The September Issue: Drop is "the future of delivery"

“What does it look like when a pre-Series A startup is on newsstands in three national industry magazines at the same time? ”

— Like this!

Congrats to the young diverse team at Drop Delivery which Marijuana Venture calls in its cover story "The future of delivery".

Marijuana Venture writes: “After revolutionizing delivery tech in 2020, Drop Delivery is empowering businesses with even more customizable features to improve efficiency and increase sales.”

Women & Weed calls CEO Vanessa Gabriel “the delivery diva”.

Cannabis & Tech Today says Drop’s on a mission to help retailers optimize their day-to-day operations and delivery services with cutting-edge technology for a monthly subscription fee. That’s the SaaS model.

Why am I writing about Drop?

If you missed it, I’ve been pleased to be bringing my experience to Drop as their chief operating officer since last November!

The tech + cannabis industry space is having a particular moment, as legalization spreads to more states and during the pandemic “cannabis has become an essential household item.” California, which began adult-use sales in 2018, saw consumers rise to 45% of all adults in the first half of 2021 according to BDSA’s business intelligence and market share tracking. Consumption is on the rise across the nation.

“Cannabis has become an essential household item. Consumerism has exploded. Delivery is the future.”

…and the news does not stop.

Yesterday, Drop won the Poseidon Asset Management Green Shoots Pitch Forum, a special event that connects top-performing cannabis companies across all verticals (licensed and ancillary), with accredited investors. It’s organized by Poseidon, a first mover in the cannabis investment space named Top Hedge Fund Q3 2020 by Barclay Hedge. Winning sends Vanessa to pitch to investors on stage during MJUnpacked in Las Vegas in October, an industry conference for brands, retail executives, and investors.

Amazon buys MGM, now itching for actual updates to the content vault

So many of us have envisioned this day, or at least where things are now surely headed for MGM's legendary library!

Once worked in Studio Business Affairs at MGM in the 90s, you may recall.

Then prepandemic had the pleasure of pitching 10 Block, my social and mobile streaming platform solution to MGM, Madhu and the studio's distribution leadership, and together envisioning the impact of connecting today's global audiences -- where and when and how they are watching -- with MGM's vaulted riches.

Still itching to see actual forward-looking viewing conventions applied to older content. Personally, want annotations, episodes, interactivity.

Can you imagine, for instance, viewing MGM’s library of Old Hollywood classics and Bond blockbusters broken down into short modern length episodes you can chat with your friends about, and discovering what to watch through reviews and what your network is liking? That looks like this?

A woman can dream!

Your performativity robs us all

Paying lip service is easy, that’s why people do it — to check a box that other people think is important, in the most efficient and expeditious way possible.

But lip service is also a waste of your resources, literally. You’ve wasted the opportunity to do something worthwhile for other people. Especially if you have a platform you can lend.

Washington Post has my opinion 8 months later

Washington Post says America needs civics and history to save democracy.

This is how the Post’s Editorial Board puts it today. “While the country spends about $50 federal dollars per student per year on science and math education, only five cents per year per student is allocated for civic education,” notes Lawrence Tribe whose tweet I first saw. “Democracy demands a population better educated in history and civics,” says the professor emeritus at Harvard Law School.

I said as much 8 months ago when announcing my pro-democracy knowledge project: America needs a re-education.

Helping people requires what one of my readers called “a new civil service journalism to inform citizens at a time when the Fourth Estate is dying and under attack, and news media has devolved into propaganda machines.”

My mission is to help with what comes next: when we dig out from the damage, there will be a massive need to educate people about what just happened.

Last June I wrote about my work on a curated knowledge & awareness project for concerned citizens.

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A good moment for the right vanity press/publishing service

Publishing friends, authors, business women, entrepreneurs: what do you think of this new initiative from Worth Media?

• A new pipeline to publishing for their subject-matter expert members to help build and further their careers,

• an opportunity for people who traditionally have a harder time getting published or recognized,

• to be released through an imprint/house for an established publisher (Simon & Schuster),

• and author retains the rights.

My first thought? Vanity press. In a downmarket for publishing.

And then, well, okay. It's a good business opportunity to provide publishing services direct to an underserved information-rich community. And, then, hey maybe better than OK. For everyone involved, including the readers of these books. Read about it here.

I told you education of the citizenry is our next chapter

It could be this kind.

Or this kind.

If I were writing the book on 2020, this would be the BLUF

“We are at war but most Americans don’t realize it and even fewer know the American president was installed to destroy us.” #fridaymorning #quoteoftheday #TrumpFailedAmerica #TRUMPDestroyedAMERICA #BookBoost #amwriting #Election2020 #VoteForOurLives pic.twitter.com/STOHuisOnF

— Trust is a license. Renew it. (@actuallyreal33) July 17, 2020

This is how a book written by the ‘generative journalism” account/“knowledge service in an infodemic” I contribute to would start. I believe that’s called BLUF: bottom line, up front.

What would the first sentence of YOUR book on 2020 be?