During its six-year run, Signal 360 took readers into the metaverse, tracked ultra-fast deliveries across global cities, and followed shipping containers moving 70 to 80 percent of all goods from port to port. We taught readers the best way to wash their clothes (hint: cold water!), where to shop live online for the latest shopping trends, and how algorithms and AI are changing the way we work — and live.
To co-Editor-in-Chief Stan Joosten, economist Nicholas Bloom’s work at Stanford University — and his talk with Signal 360 — felt prescient. Studying the future of work, and remote working, long before COVID-19 sent workers home from the office, Bloom outlined a new approach that remains true today.
“We’ve proven we can get the work done wherever we are,” says Joosten. “It has really shaped the future, and Nicholas was the one who pointed to that.”
Co-Editor in Chief John Battelle recalled Scott Galloway’s visits to Signal 360, including when the New York University marketing professor discussed the fissures in our educational system, notes that reverberate today.
“They were some of our most popular videos,” Battelle said.
Other favorites recalled included a story about Procter & Gamble’s innovation journey during World War II, another about young women in STEM careers that featured P&G’s senior director and scientist Rolanda Wilkerson, a conversation with futurist Faith Popcorn, a piece about Athletic Brewing, featuring co-founder Bill Shufelt, a testament to superior brand and retail execution, customer value — and frankly, just great (non-alcoholic) beer.
Want to hear more of our favorites? You can learn more from this look back across six years of our magazine with editors Stan Joosten and John Battelle in our video below, or read our lightly edited transcript of this very special Signal 360 conversation.
TRANSCRIPT
Lauren Barack
Hi Everyone, and welcome to our Signal Conversation. I’m here today with our Co-Editors-in-Chief, Stan Joosten and John Battelle. Welcome you guys.
John Battelle
Hi, Lauren.
Stan Joosten
Welcome Lauren. Well, this is a bit of a bittersweet moment. You know, after almost seven years, this will be the last Signal 360 that we create together. But we have a lot to celebrate. And I think I wanted to use the time here for the three of us, just to reflect a little bit of what we have learned over the last seven years, how we even got started and so on. So let’s get started. I mean, there’s so much to talk about.
Lauren
There is a lot to talk about. So I want to hear from you guys, what stands out from when you started that first year. Because I wasn’t there. So I want to hear from you guys.
John
Stan, didn’t we start with a bang, because we were covering CES in January of 2020, I believe.
Stan
Yeah, that’s correct. We P&G had a big presence called The Life Lab at CES, because one of the things that we saw is that, you know, our business becomes P&G. Business becomes also more technology driven. So we were a centerpiece at CES. And actually, in fact, I know that we met each other there actually also that was our opening, opening issue. And might I say it was quite the launch was, we got more attention than I had expected at that point in time. So that was a really good start that put us on the map.
John
It was. But then the world had another story for us just a couple months later, if I recall, all of a sudden, we were in Covid lockdown.
Stan
That was quite a shock. That was not quite what we planned, because the original things that we had planned was shoot some videos in a New York studio once in a while, like there was no traveling to New York, I think was after March, vacations got canceled. Signal also got canceled. But before that, we tried to actually also get some direction on what might happen. Remember that interview with Peter Schwartz, one of the most renowned futurists, that we asked him what might happen, and he had a good, better, best scenario well, and it was actually about his worst scenario wasn’t good, better, best, it was bad, even more bad, and really bad. And I think it became his really bad scenario out of that well.
John
18 months of lockdown. I think that’s about where we ended up.
Stan
So there’s a fair amount of uncertainty about the time and depth. I’d say the least possible is call it next three months and a kind of fairly deep recession. The worst is call it 18 months and a fairly deep depression. So there’s a range in terms of how long the crisis will persist.
He said something about 18 months we would see the end of it, and actually took much longer than that one and it’s even futurists don’t get it all right. I think I don’t know that Peter would have predicted that we’re still dealing with the consequences good, bad and ugly of covid at that time. So yes, that was one that certainly hit us, but we covered it well.
John
And I think we’ve been covering the sort of downstream implications of Covid ever since, in terms of impact on staffing and future work and organizational structure and technology and advertising and all of all of the above. But we had to do a Signal event we had been planning it when we launched in January, and it was supposed to be six months later, and we had pivot.
