Politely Pushy 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. 

As they say in the U.K., today’s episode of Politely Pushy would best be accompanied by a “cuppa.” That is because Jon Geater sits down with our host and speaks to us in the most elegant Queen’s English (the royal majesty’s accent, that is – no reference to that borough in New York). Jon discusses how complexities related to the supply chain can compromise trust and how his company developed technology to track physical and digital assets, ensuring traceability and helping organizations rest assured about their current products by having as much information on them as possible. This information can also help to avoid future breaches. Jon discusses how his company’s technology is an asset to today’s new “zero trust is a must” corporate culture, exactly what “traceability” entails, how blockchain technology fits into the mix and why “public attestation” is vital to trust in cybersecurity.  

Shekar Ayyar is a CEO committed to delivering the best network architecture for clients, the “plumbing” underneath their 5G architecture. Words like “inflation” and “recession” don’t scare him; he considers himself an eternal optimist committed to meeting the needs of companies that have to keep up with 5G networks. He founded Arrcus to enhance business efficiency through superior network connectivity. The company is committed to providing the best-in-class software with the most flexible consumption model at the lowest total cost of ownership. Hear from Shekar as he discusses how Arrcus is helping companies as they move into the multi-cloud networking space. He also explains how technology keeps advancing, so individuals have to skill themselves accordingly, and the benefits of Arrcus’s partnership with VMware, which allows for an end-to-end connection of what’s happening between data centers and the carrier. Using a pricing methodology so smaller companies can benefit from better network infrastructure as their larger counterparts do, Shekar is determined to meet the needs of all types of companies. 

Today we are joined by Stacy Quackenbush and Paige Dansinger, two women building “worlds” in the metaverse, providing people with the opportunity to learn and engage through virtual reality spaces. The metaverse hasn’t exactly gotten the greatest rep since Facebook changed its name. But Stacy and Paige explain how there is a lot of misinformation that abounds about this fascinating technological arena. They discuss how they’ve successfully created hundreds of worlds in the metaverse as partners in Dynamite Labs. Paige has even worked with children to build worlds for a museum that they then presented to the World Health Organization. Comprised of photo-realism and three-dimensional assets (which can include NFTs), these worlds give the user the opportunity for social engagement and education. Stacy and Paige explain what building those worlds entail, the difference between Web3 and Metaverse, and how the worlds they’ve built have led to immersive and interactive experiences.