Audio Drama

We’re an Audio Drama.

We live on the Internet.

We tell stories of work and tech and power and love and loss.

Consultants in Germany.  Artificial Intelligence in Seattle.  A startup in Mountain View.  Books that we read so you don’t have to.  An little entrepreneur  who knows things her elders never will.

We tell you a story.

We’re How We Manage Stuff.

The Right Clothes

Gravitas.

How important is gravitas, social authority, to a tech organization?

Afterall, they are the ones who claim that they are trying to disrupt society, to remove older barriers, to build new structures that are more profitable to all.

If that is the case, if their power comes from forces outside society, then whey do they need social weight?

And why how do they need to dress if they are to claim that they have gravitas.

Karine Tisserand, the head of the How We Manage Stuff European Union Office agrees to come to Washington in an effort to fix a project that is sliding, inch by inch, out of control.  Abby Alton, the head of Talking and Shopping, meets with Congressional Staff.  And finally, Sullivan asks if the4 HWMS Washington office is facing a rebuke for its lack of progress.

The thirteen episode of the Audio Drama “What Big Tech Doesn’t Know.”

I Know Who You Are

“Is this you?”

Never be in haste to answer that question

Facts are never just facts.

There’s always a value, a judgement, an opinion.

So when you’re asked “Is this you?” you need to be sure you know who is doing the asking.

Journalist Chad Dockerly confronts Victor Numerov of T&S and cast members Jake Minevich and Sahara Ale look to make sense of scene.

Because there is always the question of what you do with your facts.

The fourteenth episode of the Audio Drama “What Big Tech Doesn’t Know.”

Bank Shot

It’s just physics, right?

Set the ball in motion, it bounces off the cushion, hits another, falls into the pocket, just as you’d expect.

Except it doesn’t

The leadership of Talking and Shopping is frustrated with Washington and Washington is tired of them.  There are problems on the horizon, balls on the table, and little strategy for how to bring the game to an end.

And we choose a pool table in a bar to discuss what we might do.

The twelfth episode of the Audio Drama “What Big Tech Doesn’t Know.”  Special Guest Christian Conn of NYC portrays Gar Simons, the advisor with only one word of advice: “Get Out Now!”

By Any Other Name

The questions are simple.

The answers?   We don’t know.

At best, we have a senatorial aide who doesn’t know how to type.

Or is incapable of being sociable.

Abby Alton of T&S is preparing for an appearance before the Senate.  Her consultants meeting with key staff members but don’t exactly leave satisfied.

The eleventh episode of the Audio Drama “What Big Tech Doesn’t Know.”

Farming From San Francisco

Every job is middle management.

Everyone is caught between someone above and someone below.

And that hook that captures you is always tricky.  Sometimes that sharp little tine is friendship.  Sometimes, its money.  Sometimes it’s merely the image that we would like to claim for ourselves.

For a moment, we see the CTO Ed Kowalski, never the most sympathetic character, dangling between heaven and earth, between the boss above and the employee below.

The tenth episode of the Audio Drama “What Big Tech Doesn’t Know.”

The Dead Don’t Disrupt

Not everyone presents themselves well.

Not everyone holds to the company policy.

Not everyone is good at working the room.

What skills do you need when your client presents themselves in the worst possible light?

The Senior Management, Vinny and Evelyn, think that they need a more experienced member of the team.

The team itself, is bent on proving otherwise.

The ninth episodes of the Audio Drama “What Big Tech Doesn’t Know.”

Mother Comes Home from the War

Hardship means different things at different times.

Abby Alton, the CEO of Talking and Shopping, finishes a long day of meeting members of Congress.

In place of a moment of rest, she is faced with an obsequious assistant, an aide who has yet to understand the invasive nature of modern retail, and a consultant who has learned a story of political trouble.

Birnham Wood may be starting to move to Dunsinane.   The leadership T&S is starting to grasp that success in the market is not the same thing as success in Washington.

So starts the second act of our tale.  The eighth episodes of the Audio Drama “What Big Tech Doesn’t Know.”

Today’s Special

Swapping Gossip.

A pair of old friends meeting for lunch.

What is Talking and Shopping trying to do in DC?  Is Big Tech vulnerable?  Is there some agenda that they don’t see?

And then there is the reporter.  Did I mention the reporter?

What they do see is a little meeting between congressional aides, aides sho are in love, just not with each other.

The senior leadership of the  Internet firm Talking and Shopping starts to encounter the politics of Washington DC.

Seventh episode in the new series begins “What Big Tech Doesn’t Know” from the audio drama “How We Manage Stuff.”