17 Mar March 17, 2020 – Skillshot Todd Harris and Carrot & Stick William Putsis
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Todd Harris – CEO of Skillshot Media and Co-founder of Hi-Rez Studios
The gaming industry is by far the largest entertainment industry.
Globally, it is about $140 billion and bigger than all the movie and
music industries combined.
Todd Harris has been in gaming and esports for 15 years. He and his team designed and published competitive games (Smite, Paladins, Tribes: Ascend) loved by 70 million players. He recently started Skillshot to lead the esports space. “What traditional sports aspires to, esports will deliver,” he said. They have paid out more than $10 million to competitors and served over 1 billion video views from their esports production studio. Skillshot now helps game publishers, consumer brands, and educators figure out the whole esports thing. They provide tournaments, studio content, live events, authentic brand integration, and esports consulting & training.
William Putsis – UNC Chapel Hill Professor and author of The Carrot and the Stick: Leveraging Strategic Control for Growth
There is never an ending point. If you have a defensive barrier wall, people think I can enjoy it. It is the opposite. Your competitors will try to break it.
Dr. William Putsis is a Professor of Marketing, Economics and Business Strategy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and a Faculty Fellow for Executive Programs at Yale University. He is also president and CEO of Chestnut Hill Associates, a strategy consulting firm, and founder of the software company, CADEO Economics, which automates his data modeling-based strategy development processes. His new book is The Carrot and the Stick: Leveraging Strategic Control for Growth. In today’s competitive environment, successful businesses will no longer be able to focus solely on their primary industries. The new game is one of competition across different markets: effective companies today find and access points of strategic control in one industry that can be leveraged across multiple industries. This important strategy utilizes a “Carrot and Stick” approach. The “Carrot” refers to the concept of aligning the incentives of suppliers and customers to be compatible with your own so that it’s in their best interests to do what’s in your best interest. The “Stick” represents a strategic control point that, if controlled by one party, can be leveraged for greater margins.