Wise Up with OpenWater

The Value of Immigration, Getting Fired by Your Father, and Proper Skincare, with Ricardo Quintero

Born the son of Cuban immigrants in Mexico, Ricardo Quintero has brought a worldly perspective to his executive career at companies such as Estée Lauder, Clinique, and as the President of Movado Group. 
In this wide ranging interview, Ricardo talks about:
The business skills he learned starting out at Procter and Gamble that he keeps with him to this day
Why Ricardo's father hired... and then fired him (and why it was one of the best things to happen)
The current state of the beauty business
And not for nothin', you'll even get a few skin care tips in this episode. 
Ricardo is a wonderful optimist, and you'll love the positivity he brings. 
OpenWater is a curated community for midlife professionals looking to stay productive and relevant. To learn more and join our waitlist, visit OpenWater.group

The State of Corporate Real Estate, with Gabrielle Baccari

Between the pandemic and the rise in remote work, the corporate real estate market is still in a period of transition. To better understand what's happening with physical office space, we brought in Gabrielle Baccari, a deeply experienced expert in the space who has done corporate real estate for companies like Novell and Google. In this discussion, she breaks down: 
The opportunities in this down market
How companies are focusing spaces around hybrid workers
Whether amenities from the go-go 2000s tech offices are still a thing
How Google focuses on serendipity in its office spaces
The Wise Up with OpenWater podcast delivers your weekly dose of business wisdom. OpenWater is a new platform for a curated community of accomplished professionals with decades of experience. To join our waitlist, visit: OpenWater.group   

Job Sites That Aren't Linkedin, Plus the Perks of Using Travel Advisors, with Melissa Potter

The Wise Up Podcast this week features talent recruiter Melissa Potter, who shares her wisdom around searching for a job. Listen in for her insights as a recruiter (apply early!), some new job sites that aren’t Linkedin and why you should never stop networking.
But wait! There's more!
In addition to finding people jobs, she now finds them vacation destinations as a certified travel advisor! Did you know you can unlock special free hotel perks when using a travel advisor? Now you do. Listen to the full episode to find out more. 
Melissa Potter links: 
Newsletter for Travel Exclusives & Trends - Newsletter sign up
Fora Travel Advisor Portal - Travel Advisor Page
Instagram - @transformative_escapes
LinkedIn
 

The Big Picture, Wisdom from Hollywood Producer Adam Baxter

Getting a movie made is hard. Making an entire movie on a shoestring budget in two weeks with a start time less than a month away? That's almost impossible, and yet, that's the hand Adam Baxter was dealt to produce the feature Your Lucky Day.
We talk with Baxter about the wisdom he's picked up from his decades of production, working with the likes of David Bowie and Miley Cyrus, and others in music videos and commercials. And we learn how he used that wisdom to get Your Lucky Day, which went on to be a Top 5 Netflix movie, made.
Even if you don't have Hollywood hopes and dreams, you'll love listening to Baxter and learning from his experience.
   
To get even more business wisdom or become a part of our Wisdom Network, visit openwater.group.

Know When to Stay Silent for Strong Investor Relations, with Denise Garcia

Whether you run a public company or a startup with IPO ambitions, knowing how to tell your corporate story to investors is critical to your success (not to mention highly regulated by the federal government). That's where having a strong investor relations program comes into play. 
Denise Garcia of Hayflower Partners has helped notable Internet and software companies including Cardlytics, Domo and Pinterest raise more than $2 billion through private, M&A and IPO transactions as their strategic communications and investor relations advisor. 
In this episode, Denise shares her investor relations wisdom on topics like:
How to build a strong investor relations program even if you're still in Seed stage
The biggest IR mistakes executives make
The one piece of advice every C-Level exec should implement (HINT: It's knowing when to stay silent)
Denise Garcia is a member of OpenWater, a highly curated community of accomplished professionals with decades of experience. OpenWater connects companies with the experienced help they need, while our members connect with one another to flourish in entirely new ways.
 

Dot.Wow! The Domain Name Business is Kinda Awesome with Andrew Allemann

Domain names, you know -- the words you type into your browser to get to a website, are probably something you don't put much thought into. But you should! Picking the right domain name can have a big impact on your business. 
To find out all the ins and outs of domain naming, we brought in an expert. Andrew Allemann is the Publisher of Domain Name Wire and has been in the business of analyzing and buying domain names for decades. 
In this episode, we discuss:
The (relative) importance of having a dot-com name
How domains that aren't available are still obtainable
Why you should not be afraid to spend money on the right domain
The radio test, and why it's important to your domain name choice
In addition to being a domain name expert, Andrew is a member of OpenWater, a new community and platform for accomplished professionals with decades of experience. If you're interested in being a part of OpenWater, visit openwater.group to learn more and join our waitlist. 
 

