Voices of eCommerce: Recent Episodes
John Drake
Do you want understand how eCommerce works? I’m professor John Drake of East Carolina University. My podcast “Voices of eCommerce” wants to build that understanding in the area I love most - eCommerce. In this podcast, I interview the people behind the scenes of eCommerce - the people that design, build, market, and run online, mobile, and social initiatives. These interviews ask about their careers, job roles, and the current state of eCommerce in business today.
What if? What if we re-thought what "social" means, to rid ourselves of the dark elements and instead promote the enriching parts?
In this episode, we talk to Brian Amerige, CEO and co-founder of Thoughtful, and who takes us on a journey on rethinking social. His app, Thoughtful (available at https://thoughtful.community/Brian) represents his effort to bring this vision to reality.
Specifically, we discuss:
- Why we need ideas to flourish as humans
- How current social platforms promote non-enriching content, leading to toxic environments.
- How Thoughtful promotes ideas through the consumption of interesting content.
- Why "Thoughtful time" creates a number for screen time you should be proud of.
- The marketplace for new apps is still huge - especially for positive, human centric apps.
- In Thoughtful, engagement with people is limited to the extent it can help engagement with ideas.
- Why metrics at Thoughtful are used to inform decisions but not make decisions.
- How the "judgement coefficient" helps match individual interests with other people with similar interests, and their recommendations, regardless of popularity of that content.
- How you could use Thoughtful to improve your college experience
- Why students should focus on problems when thinking about their career.
In this episode, we talk with Fran Stacks, channel manager at Wells Fargo https://www.wellsfargo.com/. We talk about:
- What a channel manager does
- How ADA specifications impact web site design
- How the digital marketing has changed in the last 10 years
- How customer expectations have changed in the last 10 years
- What a Data Management Platform does
- and more...
To learn more about eCommerce and how marketing plays a role, check out my textbook "eCommerce: A Stakeholder Approach" https://www.prospectpressvt.com/textbooks/drake-ecommerce-a-stakeholder-approach
In this episode, we chat with Harry Hawk, instructer at Southwestern College and lead generator at Doctible (doctible.com). During this conversation, we learn about:
- What is a "lead" and how Harry uses digital media to help find leads for medical offices
- HubSpot and their technological offerings
- Why I wrote my textbook
- How to get started in eCommerce and eBusiness
- How to get the most out of my textbook
- Digital deep funnel optimization
To learn more about eCommerce and how marketing plays a role, check out my textbook "eCommerce: A Stakeholder Approach" https://www.prospectpressvt.com/textbooks/drake-ecommerce-a-stakeholder-approach
In this episode, we talk to Randy Paszek and Matt McGuirk, solutions and sales engineers at Source Defense. We talk about:
- Why businesses struggle with website security
- Magecart attacks
- How 3rd party JavaScript files leave customers vulnerable
- How Source Defense's VICE platform helps contain 3rd party JavaScript to prevent Magecart attacks
- What the 15 millisecond rule means in JavaScript development
- How companies can assess their website risk https://sourcedefense.com/check-your-exposure/
- Why the pandemic may have made magecart attacks more attractive
- Source Defense's new product WiPP
To learn more about eCommerce and how security plays a role, check out my textbook eCommerce: A Stakeholder Approach
In this episode, we talk to Arthur Zey, senior technical product manager at Amazon for the Alexa developer's portal. We talk about:
- What is a product manager in the tech industry
- How a product management differs from a project management
- How the Alexa developer's portal is structured
- Why UX reflects thoughtfulness in design
- Why technical documentation requires good UX
- How API development and technical documentation relate
- Various workflows for technical writers developing technical documentation
- Using JIRA for workflows
- Why interpersonal challenges tend to be the most difficult issues in tech
- Some strategies for dealing with interpersonal issues
- Why getting hands-on work experience is critical for your career
To learn more about eCommerce, check out my textbook at:
eCommerce: A Stakeholder Approach
In this episode, we are joined by two directors at C Spire; Jennifer Anderson, director of marketing, and Graham Miller, director of digital transformation. We talk about:
- How C Spire transitioned from traditional retail to the digital environment
- The difference between digital marketing, media marketing, and marketing analytics
- How marketing moves customers to the digital environment
- Developing an organizational structure that supports digital marketing through strategy, management, and execution
- How marketing and digital initiatives vary widely between wireless, fiber, and B2B applications.
- How their Continuity of Operations plan helped guide C Spire through the COVID-19 pandemic
- How the pandemic super charged their eCommerce initiatives to help deal with lockdown and social distancing requirements.
