The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Transformation Economy

We miss Free-Rider Friday's, so were it bringing it back, but just this once. We used to do this on the last Friday of every month. Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays were designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no advanced knowledge of the events either will bring up. It's also a chance to clear out our stacks of stuff!

In Episode 349, Ron and Ed shared their thoughts and concerns about Woke Capitalism. In an email, Dr. Kimberlee Josephson wrote them saying, I just began listening to your podcast and I’m glad to have stumbled upon it! I wanted to reach out about your Woke Capitalism/ESG segment since this is an area I am trying to voice concern over. Well, in this episode we look forward to Kimberlee sharing those concerns with us.

Joining Ron and Ed this week is two-time Guest Joe Woodard. Joe's vision is to transform small businesses through small business advisors. In the service of that vision, he and his team educate, coach, provide resources and build communities for small business advisors, with the overarching goal of empowering them to play a powerful, high-impact advisory role with their clients.

In addition to a general Subscription Economy update, Ed and Ron will discuss what happens when the subscription model collides with a legacy model. There are essentially three ways to a launch a subscription model. What does the empirical report so far on the most optimal approach? Can you have two business models within the same organization? Join us for an in-depth look at these issues.

Delving into the world of behavioral biases, the podcast explores unconscious decision-making habits and critiques Behavioral Economics. It exposes deceptive practices, challenges established beliefs, and examines the impact of human tendencies on economic decisions. From choice architecture to ethics in pricing, the hosts unravel the complexities of human behavior and its implications on strategy execution.

Ron and Ed welcome David C Baker, the leading authority on positioning, reinventing, and selling firms in the creative and digital space, to the show. David is the author of five books, three of which focus on the central elements of the business of expertise: positioning, financial management, and leadership. David speaks regularly on more than 70 topics relevant to entrepreneurial expertise, from 20 executives to 5,000 live on TV, all over the world. We will speak with him primarily about his book, The Business of Expertise.

How do we protect the consumer from shoddy, fraudulent, or dangerous products and services? There's a long tradition that government must do something, which has led to a proverbial alphabet soup of regulatory bodies: the FDA, CPSC, USDA, and many more. Join Ed and Ron as they explore the legitimate issue of market failure, and also the less recognized government failure.

Three weeks ago, Ron and Ed interviewed Antony Davies co-host of the Word and Numbers podcast. This week they welcome Antony's co-host, political scientist James R. Harrigan. James is the F. A. Hayek Distinguished Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education and the director of education at the Freedom Center at the University of Arizona. He co-hosts the Words & Numbers podcast and has written for The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a host of other outlets. Previously, he served as dean of the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani.

In government and political science courses, students are taught the traditional “political/economic spectrum.” It shows Communism on the far left end of the spectrum; moving to the right, then Socialism; then Capitalism; and Fascism is at the far right end of the spectrum. Yet this spectrum is not only misleading, it is false. Join Ed and Ron for a discussion of why that is, and what the real political/economic spectrum actually looks like.

Join Ed, Ron, and VeraSage Senior Fellow, and recidivist guest, Dr. Reginald Lee, as they engage in a round-table discussion about value, pricing, cost accounting, project management, and capacity; and how they all change, and don’t change, in the subscription business model. This is an adaptation of a Bonus Episode from July 14th that ran for approximately 80 minutes, available to our Cost-Plus Subscribers on our Patreon channel (https://www.patreon.com/TSOE).