The Restaurant Economic Model is Broken — Technology Can Fix It — As the country starts to emerge from over a year of Covid hibernation, the size, shape and dynamics of the restaurant industry looks rather different from what went into the crisis. Some restaurants are quickly discovering that reopening their doors and playing by the pre-pandemic game plan is simply not…

A Retrospective View from the Top of the Hype Cycle — While doing some research the other day I stumbled across a modified copy of a presentation I did at a Restaurant Marketing Executives conference right when “Big Data” was at the peak of Gartner’s Hype Cycle. It’s hard to believe that was 7 years ago, and it’s been 5 years…

“History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.” Mark Twain It may just be a mental block, but I can’t for the life of me think of anything that rhymes with stagflation. I can think of a few things that rhyme with transitory, maybe that’s why that adjective lingered for…

It’s time to reshape the economics of a historically unprofitable industry Even before Covid-19 wrought havoc on the Restaurant industry there was a simmering struggle across the industry over the increasingly difficult unit-level economics that operators were facing. With an average profit margin of just 5% every blip of operating…

Headline economic numbers aren’t capturing the distortions and depth of pain in the economy. An Uneven Recovery for Businesses and Consumers The new spate of headline economic numbers released in the past week show mostly improving numbers, but a deeper look reminds us why ‘averages’ are misleading when evaluating performance…

The Misinformation Epidemic is Funded by Brands we Trust Most Misinformation is destabilizing our democracy and last week people who have become radicalized by it attempted a violent overthrow of the government and continue to plot terrorist acts against their fellow Americans. This did not happen in a vacuum, and…

Q-ANON IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION & 41% OF GOP SAY THEY ARE ‘GOOD’ According to PEW research a little more than 1/2 of Americans have heard of Q-Anon as of December ‘20, but that has probably increased since Jan 6th when they became a driving force behind the takeover of…

DOL Reports 11M unemployed but 21M claims were filed in October — The massive shock that the pandemic had on the economy starting last spring also had a big impact on government agencies’ ability to process data accurately. The official unemployment ‘headline’ numbers come from a survey that asks people about their employment status. Early in the pandemic the ambiguity of ‘furloughed’…

What If Republicans prove more loyal to Trump than Democracy? — After 4+ years the media and politicians continue to underestimate Donald Trump and his ability to tear down the fabric of democratic process and convention. His refusal to concede was not a surprise, but it’s a mistake to think that he will stay within the rules or respect any constitutional…