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Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you may be.

Scott Luton and Kevin L.

Jackson here with you on Supply Chain Now.

Welcome to today's livestream.

Hey, Kevin, how you doing today?

Hey man, I'm doing good.

Actually.

It's the holiday season and everything is happening too fast.

Well, it is lots of hustle and bustle out there, right?

In stores, of course, online, setting records there.

The food tastes a little better.

And as we all are probably looking forward to, Kevin actually calling time out here maybe in a week or two and take some time with the family and friends and really slow down before we get into 2025.

Is that your plan?

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

During all the planning for 2025.

Also, I have like four or five meetings this week.

You know, really doing 25.

Whatever.

I'm doing 2025.

Hey, I love that question.

We'll be staying tuned to see what the one and only Kevin L.

Jackson is up to.

But folks, hopefully you are getting ready.

I'm sure many of y'all are being the smartest audience in all of global supply chain.

You've been getting ready for a big, successful 2025.

Well, hey folks, today is the buzz.

You know this though.

Every Monday at 12 noon Eastern time, we discuss a variety of news and developments across global supply chain and business.

And when Kevin joins us, you can best be assured we have a little extra dose of innovative technology.

We got some great stories to get into.

Blockchain Quietly under the radar, transforming business.

Hey, how about that Solana supply chain attack?

More on that.

Kevin's going to help us understand exactly what went down.

The work romance between bots and humans may be stronger than what you're thinking.

And stop us if you heard this before.

The USMX and ILA stalemate.

Not much movement since last time we talked about it, but all that.

Plus at 12:25pm Eastern time, almost on the dot, we've got a special guest joining us, Nathan Chaney, founder of Supply Chainy.

Kevin, we enjoyed our pre show conversation with Mr.

Cheney, didn't we?

Yeah, yeah, that was great.

Supply Chaney.

Well, wait, you can't say that without smiling, right?

I just, I love the sense of humor.

But we also talked about different types of coffee approaches and we might get into that more folks.

Some of y'all may be coffee snobs, other y'all may be like me.

As long as it's got caffeine, a little bit of cream and sugar in it, I can drink just about anything.

But hey, before we go any forward, two things we ask for.

Give us your take in the comments.

Whether you're tuned in via LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Facebook, Twitch, no matter.

Let us know what you think.

Just like Trisha, who's celebrating buzz day and asking folks to share where they're tuned in from.

Good stuff, Trisha and Amanda.

And secondly, if you enjoy the show today, we'd love for you to share it with a friend and or your network.

They'll be glad you did, won't they, Kevin?

They'll be better off, won't they?

Yeah, absolutely.

This is a fun time.

It is.

If you are doing the on demand, you can have fun too.

Let's not miss that.

That's an excellent point.

So folks, y'all know that we go live on Mondays.

We publish the replay via podcast on Fridays.

But the live show lives and breathes across all the social platforms and we welcome your comments whether you're tuned in live or on demand.

It's great.

Call out, Kevin.

This may be out of left field.

I know we didn't talk about this, but this holiday season my wife noticed something that I hadn't thought about.

But when she's gone and shopping, all of the checkouts are all fully automated and she was saying there's no more like part time work for people to do checkout.

What's happening, you know?

Well, you know, we could do a whole show on the self checkout because you got folks, it's kind of like licorice.

You got folks like me that love it and you got folks on the other side that absolutely hate the self checkout.

Now most of the stores I've been to, Kevin, because it is the biggest shopping season of the year, still has some kind of mix.

There'll be self checkout, but there'll be at least a couple of human, you know, checkout lanes.

Are you going to some different stores?

Are y'all going to some different stores than I am?

Well, basically she said there's always a human at the customer service.

Okay.

You know, like she was telling me she, she went to Michael's and had like six self serve checkouts and then it was one person to help you at the self serve checkout.

If you didn't want to do the self serve checkout, you'd had to go over to customer service where you had a long line of people.

Customer service with long, lousy experience.

That's a great segue.

We're going to start with some resources here before we get into lots of news topics and also bring in our special guest.

But in our latest edition of with that Said, which dropped over the weekend, folks, one of the things we touch on, Kevin, via our dear friend and fellow supply chain now co host Kimberly Reuter is she touches on what self checkout lanes can teach us, not just about supply chain, but also about maybe our family, what we gleaned from humanity.

So folks are going to have to check that out.

Also, we had some big key takeaways from Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit that the Denver edition of that was just last week.

Corinne Bursa and Jake Barr, also supply chain, our co host, tuned in and contributed what they thought were key themes that you got to have on your radar.

That was good stuff.

We also touched on manifest 2025, which is coming up in February in Las Vegas.

Folks, I'll be hosting.

Check this out.

If you're viewing this, you see the graphic here that I just pulled up.

I'll be hosting an outstanding panel session with four business leaders doing big things in global supply chain.

So come on and join us in Vegas.

All of that plus tons of resources, live shows and a whole bunch more was in the most recent edition.

And with that said, and we're going to drop that in the chat channel so y'all can check it out.

You want to click away, Kevin, did you happen to check out with that said over the weekend was on your radar?

Yeah, they were.

Actually every week I wait and wait for the publication to come out.

All right, let's get.

All right, Kevin, you're pulling some legs.

What was your favorite?

