Tech Talks Daily

Simon Mellin and his friends founded Modern Milkman in 2018 to reduce waste while making sustainable choices convenient and accessible to all. Modern Milkman set out to tackle the problem of single-use plastic packaging and food waste to ultimately protect the environment by reinventing the milk round. In today's episode of Tech Talks Daily, Simon shares how his inspiration came after watching David Attenborough's 'Blue Planet' TV show and the global aim of cutting single-use plastics from ending up in the ocean in a trash area five times the size of France. I also learn more about how sustainability, supporting independent suppliers, farmers, and plastic waste reduction remain at the heart of his mission. But it's data and AI that make all this possible. We discuss how Modern Milkman uses technology to deliver on its mission and transform the consumer experience. I learn how critical it is for customers to have what they ordered on time and the key to execution is capturing all the data points and running live analytics on the data so that Modern Milkman can map deliveries and predict demand and order flows to ensure no waste. Simon also speaks about the role of ThoughtSpot as part of the Modern Milkman data story and how it powers both business growth as well as Modern Milkman's mission.

Måns Ulvestam and his co-founders, Karl Rosander and Markus Ahlstrand, sold their shares in Acast to launch a new book, audio, and news platform, Sesamy. The platform allows users to buy only what they need, when they need it, and access it on any device or app through single purchases. In addition, no subscription is needed to access (and own) digital content. They've already rolled out in Sweden and Denmark, and have significant expansion plans in place. By using their own unique SmartID software, Sesamy can ensure a single-purchase option does not cannibalize existing subscription income. Instead, it creates an additional, incremental revenue stream to support publishers and provide consumers with flexible options in a time of considerable financial uncertainty. Sesamy have exciting upcoming plans for this software in the news/magazine sectors in particular. With inflation through the roof, and troubles ahead, the worst is arguably yet to come for those wedded to subscription models. It plausibly figures that the publishing sector, already facing a downturn in ad revenues, will also see the same trend as consumers cut back and grow ever tired of 'peak subscription'. Given these developments, subscription-dependent sectors are crying out for an alternative and are now increasingly finding they've optimized their own subscriber numbers. Growth is tailing off, and at risk of declining rapidly with these self-evident economic pressures.

Greg Sloan, CFP®, CEPA, CPM™, is a Chief Purpose Officer and Co-Founder of Go Beyond. This People Development company combines Behavioral Science and Technology to improve well-being in the workplace. With over 25+ years of experience in financial services, Greg is a serial founder who discovered his purpose and wants to share the knowledge of how to achieve this same goal with others. He is a thought leader who centers his time and energy on purpose and people, focusing on purpose in the workplace, the future of work, and financial wellness. Go Beyond's mission is to create scalable, science-based tools and content that can be easily distributed worldwide to enable people to live better lives. They accomplish this by activating purpose in the workplace to help companies recruit, grow, and retain workers. Research shows that aligning company and personal goals improves productivity, retention, and overall wellness in the workplace. After consecutive pandemic years, employee burnout has become a ubiquitous problem, impacting companies of every size, industry, and level. The consequences are devastating and far-reaching, negatively impacting people's personal and professional lives. For example, one employee survey found that a staggering 77 percent of employees are experiencing burnout at their current job. This reality is exacerbating already-high employee turnover rates, which reached historic highs this year, reorienting the workforce in real-time. As a result, four in five HR leaders say that mental health and employee well-being are top priorities for their companies. Today's episode discusses how Purpose Pulse enables companies and coaches to measure individual and organizational well-being. In addition, we explore how the combination of behavioral science and technology can help diagnose the root causes of disengagement, turnover, and burnout to allow organizations to allocate resources effectively to the most needed employee assistance programs.

Businesses across the country are already cutting costs amid the looming recession. From hiring freezes to trimming headcount, difficult decisions are already being made. As customers and clients try to cancel and tighten contracts, Kraig Swensrud shares the hardest questions he's getting in the sales and renewals conversations right now, and how to handle them. Kraig has led two companies through acquisition and is now the CEO of Qualified, which just raise $95M for their Series C. Even with an average 4,000% ROI across customers, Kraig is still having to navigate customers trying to cut costs.

Arjun Rai, serial entrepreneur and founder of the crowdsource-funded HelloWoofy.com joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his story. His passion for technology and helping entrepreneurs and small businesses compete with the unlimited marketing budgets of their corporate competitors through digital marketing and equity fundraising make him a perfect fit for the show. Arjun offers tips for anyone struggling to keep up with post creation, scheduling, integrations etc. For startup founders, he also shares his experiences with equity crowdfunding, scaling a startup and how to survive and thrive as a founder.

Sparkseeker is a new, healthy alternative to current social apps that combines humane data practices, emotional wellness, and social good in one video-centric platform. It's fully built and launched its crowdfunding campaign earlier this summer, and crowdfunding contributors will receive early access to the app's private beta testing phase. As more and more people look to social media to share and further the causes most important to them, Sparkseeker's unique, action-focused features make online advocacy easy. At the same time, Seekers (the app's term for users) can post freely about their everyday lives without worrying about anonymous comments or bots, thanks to the app's fully video-based model. In addition, Sparkseeker's use of responsible technology and neuroscience-supported features ensures a healthier Seeker experience without invasive data practices, harmful algorithms, or in-stream ads. Sparkseeker's Founder and CEO, Kalista Zackhariyas, shares her incredibly engaging story about building a new healthy alternative to current social media apps.

