My guest today is Mark Scott Rosenbaum, Ph.D., Dean, College of Business, Hawaii Pacific University. Previously, he was dean and professor of marketing with the Graham School of Management at Saint Xavier University in Chicago. Prior to his leadership at St. Xavier Rosenbaum was chair and professor of the Department of Retailing at the University of South Carolina, the Kohl's Professor of Marketing at Northern Illinois University, and an assistant professor in the Department of Marketing at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Dr. Rosenbaum is a three-time Fulbright Scholar. Dr. Rosenbaum serves as co-editor of the Journal of Services Marketing, an associate editor for the Journal of Business Research.
We discuss how digital technologies, including mobile applications, social media, and online games, have impacted the ways that people communicate, learn, play, date, and entertain themselves.
Although digital technologies offer their users many benefits, these technologies also expose their users to risks. Indeed, many digital users have been victims of cyberbullying, identity theft, and data breaches. We have apps like Tinder, and in the gay community, there's Grindr. If you're a member of the gay community, you can now meet people right next to you. You're no longer this isolated member of a community. That's a great positive. However, what you don't hear much is how many men are raped with Grindr hookups.
Further, some national governments and local jurisdictions use digital technologies, to curtail their citizens’ freedoms, and to enforce laws that criminalize private, consensual, same-sex sexual activity and anything else that particular government is opposed to.
We are fostering internet addictions, we don't realize that digital technologies have a dark side. Numerous studies show that as youth spend more than two hours a day on social media, their depression levels increase. Now, this would almost seem the converse of what reality should be. Because reality means, I'm connected to these networks of friends, I have friends available 24/7/365. This should elevate my self-esteem. I know exactly where everyone is. And yet, young people feel increasingly alone and unhappy.
To my question, “What's the most important thing you have learned so far in your life?” Mark answered that regardless of how tough the beginning is, you have to have a beginning. Take the risk, the challenge, and begin.
Next week my guest will be Dr Stephanie Alice Baker, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, City, University of London. Dr Baker’s research explores how we connect and communicate online, particularly around issues pertaining to health and wellness. Dr Baker studies influencer culture and the spread of medical misinformation in the context of COVID-19 and the anti-vaccination movement. Please tune in.
If you liked this podcast
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/contributors/thomas-r-verny-md
My guest today is Mark Scott Rosenbaum, Ph.D., Dean, College of Business, Hawaii Pacific University. Previously, he was dean and professor of marketing with the Graham School of Management at Saint Xavier University in Chicago. Prior to his leadership at St. Xavier Rosenbaum was chair and professor of the Department of Retailing at the University of South Carolina, the Kohl's Professor of Marketing at Northern Illinois University, and an assistant professor in the Department of Marketing at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Dr. Rosenbaum is a three-time Fulbright Scholar. Dr. Rosenbaum serves as co-editor of the Journal of Services Marketing, an associate editor for the Journal of Business Research.
We discuss how digital technologies, including mobile applications, social media, and online games, have impacted the ways that people communicate, learn, play, date, and entertain themselves.
Although digital technologies offer their users many benefits, these technologies also expose their users to risks. Indeed, many digital users have been victims of cyberbullying, identity theft, and data breaches. We have apps like Tinder, and in the gay community, there's Grindr. If you're a member of the gay community, you can now meet people right next to you. You're no longer this isolated member of a community. That's a great positive. However, what you don't hear much is how many men are raped with Grindr hookups.
Further, some national governments and local jurisdictions use digital technologies, to curtail their citizens’ freedoms, and to enforce laws that criminalize private, consensual, same-sex sexual activity and anything else that particular government is opposed to.
We are fostering internet addictions, we don't realize that digital technologies have a dark side. Numerous studies show that as youth spend more than two hours a day on social media, their depression levels increase. Now, this would almost seem the converse of what reality should be. Because reality means, I'm connected to these networks of friends, I have friends available 24/7/365. This should elevate my self-esteem. I know exactly where everyone is. And yet, young people feel increasingly alone and unhappy.
