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Sean: All right. The next question is from Patrick. How do you do market research for your business? What are the factors to consider to have a business that has a market? One easy way is actually to put the keyword for that business. So for example, if you're selling Taho, maybe put that keyword on Google and see how many people are actually searching for Taho. So I'm going to go ahead and open an incognito tab and share that screen with all of you. This is just one way to do it. I'm not saying this is how you should be doing it. So yeah. Why not Taho?  Right? Calories, benefits. Okay. Vendor is there, right? It's one of the, what? Top one, top two, top three, top four, top five, top six, top seven. It's a top seven most searched for keyword when you type for Taho. And then for the eighth and ninth, you just know these three, these four, actually these four right here, these are people looking for the Taho. So do you have a market? Probably, yes. Right there and then that could be one part of your market research. You also have other tools that you can use. For example, like SEMrush. Just a disclaimer, I'm an affiliate. SEMrush is a partner of mine. I love their software and if you want to use it, you can use my link in the website: from.seo-hacker.com/semrush. Yeah so you have the keyword research here, or you can use the Keyword Magic Tool. I just go usually for a Keyword Magic Tool. The Philippines would be the country and you put in Taho. So right here, you would be able to see, oh, there's 33,000 searches every month for the word Taho. What's happening in there? So you could take off like south, chevy. These are not the words you want, because obviously these are keywords from the US. Right? So just exclude them from the results. You can do that. Yeah. And then you could just zone in on the keywords that you might want. Like the vendor. Definitely that's one. So there's a thousand searches per month for that. Strawberry Taho, probably. Homemade Taho, yes, probably.  Strawberry Taho Baguio, yeah. And then you add up all of the volume and you get an idea right now that, oh, probably we have like, I don't know, 15,000 searches every month. That's a pretty good number. If I can service that with a website where people can order Taho and I can deliver it to them at home. Perfect. Then you have a working business. That's one easy way to do it. So Patrick. I hope I added value to you by showing you exactly how I'm going to do it. Yeah. That's how I do it. Why don't I do more business if I know how to do it this way? I can't manage more people and more and more businesses. That's the easy answer. I'm already giving my best a hundred percent with SEO Hacker. So just choose the business that you're going to give your all to. Focus on that. Right? You can't split yourself too much. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack

So Patrick asks, are there things that you did during the pandemic that you integrated it in your business, paid off really well, and you are going to adapt them even after the pandemic ends? JC: One of the things is to keep the main thing, the main thing. To focus, really focus, really do hyper focus because we really used to do that. We had a lot of opportunities to be canteen concessionaires. And we're canteen concessionaires for like JG Summit, Nestle, Shell, and Caltex. We were the ones in the CALABARZON area to handle them. We focused on catering. But now what I really learned is to be ultra-hyper focused. That's what is needed. Like, for example, our sales people, they really focused on the key accounts that really worked. The ones that they know, they attacked it from there. As for me, I had to focus on what aspect of the business was the most important. At that time it's sales. It's really sales. So I was working with them day in, day out and I would be with them. And we cast a wider net, a much wider net. If before we were accredited with 200 menus, I think during the pandemic it was 400 menus. It was like that, it doubled down. If before, these are the key accounts that you've reached, you had twenty good accounts, I want you to have a hundred good accounts. Because if these people that you've reached and there's a smaller chance of booking, you need a bigger amount of people coming in to convert more leads. We really expanded the network. We really focused on, for me, what I did is to really focus on where I'm needed. It's like, I'll focus on my strengths which is sales and that's where I fought. Then we stuck to our core. We didn't deviate from our core. We stayed there. If you focus and you just give everything you have to that part of the business to where you are known, that really is the main thing that allowed us to thrive during the pandemic. So I know it's a small thing, focus. I mean, remember who you are. I mean, people forget that. Sometimes they think it's just a little thing, they'd be like, you should expand to this, expand to that, expand to this. But people don't know you yet. It takes so much time. It took us 25 years to be able to have this type of network. It's going to take us so many years if we're going to focus on food to-go, for example, Juan Carlo to-go. Yes, it helped us. It gave our people jobs. But that's not what's going to bring back our business. It's catering. So we focused on how we can add value to our clients. Okay, so let's do this. In order to reach the total order value that we need, the contract price, let's offer it, let's add more value. Let's show even more beautiful plated dishes. Let's show them unique safety protocols so their family and friends will feel safe. That life is still worth celebrating. So we focused and we hit that. And that's what really worked. Sean: And bro, I just want to add to that. This is exactly why I tell people who ask me, Sean, how do you become more competitive in price? I keep telling people don't be more competitive in price by downsizing your price points. Add more value so that you can keep your price point or even upgrade it. Don't fight the losing game of becoming the cheaper supplier, because that is a vicious cycle. Everyone's playing that game. And sooner and later, the quality will suffer. Where are you going to get the profits? You're going to just turn the output into crappier and crappier stuff, you know, service. And the whole industry suffers. When that happens, people will stop getting your industry. They're going to stop just wanting your industry. And you're just going to run out of business. So add more value instead of making your packages cheaper. I completely agree with that. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack

On today’s episode Patrick shows Lolo BORAT for the first time! We had a great time watching all the Oscar nominated pictures this year for our Patreon-exclusive Oscars podcast (listen now by becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/ixfilmproductions!) but we also were emotionally exhausted by it. So Patrick picked a movie for our next episode that he thought would be more fun! Which Lolo MIGHT disagree about. Listen now to this episode to hear all about BORAT, what Lolo thinks of it, and how it’s related to the Oscar winning picture Nomadland!We also would like to correct ourselves – we thought we might be wrong about what films we had screening at Doc Sunback Film Festival, and we were! We are thrilled to be showing CSI 3036 and another favorite short of ours, INTERVIEW HYPE MAN! We are super excited to show these two comedies at the Doc Sunback Film Festival, and hope that if you live in the Wichita KS area you will consider attending!https://www.facebook.com/DocSunbackFilmFest/New episodes of First Timers Movie Club come out every other Friday so click SUBSCRIBE and rate us five stars to make sure you don't miss our next episode!Have a favorite (or least favorite) famous movie that you think we should've seen? Reach out to IX Film Productions on Twitter, Instagram or email and we'll add it to our list!Don’t miss our 2021 Oscars series exclusively on our Patreon: www.patreon.com/ixfilmproductionsFollow IX Film Productions for podcast updates, stand up comedy, original web shorts and comedy feature films at:Facebook: www.facebook.com/ixfilmproductionsTwitter: www.twitter.com/ixproductionsInstagram: @IXProductionsYouTube: www.youtube.com/ixfp"First Timers Movie Club" is brought to you by IX Film Productions."Making the World a Funnier Place one Film at a Time"MusicThe Curtain Rises by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5007-the-curtain-risesLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

18WT 018: So today our hosts begin by singing about alcohol of course, but quickly go into National What Day is it? Every day has a National day for what day is it they agree. So they go on to explain how today’s episode came about.Every day of the year has a bunch “National (Insert your cause here) Day’s” attached to it. Some days have over a dozen even. They did the research and decided that since there are so many of these attached to every day, they would try and keep it funny. They went through the month, complied the list, took off the politics, religion, and offensive days (yes there are those).Patrick points out that by the time this Airs, it will be May and May 1st is National Beer Pong Day. So Patrick talks about starting at the beginning, which makes Janet start to sing of course. He tells her not to quit her day job until he realizes that this is it, oops. They take another brief detour talking about Patrick’s hours. How he used to go to bed at 5am, he used to get up at 5am. Now he just schedules the weekly podcast to go out every Monday at 5am. This third option is much easier he believes.Patrick thanks the listeners and asks listeners to give him the Birthday gift of reviews. That is all he asked for this year, which was his Big 50. 5 starts on any of the podcast choices such as Apple, Podchaser, iHeart, Spotify, or on their website directly! Podchaser gave out a donation (for reviews of them during April) on their behalf. It might be continuing in May; he is not sure yet.Full Podcast Show Notes Available Here: Episode18Don't forget to get your VOTES in for our giveaway.** GIVEAWAY ENDS - Friday 5/7/2021 **Winners will be announced on Saturday 5/8/2021 @ 12 pm Arizona Time. 

My favourite story so far this week has been the Hamilton to Auckland train.. and one of the board members calling it out for the waste of time and money that it is. Patrick Reynolds, on the board of Waka Kotahi-NZTA, called the service ‘the worst of both worlds’. He pointed out it didn’t stop at obvious places it should, that it was too slow, so it really wasn’t an efficient daily return service, and that he thought it would be ‘very hard to attract much ridership’. Which is exactly what I said, except for the fact I’m not on the board of Waka Kotahi.What’s sad about this, is not that he said it, the fact he said it is awesome, because at least he’s honest, the real tragedy is that he’s now had to apologise.. and he’s been rapped over the knuckles for speaking out. Since when did telling the truth earn you a reprimand? Apparently at NZTA there is only a ‘collective’ voice, and poor old Patrick and his individuality was not singing from the appropriate collective song sheet. Apparently even if you know in your own expert opinion that a service is crap, you’ve got to lie and say it’s fabulous. What a crock. And how inauthentic does that apology now look?Sir Brian Roche, chair of Waka Kotahi, said he was ‘extremely disappointed’ in Patrick’s remarks, and he’d ‘let the board down’. That’s like your Mum and Dad telling you as a child that you’ve been a bit rude to your brother and you can go apologise, so you mumble ‘sorry’ through gritted teeth to keep your parents happy. Naughty Patrick, smack on the hand, say sorry. Are you kidding me? Even worse, Brian Roche said Patrick had ‘let himself down’. If I was Patrick I’d be letting Brian know the only people they’ve let down is themselves, by pretending this service is something it isn’t.Waka Kotahi can’t stick their fingers in their ears and go la la la not listening to anyone this train service is awesome, when it very obviously isn’t. Surely the better more honest approach is to say, look, Patrick raises some valid points we agree the service needs work, we’ll look at it. Not this pathetic public telling off and dressing down. All that’s done is highlight how ignorant Waka Kotahi is prepared to be, how arrogant they are in thinking they’re beyond reproach, and that criticism, even if it is internal, is not valid.So Patrick’s been publicly admonished, he’s had to delete his tweets, he’s no doubt has had a corporate refresher course on social media protocols, and he’s had to issue a grovelling apology. And what are we left with? A phenomenally expensive train service, which Waka Kotahi threw 80 million bucks at, which is too slow, too ineffective, and as Patrick pointed out, ‘blows trough stations it should serve.’ But god forbid they fix it. Better just to give Patrick a good telling off and pretend it never happened, nothing to see here.If NZTA truly wants to serve the public, it could start by not gagging its own people when they try to speak the truth.

