Think & Link by Capsule

Our two brilliant guests will help us make sense of this ever-present, ever-shifting dynamic. We have Kymm Bartlett Martinez of Wilder Marketing Group and formerly head of marketing at the University of St Thomas. And, we have Yumi Clevenger-Lee of Quest Global to discuss their successes using acquisitions to build a culture-first engineering consulting business that boasts 13,000 people across 17...

We’ve paired Randy with Ben Erwin, the CEO of Charitybuzz. This designed organization turns the creative gift of an introduction into a great cause. You can bid on meetings with celebrities, business moguls, chefs and other highly coveted people. Win and you’re off to a meeting with Theodore Anthony “Ted” Sarandos the current co-ceo of Netflix. Your bid goes to Ted’s listed charity.

We have the former Global Head of Marketing from TikTok,  Nick Tran  who is also the former Head of Marketing at FarFetch and  Michelle Hanson  the Head of Marketing of The Village Company. We’ll likely be talking about what Mr Bubbles has been doing on TikTok and the future of this venture.   Areas of learning from this episode: One: The luxury design curator FarFetch and what they see in the fut...

We have Portia Hart, founder of Blue Apple Beach, Amare Beach and Manzana Azul, the operating business surrounding these exotic ventures. And, we now have Wendy Meadley and David Loehr of World Expo 2031, specifically the Horticulture Expo hopefully coming to Minnesota. Spend some time exploring what Portia is doing for sustainable travel and triple bottom line thinking. Look into Wendy and David...

Welcome to Think & Link, where we explore creativity, design and human imagination. Brought to you by Capsule, a special projects agency in Northeast Minneapolis working with clients like Patagonia, Herman Miller, Red Wing Shoes, Tyson Foods, and Pepsi Co..   We have Tyler LaMotte, a friend of Capsule since he hired us while working at Patagonia for what is now a famous bit of packaging design...

This will be an intellectual sparring session with two great minds challenging each other to elevate how we study and design experiences. Both of these guests have made appearances on our stage before, and as before they come with a full quiver of inspired stories to share.   We have the gentleman of design, James Damian, former head of design from Best Buy. He is paired with the author of “Why We...

Todd Allard and Jeremy Ericson are back together again. In the high school yearbook of life these two characters were voted most likely to work together, find their way to leadership positions and push the boundaries of their respective organizations. These two have fulfilled all the promises made in the margins of their respective yearbooks   Together, we rebranded a tarnished education instituti...

AI is here. Resistance is futile. Ignorance is not bliss (in this case). And, every industry will need to work out its relationship, adoption and perhaps even leveraging of Artificial Intelligence. It is predicted to be a larger revolution than the Internet and will change the value of nearly everything.   We have two guests, Paul Allen and Dan Mallin, who have been swimming in the deep end of the...

We are going cycling for this episode of Think & Link; and we’ll have the joy of Phil Liggett as our voice. He is the NBC Sports Commentator for cycling, and happens to be friends with Edward Wimmer, Founder/CEO, Road ID, a technology and fashion item for marathoners, cyclists, and extreme athletes who may sometimes put themselves in a situation where an ID like this is a necessary caution. We...

Question: What do the Catsup Crapper, Think the Unthinkable, Sparking Creativity, and The Aeron Chair have in common? Answer: Topics that will likely come up when Barry and Luke take the Think & Link stage in October.   We’re talking creativity, innovation and design in October with two authors, professors and grand thinkers. We have Dr Barry Kudrowitz paired with Luke Williams on the Think &a...

We have Bruno Singulani, global brand identity and design from Nestle along with Nicole Atchison, CEO of PURIS Holdings here in Minneapolis. PURIS is cultivating the future of food through a plant-based approach using peas. And Nestle is a global brand in food as a key to enhancing the quality of life for everyone.

We have  Omar Ansari , Founder,  Surly Brewing  paired with  Andy Pearson , VP of Creative  Liquid Death . Both of these individuals and brands have been swimming upstream, defying the norm and breaking the molds of their respective categories. We think this pairing is so good, Apple Pie and Ice Cream are going to be jealous. Areas of learning from this episode: One: What it takes to question auth...

