Talking and Shopping

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.”

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 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.”

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!”

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.”

“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.”

IAD?

IDA?

What’s the difference?

What is the import of the flip of one letter?

The expanded team gathers in Washington.  Vinny from Washington.  Karine from Brussels.  Time to get the leaders of the tech giant Talking and Shopping ready for a Congressional Hearing.

But there is that little issue.  IAD vs IDA.  It changes the plans but the results might be best for all.

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

It was supposed to be easy.

A way to build trust.

A simple public talk at a sympathetic organization.

But there were protestors. And a badly prepared speech. And a host who didn’t seem to realize what was happening.

Abby Alton, CEO of Talking and Shopping, addresses the public and finds herself backed into a corner when all goes wrong.

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

He doesn’t visit often.

When he does, there’s always trouble.

Or he thinks there’s trouble.

Or maybe heard that there might be trouble.

The Producer comes to visit our Washington Office and faces a cast that thinks (or wishes or hopes) that things are better than they are.

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