just kind of speak freely and things that you're excited about or things that you've been learning about or what you've been doing on the side, a lot of the stuff , we've had a lot of extra time to pick up new hobbies and new interest in a lot of that.[00:15:32] Right. I don't know any retail person that really has a life outside of retail, you know, what is it? Eat, sleep. Like we breathe retail. The drift, the brand right. Brand DNA. Right. So I mean, there's just so much that there's been so many new books that have been written during the pandemic.[00:15:51] There's been so many perspectives that have been shared. Yeah. And just kind of going down rabbit holes. So I'm super excited for the rest of the week on this. I think we'll probably have some good takeaway notes to kind of add on here. [00:16:03] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. We're going to have to do a followup show on how the rest of shop talk went after this one, [00:16:10] Casey Golden: because the big thing are we coming back?[00:16:12] Well, I know you are, but this is a show that I would not have normally have come to. Yeah. I wasn't planning at all. I bought a ticket on Thursday and flew out Saturday because there's just so many people that are going to [00:16:26] be here. No. I'm like the opportunity. [00:16:29] Right. All right. Let's go check out [00:16:31] this Shoptalk.[00:16:32] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Well that was my first one too. It was, but I, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but it definitely, definitely is well worth the vibe. [00:16:39] Casey Golden: Yeah. They really brought the energy here knowing that it was going to be every, a lot of people's first time back out and like, yeah, there's some good entertainment.[00:16:49] There's some good design. They put a lot of effort into keeping the energy level high, especially in such a big space. [00:16:55] Ricardo Belmar: That's a good point. That's a good point. Although I think the one, if my one suggested tip for them. So any of the, anybody listening from the event, because I'm sure they're all listening to every single word we're saying, but my big tip is more meeting spaces for just impromptu, nice little seating areas.[00:17:11] You're just for when you have those moments. When you run into somebody in the hallway, you don't have to just stand around in the middle of the floor and chatting. You don't have some place to sit somewhere. I mean, come on. [00:17:20] Casey Golden: Yeah, because it has, okay, let's meet all the way on the other side.[00:17:25] Ricardo Belmar: It takes 10 minutes to walk down. It takes time. [00:17:27] Casey Golden: We'll meet there in a half an hour. Because it is that I forgot like a guy here and I was just like, oh yeah, this is like bigger than a New York avenue. A Las Vegas block is bigger than a New York avenue.[00:17:41] So what is on your schedule for the rest of today? [00:17:44] Ricardo Belmar: I had to try to check out some, I got some sessions I'm gonna try to check out. I've got fun things going on, doing some other interesting video recordings with some other, other fellow friends haven't seen in two years. So that'll be cool.[00:17:58] And how we'll see, we'll see what comes from that. I'm looking forward to Sessions. Cause there are a lot of different topics once we get past the the metaverse that's going on now. There's some things on just on like data. There, there is interesting to see if there's, few sessions on future of work and how frontline worker conditions are changing.[00:18:17] I think those would be interesting and I think there's some really cool keynote ones left. With some interesting brands. [00:18:24] Casey Golden: Yeah, I'm going to head over to cultivating customer relationships have got the chief data officer over at Poshmark and the information officer over at, from Maui, Jim, and then experienced design with best buy, which I just find completely foreign for cultivating customer relationships.[00:18:41] So Annie A's going to be there as the interviewer. So this is going to be. Really interesting. Because when you think of Poshmark, I don't think of customers service or relationship, or I fall in love with my poshers, right. That they gift wrap my purchase and they send me these beautiful little handwritten notes.[00:19:00] I'm like, come on. Like frankly, shopping on Poshmark is, so much sweeter and kinder than ordering online. You can put little confetti in my box.[00:19:12] So I'm really excited to kind of dig into that because I only look at it from such a tight perspective. So this for me is really about opening up my mind to kind of see what everybody else is doing. Since I have such tunnel vision in general,[00:19:26] Ricardo Belmar: it's called focus. We call that focus, Casey. [00:19:29] Casey Golden: That's right. Focus. [00:19:31] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, bring the marketing speak.[00:19:33] Casey Golden: I, I was focused on until I saw this. I'm like, wow, you guys are all over the place. [00:19:36] Ricardo Belmar: Exactly, exactly. You, and then I think there's a couple of looking forward to on some interesting new innovative tech to do so hope to get through those. [00:19:44] Casey Golden: A lot with check out.[00:19:46] There's a lot of stuff happening with checkout. [00:19:48] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. [00:19:48] Casey Golden: You get to pick where, how you want to check out five different ways. [00:19:52] Ricardo Belmar: A lot of focus on that, yep. [00:19:53] Casey Golden: It's kind of interesting [00:19:54] Ricardo Belmar: all about making it a frictionless experience. [00:19:57] Casey Golden: So let's get back out on the floor. [00:19:59] Ricardo Belmar: All right. Then we'll wrap up here and we're going to plan on circling back after the show at some point.[00:20:04] See what the, rest of the week plays out for us. [00:20:06] Casey Golden: Yeah. We'll have a full, good recap of what you missed.[00:20:09] Ricardo Belmar: Everything we liked, anything we didn't. [00:20:10] Casey Golden: what you need to google [00:20:12] Ricardo Belmar: exactly. Yeah. What to look up? Who to talk to all that good stuff. All right. Cool. So we will call this one a wrap! [00:20:18] Intermission[00:20:18] Ricardo Belmar: And we're back. That was the first part of our special Shop talk recap episode, which we recorded live on the Callin app about halfway through the event. Hopefully, you are ready to jump straight into the second half of the Great Retail Reunion so we can give you the rest of the juicy story. Let's listen to part two of our shop talk 2022 recap also recorded in the Callin app. [00:20:50] ShopTalk Recap on Callin, Part 2[00:20:50] Ricardo Belmar: Casey. [00:20:52] Casey Golden: Good morning. Good morning. [00:20:53] Good morning. [00:20:54] Ricardo Belmar: Good morning. We are back on Callin. How cool is that? [00:20:58] Casey Golden: I like it. [00:20:59] Ricardo Belmar: All right. So when we were last on here, We did our live day, one and a half. I think I called it session from shop talk, where we talked about what we saw on the first day and on like the, what we about halfway through the second day, the first day was only a half day, right?.[00:21:14] Casey Golden: Unexpectedly, yes[00:21:16] Ricardo Belmar: unexpectedly, yeah, unexpectedly, but we did both note that it was unexpectedly a half day. So now we're back to do our whole recap summary of the entire events and kind of run through some, all the big themes that we saw there. And there were quite a few, I think I'm gonna say like the biggest one that sorta surprised me, but maybe shouldn't have, is this whole idea that everybody, it seemed like every session couldn't stop talking about how stores are quote back.[00:21:41] Or, as I like to say as if they ever really went away, because they never really did go away, but, but everybody seems to act like, oh, brick and mortar is coming back. [00:21:49] Casey Golden: Yeah.[00:21:49] Stores weren't closed in a lot of locations for, for too long. So it is a little bit surprising to hear stores are back. Maybe there has been this, this huge focus for e-commerce. [00:22:00] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. And I guess maybe for shop talk that's especially true, right? [00:22:03] With a lot of digitally native vertical brands starting out online.[00:22:07] A lot of founders, always presenting at shop. Talk about the cool new new products they're bringing to the market. So I guess if I think about it in those terms, yeah, might be a little strange to see people talking about stores coming back, but there were more and more founders and DTC is getting up on stage, talking about how, you just can't grow past a certain point.[00:22:26] Like I heard, at least one mentioned how you, if you want to get past a hundred million, you got to start opening stores. You just can't do it. Cause like customer acquisition costs are too high. [00:22:35] Casey Golden: Yeah. I've seen a lot of people putting plans open to open up stores, more pop-up shops. We did lose some stores.[00:22:42] But I think, you know, we're still working on that right set of what's the right amount of stores and where should they be? [00:22:47] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that's true. [00:22:48] Casey Golden: With a lot of underperforming locations in general. [00:22:52] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. It is all about the location and getting the right spot. [00:22:55] Casey Golden: Yeah. Got to know where that customer is.[00:22:57] Ricardo Belmar: And I think we've seen it proven out time after time, that time one of these direct to consumer brands opens a store, their e-commerce sales actually go up in the surrounding zip codes. [00:23:07] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, a lot of that online browsing, it drives that, that in store experience I found more opportunity in looking online so that I can go into the store and see what inventory is there. But I do have to say it's been increasingly difficult because that's not a, that's not an option that I personally even used to use, but now it seems to be that I need to check to see what's in the store because so much inventory is light.[00:23:34] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. Yeah. Right. [00:23:36] Casey Golden: And I'm like, well, if I go there, Are you going to have that? What I just saw online. So I think there's going to be a lot of tech going back into brick and mortar, new budgets. Let's hope that brick and mortar stores are back means that they also have budgets. [00:23:52] Ricardo Belmar: I, you know, if I judged from the general sense I got at the show, it's a hundred percent true. [00:23:58] Casey Golden: Yeah.[00:23:59] Ricardo Belmar: And we talked about that right. In our prediction to show at the beginning of the year that there was going to be more investment in stores, that stores were going to go strong and that were, that investment level was going up. The IT spend was going up.[00:24:11] I think if anything, I come away from shop talk thinking that our predictions are going to hold true. [00:24:15] Casey Golden: I agree. I've never seen so many people happy and reinvigorated about their careers. And like, we do have an opportunity in, in this, the best industry right now. I feel there's going to be so much change so much excitement and everybody is just really excited to talk with each other to collaborate and to learn.[00:24:37] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I when you had sessions, like Sam's club CEO, Kath McLay, when she talked about all the interesting convenience shopping features that they introduced over the last two years. And the impact of that had not just on their shopping experience, but just with what business impact that had and how people started to spend more, how they serve customers and the things that everybody has talked about this for a while, right.[00:24:59] Things like scanning, go checkout. They had an interesting concept of scan and ship from the store for things when they're out of stock and you can just scan it and have it shipped to you, on the spot. It really kind of reaffirmed that I heard this, not just in that session, but in other ones that , if you're not embracing everyone's favorite word to hate in retail, and that's omni-channel, if you're not a brand that's doing that then you're completely missing out, right? You're not going to grow your relationship with those customers. And that's why so many of those digitally native brands kept getting onstage, talking about how many stores they were going to open up. [00:25:30] Casey Golden: Yeah. And, and it's very interesting when you take the DNV B and...[00:25:36] The information they're looking at when they're opening up a store compared to a traditional retailer. When they're looking at where where's my customer, who's going to engage in store versus an online DNVB's have a very much broader detail on, on their customer base. Just because they've collected so much more of that direct to consumer data and had those relationships online.[00:26:01] So it will be interesting, when, some of these locations open up it'll be interesting to see where everybody puts themselves in what communities what towns, because it's not going to necessarily be the largest. [00:26:14] Ricardo Belmar: You're right. There are going to be super smart about where they put these just based on the data they've got about their existing customer base.[00:26:23] And I think this, this whole expansion of them into more. Omni-channel mode, just kind of, for me, reaffirms that whether you love or hate the term, the idea around it, it really is just a synonym for how consumers want to shop period. End of statement. Right. It's just that everybody now realizes, that there's almost, wasn't a point. Thinking about individual sales channels, because that's not how people shop or people have completely adopted this mode of whether I'm in a digital channel or I'm in a store. I'm blending them every single moment. I'm shopping with a brand I'm blending all of these channels and that's how I expect to shop period. [00:27:01] Casey Golden: Yeah..[00:27:01] Ricardo Belmar: Then that's what every brand has to accept and embrace now.[00:27:04] Casey Golden: So ricardo, are we saying that. Omni-channel is coming back into conversation and we might just figure it out this year? [00:27:10] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I think anybody who hasn't figured it out yet is definitely going to figure it out whether or not they want to call it omni channel.[00:27:17] I think there's still plenty of people that hate calling it omni-channel as a term. And I'll admit that I go back and forth on that one. I would almost prefer to just think of it as pure commerce. Right. It's just, it's the normal mode of operation. It's not a special thing anymore. It's just the way we all shop.[00:27:33] Casey Golden: Yeah, no, [00:27:33] I think that's great. Ikea also put a lot of new tech into their digitization strategy for stores with click and collect and, doing that customer journey using a lot more technology tools inside of their locations. [00:27:46] Ricardo Belmar: Let's expand a little on that because there were, as much as we just said, it's not about the channel. It's about the customer but let's for a moment, think about channels. There were a lot of interesting new channels being talked about at Shoptalk. One was live streaming which again was another one of our top 10 predictions. [00:28:01] Casey Golden: Favorite![00:28:02] Ricardo Belmar: Yep. That's right. I saw , a cool demonstration one session on started giving you a way to integrate live streaming in all of your other channels.[00:28:10] So for example, whether it's your mobile app or your website, and so you have some live streams going when someone gets to a product page on a product that's tied to a live stream, you can insert the live stream right then and there, right? So you don't have to add an extra step for the consumer to pop into that live stream and see what's going on.[00:28:26] So I thought that was an, an interesting approach. Now, there was a lot of talk that live streaming is huge in China and throughout Asia. The big question is, is it going to work the same in Western countries? I I'm, I'm thinking that it's, it's not, I'm not going to say that it isn't going to work. I absolutely think it will, but I think it's going to be different. [00:28:45] Casey Golden: It's going to have to be different. [00:28:46] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. [00:28:47] Because, because people shop differently, people look at this technology differently in Western countries and the, in that sense, and it's not that one is better or more right. Or more wrong. It's just, it's just different.[00:28:57] And everybody has to adapt to. The one thing I heard that I was most excited for live streaming. I think you and I talked about this in our predictions episode was the idea of using your store associates to run your live streams. And I think you and I've talked about that with our friend, Ron .[00:29:12] And I actually heard that mentioned on stage about how there is an expectation that maybe that's going to be the way it goes, which for me is a little different than what we see happening in Asia. I like this term that we've talked about before the sort of the, the engineered influencer, when a retail brand creates their own influencer by using their store associates for that.[00:29:31] Casey Golden: Yeah. I'm obviously a big fan of that. I also do though see the value in having the studios. I see a lot more studios popping up. I see more people, more brands creating a dedicated space for live streaming and setting up that area specifically for live streaming and getting that personality.[00:29:50] That is kind of like the base of the brand that they're pulling in for those. I do think it's a different talent than being a salesperson on the floor. But I like the direction either way. [00:30:01] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. And it wouldn't surprise me if we see a mix of the two, right. More, depending on the, maybe the size of the retailer, whether you build out these studios or whether you do something else, it's more smaller scale.[00:30:11] But but I think we're gonna see both of those happening from large and small retailers, [00:30:16] Casey Golden: I agree. And just kind of taking control on bringing that to their own website rather than relying on the. Tik TOK or the Instagram live, or even some of these Amazon lives, right? There's a lot of third parties where they've already built quite an audience, but most of the tech that I saw was about bringing that live stream conversation and event onto the brands' website and owning that engagement on the site where they can convert. [00:30:45] Ricardo Belmar: Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That's big. That's big [00:30:49] Casey Golden: still not, not saying that they're going to stop using other channels, but I just saw a lot of an emphasis of bringing these e-commerce stores to life. [00:30:58] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I agree. And. On that note, one of my other favorite topics that kept coming up or retail media networks and a lot of shop talk sessions, especially any session that had one of the local delivery guys, whether it was the Uber CEO or Instacart CEO or somebody from door dash.[00:31:12] I mean, they were all talking about converting their delivery service into more of a marketplace where, you know, some of them even admitted, right. That the delivery part of the business is probably no better than a breakeven business, but where they're really going to get their revenue in the future is from advertising.[00:31:29] Because like any other marketplace, you've got to sell advertising on it. So the brands to get customers to notice. So again, another one of our predictions from the beginning of the year, right? This was another popular one. Obviously, you know, Amazon's killing it. Walmart and target. Aren't doing too bad on that.[00:31:46] Kroger is crushing it with their media network. Everybody wants to get in on this. I dunno, what are you, what do you think on that one, Casey? [00:31:52] Casey Golden: Well, it's not a space where you're printing cash. You're burning it. And so these last mile and these delivery services, like they have been wonderful over the last two years.[00:32:03] It's it's exposed customer bases that have never even thought that they would ever order their groceries online or have something delivered. Those services are getting pushed back because it just hasn't been as profitable. It's not a big money maker, but they got the customers and they got, they built their brands.[00:32:22] They've made it onto the front of an, of hundreds of thousands of consumers phones. Their app is now on the front because we have relied on it for the last couple of years. And so they're gonna, they're finding new ways to be able to monetize and move with those customers and hopefully something that just makes them a little bit more profit because some of the, a lot of these services are pushing back in, in certain areas.[00:32:46] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Totally true. So that one to me is an interesting one. Looking forward to watching how that one, how that develops across the board with a media networks and with all of these delivery, guys are already starting to see some shake out of that, which again, another topic we had in our top 10, right, was that there was going to be some consolidation or some sort of shake out in that space.[00:33:04] And we see that happening. [00:33:05] Casey Golden: Forgive me. I don't re I don't recall. But some of these multi-brand retailers are launching retail media networks and focusing on media, which I found very interesting that rather than being that distribution point and that stock point for the customers to be able to come in and shop across multiple brands in our traditional retail model.[00:33:28] They've launched their own retail media network. And charging brands for the content. [00:33:33] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. So I can't wait to see what some of these DNVB brands that have come up right. Who are used to spending all of their marketing and customer acquisition on all like Facebook and Instagram, places like that.[00:33:45] And now suddenly if they start going into wholesale agreements with other retailers who have their own marketplace, guess what? They're going to be buying advertising space from the retailers. [00:33:53] Casey Golden: Yeah.[00:33:54] Ricardo Belmar: So that's going to be an interesting one to see what that does to their to their cost model. [00:33:57] Casey Golden: I, a hundred percent agree.[00:33:59] Ricardo Belmar: Okay. So we have to talk about the metaverse because it kind of felt like on the second day, it's like every other session at shop talk was about metaverse and, and I, and it's, it's funny to me because there are, at least I can think of at least one, but there were a bunch of our, friendly retail expert friends who were kind of getting tired of hearing so much about the metaverse that they felt.[00:34:19] You know, metaverse, doesn't seem to exist outside of retail conferences. [00:34:23] Casey Golden: Oh, you got that, too?[00:34:25] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I heard that too. Yeah, I know. [00:34:26] Casey Golden: But something thing about the metaverse and like, "if I hear that word one more time" or[00:34:31] " I'm not, he's like, I'm going to be done with the word by the time I leave." [00:34:34] Ricardo Belmar: yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. [00:34:35] Casey Golden: I mean, just rolling of eyes. I mean, you could really see , who was, kind of rolling their eyes and then at the same time, whose eyes wanted to pop out because they were so excited. [00:34:45] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. It's like you had two extremes of the show. You had every. Could not wait to jump up on stage and show off what they're want to do in the metaverse. And you had the other half of the people rolling their eyes saying, oh no, not another metaverse session. Come on. It's not real. [00:35:01] Casey Golden: Exactly. I'm like, it's like, well, we know who's on Twitter.[00:35:04] Don't we? [00:35:06] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. That's right. And I had my, one of my favorite, one of my favorite comments on that is, and I can't remember now who said it first, but it was said a bunch of times as you know, for as much. People are getting up on stage, talking about how stores are back. If they weren't talking about how stores are back, they were talking about the metaverse and it's like, you've got these two extremes, .[00:35:24] Either everybody's going back to the stores or everybody's going to jump into the metaverse and do their shopping there. [00:35:28] Casey Golden: Yeah. It just, I think at the end of the day, people want to be together again. [00:35:32] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I agree. I agree. But I'm still gonna say though. If you're a brand that's not a reason to stop doing whatever your experiment you're doing on the metaverse that this is still the year where you should be trying things out, testing the waters, see what your customers are going to accept what they like, what they don't like, and just figure out what, what you might do in the future.[00:35:52] This isn't the year where you're gonna make a lot of top line revenue out of the metaverse and whatever presence you have. It's the year where you're just going to experiment and try things and see what you, what you're going to invest in later. [00:36:02] Casey Golden: Exactly exactly. I mean, we haven't had something this fun and creative to talk about for, I mean, probably most of the history.[00:36:11] I mean, it's, since we had e-commerce the metaverse brings a new, a new life and a new, energy to the space in general. So, it has to be exciting to talk about. We have traditionally, it's been very much supply chain. Supply chain is not the sexiest industry and conversation. There's not a lot of creativity on there's definitely no fluorescent green or neon lights when we're dealing with the supply chain.[00:36:36] We've got a lot of barcodes. So I think it's going to be. Really interesting how this kind of merges into these conversations into these budgets to be a fly on the wall in 2022 at a brand I'm slightly missing that opportunity to be able to hear these conversations as they happen. [00:36:54] Ricardo Belmar: Right, right.[00:36:55] Yeah. And you know, one of the interesting supply chain conversations, I heard a lot of, which I was pleased to see is this a sort of acceptance that you can't look at your supply chain as a cost center anymore, but it's really more of a, of a differentiated asset for your business. Just given all the challenges that are still out there in the supply chain, around the world, [00:37:15] that we haven't solved all those problems in the last couple of years. There's still issues there. And, and that, to me, kind of led to some more discussions around just profitability in general, right. We used to go to these shows and, and just listened to a speaker after speaker talk about this new disruptive thing they were doing and all of this VC money that was pouring in to help prop everybody up and, fund them to try to get growth really fast, but nobody ever worried about profitability.[00:37:40] And now it seems like. Maybe it's because there are people or something to worry about and inflation and some of these other supply chain issues. But now there's a little bit more of a thought as to, well, when are these things going to turn profitable? [00:37:51] Casey Golden: Yeah, I mean, just for the presence of venture capitalists at Shoptalk it was big and so.[00:37:58] Really seeing how, they've made a lot of investments in direct to consumer. So I find it very intriguing of their attendance. And then also getting so much on supply chain and physical stores, because traditionally that's just not really been where their money has been spent. But I think that they, everybody kind of realizes that that's where that's where the budgets are going to go.[00:38:20] That's where the investment's going to go. And that's, what's going to set apart winners from losers over the next few years.[00:38:26] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, and I guess it, you almost kinda have to say after, after watching all the VCs that were there, but it turns out that shockingly, these VCs actually want to make a return on their money.[00:38:37] They don't just want to give it to everybody. [00:38:39] Casey Golden: I think there's been some hard lessons in the space. And then also with the pandemic, you know, digital is definitely risen, but it's about next steps. [00:38:47] Ricardo Belmar: Right, right. And what are those next steps? [00:38:49] Yeah. Yeah. Just be more of the same Sam's club. Right, exactly.[00:38:52] Casey Golden: Yeah. You know, opening up more stores. [00:38:54] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. That's right. And. Yeah. And then another topic that kind of related to that, that I started hearing more about that I think is sort of taking a back seat the last couple of years, and that was sustainability. You know, consumers still care about sustainability. I've seen some numbers lately, one study said 84% of consumers still say that sustainability is important to them when they're making a purchase decision. I saw another report that 60% of consumers are willing to change their shopping behavior. If they believe that change will reduce environmental impact.[00:39:24] And this one kind of surprised me, I'd say that I saw had a number of like 66, 67% people say they were willing to pay more for a brand that demonstrates real sustainable practices. And that's the, big fact right there at conferences, pre pandemic people were talking about sustainability.[00:39:41] You couldn't find a brand or a retailer that was going to say, oh no, I'm not worried about that. Everybody was worried about everybody said they were doing something, but at the end of the day, how many were really doing something tangible? [00:39:52] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, there's, there's a lot more going into packaging.[00:39:56] The marketing content is much more focused in that area. It's really gonna come down to like proof in the pudding, you know, in the coming year of how much you've actually executed against. But I find it very interesting. As the economy shifts, sustainability conversations go up and down. We tried to do this in 2007, with organic lines, more sustainability.[00:40:19] We tried to do it. And the economy went down. And the sustainability companies and the organic apparel companies closed their doors. So I hope that this time it's, it's here to stay and I think it's here to stay. Consumers are ready for it, and they're willing to change their behavior to take hold of it.[00:40:39] We've also had a lot of negative press over the last two years about the impact of our industry, because I do have to say like the fashion industry is, is part of the problem. [00:40:51] Ricardo Belmar: You're absolutely right. Absolutely. Right. So that, probably could have gotten even more attention at shop talk.[00:40:56] I think I heard more hallway discussion around that maybe then than actual speaking sessions, but it did come up. The last thing, I guess, worth mentioning, you just touched on it the economy that we've had these essentially for, a lot of retailers two booming years of sales and revenue and profitability.[00:41:11] So the, the retailers that went into the pandemic with the right technology investments and the right operational structures, they won, they came out as winners, everybody else? Maybe not so much and that they hopefully learned some lessons over the last couple of years on where they need to improve and what they need to do.[00:41:27] But so now that leaves, for me two big questions, but just sort of heard rumblings about at the show, one being, how do you comp against those last few years, if you were one of those spectacular retailers, can you still eat out another year of spectacular growth or do you expect it to level off?[00:41:41] And if you were not one of those winners, do you recover now? What are you going to do? How are you catching up to the winners and recover from that. And in both of those cases, is, the economy and is inflation going to be something that challenges you, you've got, some other unknown factors with consumer spending around people wanting to buy less stuff now, because we can all go out again.[00:42:01] So people want more experiences. Travel is probably going to come back more. People are going back to restaurants and it's all the same pile of money at the end of the day, so to speak. So what if, if consumers over the last two years shifted their spend to stuff and now it goes back to services and experiences, then we'll, if you're one of those brands selling stuff, you might not sell as much. [00:42:20] Casey Golden: Yeah that's going to be, it's going to be really interesting on consumer behavior coming out of the pandemic. I mean, I myself have made some dramatic differences in my shopping behavior and even how I want to spend my money. And I'm not a typical consumer we know too much, don't we?[00:42:37] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, we do too, but we're dangerous that way as consumers, but, you know, [00:42:41] Casey Golden: So I think it's going to be interesting because what are you copying? Because so much happened during the pandemic with consumer behavior and some of it was forced. Some of it was a natural progression. Some of it was. Introspect.[00:42:55] So when it comes down to comp-ing, we're looking at 2019, we're looking at 2021, but we're really going to be building these projections kind of fresh. And there's going to be a little bit of instability on meeting those goals because we're going to be learning. They're going to be learning so much every quarter, this year of what's real.[00:43:15] And , what stuck. And what is the future look like? [00:43:19] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. So that's going to be really interesting to see when all of these brands and retailers start doing their quarterly reports with their forward-looking statements are going to be, I think that's going to be the most, the most telling thing of, of what we learned from them.[00:43:33] So any, last thoughts that stood out to you Casey? Before we close this out? [00:43:37] Casey Golden: Well, you know, I have some last thoughts. I found that the convention hall was buzzing which I find rare at trade shows. It's not used the energy. Isn't typically. Convention hall. But I found it to be very different. It's my first experience at Shoptalk. I had a great one and everybody had, I mean, everything was buzzing. Everybody wanted to talk and learn and, I heard some great questions and people just really digging in and open to the idea of selecting new vendors.[00:44:07] So I'm pretty excited. [00:44:09] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, you're right, the excitement level was high and everybody came away from the show feeling just as excited about their retail and retail tech future. [00:44:16] Casey Golden: I mean, how lucky are we? [00:44:18] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, if anything, shop talk, convinced anybody that went, this is a great industry to be in. And for most people that reaffirmed that Not only is it a great industry to be in, but that you're probably really happy to be in it. [00:44:29] Casey Golden: Yep. I agree. [00:44:33] Ricardo Belmar: All right. Well with that, I think we going to wrap up our great retail reunion. Shoptalk recap on Callin [00:44:39] Casey Golden: bye everyone.[00:44:40] Ricardo Belmar: Bye everybody. [00:44:46] Show Summary[00:44:46] Casey Golden: Welcome back everyone. We hope that you enjoyed our fun recap of retail's big reunion.[00:44:52] Ricardo Belmar: Well, I know I did. I hope we captured the energy from the show last week, Casey. I know it's been what, like two years, since most people in retail had been to a major conference, but it really did feel like a reunion! [00:45:02] Casey Golden: New friends, old, Shoptalk was the place to be. And the hottest industry for doers, retails driving change with the most unsuspected players.[00:45:15] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, you are absolutely right about that. I think that will pretty much close this out for a special episode of the show and we hope to see all of our listeners again next time! [00:45:25] Show Closing[00:45:25] Casey Golden: If you enjoyed the show, please consider giving us a five-star rating and review on apple podcast. Remember to smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player. So you don't miss a minute. Want to know more about what we talked about? Take a look at our show notes for handy links and more deets.[00:45:42] I'm your cohost Casey Golden. [00:45:44] Ricardo Belmar: If you'd like to connect with us, follow us on Twitter at Casey C golden and Ricardo underscore Belmar, or find us on LinkedIn. Be sure and follow the show on Twitter at RetailRazor, on LinkedIn, and on our YouTube channel for video versions of each episode and bonus content. [00:45:59] I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar.[00:46:01] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.[00:46:04] Ricardo Belmar: And remember, there's never been a better time to be in retail. If you cut through the clutter . Until next time, this is the retail razor show. 

