Podcasts about remote work

As companies move into hybrid work and embrace more flexibility, they'll need to experiment. They'll have to make space for employee feedback—and truly listen, says Anne Helen Petersen, co-author of the new book Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home. In this episode of the WorkLab podcast, Petersen talks to host Elise Hu about the opportunity to reinvent work in the shift to hybrid mode. How can we make work more meaningful—and promote wellbeing? WorkLab Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home Culture Study Newsletter

The massive shift to remote collaboration has fundamentally changed how we work together. Technology plays a starring role in this story. Host Melanie Green explores the links between collaboration and innovation and what business leaders and thinkers are doing to take it to the next level. Think about the move to virtual learning by schools everywhere. Think about the countless medical clinics that moved online overnight to continue helping patients. Think about the great innovations in technology that had to happen in a short time to make all of this possible. Tune in to hear more about this explosion in innovation and what business leaders can do to sustain it as hybrid work takes hold.Citrix offers research and insights here into how great innovation is being fuelled by collaboration. Citrix is supplying you with critical intelligence to write the new work playbook. Explore research and perspectives for a successful hybrid work model on Fieldwork by Citrix, filled with research, tools, and best practices to guide, support, and enable the flexible workforce. Anna Lopatukhina is Senior Manager, Product Management for Wrike, a Citrix company.  They create enterprise-ready, cloud-based collaborative work management software. Jessica Reeder is Senior-All Remote Campaign Manager for the tech company GitLab. Rob Cross is the author of Beyond Collaboration Overload: How to Work Smarter, Get Ahead, and Restore Your Well-Being. Rob is also a professor at Babson College and Co-Founder of and Research Director for Connected Commons, a group of organizations that have come together to sponsor research into how collaboration needs to happen at organizational, team, and individual levels.

Learn Kristin's Top Two keys to CRUSHING your goals in 2022.

In 2019 the average commute time for Americans was 27.6 minutes each way. In 2020 this dropped significantly due to the switch to remote work. Because of that switch, the average American was able to reduce their carbon footprint by about 1800 pounds. But is remote work really part of the answer for helping climate change?This show is a presentation of TeamBonding, providing more than 100 live, virtual, or hybrid corporate team building activities for companies around the world. Visit teambonding.com for more information.

Are you interested in starting a business you can run online from home? Many people dream about being their own boss but don't know how to get started. In this episode, Gina Horkey, author of the Make Money series, chats with Rickard Briggs, Director of Innovation Incubator at Northcentral University, about helping everyday people start a free-lance writing and service-based virtual assistant business. Learn more about Gina and her book at horkeyhandbook.com.

Changes in technical breakthroughs and evolving skill needs are shaping the nature of the workplace of the future. While the pandemic did not fundamentally alter the way people cooperated, it did speed up the pace of change. This resulted in a faster adoption of the concept of remote work.   With the world adjusting to a new life after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, how do we best utilize the tools that we have so that we can continue our levels of productivity even in remote working situations?   In this episode, Alexander McCaig discusses this issue with Phil Simon, a keynote speaker, adviser, and Zoom and Slack educator. He is also the author of eleven non-fiction works, the most recent of which is Reimagining Collaboration: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and the Post-Covid World of Work.   Adjustments in the Workplace   According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of Americans working remotely more than doubled from around 30 percent to 60 percent in March 2020, and organizations began embracing new collaboration platforms such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom as part of the adjustment process as a result of this increase.    At the start of 2020, few people would be familiar with the names of even one of these tools, much alone all of them. Several of us are now working remotely as a consequence of COVID-19, and Zoom has been so widely used that it has become a verb: to "Zoom" means to communicate using video conferencing technology.   When businesses were forced to close and employees were required to wear masks, just a few businesses were allowed to continue operations as usual. The vast majority of people were entirely unprepared for the enormous changes that were about to take place in their lives. When it came to internal communication, they continued to rely on email as well as on typical corporate processes and attitudes.   A New Age of Productivity   To cope with COVID-19's repercussions on corporate organizations, employers, human resource managers, and consultants were obliged to think creatively about how they might implement a remote work strategy. Businesses had an urgent need to alter these barriers in dealing with the international economic instability caused by the virus.   If a shift to a new system is the path moving forward, what possible methods can businesses use to better utilize the tools that we currently have in this day and age?   Phil Simon suggests that companies should start embracing the Hub-Spoke model of collaboration. This model is a technique of distribution wherein a centralized "hub" operates. From the hub, products are sent outward to smaller groups known as spokes for further storage and delivery.   With this model, it aims to help firms significantly increase staff productivity, simplify current business procedures, and provide the basis for subsequent machine-learning and artificial intelligence advances.   The hub may be thought of as a meta-organization that functions in parallel to established innovation laboratories. Employees at the innovation-hub can connect informally over the web and work freely on innovation to bolster the firm's performance.   Out with the Old, In the New?   Efficiency should not be dependent on one factor alone. While the hub-spokes model creates a more systematic approach in revamping business models to fit the current situation, it is best to have it hand-in-hand with tried and tested organizational techniques.   By adopting particular initiatives and establishing a culture that supports their virtual workforce, executives may boost their teams' performance output and engagement. They must build and sustain a culture of trust, as well as modernize leadership communication methods and procedures in order to properly educate virtual personnel.    Additionally, team members must be encouraged to share leadership. Finally, executives must establish and conduct frequent alignment checks to ensure that virtual workers adhere to the organization's cultural values, including their commitment to its goals.   All of these procedures begin with the realization that team formation will be significantly different with remote members, demanding the creation of new leadership strategies, communication routines, and tools.   Final Thoughts   In a world where social distancing and remote work has become the new normal, it is now more important than ever to make good use of the current technologies we have to be just as productive as before the pandemic hit the globe.In Simon's concluding statements, he deems it important that for a collaborative system to work, employees must be willing to commit to the shift fully. Problems will surely arise when employees refuse to use certain technologies because they either find it too complicated or too time-consuming to actually learn new things instead of going the more traditional route of working.   The willingness to change is always the first step towards growth. Just as the world has changed, we must also be willing to adapt to this change. Resistance will always be a hindrance to progress, just as the refusal to learn denies a person the chance to be more efficient and productive.   It is part of TARTLE's vision to create a world where knowledge is shared and problems are solved through a collective and collaborative effort. We believe that teamwork is power, and collaboration is the key to progress. The power is back in your hands.   What's your data worth? www.tartle.co   TCAST is brought to you by TARTLE. A global personal data marketplace that allows users to sell their personal information anonymously when they want to, while allowing buyers to access clean ready to analyze data sets on digital identities from all across the globe.   The show is hosted by Co-Founder and Source Data Pioneer Alexander McCaig and Head of Conscious Marketing Jason Rigby.   What's your data worth?   Find out at: https://tartle.co/   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TARTLE   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TARTLEofficial/   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tartle_official/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/TARTLEofficial   Spread the word!

Long ago, before we started turning spare bedrooms or breakfast tables into makeshift offices, remote work had begun. But, it wasn't accepted much, since we were still attuned to looking over the shoulder of our employees, a habit from the industrial era. Then the pandemic hit and remote work became our reality out of necessity. We learned to trust employees and treat them as mature individuals who can take responsibility for their work. It's for the future to acclimatize the new norm! Tune in!

We want to hear from you! We are giving away Three $50 Visa Gift cards for the top three submissions!The rules are as follows:Email us your name and address at jcindia@lifestagesadvisory.com Send us your episode suggestion, why you listen to WTF and what's the best thing you have learned from the podcast!We are excited to hear from everyone and do a little giveaway prior to our 100th episode!In this episode the gang discusses how remote work has changed and defined our growing economy. During COVID-19 last year 69% of the work force was working from home during the pandemic. Work from home life has changed in a lot of companies from being a privilege to an expectation. 