Maybe the self checkout thing was an interesting one.

Anything else you saw that really caught your eye?

Well, you know what I really like about maybe not just this week's article, but the approach to what that said, I want to say that you really touch the key human aspects of your story.

So I want to give you some props on how you approach these stories.

They really touch your life and they highlight the humanity of it all.

So thank you.

Well, hey, Kevin, that's my M.O.

and I appreciate that.

But you know, all of this, all of supply chain, all of technology, all of business impacts who we are as people.

And I think that intersection is one of the most interesting ones to explore.

So I appreciate that call out.

That's a big part of our M.O.

and folks, y'all check out.

With that said, we just dropped that link right there in the chat.

And let us know what you think.

All right, One more thing.

I'll put on Yalls radar, folks.

Join us.

We wrap every show challenging folks that do good and give forward and be in the change, and we try to follow up in our own actions to live up to that challenge.

We are delighted about Elevate Our Kids.

This is an awesome, awesome nonprofit organization.

It's on a mission to close the digital divide here in the US It's a global challenge, right?

They're hard at work at closing that digital divide here in the US it's been estimated that up to 25 million kids either don't have access to the Internet or they lack the electronic devices to use in order to learn, connect, and grow.

Kevin, just 300 bucks donated to Elevate.

Our kids will provide a laptop and Internet access for the family.

For any family in need.

We're dropping a link if you want to jump in and help us in our efforts.

This is their big fundraising time of year, and we welcome, welcome your support, and I know they would, too.

And, folks, if you can't give 300 bucks, if you can give 3 bucks, we'll take it, right?

So.

So check out that nonprofit and jump into fray if you can.

Kevin, you were about to say something?

Yeah, yeah.

It's important to notice this is not about elevating, actually.

It's about giving the minimum that's required in today's world.

This is, you know, being connected to the Internet, being able to operate in a digital world.

This is part of our society.

So, you know, if you don't help these kids, you're basically handicapping them for the rest of their lives.

So let's help.

Kevin, that's a great call out.

All things digital, all things Internet, all things electronic.

That's become a big part of just how we do life every day.

So it's a great call out.

Kevin.

We got to close that digital divide, not just here in the states, but elsewhere.

So check out Elevate Our Kids, folks.

And if you're in position to give, we would greatly, greatly appreciate it.

All right, Kevin, we got to get into a couple of stories.

We got Nathan Cheney joining us here in about 10, 12 minutes or so.

So let's jump into this first story from our friends over at Forbes, and we'll talk about Blockchain here.

So, folks, as I shared on the opening, you may be sleeping a bit on Blockchain, but there's tons of interesting and powerful blockchain applications here on earth and beyond.

Kevin, tell us more.

Yeah, and absolutely, it's really, I guess, changing supply chain everywhere.

For instance, Walmart uses blockchain to trace mangoes from farm to shelf in seconds instead of taking days.

And they apply this approach across many, many different food items.

And it's not just Walmart, Nestle, Tyson's food and others, Kroger for instance, they have embraced blockchain solutions to transform food safety in America.

You know, whenever you hear about recalls, which luckily is rarer these days, quickly they can find out where the food comes from, what's the source and they get these alerts out.

I guess recently there was a issue with food at McDonald's, I think, and it was, you know, quickly they were able to trace it directly to the farm.

So this is really important for all of society.

The other aspect of it is that we operate in an international environment, international trade.

So cross border payments are very important and food is really a small and medium sized business activity and they are selling food across these different borders.

And international payments could be really difficult for small and medium sized businesses.

But because it could take, traditionally it would take multiple banks days and even weeks to complete a transaction, these small businesses may go out of business before they get paid for what they've shipped today.

Blockchain based solutions can settle transactions nearly instantaneously at a fraction of the cost.

So it's actually increasing the velocity of trade.

Blockchain is increasing the quality of the food we eat and it's keeping the small and medium sized businesses healthy because they can get paid for what they deliver when it comes to food.

Love it.

Look at these gorgeous mangoes here.

I'm glad you connected the dots.

Everybody's not like I thought.

This is about blockchain.

Why do you got a picture of these mangoes up there?

Or pineapples or apples or whatever.

So you covered a lot of the applications.

I want to pull a couple others.

I saw this.

You hit on Walmart tracing those mangoes from farm to shelf in seconds and not days.

And that time, that cadence is critical.

Revisit that in just a second.

The beers, you know, the big jewelry and the diamond company.

Oh yeah.

They're ensuring diamonds are authentic and ethically sourced.

LVMH and the product group, you know, big high fashion where they're ensuring their products are authentic and they're also trying to prevent counterfeiting.

And that's really important, not just for the consumer, but unfortunately Kevin and I'm not talking about those companies in particular, but a lot of counterfeiting once called goes to the landfill.

Right.

There was a seafood company tracking fish from boat to plate.

Reducing fraud and mislabeling.

And NASA even Kevin, this is your old agency.

NASA's looking to use blockchain to improve protection for inter satellite communication.

Hey, actually the economy, the low earth orbit economy, you need to manage the supply chain.

That's right.

Food supplies from earth to on orbit assets.

And guess what?

Blockchain is used for that.

So really, you know, a lot of folks I think because there was so much hype with blockchain, I think a lot of folks I hear from regular believe it's kind of come and gone.