S1E5 – The Retail Avengers & The Sea of AcademiaWelcome to Season 1, Episode 5, the fifth ever episode of The Retail Razor Show!I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, advisory council member at George Mason University's Center for Retail Transformation, and lead partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.And I'm your co-host, Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock and slayer of retail frankenstacks!Together, we're your guides on the retail transformation journey. Whether you're thinking digital and online, mobile, or brick & mortar stores, we'll help you cut through the clutter!For episode 5 we're tackling an issue that doesn't get as much attention as it should – the role of academics and universities in the retail industry!We have two special guests joining us. Gautham Vadakkepatt, director of the Center for Retail Transformation at George Mason University's School for Business. Plus fan favorite, Ron Thurston, author of the book, Retail Pride – The Guide to Celebrating Your Accidental Career.Listen to our Clubhouse session with Gautham and Ron where we discuss how academia can change the perception of retail for students - our up-and-coming next generation of retailers! We also consider what contributions university centers can make to retail tech, particularly in the startup community as well as how research plays a role in furthering the spread of knowledge in the retail ecosystem.You can learn more about the Center for Retail Transformation on their website. For more information about Ron's book and his upcoming Retail in America tour, visit his website.And big news! Our podcast has made it to the Feedspot Top 50 Retail podcasts list! We recently hit #20, so please do give us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts or Spotify Podcasts if you like the show to help us grow! With your help, we'll be a Top 10 podcast soon enough! Check it out here: https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/The Retail Razor ShowFollow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazorConnect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazorJoin our club on Clubhouse: http://bit.ly/RRazorClubListen to us on Callin: https://bit.ly/RRCallinSubscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTubeSubscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShowRetail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPodHost → Ricardo Belmar,Follow on Twitter - ****https://bit.ly/twRBelmarConnect on LinkedIn - ****https://bit.ly/LIRBelmarRead my comments on RetailWire - ****https://bit.ly/RWRBelmarCo-host → Casey Golden,Follow on Twitter - ****https://bit.ly/twCaseyConnect on LinkedIn - ****https://bit.ly/LICaseyRead my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCaseyTRANSCRIPTS1E5 The Retail Avengers & The Sea of Academia[00:00:20] Introduction[00:00:20] Ricardo Belmar: Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. No matter what time of day you're listening. Welcome. Welcome to the retail razor show. I'm your host Ricardo Belmar a RETHINK Retail top 100 retail influencer and lead partner marketing advisor for retail and consumer goods at Microsoft.[00:00:35] Casey Golden: And I'm your co-host Casey Golden CEO of Luxe lock and been obsessed with the customer relationship between a brand and a consumer and slaying, Frankenstacks [00:00:44] Ricardo Belmar: I love hearing how many Frankenstacks you've slain every time, Casey, how many since the last episode?[00:00:49] Casey Golden: Well, we're still working on three. It does take a minute.[00:00:52] Ricardo Belmar: Well, yeah, I guess it does take a minute. That's not bad. Considering we had a holiday break in there too. Right? So not too bad, not too bad. I wonder how many listeners would have guessed. I keep waiting to see if there are any tweets they're going to start flying out to us with everybody guessing before the next episode, how many Franken stacks get slain?[00:01:11] So do I, or do I, anybody listening or watching on YouTube will look out for the tweet storm of guesses and we'll give you a shout out if anybody comes close to the right number.[00:01:19] Casey Golden: So last week, Ricardo, we had a special guest dedicated to celebrating retail ROI, probably one of the most moving podcast episodes in 2021. [00:01:29] Ricardo Belmar: . Without a doubt, anyone that missed that one definitely go back, give it a listen. I'm sure you'll be as moved and inspired as we were. [00:01:35] Casey Golden: Well at this time, we've got another hot topic.[00:01:38] Don't we? And not one, but two special guests joined us on clubhouse to talk about our super cool, but often underrated subject, how academics support retail. [00:01:48] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. This session was a long time in the making, for our listeners out there, who aren't aware I'm on the advisory council to George Mason University's Center for Retail Transformation, along with a couple of our retail Avengers team members, Jeff Roster, and Shish Shridhar.[00:02:03] And we invited the center's director, Gautham Vadakkepatt to join the show. So we could deep dive into how academics and university programs help the retail industry and not just retailers, but the whole ecosystem.. [00:02:15] Casey Golden: And back with us again. Fan favorite, Ron Thurston, author of retail pride. The guide to celebrating your accidental career also joined us because this iOS is a topic near and dear to our hearts too.[00:02:29] Ricardo Belmar: So we zeroed in on three main topics for the discussion, preparing the next generation of retailers, also known as students supporting an environment for startups now, also near and dear to our hearts and for creating, a neutral ground for industry research. [00:02:42] Casey Golden: There's so much ground to cover in these areas.[00:02:45] And I can't wait to share what Gautham and Ron had to say, let's get to it. [00:02:49] Ricardo Belmar: Absolutely. So without further delay, let's listen to the retail Avengers and the sea of academia.The Retail Avengers and the Sea of Academia on Clubhouse[00:03:02] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome everybody to the Retail Razor room. We're talking today about what we call the sea of academia, and we're going to be taking a deep dive into the role that universities and academics play in the future of retail.[00:03:20] We're going to focus on three areas and we'll get to that in a moment, but we have a couple of guest speakers with us this week, who I want to first let them introduce themselves. And then we'll do quick intros for the usual team and jump right in. Gautham why don't you introduce yourself first. [00:03:34] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Thank you Ricardo for having me.[00:03:36] My name is Gautham Vadakkepatt. I'm the associate professor in the school of business at George Mason University and the director for the Center for Retail Transformation at George Mason. [00:03:46] Ricardo Belmar: Great, thank you. And then we also have a returning special guest to our room here, Ron Thurston. Ron?[00:03:51] Ron Thurston: Sure. Thanks Ricardo.. Really happy to be here and always love any of these conversations. My name is Ron Thurston. I'm the author of retail pride and a long time retail leader. And most recently as the vice president of stores of Intermix and head of stores for several brands prior.[00:04:08] And I spend much of my time now consulting and speaking, and really celebrating the millions of people who do the hard work and stories every day. And in education may play a part in that, which is why I was so interested in joining this conversation. [00:04:23] So thanks, Ricardo. [00:04:25] Ricardo Belmar: Great. Thanks, Ron. And moving on to our regular Retail Avengers team, I'll start with what's on my screen at least is our ghost speaker. Jeff, because I can't see you on my screen for some reason. [00:04:37] Jeff Roster: Hi, jeff roster. Co-host of This Week In Innovation and serve on several advisory boards. Most, most proudly the center for retail transformation with George Mason University. And I'm so happy to have my boss there, here tonight.[00:04:49] Looking forward to hearing what he has got to say. [00:04:51] Ricardo Belmar: Excellent and Casey. [00:04:53] Casey Golden: Hi, I'm Casey Golden. I'm the founder of Luxlock retail experience platform, a former fashion exec and supply chain management tech.[00:05:03] Ricardo Belmar: Maybe Shish is having a little bit of an issue. We'll come back to him in a minute. And I'm Ricardo Belmar, the host of the room. I created the Retail Razor Club here on Clubhouse. I'm a lead partner marketing advisor for retail at Microsoft, and also proud to be on the advisory council at George Mason University's Center for Retail Transformation as is Jeff, and also equally happy to have Gautham here to talk to us about what I think is a tremendously interesting topic that probably doesn't get as much attention as it should.[00:05:33] I think in this industry particularly around what I'm going to introduce as our first topic for discussion here and that's how we introduce fresh talent and skills into the retail workforce and what role universities have in that. So it's not a new concept, of course, that universities have had retail programs and curriculums in the past, there are number of universities that do.Preparing the next-gen of retailers - students![00:05:55] Ricardo Belmar: I claim that there's a bit of a misperception in what those programs are meant to do and that many people believe that they're really there just to produce more merchandisers and more buyers who are ultimately going to get hired perhaps by a department store brand and take on one of those roles, which at the end of the day, I think is really not what the industry is looking for from an academic environment.[00:06:17] And I would argue that that's more a perception than it is a reality, but I'm going to, I'm going to stop there and ask Gautham to tell us about what you really think the reality of this situation is and why there is this perception.[00:06:30] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Well, thank you, Ricardo, for giving me the chance to kick things off. Let me just quickly start by saying that, you know, the role of the university is to get students excited about a career in retail, B to kind of highlight the career opportunities that they have and C is to probably provide them with the skill sets that is most needed to manage the retail landscape as it is right now.[00:06:58] To that extent, The job of academia is to address all three aspects, not just the last aspect of trying to create talent in a specific area and to bring them and give them skillsets. And generally, my perception to answer your question, Ricardo, is that where we have perhaps fumbled the ball slightly is that many of the students who work in retail really don't and in my class about 40% of them work in retail, don't understand what's the upward trajectory once they start working in retail, what the career paths that they have and what skills they have, and they don't have mentors to be blunt and honest, we are a minority-majority school, and I'm very proud of that fact. Many of them are first-generation students. And so they don't have people to guide them through that.[00:07:51] Like, Hey, look, retail is a good paying job. What they see is just a store associate. Many of them start off a store associates, but they don't see that thing forward. And they don't know what skills that they need to kind of get to that next level. So I'll talk about the skills needed in a later time, but I'll pause here too.[00:08:10] I'm sure Ron has, and others have things to add to this conversation.[00:08:14] Ron Thurston: I would love to, to jump in, thank you, Gautham.And I had the pleasure of being a panelist on on a session that Gautham led with students. And I could not agree more with, with his statement because, when you think about the industry and whether it's you're coming to an education platform like George Mason or you are[00:08:35] I'm coming into this from a, from a different angle or with no education at all. The opportunity that all of us have then in leadership roles is to provide that insight, to speak as loudly as possible to mentor, to find those chances, to, to share the unlimited opportunities there are available within the retail industry.[00:08:59] And by unlimited, it's from all the different brands that you could potentially work for, the opportunities both in store from a career trajectory and to multi-store heads of stores into other corporate roles, marketing, finance, social, design, buying, the, the jobs are unlimited, but often the best candidates that come are ones that come from the store that really understand the customer and understand that the product category demand have really have a deep understanding of what's needed in the industry and have such expertise when you come from the field. And I just think we don't speak about that enough or give the language to retail teams to be able to say, this is, you know, I'm a store manager of a, of a million dollar business, and here are all the things that I do even on a small team today to run this million multimillion dollar business and the list of competencies and how that moves you forward and, and how the industry works.[00:10:07] It's part of why we're in this situation today from a hiring perspective is because the industry doesn't see itself as one where careers are plentiful. And I know I personally love to change that in every way that we can.[00:10:21] Ricardo Belmar: Thanks, Ron. Thanks Gautham. I think these are some good points about this. So let me ask then the question, how do we introduce the right, you know, whether it's particular courses or particular skill sets and training for that at a university level, and what's the right approach for that? Gautham you hinted at having a few thoughts around this as well.[00:10:42] So maybe I'll turn this back to you for a moment and let you give us your thoughts on how you think that should be approached. [00:10:49] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Yeah. I'll just give you a case study of what I experienced at my university. Right? So I, I teach a introductory class to retail management. We have 22 students out of which about 40% of them actually work in retail.[00:11:01] When I started the course, none of them wanted to have a carer on retail. I'm not joking, not a single one of them wanted to work in retail. And what we did and I kind of went in anticipating this problem and what I did was to get various speakers. Ron was one of them. Jeff was another, we had several , speakers come and talk about their careers in retail, showcasing what they did, how you made progress up retail, what opportunities and skills that they have.[00:11:32] And as of last week, when I asked the same students, Hey, how many of you are going to work? You still think you don't want to work in retail. All six of them who said that, Hey, I did not want to work in retail said, I would like to pursue careers in retail. I just don't know how to get there. So at least we addressed the first problem that, okay, now we know that there is interest.[00:11:54] It's just about providing them with information and it's thanks to people, leaders in the space who come and present their viewpoint to classrooms and give them real world experiences of what retailers that addresses the talent, the first step of the talent going into retail. And then of course, providing them with the skills to succeed in retail today that that's partly on us academics to make sure that they have the skills.[00:12:23] Right. And so, while I take the first class on retail foundations, the second class I teach is emerging technologies in retail. So that once we get them interested in retail, then I tried to provide them the skills that they need to succeed in retail today, which is not just the people skills very critical, but it's also the technology aspect that they need to be able to do the science and the art behind these two things.[00:12:48] So that's the way, that's the approach that the center has taken to educate students at Mason on retailing. Give them an opportunity to succeed in the retail landscape today.A student's first exposure to retail[00:13:00] Ricardo Belmar: Let me ask you a question on that note. Two things I want to get at. Because I'm wanting to dig a little deeper into what you were saying about the component of teaching, more about emerging technologies as what I would consider a valuable enticement to someone in that program to understand more about the art of the possible and what maybe the future looks like versus what has gone in the past that they may need to learn.[00:13:22] But one of the comments I'm seeing in the back channel is that when we think about where does that first exposure coming from to retail for a lot of students, you know, by the time they get to you, for example, they may have had a summer job working as a frontline staff in a store, and that has formed their opinion coming in as to what working in retail is like.[00:13:44] So is part of the solution here, in one sense, What are the right programs and how do you describe it? What do you teach in that program at the university level, but then going back a few steps. And I think Ron, maybe you might have a few thoughts here. It's so critical then what that experience for that... let's assume it's a high school student, for example, who takes that first summer job at a retail store, that experience is going to define their perception of retail as an industry and as a business. So is that as important as what they might see looking forward into college programs that talk about retail, and how do you weigh the difference here? [00:14:21] Ron Thurston: Yeah. Ricardo, I'd love to jump in because you're, you're exactly right. And I speak about this often to say again, when you are placed in a, any kind of leadership role, assistant manager, store manager, multi-store leader, all, you know, all of us that have had those roles. It becomes your responsibility to pay that forward to wherever possible.[00:14:45] And I love this idea of you creating an environment where young people are learning what it means to function in the workforce and that they go home until their parents, you know, what their experience was at work, and you have the opportunity to create something that's really magical through a great onboarding, you know, an interview journey and onboarding an immersion in the brand.[00:15:10] You're learning how to sell. You're learning how a business operates back of house, front of house, visual merchandising in a cash management. You're learning all these skills and a well led store provides that opportunity for someone to say, wow, I really love doing this, which may turn into a a change of heart in a career trajectory, or may say, you know, I'd really like to learn more about this part of the industry and start to study, but I, you know, the, the data shows a variety of things, but on average, one in three, one in four first jobs in this country are in retail. And so we have the opportunity. We have the big base of people to do this well. And the kind of desperation that I think some brands find themselves in today means those people may not be getting a great first experience.[00:16:01] And that's, that's something we could certainly improve.[00:16:03] Ricardo Belmar: Jeff. I want to give you a chance here. Do you have some thoughts on this point? [00:16:07] Jeff Roster: Yeah. My first thought is I wish I could've worked for, for Ron![00:16:14] I started off with my dad. [00:16:16] Probably the toughest spot I've ever had in my entire life. And then was it another retailer and Ron, what's interesting how you said that, just how you phrased it. I mean, it was, you know, I just, the onboarding, the onboarding journey. I mean, what a, what a fantastic way to say that when I started at Mervyn's, I mean, it wasn't a journey. It was a very mechanical process and everything about that was a mechanical process. And I think the thing that was the roughest about that particular organization is the leaders, the senior leaders, didn't at least on the selection side didn't encourage their people to be successful away from under their direction .[00:16:54] So in other words, I don't wanna, I don't wanna I don't want my junior manager to be successful because then I'm gonna have to replace that person. And that is a cancer that hopefully we get away from. Both my kids work in tech, shockingly, they work in tech and their management. I won't say the organizations, although, you know, the organization be proud of it.[00:17:14] Their organization's leadership wants these kids to be successful. And they're rewarding their managers for making them successful, even if, even if it means moving out of their teams. And that is such a difference in, unfortunately I think how a chunk of folks in retail still operate. And that's, that's something that we, as a whole have to say, we, you can't do that.