How a New Orleans music icon is still keeping it funky after five decades in the business
Posted On April 10, 2019
George Porter, Jr., has been playing music for five decades, starting out as the bassist with legendary New Orleans funk band The Meters and continuing with a number of different bands and sit-in performances with artists as diverse as Paul McCartney, David Byrne, Jimmy Buffett, Tori Amos and Patti Labelle. Now 71 years old, he’s still going strong, which begs the question: How does he keep doing it? “For me, it’s afternoon naps,” says Porter, our guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working With Cam Marston.” While finding creative ways to catch some extra shut-eye is important, it’s not… Read More
Categories: Podcast, What's Working with Cam Marston, Work
Blind faith: When the business plan is answering a call from God
Posted On April 9, 2019
Marquis Forge is the CEO of Eleven86 Water, but he says that’s just a title. It’s God, he says, who runs the company, and God who started it in the first place. Forge, our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working With Cam Marston,” is a former walk-on football player at the University Alabama who had worked in the automotive industry for two decades. But he’d made a promise to always remember where he came from, the small town of Autaugaville just northwest of Montgomery. And God, he says, showed him the way to keep that promise. He didn’t… Read More
Categories: church, Entrepreneurship, What's Working with Cam Marston
Even the NFL is having to adjust to a millennial workforce
Posted On April 2, 2019
All kinds of businesses and industries are having to adjust to the increasing numbers of millennials in the workforce. Some are quicker to adapt than others. It’s curious that an industry with a workforce dominated by millennials would be one of those more resistant to change. But in a business like professional football, where toughness is the greatest virtue, my-way-or-the-highway has been the accepted management style. For a couple days last week, the biggest story in the NFL was the news that new Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury planned to give his players “cell phone breaks” during lengthy meetings…. Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials, Work, Workplace
Education in the 21st century: Technology is a means, not the ends
Posted On March 28, 2019
Many of the jobs in today’s workplace wouldn’t have been fathomable a decade ago. How are our schools preparing today’s students for them? Our guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working With Cam Marston” is on the front lines of that battle. Blair Fisher, head of school at St. Paul’s Episcopal School in Mobile, says that incorporating technology into the classroom, while important, is only part of the solution. “There are definite ways where technology, if thoughtfully deployed, can help learning, but I far too often see it where the technology becomes and end in itself, and it’s whatever… Read More
Categories: Education, Podcast, What's Working with Cam Marston
Why “coaching is coaching” is a myth
Posted On March 20, 2019
You don’t need me to tell you that women are a force in today’s workplace – just look around. Women are established at all levels of management, from corporate boardrooms to main street entrepreneurs, even in industries that were once completely male-dominated. But are they motivated in the same ways as men? Should managers coach or mentor them in the same ways? Or are there mentoring approaches that work with men that might not be as effective with women, and vice versa? In the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston,” I asked these questions to two women who… Read More
Categories: Podcast, What's Working with Cam Marston, Women, Workplace
Creating significance: How to sell young people on hard work
Posted On March 8, 2019
Have you ever heard that kids these days don’t really want to work? Do you often feel that way yourself? Our guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” would disagree. Sid Sexton, founder and president of Daphne, Alabama-based Sexton Lawn & Landscape, has made a living – and a thriving business – off selling young people on the benefits of hard work, and watching them succeed at it. Lazy millennials? “That has not been my experience,” Sexton says. Sexton, a former college soccer player and U.S. Coast Guard veteran, started his landscape business 15 years ago… Read More
Categories: Podcast, What's Working with Cam Marston, Work, Workplace
Women are fueling a resurgence in millennial household incomes
Posted On March 5, 2019
We all know the economic issues with which the millennial generation has been saddled. We’ve all heard the stories of millennials moving back in with their parents and struggling to make ends meet while paying off exorbitant student loans. But there is good news: According to the Pew Research Center, incomes are rising and millennial households now earn more than young adult households of any generation in the last 50 years. The median income for a millennial household in 2017 was $69,000, less than $10,000 lower than the typical Baby Boomer household (just over $77,000). Generation X households, enjoying their… Read More
Categories: Blog, Generation Y / Millennials, Wealth, Women, Work
Keeping It Real – March 1, 209 – Why “who am I to judge” is a cop out when it comes to judging character
Posted On March 1, 2019
Keeping It Real – March 1, 2019 Why “who am I to judge” is a cop out when it comes to judging character. And why we are all worthy judges.
Categories: Keeping It Real
Creating connections: The key to a happy workplace
Posted On March 1, 2019
Is it the job of an employer, or a workplace, to ensure that its employees are happy? Many Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers would argue that most employees should be happy just to have a job. Many millennials, however, will tell you that workplace environment is an extremely important factor to them in deciding where to work. Which of them are right? I asked my guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” — Dr. Elise Labbé-Coldsmith, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of South Alabama. And the answer I got was: Probably both. Research shows people… Read More
Categories: What's Working with Cam Marston, Work, Workplace
One way to survive lean times: Keeping your operation lean
Posted On February 26, 2019
When the housing market crashed in 2008, Mobile builder Rogers & Willard found themselves in the same situation as pretty much every other construction company in America. After the crash, the company limped through 2009 on only a third of the revenue it had enjoyed in 2008. Times were lean. But fortunately for Rogers & Willard, “lean” is something with which it was already familiar. Our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston,” Rogers & Willard president Mike Rogers says the company survived those tough years by keeping its operation lean as a matter of principle,… Read More
Categories: Entrepreneurship, Real Estate, Recession Economy, What's Working with Cam Marston, Work