Apr 15, 2020

Examining Our Values and Looking to the Future, with Jill Jago

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In Jill Jago’s own words: “I don’t believe in perfection. The most exciting and world-changing ideas have been born from a chaotic soup of clashing opinions, crazy notions, and stubborn dreams. This is where I thrive. Throw me into a messy situation and I’m looking for patterns, making connections and eventually tugging on the end of the thread that will weave all the best bits together into one glorious opportunity.”

Jill believes that as humans we have the power to create the future we want and she doesn’t want to wake up one morning and wonder, “what happened?”

With over 25 years of strategic communications experience, Jill has worked with clients around the world ranging from a water treatment utility to a bijou bakery in Brooklyn. She calls herself a Futurist and a liberator of big ideas.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Why Jill describes herself as a Futurist, and why she is particularly focused on "liberating big ideas"
  • How Jill helps her consulting clients by coming in with a fresh, outside perspective to identify unexpected patterns that create new opportunities
  • Why Jill believes the Covid pandemic is creating an eye-opening global sense of human interconnectivity for the first time
  • Why the key to Futurism is understanding the current environment and then extrapolating possible futures from present data
  • Why this unique situation is an opportunity to reflect on our values, and why Jill hopes marketers will think about how they can be a positive force for change
  • Why businesses who are willing to pivot and think outside the box are creating new opportunities for themselves, even during these difficult times
  • Why the marketing and messaging trend toward "authenticity" is often inauthentic and manufactured, and why true authenticity is a powerful force

Additional Resources:

 

Show Transcription:

Intro:

Welcome to A Brave New Podcast. The podcast all about how brave entrepreneurial companies are unlocking their business potential using inbound marketing. Here is your marketing expert and host, Polly Yakovich.

Polly Yakovich:

Well, welcome to A Brave New Podcast. I'm here today with my brilliant friend, Jill Jago, and we are going to tackle a variety of topics today, but Jill, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited that you said yes and agreed to come on.

Jill Jago:

Thank you. I'm excited to talk with you.

Polly Yakovich:

Jill also has an accent that makes you feel like you're instantly 20 IQ points dumber than you are, if you are an American of any sort. So I just, Jill, it's very difficult to describe what you do because I would say you are sort of at large and you think so expansively about so many different areas of marketing at work. I'd love for you just to take a few moments to explain to people what you do, how you think, how you can help your clients, those kinds of things.

Jill Jago:

Thanks, Polly. It's funny you say that because I actually, the question that I struggled with most is when people say, "Well, what do you do? What's your job title? What's your responsibility?" And I just, I've always resisted falling into any kind of box.

Polly Yakovich:

I love it.

Jill Jago:

Recently I redid my LinkedIn profile, and I had to ask myself all of these questions. So, I guess if it's okay with you, I'm just going to pull up my LinkedIn and tell you kind of where I ended up there. First and foremost, I've started using the term futurist. I recently have been training as a futurist, and it's something that just really, it's a big term, and it's a little bit of an amorphous term, but it also just reminds us that we're in this for something that's ahead of us and bigger than us. So I like that term. I always feel like one of my strengths is liberating big ideas. I love to draw connections between what I'm hearing, and I think because I'm not a specialist in anything in particular, I don't have enough knowledge to know that the conventional wisdom says, "That doesn't work. That's not possible." So I'm always asking, "Well, what if? What if? Why can't we do this?"

Polly Yakovich:

Which I think are essential skills for any marketer. I mean, that's the whole point of marketing is actually to be a little bit less smart.

Jill Jago:

I think that's true. I mean, I do think that that has a lot of value. It's really dangerous to think we know the answers in this day and age.

Polly Yakovich:

Yeah.

Jill Jago:

I love team-building, I love working with people. That's one of the many of the highlights of my career have been when I've been part of a team and building a team and creating a team and helping people to liberate themselves and find their passion and move on to the next thing. And then I also just described myself as a human, which is a little odd, but I do think that there will soon be a need to distinguish ourselves between the humans and the robots. So, I'm just getting ahead of the trend there.

