Latest / Speaking of Supply Chain / Lights, Science, Action: Leveraging Media to Showcase STEM Careers to Young Minds
Transcript
- 0:06You're listening to Speaking of Supply Chain, a Meeboch podcast. This is a
- 0:10show for logistics professionals looking to learn more about the latest innovations in supply chain.
- 0:16Each episode will feature a conversation on topics such as mitigating supply chain disruption
- 0:20and reducing risk, current automation trends, sustainability initiatives, and more. Let's
- 0:26dive right in. Hello, and welcome to Speaking of Supply Chain, where
- 0:33we explore trends, current events, and innovations impacting the logistics and supply chain
- 0:38industries. I am your host, Ellen Wood. One of the big conversations
- 0:43in our industry right now is finding talent. The labor market for capable supply
- 0:47chain and logistics professionals is so very thin that it often feels like companies are
- 0:53playing tug of war with most qualified candidates, and one of the big questions
- 0:58is what can we do to make sure that in these upcoming years we have
- 1:02the talent pool that's ready to take on the challenges that the future is going
- 1:04to hold. And, as it turns out, tug of war isn't a
- 1:08bad place to start. We need to shift our focus to the generation of
- 1:12individuals that are still out on the playgrounds. So joining me today is a
- 1:19very special guest, Stephanie Castillo, and she is a science communicator. She
- 1:25creates career content for younger generation for elementary and millennials, and she has her
- 1:30own podcast, The Genius Generation. Stephanie, Welcome to Speaking of Supply Chain.
- 1:37Hi, thanks for having me. You are a bit of an unusual
- 1:41guest for us because you do not have any supply chain background. Your background
- 1:46is all about education and stem So tell us a little bit about that.
- 1:52Yeah, so, I actually have my bachelor's and master's in chemistry, and
- 1:57then I was pursuing a PhD in chemistry, and I learned about science communication
- 2:00as like career option or career field, and mostly stemmed from seeing a lot
- 2:07of my peers who were also in a graduate program kind of talking about their
- 2:10research and trying to make it more accessible for the general public to read,
- 2:15because most of the stuff that we do, when it comes to the research
- 2:19that we do within academia kind of stays behind the paywalls, you know,
- 2:23it stays within our technical fields, and then we're confused as to why the
- 2:29general public doesn't understand the science that we're doing. Or we're not even communicating
- 2:31it to them. And so with Instagram kind of on the rise, with
- 2:36the videos platform and whatnot, I just started creating content on there and then
- 2:42eventually to YouTube, and then I was able to pivot my career to pursue
- 2:46a PhD in Science communication, where I learned and studied effective narratives on how
- 2:52young audiences perceive science and scientists in digital media. That is so amazing.
- 2:58So let's see if we can tie these two very different speakers together today in
- 3:04this podcast. So I'm coming from the supply chain aspect and logistics, and
- 3:07I say that even though I am not a logistics person. I'm a marketing
- 3:10person in a logistics company or a supply chain company, and I love everything
- 3:16that I do, but I have learned so much about the logistics and supply
- 3:21chain industries, and that's like it or not, that's where I am now.
- 3:24So that is my expertise that I'm bringing to the table. And you
- 3:28have all of this knowledge and capability about how to bring education on these incredibly
- 3:36complex topics like science and engineering. I mean, ours is an engineering company,
- 3:40so bringing those down to the younger learners and getting them interested and passionate
- 3:46about these things. So how approachable is this industry or is this topic even
- 3:53for school aged kids? Because if I've got repeat listeners out there in the
- 3:58audience right now, you guys know, I have three kids. I've got
- 4:00freshmen in high school, I've got a middle schooler, and I've got a
- 4:03three year old, So I've got the whole range of learners right now,
- 4:08and trying to get them interested in something is sometimes really hard. Getting them
- 4:13interested in anything I do is absolutely not happening. But that's because I'm their
- 4:16mom. I don't think it has anything to do with the subject matter.
