IN STUDIO - RECENT GUESTS

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On Air: July 12, 2016

David Bayles and Ted Orland, Co-Authors, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

Bayles and Orland talk art, innovation, and the creative process.

In this clip, Ted Orland relates the surprising results of a pottery class that pitted quantity vs. quality…

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DAVID BAYLES & TED ORLAND have collaborated on an alarming number of artistic ventures over the past thirty-five years. They have co-taught master class workshops on a variety of topics dealing with artistic development, and are co-authors of the best-selling book Art & Fear. David Bayles also wrote Notes on a Shared Landscape, a superbly crafted collection of his photographs and personal writings about the American West, and is is currently working on a new volume of artistic insights under the working title Finding Your Work. Ted Orland is author of The View From the Studio Door (a companion volume to Art & Fear), Scenes of Wonder & Curiosity (a monograph of his earlier writings and photographs), and is currently preparing an enlarged edition of his book, Man & Yosemite, which traces the history of Yosemite as it can be interpreted through photographs.


On Air: June 28, 2016

Keith Wilmot, President & CEO of Leadercast

Keith Wilmot explains the new Leadercast conference and shares lessons from his time at Coca-Cola.

Keith reflects back on the idea behind Coca-Cola’s Freestyle machines:

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Keith Wilmot is the President & CEO of Leadercast. After spending twenty years leading marketing and innovation for global brands, he accepted the role of Chief Executive Officer of a growing leadership company. The mission of Leadercast is to build leaders worth following. Most recently Leadercast launched a new technology platform, Leadercast Now, uniquely designed for time-starved leaders to strengthen leadership insights to action.

Previously, Wilmot was the Global Vice President of Creativity & Insights at The Coca-Cola Company. In this capacity, he founded and launched IGNITOR, an internal creativity and innovation approach. IGNITOR is a now a registered trademark of The Coca-Cola Company. His team was responsible for solving complex business challenges by translating insight into actionable, commercial ideas. His team also built global creativity and innovation capability throughout the system. He currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife, Jennifer, and their four children.


On Air: June 28, 2016

Kat Cole, Group President of Focus Brands

Kat Cole on leadership and innovation from her time at Cinnabon.

Former president of Cinnabon Inc., now Group President of Cinnabon’s parent company, FOCUS Brands, where she leads global, multi-channel businesses in licensing, manufacturing and ecommerce for all 6 brands that operate across 65 countries: Cinnabon, Auntie Anne’s, Moe’s, Schlotzsky’s, McAllister’s, and Carvel. Kat is an angel investor, humanitarian and philanthropist focused on elevating self-sufficiency through education, technology and access to opportunity around the world. She is the co-founder of Changers of Commerce, chair of the board of the Women’s Foodservice Forum, and a mentor, board member and advisor to emerging, retail, education and tech startups. Kat is a frequent guest for global business media, was featured on CBS’ “Undercover Boss”, named one of Fortune magazine’s 40 under 40 and one of CNBC’s Next 25 List of Innovators, Leaders and Disruptors. Her Twitter handle best describes her: “Connected-Creative-Conscious-Community building Capitalist, Biz Advisor, MBA, YGL, EDM fan, Coffee-Loving Chronic Learner”.


On Air: June 21, 2016

Marshall Van Alstyne, Co-author, Platform Revolution

Marshall Van Alstyne explains a platform business and how various industries can benefit from this type of innovation.

Marshall W. Van Alstyne is a professor at Boston University and a visiting scholar and research fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. Van Alstyne is a world expert on information economics and has made fundamental contributions to IT productivity and to theories of network effects. His coauthored work on two-sided networks is taught in business schools worldwide. In addition, he holds patents in information privacy protection and on spam prevention methods. Van Alstyne has been honored with six best paper awards and National Science Foundation IOC, SGER, iCORPS, SBIR and Career Awards. He is an adviser to leading executives, a frequent keynote speaker, a former entrepreneur, and a consultant to startups and to Global 100 companies. He received his BA from Yale and his MS and PhD from MIT.


