Episode #248: Free-Rider Friday, June 2019

We had another great Free-Rider Friday show! 

Here are Ron’s Topics: 

• “Picking up the Bill,” Bartleby, The Economist, May 25, 2019. Great Yogi Berra line: “I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.”

• “Remember the Polar Bears,” National Review, April 22, 2019.

• “Why the UK Suddenly Is Suffering from a Physician Shortage,” FEE, June 1, 2019.

• Our VeraSage colleague Paul Dunn sent us another example of the subscription business model: Rent the Runway, where you can rent your wardrobe. The company has become a Unicorn (a startup with a $1 billion+ valuation). Urban Outfitters is also launching a subscription service where you’ll be able to rent up to six items a month. This will help curb “wardrobing”—customers returning clothes after wearing them. The online market for renting clothes was worth $1 billion in 2017 and is forecast to double by 2023.

• A forum in National Review from May 20, 2019, “In Defense of Markets.” Some excellent points from Jonah Goldberg, Marian L. Tupy, Deirdre McCloskey, Scott Lincicome, and Yuval Levin. 

And Here Are Ed’s Topics:

• “Tylenol For Infants And Children Is The Same. Why Does 1 Cost 3 Times More?” NPR, May 27, 2019.

• “Undercover Cops Posing As Drug Buyers Arrested By Undercover Cops Posing As Drug Dealers,” International Highlife, February 1, 2019.

• Hawaii is only state that doesn’t have CPA mobility. See AICPA story here on how this might change in 2020.

• Ed saw Simon Sinek (of TED talk Start With Why fame) at the AICPA Engage conference in Las Vegas. Memorable lines: “Trying to protect your own business model is signing your own death warrant.” …and… “Innovation is not efficient.”

Episode #247: Memorable Mentors — Tom Peters

Do you have a memorable mentor? We do! 

Well, we tried, but we could not land Tom Peters to be a Guest on The Soul of Enterprise. Instead, we decided to do the next best thing - a Memorable Mentors episode.

On this show, Ron and Ed recapped the career and work of the person whom many claim as the father of the business book genre. His classic, In Search of Excellence, co-written with Robert Waterman, launched his career into a near-Earth orbit. His presentation style influenced both Ed and Ron with his wit and willingness to say outrageous "stuff." 

We discussed the following Tom Peter’s books in addition to In Search of Excellence.

We also discussed the antithesis to Tom Peters:
The Management Myth by Matthew Stewart

Check out some of these related resources.

• Episode #120: Strategic Planning: Efficient, effective, neither, including a discussion on The modified Seven S Model.

• Ed’s post “On Client vs. Customer”

Episode #246: Interview with Chief Pricing Educator Mark Stiving

Mark helps companies discover how buyers perceive value and how to price offerings to capture more of the value they create. For over 25 years he has studied, led and coached businesses through the lens of pricing, a radically different approach from other business experts. He knows that every person inside your company affects the price a buyer is willing to pay. The prices you achieve ultimately indicate how well the entirety of your company operates. Mark has driven a company-wide pricing initiatives worth hundreds of millions of dollars in incremental profit. He started and sold three companies, improving his championship pricing skills in each one.  Mark will change the way you think about pricing and business as a whole.

From 10 years old to his doctorate studies at UC Berkeley, Mark gets RIGHT into the good stuff in this great interview. Check out the full show notes at this link.

Here are some additional links we mentioned during the show:

• The Value Conversation Show (Episode 182): https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/tsoe/valueconversation

• Mark’s website - https://impactpricing.com/

Episode #245: Interview with Justin Lake

A Special Episode: Interview with Justin Lake

Especially for those who know someone with diabetes, this very special episode features Justin Lake. The full transcript of the interview can be found here. Here are some of the links mentioned in the show:

• https://www.tidepool.org/blog/tidepool-delivering-loop

• https://openaps.org/ 

Justin also wrote this article back in 2016 which drew the connection between his son's experience and his business of mobile technology.

Justin Lake is an owner and principal at Venado Technologies, a digital technology consultancy. As a lifelong mobile tech enthusiast, Justin has dedicated his career to leveraging modern technologies to improve the effectiveness of organizations with highly mobile workforces. He has held roles in companies including wireless carriers, mobile device manufacturers, mobile managed service providers, and software development teams. And while that experience helps drive much of Justin's counsel with his clients, the real fuel is bringing creativity to every new challenge. Through his own ideas, and leveraging his extensive network of industry professionals, Justin and his team are able to bring value to the digital transformations of the most exciting companies in the world.

Episode #244: Free-Rider Friday, May 2019

Another great show is ready for a listen! This past week’s topic was Free-Rider Friday.

Ed’s Topics 

• Texas Board of Plumbing Examiners fell victim to sunset legislation, slated to be abolished in 2020, as the Texas state legislators adjourned without renewing the law.

• Tom Woods did a show with Richard M. Gamble on the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Gamble wrote A Fiery Gospel: The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Road to Righteous War.

• “We suck at prediction, whether it’s economics or climate change.” 

• New announcement by Trump on tariffs on Mexico, slated to go up 5% per month until they deal with their immigration policy. “How Stunningly Stupid Is Trump’s Tariff Threat Aimed at Mexico? Let’s Count the Ways,” May 31, 2019, Reason, Eric Boehm.

• The Conversation, May 23, 2019, Beth Daley, “Facebook doesn’t fool me—but I worry how it affects you.”

Ron’s Topics 

• “Happiness economics,” The Economist, March 23, 2019. “In total the world’s population looks roughly equally divided between places where happiness and incomes have moved in the same direction over the past ten years, and places where they have diverged.”

• We have done a show on Generational Astrology (Episode #142). It’s also a bugaboo of Jonah Goldberg’s, as discussed in his article, “The Silliness of the Generation Conflagration,” National Review, May 24, 2015.

• Volkswagen, the largest car company in the world, has made the biggest commitment to manufacture battery powered cars, larger than any other car company. Yet VW’s profits and productivity remain woeful, with Porsche and Audi accounting for the bulk of its profits. In the past, it’s been all about saving jobs, with labor unions controlling a lot of corporate decisions. But electric vehicles require 30% less effort, so jobs may be lost anyway. “New wave,” The Economist, March 16, 2019.

• From National Review on libraries, an interesting analogy: “Assembling a library is a physical act, like gardening. One cannot cultivate flowers and vegetables online without a marked diminution in the experience.” 

Listener Question 

Ron received a great question from Robert Allender in Hong Kong: 

Dear Ron, 

I'm a few episodes behind so just today listened to you telling about your brother.  My condolences. Given what you said about his public speaking prowess, I immediately wondered if there were any videos or audios of him speaking.  I also wondered if you might have in the past penned anything about the specific knowledge he imparted to you on  the subject of public speaking, or if you planned to in the future. Either way, thanks for sharing your memories of Ken with us. 

Robert C Allender  
Managing Director