- 4:21Yeah, I just pure spite, you know, exactly, just no.
- 4:27So when it comes to you know, this particular industry, is it even
- 4:30on their radar? Honestly, I don't have any children. I do work
- 4:33within doing a lot of outreach within K through twelve, But honestly, I
- 4:39don't know. I really don't. I don't know, and I don't think
- 4:43so either, because at least with some of the programs that we've been targeting
- 4:47in terms of schools, like we're now starting to see that there's like schools
- 4:51that have like stem paths. We know, either going from like middle school
- 4:56to high school that there's like magnet schools that are specifically gear towards STEM related
- 5:00fields. But even within that, I think I don't even know if like
- 5:04supply or like logistics will be kind of on their radar. That's a great
- 5:10point because my oldest went to a STEM magnet school, like you were talking
- 5:14about. The kids were interested in science, they were interested in biology,
- 5:17they were interested in chemistry. Those are big and flashy and fun and hands
- 5:21on, very tactile for young learners, which is huge. They had,
- 5:26of course the Lego Robotics Club, and I feel like that's where it really
- 5:32can be the place where the rubber meets the road for these kids. Is
- 5:35because engineering is essentially, when you break it all the way down, it's
- 5:40solving a problem. It's looking at a problem and saying, Okay, how
- 5:44are we going to fix this? How are we going to redesign this process
- 5:47to make it work, Make it work better, make it work faster,
- 5:50make it work cheaper, make it work without people involved. But when it
- 5:56comes to the logistics and supply chains so pervasive it covers everything from whether it's
- 6:04a truck driver or the airline pilot that flies freight or the ocean liner or
- 6:12the person who is developing a warehouse. Our engineers that sit here and design
- 6:17the way all of these machines are going to work together and talk to the
- 6:20IT system, how we get product, how we manage to forecast, and
- 6:27the math and the analytical skills and the computer skills of how are we going
- 6:30to forecast what business is going to be based on previous trends. I mean,
- 6:33all of that falls into STEM, and the supply chain touches each and
- 6:39every one of us daily and we don't even know it because it's just so
- 6:45ingrained into our society and into our way of life that it's just there,
- 6:51but it's not talked about. It's invisible. Unless you're stuck behind a semi
- 6:57on the road and frustrated that you can past them, then you're not so
- 7:01excited about supply chain. Yeah. Yeah, And I think the biggest thing,
- 7:05one reason why I started making videos in the first place, that we're
- 7:10kind of leaning towards like career exposure. Essentially, it's just because I didn't
- 7:15really know there was like subsets of fields in chemistry, and so I was
- 7:18like a senior in chemistry learning about that but I was already in college and
- 7:24even as I continue on with the PhD and even know that science and muication
- 7:27was a field until I was already two years into my graduate degree, And
- 7:31so I feel like that's kind of the same thing. These career paths are
- 7:34so invisible, they're so ingrained into kind of like the labor and logistics of
- 7:39you know, how the US has ran that when we think about STEM,
- 7:42we only think about the flashy stuff like let's go to space. You know,
- 7:46let's we see you al must running launching a rocket, like you can
- 7:49be that person. But at the same time, and I think we're not
- 7:53associating the engineering or the science that goes into the supply chain logistics or career
- 8:00paths and knowing that this computer science degree can not only set you up to
- 8:05maybe be a computer gamer or like a virtual reality person, but like,
- 8:09oh no, you can actually look at the analytics of the data to analyze,
- 8:13Okay, how can we better make this efficient? So then we're actually
- 8:18bringing in the things that we need for to meet the needs that we have
- 8:22in our current country. And I think it's the lack of exposure is just
- 8:24kind of like the biggest thing well, and one of the things that I
- 8:30was thinking about when I was listening to some of your podcasts that you've done
- 8:33with the Genius Generation. Now, this podcast was amazing. I loved so
- 8:39many of those episodes, and I've talked about it with one of my colleagues
- 8:43who her daughter loves it as well. But it's all about kids solving problems.
