Podcast 434

Coffee by The Fire. It’s finally starting to feel like October in the upper midwest with temperatures dropping, leaves falling and scudding grey clouds. The days are shorter, the nights longer, and that means its time for a podcast, with coffee, by the fire in the Broadcast Bunker. In podcast time, this is being posted on a Friday. The last week or so has been a rush of technical issues, crazy political stories, parties, lunches, client calls, late night discussions about everything under the sun, and reading a lot of news. Sometimes it’s good to just sit down in front of the microphone and do a podcast. All the ‘podcast manuals’ say you’re supposed to ‘know what you’re going to talk about’. Years of experience in talk radio taught me that sometimes the best thing to do is walk into the studio with no notes, no paper, and nothing in mind. In this podcast I talk a little about my current love-hate relationship with politics and media, media coverage of politics, review the technology issues I have been having lately, present a on-the-spot theory about social disruptions caused by operating system updates pushed out to your computer (Editor’s note: Say no, unless you know all the implications of updating your computer’s operating system.) Anyone ever say to you, “People are acting weird today”? Maybe its because there’s a rolling effect from all the updates blowing out people’s phone apps, peripherals and generally messing with us. What will happen when someday driverless cars, autonomous machines, androids, robot manufacturing and remote controlled bulldozers update and just stop? Hiring people to monitor all that stuff and keep systems operating might – gasp – actually create jobs! Finally, a discussion of the joys of being in business for yourself and how weird it is for a ‘creative’ type to be enthralled with the business side of his business. Welcoming Hydrus as a sponsor to the Bob Davis Podcasts and sponsored by X Government Trucks. 

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Podcast 432 – Jason Lewis Interview Pt 2

Jason Lewis Interview Pt 2. A continuation of Podcast 431, live from Mobile Podcast Command in Lakeville, Minnesota, joined by Minnesota State Senator Dave Thompson, who represents the Lakeville area. Lewis, a candidate for Congress in Minnesota’s 2nd District talks about the issues and policy. Podcast 432 kicks off by continuing the discussion about a recent interview by the Bob Davis Podcasts with former 6th District Congressman Michele Bachmann. Bachmann’s views on foreign policy and those of the establishment republican membership , are at odds with Lewis’. Lewis does not support intervention by the United States in Syria and Iraq at this time. What is the republican foreign policy is these days anyway. What should it be? This leads us to touch on defense spending and the budget, as well as the value versus expense of defense programs like the Abrams Tank and the F-35. From our vantage point in current time it looks like the next Speaker of The House of Representatives will be Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan. What are the views of Jason Lewis on Ryan as speaker? If Ryan becomes speaker chances are his plan to reform Medicare and Social Security – a plan supported by republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush – which calls for vouchers and raising the retirement age, will be on the table in the next congress. What is the Jason Lewis position on this issue? One of the major issues in the next congress, if Republicans maintain a majority in both houses and win the presidency, will be the repeal of Obama Care, or the ACA. Problem is, repealing it means we’re right back where we started, and health care ‘reform’ again becomes an issue. How does this get done? Finally, running for Congress is expensive Are voters in Minnesota’s 2nd District, and the rest of the country, ready for change? Sponsored by X Government Trucks. 

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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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