Podcasts about Virgin America

Phil and David share a far-ranging "Lunch" conversation with Jeff Ayeroff, the legendary record executive about his remarkable career as a visionary creative force in the music industry at A&M, Warner Brothers Record, co-founding Virgin America and The Work Group and for The Beatles at Apple. Jeff shares his experiences working with everyone from Peter Frampton and The Police, to Madonna, Prince and Talking Heads to Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson and Lenny Kravitz, among so many others, and reflects on Rock The Vote, which he founded in 1990. To learn more about building community through food and "Somebody Feed the People," visit the Philanthropy page at philrosenthalworld.com. You can also buy tickets to see "Naked Lunch" live at Palace of Fine Arts Theatre on January 25th, 2025 here. 

Send us a textToday, I'm honoured to have Alex Hunter as my guest—a true expert in branding and customer experience. Alex is renowned for his impactful roles as a keynote speaker and angel investor, as well as the creator and host of "Attaché," the award-winning online travel show that guides frequent business travellers through key insights of cities around the globe.Alex formerly led the global digital strategy for the Virgin Group as the global Head of Online. In this role, he was instrumental in crafting and executing the digital presence for the Virgin brand across various platforms, alongside managing Sir Richard Branson's personal digital strategy.Join us as Alex shares his wealth of knowledge on brand building and the critical aspects of customer experience. Whether you're a branding novice or a seasoned pro, Alex's insights will equip you with fresh perspectives and strategies to elevate your brand. So sit back, tune in, and enjoy my conversation with Alex Hunter.Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star rating along with a brief review. And don't forget to order your BADASS T-shirt here.About MeHey there, I'm Joelly - the Branding Badass. My BADASS superpower is helping you build a brand that matters. From branded merch to keynote speaking, when you work with me, you get results! Need help telling your brand story? Learn more here.To advertise on the show click hereLet's stay connected!instagram - @Branding_BadasslinkedIn - Joelly Goodsonwebsite - BAMKO.NET

Groomer Certification Several high-profile recent pet deaths highlight the possible need for government regulation of the over $6 billion pet grooming industry. Our very own "Dogfather," Joey Villani is spearheading the move towards regulation for the pet grooming industry. Listen Now The Cost of Pet Ownership The first year of being a pet parent to a cat will cost about $1,035, and for a dog, that number is $1,843, as estimated by the ASPCA. The estimates seem somewhat conservative by Animal Radio's standards. Listen Now The Wealthiest Pets In The World Just like people, there are some really wealthy pets in the world! The richest of them is probably not a shock to you – it's the long-deceased "Grumpy Cat!" Grumpy's owner has made over 100 million dollars for appearances, modeling, book deals, and ads. That's a larger net worth than Cameron Diaz or Jamie Foxx. Also on the list is "Moose" the Jack Russell who starred as "Eddie" on Frasier, "Keiko" the killer whale, "Rin Tin Tin," the dogs who starred as "Lassie" and Virgin America spokes-dog "Boo." Listen Now Smart Pigs According to Dr. Lori Marino, new research shows that pigs are smart as, if not smarter than, chimpanzees and dogs. The often lowly regarded swine may even have self-awareness, something our companion animals don't understand. Listen Now What Vaccines Does My Pet Really Need? Doc Halligan has the 411 on pet vaccines. Can they cause cancer? Are they really necessary? Is there a way to tell if your pet needs them or can skip them? Why are the pharmaceuticals only testing for one year? Listen Now Read more about this week's show.

This episode features an interview with Jessica Jensen, Chief Marketing Officer at Indeed. She is responsible for brand, communication, product, and acquisition marketing globally. Prior to Indeed, Jessica served as CMO at OpenTable and led B2B marketing for Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. She also held leadership roles at Apple and Yahoo!In this episode, Kailey sits down with Jessica to discuss the innovation of matching technology, pay transparency, and elevating employer and candidate experience strategies with AI.-------------------Key Takeaways:When trying to find the right candidates for the right jobs, matching technology is imperative. It is able to employ deep specificity and find job seekers with stand-out qualifications and certifications. This technology also improves close rates on the employer side and personalized experiences on the candidate side.Having data that is structured, accessible, governed, and used with human insight enables the right access for the right teams and that it's used appropriately. You can avoid broken data pipelines and governance issues by being intentional about where the data lives and who has access to it.When implementing AI, it's critical to have humans in the loop to snuff out biases. Relying solely on what AI produces can lead to imagery and descriptions that are not inclusive of humanity, and will further replicate problems in our society.-------------------“We have to be the ones who control the machines. Ensuring that we are creating the imagery and the descriptions that are inclusive of humanity and not just relying on what AI pulls and chews up and spits out, is something that we're really investing a lot of energy in. I really hope that companies are thinking very critically about that because if we let AI run rampant, it will reproduce the problems in society.” – Jessica Jensen-------------------Episode Timestamps:‍*(03:11) - Jessica's career journey‍*(06:51) - Trends in the customer experience journey at Indeed*(10:53) - How Indeed is using AI to elevate employer and candidate experience strategies*(17:28) - How Indeed uses matching technology to find candidates for employers*(27:44) - How Jessica defines “good data”‍*(35:42) - An example of another company doing it right with customer engagement (hint: it's TurboTax and Virgin America)*(42:00) - Jessica's recommendations for upleveling customer experience strategies-------------------Links:Connect with Jessica on LinkedInConnect with Kailey on LinkedInLearn more about Caspian Studios-------------------SponsorGood Data, Better Marketing is brought to you by Twilio Segment. In today's digital-first economy, being data-driven is no longer aspirational. It's necessary. Find out why over 20,000 businesses trust Segment to enable personalized, consistent, real-time customer experiences by visiting Segment.com

On this day in legal history, October 31st, 1864, Congress admitted Nevada as the 36th state in the Union. This milestone occurred during a crucial period as President Abraham Lincoln sought re-election and support for his proposed 13th Amendment to the Constitution. A noteworthy aspect of this process was the means by which Nevada communicated its intent for statehood. In an extraordinary display of urgency and modernity for the time, the entire text of the proposed state constitution was transmitted to Washington via telegraph. This telegraph message became renowned as the longest and most expensive telegram on record up to that date. The admission of Nevada as the 36th state played a role in securing vital support for President Lincoln and his proposed 13th Amendment, which would eventually abolish slavery in the United States. Biotechnology and genetic testing companies are advocating for changes to a recently implemented Montana law that imposes stringent requirements to protect consumers' genetic data privacy. Notable companies involved in this lobbying effort include GSK Plc, 23andMe Holding Co., and Ancestry.com LLC. These companies argue that the Montana law's mandates are unworkable and could hinder genetic research. Montana's law, effective since October 1, 2023, is part of a broader trend among states to strengthen privacy protections for genetic data. It goes beyond regulating access to genetic information by insurers and employers and focuses on safeguarding data shared with genetic testing companies. The Coalition for Genetic Data Protection, supported by 23andMe and Ancestry, advocates for a policy framework that outlines consumer transparency and consent requirements. Montana's law, however, applies to both consumer genetic testing and entities that collect, use, or analyze genetic data. It does not exempt de-identified data, making it distinct from other state laws.The industry expressed concerns about the broad definition of genetic data, the law's application to hospitals and universities, and the unrealistic consent and disclosure requirements, claiming these concerns could impact clinical trials and research conducted in Montana.GSK, Ancestry, 23andMe Push Montana Genetic Privacy Law ChangesThe U.S. Department of Justice is going to trial to seek the blockage of JetBlue Airways' $3.8 billion acquisition of Spirit Airlines, an ultra-low-cost carrier, in a bid to preserve competition among low-cost airlines. The trial, taking place in federal court in Boston without a jury, is expected to last about three weeks. A merger between JetBlue and Spirit, the sixth and seventh largest U.S. carriers, respectively, would be the first major U.S. airline combination since 2016 when Alaska Airlines acquired Virgin America.JetBlue has defended the deal as pro-consumer and has offered to sell Spirit's gates and slots at specific airports in an attempt to address antitrust concerns. However, the Justice Department claims that the merger would reduce competition, leading to higher fares and reduced choice for consumers. The department alleges that the deal would replace Spirit with a higher-cost airline, costing consumers over $2 billion in higher fares annually.JetBlue contends that the merger will increase competition and provide a low-fare challenger to the dominant "Big Four" airlines. While JetBlue would become the fifth-largest domestic airline, it would still have less than a 10% market share. The case is part of the Biden administration's broader efforts to strengthen antitrust enforcement. This legal initiative comes after a previous case found that JetBlue's Northeast partnership with American Airlines violated antitrust laws, leading JetBlue to terminate the alliance while American Airlines is appealing the decision.US seeks to block JetBlue, Spirit Airlines merger at trial | ReutersIn his column this week at Bloomberg Tax, Andrew Leahey discusses the IRS's recently announced pilot initiative for its Direct File program, which is set to launch in 13 states for the 2024 tax season. Leahey argues that this program is presented as a mobile-friendly, interview-based online service with the goal of simplifying the tax filing process while reducing associated costs and potentially reducing the reliance on for-profit tax preparation software.Leahey believes that for-profit tax preparation companies need to adapt to remain relevant. They should offer value-added services, such as reviewing calculations, automating error-checking, providing audit defense services, and assisting with complex tax situations not supported by Direct File. Instead of lobbying against the IRS's program, Leahey suggests that these companies should embrace AI and automation, utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance the tax filing process.Leahey sees Direct File as a step toward democratizing tax filing, aligning with global standards and modernizing the tax infrastructure. He suggests that the for-profit tax preparation industry needs to evolve to meet the changing needs and expectations of taxpayers and embrace a collaborative approach with the IRS.Intuit and Others Should Use AI to Complement IRS Direct File Get full access to Minimum Competence - Daily Legal News Podcast at www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

The adage “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity” is often quoted by successful entrepreneurs. And it would stand to reason that the more opportunities you have, the luckier you'll be. But how do you best position yourself to create more moments, chances and meetings that might change the trajectory of your business? Austin Cocktails co-founders Kelly Gasink and Jill Burns, who founded the brand in 2012 and helped usher in a new era for premium RTD cocktails, say that the answer is two-fold: be okay with being uncomfortable and strive to “expand your luck surface area.” Doing so helped them land deals with Madison Square Garden and Virgin America airlines. It also led to an unexpected and pivotal meeting with the CEO of Constellation Brands. Introduced in 2016, Austin Cocktails markets full-strength canned cocktails made with premium spirits and natural ingredients. The products are distributed across the United States at a variety of retailers, including Whole Foods, BevMo, Target and Total Wine. In this episode, Gasink and Burns explained how they identified the opportunity for a premium tier of RTD cocktails, why they didn't emphasize a specific target demographic, how an unorthodox but highly effective sampling strategy unlocked new retail and distribution opportunities, and how they assessed the timing for a sale of Austin Cocktails to Constellation Brands. Show notes: 0:43: Interview: Kelly Gasink & Jill Burns, Co-Founders, Austin Cocktails – Gasink and Burns riffed about eccentric weather patterns in Texas and Austin as a hub for entrepreneurship before discussing the impact of Skinnygirl on the development of the modern RTD cocktail category and how they initial spoke to retailers about the need for premium options in the space. They also spoke about the challenges in getting the products made, why “everything good happened” at sampling events and why maintaining the brand's core tenets amid growing competition paid off. Later, they explained how their personal and professional networks were instrumental in the brand's development and why basing innovation solely on data may not be the best strategy. Brands in this episode: Austin Cocktails, Skinnygirl Cocktails

The journey from humble beginnings to industry leadership contains invaluable lessons and experiences. In this episode, I sit down with Ravi Simhambhatla, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital and Innovation Officer of Avis Budget Group Inc. With an eventful career marked by tenures at Virgin America, Tesla and various airlines, Ravi models resilience, adaptability and the transformative power of technology.Key Takeaways: (02:04) Ravi's early days in India included life lessons from his family.(08:50) The vital role of education as a means of ‘escape velocity' from one's current circumstances to future goals.(16:36) The significance of maintaining relationships with individuals from one's roots who brought happiness.(26:05) Career-shaping moments can occur through unexpected opportunities.(31:57) Ravi transitioned to a new career opportunity due to geographical preferences.(34:09) The key role in developing Virgin America's technology infrastructure.(36:48) The importance of mentorship from a personal and professional perspective.(39:14) The contrasting disruptive approaches of Richard Branson and Elon Musk.(44:44) Ravi's late-life realization and desire to help others in their computing and executive management careers.Resources Mentioned:Ravi Simhambhatla - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravisimhambhatla/ Avis Budget Group Inc. - https://www.linkedin.com/company/avis-budget-group/Thanks for listening to the Indianness podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, hit the subscribe button and never miss another insightful conversation with leaders of Indian origin. And be sure to leave a review to help get the word out about the show. #Indian #IndiaBusiness #India #Indianness

In this episode of "It's Time Live," we are joined by Melissa Osborne, an Alaska Airlines Flight Attendant who also serves as the Alaska AFA Local Council 11 President (SFO Base President). With a rich background that includes roles at Aloha Airlines and Virgin America, Melissa provides deep insights into the substantial benefits that union support and contracts offer flight attendants, ensuring stability and an elevated quality of life. While at Virgin, Melissa experienced firsthand what it was like when management could unilaterally change work rules. Eventually, Virgin America Flight Attendants unionized, and the company later merged with Alaska Airlines.  This episode sheds light on the efforts of Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants, who utilize powerful tools available to them as a unionized workforce to pressure management during contract negotiations. Moreover, we will discuss dynamic strategies such as CHAOS, an approach designed to significantly impact the company by potentially initiating targeted flight strikes and organizing informational picketing events that exemplify the unity and strength of the union. We also delve into the proactive involvement of Flight Attendants in these negotiations, highlighting their contributions through surveys and a "wish list," which compiles individual feedback, signifying the collaborative and democratic ethos fostered by AFA-CWA. This podcast was recorded on the day that the union for American Airlines Flight Attendants, APFA, announced a 99.4% strike vote by Flight Attendants at AA. In other words, AA Flight Attendants are standing together and willing to strike for their fair share!  Note: Aloha Airlines ceased operations following a well-publicized fare war with low-cost upstart Go! Airlines, which was owned by Mesa, during a period of soaring jet-fuel prices. Eventually, Go! also declared bankruptcy and ceased operations. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ooitstime/message

This week: Can premium leisure travelers replace business travelers? Challenges at NYC area airports; Record number transatlantic flights over past decade; Listener Q's on EASA type ratings, and why did Alaska retire so many Virgin America airplanes? (photo: Eze, France)

Jacob Jaber, Chairman and Co founder of Philz Coffee joins the show to talk about:The founder's story behind building one of the industry's most successful specialty coffee brands.Creating a culture of "Grandma's house hospitality" and a personalized approach to building product and delivering service to customers, one cup of coffee at a time.How Philz harnessed initial customer fandom and built the flywheel around the Phil's brand.The role of the Philz barista, finding and empowering great people to extend the culture you're creating.Competing against global coffee brands like Starbucks and Peets, disrupting the coffee space, and thinking big but acting smallHow a lost bag at an airport resulted in a game changing distribution deal with Virgin America.Jacob's focus as an investor and building companies and products that people have a personal relationship with.