Communicating Effectively with Your Boss in a Remote Work Situation is especially tricky. Managing up is an important skill for those who want to get ahead in the workplace. It can be difficult. Communication with your boss is an important component of a Managing Up strategy. Anything regarding an Communications improve will definitely be a plus for your career mobility. It should be a goal for everyone to improve communications in the workplace, and of course that should start with your boss. Managing up communication with your boss is always a challenge. Managing communications with your boss when remote presents unique challenges that many don't really think about—but should. Communication skills management consists of three layers: managing down with the folks who report to you, managing laterally with your peers, and managing up with the people who are higher than up in the corporate structure. Guess where most people have a problem? And guess which feature is most important. We've all run across colleagues whose main skill is effectively managing their bosses. While we may not admire these folks, it wouldn't hurt to take a page or two from their book when it comes to communication. It is critical that your communication skills in business management are strong. Sometimes, effective communication in the workplace simply requires some training and effort. This is Episode 128 of the AP Now podcast. Sign up for AP Now's free twice-a-week ezine. Use box at left of www.ap-now.com Host: Mary Schaeffer (https://www.ap-now.com/) Credit: Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Todd Embley, Senior Startup Advocate for Agora. Todd and I talk about the new technologies and trends from no-code tools to embedded audio and video platforms, that affect how we see, hear, and interact with each other. We also explore how companies are tapping into startups and startup ecosystems to enable founders to build and impact the world more effectively. Let's get started. Inside Outside Innovation as the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. I'm your host Brian Ardinger, founder of InsideOutside.IO. Each week. We'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started. Interview Transcript with Todd Embley, Senior Startup Advocate for AgoraBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. Today, we have Todd Embley. He is a Senior Startup Advocate for Agora and a formerly with China Accelerator. So welcome to the show, Todd, Todd Embley: Thank you, Brian. It's good to be here. Brian Ardinger: I'm excited to have you because we've met a while back early in my startup days when I was running NMotion. You were in China. And we met at some global accelerator network conference. I think it was in San Diego, perhaps. So, you spent a lot of time in Asia, as I did. And recently moved back to the states, working for a interesting company called Agora. We had a chance to run into each other again in Lincoln. Todd Embley: Yeah. Thanks very much. I actually did come back from China and moved to the U.S. but now I'm back in Canada. I am Canadian and I'm living in Western Canada. Brian Ardinger: I wanted to start the conversation with the most recent company that you're with is a company called Agora. It's an interesting company for a couple different reasons. And it's a real-time engagement platform that a lot of popular companies are using to build on top of like Run the World, which is something that we've used for our IO Conferences and that. And some of our IO Live events. I think you guys provide like the SDKs and the building blocks to enable these types of startups to build off of. So, I I'd love to get your take, not on just Agora, but you've got an interesting role there as a Startup Advocate. So, what is a Startup Advocate? Todd Embley: It's a great role, for those of us who aren't necessarily adept at selling. And we fall under marketing. And the role is really, if I were to compartmentalize everything that we're about and our ethos and thesis. Is go out into startup land and be as helpful as possible. Try to integrate. You know, we sponsor. I run workshops. I meet with lots and lots of entrepreneurs all the time, and we're just out there trying to be as helpful as possible. And the great thing that the company and the founders and senior leadership have all gotten behind is just be out and be as helpful as possible. And wear the t-shirt while you're doing it. That's almost the be all and end of it. And for those that are really interested in what Agora is and what Agora does, then we can get into that. But essentially, we're not trying to put it in front of everybody and not trying to blast everybody with, with Agora specifically. The team is comprised of people who have been entrepreneurs, been in startups, been in VC, run accelerators. And who have just a lot of empathy for startups and that's kind of where it begins and ends. Brian Ardinger: We see a couple of different companies use this approach of startup advocate type of program to help build their business. Walk me through like, what are the benefits and the reasons why a corporation would want to put together some type of program around this.Todd Embley: You know, I think AWS and what they've been doing for as long as they've been doing it are kind of the benchmark. And they were, I would say the pioneers, at least the most famous pioneers of running programs like this. Our senior leadership had an opportunity in China to talk to the heads of AWS Activate in China.And they divulged some interesting statistics, which I think were the precipice of Agora wanting to build their own startup team as well. And that was that after 15 years of them having a program, they will now attribute up to 65% of AWS revenues today to the activities, you know, over the last 15 years, of their startup program.And what we're trying to do is invest in our future huge customers. Knowing that the world's next billionaire companies, trillion-dollar companies. The unicorns of the future are still just startups today. And if we want to align ourselves correctly with what it takes to build a startup and how hard it is, let's maybe try to get out of their way at the early stages while they're trying to cross the early chasms of, you know, and the difficulties of what it takes. So, from a revenue perspective or from a cost perspective, let's give our stuff for free. You know, until you, their revenue. You can't get blood from a stone. So, while they're still searching for product market fit and revenue, let's let them use our software for free until such time as they are then finding product market fit and then able to start generating revenue. And only at that time, should we then start to talk to them about actually paying for the service? Brian Ardinger: That makes sense. And obviously it seems to be working. I think I read on your website, you've got over 50 billion minutes of engagement on the platform. Probably going up as we speak. I don't know if you can speak to any specific use cases or specifically what you do when it comes to helping these companies get up and off the ground. Todd Embley: Sure. As you alluded to, there are some famous companies that have been using us, especially in the real-time audio space. There are a few NDAs in place. So, you could mention who those companies are. And by all means it's pretty widely known. I necessarily can't speak directly to who some of those more famous ones are. But the nuts and bolts of the program essentially boils down to free minutes. So, my Director, Tony Blank. He and another friend of ours, Paul Ford, used to do this at SendGrid. And that's where they were a big supporter of the Global Accelerator Network where you and I met in the beginning and then the Twilio acquisition of SendGrid. So, he was there. And they were doing a great job as well. And leading on some of the data from their experience there, or Tony's experience there, and then understanding our business and the data that we had over the years that Agora has been thriving. We positioned the amount of minutes at 1 million, we figured 1 million minutes of Agora should be enough for most companies to achieve product market fit and revenue.If you haven't achieved product market fit and revenue, after using a million minutes of Agora, you may have some underlying other issues that are getting in the way of that. But we really feel that upwards of 80%, even 90% of companies who do achieve and use up the million free minutes, should be at a position of having raised money and are revenue positive.At which time we feel comfortable to say, okay, though, now we do have to, for our business purposes, need to, to work on something and we'll hand them over to sales in a gentle way and work on getting them some discounts and start forecasting future usage and things like that. But those are the nuts and bolts.In our world of real-time video, real-time audio, just the real-time engagement aspect of it. There are certain verticals that are really taking off. I think health is obviously a big one where you have doctors and patients or therapists and their clients. We're seeing a lot in fitness, so for coaches training. Doing big group classes. Education is probably our biggest. I think that's a pretty obvious use case of doing real time lessons with teachers and things. But we're also seeing a lot of activity in the area of gaming where people want talk to each other. They want to be on video with each other while playing games together. Live performances and experiences around online virtual concerts or comedy shows or things like that as well. There's a lot of added context that you can get from engaging in real time, over video. That you couldn't get at an actual conference.You know, there are solutions coming around blending those where you might be at the concert, but you'll also have on your phone different camera angles that are available to a viewer. And you can get other contextual information that is happening plus chats with other people at the concert or something like that.And then, you know, a lot of multi-verse. A lot of VR stuff. I mean, I had a conversation with a startup out of New Zealand who was working in the overcoming therapy space, where if you had a phobia of dogs, you know, a psychologist would work with their client, and they would go to a kennel and slowly start to integrate and learn how to overcome. But now we can do that in a VR environment, but overlay a lot of very interesting artificial intelligence, facial recognition. Stuff like that to really be able to measure the things that are almost imperceptible to the human eye, to understand like the dilation of their pupils when faced with a small dog versus a big dog or different breeds or something, just giving a lot more contextual information to help a psychologist really work with their client to overcome a phobia. So, it's fascinating to work with the startups because they are thinking of use cases that we even within Agora can't think of. The Ewing Marion Kauffman FoundationSponsor Voice: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private, nonpartisan foundation based in Kansas City, Missouri, that seeks to build inclusive prosperity through a prepared workforce and entrepreneur-focused economic development. The Foundation uses its $3 billion in assets to change conditions, address root causes, and break down systemic barriers so that all people – regardless of race, gender, or geography – have the opportunity to achieve economic stability, mobility, and prosperity. For more  information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect with us at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn. Brian Ardinger: Well, and that's an interesting thing because the platform itself is really robust. You can do video calls and voice calls and interactive live streaming and real-time messaging and white boarding. And like you said, the toolkits are there. And I think this fits into one of those trends that we've been talking about, where it's never been easier for a startup founder to find the tools they need. They don't necessarily have to build everything from scratch nowadays. They can find partners and no code, low code tools and things like that to get up and going and testing the marketplace a lot easier than ever before. And get to those use case scenarios that a platform tool provider may not have thought of originally. I'm curious to get your take on some of this accessibility to tools that founders didn't have maybe, you know, 10 years ago when we started in this business. Todd Embley: Yeah, it's amazing. I think back to, I used to be with SOSV was the fund, and we were doing kind of an internal conference for all of our portfolio, all of our mentor network. Everybody that had ever been involved with us, including investors in Agora or LPs. And we had a guy named Dave McClure come and speak. And somebody had asked him is your eight-year-old daughter learning how to code. And he said, let me rephrase that. I think what you're asking me is do I think that it is important for very young people to learn how to code and essentially that's what you're looking for. And he said, you know, coding is like learning any other language, you know, in the development of the brain and how that enables young people to really grow. But it is in his opinion, he said it is just kind of a commodity. He said coding is probably going to become a commodity. And we've seen that in the low-code no-code explosion.And then he thought, you know, design would probably not be that far behind. I mean, there probably will be a day in the future where our phones will know everything they need to know about us, where you won't have to necessarily code or design the UI UX CX, of how an app works and feels. Because it can just deploy to our phone and our phone can tell the app how to develop itself as it lands on our home screen, in the way that we prefer it to be from colors to where the settings are or where our profile lives.And we can navigate that so intuitively. It has been absolutely amazing. And I think, you know, as we go, we've launched our app builder where pretty much anybody, even without any coding experience can go on and within 20 minutes create a video conferencing tool that they can use for their family reunion. You know, that is super easy. So yeah, it's been amazing. Brian Ardinger: It is kind of crazy to think what are the uses. I'd imagine obviously COVID has changed the dynamic landscape for you guys, especially. And so maybe let's talk a little bit about that. Some of the trends you're seeing with the move to more remote and more virtual environments. Todd Embley: Anybody who just watches the stock price of Zoom over the last couple of years would understand exactly where this industry has gone, but then factors like the quote unquote Zoom fatigue. And now we're seeing people that want to have more control over the layout and the design and the backgrounds and the information and the chats and emojis and music and all these other things that you can build into it. Because you know, now for instance, all our conferences went virtual, right? So we are now having to figure out how did you run a web summit or you know, like an East Meets West, that Blue Start-ups does in Hawaii or something. How do we now do this online and create a really great experience where everybody can still try to achieve those same outcomes for why they attended in the first place. It's been a pretty amazing growth that has really kind of pushed the boundaries.The work from home, I think has been the biggest thing where everybody's now at home. So, there's working with colleagues. There is collection of data. There is monitoring output and outcomes. And, you know, as a department or as a salesperson or marketing has changed. How do we do now market to people who aren't leaving their homes anymore that has now all changed.It's been such a game changer just in the future of work. I wouldn't say it necessarily changed course, but COVID has absolutely accelerated what we were already starting to think it would be. You know, it's done some damage to the world of coworking spaces, right. Or in-person accelerators or incubators. It's changed how we, even as a startup team go out and find partners and find startups to introduce them to Agora. So, it's had a tremendous impact. Brian Ardinger: You spent a lot of time ecosystem building for lack of a better term. You know, you go to different communities and see what the landscape is in the startup world. And then again, try to help founders navigate that. So, what are you seeing when you travel around to different startup communities and that. What's maybe different than it was five or six years ago? Todd Embley: There's a lot of factors. Entrepreneurship and startup land, as we know it, just even in the last 20 years, let's say since the .com boom and bust. And then, you know, Paul Graham kind of the Godfather of the accelerator starts Y Combinator in 2005. And so, the way investors started investing, and then there was, you know, a lot of information and then Crunchbase and others started coming around. And then, then we had 10 years of data from Crunchbase, somewhere around 2013. That we're now measuring how well people were investing, how well-performing that whole venture financial class was doing.And we've seen things where investors are now looking more at timing of solutions versus not just team and problem, but they had so many investments that were either too early, too late. And they started to recognize that. A lot of funds are starting to look internally and seeing, trying to reinvest inside the value that they've created to capture more of the food on the table versus being so outwardly focused. For our jobs, even in doing ecosystem development, how to startups find us versus how do we find them? If there's no meetups. If we're not able to do in-person startup weekends, then how are we able to find them, to attract them, to support them and to help them. How are investors doing their due diligence? You know, things like DocSend. Right.Having that digital data room with a lot of analytics built into it. So that founders can now not only see who's entering and who's looking at their due diligence documents at, but where in the deck are they spending time? On what slides, what is important? Where are they stopping? Where are they looking at? There's a lot of data and information that they can measure from that as well. I'm not exactly sure if that answers the question, but it is so drastically different. And now we're going back into, you know, web summit is in-person. I'm going to be going to that next week after we record this. That is going to be a different experience as well. And then there's the hybrids that are kind of doing both. It's changed a lot. Brian Ardinger: It is definitely interesting. You know, it's always been hard to find startup founders. A lot of times they're heads down doing their thing. You know, over the last five or six years pre COVID, you started to have a different environment where things like coworking spaces and events like Startup Weekend and that, started to bring some of those folks out and started to get some energy. And then COVID kind of slap that in the face to a certain extent. But now what I'm seeing at least is more collaboration across different communities. So even though I'm based in Lincoln, Nebraska, the network and our reach to different communities for the startups in our backyard, has increased and been beneficial from the standpoint of they're no longer having to be in the middle of flyover country. They can access folks that wouldn't necessarily in the past look outside of their own Sandhill Road area. So, I guess there's pros and cons to this new environment, but I was curious to get your take on that as well. Todd Embley: Constraints, breed Innovation. And COVID has drastically brought a whole new set of constraints just by not being able to meet in person as much. So, I think it's the development and the investment in developing a different skill set. You know, you take one sense away, the other senses improve. And so, we've had to become better at being able to build relationships. And we have video. And we have voice. But suddenly we're tuning in to the video and tuning into the voice. We may not have the same social cues and we may not have the same physical cues to be picking up on things. We used to train entrepreneurs on how to pitch in person. You were on a stage facing an audience. You were standing in front of an investor at a meetup. Here's how you do it. Here's how you talk. Here's how you hold yourself. Be careful of your hands. Don't shift your feet around. You know, there is all these, you know, all this kind of training, which has had to change. Which has had to develop. And now we're reaching out, we're developing partnerships and I think I've seen a lot of ecosystems lean in on having silos or verticals that they're starting to own to be seen as a place.And accelerators are now going virtual, where they're pulling from anywhere. Right. We have a focus. We're vertically focused. And so even if you're in Brazil or you're in Russia or wherever, this is the accelerator that you want to join because the world has just been absolutely flattened. And now this is the best place. This is the best accelerator, and you don't have to fly in and live here. Right? So now you've seen costs of living. People are moving out of the main centers. It's just, it's been a tremendous change. Brian Ardinger: You've spent your life helping founders. And I'd love to get your input on for our founders that are listening to this show. Some of the biggest obstacles or barriers or things that you've seen or can help them overcome. Are there particular tips or tricks that founders should be paying attention to nowadays?Todd Embley: I still think it all starts with the problem. And I still find myself having to talk about deep diving into the problem discussion. And there has been a penchant for the snapshot. And of the landscape as it is today. But I think what we're starting to understand. And what I'm seeing from a lot of questions that come from investors, is it's not as much about what. It's about why. And when you're pitching or talking about what you're doing, you have to start layering in the why.This is our go to market strategy. Great. Doesn't really matter, but why did you choose that? They're being measured on the way they think. The way they process. The way they built. What data did you take in. Which did you keep? And which did you throw away and why? And then what decision and strategy did you make off of that data?And why did you decide to strategize that? Why are you deciding to build this next? Why is this the next iteration of what you're doing, this problem that you're trying to solve? Anybody can Google and get a lot of data on a problem that exists today. But do you have a deep understanding of how we got here? You know, we have this Canadian kind of saying of the Wayne Gretzky, don't go where the puck is, go, where the puck is going to be.And as investors, we're always trying to find the entrepreneurs who are good at figuring out where the puck is going to be. But the only way that they can figure that out, isn't understanding just where the puck is, but how the puck got to where it is. Because only then do we understand the speed and the trajectory and are able to extrapolate off of that to know where it's going with some reasonable degree of accuracy. But we'll never get it right. But that I think is always be factoring in your why. Nobody is going to be blown away by your what because you're still early stage. Unless you have a hundred thousand downloads or a million MRR, you know, it's just not that impressive. Because the only thing that matters is what people use and pay for.So, knowing that. Now, we're just trying to measure size you up as a founder. So lean in on all your why of everything that you're talking about so that they can understand how you develop, how you price, how you see the world. Be unique, be different. For More InformationBrian Ardinger: Solid advice. Well, Todd, I want to thank you for coming on Inside Outside Innovation and sharing your insights and your experiences from the many years of being in the trenches there. I want to encourage people to check out Agora and that. If people want to find out more about yourself or about the startup program at Agora, what's the best way to do that? Todd Embley: Yeah. I mean, if they want to connect with me, LinkedIn is great. Just Todd Embley. I will generally show up. That's a great way to do it. And I'd love to connect. And I love to meet with everybody. And then agora.io/startups is where the entrance to the startup program lives. But Agora.io is where most of the information about Agora lives. And we're happy to talk to anybody, especially partners. Anybody doing events. Anything out there. We'd love to be a part of it. We'd love to sponsor. And try to add value. Brian Ardinger: Well Todd, thanks again for coming on the show. It's great to see you again and look forward to continuing the conversation in the years to come. Todd Embley: Thanks, Brian. It's been great.Brian Ardinger: That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. If you want to learn more about our team, our content, our services, check out InsideOutside.io or follow us on Twitter @theIOpodcast or @Ardinger. Until next time, go out and innovate.FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER & TOOLSGet the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HEREYou can also search every Inside Outside Innovation Podcast by Topic and Company.  For more innovations resources, check out IO's Innovation Article Database, Innovation Tools Database, Innovation Book Database, and Innovation Video Database.  

How do you run virtual meetings that are impactful and keep your employees feeling connected? With so many people working remotely nowadays, it's more important than ever for leaders to know how to do this. Here are 10 leadership insights that will help you plan and run incredibly effective virtual meetings with your team.

Episode Title: When the Cause Just May Be the Cure: Exploring Remote Work and Burnout Description: Remote work: a cause of burnout — or the antidote? When the COVID-19 pandemic began, employees at many organizations were told to grab what they could from their offices and head home, not knowing how long they would be there. Uncertainty took hold of the entire workforce, and record levels of daily stress and worry emerged. The emotional trauma from stress and worry has been even higher among remote workers than in-office workers throughout the pandemic, due to the challenges of balancing home life and work in the same setting. Join Julie and Chas as they discuss remote work and burnout and whether working remotely helps — or hurts — burnout in the workforce. Resources: It's a New Era for Mental Health, Wellbeing at WorkImproving Employee WellbeingShowing Gratitude for the Frontline Workforce

Matt Compton's a restless tinkerer from Indianapolis who started Filo.co to solve a problem he had. He needed something better than Zoom to be able to spend more time with his family without being on the road three weeks a month. He and his co-founders joined a venture studio and built the prototype for Filo.co in four weeks. Now it powers virtual employee events for an impressive list of companies.Listen and learn...What's really required to make virtual events productiveHow Filo's better than ZoomHow Anaplan crushed sales kickoff using FiloThe future of virtual spacesWhy we don't need a metaverseReferences in this episode:Gary Bolles on AI and the Future of WorkNeelima Parasker on AI and the Future of WorkFilo.co

This week on "Off The Cuff," Justin is joined by three financial aid professionals who discuss how their offices plan to operate as we transition into 2022 where higher education, like many sectors, begins to approach a resumption of pre-pandemic operations. Tune in hear firsthand from our guests — Tyler Pruett, director of financial aid at Samuel Merritt University and Melissa Kunes, an assistant vice president for undergraduate education and executive director of the Office of Student Aid at The Pennsylvania State University — how financial aid offices are implementing new remote, hybrid, and in-person work policies. The three discuss their institutions' plans in the months ahead, and share their thoughts on how the sector will approach a post-pandemic landscape. Plus, Hugh has a recap of the latest higher education and financial aid news.

As of November, out of 188 major employers in Manhattan, only eight percent of office workers are in the office full time. But how long can this hybrid remote model continue? Rani Molla, senior data reporter for Recode, breaks down the latest numbers when it comes to the state of work right now, and looks forward to how workers and CEO's are envisioning the future of work. Plus, we take your calls.