https://tribus.captivate.fm/ (Enjoying Brokerage Insider? Please Subscribe Using Your Favorite Podcast Player.) We sit down with Patrick Pichette, VP with Realtor.ca about the offerings that CREA (the Canadian Real Estate Association) offers it's members for free. This includes hundreds of thousands of free leads on their own listings with the #1 real estate website in Canada. TRANSCRIPTION Eric Stegemann (https://www.temi.com/editor/t/Sd4GKSKpfV7tfllciu2hqQmPZ9NCayJH7bRC3QSw3X2LSdIosSOsZ9PSph08tSKmG3-inR5R5DkjXjzGk7G-vqRYpVU?loadFrom=SharedLink&ts=2.52 (00:02)): Hi everybody. And welcome to Brokerage Insider, the podcast where we interview the leaders in real estate and technology. And today I am so pleased to be joined by https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickpichette/ (Patrick Pichette). He's the vice president https://Realtor.ca (Realtor.ca) focusing on strategic business and innovation. So Patrick, thanks so much for joining me here from up North today. Patrick Pichette (https://www.temi.com/editor/t/Sd4GKSKpfV7tfllciu2hqQmPZ9NCayJH7bRC3QSw3X2LSdIosSOsZ9PSph08tSKmG3-inR5R5DkjXjzGk7G-vqRYpVU?loadFrom=SharedLink&ts=25.73 (00:25)): Hey Eric, my pleasure, nice to reconnect. Eric Stegemann (https://www.temi.com/editor/t/Sd4GKSKpfV7tfllciu2hqQmPZ9NCayJH7bRC3QSw3X2LSdIosSOsZ9PSph08tSKmG3-inR5R5DkjXjzGk7G-vqRYpVU?loadFrom=SharedLink&ts=28.13 (00:28)): Yes, for sure. For sure, Now I've known Patrick a while from in being involved in the https://tribus.com/brokerage-insider/clear-cooperation-rule-and-mls-standards-for-brokerages-with-reso/ (real estate standards organization) and it Realtor.ca and the team up there in Canada, they've been big backers of RESO. And so I met him through that and I got to know a little bit how they do things differently up in Canada. And if you're a regular listener of this podcast, you'll know that we've tried to interview a lot of international folks and understand what they're doing differently and what's working in other countries versus what we're doing here in the United States, particularly when it comes to during the time of the virus. So, you know, Patrick, why don't we just start and talk a little bit about Realtor.ca and how it came about and how CREA, the Canadian real estate association kind of set out to build this national website for Canada. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that? Patrick Pichette (https://www.temi.com/editor/t/Sd4GKSKpfV7tfllciu2hqQmPZ9NCayJH7bRC3QSw3X2LSdIosSOsZ9PSph08tSKmG3-inR5R5DkjXjzGk7G-vqRYpVU?loadFrom=SharedLink&ts=85.13 (01:25)): Yeah, thanks. That's a great place to start Eric. And actually the whole thing started before my time. So I joined https://www.crea.ca/ (CREA) in 2012 and the site was launched back in, I believe, 1995 under the URL mls.ca. And it was later rebranded Realtor.ca in 2008. And the thought back then from the leadership at the local level through the, the local boards and at the national level you know, they, they made the wise decision to launch a national website where consumers could access listing information from I'm a less systems across the country. So regardless of which broker is represented the listing or which franchisor was doing a promotion, Canadians got a single source to see everything that was available on the market. So today Realtor.ca is still owned and operated by CREA, the Canadian real estate association. Patrick Pichette (https://www.temi.com/editor/t/Sd4GKSKpfV7tfllciu2hqQmPZ9NCayJH7bRC3QSw3X2LSdIosSOsZ9PSph08tSKmG3-inR5R5DkjXjzGk7G-vqRYpVU?loadFrom=SharedLink&ts=150.71 (02:30)): And it's done in collaboration with the 80 different local real estate boards across the country. So in other words, every single MLS system in Canada publishes their active listings to Realtor.ca and just you know, a couple of notable things. First of all, the site is completely funded through member do so there are no additional fees. Members pay CREA $310 a year and that includes a...