But I love these reminders and these real applications of how companies you know about and companies you don't are using it in some really powerful ways.

I'm going to go back Kevin, one more thing to that Walmart example because I'll tell you, I wish I had blockchain and I spent some time in metal stamping.

Kevin and I talk a lot about this traceability issue that we had.

We had to quarantine a bunch of parts one time that was going to an Automotive Tier 1, Tier 2, I guess, and we caught some bad parts.

We had to quarantine all the lot.

And then I was charged with leading a manual, highly manual traceability initiative that Kevin, I bet it took weeks.

So I really wish that blockchain was around and I could configure that where I'd press a button and in seconds we'd see the whole extent of the risk.

But that wasn't the case some 12 or 14 years ago, whatever it was.

Anyway, the good news, Kevin, don't sleep on blockchain.

It's being used widely and powerfully today and no telling what's around the corner.

Is that right?

Yeah, absolutely.

In fact, the US government after the recent election, it seems that it's going to go all in on all things digital, including the use of blockchain.

I was just at a recently blockchain and infrastructure conference.

In fact, hint, hint.

Stay tuned for this month's digital Transformers show.

But block talking about all the different ways blockchain is being used across global governments.

I love that.

Hey, we need to shine a big old flashlight, lots of sunlight into government operations discussions everywhere.

And of course blockchain offers a good great bit of transparency.

So Kevin, I'll be staying tuned to learn more.

We'll see.

All right, really quick, let's see here, folks.

Check out the link, though, read it for yourself.

Don't take our word for it.

Let us know what you're seeing out there when it comes to blockchain.

And special guest Leah Lewton is in the comments here today.

Says hello from Aiken.

Always enjoy.

Kevin L.

Hey, that's how I praise Kevin.

Thank you, Mom.

That's right.

I saw mom this past weekend.

So love you and let us know what you think there.

Leah Lewton.

All right, we gotta move right along.

I got this next story I want to get to here.

So, folks, if you're sick of hearing this, I got bad news for you.

There's gonna be a whole bunch more you hear about when it comes to supply chain cyber attacks.

This time the victim was the Solana Network ecosystem.

And it's a bit more complicated, at least when I was reading through it, than many others.

And of course, this comes to us from crypto slate.

Kevin, help us understand what went on here.

So I always, like, you know, highlight the importance of your digital supply chain and your information supply chain.

In this particular case, it's your software supply chain, because on December 3, ANSA, who does a lot of development work, revealed that one of their accounts had access to a code component under JavaScript and that the actual technology really doesn't matter, but it was sort of injected into a software update package and it was an unauthorized injection.

And it contained this component.

Software component contained malicious code that stowed private encryption key information with respect to the wallets on Solana.

If you're not familiar, Solana is a cryptocurrency.

So with this insertion, criminals were able to drain funds from decentralized applications.

And remember, we were just talking about using blockchain, right?

Those are decentralized applications, and the private keys are used not just for accessing money or funds, but information.

So this type of an attack is applicable to not just cryptocurrency, but any type of use of decentralized applications.

This particular attack was just on cryptocurrency, and it resulted in about $160,000 in stolen assets, primarily in a Solana cryptocurrency.

And the attacker had additional tokens worth over $31,000, almost $200,000 of illicit gains because of a hole in the software supply chain.

So this is important for you to understand as a business, cybersecurity is critical.

That's right.

When it comes to global supply chain ecosystems everywhere, it's that collection of technologies, Right.

And we're only as strong as you've heard us here say a million Times as our weakest link.

Right.

In this case, it was cryptocurrency that was the illicitly gained item.

Targeted theft.

But this can happen to anyone.

Fascinating stuff, Kevin.

I just gotta point out, Kevin, that the graphic came from cryptoslate.

If you see someone with a skull cap on and sunglasses in front of a computer, give them a second look.

Of course I'm kidding.

Of course I'm kidding.

But the illustration they provide there along with this article is interesting, folks.

Check it out.

And we're gonna keep our finger on the pulse of this story for sure.

Also, we dropped a link right there in the chat.

You one click away from learning a lot more about this attack that was announced last week.

Yeah.

One thing we'll also highlight, Solana is big.

It's a huge blockchain with over 150terabytes of information and data.

Wow.

Okay, man.

Well, Kevin, we have got an outstanding guest here today and we're only halfway through the buzz.

Great guest, great friend of the show, stopping by to share some of his perspective and expertise.

He is founder of Supply Chainy.

He's host of the Supply Chainy podcast.

I want to welcome in Mr.

Nathan Chaney.

Hey.

Hey, Nathan, how are you doing today?

Hey, good morning Scott and Kevin.

Greetings and howdy from nice warm Texas Dallas area.

And so folks, that is not a virtual background on Nathan's screen.

That, that is a gorgeous lake right there in the middle of, I guess the Dallas area of Texas.

Is that right, Nathan?

Yeah, north of DFW airport just a couple clicks.

Oh man.

Okay.

It looks gorgeous.

Nothing but rain out my home studio here in metro Atlanta.

How's the weather up where you are, Kevin?

What's the weather up there?

Little cloudy and a little gray.

And the temperature, it's not too cold today.

Last week though it got down in the, you know, upper 20s and teens at night.

So man, winter is coming.

Winter is coming.