Are you looking for the secret sauce for remote and hybrid work? Are you struggling with engaging and communicating with your remote team? Do you want tools to help you lead and manage a remote team?   Our special guest Hoyin Cheung answers these and other questions about remote work, humanizing remote experiences and leading remote teams. Hoyin Cheung is an entrepreneurial visionary with a knack for being ahead of the curve. Accurately predicting the social and psychological harms associated with social media, he moved on from his successful digital marketing agency to pursue the future of humanized digital interactions. Today, Hoyin is the Founder and CEO of Remo, an interactive virtual event platform that humanizes the online event experience. He has pioneered technology and ground-breaking concepts in remote work and real-time virtual collaboration. In just over a year, Hoyin has grown Remo from 5 to over 100 members, all working globally. He's currently passionate about creating authentic conversations that drive meaningful relationships in the most human way possible with the help of technology. Remo's events bring communities together built upon purpose and common interests and provide opportunities to grow and facilitate trust. This leads to organic relationships in the virtual space, as well as offline. These common factors create comfortable networking settings, setting the stage for real human interaction and creating deep connections that can last a lifetime. Hoyin believes this process is the most humane way to bring people together. The Leadership Junkies Podcast is brought to you by Cardivera.com. Show Notes Episode highlights… Strategies and platforms for bringing people together online in the most human and humane way The importance of video in building trust, connection and relationships Humanizing online experiences Thinking differently about the remote experience (not just the remote work technology) Creating space for spontaneous conversations online Moving beyond productivity as the focus of remote work experiences and events Ways that technology platforms can deliver more engagement during meetings, gatherings and events Enhancing your online and remote networking events and experience Assessing and navigating the camera on / camera off realities of online gatherings Unique challenges of remote and hybrid work Impact of remote work on meetings quantity and quality Role and importance of a communication charter in your business Key tools for managing remote work forces Challenges of boundaries with remote and hybrid work Rethinking meetings and length of meetings Remote works requires minimizing meetings (not expanding them) Role of physical boundaries at home in holding work boundaries Critical role of policies and processes when managing a remote team Resources: Hoyin Cheung Remo Website Who Book by Geoff Smart and Randy Street The Leadership Junkies Podcast Cardivera Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Taking on the role of editor in chief during the pandemic, Sally Holmes navigated change and growth under extraordinary circumstances. In this episode, she sits down with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein to talk about her career, the women who make up Marie Claire's readership, and the importance of work-life balance. As the daughter of television journalists, Sally caught the news bug at a young age. While she initially wanted to be a doctor, by the time Sally graduated college, she had decided to follow in her parents' footsteps and pursue a career in journalism. She went on to intern and work at a host of high-profile companies including Scholastic, The Cut, and Elle magazine. Nearly four years ago, she was hired at Marie Claire as digital director, and 18 months ago—just as the pandemic was shutting down offices—she was promoted to Editor in Chief. Leading during a pandemic Sally is currently leading Marie Claire through a “digital first” transition—with more focus on the website rather than a monthly print magazine. She says that her ability to transition into her leadership role as Editor in Chief during the pandemic was made possible by the support of her incredible team. “It's pretty amazing to think about what we've accomplished and what we used to do in the office,” she tells Sam.  “Literally, you know, a paper would arrive on my desk and I would mark it up and write notes on it, and then send it to the next person. And that was all something that we had to pivot and figure out how to do that virtually or digitally.” Appreciating the support of others is a theme of Sally's—she discusses role models in her life including her mother, and two of her former bosses. It's that appreciation of the team aspect of work that leads her to see both positives and negatives in the virtual work model. On the one hand, she says, she's thrilled to be able to give credit to staff members and empower them to make decisions about their own schedules. But she misses both the creativity and the organic chemistry that happens in the office setting. “It's not the same as in real life interaction, which I think at the end of the day, unfortunately, is the glue that really holds the team together,” she notes. Sally and Sam also discuss a recent survey of working women by  Marie Claire and LinkedIn. The survey found that half of women who participated are considering a career change to pursue more money and flexibility. Sally notes that those results highlight that stress or fear of burnout is forefront for many working women right now. And, she believes, there's inevitably going to be an evolution away from pre-pandemic work attitudes. “I think that our survey was both a way to empower women to say, you're not alone,” she says “You're not the only one who wants flexibility. You're not the only one who thinks I can't go back to the office five days a week, or my priorities have changed or I don't feel safe. And then also to inform workplaces that we do need to rethink what employment looks like, what the state of our offices look like.” Reaching a diverse readership Asked about the typical Marie Claire reader, Sally says she is a multi-faceted woman of diverse interests. She defines the Marie Claire reader as a woman of power, purpose, and style. “I always think about basically myself and the 30- or 40-something woman who is either at the top of her game or wants to be at the top of her game,” she says. “She is career oriented, she's passionate. She is also totally multi-faceted. So I think it's totally fine and normal and good to love The Bachelor, but also be highly invested in the abortion bills being passed in Texas.” Sally believes that one key to meeting those diverse reader needs is to have a diverse staff. “I think it's really important to make sure we have a diverse roster of writers who are able to share different perspectives,” she tells Sam. “Because I look a certain way. My staff looks a certain way. The world looks a certain way. We want to make sure that the stories that are represented really are told through multiple lenses so that we're able to offer different perspectives.”

Will businesses return to a traditional in-house model for their employees... or will remote work and hybrid models become the norm?  All this we discuss on this episode, including the appetite for innovation and curiosity that every business owner should have.  Enjoy the podcast? Support us via our Patreon at Patreon.com/GoodAdvice. 

Align your Team, create accountability, and minimize the impact of COVID-19 on your business. If you'd like to join world-renowned Entrepreneurs at the next Genius Network Event or want to learn more about Genius Network, go to www.GeniusNetwork.com. Here's a glance at what you'll learn from Nick in this episode: 5 tools for streamlining Communication and Project Management with your Team when you're running your business remotely 3 elements for running remote meetings: 1. C______ 2. A______ 3. S________ (AND, what you should always do AFTER remote meetings) How to maintain an efficient, effective and positive Team culture in a remote environment What to do if someone on your Team suddenly leaves (Do THIS to ensure every role can be handled no matter what) Nick shares his most effective tips and tricks for running your Teamwork and business remotely

In August, 4.3 million Americans left their jobs. We'll talk to one worker who quit in search of more flexibility and a better work life balance. Plus Liz Fosslien, Head of Content at Humu, unpacks what this means for companies, and what we can learn at this transformational moment.Citrix research offers insights into the Great ResignationTim Minahan, Executive Vice President, Business Strategy and Chief Marketing Officer at Citrix, offers further insight hereAccording to a recent survey conducted by Citrix, two-fifths (40%) of US office workers have left a job in the last  year or are considering doing so.Liz Fosslien is the Head of Content at Humu and co-author of the best-seller No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work.

Why should business leaders pay attention to the creator economy? The latest episode of the WorkLab podcast features Daniel Roth, editor in chief at LinkedIn, who's been tracking the power of creators' content on the platform. Roth explains what the creator economy is and why it's growing; CB Insights found that creator-focused companies reaped 188 percent more funding in the first half of 2021 than in all of 2020. Eyes are on creators, and Roth says that employers should embrace and encourage them. We also talk with Temi Ibisanmi, a media campaign manager at Microsoft, who shares the story of how he became a digital creator while maintaining a corporate job, and the positive effects it's had on his career. WorkLab site and transcript of this episode The Creator Economy Explained: How Companies Are Transforming The Self-Monetization Boom - CB Insights Research Finding Sparks in Darkness: Radical creativity in the COVID-19 era Want to Improve Your Performance? Start with Your Mindset Listen and follow to other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts

I mean it when I say this app is the future of remote work communication. Look, working remotely is awesome. You get to set your own schedule, have flexible hours, take breaks whenever you want to, but it also comes with a lot of challenges, especially if you work with a team. Whether you're an online business owner, with a team, or you work for a company, here are some challenges that come along with remote work: - Having regular communication with your teammates - Being able to stay connected with each other - Maintain a strong company culture and morale - Building, trust between each other and having that transparency to share the challenges that you're facing - Loneliness So the big question is, how do we solve this? I recently met an awesome man named Josh Little. He's a founder of four tech companies, including Maestro, Bloomfire, Quizzer, and what we're going to talk about today, Volley. These apps have been used by hundreds of millions of people and have been featured in big publications like Entrepreneur, Inc., and Forbes. Josh is on a mission to help remote team communication suck less. He's doing that with his fourth creation, Volley, a video messaging app built for remote work. Today, I'm sharing with you the interview that I did with Josh. We're going to go over the ins and outs of Volley, how to get it, how to use it, and why video communication is so important, especially in the way that Volley is using it. Whether you're an online business owner, with a team, or you work remotely for a different company, if you aren't using Volley, you really should be. Let's dive in! Check out Volley here - volleyapp.com Download the Performance & Productivity Planner to track, plan, and review your daily performance - https://www.jamesallencoaching.com/planner

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with entrepreneur and product developer Radhika Dutt, Author of the new book, Radical Product Thinking. On this episode, we talk about the product diseases holding back good product development, as well as ways to develop and execute a more radical vision to build products that have impact in a changing world. Let's get started. Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started.Interview Transcript with Radhika Dutt, Author of Radical Product ThinkingBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Radhika Dutt. She is the author of Radical Product Thinking: The New Mindset for Innovating Smarter. Welcome to the show. Radhika Dutt: Thanks so much for having me on Brian. Brian Ardinger: I am excited to have you on the show. I always love to have entrepreneurs and product folks on here to talk about what it takes to build in today's world. You've been in product development for a long time, and you help companies figure this out. What's the state of product development today? What's working and what's not? Radhika Dutt: I think the most important thing in terms of where we have landed today, right. Is we've learned that the way we build products is by iteration. The mantras have been, you know, fail fast, learn fast. We keep hearing that you really just have to keep iterating and pivoting until you hit this nirvana of product market fit. And here in lies the problem. Because Innovation it's like having a fast car, a fast car is great. It's good to have a fast car. But the problem is, if a fast car is just not that useful, unless you know where you're going. And the ability to iterate fast has often given us this illusion that you don't need to start with a vision, just set off on your journey, and you'll kind of discover a vision. And that is the piece that's really not working.So, if we think about the fact that Lean Startup, Agile, all of these methodologies have really become ubiquitous over the last decade, right? And yet fundamentally the number of startups who succeed or fail hasn't really changed. Right? So, we've really gotten this approach of innovating fast, but what we're really missing is a methodology that helps us set the direction and be able to navigate to it using this fast car. Meaning that our iterations have to be driven by a vision and strategy. And that's the piece that's been not working so far. Brian Ardinger: You talk about in the book, how folks in product and that, or they're building stuff, kind of run in to these product diseases that hold back good product development. Can you talk a little bit about what stops people from developing and maybe getting into this iteration rut? Radhika Dutt: These product diseases are things that we need to be able to speak openly about. Because regardless of the size of company or the industry that we're in, I keep seeing these same product diseases over and over. So, a few that I've run into or caught myself, right? One that I will admit to contributing to myself is obsessive sales disorder.This is where your salesperson comes to you and says, you know, if you just add this one custom feature, we can win this mega client. And it sounds mostly harmless as a product person. I was like, yes, let's do this. Right. And pretty soon, by the end of the year, you're sitting with a stack of contracts and your entire roadmap is driven by what you have to make good on. And that's one example. A really common one is Pivotitus. Pivotitus is where you know this idea that we have that you just pivot until you find product market fit, it leads us to just keep trying different ideas to see what works. And your team just feel demoralized, confused, even your customers, they don't know what you're about anymore. And that's Pivotitus. Brian Ardinger: I love those. And I think a lot of us in product can relate to that. And even more to that, I think it's not just product folks that are running into these particular issues. A lot has changed in the world of product development with things like no code and low code. And pretty much everyone these days has run into this ability to create something. You know, and it's democratized the product development process in general.And so, whether you are in product today and you've seen these things, the majority of folks are going to be running into these diseases, whether they know it or not. What can you talk about to the new product person, the person who maybe is new to this world and trying to understand what does it take to build something of value in this world?Radhika Dutt: Yeah, maybe first, I want to talk about what I mean by product. Because, you know, traditionally we've thought about product is a software or a hardware. A thing, basically, right. A digital or a physical thing. And that view has really become outdated is what I've realized. To me product is your mechanism to create change in the world.It's your vehicle for whatever that change is. And so, you know, whether you're a non-profit, you're working in a government agency, in a high-tech startup, or even freelance. You're creating change in the world. And as a result, you are building a product. And I think that's the first fundamental realization. Given that this is our new definition of product for every person who's entering this field, the question is then, you know, how can you create change very systematically? So, you're most likely running into these diseases and I list seven of them in the book. A few other examples are Hyper Metracina. Which is where we're all about analyzing data and optimizing for metrics, except that sometimes those wrong metrics. And things like Strategic Swelling. Which is where your, either your organization or your product just tries to do more and more and more, but it's just a very bloated product and you kind of lose your way.So, all of these diseases, like it's not just in your product itself, it's in your organization that you might be seeing it. And so, we need to think about product differently as a mechanism to create change. And then think about, are we experiencing these diseases in our organization? And then finally, if you're seeing it, then it's time for a new approach where you create change systematically and build the successful product systematically, which is what Radical Product Thinking is about as a methodology. Instead of taking this approach of let's just try what works, which is kind of evolved from the venture capital business model over the last decade. Brian Ardinger: And what I like about the book is you say all the stuff that we're doing when it comes to Agile or Lean or that, they're good tactical stuff to continue to do. But you almost have to have a layer above. That thinks about the vision and thinks about how does the vision fit into, you called it the Sustainability Matrix. Maybe can you talk a little bit more? Radhika Dutt: You know, one of the things that I've found is, we all know that we need a vision, and it's just that the way we've thought about a vision and what we've learned about, what's a good vision has been so flawed until now. For the longest time, we've heard that a good vision is a BEHAG or a big, hairy, audacious goal. For the longest time, you know, vision statements such as to be the leader in blah, blah, blah, or to be number one or number two in every market. We're touted as just visionary statements. That this is what you want in a vision. You know, stating your big aspirational goal. And the Radical Product Thinking way, what I realized is your vision should not be about you or your aspirations at all. And so, your vision has to be about the change you want to bring about.That's really the starting point of a Radical Product Thinking approach. And so, what I mean by good vision is thinking about questions like whose world are you trying to change? What is their problem? Why does that world even need changing? Because maybe it doesn't. And then you can talk about what the world would look like when you're done. And how you'll bring about this world.And so this is the Radical Product Thinking Approach, where instead of the short slogan you're writing, well, there's this fill in the blank statement that I use for writing such a vision statement. That really makes it easy to do this and answer those profound questions. And once you have a vision, then you can use this vision versus survival.The Ewing Marion Kauffman FoundationSponsor Voice: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private, nonpartisan foundation based in Kansas City, Missouri, that seeks to build inclusive prosperity through a prepared workforce and entrepreneur-focused economic development. The Foundation uses its $3 billion in assets to change conditions, address root causes, and break down systemic barriers so that all people – regardless of race, gender, or geography – have the opportunity to achieve economic stability, mobility, and prosperity. For more  information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect with us at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn. Brian Ardinger: Yeah. I'd like to talk a little bit about this Radical Vision Worksheet that you have in the book. It's really almost a Mad-Libs way to fill out and fill in the blanks to get you thinking about what your vision really is and who does it serve and how does it work? And I've heard you talk about this before. Like it almost creates, what you said is that the source code of your vision. And then that's not what you necessarily have to portray to the world as far as the marketing around it. But it gives you that guiding force when you're in a product meeting, working with your teams. To look back at that source code and say, hey, are we on track.Radhika Dutt: Exactly. And you know, this idea that your vision statement has to be what you tell the world, is really the marketing vision statement, which, you know, you can figure out the marketing aspect afterwards. But first for your own team, what you really need is the blueprint. If I think about this as a house construction analogy. If your team is actually building that house, would they need is the blueprints of the house.It's not the 3D renderings that look pretty that you start with. Right. And a good vision statement, gives them a clear blueprint of what exactly are we trying to solve? Why are we trying to solve it? And then how are we going to bring about that before? Brian Ardinger: In the book, you also talk a lot about this trap that we fall into of iteratively building products and that. And so specifically like big companies and that, fall into this trap of they've been building a car the same way forever, and they don't necessarily think about, are there different ways to do that? Can you give me some examples? I read in your book about Tesla and Volt, for example. And the two approaches that they had to developing an electric car. Can you talk about some of that? Radhika Dutt: One of the fundamental differences between a Vision Driven Product versus an Iteration Led Product is in an iteration led approach, your iterations are driving where you're going. Where as when you're Vision Driven, right, it's your vision that drives those iterations. So, the example of Tesla versus Volt. Specifically, the Model 3 versus the Chevy Volt. You know, there was this really well-known auto expert, Sandy Munro, and so he took five of these cars and he was looking at these cars under the hood to really evaluate, you know, which car is better. And he had a profound reaction to the Model 3. It was like, wow, this car is revolutionary. It's not inching up. And whereas on the Chevy Volt, he said, well, this is a good little car, and you know, it's value for your money kind of thing. But the Tesla Model 3, like he was just raving about it. But if you look under the hood, like you really get to the why. The Tesla, it has a 40% more efficient engine, and it had this hall effect that Sandy Munro says, you know, I've only ever heard about it. I never seen an engine being built using this approach. And he couldn't even figure out how they manufactured some of the elements that made this engine. Whereas he looked at the Chevy Volt, he was like, you know, I'm very familiar with all of these pieces. This looks pretty much like a gas car except in an electric format.And then if you look at why Tesla built this transformative product versus Volt was just an evolutionary thing. It all comes down to their vision. The Chevy Volt was built with this vision of beating Tesla Model 3 to market with a car that had a range of over 200 miles. On the other hand, the Model 3 was built with a more transformative vision, a radical vision, which was about the change that they wanted to bring about. Which was to make it no compromise and give an affordable car to a driver who wanted to go green.And so, the two visions lead to very different products and being vision driven means taking the transformative vision and systematically just infusing it in every aspect of your product. And that's why the end product is so different. And so, in the Radical Product Thinking, right, the idea is not just that you start with a vision, but it's a step-by-step approach. So that, that vision is very systematically translated into every aspect of your product, into your everyday activities. So, your everyday activities become connected to a vision. Brian Ardinger: I'd love to get your input on some of the new trends that you're seeing when it comes to product development. Again, a lot of the stuff that used to be new as far as Lean and Agile has, there's a lot been written about. 10 years ago, it was tough to get tactical in that particular space because it was so new. You know, now we've seen a lot of folks that have executed on that particular format. What are some of the new trends that you're seeing and how do you see the world of product development playing out? Radhika Dutt: You know, we're still getting better at doing more testing, more AB testing, optimizing, right. And fundamentally the trends that I keep seeing, they aren't that different. It's more that our tactics have improved in terms of how we're doing this. If I think about product management, maybe 10 years ago, we didn't have all these tools to be this data driven. Now, there are just so many tools to be able to know how well your product is working.Is your user going through the right journeys? What all are they clicking on? What are they doing on your products? Like we've become more data-driven and have more insight into what our users are doing. We capture every piece of data and work on analyzing it. So those are more of the trends that I keep seeing. Right. But what I haven't seen is a fundamentally big shift in how are we thinking about the data? What exactly are we trying to learn from these insights? So that's one thing. The second trend, this one I'm excited about. I'm starting to see the first kernels of product people realizing that, you know, we're building products that affect society, and we have to take responsibility for what we're building.There's a chapter in my book, where I talk about Digital Pollution. And the chapter after that is the Hippocratic Oath of Product. It's fascinating to me that these two chapters are so polarizing. There are people who love the fact that I included that in the book. Because this gives you the superpower for building successful products and it has to come with the responsibility of building products that don't create collateral damage to society. But there's also, an equally large faction of people who say, you know, that had no place in your book. You should just talk about how to build successful products. You shouldn't be talking about, you know, digital production and this Hippocratic oath of product.Brian Ardinger: Well, it is interesting because you do see a lot more discussion around what it is that we build and the effects of that. And I think 10 years ago, a lot of the product building was I need to build an app because that's the new technology out there. And we've gotten to a place where a lot of that low hanging fruit of product development has been picked. And so now it's really about, we're having to tackle harder problems. And whether it's climate change or social media injustice or, or whatever, they're hard problems out there. And I think it takes more radical thinking around what type of products we produce to try to solve this particular problem.So, I found it interesting that you included that in the book as well. Primarily to get people thinking about, it's not just about solving a particular customer pain point. It's like the larger vision that you need to be including as you develop products out there. Radhika Dutt: Exactly. And my goal was to provide a framework so that we can think about, you know, how are we affecting society with our products. And ways to identify digital pollution that we might be contributing to as only if we have that awareness that we can actually do something about it. But I want to go back to something you just said in terms of trends. What you talked about, you know, it's basically that we seem to be commoditizing the skillset. When you said we've picked all that low hanging fruit, all that I was saying about, you know, we've gotten better at doing data analytics and AB testing, et cetera. I think that is really like to articulate that trend, it's that those skill sets are becoming commoditized. And what's really going to set people apart is doing that next level, which is what you are just saying. Brian Ardinger: If there are people listening, they're maybe working in an existing company, iterating through their products and that, but they want to be more radical. They want to be more transformational with what they do. Are there tips or tricks that they can start introducing into their team or into the product development that can help start moving that needle? Radhika Dutt: I'll share two types. One is, you know, if you are working in a larger organization, it's always hard to bring change. When you bring a radical new idea, it's like you're introducing a foreign body into this organization and you'll see organizational immunity that tries to attack this foreign body.And so, the first start that you need is to be able to talk about why are you even introducing this new body, so there's more acceptance. So, start with a discussion around product diseases. Very often, like the way I've even approached this, and sort of this slightly sneaky way is, you know, you do a book club where people start to think about these product diseases and kind of like, oh, that's what we're suffering from. So that gives you this first entry point to start talking about, you know, maybe we need a new, radical way of thinking about this. That's one step. The second is with your world, where you have control, you can start to develop a radical vision and start to use that with your team. You had talked about vision versus sustainability. Maybe, you know, in the book, I call it Vision versus Survival to make it really much clearer in terms of what we're trading off. So having a vision is good, but using your vision in everyday work, that's where the real power comes in. And so the way you use your vision is if we think about our own intuition, what we're really doing is we're balancing the long time against the short term. Which means that we're thinking about vision versus survival in the short term, where vision is the longer-term picture. And so things that are both good for the vision and survival they're of course ideal.But if we always focus on just the ideal, then we're just still being short-term focused. And so sometimes you have to invest in the vision where it's good for the vision, but not good in the short term. For instance, if you're refactoring code for three months or working on technical debt, you're investing in the vision. And the other quadrant, right, is Vision Debt. Basically, if you're finding this Obsessive Sales Disorder disease, it's because you have too much vision debt. It's where you're doing things that are good for survival in the short term, but it's not good for the vision. And so the way you can infuse your vision in everyday actions is you start to talk about your decisions on this two by two matrix of Vision versus Survival. If you find yourself taking on a lot of vision debt, then you know that, okay, maybe something needs to change here. And talk about your decisions so that everyone is aligned on what are the right trade-offs for your particular company. There aren't any right answers, but those discussions are what really are most important.The tips that I have for our listeners is you start with product diseases and a discussion of why you need a new approach. Then work on a vision and then use that vision and making decisions as you trade off long-term against short term.For More InformationBrian Ardinger: I love that. And I encourage anybody who's listening to grab the copy of the book, because it does walk you through the process. It gives you some great frameworks. Some exercises and a lot of great examples as well. So, if people want to find out more about yourself or about the book, what's the best way do that? Radhika Dutt: So, the book is on Amazon. It's Radical Product Thinking: The New Mindset for Innovating Smarter. The free tool kit is also available on the website. It's radicalproduct.com. And then finally, if people want to reach out to me on LinkedIn, I'm easy to find there. And I always love to hear stories of how people are applying Radical Product Thinking in their innovation journey. Brian Ardinger: Radhika, thank you very much for coming on Inside Outside Innovation, to talk about the book and all the new things that you're seeing out there. I'm excited to see where the world is going when it comes to product development and appreciate your time today. Radhika Dutt: Thanks so much for having me on this has been such a pleasure.Brian Ardinger: That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. If you want to learn more about our team, our content, our services, check out InsideOutside.io or follow us on Twitter @theIOpodcast or @Ardinger. Until next time, go out and innovate.FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER & TOOLSGet the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HEREYou can also search every Inside Outside Innovation Podcast by Topic and Company.  For more innovations resources, check out IO's Innovation Article Database, Innovation Tools Database, Innovation Book Database, and Innovation Video Database.  As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

