What is your obligation to improve the health of our planet?
For the CEO – Look around. Look at Europe. Look at China’s plans. Look at the startups. I know you want to achieve your growth objectives, but if you don’t take seriously the race toward cleaner products and services, you’ll go out of business. You can see this as a problem or an opportunity. Bury your head or put on your track shoes and run! It’s your choice.
Look at the oceans. Look at the landfills. Look at the rise in global temperatures. Just look. This isn’t about ROI, this is about survival. Growth objectives aside, no one will buy things when they are struggling to survive in an uncertain future. Your same old dirty products won’t cut it anymore. So, what are you going to do?
For an example of a path forward, look to the companies in the oil business. Their recipe is clear. They’ve got to use their large but ever-diminishing profits to buy themselves into technologies and industries that will ultimately eat their core business. Though the timing is uncertain, it’s certain that improvements in cleaner technologies will demand they make the change.
Whatever you do, don’t wait. You don’t have much time. Cleaner technologies are getting better every day. It’s time to start.
For Marketing – Look at the upstarts. Look at the powerful companies in adjacent markets who will soon be your direct competitors. Look at your stodgy, unprofitable competitors who are now sufficiently desperate to try anything. Their next marketing push will be built on the bedrock of an improved planet. They’ll be almost as good as you in the traditional areas of productivity and quality and they’ll blow your doors off with their meaner and greener products. Customers will choose green over brown. And they’ll look for real improvements that make the planet smile. The time for green-washing is past. That trick is out of gas.
You need to help customers with new jobs to be done. They care about their environment. They care about their carbon footprint. They care about clean water. And they care about recycling and reuse. It’s real. They care. Now it’s up to you to help them make progress in these areas. It will be a tough road to convince your company that things need to change, but that’s why you’re in Marketing.
You’re already behind. It’s time to start. And it’s up to you to lead the charge.
For Manufacturing – Look at your Value Stream Maps (VSMs). Assign a carbon footprint to each link in the chain. And do the same with water consumption. Assess each process step for carbon and water and rank them worst to best. For the worst, run carbon kaizens and improve the carbon footprint. And run water kaizens for the thirstiest processes.
And look again at your VSMs, and look more broadly. Look back into the supply chain, rank for carbon and water and improve the ones that need the treatment. And teach your suppliers how to do it. And look forward into your distribution channels and improve or eliminate the worst actors. And then propose to Marketing that you teach your customers how to use VSMs to clean up their act. And challenge Engineering to change the design to eliminate the remaining bad actors.
You’ve made good progress with your value streams. Now it’s time to help others make the progress that must be made. As subject matter experts, it’s your time to shine. And, please, start now.
For Engineering – Look at your products. Look at how they’re used. Look at how they’re delivered. Look at how they’re made. Look at how they’re recycled. Sure, your products provide good functionality, but throughout their life cycle they also create carbon dioxide and consume water. And you’re the only ones that can design out the environmental impact.
Learn how to do a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Learn which elements of the product create the largest problems. For all the parts that make up the product, sort them worst to best to prioritize the design work. It’s time for radical part count reduction. Try to design out half the parts. It’s possible. And the payoff is staggering. What’s the carbon footprint of a part that was designed out of the product?
Or, to make a more radical improvement, consider an Innovation Burst Event (IBE) to make a fundamental change in the way your products/services impact the environment. With this approach, your innovation work, by definition, will make the planet smile.
It’s time to be open-minded. Ask Manufacturing for the worst processes (including supply chain and distribution) and try to design them out. Design out the part, or change the material, or change the design to enable a friendlier process. Manufacturing can only improve a bad process, but you can design them out altogether. There’s power in that, but with power comes responsibility.
And it’s time for you to take responsibility.
For Everyone in Industry – Regardless of your company, your country or your political affiliation, we can all agree that all our lives get better as the health of our planet improves. And everyone can agree that cleaner air is better. And everyone can agree it’s the same for our water – cleaner is better. And that’s a whole lot of agreement.
As industry leaders, I challenge you to build on that common ground. As industry leaders, I challenge you to improve our planet one product at a time and one process at a time. And as industry leaders, I challenge you to help each other. There’s no competitive disadvantage when you help a company outside your industry. And there’s no shame in learning from companies outside your industry. And it’s good for the planet and profits. There’s nothing in the away. It’s time to start.
As an industry leader, if you want to make a difference in the health of our planet, drop a comment.
Image credit: Pixabay
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I’m going to start this article with a theme I’ve preached for years: When it comes to customer service and experience, our customers no longer compare us just to our competitors. Their mental benchmark, whether they know it or not, comes from the best experience they have had from any company or brand. It’s companies like Amazon, Apple, Costco, Chick-fil-A, and others that excel in providing an experience that gets customers to come back, that become our customers’ standard for service. When they have anything other than a positive experience, they may say something like, “Why can’t they be as good as _____?” (Fill in the blank with their favorite company.)
With that in mind, I’d like to offer up the idea that if we focus on creating an experience based on trying to be better than a competitor, and that may mean you are the best in your industry, it still may not meet a customer’s expectations. All you are is the best dog in a horse race.
Being best in your industry means best in class, but as I just mentioned, it may not be enough. What you want to do is start comparing yourself – as in your company – to the obvious customer experience leaders. No, you may not be able to do what Amazon or Apple do, but using them as a model can help you move from best in class to world class.
So, how can you make this shift? Start by identifying what makes world-class companies so appealing to their customers. In my annual customer service and customer experience (CX) research, we find the best companies and brands share certain traits:
Consistency – Customers can predict their experience every time. It’s not great one time and the next time just average. Consistency creates predictability, and if the consistent experience is what customers want and know they will get, they come back.
Quick Response – Whether it’s Amazon’s instant confirmation emails or a faster-than-expected returned phone call or email, customers love it when the companies they do business with are fast in their communication.
Empowered Employees – Your customers are frustrated when they are dealing with employees who aren’t allowed to make decisions. If you hire good people and train them well, let them do their job. Not only will customers be happy, but your employees will appreciate the company they work for even more.
Friction-Free – I wrote an entire book on this topic, The Convenience Revolution. Find ways to be easy to do business with. Eliminate anything that is a hassle or has friction associated with it.
Here’s why I love these ideas. You don’t have to be Amazon or Apple to implement any of these. Any company, regardless of size or industry, can do this. You don’t need a technology budget to respond to customers quickly or empower your team.
Look at your customer journey and ask: What would world-class companies, such as Amazon, do at this touch point?” Or, “How would Apple handle this situation?” This exercise can reveal the opportunities you might miss when you’re only comparing yourself to your direct competitors.
Image Credits: Pixabay
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The publisher of my second book – Charting Change – is having a 24-hour FLASH SALE and so you can get the hardcover, softcover or the eBook for 50% off the list price using CODE 50FLSH until October 3, 2025, 11:59PM EDT. The new second edition includes loads of new content including additional guest expert sections and chapters on business architecture, project and portfolio management, and digital and business transformations!
I stumbled across this and wanted to share with everyone so if you haven’t already gotten a copy of this book to power your digital transformation or your latest project or change initiative to success, now you have no excuse!
