Hear how Innovative Marketing Can Build Our Future Communities 

I first interviewed Mark Schaefer in September of 2019 in our podcast, On the Brink with Andi Simon. As I read his newsletter, I am constantly learning from his crucial insights. We had to have him back for another podcast about the future. How can Innovative Marketing bond people into communities?

Welcome my listeners to On the Brink with Andi SImon. As fellow enthusiasts of the ever-evolving marketing landscape, we are here to listen to our Mark Schaefer where we dive into the currents of change alongside one of the industry’s most visionary minds, Mark Schaefer. I’m thrilled to embark on this journey with you, exploring the forefront of marketing and branding with someone who not only understands where the winds of change are blowing but has often been the one to set them in motion. If you’re passionate about staying ahead of the curve and shaping the future of marketing, then you’re in the right place. Remember, my job is to help you get “off the brink,” so you can see, feel and think in new ways. As an anthropologist who loves to help organizations change, it was timely to get Mark on our podcast now. With the massive changes coming to all of us, well beyond just AI, we need some new perspectives. Ask yourself, “Isn’t time I made change my friend.” Might as well, the times are indeed changing.

“Belonging to the Brand” sets forth Mark Schaefer’s thinking about Innovative Marketing and Community Building.

Now, let me introduce you to Mark Schaefer, who needs no introduction in our realm. With a career spanning decade, Mark has been a trailblazer, a thought leader, and a guide through the ever-shifting terrain of marketing and branding. From the dawn of social media to the rise of influencer marketing, Mark has not only witnessed these seismic shifts but has also been at the forefront, deciphering trends, and charting courses for success.

But what sets Mark apart isn’t just his keen insight into what’s happening now—it’s his uncanny ability to anticipate what’s coming next. While others may struggle to keep pace with the rapid evolution of our industry, Mark has a knack for spotting emerging trends and technologies before they hit the mainstream. In this podcast, we will tap into that foresight, exploring what’s happening today and what lies on the horizon.

Megatrends Shaping the Future of Marketing

One core theme we’ll explore is bringing people together and building new communities and shared experiences. In an increasingly fragmented and polarized world, Mark understands the power of connection and is passionate about helping brands forge deeper, more meaningful relationships with their audiences.

In our discussion, Mark highlighted three Megatrends that are reshaping the marketing world:

• The decline of traditional marketing effectiveness in a world where people are increasingly resistant to ads.
• The mental health crisis and the profound human need for community and belonging.
• The surge of investment in new technologies that facilitate connection and community building.

Mark’s latest book, “Belonging to the Brand,” delves into the critical role of community in marketing. As humans, we have an innate desire to belong, and this is something that businesses can no longer afford to overlook.

The Role of AI in Marketing

Another significant trend we touched upon is the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing. AI is set to revolutionize every aspect of our lives, including how we market products and services. The challenge for businesses is to find the balance between leveraging AI and maintaining the human touch that customers crave.

Conclusion: It is More than Great Marketing. The Most Human Company Wins!

But this podcast isn’t just about theory and speculation—it’s about practical insights and actionable advice that you can apply to your own marketing efforts. So, whether you’re a seasoned marketer looking to stay ahead of the curve or a newcomer eager to learn from the best, I invite you to join us on this journey through the ever-changing marketing and branding landscape. Together, we’ll be navigating tomorrow—and shaping the future of our industry along the way.

As we wrapped up our conversation, it became clear that despite the technological advancements, the core of marketing remains unchanged: the most human company wins. In a world where AI is becoming ubiquitous, maintaining a human-centric approach is what will set successful brands apart.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these insights from my conversation with Mark Schaefer. Remember, change is not something to fear but to embrace. As we navigate these exciting times, let’s stay curious, open-minded, and always ready to learn.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

How to connect with Mark

You can find Mark on LinkedIn, his website Businessgrow.com and his blog, or email him at mark.schaefer@businessesgrow.com. And here’s a 5-minute highlight video of his keynote speeches.

To learn more about Innovative Marketing, we recommend these:

Podcast: Are you Ready for the Marketing Rebellion by Mark Schaefer

Podcast: Are You Ready for the Next Data-Driven-Digital Marketing Strategy? by Patrick Van Gorder

Podcast: Fran Biderman-Gross—Feeling Frustrated With Business? Maybe It Is Time For A New Marketing Strategy?

