One of the things I love about talking with Kevin Bourke is how I am guaranteed to learn something I can use immediately. Kevin has been on the show before (listen here) and is a great supporter of other efforts we undertake, such as sponsoring TEDxSantaBarbara for many years. In this conversation, Kevin talked about how he and the team at Bourke Wealth Management, look at finances from a big picture view, not just isolating their lens on stock portfolios. He calls it the Family Financial Ecosystem. He takes us on a deep dive of what this means, and once you hear it, you'll wonder why no one has explained this to you before. Kevin also introduced me to a new word right off the bat - you may need to look it up. It's Decumulation. It's how you thoughtfully and strategically use your savings to fund your retirement, though Kevin explains it much better. Kevin helped me to understand the differences in how you look at your family finances, especially as it relates to long term planning. He explains where Asset Management fits, how to think about Wealth Management, and how it's different than how someone like him sits as the family CFO and manages the relationships with attorneys, accountants, and anyone involved in your financial ecosystem. We love it when Kevin spends time explaining complicated topics to us and encourage you to get a copy of his book, Make Your Money Last a Lifetime. His site: http://bourkewealth.com His book: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Money-Last-Lifetime/dp/0984789529

Dennis Baker is an accomplished marketer and entrepreneur. His latest venture is called POLIS Assist. For the last two years, he and his team have been locating every parking space in Los Angeles County and putting them into an app. Yes, it's true, need a space, use POLIS to find one. Dennis freely gives of his time and extensive expertise to the non-profit community in Santa Barbara to help them with messaging, strategic positioning, branding, and crisis communications. He has a deep background in marketing and has focused that energy into bringing the POLIS app to the millions of drivers in Los Angeles. While developing POLIS he and the team have collected parking information on over 500,000 blocks. Dennis talked about one day where he looked at the eight signs in front of a potential parking spot and was confused. Some of the signs said what day he could and could not park, what type of plate he had to have, and other regulations governing the single space. He was maddened by it and decided to fix the problem. The only obstacle was, there was no central database for street parking, which meant his team had to photograph every street sign on those 500,000 blocks. The volume of street information turned into a big data challenge and opportunity. Dennis says that POLIS is the Waze for Parking. We appreciate the mammoth effort that has gone into and will continue to go into POLIS. We also thank him for his support of the Santa Barbara Non-Profit Community and his frequent attendance at TEDxSantaBarbara events.

Claudia Weintraub is the Director of the River Oaks Academy, a Personalized Learning Public Charter School, based in Thousand Oaks, California. We sat down with her to understand changes that are occurring in various proposed laws that are going to affect students in Charter Schools throughout the State. Claudia spent some time updating us on Charter Schools since her first podcast with us in 2015. Lots has changed, specifically in the legislature and the current political climate. Claudia helps educate us, and parents and citizens about the challenges Charter Schools are facing during these challenging times. What was fascinating to learn was how Charter Schools are a perfect alternative for individual students. The concept of Personalized Learning is an answer for a lot of problems young people face when trying to navigate the structured public school system. Thankfully we have people like Claudia leading the charge and advocating for this innovative way to teach our children. More information about River Oaks is here: http://www.riveroakscharter.com/

Will Bellomy is himself quite a character, ironically he designs characters for his party game business, Murder Happens. Will joined us in the studio, with guest host, Kimberly Herriman. Kimberly is studying 'Play' as a part of her doctoral research at Antioch University. By day, Will works at Photothermal Spectroscopy in Santa Barbara, designing marketing materials to illustrate the incredibly complex process of their products. It's no wonder he's fascinated with creating complex narratives that anyone can play, with eight of their friends. This conversation was interesting on several levels. Many of us love solving puzzles, and interactive mysteries, like the ones Will designs are tremendously fun. Will says his stories come from everywhere and hints that an upcoming game stems from an idea he had while talking with an Uber driver. Kimberly added an interesting voice, as she's doing a lot of research into the psychology of play, and what motivates people to play. You'll learn a lot from listening to her questions. I'm looking forward to playing on of Will's games soon with her, and a bunch of our friends. Will says his business is just getting going and that he's encouraged that board games are really hot right now especially social games. I think that we're experiencing a backlash against screens.

