Politely Pushy with Eric Chemi

We’re joined this week by Brendon Craigie, founder of Tyto PR. Tyto is an international PR agency, and much like Bospar, has operated as a remote agency even before COVID. So what made Brendon decide to build a fully remote company? He knew he could create a better way of running a business. He also found that the best way to make his employees care is to give them power, or a pride of ownership. Tyto has employees all over the world -- across the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria -- and that’s the case because he loves the recruiting process, meeting new people with bright minds from every corner of the globe. For more insights on preparing for the recession, what people are talking about (hint: AI & Machine Learning), and what it takes to build, empower and retain a great team, watch Brendon’s episode of Politely Pushy.

Wondering what’s going on with the banking crisis? Thankfully, Simon Grunfeld is here to shed some light on the situation, including some of the differences between the various bank closures. In this episode of Politely Pushy, he talks about Web3 and what it means for our money. According to Simon, Web3 is the “digital version of sticking it in the vault” (or under your mattress, in the cookie jar, behind a loose brick in the wall), by allowing us to be our own bank. And FedNow? He could do a whole episode on that. If you want to learn more, check out what Simon says here.

Elena Davidson, CEO of UK-based Liberty Comms and long-time Bospar friend, joins us this week in a long-overdue conversation about tech PR and how she’s preparing to face the upcoming economic crisis. The key to withstanding challenges, Elena says, is equal parts sticking to what you do best, but always being willing to adjust to changes. And while there are some noted differences in PR practices between the US and UK, the rise of influencer engagement and social media is pretty consistent across both markets. For more on this, and how Elena rose within the company to become CEO despite dealing with the nagging imposter syndrome we all experience, tune in to her conversation with Eric Chemi.

Aloha from Hawaii, with this week’s guest John Merrifield. Hailed as the “Don Draper of Asia,” John’s journey to working with brands like Adidas and Singapore Airlines actually started on the waves of the California coast. Though he’s done a lot of world-famous work in the ad world, he’ll tell you that he’s a surfer with an advertising problem, not the other way around. He loved to write from his early days, but it was his love for surfing that brought him to work in places like Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bali.  He now runs his own company WOM Global, which stands for Word of Mouth--the oldest form of advertising. His advice to the younger generations? Be the best, and if you can’t be the best, work harder than the rest. For more on this, and why he’d choose good surf over good money, listen to his conversation on our podcast.

What motivates people to do good work?  That’s the question on Jamie Aitken and Doug Dennerline’s mind as they tackle some of the American workforce’s most challenging problems. The answer, they discovered, is quickly changing due in large part to the pandemic. Luckily for us, they compiled their research in their new book “Make Work Better,” chronicling among other things: how great bosses lead, give feedback, and empower employees. At Betterworks, a performance management solutions company, Jamie and Doug are aiming to eliminate the traditional performance management review process by helping people set goals, get better progress updates and stop relying on “memory bias” for regular performance reviews. Because who doesn’t hate the annual performance review? And for more on this topic, listen to this week’s episode to hear it straight from Jamie and Doug. P.S. you can order the book here (for you, or your boss): https://makeworkbetter.com/

We’re joined today by Israel's “top marketer” Hillel Fuld, here to talk about working with tech startups and giants alike. Hillel says there’s only one thing he looks for before he embarks on a new journey with a company: good people. How quickly can he tell if people are good?, our host asks. “Within 30 seconds.” That, plus injecting humor into his work and life, are what keep Hillel on the top of his game. And coming from someone who notes that he’s a “carnivore” in his email signature, we’re guessing he has plenty of good humor to spare. Hillel also talks about the tech scene and how things are changing: from why humans need AI, the importance of showing value to your audience, and why the human-computer interaction is archaic. If you want to know why a country the size of New Jersey is saying “hold my beer” to Silicon Valley, watch this episode now.

Juda Englemayer is the crisis communications expert who takes on a lot of taboo clients that many people won’t touch. You have heard their famous names in the media. They are controversial and, dare we say, “unsavory” (our host says it for us) individuals. Juda doesn’t take these well-known, shunned people on as clients willy nilly; he sits down with a lawyer and with his intuition first to see if he should manage their reputations. He talks about the public aspect, SEO and the different mediums he must keep an eye out for in terms of coverage and what it’s like to work with those who’ve been canceled and blacklisted. How does standard PR differ from “reputation management?” And how did Juda come to represent all these big names known to be in hot water? What can other PR professionals learn from Juda’s desire to help the underdog? Also, how does he keep his “normal” clients happy while representing the ones many would never touch? We hear his responses to these many questions, and he discusses his background and trajectory from PR pro to reputation manager. Most importantly, we get the answer to why a nice guy like him is in an industry that’s not known for nice guys.   

Today we have a fascinating discussion with Alex Zekoff, the CEO of Thoughtful. It’s interesting because bots have often gotten a bad or questionable rep. But here’s the thing: bots can be your friends in automation and helping humans organize and streamline their tasks, tackling that process and more at scale. Alex founded Thoughtful to employ intelligent bots that supercharge operations for organizations by automating end-to-end processes using existing corporate systems. He explains how these bots are beneficial and helps with a combination of logic, code and processing power. Alex and his team developed this technology to mimic the workflow of a hundred thousand a year, fully burdened like healthcare workers, which takes approximately three months to replicate. Thoughtful has seen up to 10 times capacity increases in some cases. And instead of having to spend 80% of one’s day going through a workflow, one can spend 20% of their day managing the bot to handle that workflow and improve the process, which humans find to be way more valuable than actually operating the system. So let’s change our view on bots! You can start by listening to Alex in this episode.

Today we welcome Katie Banks to the podcast. Based out of Dublin, Katie is Nitro's vice president of global people and workplace. Nitro helps accelerate businesses globally through digital documents resulting in powerful productivity for all. Katie discusses how important it is for companies to look out for their employees and handle the most challenging human resource situations – like layoffs – most fairly and kindly, complying with local legal requirements. Not everyone can do what Katie does. Our host even explains why he's not in human resources. Tune in to find out why Katie is, and hear her thoughts and approaches to recent challenges like mass layoffs at companies adversely affected by a changing economy. Her approach to managing and interacting with fellow "nitronauts" applies to HR across organizations and industries. 

Today we welcome Shamir Karkal, Chief Strategy Officer of Sila, to the podcast. Sila means “strength” in Russian, and Shamir wants you to know that having a secure payments platform (using robust APIs) is vital in a world where software is delivered over the Internet. How does Sila ensure that this payment platform is entirely secure? How does it prevent fraud and identity theft? And how are users verified to ensure zero trust and that all proprietary financial data is protected? Shamir discusses this and more in today’s fascinating episode.