Robert Bryan, FounderRobert Bryan co-founded Karate Combat, the world's premier striking league in combat sports. Prior to founding Karate Combat, Robert founded and served as CEO of global medical device cybersecurity leader MedSec. Previously, Robert worked at a number of investment funds where he managed everything from investment stakes in large technology companies to investments in smaller companies including Virgin America where he was instrumental in the airline's initial funding. He began his career in Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs.Links:https://www.karate.com/ https://www.youtube.com/KarateCombat https://twitter.com/karatecombat https://www.facebook.com/KarateCombatOfficial https://www.instagram.com/karatecombat/ https://discord.gg/EuKrxxbQfX *Disclaimer. Richard Carthon is the Founder of Crypto Current. All opinions expressed by members of the Crypto Current Team, Richard or his guest on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Crypto Current. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Richard as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.~Put your Bitcoin and Ethereum to work. Earn up to 12% interest back with Tantra Labs~New to crypto? Check out our Crypto for Beginners Step-by-Step Guide to Crypto Investing~Follow us on Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, & Tik Tok~Want to make ~$25+ a month for FREE? Sign up to get a FREE emrit.io Coolspot today! ~Want to learn more about cryptocurrency? Check out our educational videos today!~Swan is the easiest and most affordable way to accumulate Bitcoin with automatic recurring purchases. Start your plan today and get $10 of free Bitcoin dropped into your account.~Want access to cool crypto/blockchain projects that you can use immediately? Check out our partnerships page! ~Looking to attend a cryptocurrency or blockchain event? Check out our events...

Listen Now On the Sunday, October 30th edition of The Travel Guys…  In the Travel News, Holland America rewards a service dog for 700 days of cruising and Virgin America has decided to reward those siting in the middle seat with some great rewards. In our Smarter Traveler segment, Mark talks about the president addressing junk travel fees this past week. Mark says it's great that the president recognizes that travel suppliers are goosing travelers...

We've all seen brands flirting with their audiences and each other over the years from Wendy's to Duolingo to Pedialyte. Oftentimes the brands doing the flirting make no sense and have no business being horny on main and leads to many awkward moments and slip-ups. It was all fun and games initially with the inclusion of internet slang like "BAE" and "bruh", but things escalated quickly once the COVID-19 pandemic hit and blue balls set in. Audiences turned on company socials screaming "silence, brand!" and "go to horny jail!" culminating in watchdog accounts like "Brands Saying Bae" deriding and making fun of the r/fellowkids energy companies like McDonald's, Virgin America, and Cheetos were giving. We couldn't cover everything in this episode, but Jon and Harland will get to the bottom of the Radio Shack rebrand next week while Kyle is gone, so stick around! Sources: https://www.vulture.com/article/when-brands-got-horny.html[body] Linktree Find out more at http://20kleaguespod.com This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

This week in airplane news: A bill has been introduced in Congress to raise the retirement age of pilots, a congressional committee will hold a hearing on 100LL avgas, a plane crash near lifeguard training, CAE & Piper have partnered to develop an Archer electric conversion kit, and JetBlue will be buying Spirit airlines after a months-long battle with Frontier. Two bills introduced in congress would raise the airline retirement age from 65 to 67. These bills seek to reduce the pilot shortage, and this would be another increase in pilot retirement age since it was changed in 2007. ALPA said, “This discussion is yet another attempt to distract the conversation from the real issue which is the failure of airlines to deliver on a key goal of the multibillion-dollar relief plan Congress provided them during the pandemic which was to effectively manage air-service operations as travel resumes. ALPA strongly opposes this proposed legislation as there is no reason to change the retirement age today and doing so would only increase costs for airlines as well as introduce unnecessary risks to passengers and crew alike.” https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/congressional-bills-would-raise-airline-retirement-age-to-67 Congressional Committee is going to hold a hearing called “Toxic Air: How Leaded Aviation Fuel is Poisoning America's Children” This committee is looking to ban 100LL It is expected that the EPA will issue a finding on leaded avgas next year https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/congressional-committee-looking-at-national-100ll-ban An airplane crashed in Huntington Beach California this week during a lifeguard competition This competition quickly turned into a real rescue. The crash happened in between events and the veteran lifeguards quickly swarmed the wreck. The pilot was taken to the hospital with bruises but was otherwise unharmed. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/plane-crashes-lifeguarding-competition-pilot-rescued-87269378 CAE announced that they are working with Piper Aircraft to develop an Electric Propulsion Conversion Kit for the Piper PA-28-181 Archer. The development of this technology is a first for CAE,” said CAE President and CEO Marc Parent. “As an engineering powerhouse and one of the largest Piper Archer operators, CAE is uniquely positioned to make the electric-powered flight a reality at our flight schools and beyond. CAE's partnership with the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec for investment into R&D has enabled us to boldly look to the future and prepare our electric aircraft for take-off.” https://www.avweb.com/air-shows-events/farnborough/cae-piper-to-develop-archer-electric-conversion-kit/ JetBlue will buy Spirit for 3.8 billion after a months-long battle between JetBlue and Frontier. This merger will create the 5th largest airline in the country The deal must be approved by regulators and will be the largest deal since Alaska Airlines beat out JetBlue for Virgin America. “We have two priorities: one is to get this deal closed and get the airline integrated and build a bigger JetBlue,” JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes said in an interview Thursday. “Secondly to run a reliable operation in the meantime.” https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/28/jetblue-airways-reaches-deal-to-buy-spirit-airlines.html

Rob Bendall was the lead certification pilot for the launch of Virgin America. Along with certification Rob has had a role in most things involving the pilots at Virgin America.  Hiring, checking, training, and otherwise supporting the pilots; he has acted as certification pilot, check airman, base chief pilot to system chief pilot.  In this interview we talk about what it took to launch the airline from a pilot's perspective and many other aspects of the airline.  Rob's integrity is something I have always admired.  I hope you enjoy this conversation.  Bendall Interview  00:00 Role in Certification  6:00  Pre-Virgin Background  12:25 How the FAA tests the operation via scenario cards on test flights.  16:45 Early VX manual sets  19:45 Pilot Culture and uniforms.    25:30 Goatees, FuManchus, and Professional looks.  44:00 The VA Inflight Entertainment System.  47:45 Ken Beiler Cabin 3.0  49:00 Unions and VX  53:00 ALPA organizing drive.  57:00 Biggest Challenges  60:00  Interviewing Pilots  69:00 Consolidation  71:00 B6/NK  76:50 Who owned the Planes  81:00  The Most Virgin Virgin Company  83:15 Own Safety  84:15 Props to Tech Ops  87:00  Protecting the dignity of the airline.

Coastal Airways Flug 416 hat den Flughafen von Los Angeles gerade verlassen, als Kapitän Bill Hoffman einen Anruf erhält. Ein Entführer hat seine Frau und Kinder in seine Gewalt gebracht und stellt Bill vor eine schreckliche Wahl: Entweder bringt er das Flugzeug mit 149 Menschen an Bord zum Absturz, oder seine Familie wird getötet. Zwar gelingt es Bill, die Crew über die Lage zu informieren, doch irgendwo in der Maschine befindet sich noch ein Komplize des Entführers. Und Bill weiß nicht, wem er vertrauen kann. In 10 000 Meter Höhe entbrennt ein Kampf um Leben und Tod, während sich die Maschine unaufhaltsam New York nähert ... Über die Autorin: T. J. Newman, eine ehemalige Buchhändlerin und langjährige Flugbegleiterin, arbeitete von 2011 bis 2021 für Virgin America und Alaska Airlines. Sie schrieb einen Großteil ihres Debütromans »Flug 416«, während ihre Passagiere auf Nachtflügen schliefen. Sie lebt in Phoenix, Arizona.