David Heinemeier Hansson is the creator of Ruby on Rails, co-founder of Basecamp & HEY, New York Times bestselling author, Le Mans class-winning racing driver, antitrust advocate, frequent podcast guest, and family man. Tyler and David's discussion focused on why working remotely should be embraced regardless of the circumstances presented by the pandemic. They also got philosophical, delving into why becoming wealthy is often unfulfilling. Highlights include: Why David doesn't conform to American entrepreneurship and its ideals  The problem that Basecamp solves The eternal rule of business and commerce Why approaching remote work as a virtual version of the office isn't effective  The biggest myth of working remotely  What you can do to simulate in-person interactions Why the source of peak satisfaction is not from earning money but rather the journey Connect with David: Website: https://dhh.dk The following books and resources were mentioned in the show: David's Business Insider Article: I always wanted to be a millionaire. After Jeff Bezos took an interest in my company, I became one — and it was nothing like I expected by David Heinemeier Hansson Remote by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson Small Giants by Bo Burlingham A Guide to a Good Life Manual by William B. Irvine Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl Escape from Freedom Eric Fromm Looking to further elevate your performance? Download our free guide, Raising the Bar - 5 Steps to Elevate Your Habits, by joining Elevate's Insider Network! You will also be informed of real estate investing news, tips from Tyler, books Tyler's reading and more. Join today: https://elevatepod.com/insider This episode of Elevate is brought to you by CF Capital LLC, a national real estate investment firm that focuses on acquiring and operating multifamily assets that provide stable cash flow, capital appreciation, and a margin of safety. CF Capital leverages its expertise in acquisitions and management to provide investors with superior risk-adjusted returns while placing a premium on preserving capital. Learn more at cfcapllc.com Follow us!  Website: https://elevatepod.com Twitter: twitter.com/elevatepod1 IG: http://instagram.com/elevatepod Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/elevatepodcastcommunity LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/elevatepodcast  

LinkedIn, Consistency, and the FutureIn this episode of The Outspoken Podcast, host Shana Cosgrove talks to Colleen McKenna, CEO and Founder of Intero Advisory, LinkedIn Trainer, Author of It's Business, Not Social™, and Leader in LinkedIn Branding, Sales and Recruiting Enablement. Colleen gives her insight and professional tips on marketing yourself and your business on LinkedIn. She goes into what it is like working alongside her family, what her business work environment is like, and the way she looks at the future. Colleen also shares the catalysts of her starting her book and what that experience has been like for her. Lastly, we get to hear books that have impacted Colleen and her fun fact about Oprah Winfrey! QUOTES “Most CEOs don't love social media. But, they will be open-minded to a business tool that will help them increase productivity and sales, find talent, help their salespeople connect with the right people, and share their content and build their brand.” - Colleen McKenna [18:10] “I'm pretty driven once I say I'm going to work on something and I like creating things...I always say I'm like the baker…So, I'm usually the person that puts it in the oven, pulls it out, puts it on the table, then other people on the team finish it up and make it beautiful. - Colleen McKenna [30:28] “I think everyone should take a look at their [LinkedIn] profile and really make sure that their profile is built out as a marketing tool.” - Colleen McKenna [37:31] “Always add value to a conversation. I think that's my 2021 motto. Are you adding value to the conversation?” - Colleen McKenna [42:27]   TIMESTAMPS  [00:04] Intro [01:44] Meet Colleen McKenna [03:55] Starting a Business [06:46] HubSpot [07:48] Business Establishment [10:00] Remote Work and COVID-19's Effect [11:05] Look-Back of the Year [13:08] LinkedIn as a Business Search Engine [14:37] Growing as a Business [18:36] Delegation and Building a Team [21:32] Pricing Services [22:33] Joyful Moments [25:23] Digital Communication and Relationships [27:01] It's Business, Not Social™ [31:18] Colleen's Children [33:41] Technology and Being a Futurist [34:29] Colleen's Husband and Work Environment [37:27] Colleen's Tips for LinkedIn [42:57] Treating LinkedIn Like Facebook? [45:20] Cons of LinkedIn [48:12] Connecting With New People [49:48] LinkedIn Networking and Features [52:07] Creating Content on LinkedIn [54:58] Data and ROI [58:09] LinkedIn in the Hype Cycle [01:00:25] Colleen's Impactful Reads [01:02:06] Colleen's Fun Fact [01:04:06] Outro   RESOURCES https://www.hubspot.com/ (HubSpot) https://marcussheridan.com/ (Marcus Sheridan) http://riverpoolsandspas.com (River Pools) https://www.vistage.com/ (Vistage Worldwide) https://www.facebook.com/ (Facebook) https://twitter.com/ (Twitter) https://www.instagram.com/ (Instagram) https://www.google.com/ (Google) https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertbmiller1/ (Bob Miller) on LinkedIn https://www.millerheimangroup.com/ (Miller Heiman Group, Inc.) https://zoom.us/ (Zoom) https://www.xerox.com/ (Xerox) https://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman/ (Reid Hoffman) on LinkedIn https://www.startupofyou.com/ (The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career) by Reid Hoffman (Permanent Beta) https://www.amazon.com/Alliance-Managing-Talent-Networked-Age/dp/1625275773 (The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age) by Reid Hoffman https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-i-learned-young-professional-during-pandemic-sarah-bentley/ (What I Learned as a Young Professional During a Pandemic )by Sarah Bentley https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-m-bentley/ (Sarah Bentley) on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/premium/products-v2/?intentType=FIND_LEADS&upsellOrderOrigin=guest_login_sales_nav (LinkedIn Sales Navigator) https://www.amazon.com/Life-Transitions-Mastering-Change-Any/dp/1594206821 (Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age)...

Like it or not, most all of us have been working remotely for the last year or even two. We've adapted and survived, but are we thriving? Productivity author and consultant Ryan Fahey studies how to be at our absolute best personally and professionally…and sustain it. Ryan visits the show to share from his latest book and real world experience on how to execute consistently and at a high level in a remote working environment. We talk routine, reminders, culture, community, energy, and adding value. Remote work may be here to stay. Tune in for reminders and ideas on how to excel, advance, be recognized and rewarded for your work…and remain healthy and happy! SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Work remote best practices to flourish What NOT to do in working remote Setting employee culture and expectations 5 step energy amplifier Add (and recognizing) value daily Networking and community Posture alarms and other reminders Personal ethos CONNECT WITH TODAY'S GUEST Website Facebook Instagram LinkedIn YouTube Make sure to follow us on Social Media for Extra Content: Instagram ➡️ https://instagram.com/themanofmastery Facebook ➡️ https://instagram.com/themanofmastery Support the Man of Mastery mission by picking up merchandise:

During the pandemic, many people worked from home for the first time. While survey and polling data show most reported feeling productive and mentally healthy while doing so, there are also evidence of remote workers burning out. Hamilton-Niagara Hub journalist Justin Chandler discusses a new report out of the region that outlines the factors necessary for successful remote or hybrid work to aid companies in their post-pandemic planning.. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Marje Holmstrom-Sabo (Ops & Content Manager at Tighten) and Anna Shevlin (Operations Coordinator at Tighten) join us this week to talk about on-sites for distributed companies - why they're important, how to make a virtual on-site work in the era of COVID, and a lot more.