So Nathan, you win, you and your locale win the weather award here today.

But we want to get into some of the holiday and the Christmas content season because movies abound right now, right?

And a lot of them deal with that weather that Kevin was just describing, right?

A lot of snow, a lot of cold or frigid temperatures.

I want to get both of yalls favorite holidays or Christmas related movies.

But I'm going to start, I'm going to beat everybody to the punch with of course, Christmas Vacation, the story of the Griswolds.

This is the gift that keeps on giving each year.

You know, Amanda and the Midkiff family.

We watch this every year at Thanksgiving time, and we can just about rattle off all the quotes.

So that's mine.

I never answer first.

I know one of y'all is going to probably try to take that.

Nathan, you're the guest.

What's one of your favorite movies to watch this time of year?

Yeah, so for our family, you know, the sort of annual watch is Elf.

Kind of the quintessential comedy feel good, warm and fuzzy sort of Christmas movie that we watch in our house.

Oh, I love it.

You know, there was a rumored elf 2, but what I was reading is Will Ferrell was so worried about tainting, you know, the first one, which is just perfection.

Like you were sharing, Nathan, that.

That kind of killed production on ELF2.

We'll see.

Who knows?

That's a great one, Kevin.

We got Christmas vacation, We got Elf.

What's yours?

I'm surprised nobody you didn't say Home Alone.

That was going to be my next one.

If we were going to go with round two, it was going to be.

It would be Home Alone.

Home Alone is, you know, non traditional, but when it first come out, he was wondering, wow, what kind of Christmas movie is this?

But it's now in a classic.

I completely agree.

In fact, there's like, what, three sequels since the first one came out.

It's a classic vehicle and library all of its own.

Now, Scott says Die Hard is not a holiday or Christmas movie.

Is that what's Yalls take on that, Nathan?

Kevin, it's in the Christmas season.

I think it is.

That's a debative subject out there.

And then mom says, polar Express.

That's a good one, Leah Lewton.

That's a good one.

We'll keep it coming.

And better yet, folks, as Kevin and Nathan and I get through some stories we're gonna be talking about with Nathan in just a second.

Give us your Christmas movie spin.

You know, use those quotes that are so famous.

From Christmas vacation to Elf to Home Alone.

Try to sprinkle those in throughout.

How many of you use the season to look at old home movies across Christmas?

You know, opening up it presents under the tree.

Do you bring out the.

Oh, I love it.

Old videos and look at that.

Just don't do it in the attic.

And if you do, make sure you're not set up above the attic door.

All right, we got to keep on moving.

I want to dive in.

Nathan, great to have you here today with me and Kevin.

I'm going to dive into an interesting development from our friends at The Wall Street Journal, who report on Amazon's new 3 million square foot distribution center in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Now it's being called Amazon's most automated warehouse yet, at least according to some out there.

However, eventually about 2500 human workers are going to help operate it, picking orders, loading, unloading trucks, and managing my favorite one here, the third one, managing the robotic systems.

Now, despite all the automation, artificial intelligence and other innovative technologies being leveraged here by Amazon, Todd Brady, the chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, says, quote, the tactile grasp that the human hand has and the situational awareness and the perception of the human brain is unmatched in quote.

Love that time.

Looking ahead, the big A is going to be rolling out some of the Shreveport facility technologies, approaches and learnings to other warehouses across the US in 2025.

Nathan, your take on what we're seeing here?

Well, I think that in everything, whenever any sort of technology comes out, there's really high hopes for it.

And there's this built up sort of angst or anxiety that this is going to be a, you know, a wave of technology that's going to replace everything.

And I think this is just a really nice sort of way to say, look, there is a lot of automation and a lot of technology out there, but in reality, supply chains are built on people.

And this article going so far as to say that, you know, the tactile grasp of a human hand is very hard to duplicate or mimic is a great, you know, illustration of that point.

Well said, Nathan.

Well said.

Kevin, your thoughts from the article?

And then I got just a couple of.

I'm going to get y'all both to look deep into your crystal ball and predict the future in a second.

But, Kevin, your thoughts on what we're seeing Amazon do in Shreveport?

Well, actually, I think we should phase out the word robot and replace it with cobot.

The whole purpose behind this technology is to help humans and to work with humans and to augment the mechanical capabilities with human capabilities.

So I think this is something we have to learn.

We have to get better.

Learning how to improve our lives through the use of these cobots.

Yeah, I like that.

All right, so crystal ball alert.

Mine's been broken for years, but I want to use that quote that Ty Brady, which I love.

Nathan, kind of also long lines, what you and Kevin were sharing.

I think we're all kindred spirits and wanting to celebrate the human factor that continues to make global supply chain happen.

Right.

But just last week on the buzz, Kevin, Nathan, I was joined by Korak Jose.

And we were talking about agentic AI, right?

And he talked about how it really operates independently.

Right.

And I'm paraphrasing, but he said something like, it doesn't have empathy yet, but that will be coming, but it won't be genuine.

It'll be no machine replicated empathy.

So it won't be as effective as human empathy.

So then going back to the Todd Brady quote about the human hand and, you know, situation where it is, perception of the human brain, all that's unmatched.

How long will it be unmatched?

Right.

Some folks say it will never be replicated.

Other folks say, well, check back with me next Tuesday at this time.

