Topics

Rise of the Chief Data Officer (CDO)
Why Yeti is a strong lifestyle brand
Brexit happened - now what?
Irish Ambassador DanMulhall on how Brexit may benefit Ireland
Coronavirus and global revenue generation
Tidal wave power is here
Multi-generational US households are happening
Social media is now a key pathway to news for Americans
Reps + Dems = CNN vs Fox
Americans who have heard of each outlet by tier
Iowa DEM Caucus is on Monday
Penn National Gaming buys a minority stake in Barstool Sports
GM commits to $2.2 billion investment and 2,200 jobs at “D-Ham”
Ford commits to Detroit and prepares for the future of mobility
Chef Kei Kobayashi = First Japanese chef to win three Michelin stars

Rise of the Chief Data Officer (CDO)

A new C-suite role is getting traction, and it's expected that 90% of large global organizations will have a Chief Data Officer (CDO) on their teams in the coming decade.

According to Pew Research, 91% of Americans “agree” or “strongly agree” that people have lost control over how personal information is collected and used.

Even in this consumer untrusting environment, by 2025, it’s estimated that 463 exabytes of data will be created each day globally – that’s the equivalent of 212,765,957 DVDs per day.

Though the CDO role is still new, untested, and amorphous, the position is growing not only more prevalent but also more prominent, as digital transformation reshapes global commerce.

A CDO will be responsible for organization-wide governance, management, and exploitation of information.

This data management and exploitation will be executed with the goal of achieving superior performance in areas of business intelligence, advanced analytics, data mining, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

@web: Why Yeti is a strong lifestyle brand:

- They chose a customer.
- They charge full price despite the half-price substitutes.
- You’ll find YETI stickers on laptops, trucks, boat windshields.
- It became a status symbol in just three years.
- The products are excellent.

BTW - Web Smith is a Brigadoon 365 member.

Brigadoon 365 is a year-long celebration of leaders from around the world that inspire + motivate the Brigadoon network

More on Web here.

Brexit happened - now what?

Britain departed the EU officially on Friday with equal parts optimism and regret.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed the exit as "the dawn of a new era" and pledged to unite Britain after years of angry debate over the European Union.

But disunity is already afoot. Members of the Scottish Parliament have backed a new independence referendum. Believing the circumstances have changed since the last indy referendum votes in 2014, MSPs voted by 64 to 54 this week for a referendum that should be held later this year.

A new poll from YouGov shows that a majority of Scots now back independence. The poll shows that 51% support leaving the UK, while 49% remain opposed.

Also, Brexit currently only means the UK has departed the EU, but the terms for how the relationship - business and otherwise - operates going forward is yet to be set. This next phase between London and Brussels is a potentially an even more volatile chapter in this saga.

Basically, the UK will be outside the EU, but ever-present in Brussels - how is that for sovereignty?!?

Martin Wolf penned a column, “Britain after Brexit will not be alone, but it will be lonelier.” The column went onto say: “Nobody has known (or even now knows) what agreement, if any, will be reached. The combination of uncertainty about the outcome with minimal time for adjustment is grotesquely irresponsible.”

Brexit is just unfolding.

Its impact on the global economy and on the future of America’s most important ally is full of uncertainty and with an unknown outcome.

Irish Ambassador DanMulhall on how Brexit may benefit Ireland

“We will be the sole English-speaking, common law country in the European Union. We expect that this will add further to Ireland's attractions as a location for US investment in Europe.”

Coronavirus and global revenue generation

Due to the outbreak of a new coronavirus in Wuhan, China - a city of 11 million 521 miles west of Shanghai - economic contagion is already rippling through Asia.

Tourism has been slashed, retail outlets closed on scale, service workers encouraged to work from home, and supply chains disrupted. Some are even suggesting Xi Jinping's important state visit to Japan this spiring could be put on hold.

Consider that Delta Airlines has suspended flights to mainland China until the end of April. At least 90 days of no flights meaning at least 90 days of new business put on hold.

The smart money on Wall Street tracks air traffic between the US and China as a KPI to determine where the economy is going.

With this Black Swan event to open the Year of the Rat, plan for 2020 to see little global economic expansion.