Of course you can get 10 free tools here from the book, but if you buy the book and contact me I will send you 26 free tools from the 50+ tools in the Change Planning Toolkit™ – including the Change Planning Canvas™!
*If discount is not applied automatically, please use this code: 50FLSH. The discount is available through October 3, 2025. This offer is valid for English-language Springer, Palgrave & Apress books & eBooks. The discount is redeemable on link.springer.com only. Titles affected by fixed book price laws, forthcoming titles and titles temporarily not available on link.springer.com are excluded from this promotion, as are reference works, handbooks, encyclopedias, subscriptions, or bulk purchases. The currency in which your order will be invoiced depends on the billing address associated with the payment method used, not necessarily your home currency. Regional VAT/tax may apply. Promotional prices may change due to exchange rates.
This offer is valid for individual customers only. Booksellers, book distributors, and institutions such as libraries and corporations please visit springernature.com/contact-us. This promotion does not work in combination with other discounts or gift cards.
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The rise of artificial intelligence isn’t just an upgrade to our technology; it’s a fundamental shift in what it means to be human and what it takes to lead a successful business. We’ve entered a new epoch defined by “synthetic humanity,” a term coined by Mark Schaefer to describe AI interactions that are indistinguishable from real human connection. This blurring of lines creates an enormous opportunity, which Mark Schaefer refers to as a “seam” — a moment of disruption wide open for innovators. But as algorithms become more skilled at simulating empathy and insight, what must leaders do to maintain authenticity and relevancy? In this exclusive conversation, Mark Shaefer breaks down why synthetic humanity is the most crucial concept for leaders to grasp today, how to use AI as a partner rather than a replacement, and the vital role of human creativity in a world of supercharged innovation.
The Internet, Smartphones, Social Media, and Now AI, Have All Shifted Customer Expectations
Mark Schaefer is a globally-acclaimed author, keynote speaker, and marketing consultant. He is a faculty member of Rutgers University and one of the top business bloggers and podcasters in the world. How AI Changes Your Customers: The Marketing Guide to Humanity’s Next Chapter is his twelfth book, exploring what companies should consider when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) and their customers.
Below is the text of my interview with Mark and a preview of the kinds of insights you’ll find in How AI Changes Your Customers presented in a Q&A format:
1. I came across the term ‘synthetic humanity’ fairly early on in the book. Why is this concept so important, and what are the most important aspects for leaders to consider?
“Synthetic humanity” is my term for describing the emerging wave of AI interactions that appear, sound, and even feel human — yet are not human at all. This is not science fiction. Already, chatbots can hold natural conversations, generate art, or simulate empathy in ways that blur the line between authentic and artificial.
For leaders, this matters because customers don’t care whether an experience is powered by code or carbon; they care about how it feels. If synthetic humanity can deliver faster, easier, and more personalized service, people will embrace it. The more machines convincingly mimic us, the more vital it becomes to emphasize distinctly human qualities like compassion, vulnerability, creativity, and trust.
Leaders must navigate two urgent questions: Where do we lean into automation for efficiency? And where do we intentionally preserve human touch for meaning? Synthetic humanity can scale interactions, but it cannot scale authenticity. The most successful brands will be those that strike this balance — leveraging AI’s strengths while showcasing the irreplaceable heartbeat of humanity.
2. We discuss disruption quite a bit here on this blog. Can you share a bit more with our innovators about ‘seams’ and the opportunities they create with AI or otherwise?
Throughout history, disruptions to the status quo, such as pandemics, wars, or economic recessions, can either sink a business or elevate it to new heights. Every disruption creates a seam — a moment where the fabric of culture, business, or belief rips just wide enough for an innovator to crawl through and create something new.
We might be living in the ultimate seam.
Google CEO Sundar Pinchai calls AI the most significant innovation in human history — more important than fire, medicine, or the internet. The power of AI seems absolute and threatening. For many, it’s terrifying.
Through my new book, I’m trying to get people to view disruption through a different lens: not fear, but immense possibility.
3. Given that AI has access to all of our accumulated wisdom, does it actually create unique insights and ideas, or will innovation always be left to the humans?
AI is extraordinary at remixing existing content. It can scan millions of data points, connect patterns we might miss, and surface possibilities at lightning speed. That feels like insight, and sometimes it is. However, there is a crucial distinction: AI doesn’t truly care. It lacks context, longing, and lived experience.
Innovation often begins with a problem that aches to be solved or a vision that comes from deep within human culture. AI can suggest ten thousand options, but only a person can say, “This one matters because it touches our values, our customers, our future.”
So the real power is in the partnership. AI accelerates discovery, clears away routine work, and even provokes us with new connections. Humans bring the spark of meaning, the intuition, and the courage to act on something that has never been tried before. Innovation is not being replaced. It is being supercharged. In my earlier book “Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World,” I note that the bots are here, but we still own crazy!
This is a time for humans to transcend “competent.” Bots can be competent and ignorable.
4. Do you have any tips for us mere mortals on how to productively use AI without developing creative and intellectual atrophy?
Yes, and it starts with how you frame the role of AI in your life. If you treat it as a replacement, you risk letting your creative muscles go slack. If you treat it as a partner, you can actually get stronger.
Here are a few practical approaches. First, use AI to stretch your perspective, not to finish your work for you. Ask it to give you ten angles on a problem, then choose one and make it your own. Second, set boundaries. Write your first draft by hand or sketch ideas before you ever touch a prompt. Let AI react to your thinking, not define it. Third, use the tool to challenge yourself. Feed it your work and ask, “What am I missing? Where are my blind spots?”
Most importantly, keep doing hard things. Struggle is where growth happens. AI can smooth the path, but sometimes you need the climb. Treat the technology as a coach, not a crutch, and you will come out sharper, faster, and even more creative on the other side.
5. I’ve heard a little bit about AI literacy. What are some of the critical aspects that we should all be aware of or try to learn more about?
There are a few critical aspects everyone should know. First, bias. AI models are trained on human data, which means they inherit our blind spots and prejudices. If you don’t recognize this, you may mistake bias for truth. Second, limits. AI is confident even when it is wrong. Knowing how to fact-check and verify is essential. Third, prompting. The quality of your input shapes the quality of the output, so learning how to ask better questions is a new core skill.
Finally, ethics. Just because AI can do something does not mean it should. We all need to be asking: How does this affect privacy, autonomy, and trust?
AI literacy isn’t about becoming a coder. It is about being a thoughtful user, a skeptic when needed, and a leader who understands both the promise and the peril of these tools.
6. What do companies and sole proprietors worried about falling below the fold of the new AI-powered search results need to change online to stay relevant and successful?
I have many practical ideas about this in the book. In short, the old game of chasing clicks and keywords is fading. AI-powered search doesn’t just list links, it delivers answers. That means the winners will be those whose content and presence are woven deeply enough into the digital fabric that the algorithms can’t ignore them.
This requires a shift in focus. Instead of creating content that only ranks, create content that is referenced, cited, and trusted across the web. Build authority by being the source others turn to. Make your ideas so distinct and valuable that they become part of the training data itself. We are entering a golden age for PR!
It also means doubling down on brand signals that AI can’t manufacture. Human stories, original research, strong communities, and unique perspectives will travel farther than generic blog posts. And remember, AI models reward freshness and relevance, so showing up consistently matters.