[00:17:33] You gotta, you gotta promote, you gotta encourage, you got to let these people grow and you know, it, it's just a different mindset. So, Ron, I just want to celebrate you. I want you to be amazingly successful and I want you to carry that message far and wide, because that we have to get to that point.[00:17:50] Gautham Vadakkepatt: If I could just echo what Jeff said. If, if there are more Ron's people who could actually create that amazing first experience, For people who get into college, that would be awesome because just frankly, in the past 10 years I've been teaching very few times have students actually come in saying that, Hey look, I've had a great experience.[00:18:16] And so most of the effort I put in, in that first course is always towards trying to reframe what their experiences are and how Ron said it. Right? Like you can frame being a store manager, working in the store in so many different ways and so many useful skills that you develop, but they don't get to see it that way.[00:18:38] And until we can actually change that, none of the rest of the point is difficult to address. You got to change that initial perception that people have.[00:18:49] Ron Thurston: Yeah. And I think thank you for those compliments. That's really nice. And I'll tell you a funny side story and then I'll make a comment that there was, I was, a general manager for Banana Republic in 1996 in the Houston Galleria. And I just know that because I had moved from LA to Houston for Gap, Inc., and I was running that store and there was a young woman who was 16 at the time and who I hired, who was an absolute rock star.[00:19:16] Her name was Sarah. And she went on to become the vice president of planning and allocation for Neiman Marcus because Texas based and through her journey we had stayed in contact. So today she's a mom of two kids and I was listening to a podcast and she was talking about me and learning those skills early in her career and kind of mentorship and inspiration.[00:19:43] And it isn't as if I been a mentor for her for the last 20 years. But the impact that we can make early in someone's career is it's, it's like parenting. It's like every decision that you make has an influence on someone, how someone engages in the workforce. And I don't ever take that lightly. And I, I encourage others to do the same, but this is a really good example of investing in store level leadership.[00:20:14] And we put so much emphasis in our industry on senior leadership and, how brands set the stage around culture and vision, but it is only done well and executed at the store level. And the whole thing can either be extraordinary and executed at the average store in average place. And Jeff I'm from California.[00:20:38] So I know Mervyn's really well. And that's where I also grew up. But the idea of how does that trickle down, but what does that investment from the ground up versus top down and how we can make a huge difference and just the future of the workforce. And we are in desperate times right now, we see exactly what is happening.[00:21:00] If we don't fix this, we are going to be in a very difficult situation. And for me, this is a fire that we have to fix right now. Priming students for a career in retail[00:21:09] Ricardo Belmar: It is a crisis mode from that perspective. And what I usually talk about is it's years of neglect and just paying lip service to wanting to make conditions better creating career paths that, that are more meaningful.[00:21:21] And it now it's all coming to the surface and, becoming a much more visible problem as workers have realized they have, other options that they can pursue. [00:21:29] I would argue it starts with the industry itself. Right. And I think Ron, this is some of the things that you were pointing out as well, that it has to come from within. Do you have the ability to present what are those career paths that might entice someone.[00:21:42] Walk that path and pursue it as they go into a college setting. So I want to come back on that note then to something else Gautham that you said , back to the point you made about the emerging technologies class that you're doing, what, what are your thoughts on how broad of a retail focused program at a university need?[00:22:01] How much breadth does it need to cover? So things like, the basics of a retail business, for example, but then also, you know, you're, you're talking about emerging technologies, which I would view as one of those more enticing things that might get people who would not consider a career in the retail industry, but maybe is very interested in one of those emerging technologies as a way to learn how that applies in this industry.[00:22:22] But beyond that, even what are some of the other areas that you look to either introduce in your program or that you think, universities are best positioned to really enable that s [00:22:32] Gautham Vadakkepatt: That's a great question. So my own perspective, and look, there are lots of universities that have retail programs, right? So there's always, you got to get what I think we can be safe to say is that you got to get the fundamentals of retail, correct. Before you can build on to things, right. Which would be managing the stores, which would be managing the merchandise and so forth.[00:22:56] And then you got to get to prepare yourself for the future, which is where the emerging technologies. So from my perspective, you need to have a combination of both typically where I see some of the programming lack is that later aspect, being able to react to those waves of destruction that are coming through or create a destruction, right.[00:23:19] And being able to prime the students. To be ready and to be able to respond to those changes. What I always tell my students is a very simple thing. Look, retail is a sector, anything and everything that is cool and current, you can learn and apply in retail. Right? So I've always said this to my students and many of them are computer science students.[00:23:44] They always say, Hey, I don't want to work in retail. And then a year of working with me, then they are actually working in retail. Right. And so there is something for everyone. That's the really awesome part about retail and my job as an academic and most of our academic institutions jobs is to expose students to that options, the variety of options.[00:24:04] And today the cool thing is technology, right? And it's, it's just, it's the cool thing. And many of the, the talent deficit when it comes to that is how do you apply these technologies into re. And most of the students who have the skills and technology don't want to go into retail. So by trying to build these bridging classes, that applied technology into retail, the hope is to get them excited and to keep that pipeline going.[00:24:29] If that makes sense. So I hope I answered the question because it's not one or the other, right. It's talk to get the fundamentals. The merchandising aspect is critical. If you are a retailer, you have to get that right. But you also have to get it right. To understand what's that future of retail look like.[00:24:45] And that's where things like people are doing a really amazing, right. You need to know how do you apply NFT. How do you apply things like blockchain and how do you apply AI into retail? Those are things that you need to understand so that you can do better moving forward.[00:25:00] Ricardo Belmar: I think that's a critical aspect is to really cover that wide variety of things and to kind of create an awareness that says, you know, retail is not just about one thing. You can do all of these other things in this industry as a way to really you know, get those students excited about it and interested in wanting to pursue that career path.[00:25:18] So let's go on to another topic that I think is another significant area that universities can contribute in retail. And that's what I'm going to call community building, which is creating this environment where in addition to students and that young talent pool that you're developing, you're also connecting retailers with other parts of the ecosystem in really a neutral environment, right? It's, you know, you might be connecting other technology providers and vendors. You should be connecting startups even connecting VCs with those startups because you have this kind of neutral platform. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts around, what would you expect universities to be doing in this area where you're creating that community within the retail ecosystem?[00:26:02] Gautham Vadakkepatt: I'll be the student and I'll listen to all the comments, because this is, [00:26:05] Ricardo Belmar: yeah. I'd like to hear you. Yeah. I'd like to hear your thoughts Gautham at the end. And in fact, I'm going to put Jeff on the spot and ask Jeff to start [00:26:12] Jeff Roster: let's see. What would I like to see? Given that retail is such a large employer and given universities are looking for connections, I would like to see universities that want to engage in retail to have to reach out to the retail industry, set up mentorship programs, set up online conversations set up a clubhouse room to bring in, you know, retail executives and invite students to come and engage.[00:26:35] You know, all of the above, reach out to the industry and say, who wants to, you know, who wants to help transform everything? I mean, you know, Ron, Ron set it up perfectly. W w you know, it's a, what's a five alarm fire going on right now. So let's start, let's start figuring out how to fix it.[00:26:49] Let's open up conversations. Let's, let's think about what university needs to do, you know, in 2023, not what it did in 1980 .[00:26:56] Ricardo Belmar: That's a great point. You got a long list of good suggestions there. Ron, I'll ask you, what, what are some of your thoughts on this point? [00:27:02] Ron Thurston: Yeah, I agree with it all the Jeff said that and, and I think what we can do is make it even less complicated. So when we think about how we, how the industry can insert itself into the, into the education system to make it a a lunch and learn, make it a quick conversation, make it a zoom call with your class.[00:27:26] I know the other night I was on the phone with Ricardo and Casey and then jumped onto a class at NYU of students who were studying law with a focus on retail. And interestingly enough, they had a lot of questions about how the industry actually works. How do retail executives engage with the legal community, how like good experiences I may have had how was the org how are organization set up? It's like they had almost no knowledge of the industry yet they were studying it and choosing a specialty of retail and you know, so fine. It's an hour for me. And that's an easy ask for any of us to just jump in and share our experience, share the brands, share a careers talk about the power of the industry.[00:28:16] And I personally like would like to be asked more. And then I have a large set of peers who would say the same. It's a pleasure because when we were growing up, whether it's Jeff at Mervyn's or, you know, myself at, at Broadway department store to start, and then many years at gap, I would have loved to have heard from other people about how to navigate this industry, that no one's going to teach you how to do, you either figure it out yourself, or you have people around you that you can ask great questions. And so I think ask more and and make it easy for us to do.[00:28:53] Ricardo Belmar: Want to introduce Mia Lupo, who just joined us on stage. I think Mia, you have some thoughts you wanted to share on this topic.Retail Curriculum Example [00:28:58] Mia Lupo: Yeah, sure. Thanks Ricardo. And thanks everyone for being here. I'm gonna share my experience coming from a small liberal arts university, I graduated from Salve Regina university. It's based in Newport, Rhode Island, beautiful school. That's what everyone seems to just test has to say about it, but we do have other things besides being beautiful school.[00:29:19] So one thing I think it depends. It's like the, it's the commitment of higher education to recognize retail is vital and relevant, which we, of course we know that, but you know, having the commitment, having retail integrated in the curriculum. So for example business is the business degrees.[00:29:41] They're a strong arm at Salve Regina's campus. And so one of the professors doctor app grab, she does have a semester course dedicated to retail. And not only does that include, kind of the ins and outs of how retail business works, but it also includes kind of hands-on interactions with alumni who are in retail, working retail currently.[00:30:05] And on top of that, it building upon a depends on the university's commitment to exploring retail, you know, the alumni network. I think that's a huge, under utilized, simple, easy way. For example, Ron was talking about, these meet and greets for like an hour to, talk about who they are, for alumni to talk about who they are, what they do.[00:30:26] And so. For example, for me, I was invited to virtually visit campus and discuss, my career journey and retail, which is, will be nine years, like next year. And a lot of students I believe are curious, but it's like being able to provide those opportunities. And I think, being able to utilize our networks accordingly to, help get the word out.[00:30:51] So that's my 2 cents on that.[00:30:53] Ricardo Belmar: Thanks for sharing that Mia. I appreciate it. So let me pause here at this moment, Gautham you've been listening to everybody's comments so far is anything standing out to you or do you have any strong thoughts either about what everyone has suggested?[00:31:05] Or maybe there are things that we didn't suggest yet? [00:31:09] Gautham Vadakkepatt: No, I love all the suggestions and it, you know, I love it, particularly both Ron and Mia had to say one Ron saying like, it's an hours commitment, right? That the simple, low lying fruit that can actually transform. I can say this personally, like I got about eight speakers in my class, and that was one small comment that one of the speakers made that literally brought one of the students to tears.[00:31:35] And they connected, and then they had some further conversation. So it's a very limited ask, but it can have the potential to transform literally students' life. And so all these simple opportunities, the one that we have said, right. To getting people and talking to the alumni base and so forth, we're trying to do all those things.[00:31:54] But any other thoughts to make students more excited about retail in general would be greatly appreciated. [00:32:02] Mia Lupo: I do have one other thing I can offer. Salve Regina, we do have a center dedicated to connecting small businesses. So for business majors, their final project for the year is to do like the business plan and they are connected with a number of small businesses or small to medium-sized businesses throughout Rhode Island.[00:32:27] And to come up with suggestions and ideas. And I think that something like that, like a hands-on opportunity, connecting with the community is a really interesting way to, you know, kind of give them that real life experience to really fully analyze what it really takes to, be in retail and, the, the opportunity of it now, again, that's, for, a small liberal arts university.[00:32:51] That's just, an example of a smaller scope, but, it's still all the more reason it could be something that's, very important to get students involved. I mean, plenty, plenty of colleges and universities use students, as you know, mini think tanks to, think of so many great ideas and to push their business forward.[00:33:11] So maybe that's something that, larger retailers could invite, could invite students to new, do more projects to submit things. It could be very interesting[00:33:21] Gautham Vadakkepatt: if I could just make one comment on that. I would love the larger retailers to do that, but I will say this on behalf of the small re, like our school does this with the small retailers and there's a lot of it and they give students a great opportunity to make their resume look different. And it also exposes them to the opportunities in retail.[00:33:41] So that'd be a really great opportunity to have. And if there are retailers in the room, please do reach out.[00:33:47] Ricardo Belmar: I do think that is a wonderful idea of, or any kind of project work like that, that you can connect with a retailer that just would provide so much valuable experience for the students to really understand the business and understand the impact of the problem they're trying to solve. But with that project, I think that's just a wonderful, wonderful way to go.Retail vs Commerce - a misperception?[00:34:06] Casey Golden: I think there's also something that I've found is the difference of perception between retail and commerce. The commerce seems to be cooler. And go figure. But what retail means to a lot of people is very different. And everybody seems to understand what commerce is whether or not it's omni-channel or bricks or clicks or, or whatever that is, whether or not it's it's travel or fashion or home goods.[00:34:33] It's kind of just not it's not as, as, as pigeonholed by perception, I'm finding. So I do find that that might be something that is interesting. I find it, I find your program to be so impactful the way that you've, you've designed. As somebody who, I mean, I've got my second bachelor's in apparel design and merchandise planning, and it was still very much designed around the fact and marketed that I was going to be a designer.[00:35:03] And granted, I thought I was going to be a designer till I learned production, but it was never brought up to go into the tech side to go into supply chain management, managing production was never a conversation about an ERP system. And I feel like a lot of the, the more that changes that you can be in tech and be in commerce or retail.[00:35:26] There's a lot of other jobs out there that do pay better than what they may have that preconceived notion of. So I think it's, I think it's all very interesting as we kind of build out these new curriculums and Gautham, I think you're just doing a really great job. [00:35:42] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Thank you. [00:35:43] Ricardo Belmar: That's a really fascinating point you made there Casey about how the perception is different if you frame it in terms of commerce versus retail. And I wonder if, if there's some of that have to do with I guess you were saying right, that the production side of things, or, you know, if you're looking at fascia and it's because you're looking at the design side of it, or is it because in recent years, we've, we've had so much more build up from a media perspective of direct to consumer brands and digitally native brands that somehow that appears different to students than what they might think of as a traditional retailer.[00:36:14] Gautham does that ever come up, but with your students, is there a variation in that perception.[00:36:19] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Absolutely. There is don't, please don't take this the wrong way, but there is a negative perception around retail and that's why I applaud Ron for what he does in changing that initial experience. And it's, it's part of that, right? When you take that frame out of their thinking and you juxta position a different framework, they seem to have a different mindset.[00:36:46] Very, very different mindset. And I'll say it, it is just a mindset issue because through the length of the program, what students have come to realize is that commerce and retail are the same thing, and retail and have for negative connotation. This was one of the students who actually said that they'd like, yeah, I didn't think about all these other things that you had.[00:37:11] The speakers have highlighted as far as being retail. I was like, yeah, but I thought that was all commerce. So that's part of just the mindset mentality that is driven by past lived experiences. And this is where, those first impactful moments are crucial to ensure that the supply of talent into retail continues to be of high quality and addresses the new skills that's needed.[00:37:37] Ricardo Belmar: Perception it's really, it's such an important point an issue to overcome, right? Because it all comes back to that perception of, is this, or is this not an interesting career path for me as a graduating student? And where is it going to lead? I want to kind of connect the dots with this on the, the question of community building, because, we're bringing up a lot of interesting facts around what makes it interesting to that student into that graduating student to stay in the, in the retail industry.[00:38:04] So when I look at community, I'm also thinking about how the university as that kind of neutral environment. And I like to think of it as a neutral environment, because in that sense, the university doesn't have an agenda other than to educate students at this point. So it is neutral from the perspective I believe of the retailer and technology providers.