Tidal wave power is here

A perennial prototype technology, tidal turbines at the MeyGen array off the coast of Scotland generated 13.8-gigawatt-hours of electricity last year, a new record. The power generated here is enough electricity for 4,000 homes.

Multi-generational US households are happening

Pew reports, the 2010s will likely be the first decade in at least 160 years to see an increase in the average number of people living in US households.

This is in part because of the rising number of Americans living in multigenerational households.

In 2016, a record 64 million people, or 20% of the US population, lived with multiple generations under one roof, even with improvements in the US economy since the Great Recession.

Social media is now a key pathway to news for Americans

Pew reports, in 2018, for the first time, social media sites surpassed print newspapers as a news source for Americans.

One-in-five adults said they often get news from social media, slightly higher than the share who often did so from print newspapers (16%).

Among social media sites, Facebook dominates in terms of news consumption: Around half of all US adults (52%) now say they get news there.

Reps + Dems place trust in two nearly inverse news media environments | CNN vs Fox

A new Pew report finds that Republicans and Democrats place their trust in two nearly inverse news media environments.

Overall, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents view many heavily relied on news sources across a range of platforms as untrustworthy.

At the same time, Democrats and independents who lean Democratic see most of those news sources as credible and rely on them to a far greater degree.

These media diets are even more pronounced between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. Plus, the partisan polarization and trust of media sources have widened in the past five years.

A comparison to a similar study by Pew in 2014 finds that Republicans have grown increasingly alienated from most of the more established sources, while Democrats’ confidence in them remains stable, and in some cases, has strengthened.

Essentially the political media environment is now CNN vs Fox.

In the Republican media diet, one outlet towers above all others: Fox News. Pew reports it would be hard to overstate its connection as a trusted go-to source of political news for Republicans.

About two-thirds (65%) of Republicans and Republican leaners say they trust Fox News as a source. Additionally, 60% say they got political or election news there in the past week.

Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, CNN (67%) is about as trusted a source of information as Fox News is among Republicans.

CNN is also Democrats’ most commonly turned to source for political and election news, with about half (53%) saying they got news there in the past week.

Enjoy the ride and plan accordingly.

Iowa DEM Caucus is on Monday

An Iowa insider reports to watch for goodnights from Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, but at the end of the day, the race looks to be a battle between the Bs: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Mike Bloomberg.

Already Biden is attacking Sanders for not being a real Democrat - and this senior statesmen battle royale is just getting started.

Michael Brendan Dougherty penned a column entitled: “The coming Biden and Bernie show.” He went on to write: “If and when the race narrows to the strongest candidate in each ‘lane,’ Democrats will be forced to focus on the only questions that really matter to them.”

Politico reports, Bloomberg’s big-spending, shock-and-awe TV ad campaign, just eight weeks into his presidential campaign, has already spent more money on advertising — $248 million — than most candidates could spend in years.

Bloomberg is planning for Biden to fade away after Super Tuesday, creating a Bloomberg vs. Sanders contest for the Democratic nomination.

I see this primary going on for some time and we should be prepared for an ever-increasing chance of a contested party convention in Milwaukee.

Penn National Gaming buys a minority stake in Barstool Sports

Getting back to its roots, Barstool Sports is betting on betting in a big way.

Initially started as a rag that offered gambling advertisements, but once SCOTUS decided that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was unconstitutional, Barstool used the repeal to bolster its sports betting content and gain further recognition in the gaming industry.

Plus the appetite for sports betting only continues to grow as twenty states and DC have passed legislation allowing legal sports betting, with more states likely to follow.

So on paper, Penn National Gaming’s acquisition of a minority stake of Barstool Sports at a $450 million valuation makes sense.

Front Office Sports reports, over the years, Barstool has collaborated with other sports gambling entities like FanDuel, MGM, PointsBet, and DraftKings, but as the company sought a new owner, its unique audience of fans and bettors made the company an ideal target for Penn National Gaming. Barstool has 66 million unique monthly visitors, the majority falling in the 18-to-34 age range.

Dave Portnoy, Barstool founder, University of Michigan graduate, and satirical sports personality, or El Presidente as he's referred to by Stoolies predicts: “We are going to become the biggest gambling company in the country.”