Nathan, just taking a stab there, you know, how soon before a lot of the special uniqueness of being human, how close will that be able to be replicated?

We want to put years on it, like the.

So your pick.

No, I think that in that five to 10 years sort of time span.

Okay.

I think that you could kind of point to maybe one of the most delicate, like, how do we use our hands?

You would think about a surgeon, right, performing surgery on a human brain, for example, right?

Like that.

You might almost think, how do you put that type of work into the trust of something mechanical, electronic, whatnot.

And we've been doing that for years.

And so I would say the most skilled hand we could probably think of would be a surgeons.

Right?

And so if that one has been automated, replaced or aided with technology, then I think that, you know, picking up a bottle of shampoo in a warehouse, probably not that far off.

Nathan, that's an excellent, excellent take.

Kevin, how about you?

So he said five to 10 years.

Look, folks, don't hold us to it, right?

This is next to impossible to predict.

We're having a little fun here.

But Kevin, what would you shorter or longer than 5 to 10 years?

To be honest, it's all about, you know, electrical impulses and chemicals.

So I think we may already be there.

I think maybe shorter than five years.

But that's from my point of view, that's not the most important aspect of the human input.

You know, the physical, tactical aspect of humans isn't what we value out of humans.

What we value out of humans is division.

We value the imagination.

We value the ability of humanity, humans, to think of things that don't exist and never have existed before.

So that's what can't be replicated by cobots and robots.

That's an excellent call out.

Going back to our Christmas movie, holiday movie theme, I typed in what could be the next blockbuster holiday movie into my handy dandy chat GPT.

And I'm not even going to bore you all with the responses.

So we're not quite there yet.

To your point, Kevin and Nathan, I love the example to the surgical hands.

I think that's a great one.

And we'll see, we'll see how all this continues to come together.

I love the cobot that you talked about, Kevin, and of course, Nathan, going back to the story, you know, a lot of people are calling it the most automated Amazon facility, but it still takes 2,500 humans.

I think they went ahead and hired.

I think I read what, 1250 or so in the article and it plans on expanding up to 2500.

That's a great example of how global supply chain happens, huh?

Yeah, we won't be replaced.

Okay.

All right.

Love the bold.

At least not, not the.

The part from the neck up.

Oh, gosh, Brian, you got.

You asked some great questions.

We'll have to maybe circle back to that.

And Scott says, hey, more.

I know humans.

He may trust alternatives more.

Hey, Scott, I tell you, that's a great call out, but y'all check out the read via Wall Street Journal.

Let us know what you think on that development.

Let's move right along.

I want to talk about the stalemate that is the USMX and ILA negotiations as reported here by NorthJersey.com and it's very related to that last story because automation is the major, major sticking points.

So let's just connect the dots for the handful of folks that may not be tracking the story.

USMX is the United States Maritime Alliance.

It represents almost 40 ports from Maine to Texas.

And then you got LA International Longshoremen's association, which represents about 47, 48,000 critical dock workers at all of those ports.

Okay, now they're on the same page.

The current extended deadline, you all know that can got kicked a couple months back and the new deadline is January 15, 2025.

But not a whole bunch of movement has been made since it was extended a couple of months back, largely due to the automation issue.

In fact, we were talking about this pre show, folks.

ILA President and Chief negotiator Harold Daggett was quoted as saying, quote, automation, whether full or semi, replaces jobs and erodes the historic work functions that the ILA fought hard to protect.

End quote.

So, Nathan, what do you see going on and where are we headed next?

Hopefully avoiding a big massive strike.

It would have all sorts of ripple effect across the ecosystem.

But what are you reading here?

You know, you're asking me to pull out the crystal ball again.

Yes.

As we did in the previous session there.

Right.

I think that it's inevitable.

You know, from my perspective, I try to like, study history a little bit and think about the other big times where technology came in to replace jobs.

And like, one of the ones I like to think about is the light bulb.

And so whenever the light bulb was invented, it allowed industry and productivity to exist after dark.

And so we were able to increase the time for learning, for reading, for working, for putting out an economic product and growing in prosperity.

And there's a hundred or thousands of these kinds of examples of just world changing things that happened.

And I'm trying to like, think about were there people who were going around saying, no, we don't want light bulbs, we don't like this like Christmas.

This is, you know, taking our candle making jobs, you know, whatnot.

So I try to look back and see when have we come across these kinds of things in history before?

And so it's, you know, that tide is going to be really hard to hold back no matter how strong of a personality or group of people you have, I think, fighting against it.

Nathan, that is an outstanding take.

Outstanding take.

And I never stopped to think about that light bulb example that you mentioned.

You know, Kevin, back then we just depended on the sun and that was how long we had to get stuff done.

I never stop thinking about that, Nathan.

Kevin, these negotiations, you know, it's been kind of the era of labor, right?

They've had lots and lots of wins.

But what are you reading into here?

Well, it's a different.

Not different, but it's sort of very similar.

But it comes from a sentence that you said.

You know, they were complaining about losing the, quote, traditional jobs or traditional tasks.

That's the problem.

Business leaders and labor leaders need to stop looking backwards.

Okay?

What technology does is it creates new opportunities, it creates new tasks, it delivers and creates new value for the people that are participating in that industry.

You know, don't keep trying to protect the past.