[00:38:24] If we look at this from a perspective of what if the university brought together some of those key technology providers that are doing these new emerging things for retailers and some of the startups that are coming around who are probably also looking for young talent, that they can bring into their startup organization with a fresh perspective and with an ability and understanding of what retailers need to have, because they've been through this program. What can universities do as they pull those together that not just makes it useful and enticing for the students, but then in turn makes it valuable for those organizations.[00:39:00] You know, what's going to make it valuable for the startups to be interested in coming to this neutral environment at the university to meet the students as well as any of the other technology providers. So I want to spend a few minutes on this point and Shish, I think you've got your audio issues sorted out, right?[00:39:15] Shish Shridhar: Yep. [00:39:15] Ricardo Belmar: Really curious to give you a chance to comment on this part. Building an ecosystem for startups[00:39:19] Shish Shridhar: Well, so one of the areas that Gotham and I have been working on figuring out is really trying to build that ecosystem where one, I think the point that he made that that universities are really that neutral place where retailers could go to one of the challenges I find, when working for tech vendor is there is potential perception of bias there and where, there's multiple tech vendors and, and each one will come in with the buyers for their technology. And universities are in a position to kind of work across all of these tech vendors and be able to pick the best of the, startups out there and make recommendations based on that.[00:40:08] So I kind of think from that perspective, there is a possibility for us to bring together identify what are the top innovations happening? What's the emerging technologies happening and a respective of what tech vendor they are affiliated to, to have that unbiased rating and capabilities being listed out.[00:40:31] So that's one aspect of it. And what you pointed out is, you know students and engaging students is an important element for, for startups. And that ecosystem could be beneficial for startups as well where they could engage, collaborate with startups, with the students. The other aspect of it that Gautham and I have been talking about is really building GMU to be the place where startups could be born.[00:41:00] One. Really reaching out to retailers to determine what are the big business challenges that retailers are trying to solve today that we don't have solutions for. And then building out potentially maybe a hackathon around that and bringing together students, bringing together startups to help address those challenges, providing the resources for that, and then building an ecosystem that will create startups, innovative startups that are trying to solve the top problems in retail.[00:41:37] And that's again, another aspect that Gautham and I have been talking about as well. [00:41:42] Casey Golden: Yeah, I think that's really great. I just spoke to Northwestern. And they have a, program of, they call them company cohorts and companies come in and it's almost like a job fair at the beginning of a term. And you literally, the students go in there and they sign up for a cohort with a company and they spend the next 16 weeks working for the company as their class.[00:42:12] I find it incredibly interesting. And the person I was speaking to mentioned that there's a huge interest in fashion and retail and retail tech and direct to consumer brands and people who want to open up their own or work in that field. But there was no brands or retailers or fashion companies that are part of the cohort.[00:42:34] And so, you know, JP Morgan's there, Bain is there, there's, there's all these other companies, but there wasn't any brands or retailers. So I think that that's a really good way as just reaching out even and putting ourselves with the universities to, to build it so that we can also, you know, start developing that talent early and these students get a chance to participate.[00:43:00] They even have a venture program, which I found really interesting. Ron and I both met this gal Gabby when we were in Dominican Republic , and they have a, a venture analyst team there and they work with the alumni for deal flow so that these people, these students are able to start understanding venture capital.[00:43:23] And they're just, they're just helping startups. To get experience,[00:43:30] you know, so I think more practical ways that, and it's, it's considered a cohort and it's a 16 week class. Just like if you were going in to taking a class for biology, but you're actually working for companies, [00:43:41] Ricardo Belmar: what a great experience. [00:43:43] Gautham Vadakkepatt: I was going to say, I love that idea. And you know, Casey to your point generally, what academics, what is common across all academia is that there is a gap, right?[00:43:54] Like once you get into a company takes my statistics, are it takes two years to kind of bring them on board or that's the statistics that I've been provided. So doing these kinds of cohorts stuff, actually sharpens that. Right. And so they get hit the ground running. I hadn't thought about that. So it'd be wonderful to get retail involved in something like that.[00:44:16] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I think that would be a fantastic experience for everyone involved that would be producing really amazing outcomes too. I think that would be fascinating. [00:44:24] Casey Golden: Yeah. I mean, a lot of times these new grads, they they're not ready for the job. [00:44:28] Ricardo Belmar: And I think that's a great way to kind of give them that early exposure, right?[00:44:31] Casey Golden: Yeah. Really getting that early exposure. And you know, we have a history of wooing people into the fashion industry about trips to Paris and living in New York. And we never, there's no TV show that ever mentions that you're spending, you know, nine hours a day in an Excel file. [00:44:55] Ricardo Belmar: I think that part gets edited out of each episode.[00:44:59] Casey Golden: And then you don't realize how much math you. The amount of math that you do in retail would make any person's head spin that they didn't realize you could do math like that. And I think that that's, that's something that's definitely underlooked or overlooked. Right. You know, like it's heavy math.[00:45:19] Gautham Vadakkepatt: It's true. I will support that point even to this day when I, my classes is always numbers heavy. And they're like, this is retail. I'm like, yeah, it does retail. That's what you got to do fully agree with that last [00:45:36] Casey Golden: No, you get marketing and go into fashion is like pretty much what is that? That, that commentary? I wouldn't have ever really learned math if it wasn't for Polo University. I started out Ralph Lauren, I got handed a $30 million business and they put me into retail math classes every Friday.[00:45:57] So I think it, I think it's really important that students know really what's expected of these jobs and especially the senior positions on what it's going to take to get you there. And if, if you're prepared you don't have to be that coordinator for that long. [00:46:17] Ricardo Belmar: That's a great, great point.[00:46:18] And also speaks to an opportunity where the retailers that don't have that kind of Polo University, they should be working with universities to create those professional programs and make them available for both, you know, any existing executives or anyone who's wants to go down that path and get to those positions and have that available to them.[00:46:37] So they don't research it and feel like they have to do that in house, right. They have access to other education institutions that can help them with that. And then would love to see more of that happening. [00:46:47] I have one last topic to throw out for everyone. And I'm going to direct this one to Jeff first as who we all collectively always refer to as "the analyst."Universities drive neutral research [00:46:55] Ricardo Belmar: And this point is really about how university can contribute as a, again, focusing on the neutrality aspect of it, but as a neutral research platform that, and be able to research and contribute to the different projects in that way, in a way that, you know, you can't expect other vendors or technology provider sources to do, to do things that retailers are trying to solve. So, Jeff, what's your, what are some of your thoughts on that research perspective? [00:47:19] Jeff Roster: Well, I mean, you got it. You got it exactly right. The only neutral platform out there is universities and could maybe make the case. They, you know, a vendor might have some influence there, but no, no one else is neutral.[00:47:31] Literally. No one else's neutral and no one has as many scientists and engineers and want to be scientists and want to be engineers. So to me, It's just such a natural marriage. I just love, love what Casey said. What gosh, how could I, how could I get into that training program for venture? What if I could fake, like I'm a kid again?[00:47:51] It just, it's such a logical place to go. We're all trying to figure out the next iteration of, of the consumer. And guess who's sitting, sitting, you know, in a giant sea of these consumers, it's the university who is who, who is paid to research universities. You know, it's just such a perfect venue that I don't think we in retail have really even begun to scratch the surface of.[00:48:14] And that's why, I love what Gautham is doing now. He's stepping out and not just talking about supply chain or not just talking about merchandising, but, but really if you look at a lot of the work it's it's AI, which I'm obviously a huge fan of it's low code it's, it's blockchain, it's all of these emerging technologies that these kids are going to get exposed to.[00:48:33] And whether they stay in retail or not, they're going to be literally working with 21st century technologies. And I just, I just think this is a fantastic opportunity for, for literally everyone involved, including the executives that'll get involved, they'll gain five X more than they'll ever give. You cannot out-give generosity.[00:48:50] It always, it always comes back fivefold. [00:48:53] Casey Golden: Well, that's it. These are our customers, you know, like crazy. They are our customers. We want them about to get jobs.[00:49:02] They are our customers. I worked at Abercrombie and Fitch back when that was super cool to do. And I was always very impressed. At the time I was there in order to get a job at corporate or move into corporate, you had to be a store manager. Unless you were like probably some very senior executive that got transferred in.[00:49:24] Otherwise you had to be a store manager for at least one year before you could take a job at corporate. And I fought, I felt that that was such a great way to bring everybody in with. Real experience managing the stores. And they too did all of their recruiting. At high schools and colleges, they had a huge footprint on campus.[00:49:48] I mean, I went to games like I was at football games. I was at basketball games with like five to 10 people on my staff, recruiting employees to come work at the store, but there was such a presence on campus and the brand was on, was there and coming to games and starting to make that impact. And, you know, at that every single what, two days a week, we had a minimum of 50 people wanting to interview twice a week.[00:50:19] And there was huge amounts of people that wanted to work at the company because. You know, one of the reasons is we showed up.[00:50:26] So I think that, you know, there's a lot of opportunity there to get involved with, with more campuses and, and get the brand presence involved with the culture so that people are aware and, and they've known for a long time and, and they got to work for the company. They got to intern for the company.[00:50:44] And that's the beginning of brand equity. I feel in a lot of places. [00:50:48] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that becomes a much more collaborative environment and in much more inclusive that way. And I think you're absolutely right in calling it a brand equity, because it really just creates an affinity for not just that brand, but even for the industry as a whole.[00:51:02] Gautham, I know you have a specific point of view on contributions that universities can make on the research perspective. So I wanted to hear your thoughts [00:51:10] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Yeah, my job is correlated with my research productivity, right? Teaching is a required aspect, but I get evaluated mostly on my research.[00:51:20] And so there is a large opportunity for universities to get involved in research that addresses industry specific problems. Right? All universities are trying to do these things, right. So it is, it is a shared responsibility. It's a shared dance. It can't be that one person comes to the table. It has to be everyone.[00:51:41] And by that, I mean, the retailers, as well as the vendors all have to come together to do research that actually helps advance industry, but really are, we get paid to do research, right? Why not leverage us and our students, actually, many of us students crave to do research as well. And so this is a good training ground to get the future prepared for what it is, it hones their thinking ability, it hones their ability to do research.[00:52:12] It also gives them a deeper dive into specific industries. So for me, I get most excited about the opportunity to do research and the, the possibility of the center and full disclosure, every center, and most institutions try to do. Right. The opportunity to partner with retailers or retail associations to address industry specific problems excites me.[00:52:38] The challenge is trying to figure out how to do the dance, right? How do we how do we do the research that helps both the university as well as a retailer, while still maintaining the critical aspect that Jeff said neutrality to be the neutral ground. We don't have an option. We cannot pick sides. And so we have to be neutral and that requires more detail, more thoughtful and careful research.[00:53:04] Ricardo Belmar: I hear what you're saying. I think you're absolutely right. And it's one of these things that's so overlooked, I think by the industry when there's so much opportunity here, because as you pointed out, one of your primary roles is to do research. And as, as every university is doing, and the students have a very big role to play in, in many cases, in that research. So it's just something that the industry and I think Jeff said this as well, just doesn't take enough advantage of and, and leveraging to really understand how they could solve so many different problems by just looking at this research. And, and again, from that neutral point of view, because the university is not doing this from a perspective that some vendors are going to be perceived as yes, we'll help you figure out that problem because we hope to sell you something at the end.[00:53:48] And sometimes that's true. Sometimes that's not. But from the university's perspective, that's not even in anyone's head, right. It's not a goal that anyone has is just do the research to see what the outcome is. And then what can we learn from that? And how can that be applied? And that's something that would be a benefit to any retailer.[00:54:04] When you look at it, what can be done in that kind of outcome? [00:54:07] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Yeah. And if I may add, right, there's also the opportunity that each retailer or solution provider, whatever we'll house specific problems that are particular to them, right. And they might not have the bandwidth or the resources to dedicate time and effort to do it.[00:54:23] These might not be high priority, obviously should not be high priority problems. But these could be problems that are important to their operations. And this could be another chance to partner with universities and faculty and students to kind of get those problems addressed, get some insights from there and, you know, move from there.[00:54:41] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that's another excellent point on the research component to this. And just for me, more, more reasons why that should be leveraged more often and in so many more ways that are just a missed opportunity and the way it's looked at today. Closing thoughts[00:54:56] Ricardo Belmar: I think we could probably talk for even another hour on this topic. I think, you know, Gautham, I think I probably won the bet on that one about how much interest there would be in how long this conversation would go. But we, we were kind of curious what to everyone would want to contribute to this discussion, but I think we've actually touched on a lot of different areas.[00:55:12] I want to give Gautham, Ron, both of you as our special guests this week. Any, any last thoughts you have before we close?[00:55:19] Ron Thurston: Thanks. Thank you, Ricardo. It's so interesting because we all, we all can be involved in this. And I think that the conversation from the brand side to find new ways to develop and hire and train and bring people into this industry is at a point where new ideas have to come forward and, and capitalizing on some of this university partnership.[00:55:45] Could 2022 could be the year where this actually gets much better. And that's what I'm hearing tonight is, we, some of us have had great experiences when it was really good and in some earlier years and we have to get back to that place. That's how people came into this industry. Many of us did, we have to get back there and now is the time to do that well, and it's, it's actually really exciting, as hard as it is right now.[00:56:12] I find the opportunity to be really thrilling what the future is going to look like. So thank you for having me tonight. [00:56:18] Ricardo Belmar: Thank you, Ron. I think you're spot on the fact that this is a subject area where everyone has an ability to help move things forward and contribute for the better of the industry.[00:56:29] And I think it just requires that everyone participate at the end of the day and in whatever ways those are you know, and I think universities and academics have a really great ability to help lead us on this path. Gautham, any final thoughts. [00:56:42] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head Ricardo and Ron.[00:56:44] First, Ron, thank you for all the mentorship. Right? We need mentors. We need people who will step up and thanks to everyone who does that. And we need more of that. We can change the dialogue if more people step up and thank you for everyone who's doing it. The second aspect is that, the George Mason university is just one of the centers that's trying to change retail, right? There are lots of schools just connect with academia in general, and to try and make those moments, those contact points with the students to help and our faculty to help change the conversation. And it could be an hour long.[00:57:23] Most schools, at least Mason has a program where you tell me how many hours you want to engage with our institution and we'll get you into the right type of program for that. And it could be from a research perspective, it would be from a teaching perspective, it could be from a mentorship perspective.[00:57:42] So this is a call for anyone and everyone to kind of come support the centers, as well as all academic institutions. We're trying to change the conversation.[00:57:52] Ricardo Belmar: thanks Gautham. I appreciate you and Ron joining us today. I think this was probably one of my favorite topics that we've done in the room and in recent memory. Kind of feel like we came to the end here with, with very significantly more positive vibe maybe then we came into it because we had so many constructive and useful suggestions that everyone offered.[00:58:10] I'm really pleasantly surprised that we had such wonderful contributions to a topic that doesn't really get enough attention for the betterment of the retail industry. So again, I want to thank everybody for having joined us today in the Retail Razor room and everybody have a great weekend. Gautham Vadakkepatt Interview[00:58:24] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome back everybody. We are fortunate to have one of our special guests with us, Gautham Vadakkepatt, director of the Center for Retail Transformation at George Mason University. [00:58:33] Casey Golden: Welcome to the show. Gautham, glad to have you with us today. [00:58:36] Gautham Vadakkepatt: Thank you for having me. [00:58:38] Ricardo Belmar: So Gotham one area, we didn't get a chance to dig into very much in the clubhouse session is a bit related to what Shish brought up in relation to startups.[00:58:47] And that's building an ecosystem of technology innovation and thought leadership around retail operations, and retail te