In conversation with Libryia Jones, a leading remote work expert and co-founder of Wandering Moms talking about creating freedom in your life while working from anywhere.When her daughter was born, Libryia was in grad school, sharing a twin bed with her newborn, living on food stamps and WIC checks. When her daughter was around a year old, she saved up for her first international trip to Jamaica. Since then, she's visited 38 more countries, 14 of those with her daughter.Today, Libryia is a remote work advocate, coach and consultant based (for now) in Omaha working as an IT Project Manager.In 2016, she launched My Wander Year and took a group of 30 adults around the world for a year - and her daughter came along for the year! She then co-founded Wandering Moms, a 22,000 person community for moms who literally want to show their children the world.  Libryia recommends finding remote work on these websites:https://weworkremotely.comhttps://www.Remote.co https://www.Flexjobs.com    Find LibryiaWebsite: https://www.libryiajones.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/Libryiajones  YouTube (for live Q&A): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmgyj8f_jerwsg92f7itcGAGet the Remote Ready Bundle: https://www.libryiajones.com/the-remote-ready-bundle Wandering MomsFacebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/wanderingmoms Online: https://wanderingmoms.com/about/ Find Jessica Drucker Website: www.jessicadrucker.com Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/jessicadrucker***Get Your FREE Move Abroad Checklist at www.jessicadrucker.com/checklist ***Episode Sponsors:Get Your Wanderfest Tickets at www.wanderfestevent.com/adventurecalls Stay safe abroad and get 10% off at HelpYouFind.Me at https://helpyoufind.me/go/1080/   

Dave is the founder and CEO of Upstart, the first consumer lending platform to use Machine Learning (ML) to price credit and automate the borrowing process. Prior to founding Upstart, Dave was President of Google Enterprise and built Google's billion-dollar cloud apps business worldwide, including product development, sales, marketing, and customer support. He started in Silicon Valley as a Product Manager at Apple and was an associate in Booz Allen's Information Technology practice. We cover the joy and glory of building a $25 billion plus company in just about nine years, and as we rarely get a public CEO on, I've got a lot of questions. We talk about business and the markets and lending and interest rates – pretty much how all these things work. Plus we get into remote work, raising venture capital, and the long slug of it all. Enjoy!  Guest - Dave Girouard, Founder and CEO at Upstart  howardlindzon.com, upstart.com  Twitter: @howardlindzon, @davegirouard, @upstart, @knutjensen  linkedin.com/in/davegirouard  #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance 

Remote Work School With the ever-growing popularity of RVing and the increase of working remotely, it makes sense that more & more people are trying to figure out how to work from the road. Camille Attell, from Remote Work School, joins us today to share how her program can teach you how to successfully work … Continue reading "Ep. 84 Remote Work School" The post Ep. 84 Remote Work School appeared first on Beyond The Wheel.