Polly Yakovich:

That's amazing. Yeah. You can use your personal pronouns and then also, your, I don't know what the category would be.

Jill Jago:

Yeah. I'm she, her, and I am a human.

Polly Yakovich:

Amazing. So read your LinkedIn profile to us. How did you find a way to actually describe yourself?

Jill Jago:

Oh sure. Yeah, this was, I was just thinking about what I really care about, and why I think it's important. So here it is. I don't believe in perfection. The most exciting and world changing ideas have been born from a chaotic soup of clashing opinions, crazy notions and stubborn ideas. This is where I thrive. Throw me into a messy situation and I'm looking for patterns, making connections, and eventually tugging on the end of the thread that will weave all the best bits together into one glorious opportunity. I believe that as humans, we have the power to create the future we want. I don't want to wake up one morning and wonder what happened.

Jill Jago:

I seek partners who are willing to challenge the status quo and committed to making a positive impact in our brave new world. And it's entirely possible that I got that cue from your company name. I think we have to credit Shakespeare originally.

Polly Yakovich:

Yes, 100%. That is amazing. So, how does that translate into some of the actual work that you're doing with clients right now?

Jill Jago:

So, I am a consultant and I have several different clients and I feel that first of all, my primary value is being able to come in from the outside without any preconceptions about how their business should be run, how things are, what's done, and what's okay to be done. Most of my clients are in the architecture design and construction industry. And that's the industry that I've worked in nearly all of my life. Over, oh gosh, you know what? It might be almost 30 years now. So, usually when they bring me in it's for figuring out a new strategic direction.

Jill Jago:

Like what would be the right approach to solving this particular problem? Or help us understand what's going on in this market and what are some of the things we should be thinking about? So there's a big sort of strategic overlay to it, and that's where I love to do research. I spend a lot of time paying attention to trends and things that are happening just out there in the world in general. Often things that, for example, in the construction industry, you might not think that what's happening in the food industry has any particular bearing on your career, or on your profession, but there's always a connection. And so it's really interesting just to keep that really big perspective and help people think about things differently.

Jill Jago:

Because when you bring those different perspectives together and you start looking at things through different lenses, possibilities emerge that nobody's ever thought of. And what I'm seeing is that there's a lot more openness and receptiveness to that now with seeing that teams of people are much more consciously forming with a diversity of opinions. And that's really exciting to me. The more of that that happens the better, I think we'll be.

Polly Yakovich:

As a futurist, I think that we're in such an interesting time because we are in the midst of this COVID pandemic and crisis and our structures are in some ways secure and in some ways sort of feel like they're failing us. How do you think right now that this time is and will be shaping us? I think we've been in the early part of 2020 talking about, what's this decade going to look like? What's marketing look like? What's thought leadership look like? How do you take in the information in this time to see how that changes or doesn't change?

Jill Jago:

So, it's been really interesting to see the way that this pandemic has focused people. The whole world is talking about one thing, and we're all talking about it together. There's a great deal more openness because we're all in the same boat. So there seems to be a great deal more openness and a great deal more interest in watching what other people are doing outside of our country, outside of our state. We're all watching the curves, which country's got the most cases. Is it flattening? Everybody's anxiously watching Italy because they're ahead of us. What does that predict for the US? And for me, especially as a ex-pat living in the US, one of the things that I have found very challenging living in this country is the ancillary mindset. It's actually very hard to get information about what's happening outside of the US when you were living in the US. You have to work at it. Even the big news channels, like CNN, is one that always surprises me.

Jill Jago:

If you put on CNN in a European hotel room, the content is completely different. They are talking about all sorts of things from all around the world. If you put on CNN here, it's talking heads about politics, and that's all it is, whatever the subject of the moment is. And then you just get that 24/7 for months and months and months until something displaces it. So, I think one of the things that I've been excited about seeing is that we have a sense of being connected as human beings across the globe right now. We've been forced into realizing just how connected we are. And so that's what I look for. I mean, that's what the future is about, is understanding how everything's connected, and how we can benefit from it, and how we can leverage it.

