Is This Really a Thing?

UCF College of Business
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Business can be faddish. Paul Jarley, dean of the UCF College of Business, is on a mission to separate fads from fundamental change that will impact students. Join us as we chat with experts, enthusiasts and interesting people to talk business and pose the question… Is This Really a Thing?

  1. 11/06/2025

    Is a Martian Economy Really a Thing?

    Paul Jarley: It’s Space Week at UCF and I’m like a kid in a candy store. So many questions. For one, everyone’s talking about going to Mars, but why? What problem are we solving? What does Mars offer that other planets or the moons don’t? And if the answer is survival or curiosity, does that really require an economy, people trading air, power and data in some kind of cosmic barter system? Or is Mars just a science project? Let’s be real. Most moms or dads did their kids science projects. Nobody ever monetized anything from any of them. This show is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I’m Paul Jarley, Dean of the College of Business here at UCF. I’ve got lots of questions. To get answers, I’m talking to people with interesting insights into the future of business. Have you ever wondered, Is This Really a Thing? On to our show. In the past few years, the College has been undergoing a transformation. We’ve been asked to build a Business School that’s a key asset to Florida’s leading engineering and technology university. That’s meant bringing in people who are a little different from our typical pragmatic, data-driven faculty. The ones who teach students to manage people and PNLs. A few of these new faces can fairly be called dreamers. One of them is Zaheer Ali. He, along with Greg Autry is leading our space commercialization efforts, including our space MBA. It’s not a nickname, it’s a space MBA. As we were setting up for Space Week, Z claimed that a Martian economy would really be a thing. Well, he said something like that. I gave him a skeptical look, he countered with a panel of experts. Listen in. Zaheer Ali: Well, thank you Dean Jarley. I like to say that, you know, in our business, we turn sci-fi into sci-reality. And one of the people who helps make sci-fi and is now helping make science reality is Danica Vallone of the Making Space Agency. Her path to space is very interesting coming from Hollywood of things like costumes and sets of such high fidelity and accuracy that the space industry said we need some of that. In my time at NASA, one of the things we did was we always built very high fidelity simulators and simulation systems to prepare people and equipment for the challenges of the space environment. So welcome Danica. Danica Vallone: Thank you very much. Zaheer Ali: We also have Dr. Pascal Lee of the Mars Institute, of the SETI Institute, one of the leading planetary scientists in the US and indeed the world Co-Chair of the National Space Society Space Settlement Summit and International Space Development Conference. Welcome, sir. Paul Jarley: So I’m going to start this conversation by asking the same question I ask anybody who pitches me an idea, what problem does this solve? If you’re going to Mars and establishing an economy, what problem does that solve? Danica Vallone: Mars expert over here should probably have first crack. Pascal Lee: This is an interesting way to frame the question. I’m not interested in space exploration to solve a problem. I’m interested in drawn to space exploration and Mars exploration in particular because as a scientist, I’m interested in this quest for life. We often say we’re looking for life on Mars. What we fail to specify is that we’re looking for the first example of an alien form of life. And we’re not talking about little green men or some intelligent form of life. We know that Mars hasn’t had that in its history, but we’re looking for another example of life. A different biology from ours. All life on earth is connected and going to Mars would solve possibly that problem, which is how alone are we? Is there some other form of life even within our own solar system? That would solve the problem in the sense of giving us a fuller perspective of what we mean here on Earth. What are we as a phenomenon in the universe? Are we something really exceptional? Are we common? So that’s the scientific quest that I think would be solved by going to Mars. But in a broader sense, going to Mars to me is also opening a frontier. It’s creating new possibilities. It’s allowing our dream to not just be focused on one planet, but sort of be placed our dreams to be placed in a broader context of a universe where we can do things, where we can thrive. And so maybe the problem we’re trying to solve here is to not be confined to the Earth in our thinking, but to be beyond Earth. Danica Vallone: I love Pascal with every fiber of my being, but I think that going to Mars is a step in the path to solving the penultimate problem, which is the eventual demise of our species. On a long enough time signature, even if we manage to not blow ourselves up or create some giant nuclear winter or implode the Earth, eventually it will no longer be livable here on our planet. So if we don’t, and we’re talking about millions of years of time signature, eventually figure out how to exist off world and terraform and make other habitable places in the solar system and galaxy and universe as a whole, we will inevitably go extinct. So this is the biggest, fastest, juiciest of all of the problems to solve, and Mars is our second-closest neighbor that is viable. Paul Jarley: Z, you threw out the economy. It’s on you buddy. Zaheer Ali: So I’m going to go hardcore here. Capitalism, as we know it is based on continuous growth, right? And you see interesting behavior in the last decade. There was a really good article about competing for talent and things, but the real gem in that article was the statement that, look, we don’t have easy growth markets anymore, right? You’re down to tier five in China, the African disposable income has not increased and India is serving itself to a great extent. So if we’re going to constantly drive the system we currently have, we need to grow populations and we need to grow economies. So I think going to the moon, going to Mars and developing economies off world fundamentally solves the problem of continuing to drive the system we have, should we change the system? That’s a different type of discussion entirely. And secondly, the Earth as far as we know it, in our solar system and certainly within reachable timelines is completely unique. Are there other planets out there that are Goldilocks-type planets where there’s water and the right temperature and all these other things for our type of life to exist? Yes, we found them. Missions like Kepler and TESS and others have identified some of those. But, they’re not reachable. We do not have the physics understanding to achieve that. So in the meantime, what do we do? How do we protect Earth? Well, I would rather that we completely strip-mine the moon. I would rather that we completely pull asteroids down onto Mars, even if it crashes in the surface, it causes different types of damage. It’s a dead rock. But the only place there’s life that we know it is here and creating these economies off world to serve Earth is in my opinion, one of the ultimate forms of Earth environmentalism as well. Paul Jarley: Okay, I’m going to focus on Mars here, because that’s how you served it up. We’ll get to this more a little bit. Yes, Mars is a rock. I don’t see that Mars has anything going for it. The moon has some things going for it. It’s close, it has some water, right? There’s some other things there. Mars doesn’t seem to have anything. You are telling me that it would be easier to grow and produce an economy on Mars than it is in Africa. I would ask you to rethink that proposition. Zaheer Ali: That’s fair. I just think we should do both. Pascal Lee: I both agree with Zaheer and disagree in some ways. But I think the disagree may be on the timescale over which we would like to see these things happen. Mars is a God-forsaken place right now. Paul Jarley: It’s hell, let’s be honest, Pascal Lee: Venus is hell, Mars worse, a little better. Zaheer Ali: The atmosphere will melt you on Venus. Pascal Lee: Mars is a little bit better. It’s a place to me that we can explore. Now whether or not we should establish colonies and large settlements of humans, I personally don’t see that. That’s not what drives my vision of the future of humanity and space including on Mars. But there are several things that are really changing here in the landscape. First of all, when we say why spend money in space, why can’t we have more of an economy in space? The answer is that money is not spent in space. Even when we go to space, money is spent here on Earth, the economy is here on Earth. It’s benefiting humans every day on Earth with the things that we’re doing already in space. And to me for quite a while still until, and if we ever have a larger population that’s permanently present on some other world, what we really see the economy that’s based on Mars. But for a long time, even when humans are going to explore Mars and even when we establish a first base there and a resort that tourism might actually want to use and send people to, the economy will still be on the Earth. The money will be made on Earth, the investments will be made on Earth. And, you know, it’s farther down the road that I see that we would really transition into what one might call a sort of a Mars-based economy. But I hope that the day for that will come. It’s just a matter of is this really the immediate future that we’re talking about? And for quite a while still the economy is going to be Earth-centered even when we go to the moon, let alone Mars. Paul Jarley: Well, the economy requires a few things. The first thing is scarcity. Mars has plenty of scarcity. That won’t really be a problem. Danica Vallone: Scarcity in abundance. Paul Jarley: Right? Exactly. Then it needs specialization of labor because scarcity and specialization of labor leads to trade and trade is at the heart of an economy. And that doesn’t necessarily mean

    34 min

  2. 10/27/2025

    Is the $1 Billion Powerpoint Really a Thing?