In episode three of the new podcast, Path to Well-Being in Law, co-hosts Chris Newbold and Bree Buchanan check in with lawyer well-being pioneer Patrick Krill.  Recognized globally as a leading authority on addiction, mental health, and well-being in the legal profession, Patrick is an attorney and a licensed, board-certified alcohol and drug counselor.  He serves as a trusted advisor to large law firms and corporate legal departments throughout North America and Europe, educating them about and helping them navigate addiction, mental health, and well-being issues on a daily basis. Patrick's groundbreaking work in the area of attorney behavioral health includes: initiating and serving as lead author of the first and only national study on the prevalence of attorney addiction and mental health problems, a joint undertaking of the American Bar Association Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation; creating the framework for the ABA Well-Being Pledge, an innovative campaign to improve the health and well-being of lawyers that was launched in September, 2018; partnering with American Lawyer Media to conduct the first-ever survey of AmLaw 200 firm leaders regarding their beliefs and attitudes related to addiction and mental health problems in the legal industry. Transcript:CHRIS NEWBOLD:                     Welcome to the Path to Lawyer Well-Being Podcast, where we talk to cool people doing awesome work in the lawyer well-being space. My name is Chris Newbold and I'm joined by my cohost, Bree Buchanan.BREE BUCHANAN:                     Hi, everybody.CHRIS:                    We are again, super excited about the opportunity to have one of the pioneers in the lawyer well-being space join us today as our guest, Patrick Krill. Patrick is somebody who really has been influential in his work on the science side to the lay the foundation for what has become a vibrant movement and a discussion in the legal profession about the current state of lawyer well-being. So let me kick it to Brie to introduce Patrick and get us going on our question.BREE:Thanks, Chris. Yeah, I think we really are so honored to have Patrick here today. I have a little disclosure. Patrick and I work together, he's my boss with Krill Strategies, but everything I say, none of this I'm saying to just flatter you, Patrick. All of it is absolutely true.PATRICK KRILL:                Oh, great.BREE:Absolutely, but some of the words that come to my mind. Chris has already tapped on it, pioneer. A pioneer in the research around substance abuse and mental health issues in the legal profession because it was Patrick's fabulous research that was published in 2016 that really kicked all of this off. We're going to talk about that research a little bit and also talk about what he's been doing since then, in regards to updating and expanding upon that research.He's also what I think of as a true thought leader and sometimes I tease him of being our guru around these issues in the legal profession because he spends all of his time reading, researching, talking to others. Really is, truly is a thought leader on this. He's authored over 70 articles, including [inaudible 00:02:13], CNN, been in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and on NPR. So we really are very lucky to have Patrick today.So Patrick, thanks for being here.PATRICK:Thank you, Bree, and thank you, Chris. It's a pleasure to be with you both.BREE:So I'm going to start off with a question that we're really trying to ask everybody that comes on the podcast, for us to get an idea a little bit about the person themselves. So what brought you to the lawyer well-being movement? So what in your life really drives your passion for this work?PATRICK:Yeah, so it's a great question and I think to really answer that meaningfully, I have to go back to before my work in the lawyer well-being space, and to really talk a little bit about my career trajectory generally.I was an attorney, I was someone who went to law school, and then as I was getting ready to wrap up law school, made the decision to go for a further degree to get an LOM in international law. I approached the legal profession with a lot of enthusiasm and with a lot of plans about the type of law that I wanted to practice. Then what I was met with was a reality that was very discordant with what I had expected. I'm a first generation lawyer in my family, I didn't have a lot of experience with or exposure to what being a lawyer actually meant. So I had all these preconceptions.Then I got into the field and while it was fine, it was pretty clear to me right off the bat that once I got out of the academic, once I got out of the classroom setting and stopped studying about law and had to do the work, it really wasn't a good fit for me. I didn't particularly enjoy it. The idea of billing my time in six minute increments really was, I just couldn't do it. It was [crosstalk 00:04:11] water, in terms of my personality, but none the less, I did practice law for a number of years and I worked in a number of different roles. Started coming to the realization that this wasn't longterm sustainable for me. It didn't get my out of bed in the morning. Right?BREE:Right.PATRICK:           A question we always ask people is, what gets you out of bed in the morning? It wasn't being an attorney, despite my best intentions, really. I'm fascinated by the law and I still think about and read about the law all the time, but the mechanics of practicing law weren't for me.I also had my own experience overcoming addiction really early out of the gate. In the first couple of years of the legal profession, my practice I should say. So I had exposure to and experience with what it takes to overcome a behavioral health problem. That experience and that exposure to that world introduced me to this idea of counseling. So I knew what a mental health counselor was, I knew what an addiction counselor was.So when it came time for me to reevaluate and think, do I want to do this longterm? I knew that there was a field that seemed a little bit more interesting to me, it seemed a little bit more aligned with my personality and intrinsically who I am. So I went back to school to become an addiction counselor. That ultimately translated into my work with lawyers specifically. I became the director a treatment program for lawyers, judges, and law students at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. So it's a long rambling answer but I think you have to understand the bigger picture view-BREE:Absolutely, yeah.PATRICK:... how I even got into the mental health space, let alone the lawyer specific mental health space.BREE:Right, well thanks for sharing that. I mean there typically is a personal story that brings us to this work. I think that what you just said, Patrick, about really not having the best vocational fit once you get into it and start seeing what it's like day to day. I hear that as a common refrain from lawyers who are really struggling. So yeah, thanks.Listen, I want to get you to share a little bit about the lawyer study that was done, now four years ago, that you did. I think you started while you were still director of the legal professionals program at Hazelden. That has proved to be the basis for really, the lawyer well-being movement. So I'm wondering, what do you think is the most important information that came out of that study now that you can look back over the past four years?PATRICK:It's hard to say. I have a hard time identifying one thing or even two things as being the most important takeaways from that study. I think the most important result, excuse me, result of that study has been its overall impact to the extent to which it raised awareness about the nature and the scope of the challenges we face. It provided much needed data to back what a lot of us who were working in the lawyer mental health space in a clinical or other capacity knew. We knew lawyers were unwell and were struggling disproportionately to other populations, but we didn't really have good data to back up our argument. So this study provided that and it really opened the door to a much needed and overdue conversation around mental health and well-being in the legal profession. So I think it was really more the impact than any one precise piece of the study.I will say, one of the things that surprised me the most was that it was younger lawyers who were the most depressed and struggling with or exhibiting the most signs of problem drinking. The drinking piece you can get, right?BREE:Mm-hmm (affirmative).PATRICK:Think about [crosstalk 00:08:11], people drink excessively, and it doesn't have as much of an impact on them. But we were surprised about the mental health piece as well. Simply because that wasn't the profile who was showing up in treatment programs or going to the Lawyers Assistance Program or who was getting disbarred because of their mental health or substance use problem. So we went into that research with a preconceived notion of who the most at-risk population was.CHRIS:                  Patrick, how much of that was, do you think, driven by the expectations gap between... it's the same type of expectations gap that you had, which was, this is what I thought the law was going to be like, this is what the law was actually like. How that's affecting, I think, the most recent generation of graduates coming out of law school.PATRICK:Yeah, it's such a great point, Chris. I think that's a profound problem. I think you have a lot of people coming out of law school and finding themselves adrift in a profession that doesn't potentially resonate with them. That it is more overwhelming than they had anticipated, assuming they're able to get a job. Right?CHRIS:                  Yeah.PATRICK:          Get a job that meets their needs and provides some opportunity, but then they get into it and they say, "Wow, this is not what I signed up for," or, and this is, I think, I'm putting the spotlight a little bit on the law school experience. It's not what they were prepared for. So there are these mismatched expectations and what that can result in, I think you're right. I mean, I think what you're getting at is, does that play into the high levels of distress among young lawyers? How could it not? I mean, how could it not? If I had done a survey 20 years ago when I was coming into the professional, I would've been scoring off the chart on all of those assessments.CHRIS:Yeah, I mean you can see a scenario where you go down a path you feel like you're too far down that path, that it's probably more rare for someone to make a pivot like you did to say, "This isn't for me, I'm going to go and pursue my studies in an area that then interconnects the behavioral health side with the law side." We know how much student debt and other factors play into the-PATRICK:                No doubt.CHRIS:[crosstalk 00:10:28] of... how do I get out of this? Then that spirals into a set of conditions that just generally move toward more unhealthy-ness for that particular community.PATRICK:Yup, I agree. I'm sure Bree has some thoughts about that as well with her background in vocational discernment. How do we bridge that gap? How do we make some progress there, because we need to. I don't know if it's modifying law school curricula or just more truth in advertising around what the legal profession is. I don't know.BREE:It makes me think about Larry Krieger's research, what makes lawyers happy. The idea of even thinking about, it's the extrinsic things, the power, the prestige, et cetera, that draws us to the practice of law but what we know now that what makes us happy are more internal factors of meaning. That's just not made known to people who are contemplating going to law school or people that are there. It's something you have to trip over and fall down to figure out. Yeah, yeah.CHRIS:Patrick, I think it's fair to say that the lawyer well-being movement likely doesn't get ignited without the study itself because we are ultimately an evidentiary based profession. We needed the data, I think, to ultimately launch the discussion. Talk to us about that notion of how important that was to kick start the national discussion. Obviously, followed by the report subsequent to that, but how important was to lay the foundation.PATRICK:           I think it was incredibly important. I think you're right, we wouldn't be where we are with this movement had we not had that predicate of the data, and had that not been something that caught the profession's attention.In addition to the data and the value of that itself, it was also a multi jurisdictional study. So we had 16, 17, 18 different bar associations from around the country participating in this survey. Participating in this research, recognizing the value. So you saw some seeds of the interest being planted there where you had all these [inaudible 00:12:52] stakeholders, but you also had... this goes back to my overarching strategy when I was conceptualizing this study, you had the ABA and Hazelden Betty Ford, two large stakeholders with a lot of credibility in their respective spheres, coming together to conduct this research. I think that was an important piece of the puzzle. This wasn't something that could just be ignored. You have all these bar associations from around the country participating, you have the ABA, you have Hazelden Betty Ford, putting their names behind this project. I think that allowed it to get the attention that it did, and to really open the door for this conversation.Something I'd be really interested in hearing both of your perspectives on is looking back on it. I have a sense that in a way we were almost pushing on an open door. What I mean by that is, there was an appetite to have this discussion. People knew that there was a problem but it was under the surface and there wasn't an easy way to bring this up or there weren't a lot of pathways into this conversation, but then once you got that ball rolling, people were basically acknowledging, yeah, we've got issues here. Finally, can we talk about this? At least that's my perspective looking back over the last five years.BREE:Yeah, and I think that societally outside of law, more and more people were talking about these issues. So law, a conservative industry, comes up last, but then you have younger people who are coming in and onboarding into the legal profession and there's just not the stigma around these issues about depression, anxiety, or even a substance abuse problem, that there used to be. So you're starting to get a shift, and I think once we got that data, it opened up the door which as you're saying was already open.Then the other thing that I found going around the country talking, inevitably, people who have been practicing law even for just a little bit, know someone who has taken his or her own life. Once that has crossed your path, it really shapes you. It's not something that you forget about. We always want to know, well, what could've been done differently? So I think that this is a manifestation of that too.PATRICK:Yeah, and at the risk of... I don't want to dominate the conversation but I do want to say something to both of you, share something with you that hasn't really received a lot of discussion because it wasn't published. With that study where we had 15,000 responses, there was the opportunity for people to submit comments at the end. There was basically like, do you have comments? We compiled all of those and I have binder of them sitting on my bookshelf. We weren't able to publish them, the format didn't lend itself to that but we had thousands and thousands of comments, overwhelmingly they reflected a theme of, this is a huge problem in the profession. We're glad you're conducting this research. Maybe that's where I began to develop this notion that people want to have this conversation, people recognize that people around them are not well. That people around them are struggling, and they feel like they're in a profession that's tone deaf to it. But overwhelmingly, that's what the comments reflected. People saying this is a big deal.BREE:Wow.PATRICK:This is a needed endeavor.BREE:Yeah, so I know that that research was so important but there were other questions that you wanted to ask. So could you tell us a little bit about the most current research you're involved in?PATRICK:Yeah, I'm actually really excited about this. Along with a colleague at the University of Minnesota Medical School, I designed a new survey that we administered to lawyers in California and the DC bar. So we partnered with the California Lawyers Association and the DC Bar to conduct new research, bi-coastal research. I had a couple of aims for this project. One, we did want it to be a random sample, so it would meet that gold standard for research. The 2016 study, while I feel very certain that those numbers were represented of what was happening in the profession, it wasn't a truly random sample. So it didn't meet that gold standard for data. So I did want to have a random sample, but I also wanted to explore the why. Not just prevalence, not how many lawyers are meeting criteria for depression or a substance abuse disorder, but why. To ask questions that could get at lawyer motivation, lawyer personality. Then look at those responses in relationship to their mental health.So we were originally supposed to launch that research project right around the time, and I mean what a year we're all in. So right around the time when the pandemic was hitting. The survey was supposed to go out, I think, the same week that California announced stay at home orders. So obviously the California Lawyers Association said, "We need to pause," and we agreed with that. What that gave us the opportunity to do was to revamp the survey and to modify some questions to actually measure the impact of COVID-19 and quarantines and all of that on lawyer mental health. It was ultimately disseminated, we finished data collection about a month ago and we're analyzing the data, getting ready to write up the manuscript.Basically what I can tell you, I can't talk about the data in any precise way at this point prior to publication, but what I can tell you is that the problems are real, there was nothing anomalous about that 2016 study. In some respects, they appear to be getting worse. Also, the impact of COVID-19 has been material. It's been real, I mean, people are feeling this as it relates to their mental health and their substance use. Beyond that though, we're going to have some really interesting insights to share about the why piece. Why are lawyers so likely to experience depression, for example.So I'm really excited about it, really grateful to the DC Bar and California Lawyers Association. They helped us get a big data set, we had really robust participation and a random sample. So it'll be useful, useful data for the profession.BREE:Do you have a sense of when it might be published?PATRICK:Yeah, well that's that million dollar question. Our goal is to have it submitted to a journal by the end of September. Then it's that sort of, out of your hands. It's journal's own publication schedule. Best case scenario it'll be published in December, but that could easily go into January of next year, February. I mean, just given all of the delays that everything seems to be experiencing and all the uncertainty, but we're moving pretty expeditiously. We're moving about as quickly as you can with a study of this size and nature.CHRIS:Patrick, how much do you think that the research side of well-being is important to the discussion, because we really don't have a lot of good... I mean we have research, we have some groundbreaking studies. We had yours, we had the law student one, we have your followup here, but it still seems like there's a lack of emphasis on the research side as we think about the well-being movement. I'd just love for your insights into, what's the next generation of research as you think on the horizon?PATRICK:Yeah, I think personally, research is a very important piece of the puzzle. That's not just because I'm involved in it, it's because you have to understand the dimensions of the challenges that you're trying to address. You can't just be spit balling about what's going on.We're also a profession that's trained weigh and evaluate evidence. Lawyers are prone to scrutinize things and want to know, is that backed by data? Is that science driven? So I think if you want to persuade people that there needs to be a change you have to back up your argument, in addition to people like us being able to understand the nature of the challenges. So I think it's vitally important.In terms of next generation or ongoing, I think further exploration of what causes the problems, which is probably going to be further exploration of the lawyer personality, beyond really important work like Krieger and Sheldon's work and other research that exists. We need to understand that a little bit better. I think we also really need to get at the disconnect that we started by talking about. That expectation gap or the mismatched expectations between what people think they're getting with a career in the law, and what they end up getting because that's got to be a big piece of the equation as to why many people find themselves, to put is charitably, less than satisfied.CHRIS:Yeah, and if we have a profession of folks who are less than satisfied, that doesn't bode well to the profession generally.PATRICK:No, right, exactly.CHRIS:Let's pivot real quickly before