Jill Jago:

And the other thing that I've been really interested in is seeing the way we're talking about this pandemic and everybody is talking about it. I mean, as a marketer, it's been super challenging because all of our marketing channels have had to pivot to be talking about how this impacts our particular sphere, what we're going to do about it, how we're changing, how we're thinking. Every single business on the planet has been affected in some way by this. And we're having to change the messaging that we're getting out there as a result and think about things differently. So, I read something by David Attenborough a couple of days ago that really struck a chord with me. He's 93 or whatever, and he's very sanguine about the whole thing. And, "Oh, well, if it gets me, I'm 93 years old for heaven's sake. What's the worst thing that can happen?"

Jill Jago:

He's a wonderful man. And he said, "At the end of the day, the coronavirus will be a chapter in human history. It is nothing compared to the crisis that climate change is for our planet." And the interviewer asked him, "Well, why do you think that is? Why do you think everybody's mobilized around coronavirus and we can't get the same traction around climate change? And he said, "Because people are dying today. So, we're creatures of short term thinking and it's an urgent action and we have to do it, we have to do something about it. In the case of climate change, the people who are dying will be our grandchildren. And we can't make that connection. As human beings, we are so focused on what's in front of us right now, that we can't extrapolate consequences to change."

Jill Jago:

So, if I put my optimistic lenses on, which I try to keep on, I'm hoping that this time that we have sequestered with time to think about what's really important in life, will perhaps usher in a collective mindset change that will allow us to think more broadly about the way we're all connected and the impacts of that connectivity. Sorry, I feel like I'm getting very philosophical and I-

Polly Yakovich:

No, it's good. I was thinking as you were talking to bring it back to marketing, which it doesn't have to be, but if I put my optimistic lenses on, I've seen language about shared humanity, which you're talking about, I've seen people talking in a more authentic human way. I mean, it's a unique experience to have a shared universal human experience right now.

Jill Jago:

Yes.

Polly Yakovich:

And the optimist in me is, how can we continue that as we move on through and from this as marketers and really borrow from our shared humanity, and call each other to care for each other in different ways, whether that's a brand or a service or whatever that is; thought leadership. The pessimist in me wonders if we don't just go back to business as usual, because it's hard to do that other thing. It's very difficult. And like you said, our animalistic brains, they work in the here and the now for the most part.

Jill Jago:

Yes. The pessimist in me can go there too. I think what will change, what won't go back to normal, as we've seen from other major events like 9/11 and the various, the way that everything changed regarding security as a result of that. So one thing that is inevitable, I think, is that there will be some kind of big change in terms of how we think about our security. And interestingly, I mean, this might be looking at all kinds of public place at the center... I mean, it's been really interesting to see that the authoritarian governments have been able to clamp this thing down really quickly, because they've got all the monitoring in place. It's this kind of the dark and the light of any given technology is that the power can be turned to good or to evil.

Polly Yakovich:

Right. Right.

Jill Jago:

So it's been really interesting actually watching that play out in real-time. And again, in futurism, one of the things that you do is you create scenarios and you think about, you create these imaginary worlds, and you explore what would happen in this world. What would be different if I did this in a world where there's a universal, basic income and the robots do all the menial tasks, and people only have to work three days a week at jobs that they love and lie on the beach the rest of the time?

Polly Yakovich:

Right. That sounds great.

Jill Jago:

Doesn't that sound great?

Polly Yakovich:

Yes. I am signing up for that.

Jill Jago:

And in a weird way, we're seeing some of these things being accelerated in the bailouts that governments are having to provide to the citizens just to keep them with roofs over their heads and food in their mouths. It's very similar to the notion of a universal, basic income, which is something that would have been fought tooth and nail by many, had it been proposed just as a concept. So, it's very interesting. Where almost the Coronavirus, the pandemic has kind of ushered in this alternative future. That's one that I think people much, much smarter than me have probably anticipated, but unfortunately they're not the ones who get the air space.

Polly Yakovich:

Right.