To my question, “What's the most important thing you have learned so far in your life?” Mark answered that regardless of how tough the beginning is, you have to have a beginning. Take the risk, the challenge, and begin.
Next week my guest will be Dr Stephanie Alice Baker, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, City, University of London. Dr Baker’s research explores how we connect and communicate online, particularly around issues pertaining to health and wellness. Dr Baker studies influencer culture and the spread of medical misinformation in the context of COVID-19 and the anti-vaccination movement. Please tune in.
If you liked this podcast
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/contributors/thomas-r-verny-md
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
service, digital technologies, Grindr, marketing, dark side, artificial intelligence, , industries, research, society, work, consumers discovered, organizations
My guest today is Mark Scott Rosenbaum, Ph.D., Dean, College of Business, Hawaii Pacific University. Previously, he was dean and professor of marketing with the Graham School of Management at Saint Xavier University in Chicago. Prior to his leadership at St. Xavier Rosenbaum was chair and professor of the Department of Retailing at the University of South Carolina, the Kohl's Professor of Marketing at Northern Illinois University, and an assistant professor in the Department of Marketing at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Dr. Rosenbaum is a three-time Fulbright Scholar (Cambodia, 2009; Nepal, 2015) and a Fulbright Specialist (Uzbekistan, 2019), a research fellow at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, and a visiting professor of marketing at Universidad de Externado in Bogota, Colombia, and the American Hotel Academy in Brasov, Romania. Dr. Rosenbaum serves as co-editor of the Journal of Services Marketing, an associate editor for the Journal of Business Research and the Service Industries Journal, and an editorial board member of several services and travel related journals.
1:17
When do you sleep? Dr. Rosenbaum?
1:21
It is challenging.
Yeah, I guess. Welcome Dr. Mark Rosenbaum.
Thank you, Thomas.
May I call you Mark?
Of course.
Thank you very much. Okay, Mark, then,
1:53
Like we said, before we started, I read with great interest, really fantastic your latest paper.. And so, so relevant to our times, titled Date, Learn and Suffer? Merton’s Law of Unintended Consequences and Digital Technology Failures. Alright, so I would like to discuss with you how digital technologies, including mobile applications, social media, and online games have impacted the ways that people communicate, learn, play, date, I guess, just live. 2:46
We live our lives on social media. So digital technologies, such as Tick Tock, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, have become part and parcel of our daily lives. And we work and communicate via zoom and WhatsApp and we tell our friends, make sure to post pics online, or send me an instant message. Yeah.
3:16
What amazed me is, we always think about sort of aspects of technology. And again, we've embraced them in our daily lives and experiences. But we fail to realize that there's a dark side to every technological advancement. And this is what Robert Merton set in 1938. If we go back to 1938, Robert Merton was talking about the radio,
3:45
about mail US postal.
3:50
And he said that every technological technological advancement is going to have a dark side, something that was unanticipated
4:01
was not even imagined. It wasn't conceived.
4:07
So years ago, when I was at Northern Illinois University, I was watching my students from China are immersed in their phones, and this was around 2010. Yeah.
4:19
And I noticed this among a group of Chinese students, and I asked them, I said, What is it that is engaging you on the telephone? And they said, We're using qq.com, and I didn't know what qq.com is.
4:34
It's like a Chinese version of Facebook.
4:37
Then the longer that occurs, the longer that a participant is on qq.com. The more they are rewarded with emojis, oh, with moons and stars. And I started to actually look at this, this idea that people are clamoring for
5:00
emojis. And
5:04
why would that be important to them? What do you get out of it?
5:08
Clearly, they're getting self esteem. Yeah. However, what I quickly discovered is that they were getting addicted to the internet.
5:17
And back in 2010, I published the study in journal services marketing. And I said, I'm finding internet addiction among qq.com users. And when I mean, what I mean by addiction is that the students could no longer focus if I didn't give them breaks to check their qq.com accounts.
