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It was fun to root for the Redditors, but the GameStop debacle shows yet again how software platforms are best at turning individuals into faceless, hysterical mobs. Mike and Jason are just sore they didn't get in when they were trading shares for old Nintendo cartridges.

Social media forces us to be emotionally attached to everything due to the social pressure to make statements or the unending need to post content. But the rabid pursuit to be "in the conversation" is exhausting and fomentative. We need more emotional impartiality. Mike and Jason are working on the self-help book: Not Caring Yourself into a Better Life.

We welcome to the podcast Cassidy Shield, VP of Marketing at Narrative Science, a company dedicated to telling engaging stories through data. We go way back with Cassidy, maybe too far back, and we get to pick his brain about who in the company should own the product vision and what the heck that even means (TL;DL: It should be Marketing).

Do we want to look back at 2020? Of course we do. It was a strange year for everyone, a tragic year for some, and--from a digital industry perspective--an enlightening year. Mike and Jason just want to record this podcast in person again.

The digital world has increased both consumption and production of both art and content to crazy levels. But has that voracious cycle caused us to lose something important? Mike and Jason just want to rehash old college dorm arguments...in the digital world.

When the pandemic started, Zoom was one of its heroes. Now its brand seems to have shifted from one of positive collaboration to one of necessary evil. Mike and Jason just want their friends and colleagues to be larger than a computer screen.

Goodby and Silverstein are known for iconic ad campaigns like Got Milk?, and their MasterClass is great, both for what they say and what they don't say about the modern state of marketing and advertising. And what they don't say, well, Mike and Jason do in this discussion of both the MasterClass and GS&P. Mike and Jason just want people to not forget about the time ET was impressed by Comcast.

There's an attempt to institutionalize good in business today, both via pressure from new generations of employees and the ideas of tech leaders like Marc Benioff and his stakeholder capitalism. But can you put a sincere engine for charity in a vehicle of escalating commerce? And is there even a shared sense of the greater good today? Mike and Jason just want more humanity in humanity.

We're inundated by software in our personal and professional lives, and every single platform is a learning curve. Meanwhile, that software is in constant flux, adding features and capabilities that clutter its menus and overlap other platforms and impact the experience. Software makers may need to think about their products in the software continuum of the user's life. Mike and Jason just want to email you a Word document.

We're inundated by software in our personal and professional lives, and every single platform is a learning curve. Meanwhile, that software is in constant flux, adding features and capabilities that clutter its menus and overlap other platforms and impact the experience. Software makers may need to think about their products in the software continuum of the user's life. Mike and Jason just want to email you a Word document.

We're inundated by software in our personal and professional lives, and every single platform is a learning curve. Meanwhile, that software is in constant flux, adding features and capabilities that clutter its menus and overlap other platforms and impact the experience. Software makers may need to think about their products in the software continuum of the user's life. Mike and Jason just want to email you a Word document.

We're inundated by software in our personal and professional lives, and every single platform is a learning curve. Meanwhile, that software is in constant flux, adding features and capabilities that clutter its menus and overlap other platforms and impact the experience. Software makers may need to think about their products in the software continuum of the user's life. Mike and Jason just want to email you a Word document.

We're inundated by software in our personal and professional lives, and every single platform is a learning curve. Meanwhile, that software is in constant flux, adding features and capabilities that clutter its menus and overlap other platforms and impact the experience. Software makers may need to think about their products in the software continuum of the user's life. Mike and Jason just want to email you a Word document.

We're inundated by software in our personal and professional lives, and every single platform is a learning curve. Meanwhile, that software is in constant flux, adding features and capabilities that clutter its menus and overlap other platforms and impact the experience. Software makers may need to think about their products in the software continuum of the user's life. Mike and Jason just want to email you a Word document.

We're inundated by software in our personal and professional lives, and every single platform is a learning curve. Meanwhile, that software is in constant flux, adding features and capabilities that clutter its menus and overlap other platforms and impact the experience. Software makers may need to think about their products in the software continuum of the user's life. Mike and Jason just want to email you a Word document.

Agency awards are...icky. The money machine is blatant--scores of awards, half a dozen deadlines each, 4,000 categories, non-competitive judging, checkout upsales. The money and business flow, not to the winners, but to the award orgs, and these orgs don't know what a modern, relevant agency does. Mike and Jason won an award for this podcast and are ashamed to tell you about it.

The Customer Experience shouldn't be silo'd into sales, marketing, product, and customer service. It should all be unified within a continuum of digital experiences. It's time for marketing to stop taking orders and start serving the long term vision of the customer's experience at every touchpoint. Mike and Jason just want to press "0" for the operator.

We started a cross-education program at Maark, with subscriptions to Treehouse for employees to expand their skillsets and to MasterClass to stoke their personal curiosity. Continuing education is a no-brainer, but how well do these platforms work for it? Mike and Jason want all their teachers to fit in little boxes on screens.

Sure, we all love movie theaters. They're nostalgic. And a chance to leave our screens at home for a screen somewhere else. But now that they're closed, do we need them anymore? Or is VOD to our 4K TVs a more profitable model for movie studios and a good enough experience for most movie-lovers? Mike and Jason are just glad Bill and Ted 3 isn't getting pushed to 2021.

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