Jill Jago:

Yeah.

Polly Yakovich:

Can you walk me a little bit through this futuristic training or this training as a futurist? I was really interested as you were describing sort of just that little snapshot of what that looks like. What other things does that entail? How does that help you look at business and the world differently?

Jill Jago:

So, to be clear here, I am by no means an expert. There are some really, really smart people out there who are incredible futurists and think this way. But the training that I went through, the best description that I heard... And I went through a program called the Future School.

Polly Yakovich:

Okay.

Jill Jago:

Which is a fantastic three day program for strategic foresight, and right at the beginning, Frank Spencer, who's the pioneer of this program, he said, "Being a futurist is really about having a different mindset. It's about having a different mindset, a mindset that is open to possibility." And that's really in a nutshell, that's what's different. Is that you're not coming at any problem with any preconceived ideas, and then the elements of it are really very straightforward. It's a very robust emphasis on scanning your environment. On really paying attention to what's going on, what's out there, what's happening. And you use this sort of framework. It's kind of called the STEEP framework, which will be familiar to a lot of marketers and researchers.

Jill Jago:

You look at your social, technological, environmental, economic, and political environments, and you look to see what trends and things are showing up there. Always bearing in mind, what's the source, what's the origin, what's the bias, where's this coming from? And also bearing in mind that if it's shown up, it's already history. A trend is historic by definition. It's happened. So, it's not predictive of anything. If you want to stop predicting things, you have to start drawing connections and imagining what would be possible. I just did a really fun exercise with one of my clients, B + H Advance Strategy, they have a regular Thirsty Thursday, which everybody gets together and there's usually some content and it's a social hour and we had to go virtual.

Jill Jago:

So, I hosted this virtual workshop with one of the futuring tools that I'd learned about, where you put change in the middle. What is the change? And then around the outside you think about, okay, well, what would be a first order consequence of that change? And then once you've filled out that second circle, you draw a third circle around the outside. And for each first order consequence, you think, well, what might be a consequence of that? And so, we started the change we put in the middle was, we're all meeting virtually. So what does that change? And then you start to see, well, it means we don't need physical space. It means that people are not to getting the human connection, the physical human connection, it's lowering our carbon footprints. And you start to... Very, very quickly, you go from something as simple as a virtual meeting to orders of magnitude where global borders have dissolved, because there's no physical barriers anymore.

Jill Jago:

And we can meet with anyone, anytime, anywhere, and it's all becoming possible. And then you start thinking, well, what does that mean for IP? How do we protect our IP? Does that make us more vulnerable to hacking? Do we need new platforms? Do we need new tools? And so you can see from a very, very simple imagining what would be different because we're all meeting virtually, you start to create this populate, this world that is very, very different from the one we know.

Polly Yakovich:

Wow. I really love that. That's super interesting. Even just to think of like, we're meeting virtually as just almost a fact. Like, yes, it's a change, but there's so many ways that you can think about how that exponentially changes other things. I wouldn't have thought of that that way before.

Jill Jago:

And this is what's so great about strategic foresight is the tools themselves are really very, very simple. All you have to bring to the table is an open mind. The willingness to dream and imagine, and push yourself into a place that you don't know. I have yet to be in a session using one of these tools or having one of these conversations, where people have not got engaged and got excited and got really fueled by being part of this. Often people will say afterwards, "We so rarely get the opportunity to think that way. It was really, really valuable."

Polly Yakovich:

Right. I also feel like perhaps the unique opportunity to do something like that in a time like this is, I think for so many of us, decisions feel out of our control and we feel sort of powerless and small. And so to maybe even do an exercise like that as a team, which starts then opening up possibilities and choices and options and opportunities, would be really expansive.

Jill Jago:

Yes. And it's a great time to do it because we've all had to accept that things are very different from anything we have experienced or predicted before. So it's much easier to suspend belief because we're living in a reality that... And like I say, we're almost all living in an alternative reality already because it's something we couldn't imagine.