Glen Derbyshire started taking photographs as a young boy growing up in a military family stationed in Asia. He fell in love with capturing images of events all around him and began his pursuit of lifelong learning, ending up at Brooks Institute here in Santa Barbara. He is the founder of Studio 2050, a full-service production facility located on the top of the San Marcos Pass in the old Cielo Store. Such a beautiful location has led to a creative vision that extends to a wide variety of production services. Glen and Mark talked at length about his experience with 3D animation. The Studio provides services that include photography, art direction, video production, print production and creative content needed to support his clients' marketing objectives. You may have seen him and his crew in downtown Santa Barbara in 2015 shooting scenes for the film Papa Hemingway in Cuba. Longtime Santa Barbara residents will remember the Cielo Store as a stop along the way to a camping trip in the Santa Ynez Mountains, to pick up last minute supplies. Here's an article in the LA Times from 1992 that speaks of the beauty of the region. We're jealous that Glen and his clients get to spend so much time in this stunning location.

We invited Tara Jones Haaf back to the show when we heard that her very successful company, Eat This, Shoot That, has expanded into Solvang. For those of you outside the 805, Solvang is a lovely recreation of a Danish town, nestled in the Santa Ynez Valley, just 45 minutes from downtown Santa Barbara. Tara tells Mark and Patrick all about the charming city and the hidden culinary treasures that abound on the tour. Tara says that her tours are an 8-course adventure. We can't wait to go up to Solvang and discover these hidden treats. Listen to our original episode with her from 2017 to get a full background on what Eat This, Shoot That is all about. We caught up on the business; she's now operating with seven tour guides. She is full of great quotes, including, "Take the picture that got you to go to the restaurant in the first place." Good idea. Tara gave us some pro tips for taking pictures of food - and they are simple and easy to remember. 1. Get in nice and tight. She suggests getting into the personal space of the dish. 2. Shoot at eye level. Forget perfectly framing those over the dish shots. 3. Front light the plate (have the sun at your back) unless you're taking pictures of glasses of wine, then have the light behind the glass. Tara also writes for Noozhawk and has an unfair competitive advantage in finding the best places to eat. You can see her many articles here. Her writing talents are also on display in her book that she spoke about in our first show: The 100 Things to do in Santa Barbara Before You Die.

We had a far-reaching conversation with Max Drucker, the CEO of {Carpe Data, a business located just upstairs from our studio here in downtown Santa Barbara. Max understands data, big data, and the future of how data impacts businesses like few we've had on the show. We learned about predictive analytics, his start at Apple working to bring Insurance Companies to the Internet, machine learning, and how to manage the data that impacts your business. Max is easy to listen to, especially if you are unsure about your relationship to big data and how it is used to calculate risks to businesses. He makes the discussion, which can frequently be nerdy and complicated, straightforward and easy to understand. Towards the end of the show, he takes us on a journey into the future, with a prediction about autonomous cars that you'll want to hear. As co-founder and CEO, Max leads Carpe Data in the development and execution of the business. Before Carpe Data, Max co-founded Social Intelligence, a social media background screening company. In November 2010, Insurance & Technology Magazine named Max as one of its Top 10 Innovators of the Decade, an award that recognizes accomplishments in the insurance technology industry over the past ten years.

We met with Gregg Hart, newly minted member of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, for a delightful conversation about civic engagement. I've known Gregg for a long time, back from my days at Wavefront. Gregg has been involved in just about every significant activity here in Santa Barbara, as a member of multiple organizations over the years. One of the things that you'll remember if you ever meet with him is his persistent smile and pleasant attitude. He genuinely is committed to this community, and it's a joy to listen to him talk about public service. In this episode, you'll learn about his motivation to spend his life in community service. It started with him hanging out with his Dad, who was a librarian. For the past several years Gregg was the Executive Director of the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, a regional planning agency comprised of Santa Barbara County and all eight incorporated cities within the county. SBCAG distributes local, state, and federal transportation funds and acts as a forum for addressing regional and multi-jurisdictional issues. This episode may get you motivated to pay a bit more attention to the activities that go on in your community and possibly even move you to volunteer.