we take a break. I'd love to hear your perspective. Each one of us comes at this from a different angle, the well-being. Bree obviously originating from the lawyer assistance programming side. I spend a lot of time thinking about small firms and solo practitioners and preventing malpractice claims. A lot of your focus professionally has been on big law. More than anybody else, you probably have your finger on the pulse of how big law is adapting to the new emphasis on well-being. I'd just love to hear your perspectives one what you're seeing out there. Do you think big law is paying attention, because oftentimes I think big law, if they embrace it it has a trickle down effect to the totality of the profession. So I'd love to hear your perspective on big law and the interconnectedness to well-being.PATRICK:Yeah, so it's an important area of discussion. I think you're right that often, big law does have the ability to set the pace. They're almost like the pace card for the profession, who have an outsize influence on the profession despite the fact that they employ a minority of practicing lawyers.I would say if you compare where we were four years ago, big law has made a lot of progress. It started with this overdue recognition and acknowledgement that this is a real problem. We have an issue that we need to get our arms around. Five years ago, there was profound and widespread institutional denial of the scope of the problem. Maybe if it wasn't denied, it was simply a lack of awareness. You can characterize it however you want, but the reality is that these issues were not being dealt with in a deliberate way. They weren't even really being acknowledge, despite the fact that it tends to be a pressure cooker environment. It tends to be one of the most intense professional environments out there.Now what you have is widespread acknowledgement that these problems are real. Widespread acknowledgement that their competitors are taking steps to try and [inaudible 00:24:32] the problems or at least mitigate the problems. So there's momentum, there's real momentum that has developed.All of that said, there's a fundamental tension between the business model of big law, which again, tends to be really high expectations, a pressure cooker environment, a lot of billable requirements and other demands. There's a tension between that model and being able to take care of yourself the way that you might want to, and having any sense of balance in your life. So I think to try and resolve that tension is going to continue to necessitate incremental efforts that are sustained over time. It's not going to be an overnight fix. It's going to take a long time.That said, many firms are making a good faith effort. They're trying, they're trying to bridge that gap incrementally where they can. One of the problems with incremental progress, especially in an environment where so many people are not satisfied, is that it takes patience. So you have some people in those environments or some people, external to big law, commenting on big law saying, "This is all window dressing. All of these changes that they're making don't really get at the heart of the matter." But the reality is you have to start somewhere and you have to start taking steps. As long as those steps, like I said, are sustained and they continue to move in the right direction over time. I think the model can be adjusted to the point where people experience greater levels of personal well-being. To some degree, that's already happening.BREE:Yeah, and now that all three of us are being coauthors of a task force report, we can remember all the thought that went into how we make a good argument to the legal profession for this culture change. There was the financial, it's good for business. It relates to our ethical obligations. Then the humanitarian, it's the right thing to do. Which of those three do you think are motivating the firms and the people in the firms that you're dealing with? Are those [arguments 00:27:01] resonating?PATRICK:Honestly, maybe I just have the good fortune of working with some really amazing firms, but my experience has been, all three resonate. I mean, you tend to have really good people leading these organizations. It's not like they're unfeeling individuals but they have to operate within the bounds of their business model. All three points resonate.The one that is probably driving the progress the most is the financial but it's not necessarily financial the way I think that we were contemplating it in the task force where good mental health translates into less expenditure and better performance and all of that. It's financial in the sense of wanting to present a firm culture that attracts and retains the best lawyers. So it's almost a hybrid rationale, it's certain that if you boil that down, firms want to attract and retain the best talent so that they ultimately perform better financially. But it's not the precise calculation of how many specific dollars they're going to save by having fewer depressed lawyers. If that makes sense?BREE:Yeah, you bet.PATRICK:Does that make sense the way I'm explaining that?BREE:Yeah, and one thing that I hear that really resonates when I speak is the issue around the recruitment and retention. That's a big deal, and getting back to talking about those younger lawyers that we were talking about at the very beginning. They expect that they're going to work for somebody who has an interest in them personally, that cares about them as a human being. That's just what's out there and what they're dealing with, with the new folks. So yeah.CHRIS:Yeah, certainly feels like the talent acquisition side where these firms are competing for the best and brightest talent coming out of the law schools, that many of those students are coming in with a different mindset from a work life balance. That has the potential to be a real game changer, it probably has you more optimistic thinking ahead to the future, in terms of the generational change that will ultimately evolve in big law.PATRICK:      Yeah, absolutely. I do think that the younger generation of attorneys, assuming that their priorities aren't co-opted by the machines, if you will. Assuming that they maintain that level of desire to have a different work life experience. As long as they continue to prioritize well-being, then yes, I think that they can be a driver of real transformational change and sustained change in the profession. As long as they don't get co-opted or swept away by the current that exists. I don't see any evidence that they will, I'm just offering that as one potential caveat. Does the prevailing system ultimately prevail?CHRIS:Yeah, yeah. Well hey, let's take a quick break. Patrick, this has been a fascinating conversation. I love the again, your thought leadership in this space. Your experience, your ability to see the macro trends, I think is really critical as we think about the well-being movement on the horizon. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back.—Your law firm is worth protecting and so is your time. ALPS has the quickest online application for legal malpractice insurance out there. Apply, see rates, and buy coverage, all in about 20 minutes. Being a lawyer is hard, our new online app is easy. Apply now at applyonline.alpsnet.com.—BREE:So, Patrick, continuing along the line of what is happening in big law around this whole lawyer well-being movement. There is a pledge, it's the well-being pledge for legal employers. That is being conducted by the American Bar Association, specifically, the Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs, but you really were the instigator of that. So can you talk a little bit about why you thought that was so important and how that project's going right now?PATRICK: Yeah, so I'd be happy to. I'm really, really gratified with how the pledge has turned out, especially given how it began. What I mean by that is, I first proposed the idea of a pledge campaign to ask legal lawyers to publicly state a commitment to various principles around well-being, back in, I want to say 2015 prior to the study. At the time I proposed that and had this idea, the profession was in a different place. This conversation wasn't really happening or resonating in the profession. So that idea gained no traction.So when I had the opportunity to present it again in 2018 under the [inaudible 00:32:24] of the ABA, Working Group to Advance Lawyer Well-Being, the group liked it and we ran with it and we launched it in September of 2018. Starting with 12 law firm, and those were basically firms that I or others in the working group had a relationship with. We approached them and said, "Would you like to put your name behind this campaign and help us generate momentum and interest to hopefully change the culture of the profession?" So we started with 12, I would say very courageous law firms. We're now up to close to 200 organizations.BREE:That's right.PATRICK: [crosstalk 00:33:00] pledge, which is really, really remarkable. We still have a lot of room to grow and a lot of stakeholders that we want to get on board, but it has already in my view, amounted to a vehicle for cultural change. That was the idea from the beginning. We need a vehicle for cultural change, something that provides concrete, tangible guidance about steps that organizations can take to reduce the impact and prevalence of mental health and substance abuse problems. I really couldn't be more pleased by how well it's going.I'll say it's simply signing a pledge and saying we're going to do X, Y, and Z, in it of itself is meaningless unless the organization follows through. It's not hard to imagine why some organizations may want to sign on just for PR reasons or peer pressure, whatever. But we just finished evaluating, we circulated commitment forms, recommitment forms, after organizations had been signatories for a year. We're just finishing evaluating all of those responses and the overwhelming majority of signatories are really taking meaningful steps. I mean-BREE:That's great news.PATRICK: [crosstalk 00:34:16] they're trying to live up to that commitment that they made.BREE:Yeah, wonderful. Can you talk just for a minute, because my thought is maybe some people who are listening who may be interested in getting involved in that pledge. So it's for legal employers, it's not just big law. Right?PATRICK: Yes, exactly. So we are-BREE:Bar associations?PATRICK: We have an overwhelming number of big law firms who have signed on but Bar associations, law school, corporate legal departments, sector legal employers. A large public defender's office, a state attorney's office, the Department of Justice. If anyone from the DOJ is listening, we want you to take the pledge. There are lots of other stakeholders that it would be great to get on board because this is about changing the culture of the profession, not the culture of big law firms.BREE:Right, right. So also, Chris, what do you think about the pledge as being someone who works in day to day in risk management for law firms? Do you see it as a helpful tool?CHRIS:Yeah, I think again, what we're trying to do is get the discussion going amongst partners in any size of a firm or in any type of a legal employer environment. So the more that those conversations are being had, I think that the more that you're seeing people see... I know from our perspective, we believe that happier, healthier lawyers ultimately lead to fewer claims. So the pledge, I think, has been really a catalyst for... What I would love to see is again, 200 signatories to become 1,000 signatories, to become 2,000 signatories because I think we continue to want to be able to see this filtered down if big law is the pace setter, how do we continue to see small law, solo practitioners, and others come into it? Then also, a geographic representation.I know one of my aspirations is to have pledge signers in every state in the country. So it is really a catalyst for the national discussion, the national movement, and people saying, "I'm in." We need people to say, "I'm in," because I think that that is going to be critical to the success of our ultimate goal, which is the culture shift.PATRICK: I think that's right. When we get to that point of having a really wide base of buy in and a wide base of participation, in for example, the pledge. I mean that's when you start to see this idea of well-being really associated with the idea of being a lawyer. It becomes part of the notion of what a career in the legal profession involves. Part of that role, ideally one day be a focus on taking care of yourself.CHRIS:Yeah, let's shift here quickly. I know again, we'd be remiss to not talk for a few minutes with you, Patrick, about the impacts of the pandemic. You referenced it a little bit in some of your current research. Just hear your thoughts on the effect of the pandemic on lawyers, to the legal community, substance abuse, mental health. We're seeing it amongst our [inaudible 00:37:35]. It's a tough time out there.BREE:Yeah.PATRICK: Yeah, it's an extraordinarily tough time, I think for anyone in society. Different people have been experiencing the events of 2020 differently. That's one thing that I think is important to recognize, that although we tend to say we're all in this together. That's true, but also really not true. We're in the same storm but we're not all on the same boat. That's really evident in some work environments, where you might have some people who this has amounted to a significant inconvenience for them. Maybe they're riding it out from their beach house or whatever. Then you have other people who are in a 700 square foot apartment and they've been traumatized by what's been going on over the course of the last four to five months. So that experience has not been universal.All of that said, I'm hearing on a daily basis at this point from people, from organization, from firms who are saying, "Our people are struggling." I've had four or five emails, today's a Wednesday, I've had four or five emails sent Monday on that point saying, "Can we talk? We need to talk to you about what's going on. Some of the trends we're seeing." So it's real and it's important to recognize, going back to the data that we were all discussing earlier, the legal profession was starting off on shakier ground, as it relates to our mental health and substance abuse risk. We already had higher levels of those problems. Now the pandemic has come along, and not only the pandemic. The stay at home orders, the economic uncertainty, the racial tension that's been [inaudible 00:39:25] the country. I mean, there's a lot happening in 2020 that has really pushed some people to the brink or in some cases unfortunately, over the brink.BREE:What are you telling these folks when they call? To the extent that you can share that. What is some general advice?PATRICK:            Well, almost always these conversations involve letting them know that what they're experiencing internally in their organization is not anomalous. So helping them understand the dimensions of what's happening throughout the country and around the world. Normalizing that experience, but also I think it's really important for organizations to be mindful of how they're communicating with their people around this and how they're trying to make accommodations and adjustments to culture and expectations where possible. If I were to call them several months ago, I think back in March, about this phenomenon essentially known as emotional dissonance, which is the disparity between how we feel inside and how we feel we have to present in order to conform with workplace expectations or other expectations of us. Right now for many people, that level of emotional dissonance is quite high because they are a mess inside and they're really struggling to hold it together or they're completely burnt out and they're completely frazzled, but they're a lawyer. There's a very real set expectation for how they present themselves and how they comport themselves.So I think it's important for organizations and employers to recognize that and to try to move the needle a little bit and show some flexibility around those expectations because the higher that level of emotional dissonance, the greater the risk of burn out, unwanted turnover, all sorts of problematic outcomes.CHRIS:Patrick, let's spend our last couple minutes talking about just your motivation. You are somebody again, first generation lawyer. In many respects, you're both nudging and blowing us, opening up new doors in a national discussion. I've called you at times the fire alarm puller, which means that you're shining the light on some of the problems of our profession, which I know that it's motivated by a desire to drive it in the right direction and to return it to a level of professional satisfaction that we can all be proud of and excited about.I'm just curious on, what's it like to be in your role, to be talking to lawyers about the challenges and also I know that you are amongst, in our community, one of the primary solution drivers. You're always thinking about, how do we move it forward? So as we think about this culture shift, I'd just love your perspective on both raising the alarm on one side, but yet putting the fire out and looking for a bluer sky, a better horizon in the future.PATRICK:          Yeah, well they're both, I think, equally important. I think the fire alarm has been raised at this point. That's a great question, Chris. Thank you, I should say, for asking that because I think it really gets it to equally important things. We needed to raise awareness, we needed to get this conversation going. I think on an ongoing basis we will need to keep that level of buy-in, and that level of awareness raised. So that's one of the reasons why I'm conducting new research. We can't rely on research from 2016 in perpetuity. We need current data to continually drive the conversation. But beyond that, it's only so much utility if you raise awareness, and then don't have any next steps outlined. Talk about, how do we get to a better place? It's a problem and it's a solution. Now we've identified the problem and we all have to be focused on developing good solutions.I love problem solving, not in the math sense, I'm terrible at math but just in a conceptual sense. It's always what I've enjoyed is trying to figure out problems and solutions. So that piece does really motivate me and I enjoy that. I like wrestling with concepts and theories and testing different propositions and figuring out what might work. So that's a really important piece.I've got to say, I appreciate you saying that I'm driving some efforts here, but this is a team effort. Both of you and all of our other wonderful colleagues on the national task force and other people around the profession who are contributing to this cause, we're all rowing in the same direction and contributing where we can to turn the ship. I don't know how many different lame metaphors I've used but it's certainly not just me. We really are doing this together. But I'm grateful, I experience a lot of gratitude for the opportunities that I've had in my life to allow me to be doing this work. Most days it's good to get out of bed and it's good to get up and do what I have to do that day.CHRIS:If the goal is the culture shift, I am curious on what your greatest fear is as we look ahead.PATRICK:  [inaudible 00:45:05] you stumped me, because I don't know what this says about my personality but I don't spend a lot of time thinking about that. I don't know that I have one.BREE:                   I know that with the task force when we first started our greatest fear is that nobody would pay attention or we'd write this report and it would sit on a bookshelf.CHRIS:Yeah.BREE:So that's not happening.CHRIS:That's not happening. My greatest fear is always, I've been around the legal profession for 20 years now and you see issues rise to the level of national discussion, and oftentimes then peter out. I think we collectively, I think we're both trying to build the infrastructure and the sustainability of the movement and the architecture of the movement so that it continues to be front and center, a front burner issue. I feel like we've done a pretty good job thus far but boy, once we let our guard down we could lose the momentum and we can lose momentum.PATRICK: Well, I couldn't agree more fully. I have no intention of letting that happen for my part. That would be fully antithetical to who I am at my core. So I'm going to keep pushing this as long and as hard as I can. Knowing that there are so many other people invested in this process, I think will probably overcome some of the what may have been long odds at the beginning, about whether you can really achieve a cultural change in the legal profession. I think we're getting there and we will ultimately get there.BREE:Patrick, you truly are making the profession a better one. So, thank you.PATRICK: Well, that's kind, Bree. Thank you.CHRIS:Yeah, it's been awesome. Again, we talk about awesome people doing great things. You are definitely in that camp and Patrick, we thank you so much for being on the podcast and being one of our first guests.PATRICK:                 That was great. Really good to chat with you both. I hope this podcast is just a tremendous success, as I'm sure it will be.CHRIS:Awesome. Well, everyone, be well out there. We'll be coming back with a podcast in a couple weeks. Thank you.BREE:Thanks, bye, everybody.

