QRCA VIEWS Podcast

Kenneth W. Gronbach is a gifted public speaker and a nationally recognized expert in the field of Demography and Generational Marketing. An accomplished President and CEO, himself, Ken has proven success in creating value, leading companies and planning for the future with uncanny accuracy.  Ken entertains his audiences with his own special brand of wit, humor and clear communication. He makes the science of shifting demography come alive with real life examples that make it relevant to today’s culture, business climate and economy. Ken is a marketing guru who regularly provides counsel to Fortune 500 companies as well as large and small privately held businesses across the United States. In his new 2008 book  Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm, published by The American Management Association, Ken takes you through a fascinating common sense understanding of shifting demography and the related opportunities and challenges.  The demographic landscape in the United States is made up a series of waves that are about twenty years in duration. It would follow that business will rise and fall according to the critical mass of customers heading toward it. He is interviewed here by QRCA member and VIEWS book reviewer, Tom Lutz.

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Andrew Kent is a researcher turned fiction writer, living in central Massachusetts, with his wife, children, and dogs. His first novel, “Spam & Eggs: A Johnny Denovo Mystery,” was published in February 2009. It introduces the character of Johnny Denovo, a detective who uses metaphor to solve cases. Kent has been described as “a new author whose originality explodes from these pages,” and the book has been hailed as “a masterpiece of deductive challenge, engrossing reading, and engaging entertainment” and “a book that in fact puts the writing of a lot of very seasoned and famous mystery writers to shame.” You can follow him at www.johnnydenovo.com.  He is interviewed here by QRCA VIEWS managing editor, Dr. Sharon Livingston.

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He has over 25 years of marketing research experience among clients in the United States, US Hispanic and Latin American market segments. He was born and raised in Mexico and is completely bilingual and bicultural. As a strategic planner, he is adept in transferring key insights and hot buttons generated from qualitative research into actionable copy points in the development of creative execution working closely with both clients and advertising agencies. He is interviewed here by QRCA member, Maureen Quinn Olsen.

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David Vinjamuri is founder and President of ThirdWay Brand Trainers, a leading brand marketing training company and Adjunct Instructor of Marketing at New York University. David has over 18 years of marketing and management experience. He started his marketing career at Johnson & Johnson and later worked for Coca-Cola and DoubleClick. David is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy. David writes and speaks frequently on marketing. He is editor for the ThirdWay Advertising Blog; an AdAge Power 150 blog and reviews advertising for BrandWeek magazine. He has been the featured guest lecturer on the Queen Mary 2 and quoted in major periodicals including BusinessWeek and Investor’s Business Daily. Publishers Weekly calls David’s book: Accidental Branding: How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Brands, “compelling” with “a lively flavor that goes down better than any list of dry strategies.” He is interviewed here by QRCA Book Reviews Editor, Kay Corry Aubrey.

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Dr. G. Clotaire Rapaille is a French-born medical anthropologist and psychiatrist who consults with American corporations. He is author of the recent book, The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do.  According to his website, he is also an internationally known expert in Archetype Discoveries and Creativity. His unique approach to marketing combines a psychiatrist’s depth of analysis with a businessman’s attention to practical concerns.  He has written more than ten books on these topics.  One of his books, Creative Communication, has become the standard reference for the French advertising industry.  He is a sought-after lecturer on creativity and communication. Dr. Rapaille’s technique for market research has grown out of his work in the areas of psychiatry, psychology, and cultural anthropology. His work is an extension of the work done by many of the great scholars of the twentieth century, including Jung, Laing, Levi-Strauss, and Ruth Benedict.  He is interviewed here by QRCA President, Dr. Sharon Livingston.

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Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba are experts on the effects of word of mouth on customer loyalty. Forbes has called their work “the word of mouth gospel.” In 2003, they released Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force. The New York Times called it “the new mantra for entrepreneurial success. At last count, the book has been translated into seven languages.

Their latest book is Citizen Marketers: When People are the Message, which the Wall Street Journal called “an insightful explanation of how the Internet has armed the consumer ­ which is to say everyone ­ against the mindless blather of corporate messaging attempts. Drop everything and read this book.

Ben and Jackie are also the co-authors of the award-winning blog, Church of the Customer. With 135,000 subscribers, Church of the Customer ranks as one of the most popular business blogs in the world. As speakers, Ben and Jackie have delivered hundreds of keynote presentations about word of mouth, customer evangelism and social media at conferences and events for businesses and associations of all sizes, reaching more than 25,000 people. Their work in researching passionate customer loyalty has been profiled by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Fortune, BusinessWeek, U.S. News & World Report, the Financial Times, and several thousand blogs. They are interviewed, here, by QRCA reviews editor, Kay Corry Aubrey.

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Paul Gillin is a veteran technology journalist with more than 23 years of editorial leadership. Paul was founding editor-in-chief of TechTarget, one of the most successful new media entities to emerge on the Internet. Previously, he was editor-in-chief and executive editor of Computerworld magazine. He writes the social media column for BtoB magazine, and his new book, The New Influencers, chronicles the changes in markets being driven by the new breed of bloggers and podcasters. Paul specializes in advising business-to-business marketers on strategies to optimize their use of online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. He is particularly interested in social media and the application of personal publishing to brand awareness and business marketing. Paul is a Research Fellow and a member of the advisory board of the Society for New Communications Research. He also chairs the Social Media cluster for the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. He blogs at www.paulgillin.com. He is interviewed by QRCA reviews editor, Kay Corry Aubrey.

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Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval have moved to the top of the advertising industry by following a simple but powerful philosophy: it pays to be nice. Where so many companies encourage a dog eat dog mentality, the Kaplan Thaler Group has succeeded through chocolate and flowers. In The Power of Nice: How To Conquer The Business World With Kindness, through their own experiences and the stories of other people and businesses, they demonstrate why, contrary to conventional wisdom, nice people finish first. They are interviewed here by QRCA President Sharon Livingston, Ph.D.

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QRCA book review editor Kay Corry Aubrey interviews Bill Buxton who is a designer and a researcher concerned with human aspects of technology.His work reflects a particular interest in the use of technology to support creative activities such as design, filmmaking and music. Buxton’s research specialties include technologies, techniques and theories of input to computers, technology-mediated human-human collaboration, and ubiquitous computing. He is helping to bring design to an equal footing with technology at Microsoft. His recent book, Sketching User Experiences, was recently named by Strategy+Business Quarterly as, “the best innovation book of this year.”

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RCA book review editor Kay Corry Aubrey interviews Scott Berkun. Scott is the author of best selling Myths of Innovation, which explores the truths of creativity and innovation. Scott was a project manager at Microsoft from 1994 until 2003 and worked with the development teams on the original versions of the ubiquitous Internet Explorer (v1-5), Windows, and MSN. An author, consultant and software industry veteran, Scott Berkun writes books, consults with managers, and teaches creative thinking at the University of Washington. He is also the author of another best-selling business book The Art of Project Management (O’Reilly 2005). Over the years Scott has shared his wisdom on topics ranging from “How to manage smart people” to “Good,evil, and technology” and dozens of other thought -provoking essays on his blog.

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