    We’ve all sat through bad slide decks—but what about the ones that change history? In this episode of Is This Really a Thing?, Dean Paul Jarley is joined by Jim Balaschak, Dr. Mike Pape, and Derek Saltzman to explore whether the so-called “billion-dollar PowerPoint” is myth or reality. From Airbnb and Tesla’s iconic pitch decks to the role of storytelling, trust, and investor psychology, they unpack what makes a presentation powerful, what doesn’t, and whether AI or new tools might one day dethrone PowerPoint. Featured Guests Michael Pape, Ph.D. – Dr. Phillips Entrepreneur in Residence & Professor of Practice, Management Jim G. Balaschak – Principal, Deanja, LLC Derek Saltzman – Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Soarce Episode Transcription Paul Jarley: We’ve all sat through terrible slide decks, but every so often a PowerPoint does more than communicate. It creates value. Think of the pitch deck that launched Airbnb, the presentation that convinced investors to fund Tesla or the strategy decks that shape billion dollar mergers. So is the billion dollar PowerPoint really a thing? Can a few slides actually change the course of business history, or is it just a fancy way of describing really good storytelling? This show is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I’m Paul Jarley, Dean of the College of Business here at UCF. I’ve got lots of questions. To get answers, I’m talking to people with interesting insights into the future of business. Have you ever wondered, Is This Really a Thing? Onto our show. To help me figure this out, I’ve invited three guests. Jim Balaschak is an alum of the college, in our Hall of Fame, and a serial investor. Dr. Mike Pape is an Entrepreneur in Residence here at the College of Business, and Derek Saltzman is a former winner of the Joust and is co-founder of a company called Soarce. Thank you gentlemen for being here today. We’ve all seen really bad PowerPoints. Talk a little bit about what makes a great one. Jim, I’ll start with you. Jim Balaschak: A PowerPoint that catches my eyes shows a big potential market, a problem they’ve identified that they have a solution for that they can make money on. It’s not necessarily always the slides, but the slides can quickly convey the idea of the thoughts. And a lot of times before I meet with a founder, I’m emailed the pitch deck and going through the pitch deck helps me determine do I want to pursue this to the next step, get on the call with the founder, have them pitch it to me? I think it’s a good way to open the door. Paul Jarley: The quality of the pitch deck tells you something about how serious and well thought out this is, right? So a schlocky one can really close the door, maybe more than a really good one can enhance it. Is that fair in your view? Derek Saltzman: Yeah. Paul Jarley: Derek, what do you think? Derek Saltzman: I think there’s a lot to take into consideration with the audience and the stage gate of when you’re first starting a pitch or when you’re trying to interact. There’s multiple decks for multiple stage gates. So in the first beginning intro, like for instance, how Jim said, when you’re trying to send and get that initial meeting, it’s all about a hook. Can you describe what you do in the most succinct, effective way possible to get the message across of what the problem is, how you’re solving that problem, and what’s the revenue potential like he described? Because that’s what all investors are really looking for. Once you move past that initial stage gate, you have much more detailed decks that go into your financials that go into your true revenue model, your business model, maybe your IP strategy, and a variety of other topics. The overall optics and the overall clear messaging is I’d say the two biggest things. Paul Jarley: Mike, what do you tell students? Michael Pape: The way I deal with the pitch deck is treat it as just one element of a much bigger picture. The bigger picture is what is the business plan? Which you can express verbally and in the old days, if you will, back in the 90s and being part of this first company I did, we wrote that 40-page business plan. It was a very static document, but it had all the elements that we teach about what is required. Do you need a compelling problem, you need a solution? What’s the market? How are you going to market it? Who’s your team? What’s your financial model? All those types of things. So the pitch deck, I just see it as neither here nor there, because it is a way to communicate. The way I talk about this is I kind of view things as a trajectory and the pitch deck is purely in my opinion, a consequence of two things, changes in technology over time, and the other is the just madness of the rate of change of the world, and it creates an easy way to change on the fly. So the first one, if you think about the trajectory of technology, we always have to present your pitch, whether it was to Wall Street or a merger, an acquisition in some form. PowerPoint came out in ’87 I believe, and really didn’t grab hold till the mid 90s. It was clunky, it was terrible. There was no way to show PowerPoints through a Zoom-like thing. All those things never worked when we do a pitch to VCs or whoever You’d have to print out your PowerPoint. You’d have to print, also, a relatively long business plan document and it was just a lot of friction, and that became really problematic and the people could reduce that friction, they kind of won the game. And Microsoft PowerPoint and just from preparing scientific slides over the years, my gosh, what a savior. You’re getting new data all the time. Before we used to have to take photographs, have the slides. If you just look at that progression of things, the PowerPoint as we have it is a value because it’s a very succinct way to bring in all the important business elements that you’ve got to communicate one way or the other. Paul Jarley: Now the AI can do it for you. Michael Pape: Well, it’s – Paul Jarley: To a degree. Let’s talk about that a little bit. Is that a good idea? Derek Saltzman: Uhm, no. I think there’s a balancing act. I think there’s definitely, you can utilize the tools of AI to get the ball moving, get in the right direction, but AI is not going to build the business for you. You still got to go out and talk to the customers, build the relationships, develop the actual business, and something to Pape’s point. In the kind of more of course, AI age, more modern age things, I feel the investment cycles have gotten compressed kind of how you’re describing where you’d have to develop a 40-page business plan and really describe how you’re going to attack a market that is almost archaic now, where seed rounds are going a $25 million seed round, $30 million seed round because they have 10-to-15 really great slides and they have AI attached and they’re rocket shipping like crazy. So it’s a really interesting dynamic depending on the business. Paul Jarley: Here’s my real test on the value of a PowerPoint. Tell me the one that you saw that really stuck in your mind without revealing any secrets. And what about it really stuck in your mind? Michael Pape: There’s two I got in my mind. One is Dropbox. It is not a pretty PowerPoint. However, it was a compelling problem. We didn’t have cloud computing. We had the USB drives, we had the floppy disks, we had all that stuff all over. Nobody would communicate. You’d have to carry the USB drive. Paul Jarley: You’d forget it. Michael Pape: You’d forget it. The flash drives, remember? So if you look at their PowerPoint, they’ve got a picture of just a messy desk with floppies and the things all over, and then they came up with their solution and you’re like, everybody I’m sure just stood up. Paul Jarley: How about you, Derek? Which one do you remember? Derek Saltzman: One for us being in the deep tech space is a company called Solugen, and to Pape’s point, one of the really interesting things that they do is just, it’s storytelling. How do you take a really complex, difficult topic like chemical refining and distill that down to really digestible information for someone to understand, oh, you use this chemistry or these processes to develop these things and you sell it for X amount of dollars. Paul Jarley: Jim? Jim Balaschak: I think one of the ones that caught my eye is recycling of batteries to repurpose like for EVs, because that’s going to be a really big problem. So just seeing how much of an environmental impact this is going to be and how much can be saved if things are recycled. That really impacted me and is a company we invested in. Paul Jarley: So if you can’t articulate the problem, you’re in trouble. Right? Michael Pape: The goal of a PowerPoint in front of investors or potential acquisition partner is to get the next meeting. That’s its goal, that’s its role, and then you’ve got to come up with another one and another one. You’re not going to get investment on your first presentation. Derek Saltzman: No. Michael Pape: Your goal, if you remember this, I told you guys, your goal is to get the next meeting Derek Saltzman: One hundred percent. Michael Pape: Somehow, some way. And sometimes the next meeting will be a lunch, it won’t be a PowerPoint. Sometimes they’ll just be hanging out and having a drink at a conference. Derek Saltzman: Yeah. Michael Pape: So, its role has really got to be minimized to some degree just to maintain the conversation so you can build trust and they can perform due diligence in whichever form they deem fit. Derek Saltzman: Yeah. Every day you don’t get a no is a closer step to a yes. That’s how we look at it. Paul Jarley: Our Joust is in the 20th or 25th year. It’s been around a long time. I’ve always thought that in that setting and in business plan

    21 min

  3. 09/29/2025

    Is The Quarterly Report Really a Thing?