- 8:48I mean, these kids are amazing and some of the ideas and concepts
- 8:54that they came up with the problems that they looked at and they wanted to
- 8:56solve. And I've got a few that I want to just highlight here because
- 9:01these are the supply chain ones. Like you had supply chain entrepreneurs on your
- 9:05podcast and maybe didn't even look at it that way. Yeah, there was
- 9:09one Peter and he was worried about monarch butterflies and their declining population, which
- 9:15is a huge issue. Monarch butterflies are pollinators, They're important to our food
- 9:20chain, and so he developed a distribution apparatus for milkweed seats in a major
- 9:26metropolitan area. And that's huge. That is supply chain getting the thing to
- 9:31where it needs to be, distributing it and generating a demand for your product.
- 9:35That's sales, that's operation planning, that's sourcing, that's all of those
- 9:41things. There was oh, gosh, Leno, I don't know if I'm
- 9:43pronouncing his name wrong, with kinetic kicks, the shoes that generate energy.
- 9:50Oh yes, yes, yes, he was still working on that. He
- 9:54hadn't gotten it finished. But I thought, oh my goodness, this child's
- 9:58brain power is amazing. We need these individuals. We need these kids.
- 10:03Oh Angela with the bacteria that eats plastic, Yes, so great. There
- 10:09was varun with machine learning, and was that with the plants identification ones in
- 10:15the farm? Yes? And then Tavish with the food banks that the disparity
- 10:20between food banks where product was in one place and demand was in another.
- 10:24That is one hundred percent demand planning. That's what we do in supply chain
- 10:28is make sure that we've got the product to meet the demand in the place
- 10:31where it needs to be. And I want all of your guests to come
- 10:35work for us, so and you know, maybe when they're old enough,
- 10:41you know, to actually get jobs. A few of them are now.
- 10:43But these are the things that we need to encourage, that we need to
- 10:48point out and to other kids so that they also get excited about this,
- 10:52and I think, honestly, it's really the onus is on the supply chain
- 10:58industry. It's our fault that we're not reaching out to these younger generations.
- 11:03Yeah, and I think it's almost like, I don't know if this is
- 11:05a good analogy, but it's almost like you know, in therapy, you
- 11:07don't realize something is being done until you're given the vocabulary to like describe it.
- 11:13Yes, I feel like if you did not frame it to what you're
- 11:16saying it to me, like just now about like how these students were essentially
- 11:22applying supply chain engineers, a whole list of them, we just label it
- 11:26as just kind of like a general engineer or just entrepreneur. But yeah,
- 11:30I think we're not not giving the vocabulary to really break it down, to
- 11:35really analyze their own self, reflecting their own process used to realize like,
- 11:39oh no, like I'm sourcing this, I'm looking at distribution, I'm looking
- 11:43at the logistics, I'm planning this out, and that all of that falls
- 11:48within the realm of supply chain and that this aside from it just being not
- 11:52what you have to do, but kind of like it kind of comes without
- 11:56saying in a sense, or it feels like it's coming without saying because it's
- 12:00just part of the infrastructure. It's just what they were trying to do exactly.
- 12:03But if you're if, but you're like, oh no, like this
- 12:05is a legit career and this is like what we can think about in terms
- 12:09of not only are you looking at the bigger picture of like you know,
- 12:13spreading your milk weed seeds as like the coolest engineering thing that you're doing,
- 12:18but it's like, oh no, like the supply chain is also something that
- 12:22is in it a career in itIt of itself and can be applicable and something
- 12:26to strive towards as a real day job that you can make money doing exactly.
- 12:31So you know, Peter is a young child, a teenager. He's
- 12:35distributing milk weed seeds because he cares about butterflies. That was something that he
- 12:39was passionate about, which is amazing and wonderful and you know should be celebrated.