5:41
So at an early age, or an early onset, I quickly realized that we are fostering internet addictions, we don't realize that digital technologies have a dark side. And these are psychological impacts on users minds. And we now know today that there is numerous studies that show that as youth spend more than two hours a day on social media, their depression levels are increasing. Now, this would almost seem the converse of what reality should be. Because reality means well, gee, I'm connected to these networks of friends, I have friends available 24/7 365. I know exactly where everyone is. And yet, you feel increasingly alone.
6:37
I did a great study on the impact of
6:42
non cosmetic fillers and fillers such as Botox and Juvederm. And what I discovered is that people want to look like their filters. They want to look like their edited photo.
7:00
Now, these, the creators of the filters, did not I don't believe they intentionally planned to create such negative self esteem issues, that you want to be your filter.
7:18
So if we look at technologies,
7:23
beyond social media, we can look at apps like
7:28
the way that we meet each other and love each other. So now we have apps like Tinder, and in the gay community, there's there's Grindr. But the more that I studied Grindr, well, isn't it interesting that if you're a member of the gay community, you can now meet people right next to you. You're no longer this isolated member of a community. Well, that's a great positive. However, what you don't hear quite often is how many men are raped with Grindr hookups.
8:04
Or, and I was writing about this idea of
8:10
the stealth condom, where men say, Look, if I'm going to have sex with men, I want you to use a condom, but then the condom is removed.
8:21
And again, this is part of almost being it is being right on Grindr. But that goes without saying. And then
8:30
there was an incident in Georgia where the Georgia Georgia police force were actually they were using Grindr to actually entrap gay men. And in many countries in the Islamic world, Grindr is used to actually arrest
8:47
men who want to have sexual relations with other men. So here we have an app, like Grindr, but then we could also talk about Ashley Madison, and their data breach that caused several people to commit suicide in one of the largest and most expensive data breaches. Now, again, every technological advancement is going to have a dark side. And in one last story, if people say, Look, I'm not on social media, so this doesn't concern me. I'm not on dating apps. So that doesn't concern me. What about 23andme people are doing genetic tests?
9:28
Well, I know in my own family, I discovered that my great grandfather had a family that we didn't know about through a genetic test.
9:41
Not only that,
9:43
the blood and saliva that the saliva samples that are taken by 23andme are not regulated. So people are sending DNA samples to corporations, without any regulation of who controls that DNA.
10:00
A
10:03
You can't hide from these digital technologies. But I will say and that was the point of the paper, we don't spend enough time thinking about the negative consequences. Now, in some instances, organizations can anticipate
10:22
negative consequences. However, in many situations, no one thought that this would possibly happen.
10:33
And those are the unintended consequences. And like Merton said, in 1938,
10:43
regardless of the technological advancement, there is a dark side that we simply don't know about. And that was the purpose of the paper.
10:53
Yes, well, you explain that beautifully.
10:58
I was,
10:59
I was reading a paper by HOD Lipson, who's the director of the creative machines lab at Columbia University.
11:09
And according to Lipson creating a machine that will have consciousness equal to humans will surpass everything else we have achieved.
11:19
Quote, so eventually, these machines will be able to understand what they are and what they think, end of quote.
11:28
Lipson wants to create conscious robots like that is his aim.
11:36
Now,
11:38
I think you and I both agreed that to do that, without knowing the consequences of what will arise from that is just sheer insanity.
11:50
What is it about these researchers like HOD Lipson, who don't consider the gravity of the consequences of their actions?
12:04
It's because they don't know what the consequences are going to be.
12:11
This is this is the as you know, that there's going to be consequences, right? I mean, we actually are talking about artificial intelligence in academia. Yes. In fact, I was just challenged to write a paper using Chachi btw.
