This week's show opens with an announcement on the podcast's future, so give it a listen and see what's coming! We can't wait. For our last show prior to the summer break, we sped through several issues including the White House stepping in to block non-compete clauses, Amazon's backtracking on its dispute resolution process after customers found an innovative way to make the e-commerce giant squirm, and speaking of 'giant', a massive inflatable rat has landed in court in the United States! Tech companies have been experimenting with changes to their working styles, with some opting for more f ..read more

With everything going digital in workplaces, it's getting harder and harder to keep secrets or speak with others in confidence. Three leaders in Netflix's marketing team found this out the hard way after they were fired for making disparaging remarks about the executive team at Netflix. Ewan walks us through what happened with advice on avoiding a similar fate. Cam mentions that several parts of the story haven't yet been made public, leading to damaging speculation. In the PR segment, Cam walks listeners through creating a media brief or issues scan for executives. These are documents that co ..read more

Companies have more tools than ever to broadcast their own messages, whether it's via a website, podcasts, newsletters, social media, or all of the above. Breene Murphy from Carbon Collective and the Forbes Communications Council joins the show this week to share his own experience with content marketing, as well as examine Andreessen Horowitz's decision to launch its own publication called Future (which we discussed at length in Episode #61). Content can help give a company a louder voice in a noisy marketplace, but Murphy talks about some other benefits that comms people and marketers might ..read more

We ran through more topics on Episode 63 than we have in any other previous episode! (And somehow managed to keep it under an hour...) We kicked off the show by mentioning the major anniversaries that are clustered in early July: Canada Day falls on July 1, as does the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty. There's Independence Day in the US on July 4, of course -- and one more: the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China. It might not get the same attention in western media, but it might be the most important anniversary among the group. Cam talks about why. Ewan ..read more

Episode #62 marks our last show in June, so what better way to welcome in the summer months than by examining two high profile and embarrassing scandals. Cam and Ewan return to the awkward Jeffrey Toobin apology and explanation live on CNN, but this time look at it from CNN's perspective. Unlike the New Yorker, where Toobin worked for 27 years, CNN didn't fire Toobin and found a way to bring him back onto the channel's airwaves. They didn't try and bury Toobin's return, either -- they went head-first into the scandal and asked Toobin very direct and personal questions to try and clear the air ..read more

It was a busy show this week, with Ewan and Cam discussing everything from Covid vaccinations to Netscape; Christiano Rinaldo to Alexander Hamilton. So let's get started. Paternity leave is a subject people love to debate. Policies on fathers taking leave to help out at home when a newborn comes along vary widely by jurisdiction -- but it could be just another fact of work life that is changing in a post-pandemic world. Millennials and Gen Zers are pushing for more progressive paternity leave policies and seeing some early victories. Ewan looks at the issue in detail, talks about what works an ..read more

We've talked a lot about legal cases on the show, but this week Ewan brings our attention to other effective ways to handle disputes. Mediation can be a useful part of any dispute resolution process and help lower the temperature, especially in particularly charged cases. Ewan argues it's also a great way for companies to manage bad press as the mediation process is usually kept confidential. He shares why mediation is often a better choice and why it's not used as much as it should be. Then Cam dives into the ugly saga of BrewDog, a popular beer brewer that hails from Scotland. Hundreds of fo ..read more

We have dedicated a whole show to a subject that will affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide: flexible working hours and "work from home". While staff in many Asian countries have been back to the office for a while now, companies in the United States and Canada are now rolling out announcements for an imminent return to the office. The problem? Not everyone wants to go back. Aside from the pandemic, Ewan looks at some of the demographic changes that are giving the WFH movement an extra push, and shares his ideas on how employers and employees can prepare. Then Cam gets specific -- wi ..read more

We faced some outright silliness this week. Ewan brought up Amy Cooper, who we discussed way back in Episode #8 after she phoned 911 because a black man in Central Park - who was bird watching - asked her to put her dog on a leash in a section of the park that requires dogs be on leashes. The video left no ambiguity about what happened, but it seems Cooper wants to try her luck anyway: she's suing her former employer, Franklin Templeton, for how the firm handled the case and her dismissal. Does she have a chance of winning? Ewan fills us in. Then Cam looks at how Ryanair, the discount European ..read more

What a show! We covered a lot of ground this week, including the issue of social media and its impact on people's job prospects. Somehow we didn't touch on this fundamental issue in the previous 56 episodes of the show but certainly made up for it this week. Ewan provides information on how companies use social when screening candidates and Cam provides real examples from the workplace on how social media can also be used to monitor existing staff -- with sometimes disastrous results. Then we dive deep into a lengthy investigative piece by the New York Times on Apple's business in China -- nam ..read more