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The 2019 film, Automation, is bad. It has a poorly written screenplay and awful acting. The worst part of the movie is probably the special effects. For a movie about automation, you’d think they would have used better tools. They could have used Autodesk’s Design and Make Platform to put out something more than a guy in a robot suit but instead, we got practical effects that are rather embarrassi...

The Big Bang Theory touched on all kinds of nerd culture, including Role Playing Games, known as RPGs. RPGs can be tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons or Massively Multiplayer Online games known as MMOs or specifically, MMORPGs. Many RPGs share some specific basics – you create a character that has a specific role, backstory, and specific attributes or skills. Those attributes can be enhanced...

The medical drama, New Amsterdam, features Dr. Max Goodwin as the new Medical Director for one America’s oldest public hospitals. Max strives to do something that seems oddly revolutionary – put patients first. Among his first acts to impact patient experience are to eliminate the Emergency Department waiting room and to bring healthy food into the hospital. Throughout the series, he attempts radi...

The video for the 2005 hit, “Dirty Little Secret” by the All-American Rejects featured a montage of people holding up post cards sharing their own “dirty little secrets.” Secrets seem to be part of the human condition, and they’re not limited to individuals. Industries, companies, and functions within companies all have their own dirty little secrets. Sometimes, those secrets are simply a result o...

While 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap was the genesis of the “mockumentary” genre, it hit so close to home that many viewers (even to this day) believe that Spinal Tap is a real band. The movie shows multiple event mishaps, including cancelled shows, improperly sized props, equipment malfunctions, and even a misbilling as a puppet show. Working as and with musicians (especially those in the rock/metal/p...

While it was Muhammad Ali who first used the phrase “different strokes for different folks” when referring to his fighting style, it was Sly and the Family Stone who embodied how we think of it today. While they weren’t the first group to feature both black and white musicians, or male and female musicians, or be a vocal group, or be a rock band, or have a horn section and gospel backing vocals, t...

Customer Experience is on the decline in almost every sector. In 1987’s Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Steve Martin’s character embodied the frustration many customers feel today. His expletive-laden tirade at a disinterested and unhelpful car rental agent played by Edie McClurg might resonate with many customers today. If it were a real company, some might suggest Marathon Car Rental should hi...

For nearly 50 years, a mere two musical notes have evoked suspense for those who have seen the 1975 film, Jaws. The movie launched the career of composer, John Williams, and the movie became the prototype of the summer blockbuster. Roy Schneider’s character, police chief Martin Brody, leads a small team of two experts to go after the beach town’s biggest problem – a man-eating great white shark. B...

The Six Millon Dollar Man (a.k.a. Steve Austin) was the result of an opportunity to design a man who was augmented with technology. The 70’s series ran from 1973 to 1978, if you include the first 3 “pilot” episodes that were actually made-for-TV movies. Its use of slow-motion combined with “bionic” sound-effects made Steve Austin (and Lee Majors, the actor who portrayed him) a major cultural icon...

Tina Turner’s hit, We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome) was the theme to the 1985 film, MAD MAX: Beyond Thunderdome. Given her personal history, one might imagine this song having meaning well beyond the movie’s themes. Afterall, heroes are typically portrayed as men deserving our admiration. Their flaws are often minimized or outright ignored because of their achievements. Be it personally or...

Customer Experience initiatives can often feel like we’re doing something as complicated as learning to fly. Tom Petty’s 1991 hit was inspired by a quote from a pilot who said that the hardest part was coming down. That safe landing is ultimately the return you’re looking for when you’re flying. It’s a fairly simple way to measure success. For Customer Experience initiatives, measuring success can...

Eternal Inflation is the idea that baby universes are being created all the time. It’s actually a dominant theory in cosmology today, not just an idea invented in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When Tom Holland’s Peter Parker (aka Spiderman) starts babbling on about the multiverse in 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, he’s actually babbling about current quantum mechanics and string theory. What it...

In 1978, James Burke, a science historian, brought us the TV series Connections. His interdisciplinary approach to exploring the history of scientific achievements demonstrated how interconnected so many things were. Burke’s contention was that one cannot consider the development of any piece of the modern world in isolation. Isolationist thinking is, of course, not limited to science. It happens...