12:29
Quite interesting. My, my, my experience with artificial intelligence is that we can embrace it
12:37
as humans, so increase our productivity. Yes. So if we go to Bloom's taxonomy of learning,
12:46
the lowest level of learning is to ask a student to list something to memorize and list. So if I said to you, Thomas, list the consequences of,
13:03
of not addressing climate change, you could actually do them to very basic form of knowledge now what I'm what I'm realizing in my daily business, my daily work as well as working with the chat GBT is that I can now ask Chechi BT, to be my partner noticing the term partner in creating low level knowledge. So if I was going to write and I did write a paper on,
13:31
list the benefits of organizations being
13:36
sustainably conscious,
13:39
within I would say 30 seconds, chat, GBT was able to generate a list for me. Now that list would have required me years ago, to go to a library, yes, to pull out a drawer with cards. Just go through the cards. Yeah, and then go down to stacks and magazines, and now I have the data within 30 seconds. The decision that I make with the data now has to be better.
14:14
So what I'm getting at is that with artificial intelligence, we can embrace it for the betterment of our lives. Because ultimately, I still made the decision. You but I used artificial intelligence to help me make the decision, but ultimately I had to make the decision. Now, what you're talking about is at some point, can the decision be made
14:43
not by a human, but with artificial intelligence and this is the dark side, this is when it goes to being a partner to actually there is a dark side, what if the decisions negative so for example, what if it can be
15:00
pewter decides to
15:02
declare war. What if What if a computer decides to sell a stock without human intervention,
15:11
we simply do not know.
15:15
Because on the path of working with artificial intelligence to help us work better, there will be a negative. And we simply don't know what that negative is going to be. But it will be there.
15:30
And we can talk about it. But at some point, when we allow artificial intelligence to make that final decision,
15:41
that is when we enter a realm of
15:47
we enter a realm of complexity as well as risk.
15:54
Because as of right now, if I the way I'm using artificial intelligence, and the way that I see it, is it could fill in the lower levels of intelligence, meaning that we have to make better decisions. Now, on the flip side, because artificial intelligence can fill in the low levels of intelligence.
16:15
Do we still need frontline employees?
16:19
I mean, ultimately, there will be a dark side, and in which I wrote about which will be unemployment, when we look at careers that are simply yes, no occupations, take the take a cashier at a target or cashier at Walmart, right? It's really a it's a really, yes, no occupation? Do you want this? Do you want that? Yes, no scan done.
16:45
All of that can be done quite easily by artificial intelligence at the lowest level, right? Hopefully, we will use artificial intelligence to make wiser decisions faster, quicker, but you then have to develop a workforce that is equipped on how to make decisions.
17:09
You know, as an educator, I often wonder, Are we truly educating students on how to make wise decisions? Do people even understand how to look at various perspectives?
17:22
I look at youth. And when they're, when they're getting knowledge from a YouTube video that lasts two to four minutes, and they're not reading the entire situation. Or they're actually getting knowledge from a tick tock video, two minutes, they don't understand the entire picture. And yet they feel so confident in making a decision.
17:54
I don't know if I answered your your question. But I will say that I'll go back to Mertens claim, every technological advancement has a dark side.
18:05
Now, the question is, do we pursue the advancement and I would say we have no choice but to pursue the advancement. But to do so knowing and to be wise enough to understand that we have to look for the signs of
18:23
the negative signs on both individuals, societies and nations.
18:28
So, you, you are essentially in marketing is that your sort of boost interest first love?
18:37
My first love is actually services marketing.
18:40
And what what is that? Well, service industries dominate most western economies, industries such as transportation, insurance, banking,
18:52
retail, it's been in medicine, the in marketing, one can sell goods, tangible goods, one can sell services, tangible services. And
19:09
so you could sell ideas and but it's typically goods and services. So I am I've always been amazed by service and the role of service in economies. And
19:23
perhaps it's because I one of my first jobs was actually I was, I was a janitor of a shoe store when I was 13. Back in those days, I had a had ever workers permit. And from there, I quickly moved to every job in the shoe store. And then I decided I'm going to sell shoes. I'm going to sell the world's most expensive shoes, and I actually became the youngest sales associate at Saks Fifth Avenue in suburban Chicago.
19:52
And I realized back then, yeah, that no woman needed a $500 Ferragamo shoe
20:00
know, what they needed was my one hour of talking to them as a friend.
