Identifying the trends shaping today’s workplace, workforce, and marketplace and discussions on culture and society. Guests bring insight and lessons into the trends shaping their business, allowing listeners to learn, adapt, and get a little bit better at whatever it is they do.
The What’s Working with Cam Marston® 90-Second Business Tips are broadcasting 415+ times each weekday in 46 markets across the country.
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Known variously as the iGen or Gen Z, the next generation workforce has experienced some doozies that will shape their take on the workplace and our world in general: Covid, election disputes, Afghanistan, vaccine division. The list goes on. How will it impact them? My guest is my 18 year old daughter the day before my wife and I took her to college. I interrupt her and my conversation to add context to what my generational studies have revealed about her world and the workplace’s future.
Rob Holbert is the managing editor of Lagniappe Weekly in Mobile, Alabama. Watt Key is a fiction writer with at least a dozen published books under his belt. I write weekly commentaries for Alabama Public Radio. The three of us read a five hundred word commentary we prepared for this broadcast and then discuss how we go about our writing.
Why are lumber prices at an all time high? Is it Covid? Labor shortages? Tariffs? It’s all of the above plus many more things including the freeze in Texas last year that froze chemical plants, too few long-haul truckers, bugs in Canada, Chinese goods through Vietnam. The list is overwhelming. It’s a perfect storm of random events and there appears to be no end in sight. Bert Scarbrough of Premier Lumber and homebuilder Brian Robertson give me the details.
We can’t get enough of this guy. Kieron Elliot had us at “sláinte” (pronounced SLAN-ja and meaning “cheers!”) when I heard him giving a presentation on Instagram. He agreed to be on What’s Working and we discuss The Macallan’s plans for bringing Millennials into their brand and he walks me through how to taste two of their signature bottlings for the US – The Macallan 12 and 15 Double Cask. Per Kieron, “chew it.” Chewing it gets the salivary glands involved.
Mobilian Watt Key’s first published book was Alabama Moon and it hit big. Schools picked it up for summer reading. Movie rights were reserved and then purchased. Since then Watt has published a bunch more books and he could keep going but there have been some headwinds in the publishing industry impacting Watt’s ability to tell stories the way he wants to tell them. So, Watt’s going to pivot. In this extended interview we learn what’s worked, where the challenges are, and hear Watt’s plans for the next chapter in his career.
Many parents expect their kids to take care of them when they get old. The kids have no plans to do so. Many kids think they’ll receive a fat inheritance when their parents die. The parents will spend every penny to stay alive with some quality of life. And it’s here that long term care insurance becomes important. With a great number of friends assisting aging parents, this topic has landed on high on my radar.
Also, a commentary from friend of show David Webb on a recent disheartening trip he took to New Orleans.
You’ve seen Frank Wood on TV or on the movie screen or on a Broadway stage. He’s busy with his craft. And the process he and a cast go through as they take on a new play is the epitome of how to form a high-performing team. It involves listening to fellow cast members (teammates), taking direction from the director (team leader), taking a strong position on your character (your role in the team), and being eager to be redirected and refocused if the director feels there is something better you can contribute.
Bill-E Stitt impressed us with his bacon when we first met him. Now after sampling his bacon and hearing his story and getting to know the legend that is Bill E Stitt, we can’t get enough of him or his product. Seldom do we interact with anything that is the “world’s best,” but Bill E’s bacon is just that.
Based in Los Angeles, Kieron Elliot is national brand ambassador for the Macallan Scotch Whiskey in the US. We discuss the Macallan’s strategy for introducing a whiskey typically preferred by older, white, affluent males to the next generation. Kieron tells me their customer is already much more diverse than I’m aware and we sample some of the Macallan’s offerings on the air. (Warning – this episode will make you want to sample a good scotch. And you definitely should.)
The overwhelming underperformance of boys in academics has slowly been revealing itself for years and now the data shows the depth of it. The impact ranges from the future of eduction, performance in the workplace, to the competitiveness of the United States. Blair Fisher is an educator and head of school at Mobile’s St. Paul’s Episcopal School and monitors education trends. He joins me to discuss this alarming phenomenon. Think this doesn’t concern you? Think again. (This content will be controversial to some.)