The book also covers what I call “overrides.” If you create a meaningful, loyal relationship with customers and word of mouth recommendations, that will override the AI recommendations. We consider AI recommendations. We ACT on human recommendations.
7. ‘Weaponizing kindness’ was a terrifying headline I stumbled across in your book. What do organizations need to consider when using AI to interact with customers and what traps are out in front of them?
That phrase is unsettling for a reason. AI can mimic empathy so well that it risks crossing into manipulation. Imagine a chatbot that remembers your child’s name, mirrors your mood, or expresses concern in just the right tone. Done responsibly, that feels like service. Done carelessly, it feels like exploitation.
Organizations need to recognize that kindness delivered at scale is powerful, but if it is hollow or purely transactional, customers will sense it. The first trap is confusing simulation with sincerity. Just because an AI can sound caring does not mean it actually cares. The second trap is overreach. Using personal data to create hyper-tailored interactions can quickly slip from helpful to creepy.
The safeguard is transparency and choice. Be clear about when a customer is interacting with AI. Use technology to enhance human care, not replace it. Always provide people with a way to connect with a real person.
Kindness is a sacred trust in business. Weaponize it, and you erode the very loyalty and love you are trying to build. Use it authentically, and you create relationships no machine can ever replicate.
8. What changing customer expectations (thanks to AI) might companies easily overlook and pay a heavy price for?
One of the biggest shifts is speed. Customers already expect instant answers, but AI raises the bar even higher. If your competitor offers a seamless, AI-powered interaction that solves a problem in seconds, your slower, clunkier process will feel intolerable.
Another overlooked expectation is personalization. People are starting to experience products, services, and recommendations that feel almost eerily tailored to them. That sets a new standard. Companies still delivering one-size-fits-all communication will look outdated. Don’t confuse “personalization” with “personal.”
Perhaps the most subtle change is trust. As customers realize machines can fake warmth and empathy, they will value genuine human touch even more. If every interaction feels synthetic, you risk losing trust, especially if you’re not transparent about it.
The price of ignoring these shifts is steep: irrelevance. Customers rarely complain about unmet expectations anymore; they simply leave. The opportunity is to stay alert, listen closely, and respond quickly as AI reshapes what “good enough” looks like. The companies that thrive will be those that not only keep pace with AI, but also double down on the irreplaceable humanity customers still crave.
9. What unintended consequences of AI do you think companies might face and may not be preparing for? (overcoming AI slander and falsehoods might be one – agree or disagree? Others?)
I agree. In fact, I predict in the book that we cannot foresee AI’s biggest impact yet, as it will likely be an unintended consequence of the technology’s use in an unexpected way.
Where could that occur? Maybe reputational risk at scale. AI systems will generate falsehoods with the same confidence they generate facts, and those errors can stick. A single hallucination about your company, repeated enough times, becomes “truth” in the digital bloodstream. Most companies are not prepared for the speed and reach of misinformation of this kind.
Another consequence is customer dependency. If people hand over more of their decisions to AI, they may lose patience for complexity or nuance in your offerings. That can push companies toward oversimplification, even when a richer human experience would build deeper loyalty.
There is also the cultural risk. Employees might over-rely on AI, quietly eroding skills, judgment, and creativity. A workforce that outsources too much thinking can become brittle in ways that only show up during a crisis.
The real challenge is that these consequences don’t announce themselves. They creep in. Which means leaders must actively audit how AI is being used, question where it might distort reality or weaken capability, and set up safeguards now. The companies that prepare will navigate disruption. The ones that ignore it will be blindsided.
10. Can companies make TOO MUCH use of AI? If so, what would the impacts look like?
Yes, and we will start seeing this more often. It is a pattern that has repeated through history — over-indexing on tech and then bringing the people back in!
When companies lean too heavily on AI, they risk draining the very humanity that makes them memorable. On the surface, it might seem like efficiency: faster service, lower costs, and greater scale. But underneath, the impacts can be corrosive. You might be messing with your brand!
Customers may feel manipulated or devalued if a machine drives every interaction. Even perfect personalization can feel hollow if it lacks genuine care. Second, trust erodes when people sense that a brand hides behind automation rather than showing up with real human accountability. Third, within the company, over-reliance on AI can weaken employee judgment and creativity, resulting in a workforce that follows prompts rather than breaking new ground.
The real danger is commoditization. If every company automates everything, then no company stands out. The winners will be those who know when to say, “This moment deserves a person.” AI should be an amplifier, not a replacement. Too much of it and you don’t just lose connection, you lose your soul.
Image credits: BusinessesGrow.com (Mark W Schaefer)
Content Authenticity Statement: If it wasn’t clear above, the short section in italics was written by Google’s Gemini with edits from Braden Kelley, and the rest of this article is from the minds of Mark Schaefer and Braden Kelley.
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But without a way to resolve the fear, time-pressure, and complexity, the project would stay stuck with little change of progressing to success.
Turn Uncertainty Into an Asset
It’s a truism in the field of innovation that you must fall in love with the problem, not the solution. Falling in love with the problem ensures that you remain focused on creating value and agnostic about the solution.
While this sounds great and logically makes sense, most struggle to do it. As a result, it takes incredible strength and leadership to wrestle with the problem long enough to find a solution.
Uncertainty requires the same strength and leadership because the only way out of it is through it. And, research shows, the process of getting through it, turns it into an asset.
Embrace It: Start by acknowledging the uncertainty and that things will change, go wrong, and maybe even fail. Then stay open to surprise and unpredictability, delving into the unknown “by being playful, explorative, and purposefully engaging in ventures with indeterminate outcome.”
Fix It: Especially when dealing with Unknowable Uncertainty, which occurs when more info supports several different meanings rather than pointing to one conclusion, teams that succeed make provisional decisions to “fix” an uncertain dimension so they can move forward while also documenting the rationale for the fix, setting a date to revisit it, and criteria for changing it.
Ignore It: It’s impossible to embrace every uncertainty at once and unwise to fix too many uncertainties at the same time. As a result, some uncertainties, you just need to ignore. Successful teams adopt “strategic ignorance” “not primarily for purposes of avoiding responsibility [but to] allow postponing decisions until better ideas emerge during the collaborative process.
This practice is iterative, often leading to new knowledge, re-examined fixes, and fresh uncertainties. It sounds overwhelming but the teams that are explicit and intentional about what they’re embracing, fixing, and ignoring are not only more likely to be successful, but they also tend to move faster.
Put It Into Practice
Let’s return to NatureComp, a pharmaceutical company developing natural treatments for heart disease.
Throughout the drug development process, they oscillated between addressing What, Who, How, and Where Uncertainties. They did that by changing whether they embraced, fixed, or ignored each type of uncertainty at a given point:
As you can see, they embraced only one type of uncertainty to ensure focus and rapid progress. To avoid the fear of making mistakes, they fixed uncertainties throughout the process and returned to them as more information came available, either changing or reaffirming the fix. Ignoring uncertainties helped relieve feelings of being overwhelmed because the team had a plan and timeframe for when they would shift from ignoring to embracing or fixing.