On Air: June 21, 2016

John Carter, CEO, Noah Basketball

John Carter explains the development of a basketball shooting aid that provides instant feedback to the shooter.

John recalls how the idea for Noah Basketball first got started:

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John Carter is the CEO of Noah Basketball, which is a leader in Basketball Shooting Technology and Shooting Research. John was instrumental in the development of the Noah Shooting Systems that are now being used by top High School, College, and NBA teams around the country. He has worked with thousands of players at all levels of the game and has become an authority on how to improve shooting percentages. He speaks at numerous coaching clinics each year sharing significant unknown facts about shooting. John is also a holder of several issued and pending patents regarding trajectory based sports and gaming. Prior to Noah Basketball, John spent eight years with Group Dekko where he started up 4 manufacturing plants in AL and TX and ran a corporate division that grew to $85 million in annual revenue. He was also a founder of Redklay Solutions, which was later merged with FullScope, Inc. where he served as Chairman of the Board until the company was acquired by publicly traded, Edgewater, Inc. John holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Auburn University. He has been married to his College sweetheart Lisa, for 25 years and has 2 sons, Jonathan and Michael.


On Air: June 14, 2016

Al Ramadan and Dave Peterson, Authors, Play Bigger

What do Amazon, Uber, and IKEA have in common? Co-founding partners at Play Bigger Advisors talk “category design” and their new book, Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets.

Al Ramadan has been a CEO, entrepreneur, operating executive and sailing technologist. Al co-founded Quokka Sports, which pioneered data-intensive sports immersion on the Internet and revolutionized the way people experienced sport. He then joined Macromedia — and Adobe, after Adobe acquired Macromedia — where he spent almost ten years changing the way people think about great digital experiences on the Web and on then-new mobile devices. At Adobe, Al led teams that created the Rich Internet Applications category and helped develop the discipline of experience design.

Al started his career as a mathematician and software engineer — an old-school data scientist. He cut his teeth writing Fortran 77 on a VAX 11/780 and still writes the odd piece of Python code. In the ‘80s he built real time analytics engines for big steel manufacturers and brewing companies. In the early ‘90s he applied data science to Australia’s Americas Cup — an innovation in sports performance analytics. His work in sailing led directly to the idea for Quokka.

Al loves the outdoors and remote expeditions. He has hiked the John Muir Trail, sailed in the Sydney / Hobart yacht race, surfed Mavericks, lived on remote atolls in the Pacific and Indian oceans and can often be found bombing back country lines around Tahoe on a split board. He is also a mentor, father and favorite uncle to an ever-growing circle of next-generation superstars.

Dave Peterson has been an entrepreneur, chief marketing officer, master of execution, and fixer of crappy marketing.

Dave grew up on an Iowa farm and started his career in a marketing agency. He then sold all of his belongings and drove to Silicon Valley to try to succeed in business while carrying few expectations that he would. He landed at CRM software company Vantive, then did a tour of duty as head of communications at Mercury Interactive, and was CMO at Aggregate Knowledge and Coverity. He co-founded — and eventually mercifully killed — his own start-up called GiveMeTalk!

Dave (apparently) loves crashing his mountain bike on Northern California trails, avoiding trees on his snowboard, traveling to non-predictable places with his adopted brothers and friends, and learning new things from his daughter every day.


On Air: June 14, 2016

Matthew E. May, Author, Winning the Brain Game

Matthew May describes his experience teaching the Fatal Flaws of Thinking to a room full of Los Angeles Bomb Disposal crews.

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Matthew E. May is an innovation strategist and the author of five books, the latest being Winning the Brain Game: Fixing the 7 Fatal Flaws of Thinking. He writes the bimonthly Brain Game column for INC. Magazine, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, AMEX Open Forum, Strategy+Business, Rotman Magazine, Fast Company, and the Harvard Business Review blogs. Matt holds an MBA from the Wharton School and a BA from Johns Hopkins University, but he counts winning the New Yorker cartoon caption contest as one of his most creative achievements.