20:09
And at a young age, I couldn't identify the theory. But I knew that I was playing some type of psychiatric role. I was a friend to many women in the North Shore. And we would sit and chat in those days, there were sales associates, and there were little chairs, and stools. And we would sit and just talk and laugh, engage in banter. Oh, and by the way,
20:36
I'll take a pair of shoes.
20:39
So, now granted, I was working with some of the best shoes in the world, they were quite easy to sell. But it wasn't the shoe that I was selling, I was selling an experience, right.
20:51
And I wrote my dissertation dissertation years ago on loneliness as a driver of consumption. You know, many people think marketing is advertising and promotion. Well, that's one aspect of marketing.
21:05
But what I quickly understood is that many consumers buy things, not for the commercial intent
21:16
of the good or service, but because there's something more that they need in life, it's the experience. And for many consumers, loneliness, is the driver of consumption. And that's really where my research began, and it goes back to my shoe days. So now that I'm a dean,
21:37
I'm still actively engaged in the service industries, because again, service industries dominate Western economies. And in fact, I think the US economy is safe to say that 80% of our Gross Domestic Product is generated by service industries.
21:56
I did a very interesting podcast several months ago,
22:03
with Father Lawrence Freeman, I don't know whether you have ever heard of him or not, he is director of the world community for Christian meditation. And he has, he has done a great deal of work on meditation. And he has got this wonderful phrase, which is, I will read it to you.
22:25
Which is loneliness is failed solitude.
22:32
It's, it's interesting. It's, it's interesting. It's just something that you might be interested in, in pursuing.
22:40
Anyway, so in terms of the marketing, and, and and the large corporations, I would imagine and that you work with,
22:52
have they sort of consulted you about,
22:58
about the responses, the possible consequences of some of the things that they are doing, like, for example, electric vehicles?
23:10
I actually have worked more on the loneliness issues,
23:17
and on the negative of digital technologies with corporations consulting, and the reason why is it's I think it's twofold.
23:26
I think that companies are very hesitant to discuss the negative aspects of their technologies, right? This is not something that people want to talk about no.
23:38
And yet, it's the elephant in the room. Right? Because the question always is going to be did the organization know about it? Right?
23:50
And if they didn't know about it,
23:54
the here's the big why. Why didn't they know about it? No one, right. So, again, we're on Zoom. Yes. If you remember the COVID during COVID-19. There are pedophiles entering zoom chats, I know Yes. And you ask how is this possible? How is it possible?
24:16
You know, it's in many in many Muslim countries that and I'll go back to the example of Grindr
24:23
in many Islamic countries. Grindr, as as an application is banned.
24:32
It's prohibited. And there's legal implications of using the application and yet, grinder work will provide instructions on how to get around the legal barriers. Now, the question is,
24:49
should a company be participating in altering a country's legal situations, trying to be an advocate for human rights when
25:00
It is against the law in the country. And, and in my follow up articles, I specifically said that no organization has the right
25:10
to change a country's human rights agenda or legal situation by placing their consumers at risk. Right. And, and even now, I mean, I just turned on the news today, there's situations where companies like Starbucks and India are trying to,
25:32
to actually adhere to a very
25:36
contemporary agenda and trying to change cultural
25:42
cultural movements and human rights issues. But the truth is, is that any application any digital technology, that places consumers at risk, I believe, is an org it, no organization has the right to knowingly put its users at risk.
26:04
So I don't think that this is a topic that many organizations want to discuss. Because the question is, do you know the negatives? If so, how are you addressing them? If not, how do you? How do you not understand this? Right? Um, and I think this is a very complicated topic.
26:25
This is It's not easy for companies to discuss.
26:31
You know, when Merton was talking 1938, about US mail and telephone being abused. Those weren't hard topics, because everyone, you can't imagine your life now without mail service without the telephone. Right? And, you know, even then, there were negative consequences on society.
26:56
You know, even even even today, how many how many senior citizens do we hear about falling victim to scams? Oh, yes, millions, millions, right? My mind the other day, my I put my mother on my Netflix account.
27:11
But last last week, she calls me hysterically crying. I did something wrong, somebody your Netflix account has been been permanently put on hold. I said, Mom, please just delete the message. It's a scammer. Right. So again, here's a great example of stress being caused by a scam Burton via instant messaging. Yeah.