S1E10 – The Retail Avengers & Building a Culture of Innovation Welcome to Season 1, Episode 10 of The Retail Razor Show! In this episode, we turn the dial up to eleven on our ongoing innovation discussion! We previously focused on digital transformation & innovation both from a “what” and “who” perspective, but how do you create an environment and culture that fosters innovation without breaking the business? To answer that, we bring you a special guest, Andrew Laudato, Chief Operating Officer of The Vitamin Shoppe, fellow Advisory Council member of George Mason University's Center for Retail Transformation, fellow RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer, and author of the new book, Fostering Innovation – How to Build an Amazing IT Team. Andy joins our Retail Avengers team to share his winning framework for building a strong foundation for innovation in IT teams, including his tried and tested approach to hiring, budgeting, and project management for innovation, plus more! Have you heard! Our podcast is staying strong on the Feedspot Top 60 Retail podcasts list! We're currently at #22, so please give us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts if you like the show! With your help, we'll be on our way to a Top 20 spot! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/ Meet your hosts:I'm Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, a Top 12 ecommerce influencer, advisory council member at George Mason University's Center for Retail Transformation, and lead partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft. And I'm Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. I've spent my career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business. Now I slay franken-stacks! Together, we're your guides on the retail transformation journey. Whether you're thinking digital and online, mobile, or brick & mortar stores, we'll help you cut through the clutter! The Retail Razor ShowFollow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazorConnect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazorJoin our club on Clubhouse: http://bit.ly/RRazorClubListen to us on Callin: https://bit.ly/RRCallinSubscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTubeSubscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShowRetail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPod Host → Ricardo Belmar,Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmarConnect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmarRead my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWRBelmar Co-host → Casey Golden,Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCaseyConnect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICaseyRead my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCasey TRANSCRIPTS1E10 Building a Culture of Innovation[00:00:20] Intro[00:00:20] Ricardo Belmar: Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon. And good evening, whatever time of day you're listening. Welcome to the retail razor show. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar a RETHINK Retail, top retail influencer and lead partner marketing advisor for retail and consumer goods at Microsoft.[00:00:33] Casey Golden: I'm your cohost Casey Golden CEO of Luxlock. Obsessed with the relationship between a brand and consumer, the experiences, everything. I've spent my career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business. Now I'm slaying Franken stacks to power the future of commerce.[00:00:48] Ricardo Belmar: So Casey, this episode is a real treat for listeners keeping with our recent themes on innovation and leadership. Our retail Avengers crew on clubhouse brought in none other than Andy Lodato currently the chief operating officer at The Vitamin Shoppe, a CNBC technology executive council member, a fellow advisory council member at George Mason University's Center for Retail Transformation, also a fellow RETHINK Retail top retail influencer, and most recently author of the book Fostering Innovation, How to Build an Amazing IT Team. Andy joined us for a deep dive on building the right environment for innovation.[00:01:24] Casey Golden: It's a great clubhouse discussion. Andy brings a fresh perspective and has valuable experiences to share about creating that ideal environment to foster innovation.[00:01:34] After our two part series on digital transformation and innovation, this one really dials it up. With best practices from a real world retail expert, making changes.[00:01:45] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Andy has lived through a lot when it comes to innovation, he's got so many examples and he's, he's worked hard to figure out what the right way is to create that ideal environment for innovation. And he shares with us what worked and what didn't throughout the discussion.[00:02:00] Casey Golden: Spoiler alert. You'd be surprised how concrete is a retail requirement. Stick around for his stories.[00:02:07] Ricardo Belmar: It's definitely one of Andy's best stories that he shares in this session. But let's not give away all the best parts, Casey.[00:02:13] Casey Golden: All right. All right. I'll let the dialogue unfold.[00:02:17] Ricardo Belmar: Yes. Quite clever. Nice and smoothly done. I bet you've been waiting to say that haven't you.[00:02:20] Casey Golden: I can neither confirm nor deny that. Totally never got to use that phrase before. I'm digging these one liners.[00:02:32] Ricardo Belmar: you're getting a lot of those in.[00:02:33] Casey Golden: So let's cut through the clutter and get to the clubhouse session. The retail avengers build a culture of innovation with special guest Andy Laudato. He'll be with us when we come back to ask him even more questions, so stick around!.[00:02:47] Clubhouse Session[00:02:47] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome everybody to the retail razor room. We've got a special treat this week. We're going to be talking about building a culture of innovation. We have a special guest that we'll introduce in just a moment, but in case anybody in our audience here is not one of our regular visitors.[00:03:07] We'll do some quick introductions of the Retail Avengers team that's always here in the room. Casey, why don't you kick us off?[00:03:14] Casey Golden: Hi, I'm Casey golden. I'm the founder of Luxlock retail tech platform. Focusing on customer experience. Been on the industry side of the fashion and enterprise tech. So kind of moved myself into the convergence of both.[00:03:28] Ricardo Belmar: All right, great. And Trevor,[00:03:30] Trevor Sumner: My name is Trevor Sumner. I'm the CEO at perch. We do interactive retail displays that use computer vision to detect which products people touch. So they wake up and immediately tell you about the right product at the right time. And so a exciting frontier of computer vision, IOT, and interactive retail display.[00:03:48] Ricardo Belmar: Thanks Trevor, Jeff.[00:03:49] Jeff Roster: Hi, Jeff Roster, a former Gartner[00:03:51] and IHL retail sector analysts. Now co-host of this week in innovation and on a couple of advisory boards[00:03:57] Ricardo Belmar: Great. Thank you. And Shish.[00:03:59] Shish Shridhar: Good afternoon, I'm Shish and the global lead for retail, with Microsoft. I've been in retail for about 20 years focused on AI and currently from an innovation perspective, driving co innovation with startups, for retailers looking forward to the conversation with Andy today.[00:04:16] Ricardo Belmar: Thanks Shish. And I'm Ricardo Belmar for those that don't know me, I'm the lead partner marketing advisor at Microsoft, and I've also been in the retail tech side of the industry for the last two decades trying to help retailers really get the best value from technology investments and super excited to have with us, our special guest today, Andy Laudato COO at The Vitamin Shoppe. And Andy, I'm gonna let you kick off about yourself and how you got to where you are today and what led you to write your book that was just published, Fostering I nnovation which is the topic of our room today.[00:04:48] Andy Laudato: Great. Well, thank you, Ricardo. And hello everybody. Great to be here. I've been a longtime listener and a contributor to the retail avengers. I am the chief operating officer at the vitamin shop. The vitamin shop is a, just over a billion dollar health and wellness retailer. We're mostly in the U S we have over 700 stores in the us.[00:05:06] And then of course we sell on vitamin shop.com. So in my role, as COO, I oversee the P and L for our e-commerce. I run the supply chain, technology, what we call enterprise portfolio management, which is something I think we'll hopefully talk more about today. As well as the quality and commercialization of our private brand or another way to describe it as I do everything at the vitamin shop that the CEO does not want to do.[00:05:27] Ricardo Belmar: love that description,[00:05:30] Andy Laudato: I'm assuming people are laughing at my jokes, but you know, I can't hear him, but I'll just assume that they're all laughing. Okay,[00:05:35] perfect.[00:05:40] So. I started my career way back in 1990 as a computer programmer at the limited fashion apparel, I was the first ever IT guy at a little startup called Bath and Body Works, and I really just fell in love with the business sides. I consider myself a business person who happens to love technology, not a technologist that works in business.[00:06:01] And I'm 20 years as a CIO. And during that experience, I made a lot of mistakes, especially early on, and some of them costly. And it really inspired me to write a book about some of the mistakes I made, what lessons I learned and the goal was to help young people or people in their early in their career.[00:06:18] Learning the easy way, right? Buy a book, read about it and do things better. I believe a rising tide raises all ships and especially in retail, we need to help each other out. So I'm hoping that this book will inspire and help everybody that reads it.[00:06:30] Ricardo Belmar: Thank you, Andy. I'm sure everyone who does read your book in retail is going to greatly appreciate all the wonderful insights and stories that you've told in there, as well as all the great tips. Now, I know I certainly came away from reading the book with a number of them as well, and I'm not even a CIO.[00:06:46] So I think everybody's going to have something to learn from that.[00:06:49] Andy Laudato: My books for every man, woman, and child in the United States.[00:06:52] Ricardo Belmar: There you go, there you go. That's the right way, right way to look at it. Now, not to mention the fact, I think we all agree that there's a good need for lots and lots of collaboration in the retail industry given all the current day and future challenges facing the industry,[00:07:05] Laudato's Hierarchy of IT Needs[00:07:05] Ricardo Belmar: So let's start in one particular area Andy, that you dive into right upfront in the book, and that's what you call Laudato's hierarchy of IT needs which as you might guess is based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.[00:07:18] And while Maslow postulated of course that in order to achieve things like love, belonging esteem, and self actualization, you've got to first satisfy a lot of physiological needs, things like I don't know, little things like eating, drinking, sleeping and then safety needs. So I think you drew a really great analogy, to that, to put together your hierarchy of IT needs and not to steal too much thunder from that.[00:07:40] Why don't you walk us through , your version of the pyramid and how that relates to running your night?[00:07:46] Andy Laudato: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think a Maslow is saying, if you're being chased by a bear, you can't fall in love. Right? You got priorities. And so making sure you have air and food and water, and then you're safe, all these things have to happen.[00:07:58] And we all want to innovate. We all talk about innovation and innovation is very important, but if the basic it needs are not met, it's just not going to happen. So at the very bottom of the Lodato hierarchy for IT is just, KTLO keep the lights on. And the emails have to email and the paychecks have to print in the registers, have to ring and the website has to perform and like it or not, if you're in it, leadership, this is your most important job.[00:08:24] It can do a lot more harm than good. An amazing IT department's not going to make a company successful, but a failed IT department will, I don't care how nice your product is. If you can't sell it, you can't ship it. If you can't return it, then you're going to fail. This is the main job is keeping the lights on.[00:08:41] It's not the exciting job, right? It's not the fun, sexy stuff we get to do like digital signs and things like that. The Trevor does, but it's at the foundation. So that's what you start with and you gotta figure it out and you have to have a well-oiled machine for nothing else matters. Every single CIO always talks about, they want a seat at the table.[00:09:02] And a lot of times they'll tell you to demand a seat at the time. But it doesn't work. You have to earn your seat at the table and I'm talking about the exact table, the boardroom, and the reason you have to earn it is because in every company I've ever worked in the true org chart is the informal, not the formal.[00:09:17] So let's assume that we get this figured out and you have the things running smoothly. The next level up then is what I call lean and efficient IT. So this is about first you get it right? And then you get it cheap. And lean and efficient. It means it's affordable. It's functioning well, because if you're a CIO and you start to go talk to other departments about programs and projects and systems, and your budgets are out of control, you just have no credibility.[00:09:47] Now look, if you can't keep the lights on, you know, so you have a big problem, you're going to pay any amount of money possible. So you've got to get it right. Then you work on optimizing. And every dollar that you can save or avoid spending is a dollar that could be added to innovation. So if you really want to innovate, it's possible to self fund by finding other things, to make efficient.[00:10:09] Ricardo Belmar: I want to turn to the Avengers panel members here and see what everybody thinks about those first two layers, keeping the lights on and creating that lean and efficient IT.[00:10:18] Jeff Roster: Gosh. Well, the first question I want to ask is what's your, what's your overall it spend Andy, but, but I know you're not going to answer that. So keeping the lights on it used to be almost 60 to 70% of her, of an it budget was, was basically depending on how you define that, that case. I'm assuming that everyone's trying to drive that down.[00:10:35] Is that part of the process that you're, you're going to.[00:10:39] Andy Laudato: Yeah. So the first, the bottom of my pyramid is just keeping lights on any way you can. And then the lean and efficient it is about just that it's about optimizing your cost so that you can have a higher percentage that's going towards creating value and innovating.[00:10:52] Casey Golden: Where do you think that we are right now in general for let's just say the predominant of retail. Do we feel like everybody has a core efficient we're beyond keeping the lights on and everybody's made those investments. Would you say it's like 60%, 80%? How close are we at? Like the core basic,[00:11:12] Andy Laudato: you know, it's astonishing to me that it's 20 22 and in order to build a retail stack for omni-channel, you probably need to include at least 20 to 30 different companies. I mean, Everyone's got a different, and I know that a Microsoft's on their path to being able to , provide these as are others trying. But the leading e-commerce platforms are not the leading OMS platforms.[00:11:34] I mean, I ask about subscriptions and then everyone tells you to use another platform. And then if you know, you look at the stack, people have on their websites, it's just layer after layer of these really niche. Functions and features. And so when you think about it, when I had a little short stint in healthcare and there were big enterprise tools and kind of ran the whole company.[00:11:55] So I think we're there. Casey. I think that, most retailers have built these things, but it takes an awful lot of work, effort and coordination to keep them all working together. I mean, imagine if you wanted a new car and you had to buy your chassis from Ford and your steering wheel from Chevy and your engine from Honda,[00:12:12] Casey Golden: that's a great analogy.[00:12:14] Andy Laudato: And this is how we live[00:12:16] in some of the parts don't exist. You've got to build those custom, right? And so this is what we're doing in retail. So where are we? We've come a long way, but it's still a giant mess.[00:12:24] Casey Golden: I love that analogy. I want to see a diagram.[00:12:29] Andy Laudato: I can go very fast.[00:12:33] Trevor Sumner: I mean, that's certainly dovetails into my question, which is. You know, certainly the, the markets, the retail is changing faster than it ever has. And I think of IT almost like electricity, right? You don't think about electricity in your offices or in what you do on a day to day basis, but it powers everything that you do.[00:12:50] Where the IT budget goes[00:12:50] Trevor Sumner: Similarly, IT powers everything that you do. How do you think through like the different departments, whether it's marketing sales, supply chain in it. And how to think through budgets, innovation and managing that. Is it all, is all IT in the IT budget or like where is the line where it flirts into a department, even though it's powered by technology because these days technology is like electricity.[00:13:20] Andy Laudato: Yeah. So I do agree, right? You walk in a room and flip the switch you want, you expect the light to come on. And a lot has to happen, there has to be a power plant and distribution and a lot had to happen, but it's there and it's figured out generally, except for in Texas, that stuff works. And so you pick up a telephone, at least an old fashioned telephone, and you expect the dial tone and it's the same thing with the internet, right?[00:13:41] It's a commodity. And even past the internet, it's about the cloud having, you know, CPU, so processing and storage. So I absolutely do agree that it is a necessary, I mean, I was looking for a new place to live and I checked on what kind of internet is available and , we all remember used to have to research before we went to a hotel and how much was it going to charge? So I definitely agree with that.[00:14:05] As far as where the budget should go. And I actually talk about this in the book. I'm a big fan of showback, not chargeback. So I do believe that the cost of technology should be an IT budget because if not, how can those costs be managed and how can you get to lean and efficient, which is the second step. Now showback is about actually letting everyone know how much of IT costs are being attributed to each of the different departments.[00:14:30] But if you let the departments of a company pay for IT, then they're going to have a bigger say. So the head of marketing might be all in on the Amazon cloud. And the head of sales is all in on the Azure cloud and someone else wants to have their own computer. So, you know, the people writing the checks have a lot of power, so I'm not a proponent of individual departments paying for IT.[00:14:51] Trevor Sumner: I guess, part of my question is. There's certainly, like you said, laptops, internet connectivity, but from a data perspective, let's say you have a customer data platform. Is that marketing budget is that IT budget? Is that being integrated into other systems for e-commerce or even supply chain?[00:15:10] So then marketing heads into operations and everything needs to be talking to each other. And then there might be integration. Is it when you cross departments that it becomes IT. What is it versus a departmental technology spend in your world?[00:15:27] Andy Laudato: Yeah, there just aren't that many siloed solutions. I mean, a customer data platform has this role in stores. It has role in the website ,it has a role in outbound marketing , it has a role in customer care. And so to have that and be in a single budget, to me, IT is the kind of the neutral party for that. So, yeah, I guess I'll repeat myself, but I'm a big proponent of anything that's technology , should be an IT budget because it's the glue that holds it together. I mean, there's a really good book called the corporate underpants by Tamra Adler. I think her name is, and it talks about how you could look at a company's website and kind of see the different departments. And I think when you start to silo your tech, then you're going to, it's going to show up to the customer.[00:16:02] You're not going to be seamless to the customer if you're not seamless on the backend.[00:16:06] Ricardo Belmar: So Andy, one thing that I'm going to ask you about there, on that specific point where, you just mentioned how that has an impact in giving the appearance and perception to the customer that it's all seamless. You make a point in the book about complacency and how that's the number one enemy of reliability.[00:16:22] And when I saw that, that reminds me of a lot of conversations I've had with retailers in the past about consistency in execution at the store level, from store to store and how that also impacts that consumer perception of the whole retail brand. So when you mentioned it, in the context of, keeping the lights on,[00:16:40] it's never really a solved thing, or you don't stop keeping the lights on ever. Right. It's always an ongoing thing. And that's why it's the foundation in your pyramid. Is that the right way to look at it?[00:16:51] Andy Laudato: Yeah, absolutely. Ricardo we operate in a dynamic world. So whether it's bandwidth, you need more and more bandwidth, processing power, security measures.[00:16:59] There's always new tools being added to the stack or existing tools being used differently. The bad guys are out there. They're, you know, they're continually coming up with new attack vectors. Like we're not having enough trouble, we're getting attacked by a bad actors. And so if you build it and it's great and you don't, nurture it, it's gonna fall apart.[00:17:17] That's why it's a full time job. You know, they always have to just stay on top of KTLO and the more you do and the more routine and the more process that you can put in place and now even automation and AI, then the smoother it's going to go.[00:17:28] Ricardo Belmar: And if you're doing that well, that should lead to, the lean and efficient IT part of the pyramid and make that easier. Right. If you're have that consistency and reliability.[00:17:38] Andy Laudato: Right. I like to use the word institutionalized. If you can institutionalize a process, then it's bigger than just one person it's repeatable. I always start my day with a stand-up.[00:17:47] We actually do a hundred person stand up every day at the vitamin shop with operations, our CEO's on there. And we just talk about what new systems or any changes, any problems. And so that becomes institutionalized that we're all talking about it and just gets really smooth. And as it gets smooth and automated and consistent, then it becomes cheaper, more affordable.[00:18:04] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, that makes complete sense. Why don't you take us to the next layer of the pyramid?[00:18:08] Creating Value[00:18:08] Andy Laudato: Yeah, so the next one is called creating value and in a lot of cases, creating value is what many people think all that IT does, which is projects. So this is putting in maybe an accounting system or a new order management or all the different tools we talked about from a CDP.[00:18:22] So you do a ROI and then you go to your FP and a group. You bicker over the benefits. She gets signed off, you hire an integrator and implement technology, and this is really important. But it's just not all IT does. Right. You only want to create value after you've got a nice firm foundation.[00:18:37] You don't want to throw more tools or more software on a wobbly foundation. So probably the most common activity that apps group does. And I think the most important thing is to work on the right things. And this is why portfolio management is so important. So I do think that good project management practices do exist and agile has really brought a lot, especially on the software side.[00:18:58] I actually created a class on project management on Udemy because I have kind of a passion for that. But portfolio management is important because even if you have a very well-run project, but you're not working on the right thing, then you're wasting your company's money or you just not optimizing the spend.[00:19:14] So a couple of principles I'd like to share. The first one is stop starting and start finishing. People love to kick off projects because it feels like they're getting something done. It's like, oh, when are we going to get our new order management tool? Oh yeah. We had a meeting. We got some demos.[00:19:28] Right? So starting a project doesn't deliver value. Working on a project does nothing but spend money. It's only when you deliver the features that you actually add value to your company. Another thing is a agile concept is called a WIP limit or work in process limit. And I contend I make the argument that everybody has too many concurrent projects going on.[00:19:48] So my advice is to stop starting new things until you've finished at least 10 or 15% of what's in flight. If you have 20 projects in your company and you rank them one through 20 and you finish number one. Now you have 19 projects, what the company will typically do is they'll start a new project, right.[00:20:04] Which will be your new number 20. Then you put people on it. What you're actually doing is you're putting people on, but you defined as the least important project in your whole company. So instead, what I recommend is that you take people that free up and then you add them to project the new number one.[00:20:19] And this is an agile called swarming. Take your people and just continue to push really hard to complete the most important project as has been decided by your executive team and get it done and just, focus on completion and then that's creating value. And then finally we get to the top, it seems like a journey and it is, and that's when you get to innovate.[00:20:37] So you've got a really well-oiled machine every day, just like Trevor said, It's like electricity, it just works. And , all your systems are smooth and they work. And then it doesn't cost you a lot of money. And honestly, when it's affordable, it doesn't even matter what budget it's in because it's a one and a half or 2% of the company's spend.[00:20:54] And now you've got projects going on and everyone knows what number one is and it's getting done. I mean, if you just do all those three things, you're going to be a star, right. But now, if you get there, now you can start to focus attention on innovation. Because innovation is spending time and talent and treasure on things that probably won't work.[00:21:12] So you're literally telling your company, we're going to spend money. We're going to take, hopefully our very best people, and we're going to have them do something that probably won't work. How do you do that if the first three aren't met? So in my mind you get all three working and then boom. Now , you've earned the right. to innovate.[00:21:26] Choosing Innovation[00:21:26] Casey Golden: That's a great point. How do you pick the next innovation or project to bring in when you have 19 other projects that haven't completed yet and started impacting the business? Because ideally you'd want to layer the next projects on top of the, the ones that have completed, you know, and that are starting to work in and be rolled out through the organization.[00:21:47] Andy Laudato: Exactly. And when people have already done the work to say that those projects will succeed and they have an ROI that people believe in now you're trying to do something innovative that doesn't have that. So, you know, what I like to do is box some kind of funds and say, this is our R and D funds and our R and D people.[00:22:03] But yeah, exactly what you said, Casey. And so now if your projects aren't completing on time and they're going over budget. Then it becomes next to impossible to ask for funds to try something innovative.[00:22:14] Trevor Sumner: How do you think through you know, at perch, we do the majority of our deals directly with brands who are spending their trade dollars towards innovation.[00:22:23] And often, it's being presented as category captaincy to almost look at an innovation project for the retailers. How do you think through brands bringing new innovations as part of that kind of budget, because it's still your resource, it's still your treasure and talent, right?[00:22:40] Just in terms of time and how do you balance, what brands are trying to accomplish with what you're trying to accomplish as a retailer? You know, if the spend is coming from them.[00:22:49] Andy Laudato: Yeah. I mean, it helps, right. If someone else is funding it. And so now all of a sudden it has the much lower burden to get approved. So I think that still has to fit into the priority or it has to be, somebody has to sponsor it as an innovation, but absolutely of course, if someone else's coming forward with, with funding it's an easier burden of the risk.[00:23:09] Casey Golden: Andy, when you're thinking about, moving those budgets out of departments and into IT, I don't know if you're, if you're selling into a department, IT might be the last conversation that you have before contract signed. How do you see that having those business owners Working with IT.[00:23:25] I know a lot of times they're not necessarily even in the same buildings. So being able to just even foster that type of a culture where you, you create that culture of being able to cross collaborate so that the business pain and the problems that our department's having is, is actually being presented and heard by IT.[00:23:45] Andy Laudato: Right. Imagine a place where the CIO and the, the directors and managers and VPs, and IT understand the business and they understand the business goals and they're there to help something get done. Right. And they can become champions because almost all tools have to be integrated. They have to be the security.[00:24:01] I mean, how many companies, you have a different user ID and password in your own company for every different system, right? That's, that's ridiculous, but that's normal. So, if IT is a partner, they build a single sign on tool or implement a single sign on tool that works across every, every single app. So the store person logs on once and it gets to all their different tools.[00:24:20] And even though it's different tools, at least it feels more seamless if it's on a single pane of glass with a single password. So, I mean, it just starts with embracing IT, but I say all the time that IT has to meet the business, that 95% where they are, it's not about IT. It's about whatever the business is, right?[00:24:37] Whatever we're selling and whoever our customers are. But yeah, IT in a different building is a nightmare. IT in a different floor with a different culture in different working conditions and different hours and just not part of a company culture and they have their own culture, then they're just a roadblock instead of a partner.