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Dave Parker, five-time founder, and author of the new book Trajectory: Startup. Dave and I talk about a range of topics for helping founders go from ideation to product market fit. And this conversation was part of our IO Live Series recorded during Startup Week Lincoln. Let's get started. Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, Founder of InsideOutside.io. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat to what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started. Interview Transcript with Dave Parker, Five-time founder and Author of Trajectory StartupBrian Ardinger: I wanted to thank our sponsors for this event. We are part of the Techstars Startup Week here in Lincoln. So, we wanted to give a shout out to them and Startup LNK for making this all possible.Also Inside Outside is sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. As many of you may know about the Kauffman Foundation, they run 1 Million Cups and a variety of other things, but they're a private, non-partisan foundation based in Kansas City. They seek to build inclusive prosperity through entrepreneurship- led economic development. So, we're super excited to have them as partners with us here. And you can find out more about them at kaufman.org or follow them on Twitter at Kaufman FDN on Facebook or Twitter. So, thank you again to the sponsors. Thank you, Dave, for coming on, we had set this up when your book was coming out and I said Hey, I've got the perfect time to do this during startup week. When we might have some startup founders who may be having some questions. You and I met eight or nine years ago through Up Global. We were with Startup America. And you were based in Seattle. You also helped found Code Fellows and you're a five-time founder, so you've got a lot of experience in this particular space. Eight years ago, the startup ecosystem, and what it was like was a little bit different than is today. So, what has been the biggest trends or things that you've seen that it's changed over the course of the few years that we've known each other? Dave Parker: Well, let me go a little further back. I started my first company in 98 in Seattle. And believe it or not bill gates and Jeff Bezos weren't really giving back to the startup community at that time. Oh, wait, they haven't yet. I mean, Bill gives back to like global change the world stuff. Right. But the idea there was, wow there's a bunch of us doing this startup thing, but there's not really anybody to give much advice. So, we did a peer cohort. Which was my first thing. And after a while I was like, wow, we need to level up our city. All of us tend to think of the next city bigger than us as like, oh, we want to be more like, Seattle doesn't want to be like Vancouver, Canada. We want to be like San Francisco. Where Portland's like, well, we want to be more like Seattle.Because I grew up in Portland and then moved here to go to college and never went back. First startup in 1988. Built a software distribution company called license online. The company went from zero to 32 million in sales in 4 years. Which was ridiculously fast. And we went from 3 employees to 150 and in four years. And then we sold the company in 2002.So then in 98 to 2002, if you remember back there, there was a tech bubble in there and there was 9/ 11 in there. So, it was an interesting time. Wasn't a great time to sell a company now, too. But got it sold anyway. And that was my first startup. First of five. Three of them sold. Two of them failed. One in a rather epic crater fashion. Which is funny. Because it was after the first one, that actually worked. So, you know, people were like, I wouldn't do this again. And they're like working on the next one? I'm like obviously got a serial glutton for punishment. So, 16 exits total. So as a founder board member advisor. So, my day job is helping companies and founders sell their companies. Which allows me to my 20% time to work on community building and giving back.Which kind of got me to Startup Weekend and Up Global. Up Global was the merger of Startup America and Startup Weekend. And we did about 1,265 events worldwide, my last full year there, before we sold to Techstars. Including launching Startup Week globally. And we launched it in 26 cities globally, the second year. I ran it in Seattle.Andrew Hyde started it in Boulder. And we ran it in six cities, the first year. And 26 cities the second year. So, startup communities stuff is awesome. And I love it. It's, as you know, though, it doesn't pay, so you have to have a day job. You have to have a side hustle, so you can keep your community building job, right. Or vice versa.Brian Ardinger: Exactly. Yeah. I think we're nine years here at the Startup Week in Lincoln. We got grandfathered in when Techstars made it a global deal. But we found it very helpful to have these conversations, even if it's just once a year to get people connected and reengaged with why it's important to have a startup and why a startup ecosystem is so important in your own backyard.So, you've got a great book out called Trajectory Startup. I would encourage you to take a look at this. There's a lot of books about startups out there. What made you say, I want to take a different take in this and give back to the community by writing a book about startups Dave Parker: Two big things about the book gap that I saw in the marketplace is one, I mean, you, you know, Brian, you've been around Startup Weekend. I'd see people coming out of Startup Weekend and they're like, woo. I met my co-founder, Charles. We're going to leave at eight and then go start our start up. And I'm like, yikes. Like, there are some things you can know before you leave your day job and your benefits and all those things, which allow you to really look at what do I want to know so I can de-risk this as the first semester, right. So, I got to do the market research and competitive analysis and look how big the market is and like, and how do I do that? The book's really focused on, the original title was Six Month Startup. And then I started delivering it in different formats and I'm like that doesn't work for the brand. So, it became Trajectory Series. But the program now is focused on a five-month program that takes you from ideation to revenue. And the idea there is, if you can't get to revenue in six months, it's probably not a great idea. There are exceptions to that rule. Like if you're a B2B or B2B enterprise and you need to build a really robust product, like that's an exception. Or biotech. Or you're doing B to C and you're competing with clubhouse and you're really about growth of users, right? You won't get to revenue in six months. But in general, you should be able to validate or invalidate your idea in six months was the goal. The second thing that came out of it, I kind of backed into was somebody came to me during my time at Startup Weekend. And they're like, hey, can I have your financial model?I'm like, well, yes, you can have it. But yours is a business consumer marketplace and mine's a business- to- business subscription. And those are fundamentally different. I mean, we use the same lingo. And as you know, in startup land, we have our own language, which is knowing how to work the system for sure.But the key there was how many templates would there be. So, I reached out to Crunchbase at the time and the CEO of Crunchbase and said, hey, can you give me a list of every seed funded company in the last 18 months globally. Ends up being twenty-six hundred and fifty-four companies. So hired a team. My son who was in college at the time was my project manager.And we basically looked at all twenty-six hundred and fifty-four websites and where they didn't have a pricing model or a revenue model, that was obvious, I reached out to them and said, Hey CEO, I'm doing this research project on revenue models. How do you monetize? So, we ended up breaking down 2,600 companies into the logical revenue models and there were 14. And that was it.So, I would say the most unique part of the content of the book is really the breakdown of the 14 revenue models that are successful in tech. And how you monetize them. So, the basic unit economics of what are the key metrics and KPIs of each of the 14 revenue models. Consequently, I became super geeky about pricing and revenue.When somebody now gets to give a pitch and they're like, hey, we're doing a blah, blah, blah. I'm like, oh, you're a marketplace that monetizes this way. And people are like, how did you know that? And I'm like, it's actually not a secret. There's 14 just like pick from the list. Right. So, I think for first time founders, the question then becomes what you're building I hope is unique, but how you monetize it is almost never unique. The Ewing Marion Kauffman FoundationSponsor Voice: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private, nonpartisan foundation based in Kansas City, Missouri, that seeks to build inclusive prosperity through a prepared workforce and entrepreneur-focused economic development. The Foundation uses its $3 billion in assets to change conditions, address root causes, and break down systemic barriers so that all people – regardless of race, gender, or geography – have the opportunity to achieve economic stability, mobility, and prosperity. For more  information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect with us at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn. Brian Ardinger: That's an important point, because I think a lot of times we think about the features or the problem we're solving, but we don't necessarily think about the business model itself and you don't have a business without a business model. So, that's so critical to think even at the earliest stages. It may pivot. It may change based on what you find in the marketplace, but at least going in with here's our initial assumption of how we might make money. And the model that we need to... Dave Parker: And that, let me break down the business model in three parts for you, because I think one of the things that all of us look at and we're like, oh, it's in our business model. Kind of like this. It's a black box and it's a secret thing. And one of the things I discovered in the process was here are the components of the business model. So, think about it as a Venn diagram. The top circle is really creating value and how you create value is your product, your service, and your team. And those are the costs associated with creating a product or a service.So, if you're in a service business, if you and I were lawyers, God forbid. We would bill out on an hourly basis. We'd have a pay rate and a bill rate, and that differential would create gross margins. It's a service business. In a product business it's a little harder to predict because we build the software once and we have thousands of users. So, it's not like, oh, every time we build it, we have to create a new and separate version, right. But the cost of building that product, whether it's the six engineers in six months or three years, depending on what it is, is a cost associated with creating value. The value created is the product or the service. There's a cost associated with creating a value. Circle Number Two is the cost of delivering value. And that is your pricing. Because that's a variable, right. That I can adjust. It's my revenue model. How I monetize. It's my marketing and my sales. I fixed the cost to build. I have now fixed the cost to sell. And there's lots of variables in there. There's lots of marketing things you can test. There are a few sales models, not a lot. Marketing is the most creative, and obviously it can be the most expensive in some ways too. And then what you have leftovers, the third bubble which is your top line revenue and your gross margin and hopefully net profit. Those are outcomes. You don't get to control those. You get to control your cost to build it, and you get to control your cost to sell it and the price. But when you think about it, that way, you're like, oh, there's only so many variables I get to be in control of. And since those are the ones that you control of, then I'm a strong advocate of like, know what the levers are you can pull. I talk to a lot of founders and some of the research was interesting. It basically showed that most founding teams don't change their price at all in the first three years. Which is when you think about it kind of crazy. But us as founders, were like, oh, I know all the product detriments and you know, it was kind of like, I would liken it to, if you said, hey, show me a picture of your son, Brandon, I'd be like, oh, I can show you a three-year-old picture of Brandon.He's a super cute kid. He's 28 today. Plays lead guitar in a metal band. Tatted up and you know, with sleeves and gages in his ears. It would be true, but I just want it to be accurate. Right. And I think that as founders, one of the challenges we have is how do I continue to reprice my product as a product feature set goes.So, one of the things I always recommend to founders is having a pricing council, you do once a quarter. Not that you're going to change price every quarter, but you are, you should really think about it. Brian Ardinger: Well, and you can also do tests around it as well. I remember a story, Eric Ries was talking about. He was working in a corporate environment, but they were saying like, this is the price. And he said, well, have you ever tested it? Do you know if you can go higher? And they said, no, no, because you know we know our customers and blah, blah. And he said, well, why don't we just run a test? And let's, you know, throw out a different price and see what happens. So, they ran the test. And it worked. And they said, well, why don't we do it again? Let's bump up the price again. And they ran a test and it worked again. And they realized like all these years they were leaving all this money on the table, so to speak. Because they had never even tested it. They never test to see if they could extract more value out. Dave Parker: There was a company in Seattle and I'm blanking on the name, that I was trying to see if they pull up real quick. So, they were doing a competitor for PowerPoint. It would look at contextually what the content was, and it would make the image suggestions for you. When they launched the product, the product is all the same price, and they came back at one point, and they just doubled it. And they had zero churn. Right. Which makes you think like, oh my God, how long ago could we have done that? Like nobody left. Everybody's like, yeah, makes sense. Like it would have paid more for it all along.Brian Ardinger: So, what are the most common questions that you get from founders at the earliest stages? What are most founders struggling with when they come to you? Dave Parker: When we think about the go to market strategy is definitely a question. So, I'm a product person or I'm an engineer and I'm new to like go to market. There's still a little bit of that theory of like, well, if I get on Tech Crunch, I'll just go viral. And the answer is, no, it doesn't work that way. Right. I mean, it would be awesome if it did. And we see some examples of companies going viral and there's a misattribution Brian of like, well, I'm going to go to market like Clubhouse.I'm like you're B2B and only B to C companies get a chance to go viral. Like B2B companies get good word of mouth maybe but going viral is math. Right. There's probably three big things in startups that are mysteries, but when you peel them back, they're actually not a mystery. It's just math. Going viral means it's called a K factor.So, if you have a K Factor of greater than two, I'll give you this base formula. Every customer I buy, I generate two additional paid customers. So, if you think about WhatsApp right or clubhouse, the answer is I'm in a business model there that actually doesn't require a business model. So, I call it new media.And what you're trying to do is grow your customer base so fast that at some point you'll monetize it through advertising. Not a surprise. Facebook, WhatsApp, et cetera. At some point you'll monetize it through advertising. So Clubhouse, you're starting to see some of those things, Tik TOK with pre roll. And people apply that revenue model or lack of revenue model to like a B2B business and B2B companies don't go viral.There's been two examples of things that went close, right? So Slack super close to viral. Interestingly enough, Slack before their pivot was a gaming platform. The game sucked but the communication platform was great. So that's one example of a B2B company kind of going viral, but it's really just group invitations.And the second one was LinkedIn for a very short period of time, about nine months, early, early on. And they built a tool that allows you to upload your entire contact database. And for that nine-month window, they went viral for every paid customer, they got more than two. So that's what viral means. The second one is traction or product market fit.And one of the things you'll hear from investors all the time. And I work as a venture capitalist now for a fund out of Atlanta. People are like, well, when you get traction, come see us again. Which is really the VC patting you on the head and saying, you're really cute. Like, let me know how it goes. And most first-time founders are walk away from those and go like, oh, that was an awesome meeting.And I'm like, actually, no, it wasn't, you're going to get ghosted. This is just like, they just swipe left or right. Or I don't know, I don't use dating apps. So whichever way they swipe, they swipe. Wrong way. Traction and product market fit is just math as well. Right. So, when people are like, oh, it's a mystery. Like we'll know it when we see it. I'm like a VC saying it's like porn, like that's crazy. Right. But product market fit is really not a mystery, it's math. So, when I think about the method Product Market Fit, there are early indicators of Product Market fit and there's trailing indicators. And the trailing indicators are easy. Churn. Surveys of, hey, if you didn't get use our product, what would it be like and how much disappointed would you be? And lack of customer retention through either contracts going down in value versus contracts going up in value. Those are lagging indicators. The early indicators are really things around like, is the traffic at the top of your site going up, right? Are the number of people downloading your app? Is that going up? Is the time to close going down? Is the conversion from demo to customer going up? And is my average contract value going up? When I put those five factors together. Right? So, closing ratios are improving. Traffic is improving. Demos are improving. Time to close is going down. And average contract value is going up.It's like the miracle of compound interest. If you don't have any of those indicators moving the right way, maybe you have product market fit, but it's too early to tell. If you do have those indicators coming together, then the answer is right, good on you, man. This is, this is exciting. And as an investor, that's where I get excited about writing the check. Because I'm like... Brian Ardinger: Because you know your money is going towards the fueling of that growth versus building something or guessing. Dave Parker: It's the early shift between risk capital and growth capital. And typically, what I see in the early stages are people like, well, we're not spending any money, we're just doing organic growth. And that's okay. But the big question is, okay, how do you scale it with paid growth so that organic growth can go fast. Oh, I'm just doing it through my network today. So I think about it as 10, 100, 1000 customer rule, right?The first 10 customers as the founder, you're going to go hand-to-hand combat. Go get them yourself. The first hundred, you probably can't do that. You're going to need to hire a salesperson or two. And you need to get good at making them, your value proposition clear. You need to get good at getting your pricing, right.But that's when you start to scale and as the first investor for you as the founder, that's good news, right? Because it's starting to scale past what I would call the Binary Risk Stage. Right? It's a zero or one it's going to succeed. Right. And angels will invest in you because we like you, right? I'm like, oh, writes you a check for $10,000 and you know, maybe be a board advisor, right, as an angel. When I'm ready to check for the fund, our average check is $650,000. I'm looking for like numbers and math. Right. And I can help the founders see it. But typically, what happens in venture is if a VC sees the math before you do, they're going to get a really good deal because they're going to put a check in and go like, Ooh, we saw the math before the founder did. And I'm not good at that. So, when I talk with founders, I'm like, here's the math you should be looking for. And one of the funds I used to work for, it was like, why are you telling them that? And I'm like, because I think better trained founders is always a good thing. So, if you're geeky about math and numbers and unit economics, you'll love the book.If you're new to that. And don't know, you're like Dave, you're speaking a foreign language and I recognize it is English. You'll learn the lingo with the book as well. Brian Ardinger: Well, I do think that's vitally important. Especially as you go out and want to go that more venture capital type of route, because these are the things you have to be able to talk to and understand and know, like you said, the levers and that, that you have to pull to make that work. The other question I want to talk about is early-stage solo founders. One of the biggest things they've got to figure out is how to build that team and the culture and things along those lines. What kind of advice or insights have you seen at the early stage of how do I build that team create it.Dave Parker: I'm going to give you a little contrarian advice. It frustrates me at times when people pontificate around stuff that they don't actually know. So you'll hear VCs often say culture matters is the most important thing. What they mean by that is personality. When you have a two-person founding team or a three person founding team, you don't actually have culture.Like there are few repeat entrepreneurs or people come from organizational development, or maybe you're in the services business. And you're like, we're going to build our company on a services culture, and that we really understand. If you're building a product, your first milestone is product market fit. Because if you get the culture wrong, you can fix it. But if you don't get product market fit, your culture doesn't matter. You don't have a company. Right? Right. So, the first milestone is product market fit. So, in VC you say, oh, culture really matters. What they're really talking about in a three-person startup is do they like you from a personality standpoint or are you an ass?Right? So, cause if the answer is, I don't think you'll listen to feedback, I'm probably not going to write a check. If I'm like the average investment for me as an angel is probably eight years to exit. So, if I don't like you, I'm probably not going to write a check. Right. So, there's, the things I'm looking for there from a personality profile type tends to be, then there's totally from views, right?There's the Introvert view, right? Bill gates did okay. Jeff Bezos, I don't think it was really an extrovert. But people will over-index on charisma or salesmanship when the answer is maybe, right. So ultimately, I kind of look at it first and say, is this the right founder? Is it Founder Market Fit? Are they the right people to solve this problem or not?So, I remember with Mitsui when I was there at one point. I was with a big fund out of Silicon Valley for three years. We got invited to invest in this deal, that was like spin the bottle where 70% of the attendees were girls and 30% were boys. And it was like late teenagers, early twenties. I'm like, we can't invest in this. This is just creepy. We're a bunch of old guys by comparison. It's just weird. Like, wait, this is the wrong investor fit for us. So, I'm looking at the founders and going, are they the right founders for this market and for this product first off. Brian Ardinger: And I think that's an important point for the founders to understand is like not every angel or not every fund is the right fit for you. And it's not necessarily, they don't like you or don't think it's great or whatever, sometimes it's an industry that they don't invest it. Dave Parker: For sure, like the fund that I'm supporting out of Atlanta, is called the Fearless Fund. So Fearless Fund is two African American women were the founders of the fund. They launched the fund with a $5 million exploratory fund. For all the wrong reasons. It blew up, right George Floyd, et cetera. And they're going to close on $30 million. We invest exclusively in black and brown women. And when they recruited me on it, I was like, oh, hell yeah, this is like, so on-mission right. Because 3.1% of all venture capital over the last 20 years is went to white dudes named Dave. Now I just want to pinpoint Jims are worse than the Daves. They got 3.4%. 2.8% went to all women. 0.8% went to people of color. Like if I could spend the next chapter of my life helping to level that playing field, I'm in. Like, it's kind of a no brainer. But if you came to us and said, hey, I'm a black and brown woman, but I'm based in London.We would be like, sorry, I can't do it. It doesn't matter how good your ideas because we have what's called an LP Agreement. An LPA. The LPA says we invest in these things, US-based companies, black and brown women founders. And if you're not in that mix, it doesn't matter how good your idea is. And people tend to take it personally. They're like, I can't believe you told me. No, my idea is brilliant. And I'm like, you're not in our thesis. Right. And if you're not in our thesis, we can't invest in it. So, know that that's pretty common for a lot of venture capital funds. Some VCs are opportunistic by definition and the answer is they can invest in a very broad category and angels can invest in the stuff that they love. Right. I like you as a founder. And I think it's a cool idea. I give it a shot. Brian Ardinger: Yeah. At Nelnet where I do some investing, obviously on our venture capital side, we are a lot more opportunistic or we'll take different bets based on community or other things, rather than things that are always in our sweet spots, so to speak. So corporate venture is a lot different as well. So, it pays to understand who has the money. Why do they want to invest for sure? What are they looking for? Dave Parker: One of the chapters, I break down what the investor profiles are and why they invest. So, if you think about this as an enterprise sales process, if you, as a founder are out raising money, the question is, is like what stage appropriate capital. Right? So as a corporate VC, you're probably not investing in early risk stage capital. But you're investing in markets you want to keep an eye on usually. Because you're like, oh, that's a super interesting development. Let's put some money over there and see how that works and we'll follow on with it. Brian Ardinger: So, Andrew has a question in the chat. He says, I work with very early-stage VC funding, pre prototype presales. I've noticed this new trend where companies are being trained in their pitch to propose who they might be acquired by in the coming years. Do you feel this as a legitimate trend and if not, how we advise founders to prepare for acquisition? Dave Parker: So, I've done 16 exits. So, I definitely have an opinion on this one. I would say the first thing you need to focus on is like focus on building a great product and a great company. Right? And then your acquisition thing becomes a lot easier to discuss. Like I will say my general default is I like products and companies that have logical upmarket buyers.Right. So there's like, oh, it makes sense that they've and people like, oh, Google's going to buy me. I'm like, actually you can, there's a Wikipedia page. Every acquisition that Google has ever made. And in most cases I will tell you, they're not going to buy you. Now, I know aspirational, you want them to buy you and that's super cool. But there's a big difference between oh, Microsoft will buy us or it's like, actually, no. Right. So, we're selling a company right now. They're doing about $10 million runway and run rate and revenue. And at one point I was talking with the CEO and he's like, Salesforce will buy us. I'm like, no Salesforce, isn't going to buy you. You have to be way over 10 million in revenue to have Salesforce actually be interested.So, they bought Slack for, you know, something incredible in the billions of dollars. But they have to do an acquisition that moves the needle in the billions, not in the oh, it's 10 or 20 million. Right. It doesn't mean you're a bad company, it just means you have limited buyer set. So, from a founder perspective, I think if they're asking you the question there may or may not be the right investor because we don't typically look to flip deals.I know I'm going to be in the deal 7 to 10 years. But I do like where there's a logical upmarket buyer who has a track record of doing acquisitions. So, I would say it's a bit of a Catch 22. By contrast, I will tell you I've been on the board of the company for 17 almost 18 years. That we're the largest player in our space. Which means the company today is a great, you know, kicks off great dividends. We do really well with it, but there's no easy exit for it because we're the biggest player in that kind of niche market. Which gets you back to the market sizing and why you want to go after a market, that's a much bigger market than a niche market for sure. Brian Ardinger: Andrew says. Thanks. Great insight. Thank you for that. Question around what are some of the trends that you're seeing and what are you excited about when it comes to startups?Dave Parker: I think one of the ones that I'm aspirationally looking for, and I can't get myself to get off the bench and go do myself, is I think there's going to be a shift in the social platforms, not just solely based on the fact that watching Facebook stab themselves has been awkward. But the idea of platforms that empower the creatives and creators is super interesting to me.Like when I look at Sub Stack and things like that, it's like the revenue models are still flipped. Where it's too much of the money, goes to the platform and not enough money goes to the creator. So, I think there's probably a really interesting opportunity that says, hey, how do you flip that model, where the creators make most of the money and the platforms making less.You know, obviously Facebook's the extreme version of that. But Tik TOK is a good example of, hey, somebody gets on to try to monetize something and finds that they made quite a bit. I think we'll see more platforms develop that empower the creatives. Creative class. I think that's super exciting. Brian Ardinger: That's interesting too. The whole no-code low-code movement has really changed over the last five years where again five or six years ago, you, at some point had to have a development team or a, or a developer on your team to start building product. And nowadays I tell most founders, there's probably enough out there with low-code no-code tools that you can at least get your MVP some early insight without having to have that developer co-founder on board. Dave Parker: Yeah, I think that's super exciting as well. It's one of the categories we're following. And I think low-code no-code is the equivalent of what AWS was to buying servers. So, I've raised $12 million and exited $85 million. In my first startup, we had to buy servers and racks and build them ourselves and put them in a, an Exodus Data Center.And people were like Exodus, what was that? It was one of the biggest epic fails of all time. And when AWS came along and they didn't have to, I could just turn up a virtual server. I didn't have to order something from Dell. It fundamentally changed the cost of doing a startup. Low-code no-code I think will be the same. And my cost of actually doing it.Now, I still have to learn how to do that. But from a founder perspective, I can learn how to do that in months and not years. And then not have to build the development team. So, using Bubble or Air Table, for sure. Monday, I would say is the expensive version of Bubble or Air Table by comparison, from a founder perspective.Brian Ardinger: What I like about it is it allows for greater customer discovery and experimentation around your product earlier to get that feedback, to see if you're on the right stage and figure out what features you do need to build or scale or optimize. Dave Parker: Yeah. Yeah, that one's great. I think in a revenue model side, one of the things we're seeing is in the marketplace components. As we're seeing marketplace shift from transaction fees only to subscription fees, plus transaction fees. I would tell you watching revenue models over the last seven years, ish, total, there's been a few changes in them. One, if you remember Groupon, there's thousands of competitors to it because at a fundamental level, I would say revenue models aren't, they're not defensive. Revenue models, so think of they're very public domain. So even Google and pay-per-click copied that model from Yahoo. Lost the lawsuit against them. Yahoo had bought a company from Idea Lab who'd had actually patented the pay-per-click model. Yahoo ended up being a great holding company for Alibaba and Google stock, right at the end of the day.Revenue models are defensible, but if you look at all the copycats of Groupon, you see, most of those went away. Groupon is still alive in a public company, but they traded 0.49 times trailing 12 revenue. So, if you take the market cap of the company divided by sales, I would say that it's 50 cents on the dollar. Right. So as far as what they trade at. Now, compare that to a subscription business. Well, maybe the next step up would be you and I do a consulting business for a million dollars. That company is worth roughly a million dollars. It's worth one times revenues. So, because if you remember Groupon booked the top line sales of what they sold you for that certificate, but they really only made the margin on the, you know, the 10 or 15% on the margin of it.So, if you and I had a consulting company for a million dollars, it'd be worth roughly a million dollars. If we did a million-dollar subscription company, it would be worth somewhere between 12 and $15 million. And one of the new models that really came out in the last five years was the idea of a metered service company.So Twilio is a great example, AWS, if it was pulled out of Amazon is a pay as you go model. It is predominantly is B2B, but those companies traded really 35 times, right? So, if you think about, okay, if I'm going to do a startup, which revenue model should I use, I would tell you to think about again, if you're going to go back to Andrew's question about the exit multiple, I would be interested in less than who's going to buy it. More interested in the revenue model and the multiple of sales. So, I'd be like go for a metered service company for sure, or subscription at very least. Brian Ardinger: I wanted to ask around the topic of founders. It's obviously a very lonely, difficult journey at the very early stage. Do you have any advice for early-stage founders to how to get better connected and deal with the mental challenges of building a company?Dave Parker: Yeah. Great question. It was probably my most read blog post ever is I wrote about my personal battle with depression. And then I hit publish and I thought, what the hell? What did I do? What was I thinking? And I got more positive comments on it than I could have imagined. Brad Feld, who used to be on my board, as you know. Brad sent me a note with one word, and it just said brave. I think that the challenge there from a founder perspective is, you know, you're always trying to be positive. You're trying to, I was trying to be upbeat. If it's motivate the team or motivate investors. And so consequently leads to a lot of isolation.And I think that's one of the things that, like, one of the things we're doing here in Seattle is we run a cohort program for founders. We don't take any equity. There's no cash. They don't pay for it. And it's really about us up leveling the community of founders 25 to 30 founders twice a year, which is our math.And we're really helping them navigate the ecosystem, here in Seattle in six months instead of 18 months, which improve their odds of success. But also connecting them with other founders. Because other people are asking the same questions you're asking. They're not competitive. They're going through the same challenges.And by putting them in community, it serves one of those two purposes. One is we want to help them navigate the ecosystem, but we also want to help them connect with other founders like them at the same stage, which we think has two benefits. One is personal connection and not being in isolation for sure.And second is really helping them think about reinvesting in the community over time. So, if you think about classically, it was the PayPal mafia and then reinvested in each other. So, Reed Hoffman and Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, et cetera. And then it's now become the Uber mafia, right? All the people that were at Uber that are now launching other companies that are reinvesting in each other. We've never had that in Seattle. And most cities don't. It's one of the biggest gaps. So that's our secondary benefit is we think if we have them in community and at five years, but when we launched this as a program, which through the Washington Technology Industry Association. And I went back to the CEO. I'm like, this is a ten-year plan. Right. I'm like you can't judge it at three years or four years. And we're coming into our fourth year right now. And I'd say it's worked out better than we thought. But as I told him, I'm like, you don't get actually judge on it for 10 years. We've had some exits; we've had a bunch of fundraising. Our teams do it a lot faster than other teams. So, it's become a program. People are like, I want to get in. So, we just actually, Brian took it and put it into an document for a national scale-up grant for the Department of Commerce, with the State of Washington. So, we actually have those documents set up now. If somebody wanted to take it to Nebraska and say, Hey, we want to replicate all of this programming.We've opened source all the programming, we've open sourced, the narrative doc and the fundraising docs. So, somebody could turn around and say like, okay, we're going to go launch this program here as a, as a copycat with, with pride. Like we want you to knock it off. Brian Ardinger: Well, that's interesting. That may be an interesting model to explore now with COVID and the whole virtual remote angle of it. Or even in communities like Lincoln, where again, just by the pure numbers, we're not going to have thousands of founders. So how do you scale that? Dave Parker: For sure. And we're basically taking a program we were running in Seattle now and run it in Kent, Washington and Yakima. And Vancouver, Washington, and Tacoma. And we're trying to provide it from an access perspective. Like we want to make sure that we provide people with access that didn't have access to that before.But also, with a path to funding, because if you give people access to programming, but no, they can't ship an MVP at the end because they don't have any money. That's still a problem. So, we're trying to address that problem next. But the grant was a $750,000 grant over three years. Which means we'll kind of be able to take the show on the road and obviously virtual too. I think the nice thing about if there's a positive outcome of the whole COVID thing is place matters a lot less than it used to.Like the good news is I don't have to get on a plane to come be on stage with you. I'd like to be. That'd be kind of fun, because we could go have a beer afterwards and have dinner. But that that'll happen too. But I think from an efficiency standpoint, I've been doing programs for the Middle East, like six or seven cities in the middle east over the last two years. And I fly out Thursday night to Abu Dhabi for four days. And I'm like, it's kind of a fast turn for Abu Dhabi. Could do it just virtually. And be fine. More InformationBrian Ardinger: I wanted to thank you again for coming on. Here's Dave's book Trajectory Startup. Pick it up at any place you buy books. I'm going to put it in a call to action. He also is giving away some free stuff on his website. So let me share that right now. You can download his free resource guide on 14 successful Tech Revenue Models to check that. And then I also, again, I want to thank all our sponsors for bringing this today. And I encourage folks to also sign up for Inside Outside.io. Our newsletter and our podcast, where we bring these types of things whenever we can. So that's the link to that. Thanks for coming out. Thanks for all the audience for being here. Thanks for the great questions and looking forward to doing this again, at some point. And maybe having you come and see us in real life. So, I appreciate your time. And thank you again, Dave. If people want to find out more about yourself or your book, what's the best way to do that?Dave Parker: Yeah, they can find all the information is on my blog, DKparker.com. If you don't want to buy the book, you just have to figure out how to navigate all the blog posts in order. But that should be, you know, there's only 180 blog posts there. So DKparker.com, you can find the book and more information. The 14 revenue models.You can also find me on social media. I'm at Dave Parker CA for Seattle, when you find, you know, LinkedIn, Twitter. I'm not on Facebook anymore. I just finally had to just say, no. I'm still on Instagram because I want to see what my kids are doing. But Daisy, my dog has more followers on Instagram than I do at this point. But so yeah, you can find me on social media, and you can find me on DK parker.com. Brian Ardinger: Excellent. Well, thank you again, Dave. We're looking forward to having future conversations. And go out and have fun everyone at Startup Week Lincoln, and we'll see you around the neighborhood. Thanks very much for coming out.That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. If you want to learn more about our team, our content, our services, check out InsideOutside.io or follow us on Twitter @theIOpodcast or @Ardinger. Until next time, go out and innovate.FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER & TOOLSGet the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HEREYou can also search every Inside Outside Innovation Podcast by Topic and Company.  For more innovations resources, check out IO's Innovation Article Database, Innovation Tools Database, Innovation Book Database, and Innovation Video Database.  As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

