Marilyn Barefoot, of “Breaking Brave”
As a business leader, speaker and advisor, Marilyn Barefoot has partnered with a wide variety of organizations around creativity, innovation and problem solving of all types. Marilyn began her career at major advertising agencies, such as Vickers & Benson and BBDO. She founded Square Peg, a full-service communications agency with clients that include Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Nike and 20th Century Fox. Marilyn also hosts her own podcast, Breaking Brave.
Explore highlights from my discussion with Marilyn, below:
As an innovation workshop facilitator, the Pandemic was a disruptive moment that Marilyn had to navigate, like many others. During this time, she started her podcast, Breaking Brave, which is about bravery, how to cultivate it, and stories of everyday people living it. She’s now produced 72 episodes.
Marilyn believes innovation work is best pursued in-person, with human-centered approaches. The value of life experience and group connectivity is something that AI cannot replicate. While Marilyn offers a strong defense of humanity, and a healthy dose of caution around AI, she also suggests that AI can augment human innovation if it comes later in the process. The key is to take a balanced approach and avoid short-circuiting critical human thinking early in the innovation journey. AI should augment human thinking, not replace it.
One of Marilyn’s Breaking Brave guests, Alan Iny of BCG, offers that the best way to think about AI in the context of innovation workshops is like a really high energy summer intern. They have a great attitude, lots of energy to work hard, and many ideas. But they need clear direction, and everything needs to be reviewed and assessed. Explore episode here.
The value of experience cannot be overstated, and the best experience often comes from interacting with customers. Marilyn shares how her first agency job was working on the McDonalds account, for which she had to start by working behind the counter at an actual McDonalds for two weeks. This experience grounded Marilyn’s thinking to be much more business and customer focused. For clients ranging from entrepreneurs to global companies like Disney, Marilyn has continued to find that human experience inspires and guides innovation.
For a quick preview of Marilyn’s podcast, “Breaking Brave,” explore the trailer below, and list on Apple Podcasts, here - or wherever you get your podcasts.
Subscribe and listen to more episodes “Marketing Growth Conversations” on Spotify, here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