    Quarterly earnings reports have been a fixture of American business for more than 50 years … but are their days numbered? Earlier this month, President Donald Trump reignited debate by suggesting companies should only report twice a year, a move he says would cut costs and free executives to focus on the long term. But would fewer reports build stronger businesses, or erode trust in the markets? In this episode of Is This Really a Thing?, Dean Paul Jarley sits down with UCF College of Business Hall of Fame members Paul Gregg and Jim Balaschak, along with accounting faculty member EB Altiero Poziemski, to examine whether the quarterly report is an outdated ritual or a critical safeguard. Could its demise really be a thing? Featured Guests EB Altiero Poziemski, MSA Program Director & Advisor / Associate Lecturer Paul Gregg, Finance Executive in Residence Jim G. Balaschak – Principal, Deanja, LLC Episode Transcription Paul Jarley: Sometimes things just come together. Last week I read something about the President’s proposal to shift from quarterly to semi-annual earnings reports. That same week I was holding the College’s fall meeting of our Dean’s Advisory Board. The Board is filled with folks who have a direct interest in this debate. So I convened a quick panel to gain insights into the likely death of the quarterly report. Paul Gregg is an experienced CFO, member of the College of Business Hall of Fame and an Executive in Residence in the Department of Finance. He is joined by Jim Balaschak, a fellow Hall of Famer and serial investor, and EB Altiero Poziemski, a faculty member in the Dixon School of Accounting. Quarterly earnings reports have been with us for 50 years. President Trump has floated the idea of going European and cutting back to semi-annual reporting. Would that save money, destroy trust in markets or both? And what happens when AI makes real time disclosure possible? In this episode, we ask whether the cadence of reporting is about efficiency or about faith in the system itself. Could the end of the quarterly earnings report really be a thing? Stay tuned. This show is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I’m Paul Jarley, Dean of the College of Business here at UCF. I’ve got lots of questions. To get answers, I’m talking to people with interesting insights into the future of business. Have you ever wondered, Is This Really a Thing? Onto our show. EB, let me start with you. Talk a little bit about when the quarterly report first came about and why, and the changes over the years. EB Altiero Poziemski: The requirement to actually have any financial reporting whatsoever from our public companies started with the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. So that was the first time that there was a law that said a publicly traded company had to periodically report their results to their investors. Paul Jarley: This was a response that Great Depression, right? EB Altiero Poziemski: Yes. Following on that, in 1955, that was when the requirement for semi-annual reports was added to the rules, and so we saw that sometime between the original 1934 act and 1955, there was an increased demand for more timely information about these companies. And then from there, we didn’t see quarterly reporting required until 1970. So in the grand scheme of things, it’s actually a fairly recent development and not entirely a settled one either because we’re here talking about it right now. But Donald Trump also brought this up in 2018, actually brought it to the SEC for comment. It did go out for public comment at that time, and in 2013, the European Union actually abolished quarterly reporting for the companies that they regulate. So it’s been kind of a push and pull over time. Paul Jarley: Paul, you’ve been in the corporate world for a lot of years, what actually do you need to report? Paul Gregg: First of all, the report is unaudited, unlike the 10-K, which is an audited report. And you have to report your balance sheet, income statement, cashflow statement, along with selected disclosures. And of course, if there are material events, they typically show up at that point. Although an 8-K is required if there’s a material event between reporting periods. So it’s basically producing your financial statements and it’s kind of morphed into where the analysts are going to meet with the company. After these 10-Q’s are produced, the press release will go out, the company would then go over the results for the quarter. The analysts are tracking the quarterly results against their forecast that are not looking for surprises. Typically, the company tends to guide during this period, what the remaining year will be. And there’s some pros and cons to reducing the quarterly reporting to semi-annual. The pro would be we can save on audit fees because our auditors come in and review these quarterly reports and it allows the company to think more long term. Having said that, those slides and that data that is shown to the analyst is done every month for the Board of Directors. It’s not like we have to make this stuff up. It’s already there lots more detailed than we show the public, and so it really isn’t that much more work for management to report. The only out-of-pocket cost really is the biggest, the audit fee. The bigger issue is that by forcing companies to report quarterly, it flushes out information that has to be shown in the financial statements before the quarter end. The way it works in a corporate world, bad news travels very slow, good news travels quickly. So, it’s a way to force out the bad news to make sure we get it into the public arena. You never want to surprise Wall Street with a surprise report. And so if it were to be twice a year, that would basically be six months of perhaps data that should have the actions management problems that should be addressed. So those problems may not be addressed as quickly because they’re not known as quickly. This quarterly reporting kind of forces them out sooner than later, and of course it’s going to create volatility in the stock. It’s going to create bigger variations. When semi-annual reporting is done, that’s going to add volatility, which adds to the cost of capital. Paul Jarley: Because people are guessing more on what’s going on. Is that where the volatility will come from? Paul Gregg: Their forecast would be less accurate, just like the company would not know for six months of what’s going on, a lot can happen in a quarter. Paul Jarley: I imagine, Paul, the typical CEO doesn’t really love the forecast meeting. Paul Gregg: They certainly don’t like going to Wall Street and presenting the quarterly results unless they’re good, in which case that’s enjoyable. But if they’re not good, they’re going to get a lot of questions. The stock can actually start moving during these quarterly earnings and conference calls. If the information is not really known or worse than expected, better than expected, it is a drill. We would prepare a book and anticipate every question. We give each person, “If this question comes up, this is how we’re going to answer it.” Ours were pretty well orchestrated and we generally did not have problems, although, I’ve seen really good webcasts on quarterly reviews and I’ve seen some that are not so good. So it just depends on the company and how well they’re managed and how accurate their numbers are. Paul Jarley: And there’s also some game playing right around when to book revenue or is that overstated? Paul Gregg: We manage earnings, but we manage it within generally accepted accounting principles. So during the quarterly review, if we took some positions on something that affected earnings, I would discuss it with our auditors. During the quarterly review. I was telling EB, our chairman of the Audit Committee was a former Chairman of the SEC. Anything we did, I’d be ready to go tell him why we did it and why it was consistent with GAP and why it was appropriate. Revenue is a common problem though for many companies and revenue recognition. Paul Jarley: Jim, you’re an investor. What do you think about this? Jim Balaschak: I like the current system. I like to hear the quarterly earnings. I do my analysis on what is projected for the next quarter and the one after that, and one after that. Usually I’m looking about two years out of earnings and earnings growth. I like to buy growth companies and the economy can change, the sector can change. I’d like to know about that sooner than later. Also, I know that a lot of the European companies, not only do they report semi-annually, their dividends are semi-annually. And I think there’s a lot of income investors out there that count on that quarterly dividend. So I would think that if companies start reporting only every six months, that many of them would start changing their dividends every six months. Paul Jarley: EB have there been any studies done on firm behavior and investor behavior in Europe when they made the change? EB Altiero Poziemski: There was a study done on German firms that showed those who opted to go ahead and switch to semi-annual instead of the quarterly requirement, they actually saw a increase in their cost of capital and an increase in the information asymmetry. So basically the investors, again, weren’t as well-informed, weren’t willing to take as much risk. Basically they were demanding a bigger return because they were perceiving a bigger risk. Paul Jarley: So there might be a signal in choosing six months rather than four months, which might be negatively perceived by them? Paul Gregg: Exactly, which adds to the volatility of the stock, which adds to the cost of capital. Paul Jarley: And let’s understand that even if the SEC did relax the rule, a number of firms might not do it anyway, right? So the stock exchange itself could require quarterly

    18 min

  4. 09/15/2025

    Are Pet Influencers Really a Thing?