On Air: June 7, 2016

Sidney Levy, Director of Design, Volvo CE

How much do looks matter for construction equipment? Volvo Design Director Sidney Levy explains the importance of aesthetics. Hear this and more stories from Levy’s time at Volvo in our podcast.

Sidney Levy has worked for Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) for four years. As the company’s design director he is responsible for the design of the complete customer journey, ensuring a consistent message is expressed at all customer touchpoints. Prior to joining Volvo CE, Mr. Levy worked in the automobile industry, designing cars for a number of renowned international manufacturers.

Mr. Levy was born in Strasbourg, France. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Science and Transportation Design from the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. He also holds an MBA from the IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.

One of the big projects Mr. Levy is currently working on with his design team involves developing a new service platform for Volvo Co-Pilot. The interconnecting system will optimize machine usage and address operator challenges.

Mr. Levy’s native language is French and he speaks fluent English, German and Italian. He currently lives in Gothenburg, Sweden.


On Air: June 7, 2016

Madhavan Ramanujam, Author, Monetizing Innovation

What is the value of having the price point conversation ahead of product development? Author Madhavan Ramanujam explains.

Listen to Madhavan’s “Tale of Two Cars,” the Porsche Cayenne and the Dodge Dart, and learn how the difference between success and failure of a product can come down to designing around the right price:

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Madhavan Ramanujam is a board member and partner at Simon-Kucher & Partners based in its San Francisco/Silicon Valley office. Advising companies of all sizes from Fortune 500s to startups, Ramanujam has led more than 125 monetization projects for Internet, software and technology clients, helping bring numerous new products to market.


On Air: May 24, 2016

Steve Oesterle and John Mason, Directors of BioWALL

How do you make the innovative science of a new microbiocide relevant to farmers? Sabre execs discuss their new venture, BioWALL:

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Mr. Oesterle is the Chief Executive Officer of BioWALL, LLC and has served as Chief Executive Officer and Director of the Sabre Companies since 2009. Prior to this role he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Giuliani Capital Advisors as well as a Partner and Managing Director at Giuliani Partners since 2003. Prior to that time, Mr. Oesterle was most recently Vice Chairman of Ernst & Young, where he had responsibility for the Corporate Finance practice, which included the Financial Strategy and Transaction Solutions businesses.

Mr. Oesterle has an extensive background in strategic consulting, financing placement, and mergers and acquisitions advisory work, including his role as Chairman of Ernst & Young’s investment banking broker/dealer, combined with responsibilities related to the redesign of the firm’s overall marketing and sales strategies. Mr. Oesterle has more than 25 years’ experience in strategic planning and transactions, and has been the advisor to numerous companies with acquisitions, divestitures, nancing strategies, and other deal structures.

Mr. Mason is the Chief Science Officer of the Sabre Companies and its affiliates. Mr. Mason founded the chlorine dioxide panel on the American Chemistry Council in 1988 to develop standards for the chlorine dioxide industry for disinfection of drinking water and food, and for industrial applications. This group developed the data required for chlorine dioxide use as a primary disinfectant for drinking water in the United States and continues to support EPA in the development of regulations and standards for municipal water and wastewater disinfection. He is regarded as a national leading expert in response solutions to complex emergencies related to environmental contamination and human health risk. Further, the EPA, U.S. congressional committees, Department of Homeland Security, and other major parties have recognized him as a leading authority on chlorine dioxide. Mr. Mason has been the lead technical advisor to governmental agencies and commercial businesses on numerous events, ranging from the U.S. Capitol anthrax attack, to large biopharmaceutical and agribusiness viral contaminations, to biosecurity protocols and on-site evaluation of former Soviet Union weapons facilities.

Mr. Mason also has extensive experience in the oil & gas industry, providing treatment services for almost twenty years. Mr. Mason’s experience in the chemical industry is extensive, with duties including design and operation of chemical manufacturing facilities, health and safety audits, chemical and industrial accident investigation, determination and remediation of gas, liquid, and solid chemical releases, and the development of analytical methods.