Author Chip Conley on Learning to Love Midlife

OpenWater was thrilled to host An Evening with Chip Conley, New York Times bestselling author and Founder of the Modern Elder Academy. If you weren’t able to make, well, you missed out on the free beer and wine, but you can enjoy Chip’s Q&A right now from the comfort of your own home!
That’s right, the entire discussion between moderator, and OpenWater Co-Founder, Chris Albrecht and Chip is available below at no extra charge!
This roughly one hour discussion delves into topics such as: 
Turning a mid-life crisis into a midlife chrysalis
Curiosity as a super power
The importance of finding the right community
A new “Maslow 2.0” in the health information age
And they even get into a little bit about learning to surf after age fifty (it can be done!).

Use AI to Make Your Work (and Life) Easier

Everyone’s talking about AI, but most don’t truly understand it’s power or how to harness this. Daeil Kim, who sold his startup, AI.Reverie to Meta will walk you through everything you need to know about artificial intelligence, its implications for the future, and how you can use it to make you life easier. In this talk we’ll examine questions like:
What’s an LLM?
Is there a difference between Chat-GPT and Google Bard?
What is AI good at? (And what is it not so good at?)
How can you get started using AI right now?
Join us for this informative chat about a technology that is poised to drastically change all of our lives and the entire world, really.
About the Speaker
Daeil Kim is currently a senior engineering manager at Meta where he helps lead synthetic data efforts for Meta’s VR/AR initiatives. Previously, he was the founder & CEO of AI.Reverie, a synthetic data startup that was acquired by Meta, and before this a senior data scientist at The New York Times. He received his Ph.D in Computer Science at Brown University and a liberal arts degree at Sarah Lawrence College. A lifelong New Yorker, he is deeply interested in the intersection of AI and its transformative properties and hopes to retire as a lounge singer later on in life.

Are Feature Films Dead?

Between the addictive quick bits of entertainment on Tik-Tok, Instagram and YouTube, do kids even care about the movies anymore? Do ever-shortening attention spans spell the end of the full length movie — espeically in a theater? Filmmaker and ex-head of product for Netflix, Todd Yellin sits down for chat about the future of the movies.
For almost every generation up to this point, movies were the thing. Whether they were star-studded blockbusters or more intimate indie fare, heading to the cineplex was a weekly ritual.
But that time may have passed. With the rise of streaming, movies can be enjoyed from the comfort of home, or a new generation seems to find all the entertainment they need from a smartphone and an infinite supply of clips, memes, highlights and more.
In this fireside chat, we’ll sit down with Todd to discuss the state of movies, the new era he helped usher in at Netflix, and what it’s like trying to make a movie on your own in today’s market.
 
About the Speaker
Todd Yellin, as head of product, helped lead the charge to transform Netflix from a US DVD-by-mail service into a global entertainment company that revolutionized the way movies and TV shows are created, distributed and consumed. He was responsible for leveraging vast amounts of information and best-in-class user interfaces across numerous viewing devices to create an easy, compelling way for Netflix members to find something great to watch. Todd also oversaw member acquisition, studio technology and partnerships. He and his teams continually applied the latest in machine learning and AI technology to maximize the end-to-end Netflix experience for content creators and consumers.
At the end of 2022 he left Netflix, after 17 years to return to his writing and directing roots. He is currently an independent filmmaker, based in Northern California, working on his second feature film. Before joining Netflix in 2006, he wrote and directed Brother’s Shadow. He is also a former documentarian. For British TV, he filmed Tibetan refugees escaping over the Himalayas from China to India, and smuggled footage of political oppression out of Myanmar. Prior to his Asian adventures, Todd received an MFA in film production from USC.

The Metaverse: Future or Folly?

The metaverse. Is it the future or a folly? Either way, billions of dollars have been poured into creating metaverses, some of which are thriving. Who better to learn about the metaverse than Wagner James Au, author of Making a Metaverse That Matters. He’ll bring us up to speed on trends in the (virtual) space, who the players are, and what you need to know.
You don’t need to strap on virtual goggles for this virtual event, there will be plenty to experience just in this fireside chat where we’ll explore: 
Influences of the metaverse like Snow Crash
The big players in the space including Second Life, Meta and even Apple now with its Vision Pro
How life inside the metaverse will affect our lives outside it. 
Live your best virtual life! Register for this chat today. 
About the Speaker
Wagner James Au is the author of Making a Metaverse That Matters (2023), based on his 20 years working in the metaverse industry — a story he first started telling in The Making of Second Life (HarperCollins, 2008), based on his experiences as the first journalist officially embedded in a metaverse platform. James continues covering virtual world culture on his blog New World Notes, the longest-running site devoted to the Metaverse, at nwn.blogs.com. He is also author of Game Design Secrets (Wiley, 2012) and has written about virtual worlds and gaming as an emerging cultural force for The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, The Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Magazine, and GigaOM, among many other outlets. Along with helping launch and grow several metaverse-related platforms and technologies over the years, James is also Senior VP of Editorial & Content Strategy at AnyContext, a marketing and communications agency with clients in AI, VR, healthtech, gaming, web3, design, and future forecasting.