Uncertainty is Dynamic – You Need to Be Dynamic, Too
You’ll never eliminate uncertainty. It’s too dynamic to every fully resolve. But by dynamically embracing, fixing, and ignore it in all its dimensions, you can accelerate your path to success.
Image credit: Pexels
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In an age of disruption, the only viable strategy is to adapt. Today, we are undergoing major shifts in technology, resources, migration and demography that will demand that we make changes in how we think and what we do. The last time we saw this much change afoot was during the 1920s and that didn’t end well. The stakes are high.
In a recent speech, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell highlighted the need for Europe to change and adapt to shifts in the geopolitical climate. He also pointed out that change involves far more than interests and incentives, carrots and sticks, but even more importantly, identity.
“Remember this sentence,” he said. “’It is the identity, stupid.’ It is no longer the economy, it is the identity.” What he meant was that human beings build attachments to things they identify with and, when those are threatened, they are apt to behave in a visceral, reactive and violent way. That’s why change and identity are always inextricably intertwined.
“We can’t define the change we want to pursue until we define who we want to be.” — Greg Satell
The Making Of A Dominant Model
Traditional models come to us with such great authority that we seldom realize that they too once were revolutionary. We are so often told how Einstein is revered for showing that Newton’s mechanics were flawed it is easy to forget that Newton himself was a radical insurgent, who rewrote the laws of nature and ushered in a new era.
Still, once a model becomes established, few question it. We go to school, train for a career and hone our craft. We make great efforts to learn basic principles and gain credentials when we show that we have grasped them. As we strive to become masters of our craft we find that as our proficiency increases, so does our success and status.
The models we use become more than mere tools to get things done, but intrinsic to our identity. Back in the nineteenth century, the miasma theory, the notion that bad air caused disease, was predominant in medicine. Doctors not only relied on it to do their job, they took great pride in their mastery of it. They would discuss its nuances and implications with colleagues, signaling their membership in a tribe as they did.
In the 1840s, when a young doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis showed that doctors could prevent infections by washing their hands, many in the medical establishment were scandalized. First, the suggestion that they, as men of prominence, could spread something as dirty as disease was insulting. Even more damaging, however, was the suggestion that their professional identity was, at least in part, based on a mistake.
Things didn’t turn out well for Semmelweis. He railed against the establishment, but to no avail. He would eventually die in an insane asylum, ironically of an infection he contracted under care, and the questions he raised about the prevailing miasma paradigm went unanswered.
A Gathering Storm Of Accumulating Evidence
We all know that for every rule, there are exceptions and anomalies that can’t be explained. As the statistician George Box put it, “all models are wrong, but some are useful.” The miasma theory, while it seems absurd today, was useful in its own way. Long before we had technology to study bacteria, smells could alert us to their presence in unsanitary conditions.
But Semmelweis’s hand-washing regime threatened doctors’ view of themselves and their role. Doctors were men of prominence, who saw disease emanating from the smells of the lower classes. This was more than a theory. It was an attachment to a particular view of the world and their place in it, which is one reason why Semmelweis experienced such backlash.
Yet he raised important questions and, at least in some circles, doubts about the miasma theory continued to grow. In 1854, about a decade after Semmelweis instituted hand washing, a cholera epidemic broke out in London and a miasma theory skeptic named John Snow was able to trace the source of the infection to a single water pump.
Yet once again, the establishment could not accept evidence that contradicted its prevailing theory. William Farr, a prominent medical statistician, questioned Snow’s findings. Besides, Snow couldn’t explain how the water pump was making people sick, only that it seemed to be the source of some pathogen. Farr, not Snow, won the day.
Later it would turn out that a septic pit had been dug too close to the pump and the water had been contaminated with fecal matter. But for the moment, while doubts began to grow about the miasma theory, it remained the dominant model and countless people would die every year because of it.
Breaking Through To A New Paradigm
In the early 1860s, as the Civil War was raging in the US, Louis Pasteur was researching wine-making in France. While studying the fermentation process, he discovered that microorganisms spoiled beverages such as beer and milk. He proposed that they be heated to temperatures between 60 and 100 degrees Celsius to avoid spoiling, a process that came to be called pasteurization
Pasteur guessed that the similar microorganisms made people sick which, in turn, led to the work of Robert Koch and Joseph Lister. Together they would establish the germ theory of disease. This work then led to not only better sanitary practices, but eventually to the work of Alexander Fleming, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain and development of antibiotics.
To break free of the miasma theory, doctors needed to change the way they saw themselves. The miasma theory had been around since Hippocrates. To forge a new path, they could no longer be the guardians of ancient wisdom, but evidence-based scientists, and that would require that everything about the field be transformed.
None of this occurred in a vacuum. In the late 19th century, a number of long-held truths, from Euclid’s Geometry to Aristotle’s logic, were being discarded, which would pave the way for strange new theories, such as Einstein’s relativity and Turing’s machine. To abandon these old ideas, which were considered gospel for thousands of years, was no doubt difficult. Yet it was what we needed to do to create the modern world.
Moving From Disruption to Resilience
Today, we stand on the precipice of a new paradigm. We’ve suffered through a global financial crisis, a pandemic and the most deadly conflict in Europe since World War II. The shifts in technology, resources, migration and demography are already underway. The strains and dangers of these shifts are already evident, yet the benefits are still to come.
To successfully navigate the decade ahead, we must make decisions not just about what we want, but who we want to be. Nowhere is this playing out more than in Ukraine right now, where the war being waged is almost solely about identity. Russians want to deny Ukrainian identity and to defy what they see as the US-led world order. Europeans need to take sides. So do the Chinese. Everyone needs to decide who they are and where they stand.
This is not only true in international affairs, but in every facet of society. Different eras make different demands. The generation that came of age after World War II needed to rebuild and they did so magnificently. Yet as things grew, inefficiencies mounted and the Boomer Generation became optimizers. The generations that came after worshiped disruption and renewal. These are, of course, gross generalizations, but the basic narrative holds true.
What should be clear is that where we go from here will depend on who we want to be. My hope is that we become protectors who seek to make the shift from disruption to resilience. We can no longer simply worship market and technological forces and leave our fates up to them as if they were gods. We need to make choices and the ones we make will be greatly influenced by how we see ourselves and our role.
As Josep Borrell so eloquently put it: It is the identity, stupid. It is no longer the economy, it is the identity.
— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credit: Unsplash
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When life doesn’t so much give you lemons as hurl them at you from a great height with the intent of inflicting significant damage on you it’s sometimes a moment for big change. It can force you to jump the tracks, find ways around the problem, re-frame the world.
Innovation history is full of examples. Take the case of Django Reinhardt, a successful musician in the 1920s whose career was nearly brought to a sudden end in 1928 when his caravan caught fire leaving him with life-threatening burns over half of his body. Including damaging two fingers of his left hand with all that implied for his ever being able to play guitar again. His response was to evolve a completely new style using his remaining fingers and creating the distinctive approach which made his name as one of the founders of ‘gypsy jazz’.
The pianist Keith Jarrett had a similar challenge to his ability to play though fortunately less physically direct. Contracted to give a late night concert in Cologne’s opera house he arrived to find a mix-up meant that the piano on which he was to play was an out of tune and malfunctioning rehearsal machine. With some frantic and unfinished attempts by a tuner to bring it into line Jarrett embarked on a journey of improvisation, adapting to the limitations of the instrument to create what has become a legendary (and thankfully recorded) performance.