We’ve been rather proud of our pairings at Think & Link; Pants Optional, but we’ve outdone ourselves this time. We’re pairing Château La Mission Haut Brion Bordeaux red wine with the best meal you’ve ever enjoyed. We have  Vince Voron , formerly of Apple, Coke, Dolby and now with Ripple, he is known for designing iconic elements into brands. And,  Soon Yu , Author, Innovator, Formerly VF Corp;...

If you’re a fan of behind-the-scenes brand stories, we’ve got you covered in this Think & Link pairing. We have Guy Kawasaki and Lisa Mann on the stage and their combined experiences have influenced this fantastic list of brands; Apple, Kind, PepsiCo, StumbleUpon, Canva, Motorola, Oreo, Chips Ahoy!, and Trident.  And, those are just the public ones, there are certainly more unlisted.

We’ll be talking about the importance of activity, getting outdoors, connecting with nature, entrepreneurship, loved brands, designed experiences, and so much more with this inspired global leader. Joy Howard is one of our favorites we met while working with Patagonia. After leaving Patagonia, she went on to lead marketing at Sonos and Lyft before launching her own venture, Early Majority—a beauti...

There’s something intuitively elegant when these two founders are on the stage.  Ashley Sumner  is the founder of  Quilt , an audio social app designed to be a safe space and started a meme in the founder community with “I am a XFemaleX Founder”.  Jann Parish  was an iconic CMO and left it behind to become a co-founder of  GLU, Girls Like You , a beauty brand with her daughter Lila.

In this episode, we have the iconic David Rubin, Chief Marketing Officer of The New York Times. Yes, that little known publisher has agreed to grace our show. David’s only requirement was a pairing with a legend in marketing Fernando Machado, the former Chief Marketing Officer of Burger King and Activision Blizzard. Fernando and David will be talking about digital transformation, returning vibranc...

In this episode we cover retail, design and the arts, a trio of subjects delivered perfectly by this duo of founders. We have Megan Tamte , founder of EVEREVE and Mercedes Austin , founder of Mercury Mosaics on the show, just in time for some Black Friday retail therapy blended with art and design. If you’re at all interested in a creative model of retail growth, designed by Megan, this will be a...

In this episode we explore leadership and culture, the flour and water in a recipe for an exceptional organization.  We have the pleasure of welcoming our client from Zurich, Switzerland based venture, Katadyn and Shawn Hostetter , who led the North American organization and delivered amazing results with our Capsule team. Shawn is paired with DeAnna Murphy , an organizational development leader a...

In this episode, we show our love for product and experience design. Angie Tebbe of Rae Wellness and Kate Lubenesky of W&P are two amazing entrepreneurs who have used design to improve the little things in our lives.  And, by little, we don’t mean unimportant.  In fact, these bits of how we live make a big impact on how we thrive. We hope you’ll see why we admire these two founders for their c...

In this episode we are taking the Think & Link discussion to intellectual curiosities born of blending science and design. We thought of no two better representatives than Eric Quint of 3M Design, paired with the co-director of Science House, Rita J. King . In her words, Science House is a cathedral of the imagination in Manhattan focused on the art and science of doing business. Eric is the f...

In this episode we are excited to have Amanda Brinkman of Sunshine Studios and Lisa Armstrong formerly of Resideo on the podcast. Amanda started the show Small Business Revolution while helping all of us question why we can’t do more good while doing well. Lisa has led marketing in large technical organizations, earning herself icon status in our community.  We cover some very interesting topics w...

On our stage we have former client, Dan Buettner of Blue Zones and our friend Scott Lien of GrandPad. Dan is a researcher, author, Netflix special host and Founder of Blue Zones, a company studying and implementing evidence-based ways to help people live longer and better. Scott is the Co-Founder of GrandPad, a technology company reshaping the way seniors connect with their loved ones. Together, o...

In today's episode, we have a representative from FabFitFun, Ryan Waymire, on the Think & Link podcast to talk about what they are seeing. Along with Ryan we have Kara Goldin, the founder of Hint Water and the only person we know who has had a drink with Maria Shriver. We’ll be talking about women in entrepreneurship and what the near future looks like through their lenses.

This episode, we are going deep into the world of bike culture with Rich Tauer , President of QBP (Quality Bike Products) paired with Erik Saltvold , Founder, Erik’s Bikes . We will discuss a number of other topics related to bikes, like org culture, marketing, entrepreneurship, leadership and saddle soreness after your first century ride.