Just because you attach numbers to something doesn’t necessarily give it credence – Even Ron Burgundy can sniff that out. This scene from 2004’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy featuring Will Ferrell as the title character and Paul Rudd as Brian Fantana encapsulates a quote popularized by Mark Twain – “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Business decisions are...

The 2013 film, Wolf of Wall Street, perfectly illustrates the power of FOMO in this scene. Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Jordan Belfort, uses a detailed sales script to elicit FOMO to drive stock purchases from strangers. First identified in 1996 by marketing strategist Dr. Dan Herman, FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out, is a driving force behind many decisions we make in the modern age. In part, this...

The 1965 Beatles hit, Help!, was written during the height of Beatlemania. Released a month before their famous record-setting concert at New York’s Shea Stadium that drew over 55,000 screaming fans, it went to #1 in both the UK and US and was the fourth of six straight #1 singles in a row for the Fab Four. The little band from Liverpool was now the biggest band in the world. John Lennon’s lyrics...

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life is the comedic conclusion to Monty Python’s 1979 film, The Life of Brian. If you’ve never seen the film, the irony is that it’s sung by Eric Idle’s character to Graham Chapman’s character, both of whom are being, quite literally, crucified. It’s come to signify the “stiff upper lip” spirit of the British people and has become the most popular song played at B...

Resilience can be embodied many ways. In the case of the Beastie Boys’ 1989 album Paul’s Boutique, which featured Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun, it’s embodied by the fact that the album, a flop on release, went double platinum in 1999, nearly 10 years after its release. In the lyrics, they mention Bruce Willis who’s come to embody resilience based on his portrayal of John McClane in 1988’s Die...

In the world of punk music, there’s probably no greater insult than to be labeled a sellout. In 1980, the Dead Kennedys were assuredly not sellouts. Invited to the 1980 Bay Area Music Awards to play their indie hit, California Über Alles, the Kennedys did exactly what you would expect a punk bank opening for the likes of Eddie Money and Huey Lewis to do – they threw up a metaphorical middle finger...

Woody Harrelson’s best-known basketball-related film may be 1992’s White Men Can’t Jump, but his 2023 film, Champions, is a far better primer in leadership, especially when it comes to taking over a new team. He plays Marcus Marakovich, a basketball coach doing community service coaching a team of players with learning disabilities to avoid jail time. In this moment, he’s introduced to Cosentino,...

In 1988’s Big, Tom Hanks brought the perspective of a 13-year-old boy, Josh, into the toy design world. It’s a jarring experience for the seasoned executive, Paul, played by John Heard. Despite all the data Paul presented in this meeting demonstrating the potential of his skyscraper bot, Josh brought a different data point – the real voice of the customer. Josh knew kids and how they thought, not...

On the heels of one of the biggest hits of all time, the Rolling Stones sent Get Off of My Cloud to #1 in 1965. While the Stones may have felt they were on cloud nine after the success of (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, their management was immediately on them for a follow-up. Just wanting to be left alone, Get Off of My Cloud was a direct response to the pressure to never rest and continually pump...

2002’s Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones introduced the Kaminoans, a civilization skilled at cloning. Like many skilled at developing specific technologies, the cloners of Kamino didn’t spend much time thinking about the impacts of their work. They were skilled at genetic engineering, and they found customers willing to pay for those skills. Today, cloning people is still taboo but closin...

Despite Han Solo’s skepticism in the 1977 classic, Star Wars, the Marksman-H training remote was used to train Jedi for roughly 900 years. They were quick and unpredictable just like a living opponent. They provided instant performance feedback and they could be used at scale, offering unique but simultaneous training experiences to an entire class of Padawans (Jedi trainees for you non-nerds). Th...

Seattle is known for grunge rock. But before grunge, the Young Fresh Fellows were pumping out punky power pop. And they’re still going strong today. Rock ‘n’ Roll Pest Control, from their 1984 debut is about how the power of music can help all manner of mental pests. But when you have pests like insects or rodents invading your home, music won’t make them go away. You’ll need actual pest control....