“Waaaaahhhhhhahaaaa!!!”, my wife screamed, her hands white-knuckled the side of the car seat. She was sitting shotgun in our tiny Suzuki rental when we came inches from a comically large and ancient delivery truck trundling mid-way through a blind curve. It was a close call. One of many that day. My kids oscillated between terror and laughter as we negotiated the cratered and winding roads of St. Lucia over the winter holiday. While most vacationers are happy to sit at a resort…my family quickly developed a bad case of wanderlust, so we stayed on the move. While incredibly beautiful, the isla ..read more

This semester I had the honor of teaching a course entitled Creativity and Innovation at the Sam M. Walton College of Business. As part of the class, I invited entrepreneurs from various backgrounds to share their start-up stories. We had a very diverse set of business owners who were created everything from medical devices, custom fragrances, and organic unpasteurized juices to software e-commerce solutions and chatbots. At the beginning of each class a guest entrepreneur would share their ‘origin’ story; how they got started, what challenges they encountered, and what advice they would share ..read more

Tesla has been the tech start-up darling of the, well I would say the auto industry, but they don’t think of themselves as part of the auto industry. There is no argument about the strategic vision of Elon disrupting an industry over 100 years old by creating an infrastructure of superchargers and, you know, just in case AT&T and Verizon aren’t that reliable or cooperative, launching nearly 1,600 near-earth orbit satellites with a plan to send nearly 39,000 or so in near future. Not to mention those Gigafactories. And spaceships. Jetpacks maybe? By most measures Tesla’s future is looking b ..read more

Any damn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple. Pete Seeger As a happy byproduct of the global pandemic my wife and I now see each other during the normal workweek. As such, we started a rather mundane tradition of watching one show in the evening together: the Nightly News. It was our porthole to the wider world, and we were frequently joined by our children. We often had discussions of events as they appeared on television making it a quasi “teachable moment” family experience. You will notice my use of the past tense as our streaming service and ‘smart ..read more

Close your eyes and think about your most memorable positive customer experiences (CX) from your past.  Hopefully you’ve opened your eyes by now. Now ask yourself, where were you? Were you working in an office cubicle or classroom? Were you on an airplane or in your car? Were you shopping or at a restaurant? Probably not. I bet most of your great memories were in some way connected to nature. It might have been that moment of silence on the water or on a tranquil desert mountain peak where you could hear your watch tick-tick-tick. It may have been the crackling of an outdoor fir ..read more

“Good night Clarence I had a truly w o n d e r f u l evening,” Alabama said on the steps of her front porch on a beautiful August evening. They had just had a lovely dinner at a fancy restaurant and then enjoyed some live music afterward. The full moon glowed on the couple as cicadas quietly chirped in the distance. Clarence looked down nervously, anticipating this first date moment of truth and carefully planning his next move. He gathered his courage and his breath and then went for it. “Alabama?” Clarence stammered as he looked deeply into her eyes. “Yes, Clarence?” swooned Alabam ..read more

As a child I always marveled at my mother’s recipe box (handed down from her mother). It is an overstuffed box that is an amalgam of at least three generations of culinary experimentation from parents, aunts, uncles, friends, and neighbors across the continent. From Welsh cookies to something called Syrian Pie…reviewing these recipes is truly a trip across time and space. Some recipes are scrawled on yellowed index cards, others are written on tissue-thin paper neatly folded into the box. Some are typed others are on old yellowed clippings from newspapers. Laura Captor’s Recipe Box On one ordi ..read more

This semester I had the honor of teaching a course entitled Creativity and Innovation at the Sam M. Walton College of Business. As part of the class, I invited entrepreneurs from various backgrounds to share their start-up stories. We had a very diverse set of business owners who were created everything from medical devices, custom fragrances, and organic unpasteurized juices to software e-commerce solutions and chatbots. At the beginning of each class a guest entrepreneur would share their ‘origin’ story; how they got started, what challenges they encountered, and what advice they would share ..read more

Tesla has been the tech start-up darling of the, well I would say the auto industry, but they don’t think of themselves as part of the auto industry. There is no argument about the strategic vision of Elon disrupting an industry over 100 years old by creating an infrastructure of superchargers and, you know, just in case AT&T and Verizon aren’t that reliable or cooperative, launching nearly 1,600 near-earth orbit satellites with a plan to send nearly 39,000 or so in near future. Not to mention those Gigafactories. And spaceships. Jetpacks maybe? By most measures Tesla’s future is looking b ..read more

Any damn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple. Pete Seeger As a happy byproduct of the global pandemic my wife and I now see each other during the normal workweek. As such, we started a rather mundane tradition of watching one show in the evening together: the Nightly News. It was our porthole to the wider world, and we were frequently joined by our children. We often had discussions of events as they appeared on television making it a quasi “teachable moment” family experience. You will notice my use of the past tense as our streaming service and ‘smart ..read more