Stan
Yeah, that was a huge pivot, because we froze everything for a couple of months because we didn’t quite know what to do. Similar to the rest of the world, nobody knew what to do. Remember that nobody knew what Zoom was before Covid started. That seems to be like, “Really?” Yes. We found an event company that at that point in time, was 10 people at the digital event company. We said, “Let’s try them.” Later, they were valued, I think, like $2 billion that deflated later on a little bit, but there was this whole Covid induced investment thing, and we were a little bit part of that with we’ve made it all virtual. And I have to say, I’m extremely proud of what we did, because we not only. We created a great program. We also expanded the audience that year, we got like five or 6000 people to join us for Signal, and I think that also highlighted the role that we played. It’s like the world keeps moving, and people like to hear what’s going on and get some sense of direction. And we were able to provide that, and it was very generous, I think, a P&G platform that we could do this for many more people than just the P&G people. That was a big one.
Lauren
I think you touched on a really good point, Stan. I think Signal always sort of looked at and brought the stories and the people, a way of looking ahead and touching on things that maybe other people hadn’t heard of before. We brought in some really great experts too, that were able to open windows into ideas and just thoughts that maybe were new to a lot of people. I’m wondering, what are some great experts that stood out to you guys?
Stan
Yeah, I think first stage, I think a good bit of John and my personality are reflected in a curiosity. And it’s not limited to a certain domain. It’s what’s happening and why is it happening? John’s a well trained journalist. I’m just an aspiring one, but we shared a curiosity, and that always drove us to, who are the people who thought about it. The one that really stands out for me just because we started reading some stuff, and it’s interesting people ask, how do you get these names? Like, we just reach out, right? So we read something from Nicholas Bloom, and I think it might have been John that says, I think I know him. Let’s give him a call. And Nicholas Bloom is an economist at Stanford, but who happened to do some research on working from home? And it was pre-Covid. So can you imagine what a lab this was for him, and he made some predictions on this one. And, you know, six years later, we are still talking about the impact of work from home on the future of work, and work has changed for all of us. I was even in a discussion this weekend with somebody about it, people, by exception, worked from home for P&G, you had to get all kinds of paperwork done. They would like to be others in the office for the majority of time, and it’s usually three to four days that people are in the office. But there’s a lot more flexibility, because we’ve proven we can get the work done wherever we are thanks to Zoom and other technologies. But it has really shaped the future. And Nicholas was actually one that really, you know, already pointed to that.
John
I remember a couple of others along the sort of in the same category, of people who look forward, one of them who’s made a career out of it, is Faith Popcorn, who we had on a few years ago, and she was talking, as I recall, about the sort of home automation, which is something that, of course, all large companies, consumer-focused companies should be thinking about. That’s a topic we we we return to several times over the last five or six years, have a brainstorming about the wildest things that could happen, even though, you know, people tend in brainstorms, but that can never happen. I know we can’t do that. No, that’ll raise all that, put that aside and say, what are all the things that could happen, and then say to yourself, suppose the competition comes up with that.
John
Another is Scott Galloway, who joined us a couple of times and also on stage at the signal event. And he had a couple of videos with us, Signal Conversations that I guess, went viral. They were some of our biggest audience draws. And he had a very memorable rant about education, if I recall, and what was broken in the education system, as well as advertising and marketing, of course. I don’t think the education one was totally planned, but that was his topic that he was working on, and boy, did he let his opinion be known to us. He always gets some attention. And it’s like with Scott he’s that’s with any of the futurists that people who think about it, they’re not always right, but their opinions make you think. And that’s exactly what we wanted to do with Signal 360 don’t assume that what we publish will be facts later on, but at least think about it, that you know what it is might be important to you and how important it might be exactly.
Lauren
Yeah, and advertising, of course, is one of the signature pillars we had. Every issue, we tried to hit on some of these core areas that were important to us, advertising. There was supply chain, commerce, AI, of course, a lot of great innovation out of P&G. So what were some of the favorites? I’m going to ask you guys, what were some of your favorites from those like four buckets, five.
