Marketing Magic, The Business of TV, and More – New York News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York business schools this week.
Magic and the Modern Business World – Gabelli Connect
Gabelli School of Business Clinical Associate Professor Timothy Malefyt uses capital-M ‘Magic’ (think David Blaine, Siegfried & Roy, Penn & Teller) to explain how “magical practices can be found in contemporary capitalist societies.”
In his new book, Magical Capitalism: Enchantment, Spells, and Occult Practices in Contemporary Economies, Malefyt explains, “Magic offers a way to make a connection and effect change through willful beliefs and ritual practices.”
He elaborates:
“[In advertising] you don’t know if the customer will like this ad so similarly to how magicians rely upon magical rites, advertisers often use “formulas” to feel comfortable in their presentation to a client, such as habits surrounding the time they present or the way everyone is sitting at the table.”
You can read more about Malefy’s work here.
Binghamton University Student Approaches TV Production with Business Mindset – Binghamton SOM Blog
The Binghamton SOM Blog recently profiled business administration student Zach Homler, who has made significant early strides toward a promising career behind the scenes of film and television.
Following an internship on the Fusion and truTV variety talk show The Chris Gethard Show in which he “helped prepare celebrity guests such as Jason Sudeikis, Seth Meyers, Nick Kroll and Ellie Kemper,” he landed back-to-back PA (production assistant) gigs on Netflix and Amazon Prime shows.
Homler compares his experience to a case competition. “You have this project or this problem to solve, and you do some work, weigh your options, then present your recommendations to the decision makers.”
Homler hopes to pursue a career in either in entertainment law or talent management.
“This is me getting my foot in the door. I’m able to get that ground-up perspective of what goes into these productions, and I think putting in that work and understanding the day-to-day process is only going to help me on the business side of things. And so far, it’s been a lot of fun.”
You can read more from the recent interview here.
Fred Schaufeld Talks about Luck, Opportunity and Lehigh – Lehigh College of Business and Economics News
As part of its Distinguished Finance Speaker Series, the Lehigh College of Business and Economics recently hosted Fredrick D. Schaufeld (’81 ’15P ’17P), whose presentation Managing Luck: Lessons from Lehigh and Life When Not Everything Goes Quite as Planned contained many hard-won lessons from his career as Co-Founder and Managing Director of venture capital private equity firm SWaN & Legend Venture Partners.
Schaufeld offered three major takeaways for the audience:
- Failure does not equal death. “Wherever you are in your career, you’re building a portfolio of ideas, relationships, networking and skill sets. When you fail, you might go back a little, but you can build on that and keep going forward.”
- Your time is worth more than your money. “If you’re miserable, do it a different way or do something else.”
- Don’t wait for wisdom to find you. “You’re wealthy now, whether you realize it or not. I learned that at a relatively young age, with no money in my pocket.”
Schaufeld explains, “[SWaN & Legend] invest in special human beings who lead companies with social impact. Ethics mean a lot to us. We focus on companies people are passionate about,” such as KIND Healthy Snacks, Gwynnie Bee, Airbnb, Sugar23, the Washington Nationals, Washington Capitals, and the Professional Fighters League.
You can read more about the recent event here.
Sadness Olympics: New TruTV Game Show Aims to Help Student Debt
Earlier this week, television network TruTV debuted a curious new game show to its Tuesday lineup, with ‘Paid Off.” The conceit is simple, and, very apropos for 2018: three contestants will answer a series of trivia questions with the ultimate payoff of removing their student loan debt.
Like ‘Jeopardy!’, without the mystery of where the prize-money may be going, ‘Paid Off’ will focus solely on the mammoth and ever-increasing student loan debt hovering over the U.S., which is set to topple $1.5 trillion very soon, according to Student Loan Hero.
A recent survey from LendEDU found that the average American has $27,975 in student loans yet to be paid off, in addition to $5,472 of credit card debt. Among millennial Americans, however, the average credit card debt is even higher at $6,206. And while the majority of 23-38-year old’s do not have student loan debt, those who due are carrying a heavy financial burden, which can be found in the chart below:
In a recent interview with the Washington Post, host Michael Torpey (who’s face might be familiar to fans of the Netflix series Orange is the New Black) notes, “One of the mantras is ‘an absurd show to match an absurd crisis.’ A game show feels really apt because this is the state of things right now.” The student debt game show will air 16 episodes during its initial summer run.
The show’s creators aren’t trying to offer a whole-cloth solution to the student debt crisis, obviously. Rather, the theme is to help out a few with a new, novel concept. Although the unintended message may be troubling to some: seeing that the best solutions to massive debt isn’t provided to the them by the state, or the market; instead, the best bet is more of a lottery, parading the few victors in the swelling whirlpool. A Gladiator of sorts for the 21st century, with the violence turned way down but the positive desperation on full-screen.
Or, you can make an Instagram for your pet if the novel route is more attractive to you.