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here 

Andi Simon:

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink, a fresh lens to take you and your business to new heights. I’m Andi Simon, and as you know, my job is to help you get off the brink. We don’t want you to get stuck or stalled. It’s time for you to soar. And remember, my job is to help you change/ These times are changing fast. And most people hate change. I will bring you wonderful people. Mark Shaefer today is shaking his head. If you can watch the video, you will see him. We do this and we love to share with you our ideas, our wisdom. And this isn’t about selling you anything. This is about sharing so that you can see, feel and think better and your mind will stop fighting what’s happening. And so today we’re going to talk about all kinds of marketing things. Mark, thank you for joining us today.

Mark Schaefer: I am so delighted to see you again. We’ve been connected for a long time and so I’m happy to talk to you today.

Andi Simon: Let me tell the audience about why Mark is so special to bring to our screen and to our listeners. His bio you can find on LinkedIn, but I’ll pick out the parts here that I think set the stage for today. He’s a globally recognized keynote speaker, marketing strategy consultant, college educator, and author, and he does them all extremely well. He’s built a career helping company’s leaders rise above the noise to become the signal in a world of overwhelming information density. As executive director of, US based, Schaefer Marketing Solutions, he specializes in developing digital strategies as well as assisting with marketing, training, and social media workshops. Clients include startups, global brands such as Adidas, J & J, and Dell. He has advanced degrees. He’s also a faculty member at the graduate studies program at Rutgers. But I love his books. He’s a bestselling author of nine popular books, so you can go back and begin to read nine very different ways of seeing the world of marketing mature.

And I think that’s what’s so exciting because he’s been writing, and in the process you can see what happens. The first book was Influence Marketing. Those Influencers Return on Influence, the most popular book on personal branding known, the chart topping Marketing Rebellion and the acclaimed Cumulative Advantage. And he has a new book out. He’s going to talk about Belonging to the Brand. It’s all about community. And remember, as an anthropologist, I will tell you often humans love to belong. We are heard animals and we haven’t really paid attention to it the way it ought to be. And Mark is smiling because today we’re going to talk about why, as you’re thinking about your community, you’re a marketing. It’s not about what you say, it’s who says it beside you and how belonging makes you feel important. So he’s host of The Marketing Companion, one of the top ten marketing podcasts on iTunes, and he has a whole lot of other wonderful things. We’ll talk a little bit later about how to reach him if you want to do some personal coaching. But I just think you’re going to enjoy our time together because I’m going to enjoy it. Mark, tell us a little bit about your journey because I like to set the stage so people know who they’re listening to and why all of this fits together. Who is Mark Schaefer?

Mark Schaefer: Well, I think the simple answer is I’m a teacher. I really am. I think even in the corporate world, when you’re a leader, you’re a teacher. I remember when I was working in a Fortune 100 company in marketing, I was helping my daughter with her homework.  She said, you know, daddy, I’m so confused at school, but when you explain it to me, it all makes sense. You should be a teacher. And I think that’s what I ended up doing. Whether I’m a speaker or a writer in my books and my blog, I’m a teacher. I think that’s the simplest way to describe what I do. And it’s what I love. It’s my greatest reward to realize I’m having an impact on people and change their lives and their business in some positive way.

Andi Simon:  But, you know, I was a professor for a decade. I’m an anthropologist. I have my doctorate. And I, too, love to help people. And I say those words, see, feel, and think in new ways. But you didn’t stay an educator. You’ve made it a very different way to help educate people. How did you get into marketing? It is such an interesting place to be educating. How did that all happen?

Mark Schaefer: It really all started with my blog, I left the corporate world.  They wanted me to move to Europe. And after thinking about it and trying it for a little while, I decided I wanted to do something else. So I started my own business. And this was at a time when social media was really starting to explode. What do we do? How do we adjust? What is this big thing that we have to deal with? And I thought it was just endlessly fascinating. And, you know, I know you talk about changing, and I’m kind of a change junkie. I think to be in marketing today, you have to be a change junkie. So I wrote about this and my blog is the intersection of marketing and technology and humanity. And that is endlessly fascinating. And I’m so jealous that you’re an anthropologist. If I had to do it all over again, I probably would be an anthropologist because that’s where I love to be. So I started writing about these changes and the impact on us as humans and on marketing, and the blog kind of took off. I was encouraged to write books.

The books became popular, and as the books became popular, then I was invited to speak and I was doing higher profile consulting gigs. I tend to be about two years ahead of my time. So that’s kind of my track record.

Andi Simon: It doesn’t look like it’s a bleeding edge.