I nearly screamed at my lawyer…  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Years ago, I was finishing up a real estate deal when my lawyer told me that I had to notarize a document. No signature, no deal.  But that signature had to be from a notary, someone that’s earned the authority of the state to approve that I actually was who I said I was. It’s an archaic process but it’s necessary to fight off fraud. The problem was that I travel. A lot. I was on the move and it couldn’t wait until I was back home.  So I had to hunt down an approved notary in a city I barely knew, figure out when he was free, and meet him at a convenience store. Just to prove that my ID was actually mine. I remember thinking, “Surely someone can streamline this process…” Well, someone has. Patrick Kinsel is the founder and CEO of Notarize, the first approved digital notary service.  Instead of shady convenience store appointments, Notarize can connect you with an official notary straight from your laptop in an average of 30 seconds. The story of Notarize is an amazing journey, and Patrick shared it all with me on the latest episode of Escape Velocity right here. Want a lesson is perseverance? Notarize’s biggest problem… was that their technology wasn’t legal to begin with. So Patrick’s company raised $42 million in capital, and spent over $10 million of that just to lobby for laws to change so that digital notarization could exist. Imagine starting a SaaS that literally needed new laws before it was legal… It’s a great interview, and you’ll hear from Patrick about: - How they managed to change 22 state laws - Buying domain names for $42k - Building a product roadmap in reverse - How Notarize solved the new problems they were creating - Rewriting history books In Patrick’s own words, they wanted to be the first company that made it possible for you to buy a house on the internet. And that’s exactly what they’ve done. Stop by the episode, hear the story for yourself, and drop me a comment to let me know what amazed you the most. -- Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter @danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome. + Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell + Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell + Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