- 12:43But when it comes to the COVID vaccines and distribution and making sure that
- 12:48it got to where it needed to be, that was a huge logistical problem
- 12:52a couple of years ago and continues to be an ongoing I don't want to
- 12:56say a battle, because we've kind of gotten our hands around it. But
- 13:00even the next thing that comes out, the next super flu that we're going
- 13:03to get, because there's one every few years that runs around the world and
- 13:07we've got to catch up to that, or distributing food to the food banks,
- 13:11how do we get food to impoverished areas, How do we make sure
- 13:15that everyone has access to clean water. These are social problems that are important
- 13:20around the world, and they need logistical solutions. They need these young minds.
- 13:24They need these young people to be passionate about it and to take a
- 13:28look at what they've already done and see that there's more application for what they
- 13:33already know how to do, what they're already excited about. But we need
- 13:37to get more kids excited. Yeah, And I think even just that I'm
- 13:41having my mind blown just kind of talking to you, because I never really
- 13:45thought about your industry essentially, And I think that's the whole point. That's
- 13:48why I've got you here, because it doesn't occur to everyone that this relates
- 13:52to them, that they have an impact on this. Yeah. So one
- 13:56thing that's coming up right now is so I work for an other education studio
- 14:01startup and kind of making educational content. And one way that we're thinking about
- 14:05you mentioned earlier, how are you increasing more critical thinking skills rather than just
- 14:09kind of like memorizing. And one of the things that we're trying to approach
- 14:13into is handling real life data that is published in science and kind of teaching
- 14:18them data science in a sense through how to read a graph, how to
- 14:22interpret the graph, and how are you able to then use that to understand
- 14:28the bigger biological or science concept. But in some of the design process that
- 14:33we're incorporating into this curriculum, a lot of the ways that we're kind of
- 14:37setting up our framework or for the students to kind of like build off of
- 14:41this, like there's a huge problem in the world and we want to solve
- 14:43it. What is this product that we want to do? But it almost
- 14:48sorry, I'm trying to I'm thinking out loud in terms of like okay,
- 14:52you're saying that Peter is thinking about like, oh, he wants to save
- 14:54the monarch butterflies. It's the same thing that kind of scientists do when they're
- 14:58thinking of like a research problem, like Okay, we want to have cleaner
- 15:01water in this place we look into, like we're looking into like, oh
- 15:05my god, what would be the ideal thing? But for you to break
- 15:09it down to be like, okay, what are the logistics and actually making
- 15:11this feasible even bringing it down to that problem is what we're overseeing and what
- 15:18you're trying to or what the supply chain industry needs to do in order to
- 15:22kind of like highlight it to realize that, like, no, this end
- 15:24and up itself is the issue that can kind of still help us tackle the
- 15:30bigger problem of like having to clean water rather than just like thinking of,
- 15:33let me just design this new thing exactly. I don't know that made any
- 15:37sense. I followed. I followed from your perspective as an educator, as
- 15:43trying to get this information out to these kids, it's coming from a different
- 15:46perspective, and me as a logistics person also trying to reach these kids is
- 15:50coming from a different perspective. But what we're doing, the end result of
- 15:54what we're doing could be approachable to kids. Our stuff isn't approachable to kids.
- 15:58Yours is. But you don't know, you don't have those terms for
- 16:03the logistics application of it, and so again, the logistics industry needs to
- 16:07just do a better job of making what we do and the way we do
- 16:11it interesting for children. Yeah, and one of the things that I was
- 16:17thinking about, we have the I did another podcast earlier this year on some
- 16:22of the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act in Germany and that the EU is also
- 16:26working on a Supply Chain Due Diligence Act. The countries are still working on
- 16:30kind of aligning on what some of those terms are going to be, but
- 16:33the end result is they're trying to make sure that the ESG, the Social
- 16:37and Environmental governance is in place to make sure that you know, we're protecting
- 16:42our environment, that we're treating people with dignity and respect, and that we're
- 16:48making sure that companies are doing this because a lot of times, you know,
- 16:52companies are made up of people, but they seem to be this huge,
- 16:55high level disassociated brand name and not the people that work there. Because
- 17:00obviously, when it comes to a lot of these companies, the people who
- 17:03do work there do care, but it's a machine when companies get that big,
- 17:08and those companies have supply chains that generate a lot of waste, a
- 17:12lot of environmental waste, and they have a huge carbon footprint, so the
- 17:17entire point is to reduce their carbon footprint. So they're having to get creative.