    From Lassie to Grumpy Cat to Ruby the golden doodle, pets have long captured our hearts—but today, they’re also capturing serious market share. In this episode of Is This Really a Thing?, Dean Paul Jarley dives into the booming world of pet influencers with UCF Marketing expert Dr. Carolyn Massiah and Amber Downs, creator of @orlandoodle. Together, they explore why pets are such powerful connectors, how authenticity and branding drive this unique space, and whether pet influencing is just internet fluff or a lasting force shaping consumer behavior. Featured Guests Carolyn Massiah, Ph.D. – Associate Chair, Department of Marketing & Associate Lecturer, Marketing Amber Downs – Dog Mom, Pet Influencer, @orlandoodle (Instagram) Episode Transcription Paul Jarley: Smokey Bear told us that only we could prevent wildfires. Rin Tin Tin and Lassie became household names. Boo The Pomeranian and Grumpy Cat sold merch. So here’s the question, were these the first pet influencers? This show is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I’m Paul Jarley, Dean of the College of Business here at UCF. I’ve got lots of questions. To get answers, I’m talking to people with interesting insights into the future of business. Have you ever wondered, Is This Really a Thing? Onto our show. At first glance, it sounds like something new. Dogs in sunglasses, cats with their own merch. But if you think about it, animals have been influencing us for decades. Mr. Ed certainly influenced Wilbur. On today’s episode, we’re asking whether pet influencers are just internet fluff or a real force shaping culture, consumer behavior, and marketing. To help me sort this out and decide whether it’s just hype or real and what lessons we can draw from it, I’ve got Amber Downs, the dog mom, a pet influencer who lives this every day, and Dr. Carolyn Massiah, our resident expert on all things marketing. Amber, let’s start with you. How did you decide to become a pet influencer? Well, technically your pet. So tell us about your pet and how you got into this business. Amber Downs: In 2019, I adopted a golden doodle named Ruby. She was six months old. My life was changed forever. At that point in time, as we all know, a couple months later, the world changed. During that point in time, I kind of shifted my Instagram, my personal Instagram content to share ways that we could connect with the community, ways we could support small businesses. And as we stayed in that pandemic state for a while, I realized I had this young dog that needed a way to interact with the world, get out of the house a little bit. So I began sharing both dog-friendly businesses and dog-friendly activities in the central Florida area. So during that period of time, I created this new @orlandoodle Instagram account where I share dog-friendly things to do as well as my favorite dog products and my favorite things in the pet industry. Paul Jarley: Did you just wake up at night and decide to do this, or was it based on something you were doing before you became a pet influencer? Amber Downs: I’ve always loved social media. I’ve always enjoyed sharing my favorite things. I had a blog and a different social media account years before, but it really just happened really slowly. I started out, like I said, sharing about things in the community that we could assist during the pandemic ways we could spend our money to help others, and then just slowly shifted to this dog-friendly content. Paul Jarley: What do you think it is about pets that captures people’s imagination? And is a pet influencer different than a human influencer, and how? Amber Downs: I think that we connect with the pet part of the account really quickly and we fall in love with this animal, and then we get to know the family and the human around the account and then begin to connect with the account as a whole. Paul Jarley: So Carolyn’s nodding her head. What does the research tell us about how people interact with pets, Carolyn? Carolyn Massiah: Let’s go back to brands in general. When we first started in marketing using brands, we stayed away from using humans or individuals or persons in logos or in brands because they could break your heart. Paul Jarley: Meaning they could misbehave. Carolyn Massiah: They could misbehave, yes. And remember, the main goal in marketing is to build a relationship. And Amber was saying those exact words. That’s why I was nodding my head. It’s build a relationship, engage. And so this is why professional sports teams, you see a great deal of animals used in the logos, and now let’s move forward to pet influencers. And we see that jump now to the pets being used in these accounts. It makes sense now to jump from inanimate animals used in the logos to now live pets and pet influencers. It’s that same thing, that relationship. Pets don’t break our hearts. Paul Jarley: Well they’re certainly authentic. Carolyn Massiah: They are authentic and we can engage with them. The most followed pet influencing account, Jiffpom, right now has 9.9 million active followers. Do you know that pet passed away in 2019? Paul Jarley: So what makes that pet so awesome? Why does it have that many followers? Is there something distinctive about it? Carolyn Massiah: I think it resonates with individuals and particularly in the time period that we’ve gone through. As soon as you said 2019, I knew before you said it what the next phrase was going to be … because then COVID came. Jiffpom passed away 2019, but gained the bulk of the followers from 2020 on when we were looking for something to hold onto, something to connect with that would not disappoint us. And that’s also why I think you see such a major growth in the pet influencing accounts during the 2020 to now period. Paul Jarley: I just assumed they were cheaper than human influencers. What’s the contract for a pet influencer look like? Carolyn Massiah: Actually, it’s not that much cheaper. There’s a tortoise right now, it has 3 million followers, and its pet parents gross $400,000 annually from that account. And mostly that comes from the sponsored post and the brand collaborations. The lowest brand collaborations you’re seeing with that tortoise is starting at $1,500 to $2,000, and those are for small mentions, so it’s actually not that much cheaper. Paul Jarley: So Amber, when did the revenue start coming in? Talk a little bit about that. Amber Downs: So after 2020, I kind of began doing this account more and more and started connecting with brands. Brands would reach out to me and say, oh, we’ll send you a collar and a leash if you post about it. So I did little very small gifted collaborations like that. Paul Jarley: So you weren’t reaching out to them, they were reaching out to you? Amber Downs: At the beginning? Yes, yes. As I got to wise up a little bit, I realized I can charge for this. If I want people to share using my platform and my energy and my time, I need to charge. So then I began working with brands that reached out to me in a more of a paid partnership level. And I’m a smaller influencer in this space, so I obviously can’t charge what the tortoise charges, but there’s still four digit numbers being thrown around in my small account. I had to just do some math there real quick. And so I also began reaching out to brands and kind of pitching just like your human influencers do. So I began pitching as well and reaching out to brands that resonated with me and resonated with my audience that I felt would be a good fit. Paul Jarley: So what do you think it is about your pet that stood out? Why do you think they reached out to you? Amber Downs: Well, I’ll be honest, it’s not the pet, it’s the human. My dog is cute, she’s adorable, people love her. But at the same time, I’m the person who’s making sure the photos look good. You can have an adorable dog and post content that’s not great, and it’s not going to sell the same way. In my content, I share high-quality images and videos of my pet, and I include myself in that content because again, while yes, we’re connecting with the pet, the human is oftentimes doing that selling and actually making that final connection later on. So we work together to create content that really stands out. Carolyn Massiah: That’s the point there. So when people began and say that, okay, I want to be a pet influencer, I have this great Jack Rabbit here, and Paul Jarley: I have a dog named Sneaky Pete. We’ll come back to that. Carolyn Massiah: Sneaky Pete, okay, so I have a great dog, Sneaky Pete, and I want Sneaky Pete to be a pet influencer. Well, Sneaky Pete’s not taking his own reels and Sneaky Pete isn’t doing selfies. So it is going to take a pet parent like Amber to take some time to learn about whichever channel they’re on, whichever media they’re using. Also, if I’m the viewer, in order to form that relationship with Sneaky Pete, I also want to see Amber’s relationship with Sneaky Pete so that I can envision myself also playing with Sneaky Pete in that same positive way. It can’t just be, take a picture of Sneaky Pete and post it up there. Paul Jarley: It seems like a very human-centric approach that you’re talking about here. So look, Sneaky Pete has a pool. He has a swing. He is unbelievably good at catching balls. He believes the entire world was created just for him. So he has some animal magnetism, I would be the first to say that. Now, on the flip side, he doesn’t particularly like other dogs or other people. And I’m not going to be taking reels of pictures of Sneaky Pete. I have other to do. But does personality matter here? Does authenticity matter? Carolyn Massiah: I think it absolutely does. And actually you just told a great story of Sneaky Pete to tell to others, right? And so it’s going to take, if you’ll allow me to use the pun, it’s going to

    23 min

  5. 09/15/2025

    Is Layaway Really a Thing ... Again?