Stan
We always wanted to make sure we were, advertising and commerce and supply chain are core to P&G. That’s one of the reasons that we addressed it. And they’re really interesting topics. As John will tell you about supply chain, and let him talk about that in a little bit. He might not have been that curious about supply chain 10 years back, but he is now. So advertising was always at the root of what we started with, because that’s also, you know, where I sit in P&G. So it’s also funny. There are sometimes trends that you go, like, is this real? Is this going to matter? We try to dissect some of that. Like, remember the metaverse? I was skeptical at the time. It’s easy to say now, of course, but there was a lot of investment going into that, and we try to dispel some of that, but there were some interesting aspects of it that really resonated too. It led to gaming, for example. Or it’s connected to gaming. And one of the insights that we have found inside of P&G and what covered in the stories is, you know, when people in advertising ask, Where are the audiences, or where have they gone, it’s always underestimated how many people are involved in gaming. And this is not just smelly teenage boys in basements. These are grown women playing Candy Crush and so on, and they spend time there. And our motto has always been, go where consumers are, but how you do it is a trick. And we covered topics like that on a regular basis, to just bring the attention to like, don’t forget about this, or look at how the world is working. So that was advertising was always our bread and butter.
John
But I think we did a really good job covering streaming as well. Yes, I look back at it because it was really developing in 2020, 21 and it’s now the dominant and primary channel for video. But it wasn’t five years ago, but we covered it continuously, and I think did a good job there. And I’ll stand to your point about supply chain. We covered it early and continued to cover it. Obviously, the supply chain was a huge story during the pandemic. But then we did one of my favorite stories, we covered the shipping container business, because that’s how a lot of things move around the world. I think it’s 70 to 80% of things move around the world in shipping containers. And turned out that shipping containers were a very valuable way in to understand what was going on with supply chain because of the pandemic. So I’m proud of that piece as well.
Stan
Yeah, and supply chain continues to be important, because especially in this economic stage, the flexibility of supply chain and production remains a competitive advantage for businesses to continue to provide value for consumers and customers,
John
Absolutely. On the topic of innovation and P&G, having 2 C-suite executives very much involved in signal throughout the run of Signal 360 we had too many conversations to count with Chief Brand Officer, Marc Pritchard, of course, our patron, if you will, here at Signal, but also with Jon Moeller. And those conversations were always very popular on Signal 360.
Stan
They were insightful, because they also gave an insight view of P&G, and not just to the people outside, especially about, P&G, as I tell people, is as big as a city. And to keep a city informed, you need to have some of the leadership, talk about what’s important. And then we added that to that, also just the people who did the work, the Signal Innovators that we brought to the fore. I remember Tide Cold Water was a great story that we had. We had, you know, things about Olay and accessibility, how the team, with fairly seemingly little change, made the product much more accessible for people with motor skill problems, and so I mean innovation starts in small ways. But that also adds up to what we call P&G product and packaging superiority, and that’s where it all starts. The leaders will set the direction, but it’s all the people around P&G who are the ones that have executed, and are executing innovations as you go.. Yes, that makes the project valuable for people to buy, because they see a real benefit of this one. There’s highly talented and creative people who have featured on this one, and that’s worth watching again. The other one is we brought up a lot of startups from the outside that we worked with because, you know, I always say it’s like P&G people are really smart, but there’s thousands and thousands of really smart people outside of png that we can learn a lot from. And it goes especially for startup founders I found, and some of them are really inspiring, like Good Loop, but was about how that, how do we bring basically sustainability to advertising and ethics to advertising. We started out with Jebbit, you know, which P&G has done a lot of business with, and Tom Coburn, who we interviewed, is no longer there, but it was about how quizzes are great instrument for getting consumer insights. Everybody loves a good quiz. And it’s how we got to that idea, and so on. And it’s inspiring to meet people who are working on new businesses that they’re really passionate about, and that’s some hypothesis. You go, “That’s interesting.” That’s what we always try to feature in Signal, the moments of “That’s interesting. I want to learn more.”
John
Lastly, on commerce, we’ve had continual coverage from live shopping features to features on new approaches to the last mile in Latin America. And then on AI, we had an extraordinary, I think, Lauren, you counted up 57 mentions of AI across the 60 issues of Signal 360 I think.
Lauren
It was something. I’m not sure it was me that counted them, but we were really pushing ahead on that.