Mark Schaefer:  it’s maybe the dull edge, I don’t know, but,, you mentioned like I wrote the first book on influence marketing and that was in 2012. Nobody was even using that term yet. And I predicted in two years this is going to be a mainstream idea. And if you look at Google trends and you investigate influencer marketing 2012 nothing, 2013 nothing, then 2014 Hockey Stick. And that’s where it all started. I tend to be able to see how trends come together. And so that’s really what propelled my new book as well around community because I think there’s three big things going on right now that are propelling this idea to examine the possibility of community as a brand marketing idea. One is that traditional marketing just doesn’t work like it used to. We’re in a streaming economy. People hate ads, they block ads, and we need something different. We need a new way to connect to our customers. Number two megatrend mental health crisis. It’s everywhere. And you mentioned when you were introducing me that we want to be in the community. Not only do we want to be in community, but we also need to be in community to be fully formed human beings. And we are in a world today, as you know, Andi, that is so isolated, so depressed, so lonely. It’s in the news every single day. And one of the things that propelled me to write this book, there’s a headline in the New York Times that said, The Loneliest Generation is talking about our children, our teenagers, and just broke my heart. And I know the power of companies and marketing. And I just started to think about, is there some role we can provide, with community and belonging. And then the third megatrend is that there’s so much money going into new ways to connect and new ways to meet. I have a community on discord. That’s just young people today, especially, are surging into these areas to get away from public social media and create new safe places to meet and connect. And the new communities that are forming couldn’t have happened ten years ago. So those three things are coming together. And that’s why I’m so excited about community and what’s happening in the world today, and how we can also connect with what we’re doing with our companies.

Andi Simon: I want to set the stage for what your megatrends are. The loneliness is very worrisome for me because Gen Z men are committing more suicide than ever, and they have no friends and they are not going to college, and they are lonely. And we’ll call that, a little bit,is part of the. Fourth Industrial Revolution. And the terms haven’t come. They’re not headlines yet, but we are living in a major transformation. Amy Webb’s video that you included on that wonderful newsletter I’ve sent to everywhere I can, because this is now. It’s not coming. You know that whatever the line was, the future’s already here. It’s just not widely distributed.  So let’s pay attention to that and your community and love because it also gives what marketing is about, connecting someone who needs something to something. People say, how do you market? I say, I show up.  You can’t buy me unless you know a little bit about what you need and what I might do to help you. And I don’t know how you productize that and sell it as a software, but all of this is happening simultaneously, and our job is to figure out you as an educator, communicator, a marketer to help your clients and their customers understand how to thrive. And mine is to help them understand that the brain hates you and hates me because it doesn’t want to change and how to thrive. Let’s go back to your AI for a moment, and then we’ll go through your other three megatrends, because I think there as a marketer and communicator and AI and so forth, you have a role. And I’ve been listening to and using AI, and I love AI. My copywriter doesn’t, but I’m having a ball learning what’s coming. What do you see happening? And I know part of it. You saw it South by Southwest, but you’re also seeing it in all of your discord and other things. What is AI and why should we use it?

Mark Schaefer:  You know, tell you, as you were speaking, something sort of dawned on me. That’s an interesting juxtaposition that so my Marketing Rebellion book, the subtitle is The Most Human Company wins. I believe that. And yet if you look at this, the biggest trend maybe, since fire, certainly since the internet, is AI. It’s literally going to transform. Everything we do is going to touch every part of our lives. Innovation going forward will mean a layer of AI on everything. We already see it in a recommendation and Spotify, that’s AI. When our app gets us from point A to point B in our car, that’s AI. So it’s already happening. One of the implications, I think, Andi, is I do believe the most human company wins. But I think what companies usually do is they go overboard with something like AI. They’re going to use it to cut costs, eliminate people and maybe take a turn toward being less human. There are obviously ways you can use AI to be more human. If your customer service is terrible, all you have to do is implement AI. That’s one level above suck, and you’re a more human company, right?

Andi Simon: Just for a second.  I don’t want to just insert one thought. What does it mean to be human? Because I’m listening to you, and I’m saying there clearly is something in your head that says, if I use technology, I’m less human. And if I’m going to succeed, I need to be more human. But maybe using technology is more human. What is it that you’re thinking about?