Polly Yakovich:

That's a really good insight. So out of that, I would say pivoting just a little bit, if you were talking to marketers or even maybe younger marketers, what are some... I mean, there've been a lot of things going around like, "This is a really good time to sort of clear your head and think about new concepts. And the law of gravity was discovered during a time similar like this." I think a lot of people have been sending these kinds of little factoids around. What would be your sort of, advice is too strong of a word, but as marketers who are sort of watching things and hopefully putting on a little bit of your futurist hat, what do you think are some of the opportunities? In some ways I do think we have an opportunity to create the future we want. What should we be doing in this time? Or what should we be experimenting with coming out of this time that you feel like could be really valuable for people?

Jill Jago:

I think what's really powerful about this time is that we all have the opportunity to examine what's really important to us. We're all being forced to think about what is it we really miss, because we can't go out. And I think back to sort of where we started this conversation. For most of us, number one on that list would be human connection in whatever shape or form it is. And then there are, and I would argue, and again, this might be my optimist lenses, but apart from the essentials, the food and the shelter and access to healthcare and access to education, the material things are becoming perhaps less important because we're realizing that we don't actually need those.

Jill Jago:

We're often not in a place where we can even use them; the fancy car or the fancy boat, the holiday home. We can't access those things. So, it's forcing us to think about what's really valuable and what we really care about. And so as marketers, I mean, I would like to see us thinking, and perhaps this isn't just the marketers, so perhaps this is a bigger call to anybody who is delivering a product or a service, to really take the time to reflect on how can this product or service be a force for good in the world; a force for positive change.

Jill Jago:

How can I, to put it very bluntly, how can I not be part of this problem? Because we're all being forced to press pause. For young people in particular, I mean, I am so inspired by the younger generation. I mean, I just want to see them fly. I want to see them take the bit between their teeth and create-

Polly Yakovich:

Yeah, I feel the same.

Jill Jago:

... the world that they see. I want the rest of us to get out of the way.

Polly Yakovich:

Yeah.

Jill Jago:

So, I'm hoping that this will give them the confidence and the pause to say, "You know what? None of you have handled this very well. I can do a better job. Let me at it. I've got ideas." And I just want to step back and help boost them up.

Polly Yakovich:

Yeah. It really feels like in some ways, a break from the autopilot of our programming, to use that word, our consumer programming, our climb-the-ladder programming, our this is what a professional way to talk about a product or service programming. I'm hopeful that we can extend that part of this time.

Jill Jago:

Yeah. I am too. And the other thing that I hope we all spend a lot of time thinking about is when we look at those businesses that have been designated essential services, the people in the frontline, our grocery stores clerks, our janitors, our nurses, our teachers who are trying to keep education going to kids who don't have the means to access it outside of school, or all of the charity workers who are trying to make sure that people in need are served during this time, and those are people we really don't value in society. So, what would a world look like where we actually put them at the top of the pyramid, and thought about the rest of us as supporting them. Because without that platform, we don't have a society. It's really turned the world upside down, caused us to see it differently.

Polly Yakovich:

Yeah. And I think for me, at least, the longer it lasts, particularly for you and I who live in Seattle, we were sort of at the forefront. So, I read an article that said, "We've been in this a week or two longer," so maybe we're turning this corner, but the longer it lasts as you strip away some of that programming, it does give you some time to reflect on those things that you reach for and keep busy with that matter and don't matter. When's the last time we really stopped and thought about, "But do I even like this? Or do I want this? How do I want to be in the world?" We were so busy doing it, we don't get that time to reflect.

Jill Jago:

Yes. I was just going to say, I'm also, I'm very, very aware that... And because of a lot of my clients have been writing about this, and as I said, we've sort of been pivoting our marketing communications to talk about how this is impacting us. I'm also acutely aware that for all of us white collar workers in our homes with our connected laptops and our Zoom meetings, we are really privileged. The vast majority of people out there are in desperate straights of anxiety and concern. And it's a very different experience for them. And I'm also very aware we're not hearing from them, because the people who've got the time to be writing and putting thought leadership out there, are the people sitting at home with the privilege to do so. So, that's what I've been thinking about.

