What if?  What if we re-thought what "social" means, to rid ourselves of the dark elements and instead promote the enriching parts? 

In this episode, we talk to Brian Amerige, CEO and co-founder of Thoughtful, and who takes us on a journey on rethinking social.  His app, Thoughtful (available at https://thoughtful.community/Brian) represents his effort to bring this vision to reality.
Specifically, we discuss:

• Why we need ideas to flourish as humans
• How current social platforms promote non-enriching content, leading to toxic environments.
• How Thoughtful promotes ideas through the consumption of interesting content.
• Why "Thoughtful time" creates a number for screen time you should be proud of. 
• The marketplace for new apps is still huge - especially for positive, human centric apps. 
• In Thoughtful, engagement with people is limited to the extent it can help engagement with ideas. 
• Why metrics at Thoughtful are used to inform decisions but not make decisions. 
• How the "judgement coefficient" helps match individual interests with other people with similar interests, and their recommendations, regardless of popularity of that content. 
• How you could use Thoughtful to improve your college experience
• Why students should focus on problems when thinking about their career.

In this episode, we talk with Fran Stacks, channel manager at Wells Fargo https://www.wellsfargo.com/.  We talk about:

- What a channel manager does
- How ADA specifications impact web site design
- How the digital marketing has changed in the last 10 years 
- How customer expectations have changed in the last 10 years
- What a Data Management Platform does
- and more...

To learn more about eCommerce and how marketing plays a role, check out my textbook "eCommerce: A Stakeholder Approach" https://www.prospectpressvt.com/textbooks/drake-ecommerce-a-stakeholder-approach

In this episode, we chat with Harry Hawk, instructer at Southwestern College and lead generator at Doctible (doctible.com). During this conversation, we learn about:
 - What is a "lead" and how Harry uses digital media to help find leads for medical offices
 - HubSpot and their technological offerings
 - Why I wrote my textbook
 - How to get started in eCommerce and eBusiness
 - How to get the most out of my textbook
 - Digital deep funnel optimization

To learn more about eCommerce and how marketing plays a role, check out my textbook "eCommerce: A Stakeholder Approach" https://www.prospectpressvt.com/textbooks/drake-ecommerce-a-stakeholder-approach

In this episode, we talk to Randy Paszek and Matt McGuirk, solutions and sales engineers at Source Defense.  We talk about:

•  Why businesses struggle with website security
•  Magecart attacks
•  How 3rd party JavaScript files leave customers vulnerable
•  How Source Defense's VICE platform helps contain 3rd party JavaScript to prevent Magecart attacks
•  What the 15 millisecond rule means in JavaScript development
•  How companies can assess their website risk https://sourcedefense.com/check-your-exposure/
•  Why the pandemic may have made magecart attacks more attractive
•  Source Defense's new product WiPP

To learn more about eCommerce and how security plays a role, check out my textbook eCommerce: A Stakeholder Approach

In this episode, we talk to Arthur Zey, senior technical product manager at Amazon for the Alexa developer's portal. We talk about:

• What is a product manager in the tech industry
• How a product management differs from a project management 
• How the Alexa developer's portal is structured
• Why UX reflects thoughtfulness in design
• Why technical documentation requires good UX
• How API development and technical documentation relate 
• Various workflows for technical writers developing technical documentation
• Using JIRA for workflows
• Why interpersonal challenges tend to be the most difficult issues in tech
• Some strategies for dealing with interpersonal issues 
• Why getting hands-on work experience is critical for your career

To learn more about eCommerce, check out my textbook at:
eCommerce: A Stakeholder Approach

In this episode, we are joined by two directors at C Spire; Jennifer Anderson, director of marketing, and Graham Miller, director of digital transformation. We talk about:

• How C Spire transitioned from traditional retail to the digital environment
• The difference between digital marketing, media marketing, and marketing analytics
• How marketing moves customers to the digital environment
• Developing an organizational structure that supports digital marketing through strategy, management, and execution
• How marketing and digital initiatives vary widely between wireless, fiber, and B2B applications.
• How their Continuity of Operations plan helped guide C Spire through the COVID-19 pandemic 
• How the pandemic super charged their eCommerce initiatives to help deal with lockdown and social distancing requirements. 
• How virtual meetings helped maintain employee relations while working from home

In this episode, Robert and Amy Nasir discuss some of the decision they made when they started their podcast "Five Minutes with Robert Nasir" https://YouTube.com/RobertNasir/ and https://www.facebook.com/RobertNasir 

• Why choosing a topic that matches your interests helps find synergies
• Why learning by doing is critical - don't wait 
• How podcasting requires honing your powers of multitasking
• Picking your target audience
• How practical wisdom can be gained from a variety of experiences
• How to pick your technology platform - video vs. audio and live vs. recorded
• When to use your own persona or personal brand in your podcast or create a new one
• Why learning to listen to your own product is essential
• How soft skills can help improve the show

Other podcasts mentioned in this episode:

• EconTalk 
• Tim Ferriss Show 
• Dark Horse with Bret Weinstein 
• The Rubin Report 
• Don Watkins 
• Yaron Brook Show 

Christian Williams joins us to talk about his history in the bay area, building product for eBay sellers, working at Wikia and AirBnb, and how things have changed because of the pandemic.  We discuss:

•  Why he bought not just one but two DeLoreans
•  How web technologies have changed in the past 20 years
•  Using Notepad and Notepad++ to learn HTML
•  AirBnb's AirFam
•  Developing OneAirBnb
•  How AirBnb has been impacted by COVID-19
•  Why using GraphQL is amazing for APIs
•  The relationship between Wikia and Wikipedia
•  Why finding good people to work with is key to happiness

To learn more about eCommerce, check out my textbook at:
eCommerce: A Stakeholder Approach