- 17:21They're having to look at some of these things that your guests had looked
- 17:25at in terms of bacteria that eat plastic, or how do we reduce our
- 17:27emissions, or how do we do something cleaner and better? And these are
- 17:32the topics that your students and that your audience wants to solve. They just
- 17:37don't know that logistics and the supply chain is a place where they can go
- 17:41solve it and get paid to do it, exactly, especially when again,
- 17:45so there's this competition the Washington d C. The government is running a science
- 17:51fair, and so some of the questions that they're having is Okay, come
- 17:55up with your best solution to some of the world's pressing problems. These young
- 18:00audiences, we're framing it as to like, Okay, how can you come
- 18:03up with the next best invention, or like think outside the box to build
- 18:07these bigger pictures. But kind of like what you're saying is we were not
- 18:11doing a good job at highlighting the systems or infrastructure that's already in place in
- 18:17order to meet logistics, the logistics of the logistics, the practical application that's
- 18:23available today for them to move the needle on some of these issues that are
- 18:30very important to them exactly. So instead of just being like, Okay,
- 18:33I'm going to create this new water bottle, it's like, oh no,
- 18:34okay, were thirty. If those company is already making this water bottle,
- 18:37how can we make it more efficient for them to have less waste whenever they're
- 18:42creating or developing or using the plastics or whatever. I think it's just the
- 18:47difference of mindset and the difference of framing and also tying it with the numbers
- 18:52that of having a salary. I think it's going to be will be kind
- 18:56of like the way to go. You know, you have to compete with
- 18:59the YouTube super stars out there. No but burial. That's a heart Like
- 19:03a lot of kids are wanting to be YouTubers and content creators because they can
- 19:07see how the one percent is going very lucrative. But that's not every kid's
- 19:12desire or a dream, especially for these kids that are very self startered,
- 19:15that have the entrepreneurs spirit to create these own inventions without any teachers telling them
- 19:22to do this with their parents selling them to do this, but just having
- 19:23it within their own desire to want to be a part of a solution.
- 19:29And I think that Jen Alpha and even kind of like the older gen z
- 19:33Or are very much more solution oriented and that's fantastic. Now I need to
- 19:37get them into my industry because we're having a labor shortage. I think that's
- 19:42the hardest part is how do you reach this audience? You know, so
- 19:47how do you reach this audience? Knowing that you guys already have you working
- 19:51for this engineering company that already does logistics? How do you reach this audience?
- 19:55And I think that's kind of like the biggest maybe strategy that a lot
- 19:59of the these professional science communicators, universities, other STEM organizations and programs that
- 20:06are are trying to recruit more students into get being into more STEM. That's
- 20:10always the biggest strategy and the biggest thing that we're striving towards. And so,
- 20:14knowing that curriculum is kind of hard to dive into and to break,
- 20:18we always turn to media because it is the number one thing that like most
- 20:23kids are on for hours at a time. And so instead of being watching
- 20:29these mister beasts that are like blowing things up for like millions of dollars or
- 20:34whatever. Like, Okay, how can we create content that that's engaging,
- 20:38that gets their attention, yes, but that also inspires teaches. Yeah,
- 20:45but sometimes we are competing with the mister Beasts, you know. So essentially
- 20:52for my PhD, I studied science videos because the whole goal with futured doctors
- 20:56was to how do I make sure I'm creating content that my audience actually wants
- 21:00to see and is actually going to learn from and it's actually going to be
- 21:03like more beneficial to them rather than just kind of like a passive educational edutainment
- 21:10kind of thing. So, like I grew up as a PBS kid,
- 21:12but now we're competing with kind of like the mister Beasts or like the pranksters
- 21:17and whatnot. So the whole challenge is like, Okay, how do we
- 21:21actually create content that's going to be beneficial for them, that they're learning from
- 21:25and so like, for instance, Mark Rover is also kind of like in
- 21:27the same category as mister Beasts. I don't know if you're familiar with him,
- 21:30but he used to be a NASA I think he's a mechanical engineer.