27:41
Um, it's calm is a very complicated topic. It's a complicated topic for companies to discuss.
27:50
Right? So
27:53
what's next for you? Are you working on it on a new book? What is in store for you?
28:01
Um, I'm right now I'm actually
28:05
I just sent off my article, where I used chat GBT to actually co author an article.
28:14
I wanted to understand the role of chat GBT in an academia as well, and as well as the knowledge creation.
28:24
I'm looking at UN SDGs, I'm looking at.
28:31
I'm working on a special issue in journal services marketing, where we look at UN sustainability development goals, on how we can
28:42
how can we improve the impact of our research? And I think that at this point in my life,
28:52
I'm now looking to encourage younger academics, to engage in purposeful research.
29:00
You know, quite often, when I began as a business researcher, we were focused, almost
29:10
I want to say we are almost focused too much on managerial implications of our work.
29:18
Right now, I think that younger researchers have to look at societal implications. How can we improve consumer welfare and societal Betterment by improving service industries?
29:34
By improving services, including education, insurance, banking, transportation, can we improve society? So instead of looking at customer satisfaction, or loyalty is dependent variables? What happens when we look at a dependent variable being societal impact? And I think that's so off
30:00
Then,
30:01
researchers spend so much time writing articles, academic articles that no one reads.
30:12
I think that, in many cases, the impact of research, business research on society
30:21
has been relatively scant, almost non existent.
30:27
So, I think that what I'm hoping now to do is actually encourage researchers to focus on societal impact. In fact, I'm writing an editorial right now, and encouraging journal services, marketing authors, to worry less, worry less about writing a 30 page article and deal with topics that are contemporary, interesting and relevant. And controversial. I'm discovering that many doctoral students that are graduating, are writing about very safe topics. We're not going to move the discipline forward, if we don't take risks.
31:12
And what I realized is that many young researchers, I understand it, they're saying, Mark, I don't want to engage in controversial topic for my dissertation, because I need to get a job, right? But how many more articles on customer satisfaction do we possibly need?
31:33
Right? I say, Well, great. So you want to write a satisfaction paper. So that's 10,000, zero to 10,000, num 10,004. Five.
31:45
We need researchers to take risks.
31:49
And we need the academic community to embrace risk takers. We can't move society forward if we don't improve our service industries. And that's something that I that people need to understand services dominate Western economies.
32:10
So what's, what would be one example of improving the service industry?
32:17
Let me give you an example on on much some of the research I've done in cancer care, okay.
32:24
We do know that
32:28
chemical therapy, radiation therapy is critical in cancer care, but so too, so to his social support, and mental well being.
32:41
So by working with living while Cancer Center in Geneva, Illinois, this was years ago, we actually discovered that if a social worker and medical doctor
32:56
work together, at the point of initial diagnosis to say, here is your regimen, here's the medical regimen. And here's the social support regimen, right?
33:10
Cancer Care improved.
33:14
I'm very analogous to a I was I was working in Vietnam, with the Vietnamese government on trying to improve patient care. And what I discovered is that many females, were embarrassed to speak to male doctors about
33:34
about their situations. And this is, so the Vietnamese government actually brought me on to teach empathy to male doctors.
33:44
Well, this is a challenge. This was a huge challenge. And in fact, once I started to talk to the doctors, I realized this is going to be
33:55
a challenge that I not may not be able to address, but I quickly realized that in these health clinics, they were midwives.
34:05
So I said, here's this, here's a solution. Let's go. Let's bring a midwife in with the doctor and have the female patient discuss with the midwife. The situation, the midwife then meets with the doctor for the debrief.
34:27
And suddenly, medical care improved. Notice that when we talk about this, it seems like these are no brainers and nothing actually cost a lot of money. Right? It was just asking, how can we improve the patient experience?
34:48
What are the little things and sometimes it's the little details that matter in services?