Claire Vo, Chief Product Officer at Color, shares how she went from tech to healthcare. At Color, Claire leads the engineering, product management, data, and design teams to develop the company's population health platform, services, and technology. She joined Color from Optimizely, where she was Chief Product Officer, building enterprise-grade experimentation and progressive delivery products. After spending her entire career in tech, Claire made the jump into healthcare when she realized how the pandemic revealed just how inaccessible much of the U.S. health infrastructure is for people who need it most. The digital health industry boomed during the pandemic, with a proliferation of new services to address every part of the care ecosystem, but it also revealed just how inaccessible much of the U.S. health infrastructure is for people who need it most. Based on her current position at Color, a company focused on delivering a scalable public health infrastructure for millions, Claire discusses what it means to build a healthcare product focused on increasing access for millions and how companies can build infrastructure for scaled impact. Within digital health, Claire is passionate about the fact that software alone cannot solve public health crises – a notion which was proven through many companies' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare. There is a tendency to believe better tech is always the answer, but while the right software can reduce friction and drive better insights, healthcare is essentially a human interaction at the end of the day. It requires a hybrid model that incorporates both better technology and the personal touch of a visit to the doctor's office or a pharmacy.

François Candelon, Global Director of the BCG Henderson Institute – BCG's research think tank, joins me in a conversation about the growth of the many metaverses. Listen in as we talk about how the race is on to capture digital engagement. With 30 years in tech and as a global team leader analyzing the impact of the Metaverse through research, François discusses what metaverses actually exist and their purpose in shaping the future, from full-second digital lives (for work and play) to gaming communities and even crypto-centric marketplaces. We also talk about how organizations across industries can and must understand these rival metaverses before engaging. Finally, we look into who is winning the Metaverse and who the wild card contenders will be. About François Candelon: François Candelon is the Global Director of the BCG Henderson Institute, Boston Consulting Group's think tank dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. He is also a leader of BCG GAMMA's AI@Scale effort for technology, media, and telecommunications companies. GAMMA is BCG's data science and advanced analytics unit. François joined BCG in 1993. He has worked in several European countries, led BCG's global telecommunications work from 2008 to 2012, and spent seven years in China, where he worked with the most advanced tech companies. His research is focused on AI and digital as a source of competitive advantage for businesses and national economies. His work has been published in several prestigious reviews (Harvard Business Review, MIT, and Sloan Management Review). He has also been a speaker in global conferences like Mobile World Congress, TED@BCG, Web Summit, Politico AI Summit, and Wuzhen Internet Conference.

Research from Accenture found that most CEOs list becoming a sustainable and responsible business as a top priority, even at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, companies with higher sustainability performance also perform better financially than their peers. As meeting ESG benchmarks becomes a requirement, not simply a goal, Accenture recently shared its sustainability roadmap, including priorities, learnings, and best practices. I invited Accenture's internal global IT organization/Accenture CIO Penelope Prett to join me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss her strategy that focuses on three key pillars: Data: Sustainability commitments require greater access to sustainability data and environmental sustainability reporting tools that can identify trends in specific products or locations and build bridges to end goals. Cloud optimization: Optimizing migrations to the public cloud can reduce global carbon emissions by 59 million tons of CO2 annually. Accenture runs 95% of its infrastructure in the cloud, which led to an estimated reduction of 220 metric tons of carbon emissions in only nine months. Value Chains: Driving supplier engagement through data platforms and procurement hubs to influence responsible buying decisions and help businesses optimize their supplier base. We discuss how delivering on the promise of sustainable technology means that CIOs must embed sustainability into the core of operations to help the business achieve sustainability goals while also managing the environmental impact of the technology itself.

Venafi®, the inventor and leading provider of machine identity management, recently announced new research findings that evaluate the security impact of the increasing number of nation-state attacks and recent shifts in geopolitics. The survey of over 1,100 security decision-makers (SDMs) globally found that 66% of organizations have changed their cybersecurity strategy as a direct response to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, while nearly two-thirds (64%) suspect their organization has been either directly targeted or impacted by a nation-state cyberattack. I invited Kevin Bocek to join me on the podcast to discuss how cybersecurity has become intertwined with geopolitics, with state-backed hackers using cybercrime to advance their nation's wider political, economic, and military goals. I learn how everyone is a target, and unlike a kinetic warfare attack, only you can defend your business against nation-state cyberattacks. There is no cyber-Iron Dome or cyber-NORAD. Every CEO and board must recognize that cybersecurity is one of the top three business risks for everyone, regardless of industry." We also discuss the Venafi research into the methods used by nation-state threat actors shows the use of machine identities is growing in state-sponsored cyberattacks. The digital certificates and cryptographic keys that serve as machine identities are the foundation of security for all secure digital transactions. Machine identities are used by everything from physical devices and to software to communicate securely.