- 21:34But he used to work for NASA and he actually worked on the rover that
- 21:37went to Mars, and so that was kind of like his leg up into
- 21:41creating content on YouTube. But a lot of the stuff that he teaches is
- 21:45or not teaches, but a lot of the content that he does is about
- 21:48kind of like how is he using the engineering process to come up with this
- 21:52cool thing like making the world's smallest nerf gun. It still has an entertainment
- 22:00and value on it because because yes, yeah, exactly, you want people
- 22:03to watch how are you going to make the world's smallest nerve gum? But
- 22:07throughout it he's still showing his design thinking process into creating this. But I
- 22:14don't believe this is my personal opinion, like Mark Rover's intention is to inspire
- 22:21for students to pursue an engineering degree directly, Yeah, that might be an
- 22:26indirect exactly, but because it's so cool, hopefully engages their interest into wanting
- 22:30to learn more. So it's like, how do we do the equivalent then
- 22:34in terms of logistics, logistics and supply. But you know, if it's
- 22:41not entertaining way, then how do you produce videos that can be used as
- 22:45resources for them to gain an understanding of these are the types of careers that
- 22:48are out there. These are the types of money that you can make.
- 22:52Like your career path doesn't have to be linear to pursue college, Like you
- 22:55can still do these other things to make it into this industry and give it
- 23:00behind the scenes look or something that can be short enough and informational enough to
- 23:04be incorporated into curriculum that's putting less burden on the teacher to have to come
- 23:11up with it, Yeah, entertain their class exactly. So it's like I
- 23:15think that was kind of my main mission with futured doctors. It's like,
- 23:17Okay, how do I create career like videos that expose students to new careers
- 23:22or two new role models that are in fields that they've never heard about,
- 23:26And how do I make sure that it's either coming up with additional resources or
- 23:30that the video can be used as resource themselves that makes it easier to be
- 23:33included into the classroom with that for the work for the teachers. And so
- 23:37I think that's what your industry has to also look into, is that hiring
- 23:41other professional science communicators to make videos for you and then also you're part of
- 23:45marketing, what can you do to kind of create content or a different audience
- 23:51that can bring more eyes and more exposure to the field and actually learn that
- 23:56the logistics that you guys are doing is a really big tie or really big
- 24:00connector to the bigger picture questions that we're trying to solve within STEM in and
- 24:07of a huge industry exactly. And one other thing I wanted to circle back
- 24:11to earlier, you had said something about, you know, some of these
- 24:14STEM curriculums are available at Magnet schools. They're available for the most talented or
- 24:19the highest level learners in their groups, and a lot of the other kids
- 24:25are kind of left out of these types of opportunities to get access to some
- 24:30of this content. And I feel like there are a lot of kids that
- 24:33are not the top ten percent of their class that they feel like, Okay,
- 24:37well, then what's left for me? Because you know, they're all
- 24:41the exciting ones, they're all the doctors and the scientists, and that's all
- 24:45the exciting careers. But I'm not that smart or I'm not the top of
- 24:51the class, So what's left for me? And I don't want to downplay
- 24:56the other logistics and supply chain roles that are out there. But when we
- 25:02do think about some of those roles, people working in warehouses, people driving
- 25:07semi trucks, people loading and unloading docks at a port, all of those
- 25:12things are critical, critical to the supply chain. And that's what's really run
- 25:18things into the ground. When we've had supply chain delays that have made the
- 25:22news over the past couple years. When things shut down is because we didn't
- 25:27have people. We need people. Not everything can be done by a robot.