It’s not a new phenomenon. One of history’s great innovators was, arguably, pushed to reframe his world and think differently about it as the result of what he later termed ‘ a happy accident’. Not quite the description most of us might use to capture falling ill with smallpox and losing the use of a leg which eventually has to be amputated. But that’s where the huge innovation legacy of Josiah Wedgwood began.
Born in 1730 in Burslem, Staffordshire, clay — or at least traces of it — was in his blood. He and his relatives had been turning pots for four generations and he’d learned the trade the hard way. Whatever needed doing — putting his shoulder to the big wheel with the horses that drove the smaller potters wheel on which shapes were formed, stacking for firing and then unloading from the kiln, fetching, carrying, packing and shipping.
But his career as a master potter was sadly cut short by an attack of smallpox when he was eleven years old which weakened his knee to the point where he could not work the potter’s kick wheel on which the trade depended. Formally apprenticed to his older brother his bad leg meant that he was unable to perform such laborious tasks as throwing pottery clay. Instead he began to spend much of his enforced sitting time reading and experimenting, trying out new ideas and recipes and painstakingly recording the results in his notebooks. It forced him to look at the whole process from a different angle, and reframing it threw up powerful — and valuable — insights.
Because pottery was about to become big business. From a pretty early date we’ve made use of clay to make functional utensils like plates and cups; relics found in Xianren province in China are close to 20,000 years old. But ceramics have also been a long-standing part of history as a visual pleasure, formed and decorated in exquisite ways using complex materials and techniques. The trouble is that only the very wealthy could afford the workmanship and materials needed to create the fine porcelain that was so prized in the early 18th century.
The future would belong to the innovators. Of whom his brother was not one….
In 1749, his apprenticeship ended. The family fortunes had improved somewhat thanks to his ideas but his brother was not convinced of the value of innovation and refused to take Josiah in as a partner. So he left the family business and in 1752, he formed a partnership with John Harrison (of clockmaking fame) and Thomas Alders. This was a short-lived association, as Wedgwood and Harrison clashed over manufacturing ideas. From too little to too much innovation under one roof….
His next move, in 1754, was more productive, a meeting of minds since his new partner Thomas Whieldon, a successful potter who also “loved to experiment”. Whieldon was interested in Josiah’s approach, not least because there was an urgent need to improve the quality of his lead-glazed creamware while keeping costs competitive. As Wedgwood noted, “…these considerations induced me to try for some more solid improvement, as well in the Body, as the Glazes, the Colours, & the Forms, of the articles of our manufacture….”
He started keeping his ‘Experiment Book’ at this time, containing details of his work and carefully listing measurements and ingredients, using a coded system that only he could understand. Over the next years it swelled to contain the details of thousands of experiments, many of them failures but crucially providing a roadmap for future innovation directions.
In 1759, Josiah parted company from Whieldon and set up on his own, leasing the Ivy House pottery in Burslem, Staffordshire, from one of his uncles. Business grew and he opened a second works in the town. But in 1762 returning trouble with his leg forced him to spend several weeks in bed; as it turned out another candidate for ‘happy accident’ status. Because it was while he was bed-bound in the city of Liverpool that a friend introduced him to Thomas Bentley who eventually became his business partner.
Innovation is rarely a solo act; in most cases it is the convergence of different skills, experience and insight which can help build something new. Think Hewlett and Packard, Jobs and Wozniak, Gates and Allen. And it was certainly true of Wedgwood and Bentley; he brought a deep understanding of the trading side of the pottery business together with a classical education and a rich network of contacts to the party. He understood the ways in which ceramic fashions were changing and how the technical skills of Wedgwood could help play in such a market.
Over the next years they not only made a wide range of tableware but also speciality wares for retailers, dairies, sanitary suppliers (including tiles for indoor bathrooms and sewers all over England), and the home. But beyond the functional Bentley also saw a growing demand for artefacts inspired by the classical Greek, Roman and Etruscan styles and the company began making cameos, vases, jugs, and plaques decorated with such themes. Just like the Meissen company in Germany had begun to work with artists and designers so Wedgwood and Bentley began to draw on Bentley’s contacts to supply the artwork and give a distinctive style to their products.
Josiah Wedgwood didn’t like porcelain. Or rather he did, from an aesthetic point of view. Its white purity, translucent thin strength, the wonderful shapes it could be fashioned into, all of these triggered his potter’s admiration as the high point of the craft.
His objection to porcelain was entirely economic. This was a time when the big prize was not selling expensive ceramics to wealthy aristocrats but somehow giving the same experience of fine pottery plates, cups, saucers, pots and jugs to the growing middle class. The Industrial Revolution was changing the economic as well as the social structure of Britain; there was now a potential mass market and an appetite for new goods — all manufacturers like Wedgwood had to do was create good quality products to satisfy it. He understood this and worked hard to bring to simpler earthenware and stoneware the distinctive features, fine designs and tactile quality of porcelain.
This ceramic offered a cheaper alternative to porcelain production, which by this time was being made by a number of manufactories at Bow in London, Plymouth and Bristol who had mastered the art of porcelain production at huge financial cost to themselves and their customers.
His favourite motto was ‘Everything yields to experiment..’. And so he continued the laboratory work, aiming to move pottery from a “rude uncultivated craft” into a field of applied science. And it was through this process that he made his first major achievement, the “invention of a green glaze,” recorded after six months of unsuccessful trial and error as experiment number seven. It proved to be popular and helped establish a reputation for innovation, something which he followed up with in the development of a better form of ‘creamware’. Creamware — a cream-coloured earthenware — had become popular as an economic alternative to porcelain but it had significant limitations. Through his experimental approach Wedgwood transformed it into a high-quality ceramic that was very versatile in that it could be thrown on a wheel, turned on a lathe, or cast.
He began receiving orders from the highest-ranking people and in 1765, received an invitation from St James’s Palace, London, for a ‘complete set of tea things…. ‘with a gold ground & raised flowers upon it in green….’. The invitation came from Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III and it took the form of a competitive tender; fortunately Wedgwood’s hard work in the laboratory paid off. He won the competition and the contract; more importantly he’d been canny enough to include other samples of his wares in his delivery and they attracted further interest. The Queen was so pleased that in 1766 she gave him what must rank as one of the first ‘celebrity endorsements’, issuing a royal warrant with the wording: ‘To this manufacturer the Queen is pleased to give her name and patronage, commanding it to be called Queensware, and honouring the inventor by appointing him Her Majesty’s Potter’.
Wedgwood was nothing if not quick on the uptake and soon the title ‘Potter to Her Majesty’, was being added to invoices and orders while ‘Queensware’ featured prominently in newspaper advertisements for his products. As with the Meissen porcelain business in Germany the importance of a brand identity became apparent. It was not customary for Staffordshire potters to put their name or mark on their wares but Josiah began stamping the base of his products as a mark of authenticity and quality.