Look at creating the future when you go into these negotiations.

And I think that's what they're missing.

If they're going to be leading the labor movement, the labor movement has to actually embrace the future.

Well said, Kevin.

Pick up the phone and call Mr.

Daggett and let's see if we can't have a breakthrough.

Of course, I'm kidding.

And you know, look, it's not all on the ila.

The negotiations take both parties to Kind of arrive at a solution that works for everybody.

But goodness gracious, this is a really sticky process we've been on here.

Look here.

We just mentioned Korakoze's name.

He's back with us in the cheap seats.

He says automation resistance will only accelerate the demise.

Korah says automation resistance will only accelerate the demise, not secure the future.

Ooh, that is a good one.

Now, he also says going back, we were talking about empathy.

He says no Scott bought anytime soon.

So I hope I got his paraphrased comments right.

But I appreciate that.

If I have anything, I think I have some empathy.

Check out that story.

There's lots of different updates, right.

This story here was from NorthJersey.com where it's a local story.

Right.

They're talking about New Jersey port workers, but I would argue it's really a local story for everybody across the country.

It's a national story.

That's right.

Yeah.

If we don't get it right and that strike happens again and it's extended, goodness gracious, they're going to have quite a ripple effect.

Nathan and Kevin, quick trivia question.

I'm going back to my graphic here, folks.

If you're listening to the live version or the on demand, you miss all these beautiful graphics.

And I'm using beautiful very loosely that I assembled.

Now this picture here, any idea, any guess what port, what part of the country this is from?

Bing, ding, ding, ding.

Kevin is up the New York Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

No, no, no guess.

Great guess.

It's a poetic guess.

Nathan, any guesses?

If I'm reading into the question, I feel like I'm.

No, I wanted to say the Baltimore Bridge, but no, that was a metal structure, I suppose.

Right.

And this one looks a little bit more concrete.

Yes.

Not sure.

Nathan, this is Savannah.

This is Savannah.

This is ports of Georgia down there in Savannah, which is fascinating, folks, if you've never been to Savannah.

Foul, foul.

North Jersey story showing a Savannah port.

So you can blame me for the mix match.

I can't remember the graphic the North Jersey had, but it didn't quite work.

I stole some my local programming.

But folks, if you've never been to Savannah, one of the most fascinating things about it is as you walk down Riverwalk and maybe you get some delicious candy.

They had lots of great candy restaurants, all kinds of stuff.

Make sure you get some of those homemade turtle, you know, turtle candies, caramel, pecans and chocolate.

Yeah, turtles, I love it.

But the cool thing is as you're enjoying all that, maybe an adult beverage.

The container ships go up and down and it's almost like you can reach out and touch the containers.

That's how close it is.

It is fascinating.

So check that out.

You are a supply chain geek.

I am a big geek.

That's right.

Around on a ribble watching a container ship.

Hey, guilty as charged.

That's right, Kevin.

Guilty as charged.

All right, we're going to kind of go to our fifth topic here today.

Kind of going on an unrelated note, we're going to be talking about supply chain higher education.

Kevin and Nathan, this is really interesting because there's been an explosion of degrees, supply chain degrees, certifications, other types of supply chain management training available across industry.

Right.

Ever since your neighbors and our friends started to understand a few years back what supply chain management was.

Right.

But like everything else, it is so important, folks, for you potential pupils out there, do your homework, Understand all the options available, especially in light of what outcomes you're looking to achieve.

Identify that and then work backwards.

Okay.

At least according to Gartner, here are the top undergraduate programs in North America for supply chain management.

And I'm gonna shoot through these really quick, actually.

I'm gonna share the top 10.

Number one, University of Arkansas.

Again, I think they've been three, four years running, something like that.

Followed by the University of Tennessee, my alma mater, University of South Carolina, followed by the University of North Texas, Rutgers University, the University of Texas at Dallas, Georgia Tech, University of Houston, University of Minnesota and Marquette University.

Those are the top 10.

We've got the top 25 shared right there as judged by Gartner.

These are North America undergraduate programs.

But here's where I want to ask you all about.

So, Nathan, you're finishing up your mba, man.

Good on you.

Fighting a good fight, making it happen.

Work wise, entrepreneurially, while finishing up a tough MBA program.

So kudos.

But you're also a new member of the Appalachian State University SCM Advisory Board, Love App State up there in Boone, North Carolina.

So I want to ask you what supply chain education trends are top of mind for you?

I think that you know, it actually, I don't know if it's a trend, but it's kind of like a revert back to the basics because I think, you know, kind of in the pre show, Scott, you were talking about how there's like the book of knowledge can grow stale because the pace of innovation is so fast these days.

Yes.

So a lot of the focus, I think of a supply chain program is.

And Dr.

Brian Salzer from UNT who I chatted with the other day, kind of put it pretty well that 80% of the curriculum needs to focus on those core concepts and problem solving, critical thinking type skills with a logistics and supply chain flavor to it.

Right.

But that top 20% is kind of for that variation.

And what is the new technology and state of the art out there?

What's coming up but really keeping 80% of it grounded in the core concepts of supply chain management.

Right.

Those negotiating those inventory level type stuff production, all those are going to stay relatively the same regardless of what layer of technologies applied over them over the years.

And I think that was a really cool visual that he painted for me.