[00:24:52] So it's all gotta be fixed, but it starts with leadership.[00:24:55] Casey Golden: If you could give one piece of advice to the companies that are looking to implement software this year that do have department budgets or manage it at the IT level. If you could give one piece of feedback on how to pull everyone together to make those decisions together, what do you think the first step is?[00:25:12] Andy Laudato: This is not a direct answer, but I think the most important thing is to get those IT people working in the store, shopping on the website, really living, take a call from the customer care. Right? I mean, if you're a database analyst and it takes two minutes for the registered or run, that's like an interesting problem that you might ponder.[00:25:31] If you're a store associate standing at a store and the line starts to form, cause register's not performing that two minutes is like an eternity. I mean, I've been there, you know, sweat comes dripping off and so getting that empathy by actually getting the people out of their, whatever they're working now, remote, you know, their home basements into stores is the most important thing I think to start with.[00:25:51] Casey Golden: That's great.[00:25:52] Shish Shridhar: Andy curious about your opinion about where innovation should sit in a company. I know a couple of years ago there was this big wave of innovation labs happening in retail. And many of them didn't quite survive very long and there was various reasons quoted for failure. Including that they were created for the wrong reasons.[00:26:15] They were innovation theater. And they were disconnected from the business. All of those things, kind of curious about what your thoughts are on innovation labs and separate innovation teams within an organization versus integrated.[00:26:30] Andy Laudato: That's a great question Shish it's kind of like when that e-comm started happening and the 1990 nines, then everybody said, oh, we gotta be in California. So they all built separate organizations. And look, we spent 10 years using the word digital, and now we're using the word innovation. I put up my book, we got to define what we mean by innovation. And so for me, it's coming up with solving an unmet need for a customer, right?[00:26:53] I think about Uber having text taxis and the idea of paying someone to drive you somewhere, probably is as old as cars, you know, probably over a hundred years old, but Uber came up with a new way to deliver that. So that's innovation, even though it's just getting in someone's car and getting a ride and paying him for it, I think defining innovation is important.[00:27:10] And for me, then it's got to be your best and brightest and boy, that's an easy thing to say. A hard thing to do because you know, and Casey alluded to it with projects, right? You got to take your best developers or project managers or business analyst or product owners, scrum masters off number one project and stick them on innovation.[00:27:27] But yeah, I'm not a fan of separating people. Now look, we're all remote and I think we're all going to be remote. So that whole proximity thing is almost like a moot point in a sense. Yeah, I think it's gotta be part of it. I think an innovation project should be in the same list as everything else.[00:27:42] I'm a huge fan of, and I call it a one list of having a single list force ranked one through X and not having a separate here's my department's projects or my department's money because you're just creating conflict internally. Now. Look, I've mostly worked at the biggest company I've worked at. You know, I worked at a $4 billion company.[00:27:58] So if you're a really, really big company, probably different, but to me, one list of projects, one team, one partnership, all focused around the three or four business objectives is how the "must" gets done and how everyone can come together.[00:28:10] Shish Shridhar: And you kind of mentioned something interesting, which is the unmet customer need and keeping focused on the customer. One of those aspects that was interesting for me was JC Penny's attempt at innovation and also maybe Virgin America's attempted innovation where the customer needs were not quite in focus when they did that.[00:28:30] So that's interesting too.[00:28:31] Scaling Innovation[00:28:31] Andy Laudato: The thing I think is crazy about JC, like in retail and when we talk about stores, we can try something in one store and then do it in 12 and then do it in a hundred and then do it at a thousand. Right. And if we're talking about online, we can AB test. We AB test every feature.[00:28:45] So we give it to 5% of the customers. So the fact that Penney's actually went to hundreds of hundreds of stores at the same time. It's astonishing. Right? Why would you, why would you do that? Make it, make sure get it right in the morning before you do it in 10.[00:28:58] Casey Golden: Yeah. I'm a big advocate for doing those rollouts in your bottom doors.[00:29:03] I'm like anything, almost anything will work in a flagship. . It produces great KPIs, but can you do it at and afford it on a bottom door?[00:29:13] Andy Laudato: Yeah, that's a great point. And if you can't then of course you can't scale it, yeah.[00:29:17] Casey Golden: Scale those up because if it doesn't work at a bottom door, then come on. We've only got, five top doors typically.[00:29:24] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. That's, that's like my favorite thing that I've had to say to a number of retailers over the years is, almost every time your proof of concept will work when you do it at your, stores that you've tagged as the test stores, because they're always ready right there, anticipate, and they're there, know what to expect and they're having higher tolerance.[00:29:41] If something doesn't work out in a proof of concept, then to your point, right, they pick your bottom doors where they can't tolerate anything not working. And you put something new in there and if you can make it work, then you've probably figured out how to make it work everywhere else.[00:29:53] Casey Golden: Yeah, exactly. It's easy to scale it up. I've seen a lot of projects be rolled out with large budgets at a top door, and then it's, you know, one 25th of the budget to do it at a bottom door and it doesn't work and it's like, it's terrible experience.[00:30:10] Trevor Sumner: Yeah, I guess, we see that too. I think overall, there's this trend to kind of personalize stores by geography, different product selection, different offerings.[00:30:20] And I'd love your thoughts on how do you balance the importance of consistency and consistency and measurement consistency and standard operating procedures, consistency and systems with the desire to both innovate and regionalize and personalize[00:30:38] Andy Laudato: yeah, you asking me Trevor or Casey.[00:30:40] Trevor Sumner: I'm asking everybody, but you're the, you're the star this week, so[00:30:44] Andy Laudato: Sure. That's a great question. I mean, we just rolled out our first franchise store. So this is really top of mind for us because you know, one of the benefits that we're looking for from franchisees is their creativity and bringing ideas back.[00:30:56] Everyone knows like a franchisee came up with the big Mac and the $5 footlong, you know, But we want to make sure when you walk into the store, the customer shouldn't even know that that vitamin shop is not owned by the corporation. So I think it's all about guardrails and say, here's where you do not have leeway to change on branding on product.[00:31:15] And here's where you do. So you kind of loosen the reins on local stores and whether it's assortment or culture or process or fixture design, but all within guardrails of the brand.[00:31:27] Casey Golden: That's interesting that you guys opened up your first franchise. How are you dealing with, e-commerce and some of the tech stacks with the franchisees?[00:31:36] Andy Laudato: We didn't really open up, how do we even think we sold the store, but we sold the territory. So think of it as a five mile circle. And so any e-commerce sale that happens.[00:31:46] And that circle belongs to that. So we share a royalty on e-commerce sales. We have a reverse royalty if they sell something and I'm getting extra, but every single thing we're doing is being there's a participation from the franchisee. So even if there's a subscription they sell and then we fulfill it, we're going to give them a royalty on that.[00:32:04] It's, it's a really neat model and we worked through it in detail. We just didn't want to compete against them. And a lot of people that were franchised in retail before, e-commerce, they're kind of struggling now with some of these, these things.[00:32:14] Casey Golden: Yeah. It's been a definite struggle for a lot of fashion brands specifically in that franchise model in different countries, because they don't have access to the e-commerce store or a lot of the digital technology on the backend. So interesting.[00:32:28] Ricardo Belmar: So Andy, I want to ask you a slightly different point. So in, in all of the areas that you've talked about on what you've learned are the best ways to do this. I'm curious, what kind of resistance have you come across from different organizations when you've tried to follow this approach, as you've outlined it in the book, as you're creating value and you're doing that to lead to innovation. And for example, you referenced concrete a lot in some of your examples . So I'm curious, where does that come from and is that anything to do with, you know, the kind of challenges and resistance you ran into through different organizations?[00:33:01] Andy Laudato: Yeah. When I worked at a peer one, we built this new headquarters and we built this parking garage and everybody was so excited about the parking garage, right? It's you're going to park close LER, co it was covered. And I was just getting jealous of the parking garage because it was like this solid thing that you could see every day and you could see the progress and you could see the benefit like, oh yeah, I get to park my car in the sun and the shade.[00:33:22] Meanwhile, I'm working on a million dollar new HR system and no one really can see what they're going to get and why we're doing it. So I just, to me, I talk about the parking garage is my project that I try. If we can make IT projects is visible as building a garage. I mean, because ultimately it's more important to pier one, to have a new HR system.[00:33:41] Then they have really good parking for the employees, but no one really felt that way so we know where Pier one ended up . And then just in the hierarchy, it's about a firm foundation and really with two feet. So as you move up the pyramid, you got to have a firm foundation. So yeah, those are kind of some of the reasons I think about that.[00:33:56] Just a little jealousy of a project that parking garage.[00:33:59] Ricardo Belmar: I bet everyone has their own version of the parking garage story.[00:34:03] Andy Laudato: So much of IT is nebulous and not tangible. Right. And so it's, it's our jobs to make it more, more tangible.[00:34:09] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I would expect that even when you're in the creating value project, how you state the value has to be pretty, pretty important part of the process to that point, because as you just said, if the, overall project is one of these I'll use the phrase kind of behind the scenes, projects where the outcome of the technology is something that employees are going to take for granted of, okay. It's just working and not think through why it's so critical for the business.[00:34:33] How do you sell the value of those kinds of projects?[00:34:35] Andy Laudato: Well, you got to start in, in the beginning, right. And be clear about what you're getting while you're getting it while you're doing it. I mean Shish mentioned AI. AI is really difficult in my mind to prove value because a lot of times you stick in data and then out comes the answer.[00:34:47] And is it really the best answer and what was it based on? And, so if I can translate, a sentence from one language to another, that's pretty tangible. But if it's just send this offer to this customer, because she's more likely to buy this blue sweater instead of this pink one that that's a little trickier.[00:35:02] Managing your team[00:35:02] Ricardo Belmar: So, let me jump to another set of constants in the, in the book we've had in this room. And I think you've been in the audience for some of those. Andy's a lot of discussions around people and how you should treat the team. That work in your organization. And you have quite a bit to say about this in your book, on what the CIO's job is in terms of building the IT team, and actually how that team interacts, not just with, within their own teams, but also with other groups in the business. Can you tell us a little bit more about, what some of your views are and what are your suggestions are there and how, both from an organizational structure point of view, but just general ideas on how you should be managing the team to help foster innovation.[00:35:41] Andy Laudato: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I don't know when I had this moment, but this was an aha moment in my career that really leading an IT department is not about technology. It's a people job. I can't configure a router or open up space on a cloud or program in AI.[00:35:54] I can't do any of these things. And even if I could, I wouldn't have time to do it. So it's just about people and it's having to work with different constituents. I mean, I think we kind of got a feel for it today, right? Trevor has a, maybe a different opinion than Casey and I love that. .[00:36:06] It's all about understanding everything. So it's, all about people, but yet the people we put in these jobs have a background like me. I went to technical school and learn how to program in COBOL. That's my education. So I had to learn these things, you know, through just my own education over the years.[00:36:21] We think about people. It's about engagement and engagement to me is about, are we actually getting people's discretionary time? So for me, I do all my thinking. When I go out and long bicycle rides, I go out and think about how I'm going to solve the world's problems. So I spend a lot of my time riding my bike, doing laps at central park and thinking about how I'm gonna make things better at the vitamin shoppe.[00:36:42] Now if instead I was spending my time thinking about how I was going to find a new job or horrible, my boss is, that's not engagement. To me, engagement is, am I getting peoples brain power, their creativity, their passion. So there's kind of this old joke that people quit and don't leave.[00:36:57] They don't tell you, they quit. Nowadays, people are leaving, they're quitting and they're leaving. And so, understanding what each person is motivated by is a big, big deal for me. For a lot of tech people. And again, I won't stereotype for a lot. It's about getting to work on cool things. And so in some cases, innovation does become a motivator.[00:37:14] I mean, if IT is just need is electricity, then it's not that exciting of a career. And people have choices. So as much as you can make, keep the lights on smooth and automated and free up your time and resources to work on the fun things, creating value and innovating, then that's a better chance that people are engaged.[00:37:31] So you know, I do have a long list of ideas to take care of people. But one that I'd like to share is I think leaders need to focus on spending their most time with their best people. And I do believe that I've been coached by my HR partners to do the exact opposite.[00:37:46] So you have a poor performer. You're supposed to be coaching them, writing them up, you know, giving them warnings And a lot of people think you take your best people and you leave them alone because they're great. And then there'll be happy. But my advice is do the exact opposite. I'd rather take a, A player to an, A plus than a F student to a D.[00:38:02] So that's some advice that I've had to learn is and I learned it because, and it's in my book because I had an A player. Quit. And he said in his exit interview that he just felt kind of ignored and our philosophy was, oh, he's so valued. And he's so productive. We're going to leave him alone. And it just backfired.[00:38:19] So that's when one of my 10 ideas I'd like to share[00:38:22] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that was one of my favorites as well. In fact, one of the things I find in that particular approach is that when you spend time with those a players with those best team members, it, it tends to rub off on, let's call it that the next layer of team members.[00:38:39] In the sense that when you're making that A player really happy in what they're doing. A lot of that happiness, I believe rubs off on other team members and helps elevate them as well. And it just kind of propagates that way and maybe you've found the same thing, but that's kind of the way I see that approach really working favorably in any organization.[00:38:57] Andy Laudato: Yeah. I agree with that. And I have another concept that says be kind enough to let someone go. So the bad apple spoils the bunch is an absolute truth. And if someone's negative complaining a lot, they're going to go to lunch with the team. Or a virtual launch and that's going to drag the whole thing down.[00:39:13] So people that are just not a fit in, and I believe that everybody's good at something. And so the reason I say, be kind enough to let someone go, if someone's not succeeding as a leader, as their manager, you are, it's your job to let them go so they can go find where they'll do well. I've had someone work for me, went off and became a successful stockbroker.[00:39:30] Or maybe different, you know, people always land on their feet and they always seem to do better. You know, that we're succeeding after they leave the company. So, what you said, Ricardo, where the A-players and having that positive, and then you combine it with not having any people dragging the team down.[00:39:45] Then all of a sudden the team becomes very high performant.[00:39:47] Ricardo Belmar: And if you then couple that with one of the comments you made earlier about when the team that's working on that priority one project, when they finish and then you have them move down to the second most priority project, rather than having them start the next fresh project at the bottom of the list, I think that has that same kind of energy, right?[00:40:06] Where that, that team now they're coming off having finished, you have to expect that they're quite happy and pleased and appropriately so, right, that they finished that project. And now they take that same kind of energy to the next project. And hopefully if that group that was working on the second priority, they were just as pleased to be working on that one.[00:40:25] Now they've got these new people coming in with even more energy. You would hope that that helps drive that project to conclusion that much faster and so on down the line. So you get through all of them done.[00:40:34] Andy Laudato: Yeah. You know, next time you talk to a CIO, everyone can do this, right. Say to them, you know, buy him a beer and say, do you think it makes sense to put your very best people on your most important project?[00:40:43] Do you think every single person will say, of course we should put our very best people and our most important projects. Then I then say, "do you?",[00:40:51] And the answer is no, it's always no, it's like, well, we put the next person up, right? The next person, the next project manager available next product. So everyone in common sense, sometimes we forget that course. You should put your very best people on your most important project. And because that's what gives it the most, the highest chance to succeed.[00:41:09] But no one ever does that. They just don't, it's just resource modeling and people are not fungible. So you got to realize that.[00:41:16] Ricardo Belmar: That's a good point.[00:41:17] And while I wait to see if there are any questions Andy, one of your other concrete examples that stood out to me, you had a great quote where you said that sticking a group of people in a room and just telling them to innovate is no better than putting a seed on a concrete floor and telling it to grow.[00:41:32] I think that's actually a very appropriate statement.[00:41:36] Jeff Roster: That's a good one.[00:41:37] Andy Laudato: This is where we talking about psychological safety, right? We're we're talking about risk taking and you just order someone to innovate. They're not, they don't feel safe to there's kind of an old joke. Maybe it's not a little, but fail fast, but not always.[00:41:48] And so are you really willing to have a failure in retail? Are you willing to lose money? I think, risk-taking when you make where something doesn't work. Has to go with the education we all spent so much, you know, I borrowed money to go to college. You know, we all spend money on our children, lot of money, a lot of it borrowed.[00:42:06] And because we all know how important education is. And so a very expensive innovation project that doesn't work. If you kind of pretend like it never happened, you wasted every dime. But if you talk out loud about why it didn't work, what you learned, what you learned about your customers yourself.[00:42:21] It's just money well spent. So building a nurturing environment where people can feel safe and allowed to fail without getting fired is the key. And that's what I'm talking about there.[00:42:31] And then I'll just end by saying it all goes back to the customer. Who's the customer, what am I doing this for. If your job is website developer, you're so far removed from the end customer sometimes. So just making sure that the people doing the work know who they're doing it for. They're not doing it for the scrum master.[00:42:47] They're not doing it for the product owner. They're not doing it for the head of digital, you know, they're working on a feature for a customer. So to me, that should energize you because all of us, ultimately are customers. So we can, we can relate to that.[00:42:58] Ricardo Belmar: All right. Well, any final thoughts that you want to leave the audience with on your journey to innovation?[00:43:04] Andy Laudato: Thanks[00:43:04] for[00:43:04] coming . I love this stuff and I, I believe just strongly that we'll all go up together. And so I really appreciate the time and the opportunity.[00:43:12] Ricardo Belmar: And I want to thank you, Andy again for agreeing to join us today. I think this has been a fantastic session. I think we all learned a lot.[00:43:19] I, very much enjoyed reading your book. I know it's not a retail specific per se, but it definitely is worth the reads for everybody here listening, who hasn't already picked up a copy.[00:43:29] And with that, I'm going to wish everyone a great rest of your day, wherever time zone you're in. And thanks for joining us. This has been another session in the retail razor room, and we will be back with a new topic, and we hope to see you then. Thanks everybody for joining us,[00:43:43] Thanks,[00:43:44] Casey Golden: Ricardo.[00:43:44] Thanks Andrew.[00:43:45][00:43:45] Interview with Andy[00:43:45] Casey Golden: Welcome back everyone.[00:43:51] Ricardo Belmar: I hope our listeners enjoyed that discussion as much as we did. And the best part is we've got Andy here with us now. Welcome to the show Andy[00:43:59] Andy Laudato: Yeah. Hello, Ricardo and Casey. Great to see you again.[00:44:02] Casey Golden: Great to see you actually see you.[00:44:04] Ricardo Belmar: Exactly. Yeah. It's so great to see you. Although I guess our listeners can't see you, but that's okay. We can see you that that's what counts here. And in this case it was a real treat. Having you join our clubhouse room, Andy, and as usually happens with these sessions, right. There is just so much to talk about.[00:44:19] It seems like we never have enough time to get through all the questions we want to ask and talk about. So in that spirit, we've got a few more questions for you[00:44:27] Casey Golden: Talking a bit about career development. This is an important part of your book. And I've heard, you mentioned 70, 20, 10 rule. I love it. Can you fill in our listeners on what this means?[00:44:40] Andy Laudato: Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of people, when they think about career development, they're looking for formal training. This could be going to a class or even out of college. You know, continuing education, but in the 1980s, it's something called the center for creative leadership. They did research and said, actually to develop in your career, formal training only will give you about 10% of what you need.[00:45:01] So although it's important, it's not sufficient. And what they learned was that 20% comes from interaction with others. This could be what you learned for directly from your boss or mentors. So formal training and feedback directly from others, get you to the 30%, but the bulk of what you get to be successful in the move up in your career comes from actual experiences.[00:45:24] So the 70 20 10 rule says that 70% comes from actual experiences, 20% from others and 10% from formal education. So that means if you're working with someone that works for you or you're looking to grow your career, you really need to look for opportunities to immerse people in the job. So this could be job shadowing.[00:45:42] This could be a stretch assignment on another team. You know, this could be a hanging out on a special project. So it's just really important to think about. Don't just be pounding, the fist demanding formal education, although important. It's not, the whole picture.[00:45:56] Ricardo Belmar: I really like that approach. It makes a lot of sense. So Andy understanding that rule now, what else can you tell us about your hiring preferences and practices?[00:46:05] What, what do you look for in a candidate?[00:46:07] Andy Laudato: Yeah. So I look for things that I can't teach somebody. I always say these are things you learned from your mother, or you got genetically, or you learned them in kindergarten, but by the time you get to me, it's too late. Right? So. I start with integrity. Someone needs to be honest and always do the right thing and, you know, without integrity, nothing else matters.[00:46:25] And again, I don't feel like I can teach someone or coach someone to have integrity by the time they get to us. That's already been kind of ingrained in who they are as a person. The second one is intelligence, I can't make someone smarter. So that's my second one. The third one is ambition. Again, these are the things that people kind of come with inherently. What's your learning style? What are you doing to learn? Do you have drive or are you proactive? Do you push? And then finally temperament, you know, look in retail business there's ups and downs. And so, how do you handle yourself when something goes awry? So, yeah, all four of those integrity, intelligence, ambition and temperament are things that I specifically interview for because I feel like whatever the skill is that you need, whether it's, programming or creative, these are the things that people and should be able to learn.[00:47:16] And especially in technology where things change so rapidly anyway, right? If you're an expert on this tech in two years, we're going to be using that tech. And so if you have the ambition and the intelligence and the interest of learning the new, you're going to be a more successful.[00:47:30] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that really makes up for whether you have the existing skill or not, it's something that you can learn, but it's the things that you can't learn that harder ones to seek out.[00:47:39] Andy Laudato: Exactly.[00:47:40] Casey Golden: you mentioned in your book. You talk about the true org chart is the informal one. What do you mean by that?[00:47:47] Andy Laudato: Let me explain it, Casey, with an example. So you'll hear every person, who's a CIO say, I need a seat at the table. I have to have a seat at the table. There's a book called a seat at the table and you can demand it. You can insist on it. You know, you can do that, but so much, so much decision making at a company doesn't happen in the formal meetings.[00:48:06] So to me, the informal org chart is when the CEO's looking to brainstorm on ideas, who's he going to invite to have a coffee or who she can invite to have a coffee, go to lunch. Just, you know, I want to run an idea by you. So to me, the informal org chart is where some decisions and debate, discussion, and brainstorming happen in a company that may or may not be how it's listed on the formal HR organizational charts.[00:48:30] So to me, more important than a seat at the table is kind of a seat at the coffee shop. That you become the go-to person.[00:48:38] Ricardo Belmar: you want to be the person that somebody, everybody calls.[00:48:41] Casey Golden: Yeah, I got most of my budgets approved in the hallway.[00:48:48] Ricardo Belmar: Isn't that true. Yeah. That's how it works. That's how it works. It's so true.[00:48:51] Andy Laudato: Yeah. Another really important person on the informal org chart is always the executive assistants,[00:48:57] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.[00:48:58] Andy Laudato: Cause they got to decide[00:48:59] Ricardo Belmar: But right. Yeah. Like the kind of the ultimate gatekeeper. Right. And who gets time.[00:49:03] yeah.[00:49:03] Yeah. That's right. That's so true.[00:49:06] Andy Laudato: leaders in a company.[00:49:09] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah,[00:49:10] absolutely.[00:49:10] Andy Laudato: I remember that. Yeah,[00:49:12] Ricardo Belmar: I'll walk and talk. Yeah. So true[00:49:14] Andy Laudato: I have, when I was early in my career, my boss was a smoker and we used to have this smoking room and that's how old this story is from the nineties. And if I wanted to meet with them, I had to go suffer it out, you know, in[00:49:24] Ricardo Belmar: in the smoking room.[00:49:26] Andy Laudato: Yeah, I think I probably took five years[00:49:28] off my life getting face time with my boss.[00:49:33] Ricardo Belmar: You go, sometimes you have to do what you have to do, right. To get the time.[00:49:36] Andy Laudato: Exactly.[00:49:38] Ricardo Belmar: So one of my favorite concepts you bring up in the book, Andy, and something, I don't think we got to in the clubhouse sessions, which you call be a diode. Can you talk us through that?[00:49:46] Andy Laudato: Yeah. So a diode is an electronic component. That's actually found inside computers, phones, and even everyone's actually heard of diodes because it's the D and light emitting diode or LEDs.[00:49:57] Ricardo Belmar: right.[00:49:59] Andy Laudato: And so the very simple thing that a diode does is it allows electricity to flow unimpeded in one direction. So the electricity goes into the diode and comes right out, but it completely blocks the flow of the electricity in the other direction.[00:50:12] And so it's really important for computers because it's how we make gates to say yes, no on-off which ends up being binary. So the analogy that I like to use in business is that if you become a diode as a leader, anytime there's any kind of complaints, anger, problems, you as the leader block those. So just like the diode blocks of electricity, the current flowing in one direction you take all of the cr