Mark Schaefer:  Well, I think that we have this longing for human connection.  For real, true human connection. And there was a quote from one of my favorite authors, Philip Kotler. Philip Kotler is probably the father of modern marketing. And I heard him on a podcast, not long ago. I think he’s 93 now. And he said, what’s missing in our world? What’s missing in marketing specifically, is a true human voice that’s accessible, that’s friendly, even vulnerable. And I always hang on that word vulnerability because that is really when you’ve made a human connection.  I think, can I even think of a company that shows up in a way that’s vulnerable? And, and to me, I mean, I think there are companies that are doing that, not necessarily large companies wedded to advertising agencies. But I think companies can be led by people that show up in that way. And that sense sets the tone for the culture of the company, and I think that will persist. I think the most human company will win, and I think that those companies will also be smart in how they use AI and make sure that that human connection is not lost.

Andi Simon: Well, that leads you or me at least to the second megatrend, which is a behavioral health mess that we’re in all of the pandemic. But even before that, all the solo, I mean, we had a high rate of depression, like 30%. People were living alone, not realizing that was the source of their own ill health. And humans need humans. And I was teasing a little bit, what does it mean to be a human company or a humane one? But it’s also beginning to pull in this population that through isolation has now become unhappy. And the discord is profound. But the personal depression, you can pop pills, but that’s not going to solve the problem of building community. It sort of leads into your new book, but tie them together, because if companies are going to be more human and humane, they’re going to have to do something to transform how people are living. Your thoughts?

Mark Schaefer: Well, I recently did a guest lecturer at a national university, and the professor was so kind. She said, well, Mark, you’ve given your time today. What can we do for you? I said, you know, I’d like to have the students write an essay about what they’re afraid of other than the environment and global warming. What are you afraid of? And this young man wrote, first of all, they did a beautiful job. I mean, I couldn’t believe what time they spent with this, but one young man did this very beautiful job. He wrote this what I thought was a poignant essay. And he said, I’m so concerned that my generation does not have any shared experiences. I talked to my parents and when they went to see a movie, they’d find somebody that had a car, they’d pile in a car, they’d see a movie together, and then they’d go have pizza. They would save their money to buy a record album, and then they go to someone’s house, and they’d listen to this record album together over and over, and they talk and they’d laugh. He said, I can binge all the entertainment I want by myself in my room alone, and no one will ever have even heard of my favorite artist or my favorite television show. We have no connection. We have no shared experiences that make human memories. I think that’s just one example of this isolation. We live in a wonderful time.

I love Netflix, I love Spotify. But we also live in this dangerous time where we are our technology and these algorithms and recommendation engines. And it’s going to get worse with AI because very soon, Netflix and Instagram and all these places, Spotify, they’ll be creating content, new content just for you based on what they know about you. And so that adrenaline that we get from experiencing something that we love is going to be even heightened. We’re going to be really even more addicted to these things and even more alone. And I think this does point to where we need to be thinking about with our companies and with our marketing is that it’s something with shared experiences, something with getting people together and gathering. And I’m starting to see some little trends. I just read there’s a new trend in New York where Gen Z is gathering at bars specifically to watch movies together. I think there is going to be a backlash.  I think maybe one of the megatrends we’ll be seeing is put the darn thing down. Yes. And go do something with friends.

Andi Simon: Well, I was going to say to you, we miss our pub.  I want a pub down the road here. Not that I have to go a long distance for, but I need the community of being hanging out in a pub, having a beer, and I don’t drink, but just to be with others. It’s very interesting because we have been intentionally bringing friends together to be at our home, because it’s much more relaxing than a restaurant, and we were having a conversation about what do you watch on Netflix? Well, I don’t watch Netflix. Well, what are you reading? Well, I read those, and here’s what you’re reading. And how do we exchange? And I found that we’re old friends and good friends finding commonality is challenging. Not that we didn’t talk about books or movies in general, but shared ones. We went to the movies two weeks ago, for the first time in a long time and had a wonderful time, and we’re telling people about it. But we didn’t go with a group. And I’m beginning to think that our own personal happiness is going to have to be intentionally pulling together people to share these experiences. And because if not, it’s lonely. It’s not that it’s lonely, but it is lonely. Your essay though it was brilliant.

Mark Schaefer:  And I wanted to build on something that you said a little earlier that the pandemic didn’t cause this. The pandemic accelerated a lot of this. And it’s not just Gen Z, it’s loneliness and isolation. It’s affecting every generation. This has been creeping up on us for decades and it’s getting worse. Worse and worse year by year.