His marketing wasn’t confined to influencers and advertising; he pioneered many innovative approaches to reaching and serving his growing market including offering free delivery from his factory to London and free replacement of items broken in transit. He opened shops and showrooms in fashionable cities like Bath as well as in the capital. And he pioneered a ‘two-tiered’ approach, selling first to the aristocracy at premium prices and then using the cachet which their adoption gave to promote sales at lower prices to aspirational middle class buyers.
In 1764, he had received his first order from abroad and built on that success. By 1769 he declared his aim was to become “Vase Maker General to the Universe”. He might not have exported off planet but did a pretty good job in terrestrial terms — by 1784, he was exporting nearly 80% of his total produce. By 1790, he had sold his wares in every city in Europe.
Image: AI generated via Google Imagen
Perhaps the project which best underlines his grasp of the competitive edge which a combination of technical competence, great design and sophisticated marketing skills can offer is the famous ‘Frog service’ commission which came from Empress Catherine the Great of Russia in 1773. This called for a huge dinner and dessert service (944 pieces) for use at the Chesme Palace near St. Petersburg. It was located on marshy ground and had once been called ‘La Grenouillerie’ because of the large frog population. Catherine wanted to use this frog motif on every item of the service and for it to contain 1222 topographically correct hand painted views of British landscapes! Significantly she also wanted it to be made not of traditional porcelain, but in Wedgwood’s Queensware.
Wedgwood undertook this huge commission and delivered, even though it took over 30 artists and two years to complete. It was never a commercial success; the cost of final delivery was £2612 against a commission price of £2290 (£503,280 and £439,680 in today’s terms). But it more than made up the shortfall in reputation and marketing; the service was first displayed in London before delivery and attracted huge crowds, powerfully demonstrating that Wedgwood’s earthenware and stoneware could rival the best porcelain in the world.
When the service in its 22 crates finally arrived in St Petersburg in the autumn of 1774 it was displayed in the palace as a spectacle for visitors. The majority of it has survived and is now in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
But Wedgwood wasn’t only working on the marketing side; from his early days as an apprentice he’d looked for ways to improve production operations, focusing not just on single problem areas but looking at the manufacturing system as a whole.
He was an early adopter of steam power, something which significantly reduced transportation costs since it mean that mills for grinding and preparing materials for manufacturing could now be located on the same site. It also mechanized the processes of throwing and turning pots, previously driven by foot or hand wheels. But it was less in his adoption of new machinery than in his approach to production organization that he had the biggest impact. He was fascinated by the ideas of Adam Smith around the concept of division of labour, focusing on specialisation rather than having a single person carry out all the tasks in a series of operations. Mixing clay, throwing, firing and decorating were all separated into distinct operations and staffed by people trained in those areas, supported by specialised equipment. The result was a massive improvement in productivity and the approach enabled the volume production needed to meet the demands of a growing mass market.
Significantly Wedgwood also recognised the need to manage the major changes this would bring to working lives — not least the elimination of the old apprentice and journeyman system. In 1769, he opened a new factory complex, named ‘Etruria’ in a nod to the ancient Etruscans whose civilization had inspired many of his best-selling designs. It was a planned community designed to house his workshops, showrooms, and his workers and their families — far cry from the ‘cottage industry’ in which he had grown up. It gave him practical advantages such as co-location of key activities reducing time and transportation costs but it also represented an early attempt to create a different working environment. He passed some of the benefits of the (significantly) higher productivity at the factory by paying higher wages and he experimented with ways of improving the working environment, providing clothing, washing facilities, and even an early form of air conditioning.
Etruria was strategically located next to the newly-constructed Trent and Mersey canal, a venture which he had campaigned hard for and which was to help significantly in managing the wider logistics and distribution challenges of the growing business. These weren’t small; in mid 1700s the pottery industry was sourcing its clays and other materials from the south west in Devon and Dorset which meant shipping them to ports like Liverpool or Chester and then transporting them slowly along an antiquated road system down to Staffordshire. Wedgwood’s efforts to promote better roads and particularly the cutting of a 94 mile canal linking Liverpool with the Potteries paid off; despite a long planning battle with Parliament the canal was opened in 1777 and with it the chance to reduce inbound logistics costs and open up better distribution to his increasingly global market.
Growing a business often carries with it the risk that cash flow gets out of balance but this wasn’t the case with Wedgwood. His early family history gave him an abiding sense of the need to control costs, once complaining that his sales were at an all-time high, yet profits were minimal. He studied cost structures and came to value economies of scale, trying to avoid producing one-off vases ‘at least till we are got into a more methodicall way of making the same sorts over again’.
And he brought a scientific approach to his work, carefully recording the results of his experiments to build a clearer understanding of how to move manufacturing from a haphazard trial and error process to one which allowed for reproduceable control. In 1783 he was awarded a patent for a pyrometer designed to measure the extreme temperatures within a kiln, helping tame the chaotic and unpredictable firing process. For this he was recognised by being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, joining his scientific friends and colleagues like Joseph Priestley and Matthew Boulton. Although named as a key achievement the award really testified to over thirty years of systematic research and development.
Wedgwood wasn’t one to rest on his laurels; in 1774 built on his success with creamware with another major innovation –Jasperware. This was a new material, laboriously developed to offer a new approach to pottery making and it led to a material that was unglazed and had a distinctive matte, or “biscuit,” finish. He experimented with many different colours including green, lilac, yellow, black, and white (the Victoria and Albert museum in London has several display trays showing the different samples). But the distinctive light blue colour which caught the imagination and which survives to this day in thousands of artist’s palettes and children’s colouring books was Wedgwood blue.
Jasperware’s development built on Bentley’s observation of the growing interest in ancient cultural artefacts from Greek, Roman and Etruscan civilizations. Wealthier people were beginning to undertake the ‘Grand Tour’ of Europe and bringing back souvenirs such as Roman cameos; Jasperware provided the perfect medium for making such products available in England. Pieces would be ornamented with scenes and reliefs not simply painted on but applied as a separate layer of clay before firing; it gave Wedgwood products a distinctive trademark to further bolster their brand.
In keeping with Wedgwood’s philosophy the Jasperware product and process continuously evolved. For example early specimens used cobalt to colour the entire body by mixing it in with the clay; this was extremely expensive and so later development used a dipping process in which a thin layer of coloured slip — watery clay — was applied just before firing.
This continuous improvement of the Jasperware concept led to perhaps Wedgwood’s last and what he considered his ‘great work’ — the five year journey towards creating a replica of the ancient Roman Portland Vase. The original was a masterpiece of cameo glass from the 1st century BC and considered one of the greatest works of antiquity. No-one knew how it had been made; the secret of its creation had been lost for over 1700 years. It was less a commercial venture (though once again it had powerful reputational benefits) but instead was the ultimate challenge of his technical skills.
To achieve this, he conducted thousands of experiments over nearly five years to perfect the blue-black colour and the delicate, low-relief figures in his signature Jasperware. He relied on his pyrometer to control the firings and worked with renowned sculptor John Flaxman to create the intricate white reliefs. The project had many challenges, including blistering and cracking. But his persistence paid off. The first successful copies of the vase were released in 1790 and proved to be so accurate that when the original was accidentally shattered at the British Museum, Wedgwood’s Jasperware copy was used to help piece it back together.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Wedgwood’s health had never been great; he’d finally had his leg amputated in 1768 and by 1770 his sight was beginning to fail him. When Bentley died in 1780 he stepped back from the marketing side and focused his remaining attention on the factory and his laboratory. But in 1794 he fell ill again and died in 1795, aged 64.
