Ructions | Bigger than the wheel

On this episode of Ructions with Ross + Ashley, Marc Ross + Gerald Ashley discuss the buzz around artificial intelligence and machine learning, the rise of central bank digital currency, the Ron DeSantis campaign launch, plus what they are reading and watching.

Timestamps:

1:37 | Artificial intelligence + machine learning buzz

14:48 | Central bank digital currency (CBDC)

27:28 | Ron DeSantis campaign launch

33:45 | Reading + watching

Reading + Watching List:

Humanizing Rules: Bringing Behavioural Science to Ethics and Compliance by Christian Hunt

Russell Ackoff on systems thinking | YouTube

The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations by Daniel Yergin

The Drops of God on Apple TV

ITK Radio | Kevin Madden

On this episode of ITK Radio, a conversation with Kevin Madden.

Kevin is a senior partner at Penta, helping lead the firm’s integration of strategic advisory, advocacy, communications, and issue management capabilities for clients around the globe.

Prior to Penta, Kevin was an executive vice president at Arnold Ventures, where he helped build and implement advocacy teams and strategies for one of the country’s leading philanthropies, achieving major policy reforms at the federal, state, and local levels.

Kevin also previously served as a partner at Hamilton Place Strategies, leading the firm’s design and management of comprehensive public affairs campaigns while working with CEOs and their executive teams. Kevin served as the firm’s lead strategist for several national policy reform coalitions and major corporate M&A campaigns and worked with leading philanthropic and non-profit organizations to develop and implement their advocacy capabilities.

Kevin served as a senior strategist and spokesman on three presidential campaigns, most notably the Romney for President campaign in 2012. In addition to his national campaign experience, Kevin was a top congressional leadership staffer in the US House of Representatives, serving as spokesman and communications strategist in the Office of the House Majority Leader. Kevin also served as deputy director of public affairs and national spokesman for the Department of Justice.

Kevin’s experience as a frequent guest on national and international news outlets has earned him a reputation as a sought-after media strategist and crisis communications manager. He also served as an on-air contributor to CNN from 2013 to 2019.

Kevin is a native of New York and earned a degree from the State University of New York at Cortland. He has been a frequent guest lecturer on advocacy and communications strategy at Georgetown University, American University, and the National War College. He lives in Maryland with his wife and their three sons.

You can find Kevin on LinkedIn here.

Insights + Ideas:

+ Working on Capitol Hill in the 00s vs. the 20s

+ After 9/11, the pull to get involved in American politics from all walks of life

+ The communications power comes from the "mobility of information"

+ "any Member of Congress has much access to the media cycle as anyone in leadership"

+ "we are in a 24 second news cycle seven days a week"

+ To be successful in communications, "you need to think a lot more like an executive producer at a content machine"

+ Red Arrow Diner in Manchester, New Hampshire

+ As a campaign communications pro, understand the real value of spending time with the candidate to get to know them and build trust, getting on the campaign trail to see how the message is resonating and hearing from voters, plus the ability to build relationships with reporters and columnists at regional and local newspapers

+ How to build trust with high-profile executives, politicians, and campaign principals

+ Understanding how to be an ambassador between a campaign and reporters

+ The difference between an incumbent campaign and an insurgent campaign

+ Thoughts on the business developments of media organizations and cable news companies

+ What to look for in the early days of Election 2024

+ To win the GOP presidential nomination, candidates need to understand “there is no path around Donald Trump, and you can only go out and take the nomination”

Read: Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

Watch: NCAA Baseball + NCAA Softball

ITK Radio | Arvind Malhotra

On this episode of ITK Radio, a conversation with Arvind Malhotra.

Arvind is the H. Allen Andrew Distinguished Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.

His area of research focuses on crafting innovation problems, open innovation approaches, crowd creativity, crowdsourcing for innovation, using crowds to solve complex societal problems and the future of work.

His research projects include studying successful open-innovation organizational and extra-organizational structures, creating the process and structure for large-scale collaboration, and management of knowledge in extra-organizational collaborative contexts.

His book “Unleashing the Crowd: Collaborative Solutions to Wicked Business and Societal Problems” focuses on how organizations can leverage crowds to solve wicked business and societal problems.

Arvind has received research grants from the Kenan Institute for Private Enterprise, Society for Information Managers Advanced Practices Council, Dell, Carnegie-Bosche Institute, National Science Foundation, RosettaNet consortium, UNC-Small Grants Program, and the Marketing Sciences Institute.

He has consulted, conducted applied research projects or led executive development workshops with ESPN, the US Navy, the US Air Force, IBM, ExxonMobil, Primax Properties, Sprint, RosettaNet Consortium, American Golf Corporation, Cisco, ING Direct, and Cargill Sweeteners.

Arvind’s research has been published in leading academic journals such as Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Academy of Management Perspectives, Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Academy of Marketing Sciences, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of Knowledge Management and Communications of the ACM.

He received the best paper award from MIS Quarterly, the top information science journal, in 2001, and the best paper of the year from the Journal of Services Research and Journal of Knowledge Management in 2005. Two of his papers earned the prestigious Society for Information Managers Best Paper Award.

He received his PhD in business administration and his MS in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Southern California. He earned his BE in electronics and communications engineering from the University of Delhi.

You can find Arvind on LinkedIn here.

Insights + Ideas:

+ UNC Kenan-Flagler celebrates groundbreaking for Steven D. Bell Hall: Steven D. Bell Hall will allow UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School to admit 50% more students into its Undergraduate Business Program and modernize the learning environment for students in all of its top-ranked Undergraduate Business, Master of Accounting, MBA and PhD programs. UNC

https://www.unc.edu/posts/2022/09/30/unc-kenan-flagler-celebrates-groundbreaking-for-steven-d-bell-hall/

+ "Entrepreneurs have always been rock stars"

+ Embracing the power of intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship

+ Entrepreneurship is a mindset

+ Some of the most innovative ideas come from frontline employees

+ Understanding how to manage entrepreneurs and managing creatives

+ "You need to be entrepreneurial to crave out a new space for yourself in your new country"

+ Entrepreneurship is about solving problems - hopefully big, complex problems

+ "a lot of innovation is communications, communicating your ideas"

+ The power of using crowds to solve complex societal problems

+ "having an open mindset to admitting that you do not possess all the knowledge to solve a complex, critical issue

+ "the simple things have been done"

+ "the more complex the problem the bigger the crowd needed"

Read: Unleashing the Crowd: Collaborative Solutions to Wicked Business and Societal Problems

Read: Beyond Disruption: Changing the Rules in the Marketplace