Polly Yakovich:

Yeah. Thank you. That's a really important thought. I hadn't really thought about that. We're not hearing from them and why.

Jill Jago:

Right.

Polly Yakovich:

I think that's a helpful reminder. One of the things I find myself doing, and I actually am so bad at this, but I actually just started because I forget. I mean, I'm busy, I have a three year old. My brain is like a sieve. And so, I started making a list of businesses that I know are supporting their employees in this time, and businesses that are ramping up their paid leave and sick leave for their essential workers, and who aren't cutting it. Because I want to remember when this is over, that those are the places that I'm going to support, and I'm not going to continue supporting companies and big organizations. And I think we always struggle with the balance of the convenience of the big box retailers or the online retailers versus the local. But, I'm going to remember those that were there for their people and who weren't.

Jill Jago:

Absolutely. And that gets back to our discussion about values. What do we value? So even as we go back to some consumerist patterns and we will; of course, we will. But as we start to go out and go back to restaurants, as we start to travel again, I think for many of us, we're going to be thinking about those businesses that went out of their way to support their employees to keep things going. And those are the ones that we're going to go back and support because they have shown us values that we want to support.

Jill Jago:

And I'm thinking of several of the restaurants around and I know there are many, and so I don't want to just sort of call out one or two in particular, but the ones that have pivoted immediately to say, "Okay, seize this as a new opportunity." And Canlis has been in the news. They were super proactive. They made that shift before the restaurants closed.

Polly Yakovich:

Yeah. Amazing.

Jill Jago:

Amazing.

Polly Yakovich:

And so in tune to say, "Seattle doesn't need fine dining right now. So here's something you're going to need," and keeping their hundred employees employed.

Jill Jago:

Absolutely. And do you know what? I very much doubt that that demand for that service will go away once the restaurant is open. I think they just opened themselves a second business.

Polly Yakovich:

Oh, 100%.

Jill Jago:

So, there is in these times, there's great opportunity for those who are willing to pivot and think differently, and exactly what you just said. Their whole brand has been around fine dining, but they didn't let that stop them pivoting on a dime when circumstances changed.

Polly Yakovich:

Absolutely.

Jill Jago:

It's so exciting to see people who can think that way.

Polly Yakovich:

The other thing I think on the other side of that, because I am judging restaurants right now that in my mind, just folded up shop and laid off all their people and didn't try.

Jill Jago:

Yes.

Polly Yakovich:

And if there's a good reason for that, someone said to me of one of the earlier closures, "Well, they did that so their employees could get into unemployment first and make sure to get it." I think it's very important in this time for people to be authentic and to talk about some of their decisions and why, if they hope to get those customers back after this is all over.

Jill Jago:

Yes.

Polly Yakovich:

Because otherwise the impression I have is that they callously didn't care about their hundreds of employees.

Jill Jago:

Absolutely. And I wonder and hope if this is the opportunity to finally usher in a new age of transparency in our communications. [crosstalk 00:32:10] I mean, just think about how incredibly difficult it has been to find out information about what's going on. Even although every single news outlet that you could touch, see, hear, is talking about coronavirus. Have you seen one good succinct, "Here's what you need to know. This is what's going on. This is what you can do." I mean, yes, there are pieces out there that do that well, but they're buried in the noise. And some of the best information that I have got about the coronavirus have been public service announcements that have been forwarded to me from friends in Europe, where the government's very quickly put together something and it's out on all the channels. It's so hard for us to do here, because of our fractured media.

Polly Yakovich:

Yeah. This has been so interesting and I really appreciate your perspective. And even some of the opportunities you've given me to sort of reframe my thinking during this time and take advantage of some extra time. What sort of like a takeaway that you would hope for anyone in our field or something that you would like us to carry with us?

Jill Jago:

The buzzword, and I hate that this has become a buzzword in our industry, has been authenticity. So everybody's building their brand and their communications around being authentic. And there is a lot of inauthenticity in that authentic word. So, I hope the takeaway is that if you have the confidence and the integrity to truly examine your values and speak about them, speak about what matters to you, and be honest about what you don't have control over.