Mike Williams has one of the better jobs on the planet. He's the Getting Things Done Enterprise Architect for Zappos. What the heck kind of job title is that? In this episode, Mike tells about working with Tony Hsieh, the legendary founder of Zappos and being immersed in that fantastic culture. Mike is deeply involved by way of his background working for years with David Allen, author of Getting Things Done. Together they recently co-authored a new book, Getting Things Done for Teens (Video below) and he's putting everything he's learned and taught around the world to good use at making Zappos one of the premier places to work in the US. Mike talks about the Airstreams and Tiny Homes and the Village which has been designed so you will 'collide' with those you work with regularly. He says Tony will talk about colliding many times during the day and believes it's a key to the organization's success. Mike calls it Holocracy. Holacracy is such a big idea you'll want to follow the link and dig in; it's a revolutionary way to think about organization. Which brings us back to Mike and the work he's on the planet to do - helping people get things done. He says figuring this out is the DNA of life, which he states so clearly as answering the simple question, "What's the Next Action?" One thing that amazed me about the conversation was learning Mike, who lives in Camarillo, commutes to Las Vegas every week. Ok, that doesn't sound so bad, but he leaves out of John Wayne Airport in Orange County because he loves Jet Blue. What does that tell you about brand loyalty? We met Mike a few years back as a part of TEDxCamarillo and were able to help him along his road to the red circle. You can watch his talk here. Mike talks about the Airstreams and Tiny Homes and the Village which has been designed so you will 'collide' with those you work with regularly. He says Tony will talk about colliding many times during the day and believes it's a key to the organization's success. Mike calls it Holocracy. Holacracy is such a big idea you'll want to follow the link and dig in; it's a revolutionary way to think about organization. Which brings us back to Mike and the work he's on the planet to do - helping people get things done. He says figuring this out is the DNA of life, which he states so clearly as answering the simple question, "What's the Next Action?" One thing that amazed me about the conversation was learning Mike, who lives in Camarillo, commutes to Las Vegas every week. Ok, that doesn't sound so bad, but he leaves out of John Wayne Airport in Orange County because he loves Jet Blue. What does that tell you about brand loyalty? We met Mike a few years back as a part of TEDxCamarillo and were able to help him along his road to the red circle. You can watch his talk here.

Public Radio, There's nothing else like it - Mary Olsen General Manager, KCLU by 805connect

In this episode, we talk with Dan Hamilton, Associate Professor in the School of Management at California Lutheran University, where he is the Director of Economics for the CLU Center for Economic Research and Forecasting (CERF) and the Director of CLU's Master of Science in Quantitative Economics (MSQE). In partnership with CERF Director Matthew Fienup (previously on the podcast), he is a member of the Wall Street Journal's Economic Forecasting Survey and has more than 22 years of experience in economic forecasting. We had a lively conversation about forecasting, how you present data to decision makers and how 'data can be tricky.' Dan believes that we are in the Golden era of forecasting. Luckily for us, he has deep experience in the topic and was able to present Patrick and Mark with a Master's Class worth of information in under an hour. Dan joined CLU in 2009 and in three months, established CERF and MSQE. CERF has computed economic forecasts for the United States, California, Oregon, Los Angeles County, the San Fernando Valley, Ventura County, and for various other counties in California. The MSQE program focuses on teaching the application of quantitative methods in applied economic and financial analysis, including economic forecasting. Before CLU, Hamilton joined the UCSB Economic Forecast Project in 2000 where he worked with well-known regional organizations including Vandenberg Air Force Base, the County of Santa Barbara, the County of Ventura, The Towbes Group, the Sares-Regis Group, among many others. Before UCSB, Dan worked for three years for the Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates (WEFA Group) where he produced and interpreted forecasts for a wide variety of clients including Visa International, the Panama Canal Authority, and the United States government. He also conducted intensive forecast training programs for both internal and external clients at the WEFA Group.