It's episode 666 on Rockin' the Suburbs. So Patrick invites a mischievous guest to the basement. Subscribe to Rockin' the Suburbs on Apple Podcasts/iTunes or other podcast platforms, including audioBoom, Spotify, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher and TuneIn. Or listen at SuburbsPod.com (http://suburbspod.com/) . Please rate/review the show on Apple Podcasts/iTunes and share it with your friends. Become a Rockin' the Suburbs patron - support the show and get bonus content - at Patreon.com/suburbspod (http://patreon.com/suburbspod) Visit our website at SuburbsPod.com (http://suburbspod.com/) Email Jim & Patrick at rock@suburbspod.com Follow us on the Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @suburbspod If you're glad or sad or high, call the Suburban Party Line — 612-440-1984. Theme music by Quartjar. Visit quartjar42.com (http://quartjar42.com/) (c) 2019, Artie S. Industries LLC

Self-proclaimed scooter experts, Cody Thornton (Digital First AE) and Pat Forquer (Enterprise AE), give myself and Spencer Burke (VP of Growth) their views on the proliferation of e-scooters in major cities, the safety risks involved, and the competitive landscape for micro-mobility talent.       TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:18] PJ: Hello again. Welcome back to Braze for Impact, your mar-tech industry discuss digest. I'm thrilled today to have with me Spencer Burke, VP of growth. Spence, how we doing?   [0:00:28] Spencer Burke: Doing Great, thanks PJ.   [0:00:30] PJ: Also, Patrick Forquer from our sales org here in the east. Pat?   [0:00:34] Patrick Forquer: Oh, PJ. Doing excellent. Thanks for having me.   [0:00:37] PJ: And first time ever having a remote guest in from LA from our sales org on the west coast. Cody Thornton. How you doing buddy?   [0:00:45] Cody Thornton: PJ, I'm fantastic. Thanks for having me. Excited for this.   [0:00:50] Spencer Burke: Coast to coast.   [0:00:51] PJ: Coast to coast. It feels good. I mean, also this is the scooter episode. We have a lot of articles that we're going to digest today all around scooter sharing companies. Cody Thornton is a big scooter guy.   [0:01:03] Cody Thornton: Big. I am so pro scooter. It's not even funny.   [0:01:06] PJ: One of the biggest. Before we jump into the content, let's just start with a little disclaimer. The company Braze, we work with plenty of scooter sharing companies. All the comments you're going to hear today are just personal opinions. Braze does not promote or disparage any scooter app. We are advocates of all of them. So Patrick, I feel like you have a strong opinion perhaps.   [0:01:27] Patrick Forquer: Ugh, love scooters. Like I'm so onboard with scooters. I'm fully ... I don't know how you call being on a scooter, but I'm on scooter on board.   [0:01:37] PJ: Both.   [0:01:37] Patrick Forquer: Both feet. Left foot, right foot, gripping tightly signaling with traffic, the whole thing. I'm onboard.   [0:01:45] PJ: Spencer, where do you lie?   [0:01:46] Spencer Burke: I have a confession. I've never ridden a scooter.   [0:01:49] PJ: Wow.   [0:01:49] Spencer Burke: Escooters are brand new to me, so I'm a blank slate. I am happy to hear PJ's perspective. Cody and pat, try and convince me. All righty. So Cody, you are a huge advocate for the scoot scoot. Am I right?   [0:02:01] Cody Thornton: Yes. I am a major advocate. I feel like ... I'm from Los Angeles, live in San Francisco., I feel like two great markets for the scooter industry and these companies. I'm just a big fan of micro mobility from the accessibility and practicality of it to the environmental benefits. I think there's a lot of short distance transportation that is much easier and quicker with, per se, a scooter rather than using an Uber, driving your car, filling parking garages. So I will admit I think there's a lot to figure out from safety to legislation in the space, but overall I am a big fan of scooters. I think it's pretty promising.   [0:02:44] PJ: Well, let's just kick it off. Our first article of the day, Byrd is launching a two seater electric vehicle to become more than a kick scooter startup. Byrd has just unveiled the Byrd cruiser, an electric vehicle that is essentially a blend between a bicycle and a moped. The Byrd cruiser can seat up to two people, and depending on the market, the cruiser will either be pedal assist or just have a peg. Also equipped with hydraulic disc brakes. Very exciting. They can stop. 52 volt battery, and many ebikes have it as well. It's designed to handle hills. So off-roading is an option. I mean it gets pretty hilly out in SF, so you must be thrilled about it, Cody.   [0:03:24] Cody Thornton: The two things I'm most excited about are definitely the hills and the hydraulic disc brakes. I was in Austin last week riding a scooter that the brakes were definitely not working, so I was worried I would end up in one of our later articles about injuries, but yes. San Francisco being quite hilly., I think this is a big opportunity. Honestly, it's pretty interesting as well. I think too Byrd launching this cruiser has been able to categorize it as an ebike rather than a scooter, so they've been able to avoid a lot of the local legislation and government policies and politics around it. So, I'm personally super excited about this. I cannot wait to throw Patrick on the back of my Byrd cruiser and just launch up these SF hills man.   [0:04:09] PJ: What a dream. It reminds me of Dumb and Dumber. I can get 70 miles to the gallon on this hog.   [0:04:16] Cody Thornton: We are going to be the first people that take a Byrd to aspen.   [0:04:19] PJ: We can only do it in Aspen. That's the best obviously. I mean does this open the door for like other vehicles where they're going to come out with a whole like series?   [0:04:28] Spencer Burke: I think we will continue to see more diversity because to Cody's point right now it's scooters are fantastic for like last mile delivery of like point A to point B, you know, 10 minute ride, 15 minute ride, but you're not going to be doing your daily commute unless you live and work in Santa Monica where Byrd is located, which is my dream, just saying. It's like taking a scooter to work. I mean, [crosstalk 00:04:50].   [0:04:50] Cody Thornton: I don't know. Once they're in New York why wouldn't you?   [0:04:53] Spencer Burke: I mean can you imagine riding a scooter in New York? That is literally my nightmare.   [0:04:57] Cody Thornton: Oh my gosh.   [0:04:58] Spencer Burke: I'm so scared. I can barely ... I'm afraid to walk in New York [crosstalk 00:05:00].   [0:05:01] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, you got to wear a helmet while you're walking in New York.   [0:05:05] PJ: You got to wrap yourself in bubble wrap to get on that scooter. There's a lot of precautions.   [0:05:10] Patrick Forquer: Is that a thing yet? Is there an aggressive scooting community?   [0:05:14] PJ: In?   [0:05:15] Patrick Forquer: Anywhere? Like you know ...   [0:05:17] Cody Thornton: You're talking to it right now.   [0:05:17] Spencer Burke: Yeah, I was about to say exhibit A over here. Cody I think is the president of a local advocacy groups for scooters.   [0:05:24] PJ: Let's talk a little bit more about Byrd because Apple announced his support for Apple Pay and this is relevant to Byrd as well as Bonobos and a handful of other companies. Cody, you want to, you want to speak to this one a little bit? I know you were pretty jazzed about it.   [0:05:37] Cody Thornton: Yeah, definitely. I thought this was really interesting. I actually recently got a new iPhone, had to go through the whole registration process for Byrd again and when I went through you buy it and pretty much the number of rides you want right now, so they have a 20 package ride. If you want to buy, that's their most popular one. You click it, you go through the checkout process, etc. I'd like to think I'm a little bit more technically savvy than the mass market out there, so just going through this process, I saw a larger opportunity for them to make this more seamless. From firsthand experience when I was in San Diego last year, I had a really interesting epiphany I guess. Because I was there around Memorial Day weekend and there was a ton of people who I'd say not your target demographic for scooter riders, older men and women, younger girls and boys, etc. But everyone was just wondering how to get onto the scooter. So I haven't had to download the app. And you know, I just saw it as a big organic growth vehicle for them. So I think partnerships like this with Apple Pay's NFC technology only lower the barrier of entry for all these people that are trying to figure out how to get on these scooters or ride and conversely in San Francisco right now, Lime and Byrd are not allowed in San Francisco. So I believe it's Spin, Jump, and Scoot are the three brands there, right? So most people, if you're an avid scooter goer like myself, Patrick, etc, you're most likely going to use a variety of different services depending on the city where you are. So I think technology like this, partnerships, just makes it way easier to get up and running and ultimately become a user of these different companies' services, or the scooter.   [0:07:22] PJ: So Cody, what is the reason that like Byrd and Lime are barred in SF versus these other companies?   [0:07:28] Cody Thornton: To my knowledge, it is all local legislation. So it was a pretty guerrilla-esque marketing tactic when these companies first started going. So you would just wake up one morning and there was just dozens of these scooters on the street and no one had any idea of where they came from, what to do with them. And again, these thoughts are our own and I am not entirely sure, but I'm pretty confident that Byrd and LIme were two of the first that went out to market in San Francisco specifically. So these scooters just were all over the street. And I remember it was a mess honestly. It was crazy. You all know San Francisco is a relatively condensed city. So you were just walking to work. There's scooters everywhere, scooters in trash cans, scooters all over the sidewalk, scooters leaning up against buildings. So, they wanted to put some legislation in place, one, to have a little bit more of a framework to operate in the cities specifically, but also limit the amount of sheer scooters that were there. I'm not sure exactly what the process was of how they determine the three vendors that were for the initial shared scooter rollout in San Francisco, but Scoot, Lime, and Spin were of the first three that got rolled out. So I'm speaking with various people that work at these organizations. They are extremely optimistic that they will be back in San Francisco sooner rather than later, but they're just going through the necessary to making it "more legit" if you will.   [0:08:59] PJ: Got you. Got to make it legit.   [0:09:01] Cody Thornton: Too legit to quit.   [0:09:02] Spencer Burke: Obviously. I mean that does kind of speak to one of the articles we're going to talk about later, PJ, about around the consolidation and kind of like partnerships happening within the scooter industry right now. It makes sense for someone like an Apple who maybe doesn't know excel in scooter production, right, to partner with someone like Byrd, just to kind of get their foot in the door so to speak, but also lead to a better overall user experience. So I use the Apple Pay on the Byrd app as well. It works. It's incredible.   [0:09:29] Cody Thornton: Nice.   [0:09:29] PJ: Have any of you guys a bit the dust on a scooter yet? Pat, Cody?   [0:09:36] Patrick Forquer: I'm clean. My record's clean so far. I'm going to LA tomorrow, so check back with me in a couple of days.   [0:09:43] PJ: Yeah, Spencer, I know you have yet to ride. So I think we know your answer. Cody, what do you have over there?   [0:09:51] Cody Thornton: Oh, I most definitely have. I have a few battle wounds that I'm quite proud of myself. Can't wait to tell my kids about these one day. Some pretty awesome scars. But no, in all seriousness, it happened in the time that I actually fell in Santa Monica. I'd like to think I'm ... You know, I like to snowboard, I like to skateboard, I like to surf, all that jazzy stuff. So I feel like I'm inclined to riding these things more than your average consumer, if you will. And so I was riding one morning in Santa Monica, I'm still not quite sure what happened to be completely honest, but it just beeped twice, went, "Beep, beep," real quick and just ejected me over the handlebars. And luckily I didn't get to seriously hurt, but I was honestly laughing. I looked like Gabby Douglas in the Olympics just mounting the handlebars. I had a puffy jacket on. I slid for like 20 feet. People ran over to make sure if I'm okay, I'm just laying there hysterically laughing. I'm like, "How did this just happen?" But yeah, I got a nice little raspberry on my hip, on my elbow. And so you know, I'm kind of in this weird middle ground of the injury topic we will talk about because it's inevitably dangerous. You can move quickly, very nimbly. People do not obey the sidewalk laws, the bike lane laws, random freak of nature accidents similar to the one I went through. That said, I mean I could wholeheartedly say I fell because of an issue with the scooter. I think most of the time in a lot of the injuries that are happening, they are rider induced so people are not riding responsibly. They're potentially under the influence of, say, alcohol potentially. But yeah, I guess we can get into that. But that is my story of how I really ate it on a scooter.   [0:11:51] PJ: I mean, why don't we just get into right now? This next article here is the boom in electrical scooters leads to more injuries and even fatalities. So as stand up electric scooters have rolled into more than 100 cities worldwide, many of the people riding them are ending up in the emergency room with serious injuries. Others have been killed. There are no comprehensive statistics available. But a rough count by the Associated Press of media reports turned up at least 11 electric scooter rider deaths in the U.S. since the beginning of 2018. Nine were on rented scooters and two were on ones the victims owned. Spencer, you have some thoughts on this [crosstalk 00:12:34].   [0:12:32] Spencer Burke: Yeah, this article is pretty frustrating for me because it doesn't add any context. They're clearly trying to sensationalize the fact that people have been hurt and killed, which is terrible. Don't want to minimize the impact of that to anyone. But I think there's a bigger picture issue here that it's really challenging to be a pedestrian, to be a cyclist, now to be a scooterist, or whatever the official term is, in really dense cities. It's not safe. In New York City, in many cities in the U.S. there's something called vision zero which is getting pedestrian deaths to zero as a result of traffic fatalities. So I've got some stats here that I pulled up, but every year 4,000 New Yorkers are injured and 250 are killed as a result of traffic crashes. And it's the leading cause of injury related death for kids under 14, so cars in cities are dangerous and people who are not in cars tend to get hurt. Even people in cars get hurt. So I would have liked to see in an article like this, and generally in the coverage, it is not just unique to this one article, more of an understanding of what it's like to be someone who's commuting not in a car and not in public transit, and how we can make that safer and more accessible.   [0:13:50] Patrick Forquer: Yeah. I think when you look at it to this articles from the Santa Monica Daily Press, which if you've ever been to Santa Monica scooters are a very polarizing topic there. Just like they are my hometown of Atlanta. When I go home, people are either ... It's very polarizing, one side or the other. You either love them or hate them. And what I don't understand about the hate part, especially in a place like Atlanta where if you need to go half a mile, you get in your car and drive there, right? It's like, they're all over the sidewalks there, you know, people are just leaving them parked.   [0:14:24] Spencer Burke: When was the last time you were on the sidewalk?   [0:14:25] Patrick Forquer: Yeah, exactly. Like when was the last time you walked anywhere in Atlanta? Zero times have you walked anywhere that wasn't like your backyard. But the interesting stat to me from this article was a vast majority of the injuries were after, I think, 6:00PM or 7:00PM so I think we can all use our imagination there.   [0:14:44] Cody Thornton: People are just super tired, just crashed on the scooter after a long day.   [0:14:48] Patrick Forquer: Right, exactly.   [0:14:49] Cody Thornton: Exhausted, 6:30, just exhausted. But I think we will continue to see like a maturation of the regulatory environment around this, which is probably warranted and needed, but at the same time, I think if it was kind of wild west to start, we're kind of moving towards a place that's much more controlled in a safer environment. So hopefully you get some kind of guardrails in place and people can scoot and peace.   [0:15:13] Spencer Burke: It's the same for bicycles. Like this hate isn't unique to scooters. People get upset that they're building bike lanes in their neighborhood and it's taking away parking. So bikes have been around for a couple of hundred years. I think that the regulatory environment could maybe be improved. But I think we're just seeing the repeat of some same problems people have with making dense, urban areas less car friendly.   [0:15:36] PJ: Do you think they're gonna start making it legal in New York City? Do you think that's going to happen?   [0:15:41] Cody Thornton: I sure hope so.   [0:15:42] Spencer Burke: Yeah, I feel like New York is such a interesting market because it's so crazy. Could you imagine just an onslaught of scooters just coming into Manhattan? Oh my gosh.   [0:15:52] PJ: I mean where I live-   [0:15:55] Spencer Burke: The Santa Monica Daily press will have a few thoughts about it.   [0:16:00] PJ: I mean in Brooklyn where I live it would be fine, right? But like midtown Manhattan on a scooter-   [0:16:04] Spencer Burke: Like where we work, yeah.   [0:16:05] PJ: Yeah.   [0:16:06] Spencer Burke: It would be a nightmare.   [0:16:06] PJ: Like where we are right now would be tough.   [0:16:10] Cody Thornton: Yeah. I had a interesting ... Because that was actually one of the primary storylines out of South be y Southwest this year in Austin, Texas was the number of emergency room admissions they had or scooter related injuries and it was a pretty interesting thread on Twitter that I was following about all these injuries and different people that were there covering the conference that were going into the emergency room for scooter related accidents. Yeah, I think to Spencer's point, there definitely needs to be, whether it's better onboarding ... In San Francisco there's the service, Scoot, if anyone is familiar with that. So it's similar to the Byrd scooter we talked about, but they're more moped like so I'm not sure what they top out at miles per hour, but they have a helmet in the back you get on, you can take them up hills, you can ride them across the city. It's like an electric moped. But prior to getting access to the application once you go through onboarding, it requires you to watch a 20 minute video. So I don't know if something like that will happen with these scooter companies in terms of like educating their riders more. But back to the Austin point and South by Southwest, similar to what Patrick said, 90% of the injuries were reported to be after 6:00 PM, so again, we can use our imaginations of what is happening then. Like Spencer said, bikes have been around for hundreds of years. We see the Go bikes popping up everywhere, the Jump bikes, like we're not just going to get rid of bikes. Bikes are inevitably dangerous as well, but I think we just need to have a little bit more understanding on both sides. But yeah, it's a complex issue and I don't have the answer. I'm just going to go ahead ride with my AirPods in and let my hair flow in the wind on those bad boys.   [0:17:54] PJ: Cody. I don't have the answer. I'm just a dude.   [0:17:57] Spencer Burke: Just a guy.   [0:17:58] PJ: Wait, Cody, do you need to wear a helmet or is that not even a thing?   [0:18:03] Cody Thornton: Man, you're really hitting all my scooter knowledge today. That's another a soft spot for me that you do not need to wear a helmet. I will not disclose which one, but I personally worked with one of the scooter companies to bring them on board to become a customer Braze. And the example that I gave them is last year in 2018 Memorial Day weekend in San Diego, I was riding and my friends and I around eight in the morning were ushered over to the side of the road by a group of police officers. And we were cited for not riding with helmets. We had no idea that you even had to wear a helmets when you were riding these scooters at the time. So we get our citations. It was very, you know, cordial, fine experience, frustrating to say the least. But we go away and this older woman says, "Haven't you been watching the news? They have been handing out tickets to everyone not wearing helmets on the scooters." And I'm like, "No, I'm not watching the San Diego Daily News on my vacation. I'm sorry." But so we talked about using geo-fencing technology that we have here at Braze to run a notification to these people saying, "Hey, they're issuing citations in this area. Make sure you're wearing a helmet." Since then, I believe it was January 1, 2019 a statewide law has been passed that helmets are no longer required to ride scooters in California. I don't know how I feel about that. I don't want to wear a helmet when I wear these things.   [0:19:29] PJ: Based on personal experience.   [0:19:30] Cody Thornton: I also want people to be safe too.   [0:19:32] PJ: That's so California. "Hey man, you going to ride a scooter?   [0:19:36] Spencer Burke: No helmet needed. Just a slip tank in the summer months.   [0:19:40] Patrick Forquer: For what it's worth ... This doesn't apply to scooting since you're not doing any work, but I think there have been some studies in Australia where they looked at the net benefit between the increase to injury of not riding with a helmet and the health benefit of riding your bike every day for commuting, and on the whole it's better for you if you're every day riding a bike, getting to work, getting some exercise. So, that's been a lot of the influence for just increasing people's mobility, giving them access to these kinds of things, even if they don't require a helmet, which is the same for city bikes here in New York.   [0:20:13] PJ: All right, well you guys one more to go left. We're tight on time, but let's get to it. So scooter sharing startups slug it out in a war for niche talent. On demand scooter sharing startups are competing to hire from one another as they struggle with a limited talent pool chasing niche skills. These startups fast emerging as alternatives to last mile mobility require people with experience around internet of things based supply chain, design, and manufacturing. These are specialized skills as the technology itself is relatively new. So, it sounds like there's just not enough people to go around that know how to do this stuff right now, especially in your-   [0:20:49] Cody Thornton: Yeah, I mean, they know where to find me. [crosstalk 00:20:52].   [0:20:54] Patrick Forquer: The one thing that surprised me most when I first rode a Byrd was just how like the product is great. It looks great, it works really well. The check-in process, seamless. Offline, online, the whole thing was fantastic. So, I could imagine this like this is a booming space. Five years ago, no one was talking about last mile scooter delivery. So, not surprising and it's like that's the most kind of Silicon Valley thing ever is like competing for scooter talent.   [0:21:27] Spencer Burke: What about all those guys at Razor that were in the market 10 years ago?   [0:21:31] PJ: Razor. Throwback.   [0:21:34] Patrick Forquer: Getting crushed   [0:21:35] PJ: Yeah. Where's razor and all of this? Huge missed opportunity Razor.   [0:21:38] Patrick Forquer: Totally.   [0:21:39] PJ: To Pat's point, I thought it was pretty interesting when working with a few of the scooter companies myself. I didn't really realize it either until like ... In all seriousness, like five years ago, no one was talking about like this mass mobility or the scooter phenomenon that is going on, right? And to Pat's point as well too, I think from the onboarding experience and signing up and aside from realizing how great of a product it was, obviously first and foremost, how liberating riding a scooter is. Like that is just the greatest feeling in the entire world. I felt like I was a 10 year old kid, again. It's interesting. They're pretty well built products honestly. And you know, they have a very functioning mobile application that's powering these things. They have the actual physical scooters themselves. A lot of these companies are poaching talent from the likes of Lyft and Uber that not only from, you know, like on the mobile side of things but also from the legal side. Like these companies have massive battles in front of them on local government, statewide government, federal government and having experience with that. So I think, one to, obviously the consolidation aspect is pretty interesting from a manufacturing and supply chain perspective as well. But also I'm sure there's going to be a lot of acqui-hires in this space as well by these companies that will emerge as the juggernauts and I guess it's yet to be determined who those companies will be. And to anyone out there looking to have a career change, maybe look into last minute mobility tech. I don't know. It sounds like there's a need. Spencer, Cody. Patrick, thanks so much for being with me, you guys.   [0:23:13] Spencer Burke: It's my pleasure, PJ.   [0:23:14] Patrick Forquer: Thanks, Peej.   [0:23:15] Cody Thornton: Yeah, it's my pleasure. Be safe out there people. Don't be afraid, but be smart while being dumb.   [0:23:20] PJ: Absolutely, and for all those first time listeners out there, we are Braze. Braze is a customer engagement platform. If you don't know what that is, go to Braze.com. Find out. Thanks again for being with us.