    Is layaway making a comeback—or has it simply been rebranded as “buy now, pay later”? In this episode of Is This Really a Thing?, Dean Paul Jarley sits down with Jim Adamczyk, Chief Strategy Officer at FAIRWINDS, to unpack the surprising history (and psychology) of delayed payments. From Christmas shopping in the 1970s to today’s Klarna and Affirm apps, they explore why consumers keep returning to installment plans, what it means for financial health, and whether AI could reshape how we manage spending and debt. Featured Guests Jim Adamczyk – Chief Strategy Officer, FAIRWINDS Episode Transcription Paul Jarley: If you’re as old as I am, you know, things come back around. Today, we’re going to talk about an old classic: layaway. Is it back? Is it hiding under a different name? Should you really put your lunch on layaway? Or buy now, pay later. To help me figure this out, I’m joined in this episode by Jim Adamczyk. Jim is a UCF alum, a member of our College of Business Hall of Fame and is the current Chief Strategy Officer at FAIRWINDS. We recorded this podcast live in front of 100-plus students in The EXCHANGE, and we’re bringing it to you now. Listen in. This show is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I’m Paul Jarley, Dean of the College of Business here at UCF. I’ve got lots of questions. To get answers, I’m talking to people with interesting insights into the future of business. Have you ever wondered, Is This Really a Thing? Onto our show. So when I was a kid, my mother spent half of her annual income on Christmas. I’m not kidding. We grew up with relatively modest means, and so she would start shopping in June for Christmas. And the family didn’t have a huge amount of money, so she would buy things on what was called layaway. Basically, you went in and you picked out your item and you gave it to the store and you promised to pay for it before you would pick it up and you had to agree to a schedule. And I was driving somewhere a couple of weeks ago and I was listening to the radio and I think it was Burlington Coat Factory was talking about their layaway program. Literally, I hadn’t heard about layaway in probably 40 years. And so today Jim and I are going to talk about layaway, what it was, how it differs from Buy Now Pay Later, or rent to own things that many of you might see, why it’s on the comeback and what might replace it after that. So thanks for joining us today, Jim. Jim Adamczyk: Always happy to be here. Paul Jarley: What is layaway? Had you ever experienced layaway? Jim Adamczyk: When I was in high school, I was dating somebody and I remember there was a Montgomery Ward in Altamonte Springs and I put a present on layaway. And by the time I got the layaway, I was no longer with the person anymore, so my first experience was: layaway is not great. Paul Jarley: Just so you understand kind of the world we’re living in at that time, people didn’t have credit cards, people didn’t have debit cards. Jim Adamczyk: The main way to pay for it was cash. You took cash out and you went to the store and buy it, but if you didn’t have the cash, your primary means of credit was layaway. And it’s not really credit in the sense that you don’t have the item, so you’re kind of saving each month. It’s like a savings plan to end up eventually buying something. It’s almost like delayed gratification in a world of instant gratification today. Paul Jarley: Right? And if you missed a payment, the retailer put the product back on the shelf. Jim Adamczyk: And so the retailers had to have an entire inventory management system to keep track of all the different items that were on layaway, the customers that had them on layaway and then the payment plans that were in place to pay for those items as well. Paul Jarley: And there would be late penalties, right? I think if you – Jim Adamczyk: Usually you had to put a percent of the item down upfront, 10, 20%, and then if you were late, kind of like a credit card or a loan today, they would charge you a fee on the late payment. And then if you didn’t actually pay it off or you’d stop paying, they would put it back and they would keep your money pretty much. Paul Jarley: So fast forwarding a little bit, if you did that today and you missed a payment and they put it back, would it impact your credit score? Jim Adamczyk: On layaway today, there’s no impact. It’s not credit. So the big difference with layaway is that you don’t own the item yet. You’re almost saving towards, and ended up eventually getting it, so it’s not credit. Whereas today if you buy on a credit card or you buy now with those buy now pay later items, that’s credit. Someone is giving you the item before you actually have paid for it. That’s credit under any definition. Paul Jarley: So mom was shopping in June, she didn’t really need the item until Christmas. Jim Adamczyk: Right. Paul Jarley: This is how this would work. And so she would make a payment on it for a few months so that she could have presents under the tree. That’s really how this developed. Let’s go to a couple of other similar kinds of programs, but in some ways different. How’s it different from rent to own? Jim Adamczyk: With rent to own, it’s a contract, so you’re entering into a contract to buy a particular item and you’re renting it for a period of time and you have the option to buy at the end. Most of these programs aren’t designed for the majority of consumers. They’re usually for consumers that typically don’t have a good track record of saving. And so unfortunately, the programs do target those that aren’t disciplined in our approach like rent to own or buy now pay later. And the buy now pay later, which is what everyone in here probably sees, and probably more than half of you have used it already, I would imagine based on – Paul Jarley: Based on the number of apps. Jim Adamczyk: the number of statistics out there. It is more of the payment in four. So you’ll get the item and then you’ll agree to four payments. So instead of paying $100 today, you’ll pay $25 over four weeks or six weeks is typically the cycle that you’d pay that over. That’s pretty much what has put layaway, away. Because buy now, pay later is prevalent in almost every transaction that you see today. And it’s pretty much a dominated small dollar purchases today. Paul Jarley: Because that’s about instant gratification to your point. Jim Adamczyk: Yeah, I mean the psychology behind it – Paul Jarley: Exactly the opposite. Jim Adamczyk: is really interesting. You have this bias for having something now because you feel like having it now. You over assume the importance of having the item now and you under assume the value that you have to pay over time and the benefit of that. It ends up hurting I think those of us that struggle with savings just in general. Paul Jarley: And you end up paying more for it over the long haul than you could have just paid upfront? Jim Adamczyk: I heard it described once as like a treadmill. You get on a treadmill of debt. Most people that use buy now pay later, 60% of consumers have at least two or more active buy now, pay later going at the same time. Paul Jarley: I’ve noticed now it’s even on my credit card. Jim Adamczyk: There’s three big firms that control the whole buy now pay later space, and one of the big ones, they want to replace credit cards in the banking system around credit. That’s their whole goal. The short-term buy now pay later does replace credit cards for small dollar purchases for a lot of people, and it works in a similar way like a credit card. If you pay it off when it’s due, there’s no interest on it. But, like credit cards, most people don’t pay those off every month. In fact, probably more than half of Americans with credit card balances don’t pay them off every month. And so buy now pay later unfortunately follows a similar cycle. It might seem like you don’t have to pay a hundred dollars now and it’s only $25 today, but the reality is more than 40% of people that are in that today have some late payment over that period of time. Paul Jarley: Why do you think layaway might be making a comeback now? Inflation maybe? Jim Adamczyk: Certainly the cost of goods has gone up and layaway is still a niche product I would say today because a lot of the bigger retailers have gone away from it and moved to the buy now pay later. I definitely know that there’s a couple out there that still do it like Burlington, you’d mentioned, Sears and some of the older traditional players. But the Walmart’s the Best Buy’s the Target’s, they’ve all moved to the bigger buy now pay later firms. And what they’ve seen is just an increase in sales when they move to it, and that’s part of the reason why. Paul Jarley: Well, and plus the inventory management part of it, right? Of setting it aside and – Jim Adamczyk: Just imagine you’re at Walmart and you’ve got to manage all of these layaway programs for different consumers and when they come get it and if they’re late, not late, it’s an entire inventory management system. Versus you move to a buy now pay later infrastructure and the consumer gets their product right away and they have to manage inventory and payments and late tracking. So that’s part of the reason why you’ve seen layaway go away. Paul Jarley: And you don’t need to have a credit score, right to do buy now, pay later? Jim Adamczyk: I think a lot of people think that buy now pay later is helping your credit score. It is not actively in a credit score today. But if you don’t pay that buy now pay later at some point, that could go to a collection agency which could show up on your credit report. So there’s no benefit to credit for buy now, pay later, but there could be a detriment to your credit for not paying buy now pay l

    19 min

  6. 09/05/2023

    Are the Excel Championships Really an eSport?