- How virtual meetings helped maintain employee relations while working from home
In this episode, Robert and Amy Nasir discuss some of the decision they made when they started their podcast "Five Minutes with Robert Nasir" https://YouTube.com/RobertNasir/ and https://www.facebook.com/RobertNasir
- Why choosing a topic that matches your interests helps find synergies
- Why learning by doing is critical - don't wait
- How podcasting requires honing your powers of multitasking
- Picking your target audience
- How practical wisdom can be gained from a variety of experiences
- How to pick your technology platform - video vs. audio and live vs. recorded
- When to use your own persona or personal brand in your podcast or create a new one
- Why learning to listen to your own product is essential
- How soft skills can help improve the show
Other podcasts mentioned in this episode:
- EconTalk
- Tim Ferriss Show
- Dark Horse with Bret Weinstein
- The Rubin Report
- Don Watkins
- Yaron Brook Show
Christian Williams joins us to talk about his history in the bay area, building product for eBay sellers, working at Wikia and AirBnb, and how things have changed because of the pandemic. We discuss:
- Why he bought not just one but two DeLoreans
- How web technologies have changed in the past 20 years
- Using Notepad and Notepad++ to learn HTML
- AirBnb's AirFam
- Developing OneAirBnb
- How AirBnb has been impacted by COVID-19
- Why using GraphQL is amazing for APIs
- The relationship between Wikia and Wikipedia
- Why finding good people to work with is key to happiness
To learn more about eCommerce, check out my textbook at:
eCommerce: A Stakeholder Approach
Daniel Barber, CEO and co-founder of DataGrail, joins us to talk about his career and the need for companies to manage customer privacy amid new regulations. Specifically, we discuss:
- How living and working around the world impacted his ability to lead diverse teams
- The merging of marketing and technology
- Why continuous learning is critical for success
- The hardest part of running a startup is finding the right talent
- How DataGrail provides transparency and control to eCommerce companies
- Why new privacy laws, specifically EU's GDPR and California's CCPA, have created huge regulatory demands on business.
- Creating technology excellence to ensure the customer experience works every time, the first time
- How transparency provides ethical excellence in privacy
- Gaining faster time to value for your customer through a "no code" experience
- Using strategic corporate capital partnerships for 10x multipliers
Books mentioned in this podcast:
- "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman
- "Measure What Matters" by John Doerr
- "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker
- "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries
- "eCommerce: A Stakeholder Approach" by John Drake
Jenna Hoose shares her history in front end development, working at ATT, RTI International, and IBM. In this episode, we touch on:
- Integrating data with mapping apps
- Adapting the MyIBM portal for changing customer needs
- Working with data on the front-end of a website
- Internationalization of websites
- What is JSON and how its different than XML
- SCRUM/Agile methodology
- Using GitHub with web development
- Pros and cons of various web development editors
- Optimizing databases
- When to turn down job offers
- Advice on starting a career in web development
To learn more about eCommerce, check out my textbook at:
https://www.prospectpressvt.com/textbooks/drake-ecommerce-a-stakeholder-approach
Daniel Boone, a technical support engineer at NetApp, shares his experience working with cloud computing infrastructure products. We talk about:
- What is NetApp
- What is the Cloud computing
- The difference between on and off premise storage and public, private and hybrid cloud
- Day in the life of a technical support engineer
- Solving technical problems in cloud computing
- Getting started in technical support
To learn more about e-commerce, buy my textbook:
Learn more about me at ProfessorDrake.com
In this interview, Trey McIntyre shares his history with Adobe, Acxiom, and the world of online marketing. In this wide ranging discussion, we hit on:
- History of Acxiom and its role in digital marketing
- Adobe's tools for digital marketing
- Selling digital marketing tools to businesses
- Digital marketing using anonymized and personalized data
- Finding the right place to work
- Choosing to go into management positions
- Five pieces of advice that digital marketers should consider
To learn more about e-commerce, buy my textbook:
eCommerce: A Stakeholder Approach
Learn more about me:
http://professordrake.com
In this interview, Aaron Drake shares his history with Google, Shutterfly, RockYou!, Wikia, Augur, and Stanford University. In this wide ranging discussion, we hit on:
- What is Blockchain technology
- Using MuleSoft integration to connect and control telecommunication systems
- Building JavaScript on the front-end and back-end of websites
- Unintended consequences of early design decisions
- Working at startups
- Moving to the Bay area
- Five pieces of advice that new software engineers should consider
Learn more about e-commerce, buy my textbook:
eCommerce: A Stakeholder Approach
Learn more about me:
http://professordrake.com