Andi Simon:  To your point, I spent several weeks last August in Portland, Oregon. I’m an anthropologist doing ethnographic work in senior living communities. And why do they go? They’re lonely. What do they find? That people don’t come out of their rooms? And one the gentleman said, nobody comes out for any of the activities. I was fascinated by the fact that they pay a lot of money to go into a beautiful facility, to live in an apartment and never come out. And I think that there’s something that we need to do if it isn’t the businesses doing it or the senior living communities doing it, or our local communities doing it, we’re going to have a very difficult next generation. Your essayist was very wise. Wise for young person. So you’re right, it’s not just Gen Z, it’s across the board. Which then leads us to some of the trends that you wrote about in this wonderful newsletter that you sent how to do with the next generations and what people who are marketing to them, building communities should pay attention to. I love your list. The marketing disruptors, hyper fragmentation of culture and media, rapid growth of discord in private communities, ad free social media platforms, no watercooler moments, immersive and metaverse data privacy, sustainability, and neuroscience. And I went, how are we going to help the listener or the viewer begin to adapt to so much change? I had said to you, I want to talk about how you change your friend and take charge of your thoughts?

Mark Schaefer:  I’ve been thinking a lot about this, Andi, and speaking a lot about it and the perspective that I’m trying to encourage businesses and individuals to think about is to sort of manage the overwhelm by thinking of a surfer. So, for a surfer to be relevant. They don’t need to change their surfboard. They have a good surfboard. It’s a solid surfboard. In thinking about this as a company, you have things that make you great.  There are reasons why people love you. Maybe you have the most locations, or the best flavors, or the best service, or the friendliest people? There’s something in your DNA that makes you amazing and great. Now, as I mentioned, innovation in the future is going to be about applying a layer of AI to everything that we do. If you’re known for your excellent customer service, what you need to be focused on are the waves coming at you. You don’t need a new surfboard, you need a new wave. You need to look at the next wave that’s going to carry you and your surfboard into the future. And so, look, there’s a lot out there about generative AI, generative art, generative text. Do you really need to be paying attention to that? Maybe not so much if your focus is customer service, because those layers they’re going to be implemented into everything we do, whether we want it or not. It’s going to be implemented into Excel spreadsheets and QuickBooks and everything that you use. It’s already happening. But specifically, you need to be looking at the waves of change that impact your core competency and get on top of that right away. And if you’re a small business, it probably needs to be you. If you’re a medium sized business, maybe you assign somebody to start looking at what’s happening in AI. And I think one of the best ways to do that, because change is happening so fast, is to join some community that can help you and so you can see ideas that are being vetted by other people around the world. So, you don’t have to have to do all the work yourself and then you see the wave. This is the one we need to subscribe to this service, or we need to test this service. And to me, that’s really the strategy that we need to employ.

Andi Simon: That’s very interesting because I love the surfer metaphor because my family members who love to surf and I’m endlessly in awe of how they get up on that board and it takes them in very high waves and it’s scary. And I think that the feeling of being scared on that surfboard is something people can relate to as they’re looking at everything their business, their staff and and to think about what I always preach is that you really don’t know what’s coming.

But what if you can’t create a story about the future? You can’t live today. We’re futurists, you know, Martin Seligman’s work on being a futurist is extremely important to understand the human mind.  We don’t really know what’s going to come. We can prepare for it but I can see it happening now so fast that I don’t know how to act, and therefore I become immobilized. Am I preaching a story? Could be right, could be wrong. Visualize something to your point about customer service, so I want to be known as having the most innovative, fast moving customer service platform. And I’m going to figure out how to pilot it, develop my team to innovate on it, begin to see how we change the community who’s using us and then build an influence. I mean, just make it into things that make sense, because if you can be a human prospectus, seeing the future, you’re not going to make any decisions today. You’re going to be so afraid of making the wrong ones. You’ll make none, and that’s the wrong one. It’s a very interesting time to make change your friend instead of an enemy, because it’s here. And if you don’t change, that’s a bad thing to do.

Mark Schaefer:  You know, when I remember an interview that was done with Jeff Bezos in his early days of Amazon. And of course, Amazon was built on a lot of new technology platforms that he pioneered. And the interviewer said, well, you know, you’ve become at the forefront of this, what’s next. What’s the next technology that we need to embrace? He said, well, that’s an interesting question, but a more interesting question is what’s not going to change because that’s how you build your business. He said at Amazon if I asked my customers ten years from now, do you want higher prices? Do you want slower delivery? Do you want less variety? It would be impossible for me to think that they would say yes. So those three, those three things are not going to change. So we only focus on the technology that’s going to help us in those three things. And I think that’s a good example of this surfer analogy where you’re not looking at everything going on in the world. You know, he’s not looking at self-driving cars. He’s looking at those three things. How do we make those things better and better and better and better and pioneer that technology? Because that’s how we build our business on those fundamentals that aren’t going to change.

