Edelman’s Tonia Ries Talks Trust

Tonia Ries is a Senior Vice President at Edelman and Executive Director of Edelman Square.  “Square” serves as the steward for intellectual property across what is recognized today as the largest public relations firm in the world.  Tonia’s work at Square ensures that its intellectual properties have consistent standards for quality and rigor, and practical application for its practices, geographies and clients.  Square provides signature IP studies and smaller, evidence-based reports – among them are the Edelman Trust Barometer and the Edelman Earned Brand Study.

Brian Solis on Peers, Customers and Shared Experiences

Brian Solis is a principal analyst at Altimeter Group, a Prophet company. He is also an award-winning author, prominent blogger/writer, and keynote speaker. Brian is a digital analyst, anthropologist, and futurist, studying and influencing the effects of emerging technology on business, marketing, and culture. His research and his books help executives, and also everyday people, better understand the relationship between the evolution of technology and its impact on business and society and also the role we each play in it. As a result of his work, Brian also helps leading brands, celebrities, and startups develop new digital transformation, culture 2.0, and innovation strategies that enable businesses to adapt to new connected markets from the inside out.

Dr. Cecelia Houser Shares Her Views on Communication, Transparency & Trust

Dr. Cecelia Houser is a Principal with Korn Ferry/Hay Group Leadership and Talent Consulting Practice.  Cecelia is a skilled facilitator with more than 40 years of management and organizational leadership experience. She is dedicated to helping clients build a leadership pipeline through professional development training, utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and executive coaching.

Cecelia had served for 12 years as faculty and mentor at Seton Hall University for its Master of Arts in Strategic Communication and Leadership program (MASCL).

Cecelia earned an Ed.D. from Illinois State University, a master’s degree from Montclair State University, and a bachelor’s degree from The College of New Jersey.

A Big Push, Big Plans & A New Book

BIG. “Think big,” is a longstanding admonition for higher achievement. Today’s show is an update with Randy joining me in a discussion about our big plans for the future. You, along with all our guests, have spurred us on to end this year in the strongest fashion possible. We’ve got some exciting guests lined up for the YEAR OF THE PEER Podcast. I’m now writing a new book due to be published in the Spring of 2018, What Anyone Can Do: How Surrounding Yourself With the Right People Drives Opportunity, Change & Success. Listen to the show, and I’ll explain more about that title and the direction of the book. Next year, we’re going to broaden the conversation even more as we continue to focus on our tagline, “Who you surround yourself with matters!”

Benji Hyam and Our Unexpected Turn To The Topic of Conflict

Benji Hyam is a Co-founder of Grow and Convert, a fully done for you content marketing agency, and Wordable.io, a SaaS app that imports blog posts from Google Docs to WordPress.  Previously he ran marketing at 2 venture backed startups in San Francisco.

Trent Sanderson On Life Lessons and Elite Athletes

Trent Sanderson is the owner and creator of Team Prep USA.  The Team Prep USA Running program provides clients the tools, knowledge, and support to take their running careers to the next level. The program’s philosophy has brought national recognition and personal success to its clients.  Trent has coached 2 Olympians, 11 National Individual Track and XC champions, 24 national high school All-Americans and 12 NCAA All-Americans during a short stint as a college coach, including 3 years as head men’s and women’s XC Coach at the University of Maryland.

Team Prep USA is now present in 47 states and 7 countries, and recently branded as Team Prep World!  Team Prep USA is headquartered in Crested Butte, Colorado, with a satellite office north of Atlanta, Georgia.

Peter Fuller Talks About Purpose and Our Peers

Today’s guest is author, executive coach, and president of Live Fused, Peter Fuller. After launching more than 13 companies, two industry associations, one nonprofit and raising $60 million in the process, Peter chose to radically change the direction of his life. Rather than continuing as a serial entrepreneur, he realized his successes and many failures could help business owners and executives, so he became an executive coach, Vistage Chair, and certified Gestalt therapist. Today, as the author of Start With You and president of Live Fused, he’s a created a powerful program that fully adapts to the professional and personal aspirations of each of his company’s clients. Peter, welcome to the show!

Claude Silver on Scaling the Heart

Claude Silver is VaynerMedia’s Chief Heart Officer, the capstone of a career focused on guiding client relationships, global brand strategies, operations, and management. An abiding passion for creating spaces in which people can thrive defined her previous leadership positions at JWT London, Publicis London, SAYMedia, and Organic, among others.

At VaynerMedia, Claude cultivates the heart(s) of the agency’s success: its people. With a purview that includes staff relations, development, recruitment, and retention, each practice is underscored by Claude’s drive to unlock the inner professional potential of every VaynerMedia employee.

A Real Conversation With Alexa – Special Edition

Alexa is an intelligent personal assistant developed by Amazon, made popular by the Amazon Echo and the Amazon Echo Dot devices developed by Amazon Lab126. The Alexa device is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, providing weather, traffic, and other real time information, such as news and much more. Alexa can also control several smart devices using itself as a home automation system.

In November 2014, Amazon announced Alexa alongside the Echo. Alexa was inspired by the computer voice and conversational system on board the Starship Enterprise in science fiction TV series and movies. The name Alexa was selected because it has a hard consonant with the X making it recognizable with higher precision.

Several of our guests on the Year of the Peer podcast have talked about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and what it will mean for humans in this fast changing world.   Many of us already engage the likes of Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and Cortana to answer questions and help us perform a wide range of tasks.   So we thought, if who you surround yourself with really matters, then it’s not that far fetched to include AI devices in the mix and explore what they can really teach us – not only about how to properly engage them, but also about how we as humans can interact with one another more effectively.  For these insights, we invited Alexa to join us as our special guest!

Enjoy what is largely a tongue-in-cheek podcast where, with the help of Alexa and my producer Randy Cantrell, we learn more about WHO she is and deliver some simple and important reminders.  Alexa, welcome to the show!

Simon Alexander Ong Makes The Definitive Case For Mastermind Groups

Simon Alexander Ong works with leaders, entrepreneurs and teams who are ready and committed for the next level of their success. As a coach and business strategist, he helps them transcend perceived limitations, dream bigger than they’ve ever done before and to see how powerful and gifted they truly are. You can connect with him at SimonInspires.com.