Well today’s interview is pretty special because I get to tell you about a movie that is launching this week, that I was asked to play a small role in. The movie is called Money Revealed, and it was produced by my friend Jeff Hayes, and his business partner Patrick Gentempo who is our guest today. Patrick has a fascinating story as a once-upon-a-time chiropractor, who eventually became a filmmaker on a mission… And that mission is to produce films that wake up and educate the the world when it comes to the truth… The truth about vaccines, the truth about GMO’s, the truth about addiction, and now, the truth about money… So Patrick and Jeff reached out to me last year and asked me to participate in this documentary, because educating the middle class about the real way money works has been a life-long mission of mine as well. Together, I’m joined by Robert Kiyosaki, Paul Zane Pilzner, the Founder of Whole Foods John Mackey, the Founder of Overstock.com Patrick Byrne, and some other amazing entrepreneurs and investors who are incredibly passionate about this topic. Today Patrick is going to give you the behind the scenes journey of how and why they made this documentary, and we’ve also got a really neat surprise for you as well, which is the fact that you can get the entire docu-series for free at MoneyRevealedMovie.com. In total, they have broken up the movie into 8 episodes, and you’ll find my contribution in Episode 4. I have to say this this entire series is amazing… Not only will it give you a world-class education on how to make and invest your money like the rich, but you’ll also learn how to protect yourself from future market downturns, and profit from my favorite topic these days, the future of money… crypto-currencies. So please welcome Patrick Gentempo, and then head to MoneyRevealedMovie.com to get completely free access to the entire docu-series. Resources: MoneyRevealedMovie.com Music: Music by: Raiko Song: Revenger Licensed under a Creative Commons License  