Was it worth it? He’d started by inheriting £20 from his father, and when he died he left one of the finest industrial concerns in England with a personal worth of £500,000 (around £50 million today). When he began his business the big names in Staffordshire pottery were those of manufacturers like Josiah Spode and Thomas Minton; it didn’t take long before the name of Wedgwood and Bentley was up there with them, their company arguably the best-known pottery in the western world.
In doing so he helped create an industry which continues to produce beautiful artefacts for widespread use around the world. And one which has grown in value; the ceramic tableware market size was worth $12.4bn in 2024 and is forecast to reach $22bn in the next ten years.
He left the business to his sons and they continued through several generations to maintain the reputation for quality and innovation. The company remained independent until 1987, when it merged with Waterford Crystal, then with Royal Doulton. In July 2015, it was acquired by a Finnish consumer goods company who have retained the brand and still produce ‘prestige’ wares such as hand-painted and limited edition objects. Jasperware is still made by a small team of skilled workers at the Barlaston factory, while the rest of the company’s output is produced in Indonesia.
So in a sense Josiah is still vase making to the universe….
The Convergence of Biology, Technology, and Human-Centered Innovation
GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia
For centuries, the principles of manufacturing have been rooted in a linear, resource-intensive model: extract, produce, use, and dispose. In this paradigm, our most creative biological processes, like fermentation, have been limited by their own inherent constraints—slow yields, inconsistent outputs, and reliance on non-renewable inputs like sugars. But as a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I see a new convergence emerging, one that promises to rewrite the rules of industry. It’s a profound synthesis of biology and technology, a marriage of microbes and micro-currents. I’m talking about electrofermentation, and it’s not just a scientific breakthrough; it’s a paradigm shift that enables us to produce the goods of the future in a way that is smarter, cleaner, and fundamentally more sustainable. This is about using electricity to guide and accelerate nature’s most powerful processes, turning waste into value and inefficiency into a new engine for growth.
The Case for a ‘Smarter’ Fermentation
Traditional fermentation, from brewing beer to creating biofuels, is an impressive but imperfect process. It is a biological balancing act, often limited by thermodynamic and redox imbalances that reduce yield and produce unwanted byproducts. Think of it as a chef trying to cook a complex dish without being able to precisely control the heat or the ingredients. This lack of fine-tuned control leads to waste and inefficiency, a costly reality in a world where every resource counts.
Electrofermentation revolutionizes this by introducing electrodes directly into the microbial bioreactor. This allows scientists to apply an electric current that acts as an electron source or sink, providing a powerful, precise control mechanism. This subtle electrical “nudge” steers the microbial metabolism, overcoming the natural limitations of traditional fermentation. The result is a process that is not only more efficient but also more versatile. It enables us to use unconventional feedstocks, such as industrial waste gases or CO₂, and convert them into valuable products with unprecedented speed and yield. It’s the difference between guessing and knowing, between a linear process and a circular one.
The Startups and Companies Leading the Charge
This revolution is already underway, driven by a new generation of companies and startups that are harnessing the power of electrofermentation to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. At the forefront is LanzaTech, a company that has pioneered a process to recycle carbon emissions. They are essentially retrofitting breweries onto industrial sites like steel mills, using their proprietary microbes to ferment waste carbon gases into ethanol and other valuable chemicals. In the food sector, companies like Arkeon are redefining what we eat. They are building a new food system from the ground up by using microbes to convert CO₂ and hydrogen into sustainable proteins. And in the materials science space, innovators are exploring how this technology can create everything from biodegradable plastics to advanced biopolymers, all from non-traditional and renewable sources. These are not just scientific curiosities; they are real-world ventures creating scalable, impactful solutions that are actively building a circular economy.
Case Study 1: LanzaTech – Turning Pollution into Products
The Challenge:
Industrial emissions from steel mills and other heavy industries are a major contributor to climate change. These waste gases—rich in carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO₂)—are a significant liability, but they also represent a vast, untapped resource. The challenge was to find a commercially viable way to capture these emissions and transform them into something valuable, rather than simply releasing them into the atmosphere.
The Electrofermentation Solution:
LanzaTech developed a gas fermentation process that uses a special strain of bacteria (Clostridium autoethanogenum) that feeds on carbon-rich industrial gases. This is a form of electrofermentation where the microbes use the electrons from the gas to power their metabolism. The process diverts carbon from being a pollutant and, through a biological synthesis, converts it into useful products. It’s like a biological recycling plant that fits onto a smokestack. The bacteria consume the waste gas, and in return, they produce fuels and chemicals like ethanol, which can then be used to make sustainable aviation fuel, packaging, and household goods. The key to its success is the precision of the fermentation process, which maximizes the conversion of waste carbon to valuable products.
The Human-Centered Result:
LanzaTech’s innovation is a powerful example of a human-centered approach to a global problem. It’s a technology that not only addresses a critical environmental challenge but also creates new economic opportunities and supply chains. By turning industrial emissions from a “bad” into a “good,” it redefines our relationship with waste. It’s a move away from a linear, extractive economy and toward a circular, regenerative one, proving that sustainability can be a catalyst for both innovation and profit. It has commercial plants in operation, showing that this is not just a theoretical solution but a scalable reality.
Case Study 2: Arkeon – The Future of Food from Air
The Challenge:
The global food system is under immense pressure. Rising populations, climate change, and resource-intensive agricultural practices are straining our ability to feed everyone sustainably. The production of protein, in particular, has a significant environmental footprint, requiring vast amounts of land and water and generating substantial greenhouse gas emissions. The challenge is to find a new, highly efficient, and sustainable source of protein that is not dependent on traditional agriculture.
The Electrofermentation Solution:
Arkeon is using a form of electrofermentation to create a protein-rich biomass from air. Their process involves using specialized microbes called archaea, which thrive in extreme environments and can be “fed” on CO₂ and hydrogen gas. By using an electrical current to power this process, Arkeon can precisely control the microbial activity to produce amino acids, the building blocks of protein, with incredible efficiency. This innovative process decouples food production from agricultural land, water, and sunlight, making it a highly resilient and sustainable source of nutrition. It’s a closed-loop system where waste (CO₂) is the primary input, and a high-value, functional protein powder is the output.
The Human-Centered Result:
Arkeon’s work is a powerful human-centered innovation because it tackles one of the most fundamental human needs: food security. By developing a method to create protein from waste gases, the company is not only providing a sustainable alternative but also building a more resilient food system. This technology could one day enable localized, decentralized food production, reducing reliance on complex supply chains and making communities more self-sufficient. It is a bold, forward-looking solution that envisions a future where the air we breathe can be a source of sustainable, high-quality nutrition for everyone.