- 25:32Not everything can be done by a computer program or an algorithm or a
- 25:34machine. And people are so vitally important to the supply chain to getting that
- 25:42Amazon package delivered to you the next day. And that's not to say that
- 25:48those individuals who are in those roles are not intelligent. They are very intelligent.
- 25:52They have to be. They have to follow schedules, they have to
- 25:56be able to route around accidents on the roads. They have to be able
- 26:00to understand the cargo that they're carrying and what types of outside weather might affect
- 26:07that cargo if they've got something that's frozen and very temperature controlled. So there
- 26:11are a lot of ways that even the middle range of students, or even
- 26:17the lower range of students can be brought into this fold and say, look,
- 26:21there are still careers in this very exciting, very important field that you
- 26:26are completely capable of achieving, and they're very interesting. You know. If
- 26:30you're a truck driver, you get to see the world, You get to
- 26:33drive around. If you're a pilot or working on an airplane, you get
- 26:37to travel even further. If you're on an ocean liner, you might get
- 26:41to see some great locales. There's a lot to be proud of in the
- 26:45logistics industry, and I don't want to exclude any kids that aren't that top
- 26:49few percent just because they don't have this fantastic, groundbreaking idea for something new
- 26:56that everyday and ordinary is also critically important to a lot of people. I
- 27:02feel like it's a loaded question because only in the sense that it's almost from
- 27:07my perspective, just like my individual I'm like not speaking on behalf of anybody
- 27:11at this moment, but just from kind of seeing it from the outside.
- 27:15Is just within our own society. Is kind of how we glamorize some careers
- 27:22versus not glamorize others. And also kind of like the stereotypes and almost like
- 27:27classism in a way that kind of comes into play that kind of really murkies
- 27:32the water. And so it's just like we push a lot of people to
- 27:34go into college, but I feel like, what about the trade schools and
- 27:40like the showing that these careers that are not in these working for the NASAs
- 27:45or anything like that hold just the same amount of weight as working for NASA,
- 27:51kind of removing these negative stereotypes or kind of like the negative light that
- 27:55we kind of frame more manual functions. Yeah, more manual labor compare to
- 28:00coming up with rocket science or whatever. I keep thinking of poking at NASSA
- 28:03just because but yeah, I think it's almost like, how do we change
- 28:07that narrative to make it more appealing and ness in this kind of like negative
- 28:11connotation of that, like manual labor is less than those kids that are wanting
- 28:15to pursue a PhD or something like that, that the whole the same amount
- 28:18of weight. And again, I think it always comes down to I remember,
- 28:23I don't know if this is true or not, but I remember when
- 28:26learning that those crane workers that do the ship containers that they make money.
- 28:32They make some of them be like make money, you know, six figures
- 28:36it's a lot of money, yeah, but it comes with it's a high
- 28:38risk job again, very intense kind of labor. But you don't know about
- 28:41it. You don't know about it because you just see them doing manual labor.
- 28:45And we put that as a lesson category in society wise compared to the
- 28:49elon musk that's coming up the new tesla. You know, So how do
- 28:55we also put the same amount of weight, in the same amount of care
- 28:59for these jobs that have had a different negative story apply to them for years?
- 29:06At this point exactly, you need to go to the local arcade and
- 29:10find the kid that's playing the claw game and getting all the good prizes.
- 29:15I don't know, I think have you heard a kiwiko? Yes, And
- 29:18in fact I've gotten a lot of those boxes for my kids to build a
- 29:22little robot and do the little things, and they love them, but it's
- 29:26always like just a toy they can build themselves and then they're done with it.
- 29:30But then my middle child will go and he will take the concept from
- 29:37that box that he get and he would try and apply it to something else.