Tips on how to grow your audience with machine learning with Patrick McKenna We help people expand their audiences so that they don't see a diminishing return. And it's not just how to grow your audience, it's also finding those interests that actually work for your audience and your brand. The good news is that if your business is growing, and hopefully it is, the artificial intelligence that you're building isn't going to eliminate your employees. In fact, you may need more employees. They may be just shifting in direction, but there's still plenty to do. The main products for us are analyzing buying metrics and audience metrics. What you get out of that data if you haven't broken those things out in the platform is very little. You're not really sure what specifically worked when you don't know specifically what worked on the keyword side or the interest side per age group and per device. One of the tricks you need to watch out for on Facebook is if you put up a couple pieces of creative in there, Facebook will make a decision really quickly as to which one is performing better. And you need to kind of wait a little bit and give that second piece of creative a little bit more statistical significance because Facebook will pick a winner really fast. And you may throw a really nice piece of creative out the door too quickly. And so you need to be testing, you always need to be testing. The platform guys want to make this sound really easy. Google wants to make it sound really simple to go and measure and use their ad manager. I get really excited about this direct to consumer situation. We call it the DTC, the dollar shave. Gwyneth Paltrow's brand, Jessica Alba. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ HOW TO GROW YOUR AUDIENCE WITH MACHINE LEARNING [just click to tweet] HOW TO GROW YOUR AUDIENCE WITH MACHINE LEARNING And it's not just how to grow your audience, it's also finding those interests that actually work for your audience and your brand. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Doug: Well, welcome back listeners to another episode of Real Marketing Real Fast. Today, we're going to be talking about testing, testing. No, the microphone is working fine, testing your advertising. So how do you know what's working, what's performing, what's moving the sales dial, what audiences are working on Facebook? Are they the same audience as working in LinkedIn, are the same audiences that are working on Instagram or YouTube or Google ads. So we've got a guest who is a specialist in this space, and they use machine learning and artificial intelligence to guide your path and guide their clients' path to making the right decisions. And significantly in many cases, it's going to be lowering the cost of advertising and acquiring a customer. So I'd like to welcome Patrick McKenna to the studio today. He is the founder and CEO of a company called Strike Social. It's a global technology enabled digital advertising agency based in Chicago. Doug: Patrick has more than 30 years of experience in business development and technology consulting for major corporations. I'm sure you'll gather that when you listen to the episode, he co-founded and sold a telecommunications company, WCI in 1996. And then he was recruited to Microsoft as part of a 50 person team to develop the internet, audio and video industry. So by the end of Patrick's 12-year career at Microsoft, he had developed Windows entertainment division that now employs 40,000 people. So Patrick has spent his career mentoring and investing in startup companies. And in 2013, he founded the Strike Social, which was named the number 17 fastest growing private company in the US in 2017 by Ink Magazine. So Strike Social, develops artificial intelligence or AI-powered software and services for digital advertisers across industry verticals with over half the Fortune 500 companies benefiting from his solutions.

Patrick talked to Aubrey Sitterson and Chris Moreno about The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling. And the recording turned out to be virtually unlistenable due to technological issues. So… Patrick recreates the conversation entirely in his voice, minus most of his actual dialog. Sound weird? It is! But it was too good of a conversation to not share. Now it’s a monologue! Bonus: the actual nigh-undecipherable interview is included. Sorry, Aubrey! Sorry, Chris! Curse you, Pamela (the program; not a person)! Including: The democratizing of opinion sharing; “Worth”, their previous graphic novel collaboration; pro wrestling, of course! Not mentioned: Aubrey and Patrick each wrote dialog for Mike Norton’s “Battlepug” and for the same characters!

Patrick talked to Aubrey Sitterson and Chris Moreno about The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling. And the recording turned out to be virtually unlistenable due to technological issues. So… Patrick recreates the conversation entirely in his voice, minus most of his actual dialog. Sound weird? It is! But it was too good of a conversation to not share. Now it’s a monologue! Bonus: the actual nigh-undecipherable interview is included. Sorry, Aubrey! Sorry, Chris! Curse you, Pamela (the program; not a person)! Including: The democratizing of opinion sharing; “Worth”, their previous graphic novel collaboration; pro wrestling, of course! Not mentioned: Aubrey and Patrick each wrote dialog for Mike Norton’s “Battlepug” and for the same characters!

So Patrick is mad rude. We talk about the FL shooting, social media, and pet peeves. Featuring Pazuzu.

We had a special treat this week at Waypoint HQ, with the whole team in town for meetings, streams, and this very podcast. So Patrick, Austin, Rob and Danielle talked about “forever” games, thanks to two pieces Patrick wrote this week, on a Mario Maker Creator who has spent close to 2000 hours playing his almost-impossible creation, and on a Die Hard Desert Golf fan who found the elusive ending to his favorite game. We chat about our very own “forever” games, from the endless appeal of immersive sims to the promise of near-infinite space in No Man’s Sky, and Patrick gets a very special surprise at the end! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The crew finds an orgy planet after settling some colonists.  Everyone beam down! Wesley go play ball or something...but don't...get...into...trouble.  Uh-ho, its a Wesley episode, but that's ok "because we're Starfleet and we don't lie."  So Patrick and Sascha just have to figure out if god is ok when he is just a dude in orbit.  Oh and something about the prime directive?

We’ve moved to a new studio space and it needed testing. So Patrick found a guest wandering about the place and plopped him in front of the mics. Featured recordings: THE MUSIC MAN - Original Broadway Cast (1957)CABARET - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1972)THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA - The Original Cast Recording (1986)INTO THE WOODS - Original Broadway Cast (1987)MATILDA - Original Broadway Cast Recording (2013)SCHOOL OF ROCK - Original Cast Recording (2015)NEWSIES - Original Broadway Cast Recording (2012)NEWSIES - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1992) Twitter.com/OriginalCastPodFacebook.com/OriginalCastPodEmail: OriginalCastPod@gmail.com