It's the fourth anniversary of the final Virgin America flight where the founding #nerdbirds met, and our 150th episode! Brendan and Rachel channel their inner game show hosts, with contestants Charlie, David, Kai, and Sebastian trying their hand at the Password game show. Will Charlie be able to defend his title from last year's 100th episode Jeopardy! special to become a supernerdbird? Listen in and find out! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/nerdbirds/support

Imagine learning best business practices from the former vice chairman of Booz Allen Hamilton, Chairman of Chiquita Brands International, publisher and CEO of the Chicago Sun Times, and directors at Virgin America and Allegheny Energy. You wouldn't actually need a very big room, since Cyrus Freidheim filled everyone of those roles during his 55-year business career, as well as stints at Union Carbide, Ford Motor, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Cyrus has summed up all he's learned about business — and life — in a newly published book, Commit & Deliver: On the Frontlines of Management Consulting. There's no need to pay $1,000 an hour or more for Cyrus's expertise. It's free for the taking this week as host and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart's guest is Cyrus Freidheim. Photo: Cyrus Freidheim, Commit & DeliverPosted: December 27, 2021Monday Morning Run Time: 56:08

Iain Day was 3 years old when his father took him to an airshow at RAF Leuchars outside Dundee in Scotland and he was hooked. He received a Flying Scholarship from the UKs Royal Air Force at the age of 16 as a member of the Air Training Corps. Iain was, for a while, the youngest Private pilot in Scotland being only 17 when he achieved that. At 18 Iain left home and moved to the United States to continue his aviation education. Capitalizing on on the more cost effective training environment in the States; Iain arrived in Phoenix, Arizona in late December 1994. There he started working on more licenses and ratings, eventually gaining all levels of flight instructor and advanced ground instructor certificates before he turned 21. Along with flight instructing, Iain worked as a support pilot and announcer for a nationally touring airshow act. In 2001 left Phoenix and moved to New England as a First Officer and later Captain for the now defunct Colgan Air flying all over the North East. He then flew corporate jets for 10 years. After that he went to went to Virgin America where he met me, we were flying the A320 out of JFK and EWR. He left this job after the sale of VX and they closed the only East Coast base it had. He now works for a large Cargo outfit; recently having transitioned from the Boeing 747 to the Boeing 777. Just over a year ago he traded his 1974 Bellanca Decathlon aircraft, N401AD, for my current aircraft, a 1992 Yakovlev 55M, N55YA. Follow him on Instagram @capecodyak