Stan
Let it be noted that we went into that area well before Chat GPT launched. I remember Signal Conversation with Fei, Fei Li from Stanford, who was phenomenal and already had anticipated many of the issues that we’re now discussing in a more open forum. And also very special person, Joy Buolamwini who pointed out that the algorithms and the data are only as good as the data gets into it, and the data and the algorithm can be very biased by who create them, and it was a huge watch out. Algorithms aren’t necessarily the truth tellers that we think they are, and we need to also compensate our own brains with challenging what we see the results. It’s not just about hallucinations. It’s also about, how did these algorithms come to these conclusions? Because of the people who constructed them so, and we were very early on in that one, and that one keeps repeating. If people watching this want to see this, I’m sure that we will provide the Evergreen list to be reminded that technology is created by human beings, and human beings have flaws that can be reflected in the technology.
Lauren
So I Joy’s interview was absolutely one of my Top 10s. She was incredible.There were some other favorites, because we’ve talked a lot about some really great pillars, some great pieces, but I want to hear about your favorites that stood out, that maybe we haven’t even touched on, because we’ve talked on a lot of them. One of my very favorite pieces we did was the piece on girls in STEM and one of the reasons was I got to interview Rolanda Wilkerson, who made this important point, which was that girls and young women, really need to see themselves in these roles, so they have some way to aim as they’re moving through their education, as they’re coming up in their careers, especially in the areas of STEM of science and technology. That really sat with me. I really appreciated the time she gave me for that interview, but also I thought that story was just a great one for us.
Stan
Then, as a father of a daughter who I’ve had some conversations with about her abilities in STEM, because sometimes it’s the environment that talks down to people, to young girls, “You’re not qualified to do that.” That hit a note for me. There’s too many anecdotes that I can mention that I won’t do here, but from a personal perspective, that one definitely was important for me. And it’s not just important for people personally, but also for businesses. The lesson that I’ve always learned about P&G is that the P&G working environment, the 100,000 some people that make up your reflection of the people in the world. It is very, very important to have talented women with STEM backgrounds. You talked about favorites. I have to say this is my favorite.
[Holds up an Athletic Brewing can.] So that was just a great story. The reason for that one isn’t, yeah, the product. I mean, we talked P&G in abstract forms, about superior product packaging, superior brand communication, superior retail execution and superior customer and consumer value. I read an article one time in The Wall Street Journal. There was a whole page they did too, actually, on this one, and I was reading through it. Who wouldn’t love beer. Then we were preparing for Signal, and I remember bringing it up in a discussion with John, and Marc. He’s like, there’s probably no way to get this guy. And John said, fearless John would say ”I’ll call him.” And the answer was, “Sure, should we bring beer?” Well, what are you going to say? So it was probably the story for me, and not just from business only, which is phenomenal story, and I want everybody to watch that story. They have built a complete businesses that hits all the superiority vectors that P&G proclaims, and it’s just an amazing story. If I wasn’t working at P&G, I’d be calling them. So that remains my favorite.
John
You kind of stole my thunder. I would have picked that, but close second would be a story we did during the early pandemic on Procter and Gamble itself during wartime in World War Two, and how P&G really hit it and accelerated the pace of innovation through the war. It was a really resonant story, because companies were pulling back. Everybody was afraid. The lesson of the story was companies that keep innovating and focusing on innovation during crisis points are the ones that pull ahead afterwards Tide the detergent, the first billion dollar brand came out of World War Two, and out of P&G during World War Two. So I love that story. It had so many lessons. It was kind of a perfect Signal 360 story for me,
Stan
That’s a perfect note to end on. And I think what it also means for me John is like company, like P&G, with such a long and colorful history where there’s lots to learn from. That’s with Signal 360 we’ve added a little brick in that building, and it will last. I mean, the website will still be up. I’ve been so grateful to be a little part of that, and to have been able to work with you guys and the whole team to do that right, and hopefully in some way or form, we’ll still deliver a Signal over the years to come, and we’ll find other ways to make people just create a little bit more inspiration, education for people to get sharper ideas, to execute on and build their own businesses or contribute to further growth of P&G. So with that, I want to thank all the people inside and outside of P&G who’ve been our audience. We’ve done it for you, and hopefully will pass it across in the future, again in some way or form. Thank you.
John
Thank you. Great run.