    Are the Excel Championships just another bit of content for ESPN? Could it keep the Pac 12 alive? More importantly, is it an eSport and can we gamble on it? Listen in!   Featured Guests Andrew Grigolyunovich – Founder and CEO of the Financial Modeling World Cup David Clayton Brown, Ph.D. – Associate Professor of Finance at the Eller College of Business at the University of Arizona “Mr. Excel” Bill Jelen – Excel Expert, Consultant, Author & Play-by-Play Announcer Adrien Bouchet, Ph.D. – Richard & Helen DeVos Foundation Endowed Chair; Eminent Scholar of the DeVos Sport Business Management Program at UCF Sean Dennis, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor, Kenneth G. Dixon School of Accounting at UCF   Episode Transcription Announcer from the movie “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story”: Live from Las Vegas, It’s the Las Vegas International Dodge Ball Open here on ESPN 8: The Ocho, bringing you the finest in seldom scene sports from around the globe since 1999. If it’s almost a sport, we’ve got it here. Paul Jarley: But I have to admit I did not see this coming. This show is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I’m Paul Jarley, Dean of the College of Business here at UCF. I’ve got lots of questions. To get answers, I’m talking to people with interesting insights into the future of business. Have you ever wondered, is this really a thing? Onto our show. Paul Jarley: While, it most certainly isn’t “Dodgeball,” and we aren’t breaking down Average Joe’s, we are talking about the Excel Championships that just aired on ESPN, and will be heading to Las Vegas in December. Are the Excel Championships even close to an eSport? I really need help understanding why Excel is on ESPN. To form an opinion on this, I’ve assembled the following panel of experts. Andrew Grigolyunovich is the Founder and CEO of the Financial Modeling World Cup and joins us all the way from Latvia. David Clayton Brown is an Associate Professor of Finance at the Eller College of Business at the University of Arizona. Bill Jelen goes by the moniker Mr. Excel. He has authored several books on Excel and is the competition’s play-by-play guy. Adrian Bouchet is the DeVos Endowed Chair of Sports Management and Chair of the Sports Business Management Program here in the College of Business. Finally, Sean Dennis is an Associate Professor in our Dixon School of Accounting. Listen in. Paul Jarley: So one of the very first podcasts I did was on eSports and the premise of it was whether eSports was going to be a thing or not. I came down on the side that I thought it was going to be a big thing that I thought it wouldn’t just be a big thing in the professional ranks, that it would be a big thing in the college ranks as well. And one of the reasons I thought that that would be true is it would be a way for universities to promote a group of geeky students with a unique offering, but I have to admit, I did not see this coming. When I saw the ESPN promotion on The Ocho for this event, I thought, wow, this is one I just wouldn’t have imagined. I’m going to start with David and Andrew here. Where did the idea for these kinds of competitions come from? Andrew? Andrew Grigolyunovich: It all started, I think that was back in 2012, the first competition of a similar kind that was called ModelOff that was created by two guys in Australia and they were doing that on an annual basis and that was devoted to financial modeling. That was called the Financial Modeling World Championship. They had a name brand named ModelOff. I was one of the players, David was one of the players there. We were good players, we made it to the finals a couple of times and in 2016 we were among the top 16 players in London. So the difference between what you saw on ESPN, first of all, that was annual, not regular. Second, it was more player oriented, less show oriented. That was basically targeting finance professionals, giving them very interesting cases to solve, but there was not too much value for spectators. When they sold this to new owners back in 2019 and the competition discontinued by 2020. So I saw an opportunity to create the Financial Modeling World Cup and that was the tournament for professionals from the very beginning. We were aiming to increase the production value and also increase the spectator value there. We’ve tried a couple of formats. Some of these initially were not too successful, but eventually that has evolved into the format you actually saw on ESPN and that’s how Excel eSports was born. I think the first game we could probably get it to back to 2021 and meanwhile David continued to play in his ideas about the student tournaments because he’s a professor. We are more like professionals and David, maybe you can tell more about that aspect. David Clayton Brown: My whole entry into this was 2014. I started here at the University of Arizona as a professor and I started teaching financial modeling and I wanted a way for my students to get a little bit more than what we had in class, get some M&A models, some private equity type models as well, and I found ModelOff was a great place to do that. You got these professional models, professional modelers were completing them and it gave the students a chance to see what they were doing. They also provided answers, which was great for student learning. You could try the challenge, you’re going to struggle through it, which is fine, but then you’re going to learn from it afterward. And I had a few students that really engaged with this. They would finish in the rankings at least for this, for the ModelOff competitions. And then in 2016 I took my hand at it and made it to the finals with Andrew. We got to meet for the first time and then like he said, in 2019, things changed hands with ModelOff started to wrap up and at that point I initiated a conversation with the ModelOff team like, Hey, can we start a college version of this? We start working on it, the pandemic hits, it kind of derails everything, but then I actually was able to get tenure. To me that gives me kind of a license to create value in the world and I see this as a huge source of value. We see industry people saying students need more Excel, they need it sooner, so how do we deliver it to them? At U of A, we’ve started to do more courses earlier in the curriculum, but broadly we just want to get more Excel opportunities to students. This is a hard thing for professors to bring to the classroom, so we’re hoping this is a way to make it easy for professors to give their students a little something extra to do to get their feet wet and then the students that are really interested are going to run with it because of this format Andrew’s developed. Paul Jarley: So where did most of the contestants come from, Andrew? Andrew Grigolyunovich: Basically, investment banking, audits, financial consulting. If we talk about finance people, we have actuaries, we have engineers maybe a little bit less than we would hope for. We have a couple of mathematicians. The reason is that our company name is the Financial Modeling World Cup. The word financial might be a little bit encouraging for finance professionals, a little bit less encouraging for other professionals. Paul Jarley: Where do the problems come from? Do companies submit problems for you all? Andrew Grigolyunovich: You know what, that’s a very special discipline in writing those types of cases. If a company comes with a problem, it could be the case. We’ll have actually a real life company initiated problem in September, but again, these have to be adapted to a format that’s solvable within thirty minutes or maybe an hour. So we try to see some real life problem. The whole tournament that’s been studied by my company, which is doing financial consulting and financial modeling consulting, quite often what we do, we just look into some interesting real life examples, the real life models we were doing and create some generic case out of that. Initially most of the cases were written by myself, especially in the first season. And then after a while, the players have started to contribute their cases. So right now, it’s also probably two thirds, maybe even more. That’s contributed by the community and the other is being written internally at the Financial Modeling World Cup. Paul Jarley: One last question and I’ll jump to David. Andrew, do you use it to identify talent for people who you want to hire into your company? Have you ever hired anyone who won the competition? Andrew Grigolyunovich: Actually, yes. We’ve hired two guys from a team who were doing the student competition last year. David Clayton Brown: Yeah, for our cases I’d say it’s a mix because we actually want students to get an idea of what real life work is, and a lot of that has been more finance oriented so far just because that’s where my connections are, but we want to expand that even more as we go. For example, we’re actually talking to a professor across the university here that studies bee populations. And so building cases that relate to things people study, I think is a real good way to engage the students and it doesn’t just have to be in the business school. And that’s why we’re starting to look across campus for more of these collaborations, to bring interesting data problems to the students and then teach them some Excel skills along the way and have fun competing. Paul Jarley: Has it developed into a student club yet? David? Is there a registered student organization on campus? David Clayton Brown: So I started the financial modeling club a couple of years ago, kind of an offshoot of that that focuses on this competition. I actually for the first time later today, will be teaching an Excel eSports class here at the University of Arizona. Basically, I’m training them on what the recent case competitions have been. I pick a

    30 min

  7. 08/28/2023

    Part 2: Will AI Depopulate Hollywood?