Quizmasters Lee and Marc meet for a general knowledge quiz on Anatomy, 70's Movies, 80's Sitcoms, Literature, U.S. History, Retro Games, Vintage Toys and more! Round One JAM BANDS - What jam band is responsible for the song "Wilson," which became a popular chant amongst fans of Seattle Seahawks' quarterback Russell Wilson? 80's SITCOMS - Airing for four seasons on NBC, the Tanner family orbited the title character of which popular 80's sitcom? DOG BREEDS - What breed of dog was Boo, the pet of a Facebook executive and Virgin America's official pet liaison? 70's MOVIES - Chuck Wepner was the real-life inspiration for which movie series that began with a film released in 1976? RELIGION - What Christian denomination was begun by John Wesley in 1738? ANIMALS - Marsupials are classified into two superorders based on geographic origin, Ameridelphia (which accounts for roughly 25% of all marsupials) and what other super order? HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE - "Sheltered Harbor" is the translation of what Hawaiian word? Round Two URBAN LEGENDS - The DaVinci Code repeats the myth that the glass pyramid in front of the Louvre consists of how many panes of glass? RETRO GAMING - Peter Pepper was the protagonist who is pursued by dangerous food foes (such as Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle and Mr. Egg) in what 1980's ladder climbing game that was released in arcades as well as home video game consoles? BIRD ANATOMY - What bird bone is known as the "wishbone"? ANATOMY - The gnathion is the midpoint on the lowest part of which bone in the body? LITERATURE - What is the vocation of Ichabod Crane in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow? EUROPEAN FOODS - What dish whose origin dates to the 7th century Andalusia is traditionally made with ripe tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, garlic, and bread moistened with water that is blended with olive oil and vinegar? Rate My Question FIRST LADIES - Of the 46 presidencies, which First Lady never moved into the White House due to her husband's untimely death? - Captain Nick THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA - In multiple iterations of the story Erik, the Phantom dresses as what character from a popular short story by Edgar Allan Poe? HUMAN ANATOMY - Of the over 60 sphincters in the human body, how many are in the digestive tract? Final Questions PUMPKINS - In the sport of pumpkin chucking, pumpkins that burst after leaving the barrel or sling before hitting the ground are disqualified and referred to as what prepared food? VINTAGE TOYS - “You run, you slide, you hit the bump and take a dive” were the words to the jingle for what toy from the 1980's to 1990's? Upcoming LIVE Know Nonsense Trivia Challenges November 24th, 2021 - Know Nonsense Challenge - Point Ybel Brewing Co. - 7:30 pm EDT December 1st, 2021 - Know Nonsense Trivia Challegnge - Ollies Pub Records and Beer - 7:30 pm EDT You can find out more information about that and all of our live events online at KnowNonsenseTrivia.com All of the Know Nonsense events are free to play and you can win prizes after every round. Thank you Thanks to our supporters on Patreon. Thank you, Quizdaddies – Brandon, Issa, Adam V., Tommy (The Electric Mud) and Tim (Pat's Garden Service) Thank you, Team Captains – Captain Nick, Grant, Mo, Jenny, Rick G., Skyler, Dylan, Shaun, Lydia, Gil, David, Aaron, Kristen & Fletcher Thank you, Proverbial Lightkeepers – Robb, Rachael, Rikki, Jon Lewis, Moo, Tim, Nabeel, Patrick, Jon, Adam B., Ryan, Mollie, Lisa, Alex, Spencer, Kaitlynn, Manu, Matthew, Luc, Hank, Justin, Cooper, Elyse, Sarah, Karly, Kristopher, Josh, Lucas Thank you, Rumplesnailtskins – Sarah, FoxenV, Laurel, A-A-Ron, Loren, Hbomb, Alex, Doug, Kevin and Sara, Tiffany, Allison, Paige, We Do Stuff, Kenya, Jeff, Eric, Steven, Efren, Mike J., Mike C., Mike. K If you'd like to support the podcast and gain access to bonus content, please visit http://theknowno.com and click "Support."

Kate is a freelance content marketer, author, and entrepreneur who helps businesses scale using social media. She has contributed regularly to Forbes and Social Media Examiner on the Creator Economy. Kate's been featured on CNN, Nasdaq, NPR, BBC, NBC News, CNBC, Huffington Post, VentureBeat and named an Instagram Marketing Expert from Foundr Magazine and Social Media Examiner. Kate also wrote a best-selling book, "Oh Snap! You Can Use Snapchat for Business" which IBM named their 'Book of the Month.' Kate's strong understanding of the digital landscape comes from scaling startups in the digital space and running social media for Virgin America, Kiva, and top venture capital firms. Our guest is also a millennial marketing post-graduate lecturer at Ireland's Digital Marketing Institute and social media expert witness. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/skincareanarchy/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/skincareanarchy/support

It only took 18 months from our first episode for #nerdbird Mark to finally appear for his intro with our now-vintage lightning round questions! Unlike the founding #nerdbirds, Mark was not on the Virgin America final flight in 2018 and brings different perspectives on aviation, including his time at Boeing and decades-long loyalty to Delta (not to mention the decade of roadtrips with co-host Rachel). This is also our first live episode at an airport, so enjoy the background sound effects. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/nerdbirds/support

Anastacia Maggioncalda is the Head of Production for the Creative Studio at LinkedIn. Anastacia was a photography and cultural anthropology student at Sarah Lawrence College in New York and after graduating, worked as a producer and studio manager alongside fashion photographers in New York. After transitioning to commercial work, she led production at both Shelter Films and Crossroads Films. Anastacia made the move to the west coast and the agency side of things working with such brands as BMW, Gatorade, Target, Lexus, Coke, Virgin America, Oakley, Apple, Visa, and Aria. She has also run visual effects production on numerous music videos for artists like N'SYNC, Ricky Martin, Linkin Park, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliot, Kanye West, and on feature films like Spiderman, Hell Boy, Castaway, Sin City and Iron Man. Anastacia has won a Webby and a Bronze Lion for her work with Virgin America. •   This episode of The Ready State Podcast is sponsored by Paleovalley Beef Sticks. Made from 100% organic grass-fed beef and organic spices, these are hands down our favorite on-the-go protein snack. They are naturally fermented making them shelf stable without chemicals or questionable ingredients, for when you find one in a backpack you haven't used since last summer. For more info and 15% off, go to thereadystate.com/beefsticks   •   This episode of The Ready State Podcast is sponsored by Kion Aminos. Available as powder or tablets, these aminos are 100 percent plant based with no artificial ingredients. Essential amino acids are the building blocks for all muscle and tissue but your body can only absorb about 50% from food which is why Kelly takes them everyday. For more info and 20% off your first purchase, go to thereadystate.com/aminos

T. J. Newman, a former bookseller turned flight attendant, worked for Virgin America and Alaska Airlines from 2011 to 2021. She wrote much of Falling on cross-country red-eye flights while her passengers were asleep. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Falling is her first novel.ABOUT FALLING, ON SALE NOW FROM AVID READER PRESS AT SIMON & SCHUSTERFALLING by T.J. Newman, on sale July 6th from Avid Reader Press at Simon & Schuster. In the words of Lee Child, FALLING is: "amazing...intense suspense, shocks, and scares plus chilling insider authenticity makes this one very special."You just boarded a flight to New York.There are one hundred and forty-three other passengers onboard.What you don't know is that thirty minutes before the flight your pilot's family was kidnapped.For his family to live, everyone on your plane must die.The only way the family will survive is if the pilot follows his orders and crashes the plane.Enjoy the flight.In FALLING, on a crowded flight from Los Angeles to New York, passengers are unaware that the pilot's family has been kidnapped and the pilot must crash the plane to save them. Newman is a flight attendant herself and came up with the idea during a work shift when the passengers were sleeping. She began writing FALLING on napkins while working her red-eye shifts. As James Patterson says, "Falling is the best king of thriller. Characters you care deeply about. Nonstop, totally authentic suspense."Newman, 36, is a former bookseller turned flight attendant. After completing a draft of her novel, she tried finding an agent but was rejected 41 times before being taken on by Shane Salerno of The Story Factory, where other writers include Don Winslow and Janet Evanovich.'Falling' Available now:https://www.amazon.com/Falling-Novel-T-J-Newman/dp/1982177888

A former bookseller turned flight attendant, T. J. Newman flew for Virgin America and Alaska Airlines from 2011 until this year. While her passengers were asleep on cross-country red-eye flights, she began to write a novel on whatever she could find during her shifts, including cocktail napkins. After being rejected by 41 agents, she sold Falling and the publishing rights for her second novel for a seven figure deal. Referred to by Don Winslow as ''Jaws at 35,000 feet,'' this ''stunning and relentless'' debut tells the story of a crowded L.A. to New York flight that the captain has to crash in order to save his kidnapped family.  Books available from the Joseph Fox Bookshop (recorded 7/13/2021)

Bestseller T.J. Newman has proven that you can write in any situation given enough dedication. Not only did she write her debut novel, Falling, on a notepad while working long hours as a flight attendant, but also pushed through over forty rejections before landing a publishing deal. Falling, Newman's first and only novel about a perilous mid-flight decision, has won critical acclaim from the likes of James Patterson and Lee Child for its suspense and original plot. To order Falling, which hits shelves tomorrow, follow the link below. From Amazon.com: T.J. Newman, a former bookseller turned flight attendant, worked for Virgin America and Alaska Airlines from 2011 to 2021. She wrote much of Falling on cross-country red-eye flights while her passengers were asleep. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Whether you're traditionally published or indie, writing a good book is only the first step in becoming a successful author. The days of just turning a manuscript into your editor and walking away are gone. If you want to succeed in today's publishing world, you need to understand every aspect of the business - editing, formatting, marketing, contracts. It all starts with a good book, then the real work begins. Join international bestselling author J.D. Barker and indie powerhouses, J. Thorn and Zach Bohannon, as they gain unique insight and valuable advice from the most prolific and accomplished authors in the business. In this episode, you'll discover: What drink J would order on a plane How to write during a flight The importance of story beats How to title your book T.J.'s unique pre-writing process Links: J. D. Barker - http://jdbarker.com/ J. Thorn - https://theauthorlife.com/ Zach Bohannon - https://zachbohannon.com/ T.J. Newman - https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/T-J-Newman/181729548 Falling - https://mybook.to/FallingBook Story Rubric - http://storyrubric.com Nonfic Rubric - http://nonficrubric.com The Career Author Summit 2021 - https://thecareerauthor.com/summit2021/ Proudly sponsored by Kobo Writing Life - https://kobowritinglife.com/ Music by Nicorus - https://cctrax.com/nicorus/dust-to-dust-ep Voice Over by Rick Ganley - http://www.nhpr.com and recorded at Mill Pond Studio - http://www.millpondstudio.com Contact - https://writersinkpodcast.com/contact/ *Full disclosure: Some of the links are affiliate links. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/writersink/support

In this episode, the Crew goes behind the scenes with T.J. Newman to discuss her blockbuster debut, FALLING.  Newman is a former bookseller turned flight attendant, worked for Virgin America and Alaska Airlines from 2011 to 2021. She wrote much of Falling on cross-country red-eye flights while her passengers were asleep. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona. This is her first novel. Newman is a native and longtime resident of Arizona who has been writing stories for much of her life and had tried acting and bookselling before becoming a flight attendant a decade ago, a profession shared with her sister and mother. After completing a draft of her novel, she tried finding an agent but was turned down dozens of times before taken on by Shane Salerno of The Story Factory, where other writers include Don Winslow and Janet Evanovich. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel and leave a comment. And if you want to learn more about the guys from The Crew or see additional author interviews, visit us at http://www.thecrewreviews.com Follow us on social media: Twitter| https://twitter.com/CREWbookreviews Instagram| https://www.instagram.com/thecrewreviews/ Facebook| https://www.facebook.com/thecrewreviews/

In this episode, I interview Stacey Gordon, who share her knowledge and wisdom about eliminating bias in the workplace. She shares her advice and strategies with us. Join our Racially Responsible/U Power Change email list: Sign up here Stacey Gordon's Bio: Leading at the intersection of diversity, inclusion, and workplace culture, in her role as Executive Advisor and Diversity Strategist, Stacey Gordon coaches and counsels executive leaders on DEI strategies for the business, while offering a no-nonsense approach to education for the broader employee population. Stacey is the creator of the number one resume course at LinkedIn learning and an unconscious bias course which has consistently been the second highest viewed course on the platform. It has also been translated into at least four languages and has been featured by LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Virgin America (now Alaska Airlines). Previously employed as an Adjunct Professor teaching Diversity in Organizations at Phillips Graduate University, she now teaches at Pepperdine University in the Business School where she earned her MBA. Stacey's book, UNBIAS: Addressing Unconscious Bias at Work is currently available at Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, and wherever books are sold. Connect with Stacey here: https://www.unbiasbook.com/ https://reworkwork.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/making-diversity-simple-stacey-a-gordon-mba/

Our 100th episode coincides with the 3rd anniversary of the final flight of Virgin America -- where our podcast crew met! #nerdbirds Brendan, Charlie, David, Sebastian, and Pilot Sarah play a custom Jeopardy-like game with travel trivia created by Kai and Rachel. Explore the geographical origins of cheesecake and other popular foods, find out just how much cheese and BBQ Brendan and Sebastian can pack into a carryon suitcase, and learn that in the end, it's all just about the Kit-Kats. Head over to nerdbirds.co/episode100 to view the game board and test your own knowledge of all things travel, aviation...and food :) --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/nerdbirds/support