Interview with CyberCEO Casey C.

This week, the Consig made a call to the deep South, and a Bama boss answered.  THIS IS THE SHOW.  Casey C (@BamaMafiaPicks), a noted Alabama Crimson Tide unapologist and leader of the Bama Mafia, joins Dave, Carl & Neuby with the Vegas guys trip edition of the Cash Considerations Show.Listen as Case tells the boys what him and his crew are doing in Las Vegas.  After a day of partying at Stadium Swim, Casey gave the boys his breakdown of what Alabama football is really like down in Tuscaloosa.  It ain't just barbecue and butt whippings down there, but @BamaMafiaPicks knows were the good spots are, both for food and road trip SEC games.  Casey listens to the show, knows it's an OVER show, and that NOBODY KNOWS SHIT, and shares it all with the boys.  If you aren't a Gator, you Gator bait and that damn Florida State chant will not be heard, but if you roll with the Tide, you will love this interview, no matter where you are from or which school you root for (unless it's Auburn).With Bama gone back to the tables in Vegas, the boys got down to business.  The only thing to talk about NBA was the only real signing that mattered, at least to Neuby.  Cue up THE SONG, listen as Neuby and Dave dance while CH even started bobbing his head.  Buzzer Beater, swish and it's on to the diamond.Baseball comes next and Dave actually remembered to say bon dia, bon tarde, bon noche.  Apparently, somebody cares about baseball so the boys give you a quick look at what is happening this week.  Dave started wearing a Yankees hat, Carl isn't happy about it, especially because the Red Sox can't beat them.  CH still can't find the package, and the Sox can't find a win out of that bullpen.  The Wild Card talk is quick and nobody really knows who is going to win it, but everyone knows it's not the Mets.  Neuby is sitting fastball, and he nails it with his take on the NL East. Phillies? Braves?   Dave always says "Nobody Knows Shit", but after this segment, there may be a new segment called "Neuby Knows Shit."Speaking of new segments, Dave hands off the football talk to Neuby, and he goes "In the Gun".  Nobody watches the preseason so Neuby went straight to the regular season.  Who is going to win the NFC North & the AFC North?  He gives the other guys the odds and asks who is going to win, but more importantly, is there any reason to bet them with those odds?  Finally, it's FOOTBALL talk.  Packers that easy?  The Browns, really? Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?Lastly, the coordinating producer/social media manager/co host Carl H-A-S-C-A-L-L had one question on “Carl's Corner” segment of the show.  Do you watch Hard Knocks?  CH wanted to know that and what reality TV is in your life?  The answers will surprise you.   Neuby went all in with the love, Dave & the Consig girls like masks and singing, and Carl still can't get enough of the Idol.  Things are always real in Carl's Corner.As it always does, The Take a Minute segment closed the show on Cash Considerations.  Neuby went fishing looking for Captain Ahab , CH finally found the package and had it specially hand delivered,  and Dave closed the book with a B and a story about a Bama mafia member named Carl that you have to be "in the family" to appreciate.Sit back, listen in & laugh a bunch to this special August episode of the Cash Considerations podcast. Follow the show @CashConsidShowFollow Dave @SportsBkConsigFollow Carl @CarlHascallFollow Neuby @NeubyTalksFollow Casey @BamaMafiaPicksEmail us at CashConsidShow@gmail.com

