Season 3, Episode 4: Transcript

Season 3, Episode 4: Nurturing Your Innovative Spirit
Chatting With Greg Chambers, Group Director of Digital Innovation at Coca-Cola

 

Veanne:  Hello and welcome to Atlanta Business Impact Radio. We’re your host, Veanne Smith, and Sarah Lodado. We’re excited to have our listeners join us for another episode of Season three where our theme is innovation and how business leaders in Atlanta are incorporating it into the workplace. In today’s episode, we have Greg Chambers, the group director of digital innovation at Coca-Cola, in the studio to discuss his career path and the many ways he leverages innovative thinking on a daily basis in his work.

Sarah: Greg Chambers has been creating groundbreaking innovation solutions for more than fifteen years. He started his career helping brands like Gap, Home Depot, Crate and Barrel, and J.C. Penney. Design and implement their sustainability in energy programs. Greg went on to invent and author eight technology patents relating to behavior modification, asset optimization, and real-time systems. He also worked in the cyber security industry, designing innovative real-time intrusion systems for critical cyber security assets worldwide. In 2013, he brought his wealth of knowledge about real-time systems and innovation to Coca-Cola and started designing real-time marketing and internet of things pop forms.

Today, he serves as entrepreneurial thought leader for Coca-Cola in the areas of IOT, proximity, cloud, mobile, social, e-commerce and big data.

Veanne: Greg we’re so happy to have you here in the studio with us today. Thanks for coming in.

Greg:  Thanks, Veanne.

Veanne:  All right, so I know how crazy your schedule is so you have a million balls in there at one time I know. So, thanks for coming in and spending this time with us. So, let’s get started and talk about your career journey a little bit. Your path to becoming the group director of digital innovation has been a really impressive one in my opinion. So, can you talk about this and share what inspired you to get into the role that is so centered around innovation today.

Greg:  Yeah. It was real simple. I actually started out as an electrician. Like normal Atlanta, born and raised here in Atlanta. Started out with a blue-collar job working as an electrician. Basically, I looked up one day and there was one set of guys carrying spools of wire upstairs and one set of guys walking with laptops up the stairs and I decided I wanted to be one of the guys that carried the laptop and not the spool of wire.

Veanne: That’s awesome.

Sarah: I like that.

Greg:  Completely, true story.

Veanne:  True story? That’s awesome.

Greg:   Actually, right around the corner from where we are was the building it was at. Most people don’t know when you build a building one of the last things to go functional in the building is an elevator. So most of the construction is going to be done up and down the stairs or with lifts or things like that. What I did was [Phonetic][02:35] HVAC controls and automation controls and most of that was housed in penthouses, of all places, up on the top of the building or at the roof. So, this is before Fitbit’s where you could like brag on social media about how many stairs you’ve climbed.

Sarah:  [Laughs][02:48] You weren’t getting any credit for it?

Greg:  Yeah. I wasn’t getting any credit for it at all. It’s just a lot of sweat. So, there was one set of guys that were like true electricians who are pulling wire and they’re like running cabling between these different assets and there was another set of guys that were actually writing the programs in the simplistic, you know, kind of PLC and ladder logic programs that made those assets actually run and control the building. I’d always been interested in technology. My grandfather and I used to… he was one of the guys in the Navy who worked on some of the first computers and so I had a technical kind of interest and I started doing programming for control systems and buildings and it just snowballed from there.

Veanne: That’s really cool. I’ve known a lot about your background in heating and air in HVAC but I did not realize that it was schlepping stuff up the stairs that really caused you to do the pivot so that’s great to hear.

Greg:   It was and there was a huge financial carrot in there. The guys who carried wire made $8.00 an hour and the guys who carried laptops made $9.50 an hour. So, it was like whoa.

Sarah:  Buck fifty. You can do a lot with that.

Greg:  Yeah, exactly. That’s like a whole day’s work. That’s like a value meal in McDonalds.

Sarah:  Exactly.

All:  [Laughs][03:56]

Veanne:  Oh that’s good.

Sarah:  So I love to hear folks sort of alternative pasts through their career. I think I’ve done some weird stuff on my way to where I am too. I’m curious to know what the title, you know, you’ve had a lot of titles with innovation in them and I’d like to know if you sort of beyond, you know, when you move from being an electrician like was it a concerted effort to implement that like creative innovative spirit that you have in the roles that you took on or did it just sort of happen there serendipitously?