Jill Jago:

If there's one thing that we have all learned in this situation, it is that we cannot control everything. There are things that we can't control. So, I think being honest about what you can't control and doing a really damn good job of what you can control, and talking about that authentically, but acknowledging what's out of your control. And saying what you wish were true or what you can do about it or what you're working towards. But I would hope that the big takeaway from this is that we all sit down and examine what's really important to us. And then we move forward with whatever we're doing in the world with true authenticity.

Polly Yakovich:

Yeah. Which to me, as you were talking, means for me and has always meant, but I think it's hard, not separating your personal and professional self. If you examine your values, you have to carry them into what you're doing everywhere.

Jill Jago:

Yes. And it is really hard. It is really hard to be true to yourself and true to anything.

Polly Yakovich:

We're very much trained not to, but I think this is a chance for us to... And this is where I think the younger generation is light years ahead of us.

Jill Jago:

Yes. Yeah. I hope so. That's the big change I'm hoping to see, is an acceleration of the young generations into positions of leadership and influence.

Polly Yakovich:

That's great. I always ask people before they go, one question, and that is, what would you say is your super power?

Jill Jago:

I have a very simple answer to this one and it's not going to be what you expect. And as a futurist, I will be the first to acknowledge that it is going to be a redundant super power very, very soon. I am really good at parallel parking.

Polly Yakovich:

Whoa, amazing. I love it. Yeah. Your computer car is going to do that for you.

Jill Jago:

Exactly.

Polly Yakovich:

That's amazing. Well, coming from Europe, I think everyone is much better at parallel parking there.

Jill Jago:

That's true. Smaller spaces.

Polly Yakovich:

That's amazing.

Jill Jago:

Yeah. So I'm going to have to find a new superpower soon.

Polly Yakovich:

That's funny. I would say every time I talk to you, I feel like I'm challenged, and I have to go away and sit and think for a little bit. Where can people follow you, hear more from you, read some of your musings? What's the best way to?

Jill Jago:

So, LinkedIn is really where I am right now. I don't have a website. I have actually, because I spend a lot of my time writing for other people, have really neglected getting my own stuff out there, but I am trying to be much more proactive on LinkedIn and I try to share things that catch my eye and tell people why. And yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn, Jill Jago.

Polly Yakovich:

Great. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. It's been so lovely to chat with you.

Jill Jago:

Thank you, Polly. It's been great. I always, always love our conversations and thank you for the questions. It always makes me think.

Polly Yakovich:

Great. Thanks, Jill.

Polly Yakovich:

Wow. So every time I talked to Jill, I feel like I need to just sit in a quiet room for an hour and reflect on all the wisdom that she drops, and the way that she thinks about things. I really just love the way that she not only described being a futurist, but really just using this time that we have right now to really examine our values, and to think about what's important to us as humans, for many of us as business owners, to think about how we're blending those things together.

Polly Yakovich:

And then also just bringing some of that futurist approach to the way that we are experiencing things right now. What could the future look like? If the future is ours to create, how can we create a better future? How can we take some of the lessons that we're learning from this time forward and be more human, more real, more connected to one another. So, thank you so much for listening and you can check everything out that we have in past episodes on abravenew.com. See you next time.

Outro:

Thanks for listening to this episode of a brave new podcast. Go to abravenew.com for more resources and advice. If you enjoyed this episode, show us some love by subscribing, rating and reviewing A Brave New Podcast, wherever you listen to your podcasts.

 

Polly Yakovich

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OCT 11, 2021

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The Beginner’s Guide to Generating Inbound Leads

Marketing doesn’t have to be painfully intrusive, like getting yet another telemarketing call right when you sit down to dinner with your family.

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OCT 11, 2021

cover

The Beginner’s Guide to Generating Inbound Leads

Marketing doesn’t have to be painfully intrusive, like getting yet another telemarketing call right when you sit down to dinner with your family.

Read More

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