Are you passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion? Do you courageously say something when you see something happening to you or others that just doesn’t feel right? Or do you feel yourself shying away from it because you don’t know what to do in those moments? How would you like to learn some game-changing strategies that you can implement to help disrupt unconscious and systemic bias? Our guest, Stacey Gordon, CEO and Chief Diversity Strategist of Rework Work, shares how her journey was led by her passion for diversity, equity and inclusion. After an experience in the corporate world, Stacey decided that she didn’t want to perpetuate the cycle of bad practices that she had witnessed and decided to strike out on her own and work on implementing DEI strategies at companies holistically. In her role as Executive Advisor and Diversity Strategist, she coaches and counsels executive leaders on DEI strategies for the business while offering a no-nonsense approach to education for the broader employee population. Taking a 360-degree of work, Stacey is the creator of the second most viewed course at LinkedIn learning and has surpassed the milestone of having reached more than 1 million unique learners. In this episode, Stacey shares her insights on identifying your passion and purpose, navigating systemic biases, and her framework for addressing microaggressions. Stacey is also a repeat best-selling author, recently releasing UNBIAS: Addressing Unconscious Bias at Work, which is a must-have resource for all employers, managers, and HR professionals seeking to create and sustain healthy, inclusive, and equitable workplace environments. Visit https://www.iambeyondbarriers.com where you will find show notes and links to all the resources in this episode, including the best way to get in touch with Stacey. Highlights: [02:49] Stacey’s journey [04:06] Identify your passion [06:21] Advice for women on stepping up for themselves [10:21] Don’t tell yourself no before you’ve given somebody the opportunity to say no [12:58] Building lasting relationships [16:58] Tips on achieving your goals [20:24] Adapting to the disruption of the last year [24:30] Navigating systemic biases [29:30] How to address microaggressions [33:52] How to connect with Stacey [35:27] Advice on accelerating your success   Quotes: “Don't tell yourself no before somebody else has. Give them the opportunity to say no, but don't discount yourself.” – Stacey Gordon “We should turn the advocacy inward and advocate for ourselves, just as we’d advocate for others and for our children.” – Stacey Gordon “Just start pursing your goals. A year from now, you will wish you had started today.”– Stacey Gordon   About Stacey Gordon: Leading at the intersection of diversity, inclusion, and workplace culture, as CEO and Chief Diversity Strategist of Rework Work, Stacey focuses on reworking how companies work; including how they inclusively recruit, hire and engage employees, effectively creating inclusion and belonging for all. In her role as Executive Advisor and Diversity Strategist, she coaches and counsels executive leaders on DEI strategies for the business while offering a no-nonsense approach to education for the broader employee population. Taking a 360-degree of work, Stacey is the creator of the second most viewed course at LinkedIn learning and has surpassed the milestone of having reached more than 1 million unique learners. Her unconscious bias course has been translated into at least four languages and has been featured by LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Virgin America (now Alaska Airlines). Stacey is a highly rated coach practitioner who has facilitated coaching of senior DEI leaders at several Diversity & Inclusion forums. She was recognized by Pepperdine University as a Top 40 Over 40 Leader, was a finalist for Los Angeles Business Journal’s Women’s Award and was recognized by Forbes as a Top 3 Business Leader Who Spoke Out About Diversity & Inclusion. Previously employed as an Adjunct Professor teaching Diversity in Organizations at Phillips Graduate University, she now teaches at Pepperdine University in the Business School where she earned her MBA. Formerly the Director of Education for the largest SHRM affiliate in the country, Stacey earned her both her Inclusive Workplace Culture credential and her SHRM Senior Certified Professional certification from the Society for Resource Management (SHRM). She is the author of a best-selling interview guide titled The Successful Interview: 99 Questions to Ask and UNBIAS: Addressing Unconscious Bias at Work. As a leadership consultant and DEI strategist, Stacey has provided subject matter expertise to SHRM, Fast Company, Skillsoft, Forbes, NPR Radio, BBC Radio, Essence Magazine, and Monster.com, to name a few. She was also a career segment guest contributor to Fox Business and is a frequently requested keynote speaker.   Links: Website: https://reworkwork.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceygordon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/reworkwork Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/diversitydiva/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reworkwork  

This is part 2 of my interview with Chris Chapo. Chris has never been a CMO but he has overseen analytics at a number of organizations including Apple Retail, JCPenny and now Amperity. In this part we explore Chris's take on analytics and what he feels CMOs need to know.This is the free edition of Marketing BS. Part 1 was available to subscribers on Wednesday.TranscriptEdward: This is part two of my interview with Chris Chapo. Today we're going to dive into his data analytics insights and how they can help CMOs. Chris, let's start with this question, is data science the future of business?Chris: I personally don't believe it is, which is kind of funny given the fact that I am a data person, and I self-proclaimed “data scientist”. I'd say taking an evidence-based approach to understanding business problems and solving business problems, to me, that's the future of business if you want to be scalable and sustainable in the future. Data science is just one of the methods you might use to achieve that vision. Edward: What's another example? What are examples of evidence that's not data science?Chris: Sometimes people look at data science as the fancy statistical model which will say let me predict the future and the outcome of what's going to happen, which could be one approach. But I'd say another simple approach to creating evidence is doing experimentation. If you've got two different potential marketing treatments that you may want to show to consumers and you're not sure which one is going to be the most effective, try it out. The confidence you'll have in that will overcome any sort of doubt you may have and a statistical model which says, well, this person should get message A with 0.76 accuracies, and this person should get message A with 0.72% accuracy. You're like, how do you interpret that? Oftentimes, experimentation is a great example of how to do that. Another one that I find really helpful is bringing consumer insights and what you would call traditional research to bear and combining that with data analytics and data science methods. An example of something where I've seen these people really successful is creating behavioral-based segmentations where you talk to your consumer base about attitudes and beliefs. But at the same time, build statistical models to predict which segment a person may be a member of. That's useful when you want to personalize two people based on their segments versus just create personas that are interesting but not necessarily actionable. Edward: Why is that not data science? Is it data science only when you look at purchase data? But as soon as you do external research data, it stops becoming data science and it starts becoming something else?Chris: I think data science by itself, honestly, is a very overloaded term. It can mean a lot of things to different people, and as such, then it means nothing per se because there's nothing that's specific. But one of the methods that I think most people traditionally think about for data science is the more purchase-based activity drives it or signals such as do I click on something, what did I do on a website? Thinking about it, more focused on propensities and predictions about activities versus understanding someone's core beliefs. One could say—and there are some examples where people I was training—try to approach and model people's emotional states and understand some of those few more “data science” methods. But it's usually not the mainstream when people talk about data science. Edward: Chris, what do you do for long feedback cycles? In short feedback cycles, you can run experiments; or you have the results, you can look at the inputs and the results, and you can run all sorts of data models. What about things that have long feedback cycles? Things around hey, I influence you now and you buy a car two years from now based on the stuff I'm doing for you now. Is there anything that data science can help in trying to understand those long feedback cycles?Chris: I'll give you a couple of thoughts. Of course, data science is not a panacea. It doesn't solve all problems. But one thought of how to approach some of those long feedback cycle problems are creating leading indicators. Actually, doing some analysis understand, yes—to your point—maybe this outcome I want to predict is something which will take a couple of years for it to play out. Customer lifetime value is a great example of that. It takes a while to actually observe it or even products where there's a long purchase cycle. But is there something where we can do an analysis first off to say, usually, people who have higher lifetime value—or in the case you just mentioned—who do go on to buy a car? These are some of the behaviors they exhibit first. While it won't necessarily be 100% predictive, but focusing on experimentation on those leading indicators and using that to help (to your point) to take your best guess using data on if I continue doing more of this thing, this will help us drive something in the future. I'll give you an example of this that wasn't a team that I lead, but it is something I learned when I was in Intuit. One of the things that they wanted to do was get people to go from trial members of QuickBooks online to full paying members. That usually takes a period of time to actually show up. It takes 30, 45, or 60 days. What the team did when they did some analysis is realize, if I can get people to do this one little action within their first seven days, that has a high correlation to someone converting to being a full paying member. They had teams who were focused on driving that little behavior, which was connecting to your bank account. Again, they would have entire teams focused on experimentation to drive that, and how can I get that rate higher? What are the things I could do? Because they knew that it would pay off in the future.Edward: Do you run into selection effect problems? You do that correlation, not causation. I imagine that 100% of people who are paying members connected it to their bank account, but that does not necessarily mean that connecting your bank account leads to payments. It could be that it's the other way around. Chris: Yeah. I think that's one of the challenges with this. This is why an example of that, the team would go back and validate that. Those people who did that action did have a higher spend than people who didn't. But to your point, the question selection buys come in. There are a couple of different methods that one could do to help address that. In this example, because we're selecting who gets this potential treatment versus those who don't because this is an online product, you can validate that in a true AB test fashion. Now, this scenario is not quite as easy. One of the things that I'd seen teams apply are things like propensity analysis where you may not necessarily be able to have a control group, but can look statistically to say this person who does an action that we hope is a positive one or experience is something different, can we find somebody who's very similar to them in terms their past purchase history and use that as a pseudo control group.But it's still not necessarily (I would say) as solid as a lot of the statisticians in the world would like. That comes to one of the pieces that back to this concept of data science is important is not getting super caught up in just the 100% accurate solution, but what is good enough to drive a better business result than we've seen in the past? And how can I make sure that this is not that we want to have random chance to spare only success measures, but how is this better than our other approaches, and can we get better over time? Those are a couple of examples. Edward: I definitely buy that. I think that a lot of the issues with academia is they're trying to get to the right answer. Whereas in a business, the right answer is not what you need. You don't need to know the exact right answer, you just need to know a better answer than what you were doing before. You spend a lot of your time in retail. Let's talk a little bit about retail loyalty. How do you measure loyalty in retail?Chris: That's a great question because most people will measure loyalty based on how much people spend or likely to spend. Honestly, I'll protect the guilty here. There's a cable company that I use, which I spend a lot of money with but I do not like the cable company. I am not loyal to them. And if I had another choice that provided the same level of service in terms of speed, bandwidth, and all those things, I would in a heartbeat choose something else. Oftentimes, how I think about loyalty—particularly in the retail sense—is when you're able to build a strong emotional connection between the consumer and the brand. That connection where people—you've heard the net promoter scores, one surrogate of an example of how to measure that. But if you're so connected, I love this brand so much. I will choose them above others. There's something specific about them that makes me want to buy from them. That to me is an example of when you've got that loyalty. The hard part is how do I measure that? How do I create a system to instrument that? But to me, if you can do that, that to me is a north star for retail analytics. Edward: The finding loyalty as a positive emotion rather than the lack of a negative, you're splitting out the loyalty that is I'm going and searching for this thing versus the loyalty that comes from lock-in. Chris: Yes. I would say it's loyalty, I'm going out to search for what I love in this thing. If I had a choice, I would choose this over others. That to me is that connection. You see it, oftentimes, anecdotally when people talk about their favorite brands, they talk about how it makes them feel. I'll give you an example, I used to love Virgin America. That was my favorite airline. I would choose them over others because of how they treated me as a flyer.For certain people, that emotion isn't important. They may choose something else. They may choose Southwest because they want to feel like a smart savvy flyer, not an emotional connection on what they feel when they experience the brand. To me, it's really around that emotional feeling that, quite honestly, can be difficult to measure, but it is really important, and you know when you've got it. Edward: Can you measure with the price premium? I imagine most people when they fly, find the airline that's going to take them to the place they need to go, at the time they need to go, and then they choose based on price. Whether it's $100 or $99, they end up going with the $99 one. You imagine the more they're willing to pay to go to that $100 one, $110 one, or $200 one. Is that the measurement of how much loyalty there is?Chris: It might actually broaden it. Instead of it being a price point, it's just general friction. One area of friction could be paying more. Another could be—in this example we're talking about the flights—I'm willing to take a connection even if the prices are the same. I'm willing to have a layover because I love this brand, and I want to be part of the experience. Even though I know that there is someone who flies there directly. There could be other pieces as well. You think about the friction side of things if you have a bad experience with a company. Going back to this flight example, say that your connection flight was canceled and you're sitting there at the airport. You may be more willing to forgive that bad experience if you have loyalty to the brand versus if you don't.I actually broaden it to the friction or the discretionary friction you may be able to deal with. The more you're able to deal with it potentially, the higher you have loyalty to the certain brand. Edward: Can you quantify that? Because I imagine things like willingness to do a stopover on a flight, there's a dollar value you can calculate. Someone is willing to accept that stopover versus going direct. Most of those friction things, things that you can put a dollar value on until you eventually get to the point where hey, there's a number that we can put on the loyalty of any given customer?Chris: That's an interesting question. I haven't thought about it in the macro sense. But I think in very specific examples, one could do this. I'll give you an example back in my Apple retail days. One of the big challenges that people face—particularly in the 2007–2011 timeframe—was the stores were busy and getting help could take a long time. We were able to quantify the impact that having to wait for help, whether it be the genius bar or whether it being for help to purchase, actually had on someone's—we used the net promoter score methodology—likelihood to recommend the store experience. For those people who had prior great experiences, the negative effect didn't impact as much as people who were either newer to the store experience or had prior negative experiences.Edward: First impressions matter. If you make a great first impression on your customer, that first impression can be sticky and get you through some bad experiences down the line. Chris: Oftentimes, the people remember how you ended the experience first, then how you began the experience, and then everything in between. There's some research done—and I feel bad I don't have it off the top of my head—by some folks who were studying the impact of lines and how people had the experiences. But the ending mattered more than the beginning in individual experience. Edward: In terms of multiple experiences, are you always better than to invest in those early customers rather than a customer that's been around loyally? It's almost like if a customer's loyalty, that's the one that you'd least need to invest in?Chris: I'd thought about this in three buckets. There are your best customers, your almost best, and then everyone else. Oftentimes, I advocate spending enough on the best customers to keep them there. That is because if you have enough bad experiences, they're going to fall down. We've all probably experienced things like that company used to be great, but they're not great anymore. Enough to keep in there, but it's that next year, the next best that I personally would say you should invest more in. Edward: Chris, is it the best though, or is it the new customers? Because it sounds like you're saying before is that first impression really, really matters. Chris: Next best could be (to your point) the first impression for folks. We know that based on the channel of acquisition, the profile of this customer that they are likely to be, they would be on the path toward best customers. Treat them at the very beginning really well. Or could be people who've been around with you for a while who are starting to increase their purchase frequency, but they haven't necessarily got to that loyalty phase. I wouldn't say that I would choose either over the other. Going back to this concept experimentation, to actually try it, you don't know which one you're going to have the most leverage with. Honestly, I would say—at least my experience from most retailers—you're going to need to balance the acquisition component and your first impression with customers and so forth with those who are buying from you but aren't necessarily up at the top. You'll need to invest in doing both of those. Edward: What are those key metrics? You mentioned NPS, but other metrics that retailers should be using to predict or to be optimizing against to make sure their customers are loyal?Chris: I think the net promoter score is definitely a simplistic measure to use and it's fairly effective. Particularly in driving closed-loop operational improvements around customer experience. That's definitely a key one. Another one that I am a big proponent of is predictive customer lifetime value. Although it can be difficult to understand and interpret. It's really helpful and a barometer to say here's what we think at least the future spend will be. One area that takes a little bit of time to suss out, but if you can actually—for an individual brand—understand those emotional benefits that someone gets in your brand and find a way to measure that. That's another great way to experience this. Edward: What's an example of that?Chris: An example would be—going back to my Virgin example because they're the longer around. Imagine one of their things—the emotional benefit is—makes me feel special and welcomed. Maybe that's the emotional benefit. I'm just supposing that.Edward: Is it market research then? It's a matter of asking your customers survey questions and figuring out which of those answers matter?Chris: Which are the answers that matter, and there's an approach where you can figure that quantitatively through stated importance versus derived importance on these emotional benefits. You can either ask them (to your point) on an ongoing basis or if there's a way to actually—going back to leading indicators—measure that in a different fashion. That can be interesting. The question would be I don't know necessarily how to genericize that because a lot of that has to do with each individual customer and brand. That's why I would think through that. Edward: But it's a matter of the generalized way to ask a bunch of questions, run correlations, and which of those questions end up being leading indicators of the left-hand value of success in the future and then optimizing towards those questions. Chris, this has been great. Can you talk a little bit before you go about what your quake book is and how that changed the way you thought about the world?Chris: The book that stands out for me is a book called Tribal Leadership. Why that's important is it goes back to the example I shared with JCPenney and a few other examples I've had. The team that you're working with—the tribe that's trying to drive change in a company or drive success—matters probably more than the actual strategy of what the company is, at least in my opinion. Because I'm a big believer that teams that are motivated and work well together can solve any problem. Again, that's kind of [...], to some degree. It's something that I‘ve actually experienced personally in my life. What I love about this book Tribal Leadership is it talks about different levels of organizations. Starting with what they call level one, which is like prison gangs and tribes that happen there where they say things like, all lives sucks. All the way up to the very top level words like nirvana and flow. It's that one group you work with where everybody is just completing out their sentences, understand how to work together effectively. It's that once in a lifetime opportunity. What I love about this book is it gives you concrete examples of—if you're in a level two or three group—how do you get to the next level. And what are some tips and tricks to help you as an organization grow? I read this book first when I was in Intuit, it helped me as a leader understand that the craft of my work—which is analytics and data—is important. But what was more important is how to create a tribe or team that is successful and can drive the future. That's my quake book. Edward: Thank you so much, Chris. This has been fantastic. I really appreciate your time today. Chris: You're welcome. Thank you very much too. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marketingbs.substack.com