Nathan, that is an outstanding observation.

And folks can find that interview on the Supply Chainy podcast.

Is that right, Nathan?

Has been published already.

Yeah.

Number 20.

Episode 20.

Episode 20.

You know, whenever I hear episode numbers, Nathan and Kevin, we all love them as creators, but I think the three of us are only ones that care about episode numbers.

Amanda always reigns on my parade when I talk about episode numbers.

But kidding aside, check out the Supply Chainy podcast for that and many other conversations.

Kevin, I want to broaden out with you.

Beyond supply chain management education, what are you seeing?

Any trends when it comes to technology or education in general?

Well, two things.

First, I want to give a shout out to our friend David Burton and the huge and very important supply chain curricula at Morgan State University focused on providing advanced degrees in supply chain.

But getting more to your question, I think the intersection of how to apply technology to the management of supply chain and how to make decisions with respect to supply chain is critical.

There isn't a job today where you don't need to have some type of expertise in technology.

And right behind that is expertise in artificial intelligence, because artificial intelligence is going to be helping the managers see the elements of the problems that they're trying to solve.

Being able to look at different options.

In the military, we call it the alternative actions that you can take to address the challenges that you may have day to day.

So understanding and leveraging technology and applying it in a practical manner and also leveraging artificial intelligence so that you can evaluate all of your alternatives when it comes to decision making.

Yeah, good stuff there, Kevin.

So we're dropping the link here in the chat.

And again, this is just Gartner's, right?

Gartner is a big name.

They do a lot of evaluating from schools to technology, supply chain tech, you name it.

But this is just one list and it's kind of going back to the point you're making, Kevin, you got to search holistically for what's a good match for what you can afford, what you're looking to do, what kind of outcomes you're expecting, what kind of instructor you want, what kind of pace of study do you want?

Remote in person, all sorts of different factors.

That's one thing.

Then the other thing I think is really important as a corollary to that.

I think it's the first time I've ever used that word in my life.

Scott says, I thought Penn State would be in the top 25.

Or is that just graduate?

That's a great question, because as I glance back at the list, I'm kind of surprised it's not on here either, because they've got a great, great program.

And I also quickly scanned the graduate rankings.

I didn't see Penn State on there either.

But, Scott, you illustrate a great point.

I was talking to a leader within education system of a college on the list the other day, and what they were talking about is based on how any university or college structures the program.

Because sometimes they put this class or this degree over on this under this college or school, and they separate it out by putting another element in a different part of university.

Well, it's about how all that's evaluated as being part of the supply chain management degree program.

Some of that may be like business program.

Right.

Instead of supply chain programs.

That's right, Kevin.

That's right.

And also illustrates we can't just look at one list.

Right.

This is a great and prestigious list that Gartner puts out.

Right.

But do your homework, look at other lists.

And again, if you're looking, if you're in the market looking for a way of gaining that degree or certificate or certification, do your homework, go to more than just one source, and again, try to match up what you're looking to do with the right program based on the whole list of factors.

Nathan, when you were choosing your MBA program and you don't have to name any names, but how did you do your due diligence?

I mean, do you see parallels to how you would advise folks to check out the right supply chain learning program?

No, don't follow my process.

Yeah.

Don't do as I do.

Yeah, yeah.

The thing is, my MBA sort of adventure I've been on was largely the result of kind of, if you want to say, peer pressure or going with the crowd of just, you know, where I've worked, everyone has one, and it happened to be that the employer paid for it at the time.

Now I'm paying for it, right?

So I kind of just took the easy route and I was just like, I know, I just want to kind of get the degree, be able to say that I've had it.

And a lot of it was just like, refresh what I learned umpteen years ago in undergrad and kind of just update that skill set.

And the biggest sort of advice that I take after all was wait a little while to go do that mba, right?

So when you're sitting in class, you've got lots of stories, you've got everything you're learning in your, in a book.

You're like, yeah, I remember some years ago I had that problem.

And it would have been nice to have had this framework to be using or it's not a new concept, what I experienced at this particular point in my career.

So it's been really kind of fun and not very challenging, honestly.

Because when you've been in the work world and you've been a manager, a leader, you've had all these experiences, you can relate what you're reading about to real life.

And it just makes it all clicks.

First thing.

I love that and I love your frankness.

You're keeping it real.

No, don't do what I did.

Yeah.

Nathan, that is wonderful advice.

It's great to have you here.

Hey, really quick.

Korah, he delivers again.

Kevin and Nathan.

So of course we share the Gartner list and link.

He's got the US News list, which is a great, another great resource especially for degree producing programs.

And then he's got another from top universities.com that helps with some rankings and stuff.

Man.

Korah, own the money, as always.

And he also offers up.

He's a fourth panelist here today.

Me and Kevin and Nathan and Kara says top MBA is a good place to start.

And check out the accreditations he mentioned several of them.

Check out the student body profile, alumni careers and partnerships.

That's great advice.

Hurrah.

And the costs, right, how they offer financing, Are scholarships available?

Goodness gracious.

I've learned I can't pick the Cadillac when I'm on a Ford Focus budget.

Kevin, you know, as Nathan says, so my MBA program was directed by who, what my company paid for.

Right.

And that's a perfectly fine answer.

Right?

We all have our own.

We all have our own criteria, for sure.

