The Oxford Report

With our fast growth crowd, it sounds a little off-putting for me to ask: does your company have a firebreak¹ strategy? 

Insurgent companies and timber forests need firebreaks as both have fragile, beautiful habitats compared to a corporate landmass.

And as free trade people, we’re prone to bandwagons that catch fire like the one I jumped on in the 90’s – ‘globalization’, which turned out to have a lot of upside. 

In the frenzy, we didn’t figure out where we needed the firebreaks to limit the downside. 

As French philosopher René Girard² told us, ‘all connected together takes one match to burn it down.’ Same goes for a company.

The fact is staying on offense fits with the strategy of firebreaks – a 500 acre forest having firebreak blocks around every 10 acres, contains a fire to 10 acres, rather than lose it all. 

Companies need at least one of five firebreak strategies: financial, regulatory, top talent raids, customer concentration defections and technology terror. Don’t let one catch fire and lose it all. 

Firebreak work is not fun because it’s like paying insurance – dealing with future problems we may never see but a high ROI when we do.

A globalization firebreak or two in the 90’s might have saved a republic in 2024.

And by the way, like replacing that roof when the sun is shining – best time to put in firebreaks is when the revenue is flooding. 

It rained 4.5 inches in Waycross – no sign of a wildfire but in my head I heard my dad say, “boys, let’s work on those firebreaks, best to plow when the ground is soft.”  

Action: Get the best in the room for a firebreak session.

And of course a lot of thinking ahead in the upcoming flash event – the perils and pearls of podcasting. 

A big question we will ask – should you plant a flag now in podcasting or in what’s next? It’s casting but not pod or broad.

We figured it out and will let you know that as well as the last train at the podcast station. Should you step foot on it?

We want to reveal not only how to do a podcast, but how to make money doing it.

No matter the part of the cast – whether you are interviewer, interviewee, engineer or chief podcaster. 

Dte:   05/21/24
Tme:  5-7 pm (Dinner Served)
Loc:   Icon Studios

– if a podcast falls in the forest³

– good business or good grief

– dissection of recorded podcast

– interviewers or interviewees

– which side of the table to own?

– what’s inappropriate?

– create chemistry or content

– karaoke podcasting?

– MAR (min acceptable request)

Cliff Notes

1. An obstacle to the spread of fire, such as a strip of open space in a forest. “We passed into a conifer forest and followed firebreaks downhill”
2. René Noël Théophile Girard, (25 December 1923 – 4 November 2015) was a French polymath, historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science whose work belongs to the tradition of philosophical anthropology. Girard was the author of nearly thirty books, with his writings spanning many academic domains. Although the reception of his work is different in each of these areas, there is a growing body of secondary literature on his work and his influence on disciplines such as literary criticism, critical theory, anthropology, theology, mythology, sociology, economics, cultural studies, and philosophy.

3. “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” – is a philosophical thought experiment that raises questions regarding observation and perception.