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Top of Mind Thursday Memo Archive
Top of Mind Thursday – May 19, 2022: Up, Up, and Away
Gas prices. Food prices. Home prices. Interest rates. Inflation is dramatically driving up all of these–and more.
This should not come as a surprise. More than $5 trillion was pumped into the US economy to soften the impact of COVID-19 related layoffs and losses. Lockdowns in China have caused major shortages of many components and stopped the shipment of finished goods to much of the world. The aftermath of the war in Ukraine has caused food and energy shortages–which translate into higher prices. All of these factors are known to impact inflation rates.
Yet, the unemployment rate (which spiked through the roof at the peak of the pandemic) is near an all-time low and businesses across many industries are unable to find enough workers. Consumers are traveling again and demand for goods remains high.
So what’s going on? I’m not an economist, and I doubt even those who are trained in economic theory could accurately predict what will happen next. But one thing I know for sure: Panicking does no one any good–ever.
We’ve spent more than two years adapting to a global pandemic (which, BTW, is not over yet). We’ve survived inflation in the 1980s that was dramatically worse than what’s expected now. Americans can adapt to current economic conditions without major suffering–after all, no one is attacking us with missiles and bombs for the 85th day in a row.
Prices may go up for awhile. But there’s no need to throw confidence to the wind. This, too, will pass.
Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.
Catch the latest episodes of the hottest podcast on business and entrepreneurship…ShrimpTank Seattle Wednesdays at noon PT.
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 – May 12, 2022: In Short Supply
At the beginning of the pandemic, it was nearly impossible to find staples like toilet paper and paper towels. Now, it’s computer chips and baby formula.
Over the last 2+ years, we’ve learned more about supply chains and how they could be disrupted than any of us ever could have imagined (along with adding terms like social distancing, mRNA vaccines and PCR testing to our vocabularies).
Some of these disruptions came because consumer behavior changed overnight during the pandemic (food and paper supplies were now all being purchased for the home, not in commercial packaging). Some of these are a result of world events. Shanghai and much of China are shut down due to COVID restrictions, and the war in Ukraine has disrupted everything from natural gas deliveries to food production and more.
And some times these disruptions come because people didn’t think far enough ahead to plan for what was coming.
The shortage of baby formula appears to be a result of two factors: industry consolidation (which left only a few manufacturers) and the shut down of a major manufacturing plant due to possible contamination. Could the plant shutdown be predicted? Maybe not. But the consequences of having limited supplier options for any commodity can be predicted and modeled.
The war in Ukraine was not a foregone conclusion, but it certainly was a looming possibility for months before Russian troops crossed the border.
The computer chip shortage didn’t happen overnight–it was an accident waiting to happen that was exacerbated by pandemic shutdowns. New chip production plants can cost $10-20 billion and take 3-5 years to build. Even worse, now we’re hearing there may be a shortage of the chips required to build more chips. Talk about Catch-22!
With all of the analytics and technology we have today, why don’t companies run what-if scenarios to make sure they can handle changing conditions? Why don’t they consider how much runway they’ll need to adapt to a changing environment?
It seems like well thought out future scenario planning is in short supply these days.
Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.
Catch the latest episodes of the hottest podcast on business and entrepreneurship…ShrimpTank Seattle Wednesdays at noon PT.
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 – May 5, 2022: Unprecedented
This week, a draft of the proposed Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade was leaked to the public.
The text, which has been confirmed by the court as authentic, shows a majority of the justices are planning to vote to overturn this landmark abortion rights legislation–first upheld as law in 1973.
This has been a political hotbed for years. Donald Trump and many Republican politicians have focused on this as a major campaign issue for a number of years. However, surveys consistently show that nearly 2/3 of Americans support a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body.
That doesn’t mean all these people support abortion. It just means they don’t feel the government should make this type of decision for its citizens. If the government can’t force people to wear masks to prevent the spread of a deadly disease, then they shouldn’t be able to legislate what happens to a woman’s uterus either. Overturning Roe v. Wade won’t make abortions go away–just the ones that are safe and legal.
What’s most disturbing is that the three most recent Supreme Court nominee were clear in their confirmation hearings that Roe v. Wade was the rule of law and it has precedence: It’s been upheld and reinforced in subsequent rulings, and they each would respect that.
Regardless of how we feel about this particular issue, the idea that the Court can toss legal precedent to pamper to political interests should be terribly frightening. Does this mean any decision a political party disagrees with can be thrown out as well? What’s next–outlawing interracial marriage or dismantling civil rights rulings?
We can see from what’s going on in Europe now what happens when a leader becomes powerful enough to control all aspects of the government–when opponents are afraid to speak out against him because they may be poisoned or exiled.
Our democracy was designed to have three separate branches of government, each of which would operate without political pressure from the others.
To turn the American judicial system into a political machine that executes the will and whims of either political party is unprecedented. And it should stir us all to ask, if this can happen, what’s next?
Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.
Catch the latest episodes of the hottest podcast on business and entrepreneurship…ShrimpTank Seattle Wednesdays at noon PT.
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 – April 28, 2022: Juxtaposition
While much of the world is mulling billionaire Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter, another news story caught my eye.
Anti-semitic incidents in the US last year were up by more than 34%–with actual assaults up over 160% year-to-year. These are the highest numbers in the 40+ years the Anti-Defamation League has been tracking these events.
While there’s not a direct connection between these two stories, Musk’s stated intention in buying Twitter is to allow for more free speech on the platform. There’s concern he will undo all the work Twitter has done over the last several years to curb hate speech, prevent online harassment, limit posts on sexual violence and assault, and ban false or misleading posts about COVID-19 and vaccines.
Unfortunately, there’s a correlation between hateful, violent, and misleading social media posts and actual acts of hate, violence, and harassment of groups targeted by these posts. This includes not just Jews, but Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Hispanics, Muslims, immigrants, and people in the LGBTQ community.
We saw the positive power of social media in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder, the arrest and conviction of Ahmed Abery’s killers, and the widespread support for the current plight of the Ukrainian people. Now it’s up to all of us to be on the lookout for hateful content masquerading as free speech.
If we push back, we can make it clear these kind of incidents and posts won’t fly. Even on Twitter.
Contact me to find out how you can get heard above the noise–even in a crisis situation.
Catch the latest episodes of the hottest podcast on business and entrepreneurship…ShrimpTank Seattle Wednesdays at noon PT.
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