BradBerens.com
Thoughts about where our real and digital worlds collide.

  • AI, SCOTUS, and Affirmative Action

    Colliding Trends: as the Supreme Court changed college admissions, Chief Justice Roberts argued that personal essays will be more important, but are applicants learning to write in the age of ChatGPT? When I give sharpest-edge trend keynotes, I often use the phrase “colliding trends” to describe how I approach peering into the future. As a…

  • Apple’s Vision Pro: What Will it Take to Go Big?

    The newest product from the world’s most valuable company will transform the world, but not for quite some time. I’ve been hesitant to write about Apple’s new “spatial computing” device: the thing that the world’s most valuable company doesn’t want to call an Augmented Reality (AR) headset. However, since there are things that I haven’t seen…

  • “The Flash” doesn’t suck!

    The bad press around WBD’s new superhero action movie misses the real reason why the movie isn’t doing boffo box office. My son and I caught The Flash in IMAX on Father’s Day. It was fun! If you like popcorn movies and have any affection for the character, go see it… while you can. The most telling…

  • On Being a Dad

    Would Father’s Day be different if we called it “Dad’s Day” instead? Today is Father’s Day in the US. It’s a minor holiday compared to Mother’s Day.* Viewed from the beginning of the parenting journey,** this makes sense. The mother carries what in any other context would be considered a parasite for nine long months. Doing this…

  • Economist, DeSantis, Trump, Shakespeare

    The May 27th issue of The Economist has an in-depth briefing entitled, “A bungled coup: Ron DeSantis has little chance of beating Donald Trump to his party’s nomination.” The Economist is always literate, but it isn’t often literary. This piece persistently conjures up Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar throughout. That includes the opening line: “Belatedly and nervously, the would-be assassins have been…

  • A Recipe for Digital Transformation

    19 years before COVID, the 9/11 attacks gave me a sneak peek at how quickly we can change if the right three ingredients are in place. “Turn on the television.” 6:00am. Urgency in my brother-in-law’s voice cut through the grogginess as I held the bedside phone to my ear and clutched for my glasses. Our…

  • Keyword: Persuasion

    People decide with their hearts and justify with their heads. Knowing what to do with that can make you a more effective communicator. Also, a persuasion lesson from my old boss, Rick Parkhill. The word “persuasion” gets a bad rap because it sounds like a con job where the persuader pulls one over on an…

  • The Anatomy of Delight

    A Broadway show, a YouTube video, and a classic movie lead me to explore how surprise comes from novelty on the other side of familiarity… & why that’s actionable for creators and business leaders. People call things delightful all the time, but what exactly is delight? It’s not just pleasure, nor is it simply more…

  • Generative AI, Misinformation, and the Plausibility Loophole

    By now, it’s common knowledge that programs like ChatGPT say things that just aren’t true, but why do we believe the lies so readily? The answer is F.A.B.S. Most people writing about generative AI (ChatGPT, DALL-E, Bard) focus on what the AIs can do, which is understandable since these algorithms are still new. With ChatGPT,…

  • A Urinal in Troutdale: Shakespeare Sightings

    Shakespeare has been ever-present for centuries because of a peculiar quality of how the brand works, a quality that other brands can imitate. Here are two weird things about Shakespeare. First, while some people love Shakespeare, others view reading or seeing the plays as a punishment from God. Second, you cannot escape references to Shakespeare—not…