And that's what a great program that was from that employer, Nathan.

All right, we have a fast and furious finish, folks.

Nathan, I want to make sure that folks know how to connect With Nathan Chaney and all the cool things you're up to, including the Supply Chainy podcast.

How can folks connect with you, Nathan?

So, you know, like, all of us, LinkedIn is one of my favorite playground.

I like to say LinkedIn is my Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, everything, you know, all rolled into one, really.

And so that's where you'll find me the most.

You know, there's supply chainy.com which is the website.

And I would encourage folks that another way to kind of engage and have, you know, kind of almost as much of an in real life kind of conversation as possible is on my networking group called Supply Chain Social Club.

And we currently, right now are having a monthly warehousing After Dark series that I co host with Kevin Lawton from the New Warehouse podcast.

And that's like a really cool way to do kind of what we're doing here today.

Talk to each other again.

And it's like the new digital in real life sort of way.

Right?

Like we're chatting here virtually.

And so that's a really cool way.

Drop by.

It's free for students.

Again, I've got a soft spot in my heart for students all the time, so free for students to drop by and dirt cheap for everybody else.

So make it easy to connect with friends and colleagues around the country.

Awesome.

And I bet you offer a money back guarantee.

We used to have a lot of fun with that joke with, you know, free podcast.

Hey, if you don't like what we talked about, we'll promise get your money back.

Hey, we're dropping to make it easy for y'all to connect with Nathan.

We're dropping his LinkedIn profile right there.

You want to click away there and you can learn more about Supply Chain Social Club that he was just talking about him.

And Kevin's doing great work over at the New Warehouse.

Excellent podcast series.

So, folks, check that out in that monthly social club.

It reminds me of the.

I think supper clubs were a big deal back in the day.

It's a little play on that word.

Nathan Cheney, Supply Chain Social Club.

And I bet what y'all talk about at Supply Chain Social Club does not leave the social club.

Is that right?

Little fight club analogy there.

It's all for fun.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just all about connecting.

Yeah.

Love it.

Love it.

Okay, Kevin, different question for you.

Yes, sir.

All the digital Transformers stuff you've been up to this year here, we're about to flip the Calendar.

Being in 2025, what was one of your Favorite episodes when it comes to Digital Transformers?

Well, this year, actually one that we did back in January, February of this year with Alan C.

From Palau.

Down the Palau.

Yep.

And he was talking about climate change and the importance of climate change and how technology and blockchain and new sensors were being used to save coral reefs.

You know, thinking about how information, blockchain, and sensors could save our planet, it's really important and it really touched me.

And Alan is a digital asset leader, global digital asset leader.

And his daughter is actually the UN Representative for Palau.

Really?

Yeah.

And she leads a coalition of island nations that are fighting or protecting their home against climate change with the rising sea levels.

Wow.

So I think that was a very critical, very important to us all.

So I really.

Whether you believe it or not, things are changing.

That's right.

Via that episode.

And we all have different perspectives based on a variety of different things, but to include different perceived risks.

And I bet residents of Palau view it a little bit differently than residents of Atlanta, ga.

Great episode.

Amanda and Tricia may have surprised you with that.

We'll see if y'all can't share that episode in the chat before we leave here.

But I really appreciate your work you're doing there, Kevin.

And man, just like that, they dropped the link right there.

You can check out that episode of Digital Transformers.

Really appreciate the work y'all do, Trisha and Amanda.

Okay, big thanks.

Nathan Cheney with Supply Chainy and Supply Chain Social Club doing some great work over there.

Thanks for being here, Nathan.

Thanks for the invite.

You bet.

And of course, Kevin L.

Jackson.

Always a pleasure to co host with you.

Thanks for being here today on the buzz.

My pleasure.

Absolutely.

Catch me on LinkedIn, LinkedIn, digital transformers, wherever you get your podcast.

Really want to stress that, folks.

If you're looking for great podcasts, we talked about two here, Supply Chain Podcast and Digital Transformers.

So give it a look.

And if you want to learn more about what we're up to here at Supply Chain now, we drop a link right there, one click away.

And would love to welcome any questions you may have.

All right, folks, big thanks to all of y'all for showing up here today.

I know we couldn't hit everybody's question and comment.

Thank you so much for being part of the show.

But here's your challenge, your homework.

Yeah.

Nathan and Kevin, if you're like my kids and you say homework, first off, they're like, what is that?

Because there's no homework these days in school, folks.

There's not.

We've got kids in middle school, in high school, and there's not nearly as much homework as I had, or at least I remember.

But anyway, this is good homework, right?

Take one thing.

You heard here from Nathan or Kevin.

There was a truckload of brilliance, truckload of perspective.

Take one thing, put it into practice, right?

Share it with your team, even your family, right?

Things are changing.

Things are changing.

Folks are looking for answers.

And the onus is on all of us to change how Supply Chain happens.

So all that said on behalf of our entire team here at Supply Chain Now, Scott Luton, challenge you do good, get forward, be the change that's needed.

And we'll see you next time right back here at Supply Chain Now.

Thanks, everybody.

Thanks for being a part of our Supply Chain now community.

Check out all of our programming@supplychainnow.com and make sure you subscribe to Supply Chain now anywhere you listen to podcasts and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

See you next time on Supply Chain Now.