The Programmatic Digest is hosted by Hélène Parker is going live all month long and this first panel will be discussing Contextual Target best practices and any latest updates. Stay tuned for more details and Register Today!

Vanessa and Sue talk Gratitude & Instant Gratification with Dr. Leslie Marshall and Digital Nomad Life with Alisa Walters & Veronica Horta.Guests:Real Health w. Dr. Leslie Marshall Profesh Sesh w. Alisa WaltersDigital Nomad Life w. Veronica Horta We Get Real AF Podcast Credits:Producers & Hosts: Vanessa Alava & Sue RobinsonVanessa AlavaLinkedIn Instagram TwitterSue RobinsonLinkedIn Instagram Twitter Audio Producer/Editor: Sam Mclean  Instagram  WebsiteTechnical Director: Mitchell MachadoLinkedIn Reset GamingAudio Music Track Title: Beatles UniteArtist: Rachel K. CollierYouTube Channel Instagram WebsiteCover Artwork Photo Credit: Alice Moore Unsplash We Get Real AF Podcast OnlineInstagramTwitterFacebookLinkedInWebsiteSupport the show (https://ifundwomen.com/projects/we-get-real-af-podcast)

Tour updates to improve your hybrid work and collaboration experiences across Microsoft 365. We've focused on capabilities that give you more flexibility in the way you work, whether that's in the office, at home, or anywhere in between. The latest round of updates fall into two main categories: New ways to securely share your work while collaborating with people inside and outside your organization, and the continuous infusion of intelligence across Microsoft 365 experiences to save you time. Omar Shahine, Microsoft 365 CVP, joins Jeremy Chapman to walk you through all the updates. ► QUICK LINKS: 00:00 - Introduction 00:56 - File sharing and what's new in OneDrive 03:20 - New in OneDrive web experience 04:27 - SharePoint Syntex and user experience 06:35 - Teams and SharePoint connected experiences 07:46 - Capabilities for recorded Teams meetings 09:04 - Updates to Microsoft Lists 10:58 - Updates to Outlook in email 13:36 - Wrap up ► Unfamiliar with Microsoft Mechanics? We are Microsoft's official video series for IT. You can watch and share valuable content and demos of current and upcoming tech from the people who build it at #Microsoft. Subscribe to our YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicrosoftMechanicsSeries?sub_confirmation=1 Join us on the Microsoft Tech Community: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-mechanics-blog/bg-p/MicrosoftMechanicsBlog Watch or listen via podcast here: https://microsoftmechanics.libsyn.com/website ► Keep getting this insider knowledge, join us on social: Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MSFTMechanics Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/microsoft-mechanics/

Nichole shares her thoughts about why the phrase "Work/Life Balance" isn't realistic for many people. Sometimes it's okay to be more focused on work and sometimes it's okay to be more focused on your home/life.  She wishes people wouldn't focus so much on work/life balance, because even then, many companies want even more of your time whenever possible. What does work/life harmony look like for you?

As forecasts vary between a full return to office and distributed work, IT organizations have to figure out how to monitor and manage work-from-anywhere. This Tech Bytes episode, sponsored by AppNeta, explores how IT can balance on-prem and distributed-work priorities. AppNeta also recently introduced a new monitoring point that runs on Cisco Catalyst switches for improved visibility into app performance at branch and remote sites. The post Tech Bytes: Balancing Remote Work And Back-To-Office Priorities With AppNeta (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

As forecasts vary between a full return to office and distributed work, IT organizations have to figure out how to monitor and manage work-from-anywhere. This Tech Bytes episode, sponsored by AppNeta, explores how IT can balance on-prem and distributed-work priorities. AppNeta also recently introduced a new monitoring point that runs on Cisco Catalyst switches for improved visibility into app performance at branch and remote sites. The post Tech Bytes: Balancing Remote Work And Back-To-Office Priorities With AppNeta (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

As forecasts vary between a full return to office and distributed work, IT organizations have to figure out how to monitor and manage work-from-anywhere. This Tech Bytes episode, sponsored by AppNeta, explores how IT can balance on-prem and distributed-work priorities. AppNeta also recently introduced a new monitoring point that runs on Cisco Catalyst switches for improved visibility into app performance at branch and remote sites. The post Tech Bytes: Balancing Remote Work And Back-To-Office Priorities With AppNeta (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

The best format for learning and coaching in a remote environment is to offer rich, diverse opportunities. The more opportunities, the better. This allows your people to choose what format works best for them and encourages them to switch between setups to keep things engaging. In this episode, Elizabeth Caulder, President of Phoenix Lifestyle Marketing, joins Dr. Randee Sanders, Associate Dean of Faculty in the School of Business at Northcentral University, to discuss some of the different types of leadership development formats to consider including inspiring video lessons, 1:1 remote coaching sessions, and learning from the experience of others. Learn more about Elizabeth at Phoenix Lifestyle Marketing.

Many of us have been working from home or doing some type of remote work since COVID-19 struck in early 2020. Many of us have been working from home or doing some type of remote work since COVID-19 struck in early 2020. But even as we kind of round the corner of the pandemic, many of us are staying put! So how can we make remote work as sustainable and productive as the office?Working from home is a skill that takes practice. So today we're talking about focusing on tasks instead of time, learning & establishing the rhythm of your day (without a commute), and using technology to your advantage with a time management expert. Laura Vanderkam is the author of several time management and productivity books, including Juliet's School of Possibilities, Off the Clock, I Know How She Does It, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, and 168 Hours. Her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Fortune. She is the host of the podcast Before Breakfast and the co-host, with Sarah Hart-Unger, of the podcast Best of Both Worlds.

Jason reacts to Zillow's huge drop after the implosion of their iBuying business (4:33), and breaks down the Biden Administration's stablecoin report (23:35). Then, LeadIQ CEO Mei Siauw joins the show to talk growing a SaaS business with a distributed team, going from $500 to $10M+ in revenue, and more! (43:27)

Windy City wonder meets hoop dreams as we talk with Brooke Weisbrod, ESPN Sports Broadcaster based in Chicago. Hear about how the sports broadcasting world has changed in the last year and a half, and how Brooke has adjusted to calling games from her home remotely. We learn all about her career journey, from playing basketball to calling basketball, and what makes the best venues and arenas from her perspective. We talk about challenges facing student athletes and the intersection of social justice and pro sports, including what Brooke would like to see happen to help drive the conversation forward on systemic racism. Grab some deep dish pizza and catch the L to the loop with us in this fun, interesting, and open conversation!Brooke Weisbrod: Instagram | Twitter | LinkedInESPN: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for the hybrid era. A recent report by Microsoft found that 61% of workers identified “social interaction” as a primary benefit of coming to the office. But the same percentage said that ditching daily commutes was a top reason to work from home. In this episode of the WorkLab podcast, leadership expert Dr. David Rock explains how managers must offer flexibility and a sense of autonomy to help employees feel motivated … no matter where they prefer to work. WorkLab NeuroLeadership Institute

E133:   We spend a lot of time talking about what jobs we don't to do on this show so I thought it might be nice to mix things up and talk about some practical jobs that make a lot of sense to support creatives and entrepreneurs while they go after their passion. I KNOW we are all waking up from work and trying to do what we want to do but nothing is an overnight success and things take time. They take a lot less time when we have the right day job to support our schedules, family, health, and income and there are so many ways we now have access to than we did in the past. Today we speak to co-founder of Integrate Up ToriAnn Perkey about how she helps people who want to work online get hired by companies that want people who work online. She believes every person who wants to deserves the freedom and flexibility to build the life they want while working a job. We talk through being a stay at home mom and equality for women, creating and controlling your week, and choosing income generating actives that help you fulfill your purpose or build your purpose in the meantime.   In This Episode We Cover What jobs work best for creatives and entrepreneurs while they work on their passion? Creating flexibility in your day to day Home schooling your children Creating a business as a stay at home mom Taking action to put yourself in a position to be forced to take more action Giving women the ability to pursue their passion after they have children Saying no now doesn't mean forever What can I do from home? What can I learn how to do or already have 80% of the skillsets? Control your week, control your day What are your income producing activities?   Quotes   “I can't be the kind of mom I want to be and work full time. “ - ToriAnn Perkey   “Be a little naive of what you are diving into can sometimes be a good thing.” - ToriAnn Perkey   “Life is really big, just because you have to say no to something for awhile, doesn't mean you have to say no to it forever. If you love it enough, life dishes you up opportunities all the time.” - ToriAnn Perkey   Resources Noted In This Podcast   Upwork https://www.upwork.com/   The Miracle Morning https://miraclemorning.com/   Links   ToriAnn's Website Integrate Up https://integrateup.co/   ToriAnn's Facebook Community Hire Up Online Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/integrateup     Waking Up From Work Podcast Links    IG / Tik Tok / Clubhouse / Twitter / HiHo Follow & DM Me! @davewakeup   Merch To Support Us! https://wakeup.itemorder.com/sale?fbclid=IwAR30nyVXdpFaax0mN0CRcC_mVjNzafbMo0spds82eoG-GMo01HG6Uq0dvzw   Patreon (If you want to support the show check out our sweet offers for you) https://www.patreon.com/wakingupfromwork   Facebook Community to connect to creatives https://www.facebook.com/groups/wakingupfromwork/about/   Email wakeupfromworkpodcast@gmail.com   Youtube Channel & Series https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJeddF25VuWn8Eg3Fhy13fQ?view_as=subscriber   For audio advice and more in depth music content from Dave www.crawlspaceaudio.com   Dave's Indie Band Broadwing https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/broadwing/tennessee