The best brands in the world operate seamlessly online and offline.

With this new relationship, Barstool is in a unique position to marry media with online and retail sports betting, coupled with restaurants and hotels, merchandise, and experiences.

GM commits to $2.2 billion investment and 2,200 jobs at “D-Ham”

General Motors announced it is investing $2.2 billion in the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant and will make it the company's first assembly plant fully devoted to making electric vehicles.

According to GM, the plant will produce a variety of all-electric trucks and SUVs. The first all-electric truck will be a pickup with production scheduled to begin in late 2021.

GM said that it will soon be followed by the Cruise Origin, a shared, electric, self-driving vehicle unveiled by Cruise in San Francisco last week.

"Through this investment, GM is taking a big step forward in making our vision of an all-electric future a reality," GM President Mark Reuss said on Monday. "Our electric pickup will be the first of multiple electric truck variants we will build at Detroit-Hamtramck over the next few years."

"We are truly building the future today," Reuss said, "and we are doing it here in our hometown and home state, just up the road from our world headquarters."

When the plant becomes fully operational, GM said the investment will create more than 2,200 manufacturing jobs. The company also said it will invest an additional $800 million in supplier tooling and other projects related to the launch of an electric truck.

GM is expected to air a commercial during the Super Bowl that features LeBron James and the electric Hummer branded under GMC.

Reuss teased that more news could be coming during the Super Bowl: "I can definitely tell you this, the Super Bowl match-up Sunday between the Chiefs and the 49ers shapes up to be a classic and you should all tune in."

Ford commits to Detroit and prepares for the future of mobility

When Ford Motor Company took stock of its current 60-year-old global headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, it became clear that the only way forward for the company and the culture would be to take a big leap and launch two new high-tech campuses.

Announced in 2016, the company committed an estimated $1.2 billion to a ten-year project which will move 30,000 employees from 70 buildings into a Product Campus and a Headquarters Campus.

The new campuses are part of a future that will see the Ford Smart Mobility plan executed.

The plan aims to integrate connectivity, mobility, technology, customer experience, and big data. Everything from rapid charging and car-sharing, big-data collection, and a car-swap program as well as autonomous vehicles, on-demand shuttles, and eBikes.

Ford also is spending $740 million on a project to revamp the Michigan Central Station, Detroit’s beloved historic but dilapidated former rail station, as well as other neighborhood sites, especially Corktown.

Acquired in June 2018, the station and several nearby properties that Ford now owns will anchor a 1.2 million-square-foot innovation hub that draws on talent at Ford and beyond.

The company sees the Corktown developments, along with Ford’s transformation of its Dearborn campuses as the vehicle to create a mobility corridor that will drive the future of transportation.

Ford also announced it is investing more than $1.45 billion in two southeast Michigan manufacturing facilities and adding 3,000 new jobs to strengthen its leadership in trucks and SUVs and support the company’s expansion into electric and autonomous vehicles.

At 199,000 employees and 67 plants spread across the globe, Ford's transformation and commitment to the future of mobility will be no small task.

With these new bold campuses and big bets on the future, Ford has shown that it is building a new corporate mindset that is going to be critical as the company enters its next 100 years.

Chef Kei Kobayashi = First Japanese chef to win three Michelin stars

Chef Kobayashi is the first Japanese chef to be awarded the maximum three Michelin stars at his Paris restaurant Kei.

The Michelin Guide reports Chef Kobayashi, “is a virtuoso at marrying flavors and always spot-on with his conception of the dish.”

Japan has several dozen restaurants with Michelin stars, but Kobayashi is the first chef from Japan to be awarded the recognition for a restaurant in France.

Kobayashi was born in Japan’s Nagano province where his father was a chef in a traditional Japanese restaurant.

Brigadoon Weekly = Curation, content, and commentary from Marc A. Ross

Marc A. Ross is a business strategist working at the intersection of globalization, disruption, and politics. Ross specializes in communications, marketing, and advocacy for economic diplomacy and global commerce. He is the founder of Brigadoon.

Brexit happened - now what?

Brigadoon Weekly for February 2, 2019

Multi-generational US households

US labor force: Millennials have surpassed Generation Xers