Podcast 435

How Tough Are You? How tough do you have to be? A new era is coming socially, economically, and politically. A selection of news stories about technology shows how quickly our world is giving way to something new. Socially our ideas about morality, fairness and even the nature of reality are evolving. Economically old systems are transitioning to new, even as industry and ideas minted at the turn of the twentieth century can still be dominant, new ideas in manufacturing, media, communications and the tools we use to do our work are beginning to take hold and to forge their own reality. Politically new issues, new ways to communicate and new kinds of candidates are emerging and wreaking havoc with ‘the process’. These are significant changes that make the world unfamiliar to people who became adults just twenty or so years ago. Our individual success, and our success as a country may depend on how tough we are and whether we adapt to these changes well enough not just to survive, but to thrive. It’s clear these days, that the new world will look nothing like the old. Even assumptions so called ‘experts’ make about the future are turning out to be not be so accurate. Rapid change can be disruptive and confusing to say the least. Especially when people have to live through it. With 64 percent of the working age population out of the work force in the United States, and the new jobs most vulnerable to new technology tough days might be ahead and we will have to be tough to deal with it. What is ‘tough’? What does it mean to be ‘tough’? We hear a lot about the difficulties individuals have these days, but we aren’t hearing enough examples of real toughness, and they’re out there. Maybe it’s time we started thinking that way as a nation? Sponsored by Pride of Homes and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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PODCAST 430

You’re Not That Hot Anymore. Are the institutions of our society failing us, or just failing to live up to their over the top narratives? A bad customer service experience leads into a discussion – presented as sort of a rant but meant as a question  – about whether the business models and technology that seemed so forward five to ten years ago don’t seem that way at all now. Technology companies, Internet Service Providers, consumer products, office supplies, services, health care, travel, utilities and all kinds of services in the western world seem to have stopped progressing in terms of service to the customer a few years ago. No longer is it good enough to deliver a great product or service, you have to have an ‘amazing’ story, be saving the whales, or making your product in some aboriginal prefecture where you pay fair wages and post the obligatory pictures of building schools, or handing out water at the local marathon or breast cancer walk. What happened to buying a toaster that works, and when it doesn’t being able to rely on a customer service approach that says, “Yep, here’s a new one”? Instead you get protocols, upsells, long waits at the help desk (with the same three songs that play over and over) bored, surly or overwhelmed ticket agents, or admissions ‘techs’. The gauntlet of nose-ring festooned ‘greeters’ sporting ‘man-buns’ or just plain mean city, county, state and federal workers is actually the new normal. We need to talk about it, and we need to fix it. Is the problem that companies are spending too much time saving the whales, and not enough time saving the customer? Or is it excessive government regulation, poor economic growth, or we’re just not as competent as our ‘amazing’ history and resume says we are? No institution in our society is more dangerously corrupt and incompetent than the government, despite what the politicians say about Wall Street. What can be done? Meanwhile…still on hold with customer service. Sponsored by X Government Trucks and Pride of Homes and Luke Team Real Estate. (Editor’s Note: Podcast 429 isn’t done yet, and will be on the way…so here’s podcast 430. Don’t worry you didn’t miss one.) 

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Podcast 350

A Cold Day In LA. It might be said that it would be a cold day in LA before The Rolling Stone would have to completely retract one of its biggest stories, but it has happened in the wake of a review of the magazine’s UVa Rape story last year. The magazine blames a ‘fabulist’ story teller — the source — for the mistake. In reality, editors had to know they were publishing a story that did not adhere to any journalistic standard. Sources weren’t identified, or buttressed with other sources. The story of rape-crazy frat brothers sounded good, so what the hell. Let’s publish. Is this indicative of how the rest of the media operates? In California, the big story is drought. What’s not being reported is how the environmentalist elite in control of the state have fought one modernizing water project after another, over the years. Now, while rich Hollywood movie producers and actors water their lawns, the plebes are being charged extra for their water use. People like to decry the ‘fact’ that Congress gets ‘nothing done’ and ‘can’t work together’. Forget, for a moment that none of us are safe from the output of congress when it is ‘productive’, and that the general idea of law making should be to ‘do no harm’. President Obama likes to say Congress won’t work with him, and can’t get anything done either. So how is it the Vice President, Chief of Stafof and other minions at the White House are calling members top tell them the President will veto anything they might ‘produce’ which qualifies the fine print on the ‘Iran Deal’? This is how the President ‘works with’ Congress? Another big story line recently has been the ‘booming’ economy. A new employment report says the economy isn’t booming, in fact. Are we due for another recession? Finally, scientists are about to turn on the largest machine in the world. The Light Hadron Collector has been off for a couple of years, and will soon be back up and running. Get ready for earthquakes, Big Foot sightings, UFO’s and other weirdness. Sponsored by Baklund R&D. 

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