34:56
I think that it's we're gonna have to realize
35:00
Increasingly, as services move online,
35:05
how do we make our websites easier for older consumers to use? Let me give you an example. I actually suffer from macular degeneration. So I'm blind in my right eye.
35:20
I cannot tell you how many websites
35:24
require that I put in the password. But because when I type, it's so easy for me to make mistakes, because I can't see the keyboard that well, I need the little icon, the show me icon. So I can see what I've entered if there were any mistakes. There's many what websites that are not. They're not designed for the visually impaired, because the designers never thought about visual impairments. Right? Right. They never thought about colors, right? They never thought about how light on light. Yes, it may look visually interesting. But if somebody is, has visual impairments,
36:07
you can't always see what's on the screen.
36:11
So I think that if companies would try to look at the user experience in more detail,
36:21
and think about design issues,
36:25
and think about the customer experience and talk to customers. So so many of my consulting jobs that I that I work on, are simply talking to patients, talking to customers. Understanding when someone I talked to somebody with autism, um,
36:45
the users would tell me that it's sometimes the colors are simply too bright, or the sounds are too loud.
36:53
I would
36:55
I encourage companies to talk to their users and so often that if we if we outsource our website design, to
37:07
I understand the outsourcing of website design. However, younger age designers don't understand the realities of aging, they don't understand the realities of different cultures.
37:21
Sometimes the lowest price website is not always the most useful, or design friendly. We have to start thinking about ADA compliance issues. And increasingly, we've got to think about an older population.
37:36
Well, you know, what you say, of course, makes perfect sense. What is a mystery to me is like today in the morning, I was making out some, some donations for Alzheimer's Society and a local hospital and places like that. And some of the forms are so non user friendly. Like they don't give you enough space, for example, to put in your nine numbers of your Visa card.
38:07
Right, exactly. Like who is designing these things without trying them out and without thinking of what effect it would have on the user.
38:20
Unfortunately, I think that many organizations are outsourcing many of their website design features to excellent designers who don't necessarily understand the customer experience. And what we're talking about, whether it's websites, whether it's healthcare issues, whether it's education, insurance, all these forms, these are all this is all services. These are services. Yes. So if we don't innovate our service industries,
38:52
we can't move society forward.
38:55
Consumer welfare is inherently tied to the improvement of service industries.
39:08
I'm convinced that there is a need for
39:13
older aged consumers to have some type of consulting service somewhere where they could call just to answer questions. And I again, I use my I use my mom as a as an inspiration for a lot of my research.
39:32
She's 81 years old. And I look at her struggle now with many healthcare examples where doctors say, go to my chart. Everything's on my chart. Well, that assumes that someone has the ability
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to log on and to understand how to use my chart.
39:54
Again, there's a lot of technology that assumes that users know what to do.
40:06
Alright, yes. So, you look pretty young to me. But I will ask the question anyway. So what's the most important thing you have learned so far in your life?
40:25
That's a different. That's a difficult question.
40:29
You the how, what have I learned?
40:35
Regardless of how tough regardless of how tough the beginning is, yeah, you have to have a beginning. Yes.
40:44
And I often think that that's, that's a challenge. Many people often say, I am going to fail if I if I start a project, I may fail, you have to have a start
41:00
and
41:02
accept challenges. If I look at my life, I've had some incredible consulting projects I worked with in Vietnam and various positions for 17 years. Hmm, I actually had three Fulbright's.
41:18
So I was a Fulbright scholar in Cambodia. I survived the earthquake in Nepal as a Fulbright Scholar. And most recently, I was a Fulbright, in Uzbekistan. See,
41:31
you have to look at challenges as a way to improve
41:38
as a way to, to learn, and
41:44
every culture is so different. Yeah. And I will say that, while the United States is right now we seem to be obsessed with human rights. And this is not necessarily the case in every country, right? And what I realized, even working in Uzbekistan is that my role is to represent the best of the United States, but not necessarily to change a culture, but really to participate in the culture.
