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Facebook’s Tough Week And More On CHOM 97.7 FM

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio out of Montreal (home base). It’s not a long segment – about 10 minutes every week – about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly on i Heart Radio, if you’re interested in hearing more of me blathering away about what’s going on in the digital world. I’m really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry DiMonte morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

Facebook is having a brutal week… and, in turn, it is us (the users) who are paying the price:

Facebook was hacked. 50 million users were affected (but close to 90 million may have been). To put that into perspective, Canada has a population of around 36 million. Were you affected? Here’s what you need to know.
Facebook is using something Gizmodo calls “shadow contact information” (like your home phone number that you never gave the company, but that a friend might have added when allowing Facebook to access their personal contact list). The big deal? Facebook is giving advertisers access to this information. This is another layer of privacy, information and data being tossed around in ways that most of us could have never thought.

Imagine a store that only sells products that everyone loves. Amazon made this happen. Last week, we discussed the potential for 3000 Amazon Go stores (their cashless and employee-less convenience stores). Last week, they also opened the first ever Amazon 4-Star in New York City’s Soho neighborhood. As the name implies, the store only carries products that have earned – at least – a four-star average review from Amazon customers. So, Amazon continues to bring physical retail to life, but with a heavy focus on data and experience.
App of the Week – Apple’s new Mojave macOS.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.