    Could Artificial Intelligence make Hollywood a ghost town? Reality TV, strikes and cyborgs, OH MY! Hollywood may be heading toward AI-generated content, and we all may already be living in a cyborg state … so was this episode AI-generated? This is part two of a two-part episode. Be sure to go back and listen to Part 1: Will the Hollywood Strike be an Extended Thing?   Featured Guests David Luna, Ph.D. – UCF College of Business Robin Cowie – Phygital Experience Creator & Feature Filmmaker Cassandra “Cassi” Willard, J.D. – Instructor, Department of Management, UCF College of Business & Program Director, Blackstone LaunchPad at UCF Ray Eddy, Ph.D – Lecturer, Integrated Business, UCF College of Business   Episode Transcription Actor Bryan Cranston speaking at a SAG-AFTRA strike rally in Times Square in New York City on July 25, 2023: Uh, we’ve got a message for Mr. Iger. I know, sir, that you look through things through a different lens. We don’t expect you to understand who we are, but we ask you to hear us, and beyond that, to listen to us when we tell you we will not be having our jobs taken away and given to robots. Paul Jarley: The real issue, Bryan, is whether the AI listens and understands us. This show is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I’m Paul Jarley, Dean of the College of Business here at UCF. I’ve got lots of questions. To get answers, I’m talking to people with interesting insights into the future of business. Have you ever wondered, is this really a thing? Onto our show. In our last episode, we explored the current writers and actor’s strikes and how the parties might come to some agreement to get everyone back to work and spare us a lot of new reality TV. A key part of that analysis involved the limitations of AI today. It can’t produce a final product without humans. That, of course, is today. AI technology is changing rapidly and its impact on the industry is likely to grow over time. In today’s episode, we look at the long-term implications of AI in Hollywood and ask, could AI depopulate the industry in 10 years? In other words, could it eliminate or substantially reduce the number of people working in Hollywood, especially the writers and actors. To shed light on these topics, I returned to the discussion I had with my group of UCF experts. To just remind everyone, Cassandra Willard is an instructor and program director in our Center for Entrepreneurship and a practicing attorney with extensive experience in entertainment law. Ray Eddy is a lecturer in our Integrated Business department with an interest in understanding the customer experience. Ray is not just an academic, he has worked as a stunt man, started his own production company and written, directed and starred in several performances. David Luna is a professor in our Marketing department. He is currently working on several projects, studying human machine interactions in the context of chatbots, intelligent assistance, and AI. And last but not least is Robin Cowie. Rob is a graduate of our Motion Picture Technology program at UCF. He’s a little hard to summarize, having worked in a variety of positions in the industry from EA Sports, to Nickelodeon, to the Golf Channel, and the Dr. Phillips Center for Performing Arts. Today, he is the President and CTO at Promising People, a company that produces training and placement services for people who have been incarcerated. But, you probably know Rob best from his work as co-producer on “The Blair Witch Project.” Listen in. David, if AI is going to depopulate Hollywood, it’s going to have to produce movies that are more profitable than the ones being created today. What do you see as the main issues here? David Luna: There are different kinds of costs involved in making a movie, right? One of them would be the creative part, and from what has transpired from the conversations with the writer’s union, it seems like it’s a fairly small part of the process. And the other part is the production cost, right? Which seems to be the larger cost in making movies. So if we think of a commercial success as something as making a profit, you want to minimize one of those two costs. So on the production side, you could think about well, having Harrison Ford play Indiana Jones until the 30th century, for example, through AI. That’s one part of it. Being a professor of marketing, I am also quite sensitive to the issues that stem from how consumers will perceive these products. I have done some work on trust and whether people trust AI interactions. We could think about the fact that people will trust these products less and thereby have more negative attitudes toward them, like them less, go to the movies less. Another thing that we can think about in terms of consumers is the issue of the uncanny valley, which is if AI-generated images or characters are meant to be human beings, and the closer they get to looking like a human being, people get a little antsy about it. So that’s another issue that could bring about negative attitudes, and that would affect the bottom line, obviously, because people won’t go to the movies. Paul Jarley: There’s a lot to unpack in David’s comments there. First, let’s tackle authenticity. So my understanding is voice is the easiest thing for AI to replicate right now. Is that true? Robin Cowie: When we talk about AI, there’s, there’s so many things that we’re talking about. So to narrow it, I think over the last six to nine months, the conversation’s really been about large language models. And large language modules specifically from Open AI, but also Google’s Bard or, you know, some of the older ones from DeepMind, or even the new one that Meta just released called Llama 2. These are all large language models and they’re designed literally to be about language. So I would say the easiest thing for a large language model to process is text, not necessarily audio. But essentially the current premise behind large language models is that essentially it’s about math and it’s about probability. And that pattern recognition is behind everything. And so music especially, you know, we are all very familiar with those patterns, and therefore music comes up a lot because voice synthesis or instrument synthesis or anything like that comes up a lot. It’s maybe one of the easiest patterns to recreate, but I think the real innovation is in, in text right now. Paul Jarley: So where do you think the most powerful application of AI will be in the next few years? In movie making. Robin Cowie: I worked at Electronic Arts. We used AI for a lot of the background elements, a lot of the gaming elements back then. And this is, you know, in the ancient days, four years ago and over the last four years we’ve seen exponential development with using AI just in the gaming space. But I think when I started being obsessed with it four years ago, I thought, “Wow, this is going to be as revolutionary as the iPhone was.” And now there are some people that are saying, this is as revolutionary as fire. I’m probably, currently, at the place of “This is as revolutionary as the steam engine.” But there is no doubt in my mind that every aspect of every kind of human job, every form of creativity, every form of task-oriented work, every single aspect of human interaction is going to be changed by AI. Paul Jarley: Rob is my resident futurist. He’s always the first in line with new innovations. What do you think, Ray? Ray Eddy: The truth is, it’s, it’s this, I could say this is two iterations of this than I can think of in the past. And one is back in the, in the early nineties when CGI became a much bigger thing, “Terminator 2” kind of changed the game in 1991, and that led to “Jurassic Park” in ’93 and then the Lucas making the “Star Wars: Episode I” and it just got more and more and more and actors started thinking, “Well, they’ll never need us anymore because they can recreate.” And in particular, stunt people also felt the same way because, who needs to jump off a building or get lit on fire when you could pretend to do that with CG and it’ll look just as good. The backlash to that has been that there’s a real push towards what we call practical effects, which is actual real effects. A real fire, a real explosion, a real high fall. Because as of right now, you can still tell a difference. Now, the technology will keep advancing. There will be a day when you can’t tell the difference. Just like with deepfake videos, you can’t tell the person is the actually saying those lines or not. As of right now, there’s still, I guess, inertia in the industry to sort of make that decision. You go with the CG version, which is safer, or the real practical version, which might be more expensive. Then again, CG is pretty expensive too. But, but the other iteration I’ve just referred briefly is back in the early 1900’s when animation first appeared, and then, you know, in the 1920’s, Steamboat Willie came along and then Snow White got an honorary Oscar award, and so all of a sudden actors back then were afraid, “Well, they never need actors again, because cartoon characters would never complain about the wages. They’ll never complain about working long hours. They never would complain about the danger” and there was a fear that animation would replace actors. So this is kind of happening, as I see it, the third time now, AI is be the next thing that will take over. The first two times there was a lot of, you know, concern, but it hasn’t led to massive loss in income, or in job opportunities. It sort of has shifted the game a little bit, but it hasn’t eliminated anything. AI, it’s hard to say. I, I still feel the same as what Rob was just saying. I think that’s, there’s a lot to the fact that it will change the game as time moves forward. Paul Jar

    29 min

  8. 08/21/2023

    Part 1: Will the Hollywood Strike be an Extended Thing?

