The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Transformation Economy by THRESHOLD

Ed and Ron will discuss a blog post by Kent Hendricks, 6 psychological tactics behind the Starbucks menu. If you're interested in behavioral economics and how it intersects with pricing choices, you don't want to miss this show.

In the glorious tradition of afternoon naps and Taco Tuesday, we are fast approaching the last Friday of the month which can only mean one thing…Free-Rider Friday! As many know, our typical show is “topic” driven. We dive deep into one subject for the length of the show, usually with a guest or two. Free-Rider Fridays are 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.

Ron and Ed are jazzed to be doing the show live from the 90 Minds annual conference, The Meeting of the Minds in San Diego. The Meeting of The Minds brings our membership of consultants, resellers, and software providers together to celebrate our powerful community. For two-plus days, they share, listen, learn, and challenge perceptions. They celebrate expanding their community through the renewal of relationships and building new alliances. The investment grows all year through online collaboration supported by their members, webinars from partners, and sharing of knowledge and experience with each other. The returns are greater than any one mind.

Ron and Ed are honored to have Tien Tzuo as a Guest on the program. Tien currently serves as CEO of Zuora (NYSE:ZUO), a company he co-founded in 2007 and took public in 2018. Under Tien's leadership, Zuora has emerged as the leading evangelist of the Subscription Economy -- the idea that all industries are shifting to a customer-centric, subscription-based business model. He is also the author of SUBSCRIBED: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company's Future - and What to Do About It.

All business people live the ultimate contradiction. They pray at night for supernormal profits and spend their days driving down those profits by competitively supplying customers with more of what they want. As the economist Joseph Schumpeter so poetically phrased it, entrepreneurial innovations make up the “perennial gale of creative destruction,” whereby entire industries have been eliminated due to this dynamism of free markets. Buggy whip manufacturers didn’t invent the automobile and slide rule manufacturers did not invent the calculator. Businesses are the ultimate change agents in society, ushering in new products, services, and ways of conducting our affairs. This role of business is often ignored in the debate over the jobs destroyed in the process, which is the wrong metric: the creativity is more important than the destruction. Join Ed and Ron for a discussion of the dynamic process of competition.

According to Wikipedia, Richard Feynman [May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988] was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model. For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman, jointly with Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichiro Tomonaga, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. In a 1999 poll of 130 leading physicists worldwide by the British journal Physics World he was ranked as one of the ten greatest physicists of all time. He assisted in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II and became known to a wide public in the 1980s as a member of the Rogers Commission, the panel that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Join Ed and Ron for a look at this fascinating thinker.

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do “Free-Rider Friday.” Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are 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. If you’d like to call-in during the live show, the listener line is: 866-472-5790. You can also participate on Twitter at #ASKTSOE, @asktsoe, or email us at asktsoe@verasage.com

Ed and Ron are honored to have back on the show for the third time, and at the same time, Father Robert Sirico and Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Join us for another fascinating conversation with these two mentors, covering issues from economics, liberty, freedom, truth,autonomous vehicles, and a host of other topics.

Customers are best served and protected when they have many competitive alternatives. We don't like self-serving monopolies. Of course, as sellers we all want to be monopolies, with little competition, ability to charge high prices, bar entry to competitors, and not have to perform the difficult job of constant innovation where value is determined by customers, not industry standards, credentialism, or ineffective regulations. Heavily regulated industries aren't hot beds of innovation. The history of growth is the story of crackpots, cranks, and outsiders innovating new products that replace the existing infrastructure of industries. There are many routes to knowledge. Thomas Edison had little formal education and could not have been licensed as an engineer under today’s guidelines. Likewise, Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe would not qualify to sit for the architect’s certifying exam. Join Ed and Ron as the discuss the deleterious consequences of occupational licensure laws.

Thousands of books are published each year. Some are worthless, fewer still have lasting value, but a handful possess the ability to transform your business (and possibly, your life). Yet with today’s busy and demanding schedules, do you feel you don’t devote enough time to reading and absorbing new ideas? Then this show is for you. Ed and Ron will explore the best books they read in 2018.