42:18
So I think what I've learned, take, take the risk,
42:24
take
42:25
the challenge, and begin several years, I'll always tell researchers several times I have written articles, and editors have said to me, they said, Mark, you know,
42:37
I found flaws in your research. But it's so interesting, is it's so interesting, that the flaws.
42:47
They're not major enough, because the topic is so interesting, right? Every research, every research project has something wrong with it. The sample site, may or may only you take a sample the United States does it generalize? You interviewed 300 people? Is that really representative, we can sit and talk about the flaws of every research, but every research idea needs a beginning, right? You can't improve a research idea if the research idea doesn't get started, right? Somebody has to put the seed out there. And I think what has happened as as researchers is, maybe it's social media.
43:33
You take the good you take the bad.
43:36
we revise, we resubmit. But ideas have to get started, there always has to be a start.
43:45
And regardless of whether that start is controversial or not, someone's got to begin the conversation. take that first step. Right. Exactly. Take it if you make a mistake, it's okay. At least you took the step. I totally agree. I totally agree. Some people spend hours, days, weeks years thinking about something, right? They never act on it.
44:14
That is so true. I sent a meeting yesterday. I kept my mouth silent. Just please take the action. And maybe we'll see if the action works or doesn't work, but you don't know it.
44:29
Yeah, it's the fear of failure. It's a failure that keeps people from trying because they will be they think that they will be devastated. If there is, I guess another failure in my life because perhaps they have had too many? I don't know. But fear of failure definitely gets in the way of acting on some of the best ideas that people have.
44:53
And I will say I've had many failures in my life.
44:57
However, I've had many successes well obvious
45:00
Yes, and congratulations. Thank you, but you only see the successes on social media you only see the successes on on a resume. Right? Don't see you
45:14
don't see the failures. And there have been many. Right. And I think that is that is what makes a true scholar.
45:25
We understand success and we understand failure. You know, as I said, I may be a dean today.
45:35
And I, yes,
45:37
I am successful. However, I began my life as a janitor.
45:42
The I began at the age of 13, I had a workers permit. And I remember I was cleaning toilets,
45:52
in a local shoe store at 13, and those bathrooms shined, and I'll never forget, the owner of the shoe stores name was Don Lord, it was turned in shoes in Chicago. I was cleaning the bathroom as a janitor. And he said to me, you have the most important job in this shoe store.
46:14
said your kid. And he said no. He said, If a customer uses the bathroom and that bathroom is dirty, she's gonna leave and she'll never come back. Right?
46:25
It was the attention to small details. Yes. And maybe because I began my life as a janitor.
46:35
We could appreciate and we understand life. Because we I started at at a very low skilled job in the service industry. And again, that story and I relate to that story. It's I'm 55 years old now. So I mean, this is that's a story that never I never forgot. It's in fact, as I'm talking about it, I still remember
47:02
he where it occurred, and and my thought.
47:07
So sometimes, you have to look at life from all different angles, right? Like challenges and risks. Yeah. Well, thank you for that. I need to let you go because our time is almost up.
47:24
Is it possible for you to put me on your mailing list and let me know when your next paper comes out? I would really like that.
Definitely. And I also encourage all listeners to please subscribe to journal services marketing on LinkedIn. See what we're doing in the service industries because, as editor, every article that's published, has to be timely, relevant and interesting. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Thomas.
Thank you Mark, and just want to say, next week, my guest will be Dr. Stephanie Alice Baker, senior lecturer in sociology, University of London. Dr. Baker's research explores how we connect and communicate online so very much in line with what you and I have been speaking about today, particularly around issues pertaining to health and wellness, which is also one of your interests. Dr. Baker studies, influencer culture and the spread of medical misinformation in the context of COVID-19 and the antivaccination movement. Please tune in. Thank you again, thank you, Mark. Take care. Bye bye.
Thank you, Mark. That was most enjoyable and instructive. Next week my guest will be Dr Stephanie Alice Baker, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, City, University of London. Dr Baker’s research explores how we connect and communicate online, particularly around issues pertaining to health and wellness. Dr Baker studies influencer culture and the spread of medical misinformation in the context of COVID-19 and the anti-vaccination movement. Please tune in.