    More reality TV? AI-generated “South Park” episodes? Is this where Hollywood is heading thanks to the latest writer and actor strike? We find out from UCF experts how, and why, the strike will be resolved and how AI will play into plans moving forward. This is part one of a two-part episode.   On July 14, 2023, members of the Hollywood actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, stood with screenwriters, forming a picket line outside Amazon Studios in Los Angeles, California. This marked the commencement of an actors’ strike. SAG-AFTRA joined forces with the Writers Guild of America workers, who had been engaged in a determined strike against the Hollywood studios for three months. This joint walkout, a rare occurrence not witnessed since 1960, underscores the magnitude of the situation. The collaboration between SAG-AFTRA and WGA intensifies the impact of the strike, with the potential to bring Hollywood productions to a complete standstill.   Featured Guests David Luna, Ph.D. – UCF College of Business Robin Cowie – Phygital Experience Creator & Feature Filmmaker Cassandra “Cassi” Willard, J.D. – Instructor, Department of Management, UCF College of Business & Program Director, Blackstone LaunchPad at UCF Ray Eddy, Ph.D – Lecturer, Integrated Business, UCF College of Business   Episode Transcription SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher in a press conference July 13, 2023: The entire business model has been changed by streaming, digital, AI. This is a moment of history that is a moment of truth. If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble. We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines. You cannot change the business model as much as it has changed and not expect the contract to change too. We are labor and we stand tall and we demand respect. Paul Jarley: Oh my, this is going to get really complicated. In the meantime, prepare for a new round of reality TV. This show is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I’m Paul Jarley, Dean of the College of Business here at UCF. I’ve got lots of questions, to get answers, I’m talking to people with interesting insights into the future of business. Have you ever wondered, is this really a thing? On to our show. The writers and actors haven’t been out on strike together since 1960. Then, it was partly about how television was impacting the film industry and getting residual income for writers and actors from movies that were then being shown on TV. The business model was changing and labor wanted its share. Screen Actors Guild President Fran Drescher’s comments at the start of this podcast note that technology is changing the business model again with streaming services, digital media and AI among the main drivers. This is a very complicated situation, so complicated, that we couldn’t fit it into our usual 25-to-30 minute podcast. So we decided to split it into two parts. Today we will tackle the basics of the strike and how and when we see it being resolved. The second part, we’ll do a much deeper dive into AI and Hollywood and how that is likely to change the industry going forward, especially for writers and actors. Essentially, we want to answer the question, will anybody be left in Hollywood in 10 years?   As always, to shed light on these topics, I’ve assembled a group of UCF experts. Cassandra Willard is an instructor and Program Director at our Blackstone Launchpad and a practicing attorney with extensive experience in entertainment law. Ray Eddy is a lecturer in our Integrated Business program with an interest in understanding consumer experiences. Ray is not just an academic, he has worked as a stuntman, started his own production company and written, directed and starred in several performances. If you’ve been to Walt Disney World in the last several years, you may have seen Ray playing Indiana Jones, in Indiana Jones: Epic Stunt Spectacular. David Luna is a professor in our Marketing department. He is currently working on several projects studying human machine interactions in the context of chatbots, intelligent agents and AI generally. And last but not least is Robin Cowie. Rob is a graduate of our motion picture technology program. He’s a little hard to summarize, having worked in a variety of positions in the industry, from EA Sports, to Nickelodeon, to the Golf Channel, to the Dr. Phillips Center for Performing Arts. Today, he is President and CTO of Promising People, a company that provides training and placement for people who have been incarcerated. But you probably know Robin best from his work as co-producer on “The Blair Witch Project.” Listen in. So there’s two things I know about technology in all my years being Dean. One of them is the marketing is always, always ahead of the reality. What the technology can actually do is usually some significantly paired down version from what the marketing people are telling you that it will do. At the same time, I also know that resisting technology is futile. We can go all the way back to the Luddites in their attempt to get rid of mechanized levers back at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and how that worked out for them. I’d like to start by grounding us in the present, and I’m going to rely on Robin and David for doing this. So I want to get some sense about what AI can actually, really do today. David. Can AI create an entire movie script, one that would lead to a successful movie? David Luna: I think it is helpful to think about different genres and the fact that AI may be better at some genres than other genres. For example, if you’re talking about superhero movies, maybe an AI could write a script that it takes a franchise and and sort of perpetuates it in a fairly cheap way. But, but then when you’re talking about character-driven dramas as a different genre, maybe that, it would be a little more tricky. And what we are seeing in some of these attempts to have say, ChatGPT, write a script, is that oftentimes it does write a script. It may or may not be an interesting script. But one of the flaws that it generally has is that characters sort of contradict themselves. When a consumer observes another person, they infer certain character traits, so you form a mental image of what the other person is like, and then that character acts in a manner that it contradicts their personality then there’s a problem. And that’s what it seems to be happening with some of these scripts. On the creative side, altogether, what I would think, it seems like a partnership between an AI and a creative would work best with the creative supervising the AI’s work. It’s sort of an iterative process directing the AI, which is doing the more menial writing work in the, in the right direction and to make sure that everything is consistent and interesting. Paul Jarley: Thank you, David. So Rob, you represent production here. So could the studios release and entirely AI-created movie today? Is that technically possible for them to do? Robin Cowie: No, I think at this very moment in time, given the state of AI, no, it is not possible to do a completely AI-generated movie. There’s a lot of technical reasons that I can list out for why that’s the case. The most recent, and then when we say recent, this is literally last week, is that there’s an organization called Fable, who have released a series called “The Simulation.” These are a series of basically a parody of “South Park” episodes and they are complete “South Park” episodes with voice and, and everything like that. And that’s probably the most extensive we’ve seen so far, but in this exact point in time to release a feature film, no, not possible right now. Paul Jarley: So I know both the writer strike and the actor strike is about more than just AI, right? There’s been pretty significant changes to those business models, particularly with streaming services that have left I think both the writers and the actors feeling a little bit like they’re on the short end of the stick, particularly when it comes to residuals. Listening to union leaders, I sort of get this impression: We kind of missed on how damaging streaming services would be to our income, we ain’t going to miss it over AI, because if we do we’re all going to be broke. Cassi, what do you think? Cassandra Willard: One of my absolute favorite quotes from one of our former leaders of the entertainment, art and sports section of Florida Bar, he always used to holler at folks that you have to understand it’s called show business because without the business you have no show. And every single time you have an iteration of a different union strike, when you have the guilds raise their hand up, they’re looking to a large extent to safeguard the business side of the industry. Because without the business you’re going to see the entire house of cards collapse. So we need to sort out, and we’re being more proactive, and you see this in each iteration of going through and looking at this, but had we gone through and looked five years ago, pre-pandemic, we weren’t sitting around thinking about AI technology being a big push. We were more concerned about the digital side of things. And now AI rapidly becoming household information, it seems like over just the past few months. Now this is a bigger focus that our greater community is looking to, but our greater community is also looking to support the entertainment industry. We’re seeing great box office numbers, we’re seeing a lot of pushes, but we have to respect those in the industry to make sure that our market does continue and push forward as well. Robin Cowie: Yeah, I love, I really like what you’re saying about business because to me I think that’s the heart of this and I think one of the great complexities here is that technology companies really own Hollywood now and that we live in the attention

    23 min
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Business can be faddish. Paul Jarley, dean of the UCF College of Business, is on a mission to separate fads from fundamental change that will impact students. Join us as we chat with experts, enthusiasts and interesting people to talk business and pose the question… Is This Really a Thing?

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