- 29:41So he'll start just building something out of sticks and string in the backyard
- 29:45and all of a sudden, I've got a trevichet. That's amazing, but
- 29:48it's also like, I know some of the care that they put into like
- 29:51the pamphlet, but most of that, aside from it just being the directions
- 29:55on how to build it, they always have like the little sides where the
- 29:56main goal for them is to teach you how to build, but they're still
- 30:00learning some science concept along the way. So how do you use that kind
- 30:04of maybe framework in a sense for supply chain to be like, Okay,
- 30:08this cream if you use this QR code can link you to this video that
- 30:12teaches you about like this career, this six figure career, this manual labor
- 30:18job. But it's a part of the supply chain or the logistics to the
- 30:21bigger picture of solving this issue in order to make the US run smoothly without
- 30:26any hiccups. I feel like, what does that look like for you guys
- 30:30in order to kind of glamorize it in a sense, or I don't know,
- 30:33glamorize it, but at least like show that it has weights and it
- 30:37has value and it's in the same caliber as other careers. There's definitely a
- 30:41pr opportunity in the supply chain industry to get this information into these different audiences.
- 30:48And I think that there's a great foundation with all of the stem resources
- 30:53that you and others are developing for these young learners and that are encouraging them
- 30:59and in hiring them and making them into this next generation of inventors and citizens
- 31:08that are going to help us move these needles, you know, in the
- 31:12right direction for our planet, for our society just in general. I can't
- 31:17wait to see what some of these young individuals are going to do. But
- 31:21if we want them in supply chain, supply chain needs to do a better
- 31:22job of reaching out to them and meeting them in that space. Yeah,
- 31:27you have to meet them to where they are, to the spaces that there
- 31:30are and not be clue was aster like, well, why is it no
- 31:33one seeing us if like no one's even heard of your company before? Exactly.
- 31:37I know a lot of supply chain companies that do a lot of work
- 31:41in career fairs and colleges and at that level. But I feel like in
- 31:45order to really build the talent pool that we want to have in the next
- 31:51ten years, we've got to go a little bit further into high schools and
- 31:53middle schools and bring some of the ideas that we have and the idea that
- 32:00we're trying to solve for to that next generation. See what they have in
- 32:04mind. Mister Beast might have an idea. I don't know for sure for
- 32:10sure. All right, well, Stephanie, thank you so much for joining
- 32:14me today. This has been such a fun conversation. It is a departure
- 32:16from what I normally talk about, but I feel it's so important, especially
- 32:21as we look to the future that is for our children, and I want
- 32:24my industry to have a future it obviously will. Supply chain is never going
- 32:29to go away. We've got to get our goods and services to where they
- 32:30need to be. So the more I can help encourage that conversation to take
- 32:36place and start to build our capabilities in that regard, I think I'm going
- 32:42to do a better job for the marketing of supply chain, which is where
- 32:45my expertise truly is. This brings us to the end of our episode.
- 32:52I hope our listeners enjoy the episode and our conversation as much as I did.
- 32:57If any of our listeners out there have a suggestion for a topic or
- 33:00would like to be a guest on our show. Please reach out to me
- 33:04at podcast at meboch dot com. You can email me anytime. As always,
- 33:07thank you for listening to Speaking of Supply Chain. If you've enjoyed our
- 33:10show, please rate it on whatever podcast platform you prefer and be sure to
- 33:15tune in next time. Meebochconsulting is one of the largest and most globally recognized
- 33:23supply chain consulting, engineering and advisory firms. For nearly fifty years, we've
- 33:29helped clients achieve supply chain excellence and sustainable competitive advantage across the entire spectrum of
- 33:35the supply chain by delivering improvements and innovation strategically, tactically, and digitally.
- 33:42To learn more, visit meeboch dot com. You've been listening to Speaking of
- 33:46Supply Chain, a meboch podcast, keep connected with us by subscribing to the
- 33:51show in your favorite podcast player. If you like what you've heard, please
- 33:53rate the show that helps us to keep delivering the latest in supply chain information.
- 33:59Thanks for listening. Until next time.