Andi Simon: And that goes for your business and my business, doesn’t it? At any stage, who are we? What do we offer? What are people buying? How do we help them do better? And then how do we capitalize on this wonderful fourth industrial revolution and all the other things that are coming? A couple of things that, as usual, it’s time to wrap up. As much as I enjoy talking with you, you and I could talk for a long time. I love the way in which you are curious. We didn’t use the word curiosity, and I’m hearing it often as if it’s a newfound human technology., but we’re curious, you and I. And that curiosity allows us to listen to things through a fresh set of ears. I talk about fresh eyes and fresh lens. One, two or three things you want our listeners not to forget or to do some action points.

Mark Schaefer: Well, I do really believe this idea. That the most human company wins, that still is going to drive success going forward. And let me give you a quick example. When ChatGPT came out, I was absolutely dumbfounded and excited and terrified and fascinated. And I called a friend of mine, Shelly Palmer. He’s probably one of the top tech analysts in the world. I asked what did you think about this? He said, it’s terrifying. He said, I’ve blogged almost every day for 15 years. I asked ChatGPT to write a blog post for me in my voice, and it did a fantastic job, he said. I’m 80% replaced now. On the surface, that does seem terrifying, but the more interesting question is what’s the 20%? The 20% is his personal brand. It’s the way he shows up as a human in this world. Shelley is known. He is trusted, he is beloved. And in this world of misinformation and lies and deep fakes, if you’re known and beloved and trusted, that is going to be such a strength, such a value to the world. I think, working on your personal brand, being known, being the most human company. I think that as far as I know, honestly, that’s the only strategy we have left in the face of AI.

Andi Simon: As I say, if I can do 50 blogs in five minutes, then I have a lot of time. How can I use it to be curious, creative, even take long walks in the woods with my dog so I can think and have a life that’s not only work because we have all been workers. You know, I’ve grown up always putting lots of time and effort into doing things that I can do in much less time and pretty darn well. And I always send a thank you note to Chat, even every time he comes back with a good thing, I say thank you. That was very well done. You know, I’m glad. And how can I know that?

Mark Schaefer: I did that this week too.

Andi Simon: I am humanizing it, and I don’t know if there’s a little Wizard of Oz back there behind the curtain, but I’m perfectly happy saying thank you, because it is being human and appreciating work done on my behalf. In some ways, it isn’t that different from the copywriter. It’s just coming fast and it’s coming reasonably well. And people point out the problems. They said they’re always problems. There’s problems with fake news about humans, right? You don’t know what’s really being done there. Time to take control and enjoy. Change can be your friend. \\

I’m going to wrap up a delightful half hour with Mark Schaefer and thank him for joining me today. I love his sub tag here. He’s a marketing strategy for humanity. And I think the humanity part probably comes first now and then. The rest of it follows as a way to make us and keep us more human. Thanks for joining us. We have risen into the top 5% of global podcasts. I can’t thank you enough. Somebody actually did a survey and said, we’re among the top 20 futurist podcasts. I said, I didn’t know I was a futurist, but I do know I’m an anthropologist and I like to help you see, feel, and think in new ways. Our newest book, Women Mean Business Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success, has 102 women in there, each of whom have shared five pearls of wisdom. And what’s happening is this book is coming alive. And I have a hunch Mark has found that with his books as well, every book has a signature. It’s different. This is my third book, and what I’m finding is as you open it, something happens to you, the reader, and the energy and force comes through. And I’ve had people yellow mark the book, people who’ve sent me quotes from the book. People have asked me; how do I do this? Will you have another book? How does a book have a life? And this one clearly is an exciting moment. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or on my website, SimonAssociates.net and we’ll tell you more about it. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for sending your emails and sending us wonderful people who would like to be here to share. Mark said something important. He’s an educator, and we talk about celebrating and elevating and educating. And these are times where the changes are going to be probably as powerful as the invention of fire. He mentioned fire. You know, as an anthropologist, you go back 400,000 and 500,000 years, million years. Somehow, we captured the power of fire to help cook our food, and that’s changed our brain. And that brain won’t stop changing. Enjoy the journey. I’ll see you all. Observation turns into innovation when you’re an anthropologist, so please keep observing and have a great day. Bye now.

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