ASU: Automotive Stories

“Oh I see! You are like me, a utility player! Our team can use us everywhere!” I told a Graduate student at my ASU Media and Immersive eXperience (MIX) Center tour in Mesa this week.

Later, I went on:

“OK, if you must align me to an industry, you would put me in auto“.

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I hadn’t thought about some of the stories I told this week in a while. Like the original idea behind the failed Digital Ownership Platform at VW. Or the creativity that fueled the gutsy pitch with Soul Machine’s founders - as a revolutionary solution to MB’s declining customer satisfaction in the US. And that time I hosted what I called an “imagination session” with the BMW 5-Series designers in NYC, to help them jump start their creativity for a new model coming - make it 7 years in the future.

The irony is isn’t lost on me that I’ve just recently completed a work cycle to align my market positioning. For a new client, in a new industry: financial services. For my own idea: love-at work. That’s what I came to Arizona to talk about!

Yet the common themes across dozens of conversations on and around campus these last days, they surprisingly resonate clearly in my beloved automotive industry: electricity, power, solar, community adoption, new business models, experience.

Y’all, I told a bunch of automotive stories this week. And there was a lot of love.

Is that a Jag?!