Conclusion: The Dawn of a New Industrial Revolution
Electrofermentation is far more than a technical trick. It represents a paradigm shift from a linear, extractive model to a circular, regenerative one. By converging biology and technology, we are unlocking the ability to produce what we need, not from the earth’s finite resources, but from the waste and byproducts of our own civilization. It is a testament to the power of human-centered innovation, where the goal is not just to build a better widget but to create a better world. For leaders, the question is not if this will impact your industry, but how you will embrace it. The future belongs to those who see waste not as a liability, but as a feedstock, and who are ready to venture beyond the traditional. This is the dawn of a new industrial revolution, and it’s powered by a jolt of electricity and a microbe’s silent work, promising a more sustainable and abundant future for us all.
This video provides a concise overview of LanzaTech’s carbon recycling process, which is a key example of electrofermentation in action.
Disclaimer: This article speculates on the potential future applications of cutting-edge scientific research. While based on current scientific understanding, the practical realization of these concepts may vary in timeline and feasibility and are subject to ongoing research and development.
Image credit: Pixabay
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Layoffs, Store Closures & What It Means for Customer Service
Exclusive Interview with Mario Matulich
In a world where corporate decisions often prioritize efficiency, the human element can be the first to suffer. The recent layoffs and restructuring at Starbucks, a brand synonymous with a unique, human-centered “third place” experience, have sent a tremor through the industry. In a wide-ranging interview, we will unpack the strategic and operational implications of these changes. Together, we will explore the difficult balance between trimming corporate fat and maintaining a brand built on emotional connection, diving into how these decisions could affect everything from in-store morale to the long-term loyalty of its customers. Central to the conversation is the following strategic question:
How can a company that has undergone significant corporate restructuring and layoffs maintain and restore a premium, human-centered customer experience?
Today we will explore this question, along with its various aspects with our special guest Mario Matulich, a practice lead at the Customer Management Practice with a diverse commercial understanding in a variety of industry verticals across the customer management sector. He is well versed in market research, product development, sales, marketing, and operations in addition to cross functional management and leadership development.
Without further ado, here is the Q&A I had with Mario on a range of topics regarding the recent Starbucks’ store closures and layoffs and their implications:
The Strategic Context of the Layoffs
Q: Starbucks’ leadership framed the recent restructuring as a necessary step for efficiency and a return to their core mission. From your perspective in customer management, how do these internal changes directly affect the external customer experience in the short and long term? A: In the short term, layoffs, especially in corporate roles, can create gaps in innovation, brand narrative, and strategic support for store-level teams. Employees on the front lines may feel increased pressure, which can impact morale and the human connection customers expect. In the long term, if these gaps aren’t addressed, the result can be a more transactional experience that erodes both loyalty and trust.
Q: In many companies, layoffs are a last resort. Do you believe this restructuring reflects a failure of previous strategies, or is it a forward-thinking move to adapt to a changing market? What specific market trends do you think are driving these decisions? A: I don’t view this restructuring as purely a failure of previous strategies, but rather as an attempt to adapt to a changing market. That said, Starbucks’ bigger challenge is restoring its customer experience. Trends such as rising demand for personalized, convenient, and high-value experiences, along with increased competition in the premium coffee market, make it clear that customers are evaluating Starbucks not just on price, but on the overall experience delivered.
Q: The layoffs primarily targeted corporate roles in marketing, technology, and creative. How does the loss of talent in these specific areas impact the company’s ability to innovate and maintain its brand narrative? A: These areas are critical for innovation, storytelling, and digital experiences that connect customers to the brand. Losing talent here makes it more challenging to maintain a consistent, differentiated experience and risks further disengagement from customers.
Impact on the Human-Centered Experience
Q: Starbucks has long prided itself on the “third place” concept. How does restructuring and potential employee demoralization affect the in-store experience and the emotional connection customers have with the brand? A: The “third place” experience relies on motivated and supported employees. Restructuring can disrupt this, as uncertainty and low morale may trickle down to in-store interactions. Customers may perceive a decline in warmth, attentiveness, and consistency, which can undermine the emotional connection.
Q: With fewer people in corporate roles, who now owns the responsibility for a seamless customer journey? Does this push more responsibility onto store-level partners, and if so, are they equipped to handle it? A: While partners remain at the front line, the burden shouldn’t fall solely on them. Leadership must provide tools, guidance, and support to ensure a seamless experience, even as corporate teams shrink.
Q: Customer management is about building long-term loyalty. Do you believe this restructuring risks eroding the trust and loyalty of both employees and customers, and what would your practice recommend to mitigate that risk? A: Yes, there’s definitely a risk. The key is to go back to the basics and make the experience personal, easy, and fast. Nail those, and customers’ trust and loyalty will .,¬./come back, and the layoffs won’t linger in their minds.
Measuring and Recovering from the Impact
Q: How would you advise Starbucks to measure the real-time impact of these changes on customer satisfaction? Beyond traditional metrics like NPS, what holistic experience measures should they be tracking? A: Starbucks should look beyond NPS to measure speed of service, personalization, emotional connection, and overall experience consistency. These metrics provide a more comprehensive view of the customer journey and help identify gaps that layoffs may create.
Q: Layoffs can create a perception of instability. What is the most effective way for a company to communicate its recovery plan and rebuild confidence with its customer base after such a significant change? A: Clear communication focused on restoring the core pillars of customer experience, personalization, ease, and speed, is key. Customers respond when they see tangible improvements in the experience they receive every day.
Q: In your experience, what is the typical timeline for a company to recover from the brand and cultural damage that can follow widespread layoffs? What are the critical milestones they should be focused on achieving? A: Recovery timelines vary, but visible improvements in customer experience can begin within months if executed strategically. Critical milestones include reestablishing operational consistency, restoring employee morale, and relaunching key brand initiatives that reinforce the premium experience promise.
Future-Proofing for Long-Term Growth
Q: Looking ahead, how can Starbucks utilize this moment of disruption to adopt a more resilient and human-centered organizational model? What key lesson should other companies learn from their experience to avoid similar pitfalls? A: Starbucks has a chance here to get back to what really made it successful: combining innovative, tech-forward solutions with a human touch, every time. The bigger lesson for any company is clear. Growth and cost-cutting shouldn’t come at the expense of the customer experience. People are willing to pay a premium, but only if the experience feels worth it.
Q: What message does it send that the popular Starbucks Roastery location in Capitol Hill in Seattle is being closed as part of this layoff and restructuring initiative? Why do you think they chose to do it? A: Closing the Roastery signals a prioritization of efficiency over experiential destinations. While it may make financial sense in the short term, it also serves as a cautionary reminder that iconic, high-touch experiences are critical to maintaining brand differentiation and customer loyalty.
Conclusion
Thank you for the great conversation Mario!
Ultimately, the Starbucks case study is a powerful lesson for every organization. As Matulich’s insights make clear, the pursuit of efficiency and growth cannot come at the expense of the human experience that defines your brand. The true measure of a company’s resilience is not in its stock price, but in the trust it has built with its employees and customers. A single-minded focus on traditional metrics is insufficient; a holistic approach that values emotional connection and employee morale is the only path to sustainable growth. The greatest challenge for Starbucks now is to move beyond reacting to a difficult market and begin proactively shaping its future—not just through cost-cutting, but by recommitting to the core narrative that made it a cultural institution in the first place. The future of any business is not found in a spreadsheet; it’s built on a foundation of human connection, one interaction at a time.
Image credits: Pexels, Mario Matulich
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