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Selina Troesch Munster, Principal at Touchdown Ventures. Selena and I talk about the changing opportunities in corporate venture capital, both for corporates and startups, as well as the impact in the growing focus of diversity, equity, inclusion, and how it's impacting the industry. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat to what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started.Interview Transcript with Selina Troesch Munster, Principal at Touchdown VenturesBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Selina Troesch Munster. She is the Principal at Touchdown Ventures. Welcome back to the show Selina. Selina Troesch Munster: Thank you. It's great to be here. Brian Ardinger: I'm excited to have you back. You were out in Nebraska in 2019. You spoke at our Inside Outside Innovation Summit. And so, I'm super excited to reconnect after COVID to see what's going on in the world of corporate venture. Selina Troesch Munster: Yeah, it's such a shame that COVID ended in person events because that was such a fun event. And I encourage anybody listening to definitely get out there the next time it happens in person. It was fantastic. And I have relationships from that week that are still very fruitful. Brian Ardinger: That's awesome. Oh, I'll give a little bit of background to our audience members who may not have seen you there or heard more about you. But you started at Touchdown Ventures, I think in 2014 or so when it first got off the ground. Before that you were at Barclays in New York. You're currently an Adjunct Professor at USC teaching Venture Capital at the MBA school there. And then also just were named a Global Corporate Venturing Rising Star in 2020. So, congrats on that as well. Selina Troesch Munster: Thank you. Yeah, that's so accurate. Brian Ardinger: For those who aren't familiar with Touchdown Ventures, it's a corporate venture as a service almost type of company. So, let's talk a little bit about what is Touchdown Ventures and how does it fit into this corporate venture environment?Selina Troesch Munster: Yes, absolutely. So, Touchdown works with corporations to help them manage their venture capital programs. And what that means in practice is most corporations either don't have the appetite or ability to hire experienced VCs to run a program internally.So, what our co-founders decided to do was to create a service-based business where experienced VCs, work together with folks internally at the corporations to develop a strategy for, and then actually manage, these corporate venture programs. And the opportunity that David, Rich and Scott saw back in 2014, when they founded the business, was corporations have so much to provide to startups in you know, having a relationship with them. In addition to the capital that they deploy.But often they don't have the skill set necessary to identify which of those startups are a good investment opportunity. And then to manage those investments through to an exit, whatever that may be. Which is what we know how to do. We, on the other hand, don't have the expertise in the internal politics and priorities within that organization.And so, by marrying together, our financial analysis and, you know, opportunity evaluation skills, and then deal management skills, and their knowledge of what's impactful for their business, we have a really powerful way of making investments in startups. That as some of our corporate partners say, give them a bit of a leg up against their competitors based on that relationship. We work together with I believe 18 different corporations, as of right now, managing their funds. Each one is developed specifically for that corporation's goals and objectives and risk tolerance. And, you know, we have a dedicated team to manage each one of those specifically.And so, we run programs across a variety of different industries and have made, I think almost 70 investments at this point across all those programs. Pretty awesome growth from where we were in 2014. Brian Ardinger: When you think about corporate venture, it's somewhat new to the field of venture capital. I mean started probably with Intel. I think they were one of the first corporate venture funds to come on the scene. But you're seeing more and more companies look to startups and look to corporate venture capital as a way to either differentiate their Innovation efforts or have access to different things that they wouldn't have before. What do you think is driving corporates to taking a look at venture capital as a means to meet their goals?Selina Troesch Munster: I think there are a couple of drivers. One is the increasing rate of company formation and, you know, to use an overused word disruption within traditional industries. And so having the foresight that venture capital gives you of, oh my gosh, I just saw 10 companies that raised funding in a particular space. That gives you an idea of where the market might be moving toward and what a corporation needs to be aware of in terms of what might be coming their way and trying to eat their lunch in the future. And so, you know, even if we don't make that many investments over the course of a year, we still interacted with hundreds of startups and started to see what's happening out in the market. And that intelligence is a really important part of a corporate venture program, is you don't have to say yes to an opportunity to learn from it. The other thing that I think is driving it is that there is a lot of capital out there funding a lot of different types of businesses that haven't traditionally been venture backed. And so, we see it in the food space. That is a relatively new sector for investment for venture capitalists. You know, traditionally you're talking about software. That's pretty much it. And so, when you have VC money flowing into these sectors that are non-traditional VC sectors, you have a greater volume of threats to those businesses as well. And having that function where you get to have a much tighter relationship with some of these upstarts is really valuable to the corporate strategy team and really the business units. And there are also certain types of partnerships that just don't happen without capital investment. And startups are recognizing that they can leverage the capital raise process to also get really tight, great relationships with corporate partners in that way.Brian Ardinger: A lot of corporates out there, they do invest in the venture space, but they do it primarily just investing in other funds and that. So, are you seeing more and more companies wanting to take more of that hands-on approach? Not only just investing for ROI return, but investing in Touchdown Ventures and what you can bring to the table to give them that more hands-on insights and looks, in addition to just the ROI traditional financial model around it? Selina Troesch Munster: Yeah, I think that that's a big driver of what's helped our business grow, but also what's driven corporate venture funding to new highs over the past couple of years. And I think we've had a record year in corporations putting money into startups in 2020 and probably 2021 as well. How things are trending.And I think it is because of the desire for that direct relationship with the startup. It's something that we, as Touchdown enable because we're in the trenches with the teams at the corporations, talking through every opportunity that we see and figuring out which ones are good investment opportunities, as well as sort of strategic partnerships.And I think having fund investments also has a place within a portfolio approach for corporations. But the ownership of the program is really important to a lot of these folks because they want to see firsthand, who are these companies? What are they doing and how do we most productively create sort of mutual benefit between ourselves and the startup ecosystem? And that can be a little bit harder when you're invested in a fund and you're not necessarily seeing all of the deal flow. The Ewing Marion Kauffman FoundationSponsor Voice: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private, nonpartisan foundation based in Kansas City, Missouri, that seeks to build inclusive prosperity through a prepared workforce and entrepreneur-focused economic development. The Foundation uses its $3 billion in assets to change conditions, address root causes, and break down systemic barriers so that all people – regardless of race, gender, or geography – have the opportunity to achieve economic stability, mobility, and prosperity. For more  information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect with us at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn. Brian Ardinger: Are you spending more time working with the startups and sourcing startups, or are you spending a lot of time with the corporate folks trying to understand what their needs are? Is it 50/50? Walk me through the process of how you actually work with a corporate and a startup to make that match.Selina Troesch Munster: It's definitely a blend and with a team of three, for instance, on the fund that I'm working on, we split those responsibilities. And some days I spend more time with startups and some days I spend more time with their corporate partner. But both are really critical to being able to find those matches.And so, we spend, a fair amount of our week, having conversations with folks within the business units to understand, you know, what are your strategic priorities? What are the business problems that you're trying to solve? What are you trying to build internally so that we don't show up with competitors, what you're trying to do with your own R and D, but where are there places where you might want to accelerate what you're doing with an external partner? And based on that information, we will go have conversations with startups and say, all right, how well does this match up against what this person told us? Is this enough of a priority for them to spend the time to talk to this company?We manage both the funnel of investment opportunities, but also funnel of commercial opportunities where we say, all right, you know, every quarter we will come back to this person in R and D and say, hey, we talked about this last time. This is on your wish list of like, wouldn't it be cool if we could find companies that do this? These are the opportunities that we've identified. Let's talk about how they do and don't match up. And if there's anything that's sort of serendipitously really aligns, let's make sure that you were able to have a conversation and sort of take that the next steps beyond that first introduction. But it really is on both fronts that we're also figuring out what the startups care about. You know, I wouldn't want to bring a startup in and say, well, our partner is really interested in doing this with you and they're like, we would never consider that. So, there's, you know, a little bit of a needs assessment on both sides. Brian Ardinger: So, you're doing both the strategic investment and companies are buying equity in those particular companies as part of a fundraise. But it sounds like you're also doing some basically strategic matchmaking from a customer perspective. So, startups are coming to you and saying hey, we'd love to work with XYZ company, or are you a relationship with these? We'd be a good fit for providing services into that corporation. Is that a blend of what's going on as well, or? Selina Troesch Munster: Yep. Absolutely. And usually our conversations with startups are, look, you may not be fundraising right now, but there are other opportunities that we can facilitate for you. If we have an understanding of your business and an understanding of what you're looking to do with potential partners. That often gets us into conversations with companies kind of in between their formal fundraises as well, because we do have that added benefit of being able to facilitate commercial conversations.Brian Ardinger: So, you sit in between to a large extent for both the corporates and the startups. What are some of the key, I guess, problems or challenges that you would recommend for both the corporate and the startup to avoid when trying to make these relationships work?Selina Troesch Munster: I think corporates can be really scary to startups. I think that there are often legal requirements or legal agreements that the corporate wants to enter into that just look like a lot of work from the startup perspective. And look like risk from the startup perspective. And so, for corporations, I would say, keep it relatively simple on the legal side. Make sure that whatever you send over to a startup company in terms of, you know, whether it's an NDA or a side letter or, you know, commercial agreement that it's not the same thing that you would send to, you know, a bigger supplier or customer. So that's one. On the other side, I think startups often, rightly, but often see themselves as having so many different opportunities to help their customers or partners. And, if you show up with, like, I can be all things to all people, you're requiring a certain amount of imagination and thinking about what to do with your product, from someone who might have a day job, that they're very very focused on and doesn't have time to think creatively about where you might fit in. And so, the more specific a startup can be coming in saying, look, this is what we do. This is the opportunity we see with you. And this is how we would propose to work together. The easier it is for that person to say, yes, that's awesome. I definitely want to do that with you or, you know what, that's not quite what I want to do. I would tweak it in this way. Like, let's move forward. Or this isn't right for us. So, it gets you to an answer a lot faster, and it also takes some of the burden off of the corporate partner for doing the work of pitching your business. Brian Ardinger: To a certain extent it's oftentimes just finding what does that pilot first relationship look like, or that kind of first date and how would that play out so that both sides can become comfortable in that relationship and grow it as it goes along. The other area I want to talk about is if it wasn't already the case before, 2020 which has really put D. E. and I, diversity, equity, inclusion, front and center for most companies. And I'd love to get your insight and what you are seeing in the startup in corporate venture space and how folks are tackling and talking about D, E, and I initiatives. Selina Troesch Munster: Yeah, it's something that's very near and dear to my heart. At Touchdown, we've really worked on trying to figure out how we educate ourselves about bias and the impact that those unconscious or implicit biases have on how we do our jobs. But also, how we can actually make difference out in the ecosystem.It has had a lot of energy. Particularly related to improving the pipeline and hiring of minorities in whatever definition you want to, you know, make that, whether that's people of color, whether that is LGBTQ and funds are really paying attention to their recruiting process. I think it's going to take a while for us to see the results of that.I don't have any delusions that starting in 2022, we'll have like this wonderful, diverse set of, you know, of partners. That takes time, especially in VC, where partner positions are rare or the ability to raise money has particularly been challenging. I think, you know, the limited partners and allocators are paying more attention to it and making sure that they include that in their evaluation process, especially with emerging managers. It's going to take time. It's going to take a lot of time. And I think in the corporate space, where I see the most opportunity is using the existing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to apply those learnings and insights and best practices to venture investing. And I've had a couple of conversations where we're talking about potentially announcing an investment and you know, one of the questions is all right, where might we have risks from a diversity perspective in you know, announcing this. Is like, is there enough diversity on this team? And what may we, or maybe not get, in terms of PR blow back from that type of announcement.Brian Ardinger: So, are you seeing a much bigger push from the corporates themselves to say, hey, we're not only looking for companies in XYZ technology space, but we're specifically looking for minority teams or, or different types of businesses, maybe even, then we looked at it in the past. Are you seeing that from corporates and they're pushing that? Or is it you're helping the corporates come along to that space?Selina Troesch Munster: It's a little bit of both. I think where we see it the most is actually, if we're thinking about, you know, a particular business problem where maybe the e-commerce team says, you know what, we're really not reaching this demographic. Help us figure out how to reach this demographic through the investment program.So, it's less about give me businesses that do a certain thing and more about help me understand this type of person that isn't buying from us today that want to buy from us in the future. Brian Ardinger: And then from the startup side, what are you seeing when it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion? Are you seeing startups being able to brace that more effectively in their partnerships and the relationships or what are you seeing on that side?Selina Troesch Munster: I'm seeing a lot more emphasis on the board level. Finding diverse board representatives. And so, one of our portfolio companies, it was particularly important, I mean, she was a female CEO, but it was particularly important to her to have a majority of women on her board. And so, identifying women with the good experience to help her achieve what she wants to achieve, but also maintaining that diversity of perspective. And so, at the board level, it's a really big focus and I'm seeing more and more advertisement, for lack of a better word, in pitch tags of the diversity of teams. And so, whether it is gender or racial diversity, all of those things are starting to come up more. Brian Ardinger: Are you seeing different types of businesses and different types of even locations around the country and that, they're getting on your radar because you're casting a wider net or companies are asking for more and different looks?Selina Troesch Munster: That's a good question. I haven't actually analyzed what our location diversity looks like. A number of our corporate partners are in the Midwest. And so have always had as part of the strategy, you know supporting startups in their own backyard. I don't know exactly how that's changed over the past year. That's an interesting data point for us to look at. Brian Ardinger: We sit in the middle of the United States and the venture world is different here than it is in the big markets. And it's always interesting to see how those trends are playing out location or technology or otherwise. I guess the last core topic I'll talk about is what's new and exciting in your world? What are you excited about? What trends are you seeing? What are the things that you're focused on? Selina Troesch Munster: So, I personally am focused on Ag Tech and Lawn and Garden investing. I manage our program with Scott's Miracle Grow, and it's been a really interesting year because people have, you know, from a consumer perspective, really shifted into spending more time in their gardens and thinking more about growing their own food.And so, there's been an explosion in interest and technology to help people do that more effective. Both from a macro trend perspective, but also from an environmental perspective. I found it really fascinating how big companies and small are tapping into the wellness and environmental aspects of growing.So that's been particularly exciting for me. And then on the flip side, in terms of professional agriculture, all of the issues that COVID exposed about the supply chain and how that affects, you know, how food gets to us, how food is grown, the energy impacts of that. I just read an article about, you know, the rising cost of electricity and what that does to greenhouse growers. Because often they're supplementing with light.And if the cost of electricity goes up and you're running on razor thin margin business at a certain point, it stops making sense. And so how do we help farmers with the systems that are necessary to better manage the business side of their business? In addition to the sort of the plants. So that's where I've been spending my time. It's, there's some of the interesting stuff that I found fascinating, the sort of the big picture problems that we're thinking about. Brian Ardinger: That's awesome. Well, I want to thank you again for coming on Inside Outside Innovation and sharing some of your insights on what's going on. Hope to have you back out in the Midwest sometime soon. And we can talk further about this stuff. The last question I want to know is Giants or Dodgers. I know you're based in LA, but which of the two teams is going to come through? Selina Troesch Munster: Giants. I am a diehard Giants fan. This is apparently the only thing that is not good about me from my husband's perspective, because he is a diehard Dodgers fan. So, we are a house divided for the, over the course of the series, and we'll see what happens. Brian Ardinger: It will probably be a tough week. This podcast will come out probably after the series, so we'll find out if you're right, and we'll probably check back in to see how you both are doing. Selina Troesch Munster: Yes. Let's hope the marriage survives. I think it will.For More InformationBrian Ardinger: Excellent. Well, Selina, if people want to find out more about yourself or more about Touchdown Ventures, what's the best way to do that? Selina Troesch Munster: I would go to our website, TouchdownVC.com. There you can link to our various content. Our blog is called Risky Business, and I am @SelinaTroesch on Twitter. So, you can also find out what I'm tweeting about. You can follow me there. Brian Ardinger: Excellent. Well, Selina again, thanks for being on Inside Outside Innovation. Look forward to continuing the conversation in the future. Selina Troesch Munster: Thank you, Brian. Appreciate it. Brian Ardinger: That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. If you want to learn more about our team, our content, our services, check out InsideOutside.io or follow us on Twitter @theIOpodcast or @Ardinger. Until next time, go out and innovate.FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER & TOOLSGet the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HEREYou can also search every Inside Outside Innovation Podcast by Topic and Company.  For more innovations resources, check out IO's Innovation Article Database, Innovation Tools Database, Innovation Book Database, and Innovation Video Database.  

While it sounds great to be decentralized from your team with the ability to flex your schedule and work from your yoga pants, it requires commitment to shared values. We believe there are six guardrails that hold remote teams together, and they have certainly helped make our Stay Forth Team more effective.  On today's episode, Jonathan and Alan talk about six principles necessary for healthy remote work and how the Stay Forth team lives these out our remote team. Level your leadership this fall Schedule your FREE breakthrough coaching session Invest in your leadership by joining free Right Side Up Community Receive weekly leadership tweaks with Tuesday Tuneup