In the 19th century, some New England communities grew so desperate to help victims of tuberculosis that they resorted to a macabre practice: digging up dead relatives and ritually burning their organs. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll examine the causes of this bizarre belief and review some unsettling examples. We'll also consider some fighting cyclists and puzzle over Freddie Mercury's stamp. Intro: Residents of Sydney and London could take a train to the local necropolis. In the 19th century, a dog named Tschingel climbed 30 peaks. Sources for our feature on the New England vampire panic: Michael E. Bell, Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires, 2014. Sarah Richardson, "When Americans Saw Vampires," American History 54:5 (December 2019), 7. Michael E. Bell, "Vampires and Death in New England, 1784 to 1892," Anthropology and Humanism 31:2 (2006), 124-140. George R. Stetson, "The Animistic Vampire in New England," American Anthropologist 9:1 (January 1896), 1-13. John Buhler, "Disease and the Undead: Digging Up the Truth About Vampires," Canadian Journal of Medical Laboratory Science 81:3 (Fall 2019), 14-16. Jennifer Daniels-Higginbotham et al., "DNA Testing Reveals the Putative Identity of JB55, a 19th Century Vampire Buried in Griswold, Connecticut," Genes 10:9 (2019), 636. G. David Keyworth, "Was the Vampire of the Eighteenth Century a Unique Type of Undead-corpse?" Folklore 117:3 (December 2006), 241-260. Patricia D. Lock, "America's Last Vampire," Calliope 22:2 (October 2011), 20. Josepha Sherman, "Spirited Defense," Archaeology 57:3 (May/June 2004), 8. Abigail Tucker, "The Great New England Vampire Panic," Smithsonian 43:6 (October 2012), 58-66. Joe Bills, "New England's Vampire History," Yankee New England, Oct. 28, 2019. "Letters to the Editor - New England Vampire Beliefs," Skeptical Inquirer 17:3 (Spring 1993), 339. Morgan Hines, "DNA Evidence: This New England 'Vampire' Was Named John Barber in Life," USA Today, Aug. 10, 2019. Michael E. Ruane, "Vampire Bones?; A 'Vampire's' Remains Were Found About 30 Years Ago and Now DNA Is Giving Him New Life," [Brantford, Ont.] Expositor, Aug. 1, 2019. Craig S. Semon, "Uncovering 'Vampirism' in New England," [Worcester, Mass.] Telegram & Gazette, Sept. 30, 2015. Valerie Franchi, "Author Shares Vivid Tales of Vampires: Bell Addresses Meeting of Historical Society," [Worcester, Mass.] Telegram & Gazette, Oct. 24, 2008. Jascha Hoffman, "A New England Vampire Tale," Boston Globe, July 20, 2003. Cate McQuaid, "The Secrets of the Grave When the Living Were Ill, They Sought Out the Dead," Boston Globe, Oct. 27, 2002. "Tales of the Vampire Make Way Into Colonial Press, Finding Captive Audience," Hartford Courant, Oct. 24, 1999. David Brown, "Uncovering a Therapy From the Grave," Washington Post, Oct. 25, 1993. Sam Libby, "Cemetery Holds Tales of Vampires," New York Times, Feb. 16, 1992. "Did Mercy Brown Become a Vampire?" [New London, Ct.] Day, Oct. 25, 1981. "Romance in Origin of Superstitions," Omaha Daily Bee, Jan. 11, 1921. Andrew Lange, "The Common Vampire," Washington Post, Aug. 21, 1904. "Lang on the Vampire," Saint Paul Globe, Aug. 7, 1904. "Believe in Vampires," Boston Globe, Jan. 27, 1896. "Is Consumption Catching?" Quebec Saturday Budget, June 1, 1895. "Did Vampires Really Stalk New England Farm Families?" New England Historical Society (accessed March 7, 2021). Edgar B. Herwick III, "It's Not Just Witches. New England Has a History With Vampires, Too," The World, PRI, Oct. 31, 2018. Listener mail: David Mikkelson, "Letter Exchange Between Law Firm and Cleveland Browns," Snopes, Jan. 19, 2011. Casey C. Sullivan, "Is This the Best Legal Response Letter Ever?" FindLaw, Aug. 2, 2016. David Seideman, "Lady Struck Twice by Foul Balls Hit by Phillies' Richie Ashburn in the Same at Bat," Forbes, Sept. 21, 2017. David Donovan, "Litigant Cries Foul Over Court's Baseball Rule," North Carolina Lawyers Weekly, Jan. 8, 2021. "1955 Le Mans Disaster," Wikipedia (accessed March 11, 2021). "Race Car at Le Mans Crashes Into Spectators, Killing 82," History.com, June 9, 2020. "When Riders Attack: Memorable Scuffles From Recent Cycling History," Cyclingnews, March 20, 2020. "Froome's Spectator Punch: How Does It Stack Up?" VeloNews (accessed March 13, 2021). This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Saphia Fleury. Here's a corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at podcast@futilitycloset.com. Thanks for listening!

