Curious & Cuirky Caltech Executive Education

In this episode we discuss:

*Do you own a pair of ON running shoes, even if you’re not a runner?
If you are launching a new product - what can ON teach us about disrupting a market using the Magnetic Effect of Focus?

*“Intelligent failing” is a critical success factor in any successful innovation initiative. But what about “unintelligent failing”… as we’ve seen recently at Boeing? Let’s take a deeper look at these different kinds of “failure,” and see how “question-storming” at Boeing could have helped prevent their recent quality-control disasters!

*The WNBA, the fans, and a sports bar…lessons in business transformation.

*The acceleration of international tariffs applied to goods and services across the globe and by nearly all major trading countries has elevated competition to the sovereign level. This requires companies to focus heavily on:

-Exploring new markets, investing in local production, and enhancing supply chain visibility.
-Developing mitigation strategies, including the use of technology and collaboration tools with trade partners and people involved in the global supply chain.
-Prioritizing adaptability and resilience to prepare for ongoing changes and effects in the global trade landscape.

*Leadership secrets from chasing the Aurora Borealis (aka Northern Lights)

Moderator: Tim Boyd
Producer: Tracylynne Williams

*Baseball is Back! Everyone’s talking about the Dodgers $1.21 billion spend on players in the offseason: But A “Little Team That Could” is out-strategizing the competition and B2B strategic marketers can learn a lot from them.

*The Post-Covid Workplace Revisited - Where are we now? What does this mean for future skills in the workplace?

*March Madness Fever! Everyone is talking about Caitlin Clark and how she has changed women’s basketball and unlocked a new fanbase. What drives the fanbase to align with teams, players and how can we leverage this in our organizations to drive more engaged and passionate cultures.

Moderator: Tim Boyd
Producer: Tracylynne Williams

In this episode, we discuss the following:

*Ozempic & other weight loss drugs are having such a significant impact that company heads are calling Novo’s CEO for advice on what to expect for their industry. How might this trend impact your business?

*What can we learn about building more productive – and innovative – teams from Google’s Project Aristotle research study? And how might AI be used to add an important “plus element” to the Aristotle research findings to help these high-performing teams be even more creative? Curious? Let’s find out!

*Current research suggests that networking works well for men, but not as well for women. Let’s explore this and discover ways for women to better leverage business relationships.

*Any catastrophic event in Taiwan, whether caused by human or environmental factors, would have a rapid and financially damaging impact on global supply chains that could significantly outstrip that experienced during Russia’s war on Ukraine. In a blockade scenario, the most significant disruption to global economic activity would come from a halt to Taiwan’s trade with the world, particularly in semiconductors. Associated disruptions to global supply chains—especially in major chip-consuming sectors such as electronics, automotive, and computing—would have grave repercussions for the world economy. Global trade with China would also decline due to a contraction in global trade financing, shocking the global economy and potentially triggering debt crises among China’s more fragile trade partners.
How should companies prepare for this possibility?

*Leading with empathy through turbulent times - Lessons learned from the recent aerospace downsizing that have rocked the industry.

Moderator: Tim Boyd
Producer: Tracylynne Wiliams

In this episode, we discuss:

*Looking backward to innovate forward? Highlights from Time Magazine’s list of the 200 Best Inventions of 2023 tell us that taking inspiration from the past can be an effective creative strategy for inventing the future. Curious? Let’s find out!

*There is an enormous shortage of supply chain professionals able to tackle known supply chain issues. This supply chain talent gap has created what Deloitte refers to as the “supply chain paradox.” This paradox exists because companies continue to prioritize investments in their “digital supply chains” while failing to view supply chains as a driver of innovation. As Deloitte put it in a recent Forbes article, “It seems likely that companies aren’t taking full advantage of their digital investments because they don’t have the talent to do so.” This consultant thinks participating supply chain companies are going to have to develop their talent or collaborate on the development of supply chain apprenticeship programs.

*The “cookie-less” future: What does Google’s decision to eliminate cookies - a tool used to track user’s past searches and website visits - mean for B2B marketers? Three imperatives for B2Bs who want to personalize user experiences.

Moderator: Tom Spitale
Producer: Tracylynne Williams

In this episode we continue with our AI theme and discuss the following:

*What type of impact is AI already having on Strategic Marketing? How are different industries utilizing AI to develop and deploy their strategies? What ideas can you apply to your business immediately?

*What were some of the highlights from Time Magazine’s list of the 200 Best Inventions of 2023? (Part 1). Could the creative use of generative AI programs have helped anticipate some of these extraordinary, even life-changing new inventions? And now, in 2024, can AI help improve them? Let’s find out!

*Benefits of AI in Change Management - how AI can contribute to improved decision-making in Change Management: Part 2

*There is no element in supply chains where AI will result in labor reductions as it will in warehousing. Warehousing practices of receipt, inspection, putaway (storage), retrieval, preparing for distribution, and shipping will see nearly total automation in the next 10+ years. One researcher expects warehouse direct AND indirect labor to see more than a 50% reduction in required human work by 2030, likely going to >80% by 2035. What are the AI-based technologies that will drive this? Is this a good thing? What are the benefits? Where will the displaced workers go?

*How is AI changing leadership decisions and the art of team building?

Moderator: Tim Boyd
Producer: Tracylynne Williams

*How AI Can Help B2B Marketers Differentiate Their Products - when it comes to AI for B2B marketers, most of the conversation is about content creation and customer service applications. However, the biggest impact for strategic marketers could come from using AI for creating needs-based, customer-centric offers and value propositions that are truly unique in the marketplace.

*How AI Can Help Create Extraordinary Innovation Centers (Part 1): Moonshot Factory. Research Lab. Skunk Works. Center for the Future. Think Tank. Corporate Innovation Centers have many names… but whatever you call them, they all now have the opportunity to make increasingly important contributions to the productivity, profitability, and growth of their parent organization by leveraging recent advances in generative AI. With the publication this week of Bryan Mattimore’s new book, Islands of Invention, How to Create Extraordinary Innovation Centers, we’ll explore how AI can become a critical “partnering tool” in helping these unique institutions make even more valuable contributions to the success of their organization…now and in the future!

*Benefits of AI in Change Management - how AI can contribute to improved decision-making in Change Management

*Generative AI models offer substantial benefits in factory equipment predictive maintenance. Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) or Variational Autoencoders (VAEs), can be used to augment limited datasets by creating “synthetic” samples that follow the same underlying patterns as the original data. This is particularly valuable in applications where obtaining large datasets can be challenging. For predictive maintenance, synthetic sensor data can be generated to simulate various equipment conditions and failure scenarios, enabling rigorous testing of algorithms and models. Also, Gen AI models can prove beneficial in addressing imbalanced data issues, especially when rare failures or anomalies are present. By synthesizing instances of such scenarios, generative AI mitigates bias in predictive models and enhances their overall performance.

*AI Powered Mentoring Tools
How can the use of AI tools aid us in the development and execution of mentoring programs and what are the current limitations? Can we receive more value from using these tools or is it just different?