Covid-19 has literally shredded Canada’s decades-old aviation policy – with industry leaders talking about the rebuild taking years, not months. International travel restrictions keep piling up, regional routes have either been cancelled or cut back to a trickle – all under the shadow of a sector heavily influenced by politics and regional disparities. And now with Air Canada approved to take over Air Transat the changes just keep piling up. Who better to have on the Monthly to cut through all the dismal data than two industry legends who collectively over the years have quite literally lived through it allDonald J. Carty, former Chair of Porter AirlinesMr. Carty worked for Air Canada, the Canadian Pacific Railway and American Airlines where he became CEO in 1998. Following the September 11 attacks, he led the largest corporate restructuring outside of bankruptcy in US history. In 2006 his active engagement in the Canadian aviation sector returned with the appointment of Chair to both Virgin America and Toronto-based Porter Airlines. Mr. Carty has also been recognized for his work on a number of corporate and not-for-profit boards and in 2002 he was made an officer of the Order of Canada.Joe Sparling, President and CEO of Air North, Yukon’s AirlineJoe Sparling co-founded Air North in 1977. The Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation were one of the first Canadian First Nations to achieve a land claims settlement with self-governing authority, and they identified the airline that provided a lifeline to their community of Old Crow, as a strategic investment. In 2000 the First Nation used a portion of their settlement dollars to purchase Tom Wood’s interest in the company. Subsequently other Yukoners invested in the airline as well and today, almost one in fifteen Yukoners holds an equity or an employment stake in the company. Covid-19 has been a challenge for all airlines, especially regional carriers, but Air North, Yukon’s Airline has a plan for survival.Follow Pamela Wallin on Social Media:https://twitter.com/NoNonsensePWhttps://twitter.com/SenatorWallinhttps://www.facebook.com/SenPamelaWallin/Music in this podcast is used under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC3.0 Licensehttps://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chad_Crouch/Motion/Life_And_Timeshttps://www.soundofpicture.com/

Benj Heard is an accomplished songwriter, producer, and artist based in Los Angeles. Growing up as the youngest of five boys and one girl in Oklahoma, Benj learned the intricacy of 6 part harmony while singing with his siblings. It was in this environment that he became immersed in the classic melodies and harmonies of the 1940’s 50’s music, which has since influenced every aspect of his career as a Platinum songwriter and a producer. As an artist, his music has represented brands such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Nikon, Samsung, The NFL, Virgin America and many more. www.Benjheard.com   Daily Creative Habit Facebook group www.DailyCreativeHabit.com  

Adam Morgan founded the company eatbigfish, which challenges the status quo and creates an environment of challenger thinking and behavior. In this episode, Adam discusses his book "A Beautiful Constraint," and talks on how intrapreneurs can leverage their limits to come up with creative solutions.  What Is Covered 03:55 - Why did Adam write a book about constraints? 06:30 - Although constraints may have a bad rep, most of us understand on a basic level, that constraints are a good thing. 10:05 - There are three types of stages everybody goes through when they are faced with a difficult constraint. 13:45 - How do you keep optimism alive when faced with a difficult problem? By rephrasing the question. 19:55 - Adam was sitting in on a meeting, and the CEO said, “This year, we need to do more with less.” His staff was shocked, because no one knew what he meant, and they had already been working till 9 to 10 at night 22:55 - There are six steps outlined in Adam's book, on how to transform your limitations into advantages. Of those six, which one has made the most impact on people? 29:40 - What constraints did Adam personally experience, when writing the book? 37:10 - What advice does Adam have for struggling intrapreneurs? 41:35 - Adam shares an example of how Virgin America was able to unlock the power of constraint, and use it to their advantage. 45:55 - What has Adam changed his mind about recently? 48:10 - What does Adam do to remain innovative and creative? 48:55 - What does Adam attribute his success to in life? Links And Resources Mentioned In This Episode:  eatbigfish: https://www.eatbigfish.com/ A Beautiful Constraint: How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages: https://www.eatbigfish.com/books/a-beautiful-constraint  Connect with Adam Morgan on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/eatbigfish  Connect with Adam Morgan by email

"In 1995, Frankie Knuckles and I, we were both signed to Virgin Records at that time. Frankie was signed to Virgin America, and if I'm not wrong, I was signed to Virgin UK at that time. Anyway, someone from the American division said “Look, we want Grant Nelson to do remix of the track”. Frankie Knuckles was walking with a diva, and I was like “Wow, this is great!”, so I did it. And there was something as I was doing the remixes as well, different about… I can't really tell what it is, no clue… something that kinda switched in my own mind. And I thought “Wow, I feel like something has changed.” I kinda matured as a producer and remixer during this part doing this project. Anyway, the record went out, Frankie told me “Man, I really liked the remix. You killed it!” and it was amazing to hear that from someone like that! Years later, I think maybe 5 or 6 years later, I was with a friend of mine, Brian Tappert from Jazz-N-Groove and Traxsource. We were in my studio, in London, and we were having a conversation about this similar kind of topic, like “When you think you got your break?”, and all that and more. We were having this chat and just said to me “Bro, you know when you got your break” and I was like “What are you talking about?” and he's like “Come here!”. He took me into the studio and pull out a copy of my remix of Frankie Knuckles. He played it and it started at a loop with Diva vocals which says “since then I have been blessed”. And he just played it while looking to me. I was like “Oh my God, I mean, it's true since then I have been blessed!” Since that record came out, that changed everything for me. It was a pretty powerful moment as well. I even told Frankie about that and he loved that as well." - Grant Nelson

Airbnb made it easier for travelers to find a place to crash. Now it wants to make it easier for them to get around. The $31 billion home-sharing giant has hired Fred Reid as its first-ever global head of transportation. Reid served as the founding chief executiveofficer of Virgin America from 2004 to 2007 after a three-year stint as the president of Delta Airlines.

Today we're going to hear the second part of our interview with Kate Talbot, who is an expert in marketing to Millennials. Kate is an entrepreneur, a marketing consultant, and the author of "Oh Snap! You Can Use SnapChat for Business", which is a best-selling book on Amazon. Her work has been featured on CNBC, Tech Crunch, and Huffington Post, and she's worked with big brands like Virgin America and Apple and also consults for smaller startups. Transcript: https://benjshap.com/martech-podcast/marketing-to-millennials-snapchat-instagram-beyond Kate's book: Oh Snap! You Can Use Snapchat For BusinessSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to hear the second part of our interview with Kate Talbot, who is an expert in marketing to Millennials. Kate is an entrepreneur, a marketing consultant, and the author of "Oh Snap! You Can Use SnapChat for Business", which is a best-selling book on Amazon. Her work has been featured on CNBC, Tech Crunch, and Huffington Post, and she's worked with big brands like Virgin America and Apple and also consults for smaller startups.  Transcript: https://benjshap.com/martech-podcast/marketing-to-millennials-snapchat-instagram-beyond Kate's book: Oh Snap! You Can Use Snapchat For Business See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In episode 41 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Kate Talbot, an author, marketer and entrepreneur. Kate has worked with companies and startups such as Virgin America, Kiva and Soldsie on growth marketing. She has also written for publications such as Kissmetrics and Social Media examiner, where she was one of the first people writing about how businesses could engage with customers on snapchat. She then turned her blogs into a book called Oh Snap, you can use snapchat for business as a guide to helping startups and businesses get the most out of the Snapchat platform. In the interview we talk about how to craft your own story on social media, how to build an audience on Snapchat and how to use the platform for B2B or premium products. Show notes: - Kiva - Virgin America - Oh Snap: You can use snapchat for business (book) - NPR - Airbnb - Soldsie - SAASTR - Social Media Examiner - Kissmetrics - Stanford - Onset Ventures - Medium - Upwork - Canva - InDesign - InVision - Kate Talbot (Twitter) - Kate Talbot (Instagram) - Kate Talbot (LinkedIn) - Kate Talbot (Website) Startup Playbook TV is now on Youtube!!! Feedback/ connect/ say hello:  Rohit@startupplaybook.co @playbookstartup (Twitter) @rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit) Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn) Credits: Intro music credit to Bensound The post Ep041 – Kate Talbot (Author, Marketer, Entrepreneur) on using snapchat for business appeared first on Startup Playbook.

Is China's slowing economy taking its toll on the country's Big Three carriers? So far Air China, China Eastern and China Southern have held up well and posted a rather good 2015. But the fourth quarter of 2015 showed some signs of deterioration—even by the standards of this off-peak quarter. In the U.S., Alaska Airlines and Virgin America are, unlike a lot of mergers in the past, merging from a position of strength. But is that a good thing? Delta's upcoming first quarter earnings report will surely be terrific and begs the question: Does the U.S. airline industry have an off-peak quarter anymore? Air New Zealand has some shares of Virgin Australia they want to sell you, Air France/KLM is looking for a new CEO, and we finish the show with our first lightning round of 2016.

Alaska Airlines clearly wants to be the dominant carrier on the West Coast, and if its purchase of Virgin America goes through, it will have four focus cities—Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle—all clustered on the Pacific. Such a network might look very different from the network of United, Delta, or American, but that doesn't mean it won't work, and it actually resembles the networks of a couple of other successful carriers. All in all, in this episode, we give our blessing to the Alaska-Virgin marriage, even if the wedding will cost a fortune. Plus, we check in on Brazil's Gol, an airline that reported some frightful losses. And lastly, little Cebu Pacific did it again, serving up stellar profits in Q4 and making 2015 a stellar year.

An all-UC Davis panel of marketing experts dive into the hot topic of marketing using big data and how to build a brand using data-driven storytelling. Panelists: Abby Lunardini BA 97, Vice President, Brand Marketing and Communications, Virgin America; Aaron Carpenter MBA 98, Chief Customer Officer, Hubnami; Associate Professor Ashwin Aravindakshan, UC Davis Graduate School of Management; and moderated by Lisa Maulhardt MA 92, Executive Vice President, SYPartners. Series: "UC Davis Graduate School of Management's Executive Speakers and Special Events" [Business] [Show ID: 30681]

An all-UC Davis panel of marketing experts dive into the hot topic of marketing using big data and how to build a brand using data-driven storytelling. Panelists: Abby Lunardini BA 97, Vice President, Brand Marketing and Communications, Virgin America; Aaron Carpenter MBA 98, Chief Customer Officer, Hubnami; Associate Professor Ashwin Aravindakshan, UC Davis Graduate School of Management; and moderated by Lisa Maulhardt MA 92, Executive Vice President, SYPartners. Series: "UC Davis Graduate School of Management's Executive Speakers and Special Events" [Business] [Show ID: 30681]

If the U.S. airline market were to see even more consolidation, what kind of effect would it have? That's one question we consider in a discussion about the possible acquisition of Virgin America by another airline. We also talk about possible consolidation in Europe, where it's a more urgent need. There are reasonable airline pairings to be made there, including IAG tying up with Finnair. But will it ever happen? Virgin Atlantic, meanwhile, had a decent 2015. Will the profits continue in 2016 with Norwegian breathing down its neck? And lastly, Israel's El Al had one of its best years ever despite a host of challenges—but Israel's open skies agreement, which ushered in more competition, doesn't seem to be a challenge at all.

What's it gonna take to fix Air France/KLM? The airline group has a number of problems—from labor inflexibility to a soft French economy—all in a very competitive part of the world. But there are reasons for hope: Gulf carriers could one day slow their growth, Air France/KLM still has the gold standard in joint ventures and, heck, labor concessions are always a possibility. Air Canada improved its 2015 operating margin from 6% to 11%—no easy task in a country that's seeing economic and currency headwinds. The bad news for Copa Airlines is that its operating margin dropped from 18% to 7%. The good news is that Copa still has a profit margin at all, as it's an airline heavily exposed to troubled Brazil and Venezuela. And why doesn't Virgin America want to offer a basic economy seat option?

Mexico is finding joy in a low-cost carrier renaissance as Volaris, Interjet and VivaAerobus are all growing and profiting. But the profits aren't being distributed equally. Why is one carrier performing so much better than another? Also, how long can these airlines keep growing before they run out of elbow room? North of the border, Virgin America meanwhile is shifting to a high-growth gear. Canada's Air Transat has taken up a new strategy. And it appears Qatar Airways won't be the launch customer for the A320neo—does it matter? Lastly, in this special double-sized holiday episode, we spend a few minutes looking back at 2015.

"Rob Black & Your Money" - Radio Show February 18 - KDOW 1220am (7a-9a) Briefing.com's Chief Economist Dr. Jeff Rosen talks inflation, constrution & port lockout. Other topics include: Euro-zone, Virgin America, Alibaba, Warren Buffet, Snapchat, Facebook, Apple, Google & more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"Rob Black & Your Money" - Radio Show November 3 - KDOW 1220am (7a-9a) Topics include: Spotify, Zillow, Facebook, Ford, Red Lobster, Virgin America, lottery, Apple, all time market highs, 401K, midterm elections & more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Virgin America recently launched an elegant, streamlined new website. Their CIO Dean Cookson and agency partner Joe Stewart from Work and Co. tell us that co-located teams with constant communication, a focus on prototyping, and obsession with user goals is what helped them pare down the experience. Read more »