Is it possible that your child’s delays are simply part of the “COVID Kid” phenomenon? Casey C  wasn’t interested in having her concerns brushed off by her provider, so when they told her that her son’s regression was normal, she started looking for answers herself.

In this episode, the gurls discuss updates to the COVID-19 vaccine, the passing of Charley Pride and Ann Reinking, and the police-involved shooting of Casey C. Goodson Jr., They snicker at Lady Maga and Trump homophobes, what's the appropriate way to apologize, and what we would do if we had money to donate to a cause.

Losing someone you love is one of the most devastating, heart-breaking things we can go through—and the pain feels especially sharp when that person is taken from us by the hands of another. Even though we’ll always carry grief from losing our loved one, God offers us a chance to find life again as we reach for Him and remember He’s still there, leading us toward a hope and a future. Award-winning country music songwriter Casey Beathard, along with his sons—San Francisco 49ers quarterback C.J. Beathard and country music artist Tucker Beathard—share stories of a close-knit, loving family of seven surrounded by football and music. But tragedy struck the family in December 2019, when their son and brother Clay was the victim of a fatal stabbing in Nashville. In the days that followed, the Beathards dug deep into faith, finding hope in God and encouragement in the memories of Clay’s strong conviction and light. As they healed together, the Beathards found there’s freedom in forgiveness, and they take heart in knowing that one day, they’ll see Clay again.   Links, Products, and Resources Mentioned: Jesus Calling: Stories of Faith television show on Circle TV jesuscalling.com/TV  Jesus Calling Podcast Jesus Calling Past interview: Eddie Montgomery Upcoming interview: Kathie Lee Gifford   Casey Beathard Kansas City Chiefs Miami Dolphins Don Shula Redskins San Diego Chargers   C.J. Beathard Junior Seau Rodney Harrison   Tucker Beathard   Interview Quotes: “If he didn't believe in something, if he didn't didn't agree with something, he was not going to get peer pressured into doing something he didn't think was right.” - C.J. Beathard on his brother, Clay “He wanted to do what was right and fight for the people that were oppressed.” - Casey Beathard, on his son Clay “The only thing that possibly got us through this is at the end of the day: our core foundation. We were all at least rooted with the mindset of knowing that the only way to get through this was diving in and asking Jesus and and relying on the Lord to handle it.” - Tucker Beathard “We dug hard looking for hope...We were just feeding off each other about who God is and what He really has for you. And all sudden, the despair turned into a gigantic hope.” - Casey Beathard “I literally used to pray, like, “God, please let me be the first one to go in my family, because I can't—I wouldn't be able to handle it.” But I'd totally underestimated the power of Jesus Christ. I mean, that's just the bottom line. That's all that really matters. And it's like with Him, this world can't faze you.” - Tucker Beathard “I truly believe—I know [my brother Clay is in heaven]. And we'll be there someday, and I know I'm gonna get to see him again." - C.J. Beathard   ________________________ Enjoy watching these additional videos from Jesus Calling YouTube channel: Audio Playlist: https://bit.ly/2PrbuwH Video Playlist: https://bit.ly/2PsmEkJ What’s Good? Playlist: https://bit.ly/3i7VUlZ ________________________    Connect with Jesus Calling Instagram Facebook Twitter Pinterest YouTube Jesus Calling Website

We won't let this die, and neither will King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard.  Casey C-P and I made a pact, a blood oath, that each time this band of scruffy Aussies makes a new album we will be there, just like the Jackson 5, to dissect, critique and perform a deep dive to the depths of degradation.  Nothing will keep us from recording a podcast each time King Gizzard completes a project.  Not snow, not rain, not COVID-19, so here we are, ready to inject our veins and flush our lungs with the disinfecting power of Australian music. This time, its not a proper album, but its a feature film that was set for a theatrical release before the world was consumed by isolation and social distancing requiring everyone to stand one Joey Ramone away from each other.  Now, offered up twice via Vimeo, for 24 hours only, the King Gizzard movie, "Chunky Shrapnel."  CC-P and I huddled up and through the magic of a conference bridge, joined forces once more to ask the prevailing question "What's with that awful band name?"   -------------------- "I Hate Music" theme by Marius Sjoli. -------------------- https://www.facebook.com/hatepod.music/ Email and listener suggestions to: hate.pod.music@gmail.com Donations to support our podcast: paypal.me/hatepod

This week on DVG we are trapped in Isolation so we present to you our first 'Hits and Bits' episode, a collection of highlights from the radio version of DVG.join Dave as he guides you through a hodgepodge of clips taken from our Guest choice Specials. Featuring:Miss Curvella - https://www.instagram.com/miss_curvella_/Vendetta - https://www.instagram.com/miss_vendetta_heels/Casey C - https://caseycillustration.com.au/Saskia DeMuir - https://www.instagram.com/saskiademuir/Robby Heart - https://www.instagram.com/Romana Ashton - https://www.facebook.com/radiorebelgirl/Pandora - http://jerkyqueen.store/Listen to us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Stalk us on Facebook or Instagram or send us your sweet nothings at davesvideograveyard@gmail.com. None of the opinions expressed in this broadcast are that of WOWFM unless specifically stated. #davesvideograveyard #misscurvella #vendettaheels #caseycillustration #saskiademuir #robbyheart #rebelgirlradio #pandora

Once again, back is the incredible, the rhyme animal, the uncannable CC-P.  He brought with him the latest King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard album, "Infest the Rats' Nest."  As always, when the Gizz releases a new record, we are here with bated breath, ready to digest and dissect, to criticize and celebrate.  On this album King Gizzard decide to tread through waters that are dear to me heart, they decide to dip their quill into the genre of metal.  I think it is fair to say that both CC-P and JWW were fairly skeptical of this move but decided to listen to the record together for the first time and see how it plays out.   Join us as we bravely follow King Gizzard down deep and dark hallways into H-E-Double Hell Sticks.  Recoil as the internet tells us again that we do not know what we are talking about. Feign fascination as we discuss jaw harps, Metallica, Eco-disaster, and The Denver Broncos.  -------------------- "I Hate Music" theme by Marius Sjoli. -------------------- https://www.facebook.com/hatepod.music/ Email and listener suggestions to: hate.pod.music@gmail.com Donations to support our podcast: paypal.me/hatepod  

On our first installment of our Self Care Awareness Month we sat down with Casey Chibirka, we discuss kundalini yoga, traveling, channeling your energy, living in Hawaii, Things we not fucking with this week & much more. Be Sure To Follow Casey @kundalinijawns & @caseychibirka Also follow us @1passivepodcast

A new King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard record means a new episode with Casey C-P.  This time their latest, "Fishing for Fishies."  The Australian wonder-band mellows out a bit on this album, and assaults us with their over-use of the word "boogie" and apparently can't put down their harmonica for more than a few seconds. Casey C-P and I unwrap the album, dissect it's contents and drink its sweet blood in front of your very ears.  Join us for a beer, readings from Wikipedia, and discussions on the Mouth Harp.   "I Hate Music" theme by Marius Sjoli.   https://www.facebook.com/hatepod.music/

It is a conversation about getting involved and succeeding in DRI and beyond.

