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Top of Mind Thursday Memo Archive
Top of Mind Thursday – February 2, 2023: Groundhog Day Again
Today is Groundhog Day–the day when Punxsutawney Phil supposedly comes out of hiding and predicts whether or not we’ll have 6 more weeks of winter (Spoiler alert: He saw his shadow, more winter coming.).
It’s also the title of the 1993 film with Bill Murray, who goes to Punxsutawney and gets stuck in a time loop where he is doomed to repeat the day over and over again, till he chooses the right actions to break the spell.
It’s unfortunately the perfect metaphor for some of the issues we see occurring in our lives.
Over and over again, we see needless deaths from gun violence–including three separate incidents in California in the last week or so. In Memphis, another young Black man was beaten to death by police officers in an encounter that seemed like a replay of the 2020 George Floyd murder. In Congress, there is yet another stalemate about funding the federal government.
What breaks Bill Murray free of the Groundhog Day curse is finally figuring out exactly what course of action will cause a different result.
We are doomed to stay in the loops of gun violence, police misconduct, and governmental stalemate until we figure out what changes must be made.
In your business, what negative situations seem to occur on a regular basis? What can you do to break the cycle? What changes to the status quo need to be made to move forward?
The Groundhog Day movie was less than two hours; Phil’s prediction of winter is six weeks. Our own doom loop could last much longer and be much more destructive.
Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
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Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday – January 26, 2023: How About a Little Chat?
The latest big thing is ChatGPT–an AI-based tool that can write essays, compose poetry, and even pass graduate school exams.
The possibilities for this tool seem pretty amazing. It will write email for you. . . and write papers for your high school or college classes, too. It will create poetry. . . and author entire books, as well.
But what happens when the tool creates something that’s not correct–is it the tool’s fault, or the “author” who employed it and should have known better.
And who is the author of a piece generated by ChatGPT? When does this become plagiarism, and how do we spot it?
Just like any tool or technology, ChatGPT has its limitations. Automated customer service systems aren’t ready to replace humans, and self-driving cars are still not ready for prime time. While AI tools will likely bring a higher level of grammatical accuracy and improved readability to some projects, they’re unlikely to provide a level of creative genius any time soon.
While an AI bot might be able to model a play after Shakespeare or sculpture after Michelangelo, it’s unlikely they could create such a masterpiece from scratch.
Look around your business. Where can you use tools and technology to raise the bar, or remove obstacles to creativity? And how can you pave the path for real people to reach their creative potential?
Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday – January 19, 2023: Can You Believe This?
Recently elected NY Congressman George Santos appears to have lied about his ethnic background, his education, and his work experience.
But that was only the beginning. Now, stories are coming out about how he may have committed check fraud in Brazil, scammed roommates and colleagues, and even absconded with money collected to pay for medical care for the service dog of a disabled veteran.
Certainly Santos (who also went by the names Anthony Devolder and Anthony Zabrovsky) is an accomplished con man who appears to have lying down to an art. Unfortunately, lying about your background or committing a series of crimes does not result in automatic expulsion from Congress. It’s unlikely the Speaker will push for his removal, given the precariously thin margin the Republicans hold in the House.
The bigger question is, with all of these allegations against Santos (some of which are fairly easy to prove), how did the man get elected in the first place? Where were all the people with all of this information before the November election?
We live in an age of disinformation, yet there’s enough substance to these allegations that it’s hard to imagine they would have all been dismissed out of hand by voters. Someone knew these things and chose not to say anything–or they didn’t try hard enough to bring these allegations to light when they could have made a difference.
If Santos was able to skate by the truth and get elected to Congress, it’s no surprise how may other scam artists out there are able to con people out of retirement funds, convince dating partners to send large sums of money, or create expensive products and services that don’t really work.
The question is who in your business circle may not be all they seem? Do you have employees or partners whose stories may seem a little too incredible? Have you contracted with suppliers who don’t seem to be able to deliver what they promised? Where else should you be scrutinizing what you’ve been told a little more closely?
The fact that Santos has gotten as far as he has is pretty shocking. Not digging into situations that we suspect aren’t as they seem is truly unbelievable.
Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday – January 12, 2023: This Won’t Fly
Yesterday, for the second time in a little over 2 weeks, air travel in the US ground to a halt.
This time, the problem was not weather-related, but due to the failure of FAA NOTAM software–an application that informs pilots of real-time restrictions and flight hazards. Without this software, every flight into and out of the US was grounded.
How did this happen? Someone inadvertently overwrote a key piece of code while conducting software maintenance–causing the entire system to fail.
These things happen all the time, but usually there’s a backup system, or some sort of redundancy that kicks in. Not the case here–perhaps because this particular system dates back to the 1940s and has yet to be modernized and updated. Instead, everything stopped.
It’s a bit frightening to think that a key piece of our transportation infrastructure could be brought down so easily. Imagine what might happen in the case of an actual cyberattack!
The FAA software in question is way overdue for replacement–as is the Southwest software that caused such a mess over the holidays. It’s logical to expect both of these organizations will now be prioritizing fixing these particular situations.
But how many other time bombs lay out there in other organizations and critical systems? Do we have to wait until another key system crashes to find out?
The only thing more expensive than modernizing critical infrastructure is what happens when you don’t.
Check out our marketing thought leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com