The Conversation Business

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Today I share my conversation with Ron J Williams.</span> <a href= "https://www.fastcompany.com/3018247/62-ron-j-williams"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Fast Company rated him in the top 100 most creative people in business...back in 2012!</span></a> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">He’s started some serious ventures - SnapGoods was an early vanguard in the sharing economy - and he’s also helped companies large and small get proof (rather than stay in conjecture) on their business ideas with his consultancy ProofLabs. </span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He’s currently working as SVP & Head of Program Strategy at Citi Ventures. We also went to High School together, which is why he still takes my calls!</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I brought Ron onto the show because of a conversation we had months back about how businesses ARE conversations - that they can’t just extract value from people without listening, adapting and relating to the people they serve. </span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ron offered the idea that each moment, each pixel, is an opportunity for a company to listen and to respond thoughtfully to their customers...this level of granularity and specificity in the opportunities for conversations between business and customers really lit me up.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ron also happens to be a black man. This episode is coming months after we recorded it - I’m working through a backlog - and you’ll hear, at the end, my gratitude to Ron for bringing up the topic of racial inequality in corporate innovation...and the costs it has for our society as a whole.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I did not want to commit the sin of making a person of color speak for “their people”...it’s a burden that “non-minorities” don’t have to endure. I am rarely, if ever, asked to speak for all white men, as if I could.</span></p>