Casey C from Los Angeles CA telling his story in 1996 at CCYPAA Con by the Sea in Monterey CA

Fr. Bill Casey, C.P.M. spoke to us on the importance of Fatima. Especially for this year.

My friend Casey C-P is the first return guest to "I Hate Music," simply because he infected me with an insatiable desire to consume everything King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have created.  In this episode, we try something a bit different.  We listen to King Gizzard's "Polygondwanaland" album in it's entirety and discuss why we love this band, and the repercussions of this love.  Bumper music by Wongraven and S.O.D. "I Hate Music" theme by Marius Sjoli.

Longtime friend and illustrator joins Jason for discussions about toe nail clippings, Mike Patton and other important things. Bumper music by Faith No More and closing music by Mr. Bungle.

This episode of Insider InSites gathered some insights in a little bit of a different way: E.B. Moss spoke directly with some of the attendees and a panelist from the 4th  Annual 1stFive Summer Intern Experience. At Media Village 1stFive refers to people who are in their first five years of the media, marketing, and advertising industries. Interns? They’re the ones who work hard all summer long, trying to gain their own insights about what this field is that they might be getting into. MediaVillage, Turner and Horizon Media gathered about 350 students and invited them to hear from some senior industry leaders, like our own Jack Myers, the Founder of 1stfive.org and MediaVillage.com, and Donna Speciale, President of Turner Ad Sales, Eileen Benwitt, Chief Talent Officer for Horizon Media, and a host of other luminaries. The students were really interested in what these senior leaders had to say, and we were really interested in what these Generation Z students had to say during breakout sessions afterwards. We heard some pretty heartfelt stories from these students, ranging from their experience with diversity and the challenges that that presented, to the thrill of being able to really make on the job contributions, whether it was in production or social media, or coming up with a smart media plan. The stories are heartwarming. You can read a lot more about them on mediavillage.com in the 1stFive section.   Here's the transcript: E.B. Moss    We're here at the 1stFive Experience. My current victim is Casey Carty. She's a senior at College of Holy Cross, and she had a great opportunity interning at Turner this summer, right? Tell me a little bit about the department where you work. Casey C.:   I'm working on the Solutions Team at Turner, specifically in the News Department, so I work with CNN, HLN, and Great Big Story. Moss:  Are you already a news fan, or was this a department you were put into regardless of your interests? Casey     I think it was more of a marriage... I've always been very passionate about politics in particular. I'm actually a political science major at Holy Cross, so it worked out really beautifully. I'm also really passionate about human interest stories, which is something Great Big Story does so, so well right now. They're creating beautiful content, from all around the world and the people that live within it.  Moss:     Tell me a little bit about your goals for your career in media. Casey  I think that for me it's really important to be constantly challenged, and to find something that I'm really passionate about, something that I can throw all my energy behind. I want something that's really going to move me and move the people around me....I'm loving branded content right now; it’s an amazing way that media's really catering to clients right now, and companies that want to put their message out there, making it interesting to audiences, and really relevant to what's happening in the world. Some do it not so well, but the people that are doing really well are phenomenal...and it's only going to create more opportunities and visibility for people. Moss:  What did you get to put your hands on in developing branded content this summer as an intern specifically? Casey:  I just finished my intern project, where I had the chance to pitch two editorial and two branded content ideas for Airbnb, which was really fun. It's a company that's very near and dear to my heart, because I use it quite a bit [studying in Scotland] ... I got to was partner them up with Great Big Story and the incredible human interest stories that they're telling. A specific one was one about a couple who live in Maine... renting their home out and pursuing their dream of traveling up and down the coast of New England on their sailboat. ... Moss:  What did they let you do specifically? How embracing was Turner of your ideas and how much did they let you push up your sleeves and put your hands on things? Casey: This is more of a thought starter, so it was something that we were theoretically pitching Airbnb, so no production. I'm more on the marketing and sales side, but where a lot of my input came in was the idea...I sat down with a couple of the producers and we just talked it out. We were like, "What about this? What about that?" We made up a story and then we went out on Google and actually found those people, which was really fun. Julie and Michael came to life. ... Moss:  You felt that people listened to you as a 20-something-year-old and you haven't graduated college yet, but you felt respected and listened to? Casey:  I think it's a lot about how you portray yourself. I'm learning so, so much from the people around me, but I think that they also realize that I have valid ideas. I have a valid opinion. It took a while, of course, as I started out. I'm not going to burst out on my first meeting, "Oh, I have a great idea." I'm still learning at that point, but I think as I started to realize what the company was trying to portray for themselves, and what Turner is and the brand image that Turner has and has established for itself for so many years. I started to understand that, which I still haven't completely after two months or three months, but I think I got a better perspective and I was able to talk to my supervisor and say, "I think I have a really good idea." They'd be like, "Bring it up in the next meeting. We want to hear it." They really opened that door for me and shined that light on my idea, my creative side that maybe wasn't always being shown when I was taking notes or copying papers. Moss: There was a lot of talk earlier in your breakout session here at the 1stFive Summer Intern Experience about diversity. What's your observation about that, and what's been your experience? Do you sense inclusion? ... exclusion? Talk to me a little bit about diversity and what you want in a future organization you'll join. Casey: I think one of my fellow Turner interns said it really well, that companies can always do better. There's so much more that companies can do, because it's never going to be enough. I think there's always so much more that we can do. I think that companies need to push beyond the gold stamp of "We hired two minorities this year." That's not enough. They need to be people that young people in the company, young people in the industry coming up, can view as mentors, as people in leadership positions, because they're qualified. They're ready to take on those jobs and they're ready to push the companies forward. Women, minorities, they're all here for it, and they're ready to do big things in the industry. Hopefully companies like Turner, big trendsetters, CBS, Disney, hopefully they realize that, they recognize that and they do more, because there's definitely more to be done. E.B. Moss: I think that you express yourself beautifully. I think that you're well on your way, Casey Carty in case anybody's hiring in another year!                                                       -------------- Now I'm sitting here with another fabulous intern, Catharine Okoye, who was in a different breakout session here at the 1stFive Summer Intern Experience. Tell me a little bit about where you've been interning this summer, Cat. Catharine O.:   This summer I'm interning with Experience Harlem. It's a local Harlem blog that informs people of all the essential activities to experience in Harlem, uptown. I've been a marketing intern, so just learning how to create and send messages that reflects what Experience Harlem is all about. Moss:   This is your second internship. What inspired you to apply for Experience Harlem? How did that form, or whatever you've done in your other internships, form where you want to go in your future? Cat:  I was inspired to apply for Experience Harlem because of the lack of diversity [in my previous internship.] Experience Harlem is owned by a black woman and she has a lot of experience within the industry of marketing, working for Ebony and Essence. I just wanted to go to where my voice would be represented, respected, and obviously reflected, and I have a lot of hands-on experience right now. She's letting me do a lot of things that, especially with the social media marketing, I didn't really get a chance to do before. Moss: What do you get to do as an intern? Tell me all about your experiences. Cat:  I had another internship at WABC-TV and I had a lot of hands-on work I could do there too. They also let us go to different departments as well, which was really cool. But with Experience Harlem I get a lot more because it's way smaller, so I get to see a lot more of the action: I attend events, do street teams, sending out guides...As far as in the office, I am doing social media marketing, so I'm looking at the different activities that are going on in Harlem, and how I can create a short caption to really relay the information to her audience...of Uptown, which is Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood, and let them know, "Yo, you need to come experience this, this weekend, or experience it today, it's going to be fun," stuff like that. Moss: You feel valued. You feel like they listen to you and that they take up your recommendations and your creativity? Cat:  Yeah. I feel like I'm learning a lot with this internship. I'm learning that it takes a lot of thought and effort, and a lot of meaningfulness, and making sure that you really do care about the type of messages that you're sending out. It's not something that you just do quickly, [despite] this era that we're in, people are so incentivized to send out whatever they want so quickly.  I feel like preparation... is really important alongside creativity. That's what I'm learning and just trying to figure out, actually, how my path is going to go. It's not as straightforward as I thought it was going to be. It's changing. Moss:  That's really good to know and to own and decide where you want to go after that. A big focus for us at MediaVillage and a large part of why we wanted to do this Summer Intern Experience was to talk about diversity. It's very important in terms of the Gen-Z generation which is very multicultural and represents where America is going in terms of the [shifting] balance of minority and majority [population]. What do you think, as a Gen Z woman, in terms of any progress we're making, any hope for the future, any balance that you're seeing or not? Cat: This is tough for me. As far as diversity goes, I feel like there's a lot more work that could be done, especially when you see the transition from Obama White House to now a Trump White House. I really do believe that America can do more to make people feel more inclusive. I do see progress somewhat, and... I do bag on Trump, but at the same time his confidence is something that I can't really just knock down.                                                       I've been inspired by the fact that he's able to be himself. It makes me more inspired to make sure that I stick to my truth and communicate that to others, and making sure that I'm helping my community and we're helping ourselves to progress. I do see it. It just needs more work. I feel if there were more people who believe that, they need to just do as they say. Moss:  I love that you took a positive out of what's going on in our country today, and that you're applying it. It sounds like you're applying it in terms of choosing where you wanted to intern as well, is that right? Cat: Yes, yes. Put your money where your mouth is. Moss: Great conversation, Cat. Keep us in mind when you're looking for that first job out of college. You sound great!                                                       -------------- Finally, I had a chance to also catch up with Eileen Benwitt, who is the EVP, Chief Talent Officer at Horizon Media. Eileen was a speaker as part of our 1st Five opening panel. Then she led a breakout session and really got to get inside the heads of some of the interns who spent their summers both at Horizon and a slew of other media companies. Moss: Eileen, what would your big takeaway be from today? Eileen Benwitt: I would say the level of intelligence and awareness of the interns really blew me away. This was an incredibly articulate, passionate, purposeful group of interns that, I would hire all of them if I could.  Moss:  A lot of what we talked about today was the Gen-Z attitude and what they're expecting, hoping for, the difference between them and Millennials. What was your take on their perceptions and their attitudes? Benwitt: It's an interesting question, because during the breakout, a couple of people said that they were surprised and pleasantly pleased that as Gen-Z that they're different than Millennials. They're desperate to have their own identity and not to be blended in with Millennials. They themselves, to hear that, were surprised and pleased. Moss:  What do you think is a key difference, for example? Benwitt: I think the key difference with Gen-Z is that they grew up smart. What I mean by smart: smartphones, smart technology, smart TVs, and that interaction is something that none of us grew up with. I can't imagine what it's like but for them that's all they know: They have access. They have interplay, they have intersection with everything, so we have a lot to learn from them. Moss: Fascinating, yes, and Jack Myers [in his keynote] asked them to "Please disrupt. Disrupt, we need you as our future leaders." Do you feel similar? Benwitt: bsolutely, because they're in it. They're experiencing it. That's their comfort. What I'm interested in is what is their discomfort, because if you're comfortable in disruption, what's next? They're going to teach us that. Moss: Yes, and part of the advice that you gave to these 1stFivers was to develop an understanding of themselves... There was a lot of conversation around diversity Tell me more about what Horizon's doing to satisfy the Gen-Z interest in seeing diversity. Benwitt:  Their level of awareness that they each brought to this topic moved me quite a bit and it made me feel really passionate about figuring it out, because we don't have the diversity that we want in this community, in this industry. We absolutely, we have to figure it out, and we all are trying to figure it out. We're partnering with different organizations, different schools to understand and see what we can do to bring more diversity in. I think it's going to be what's going to change this industry. Moss:  Did you identify some standout interns that you can see working here? What were some of the qualities that you just loved? Benwitt: Their awareness of themselves, their awareness of the marketplace, their awareness of the role social media, media advertising has in community, in business, in the socio-economic landscape that we're all a part of. E.B. Moss:   Well said. Eileen Benwitt, who is the EVP and Chief Talent Officer, Horizon Media, thank you so much for not only being a part of the 1stFive Summer Intern Experience but also for guiding them through some really great lessons in the breakout session.

Casey C. spoke at the 3rd annual Refuge Recovery Conference in Los Angeles, CA on 6/18/2017.

Caleb and Law talk with Walker (Founder, Owner and C.E.O.) and Casey (C.M.O.) of Residential Acoustics    Tags: BrokenMold ENT., Key Hires, Duck Cotton, Noise Cancelling. Black Out Curtains, Hangovers, Cape Canaveral, Lido's, Structural Engineering, University of Florida, Learn On YouTube. Self Teaching, Do It Yourself Web Design, Java Script, PHP, CSS, HTML, Honest Friendships, Jack Welch Winning, Peter Drucker, Hiring Philosophies, Benefits Of Advisory Boards