Greg:  It was really out of necessity. There’s this really great joke in Zoolander that Fabio makes about being a Slashie, a model/actor.

Sarah:  Yeah. Yeah.

Greg:  Right? That’s kind of how innovation really started, right? Like there was technical skill sets and businesses understood that these were technical architects. There were creative assets and people understood there were creative marketing and business all the way down the line, but innovation really is a foot in each one of those disciplines.

Sarah:   Right.

Greg:   Right? So, it became very frustrating early on that you would be pigeonholed and you would be a technical person and you would, you know, have no credibility to talk about the marketing or talk about the creative or any of those things. So, as we started creating products and services especially new products and services that needed to be explained in the marketplace you had to come up with a way to explain yourself a little bit better.

Sarah:  Right.

Greg: So, people didn’t just look at you and be like “Why is the coding guy talking about marketing?” So, I started creating titles that were ambiguous and people really couldn’t pigeonhole and put in one slot to give myself the credibility to be able to talk on multiple different subjects

Sarah: Right.

Greg: All of the innovation stuff that I’ve done throughout my career has been really focusing on creating, you know, really new products and services new revenue streams within the marketplace. So, when you’re doing that there’s a lot of education a lot of evangelism that you have to do and evangelism is totally based on the credibility of the presenter.

Sarah: Right.

Greg:  So, if you’re a technical guy, the marketing people turn their ears off. If your marketing guy, the technical people turn their ears off, etcetera. So, you have to create these roles that, you know, people don’t have a place to put you. Now that was very hopeful in promoting products but very difficult in actually a career. I’ve struggled immensely in my career like actually finding a place to go and being able to describe to people what you actually do because of that I was just lucky enough now to be at a company like Coca-Cola that’s big enough that they have people who handle the day to day and I can focus exclusively on building the future.

Sarah:  Yeah. That makes sense.

Veanne:  That’s great. So, listen up. Focus on all the difficult challenges you’ve had in your life will it make this an upbeat session today.

Greg:   I’m happy to make a complete list of people that have irritated me throughout my career.

Sarah:  [Laughs][06:39] 

Veanne:   All right. So, we’ll focus on all the exciting things you’re doing in your current role at Coca-Cola. So, I’ve heard you say some things about this but I’d love to hear you share with the listeners. You know what does innovation really mean to you, you know, as it relates to what you’re doing now and how do innovation and technology go hand in hand in what you’re really trying to accomplish in your role today? 

Greg:  So, I’m a big believer in what I call the Janet Jackson theory of innovation and that is what have you done for me lately. That’s really what innovation really boils down to. Right? Like brands and services need a constant flow of new things that they’re doing to keep consumers engaged, to bring new consumers into the fold and like there’s no place where that’s become more relevant than Coca-Cola. It’s a 130-year-old company that has essentially made the same product the entire time. So how do you entice a new generation every single generation when they come through? How do you make yourself stand out from the competition?

That’s really what innovation is about. It’s literally building the future so there’s a ton of research that goes into that. There’s a ton of knowledge base that goes into that and technology becomes one of the most important conduits. I’m a big believer that innovation should be magic. You should be able to do things that people go “Wow how did how did they do that?” You enabled that to really smart, really well-designed technology.

Veanne:  Yeah. So, I think I’ve heard you say that before, and correct me if I’m wrong. So, the innovation isn’t necessarily looking at technology and figuring out how to innovate but it’s really once you’ve come up with the innovative idea that technology is just the enabler. Right?

Greg:  Absolutely.

Veanne:   You are not focused on technology every day.

Greg: Absolutely. I’m a huge fan of technology. I’m a huge fan of development. I know 17 different computer languages but at the end of the day, it’s about an experience. It’s about creating magic for that person, providing utility. Giving them the thing that they want before they realize that they actually want it. I love the inspiration that we draw from the early founders of Coke who lived in a world before computers and all of that. That Coca-Cola should be within an arm’s reach of desire. So anytime I want a Coke I should be able to extend my arm out and get a Coke. We feel innovation and when we build the future it’s kind of the same thing. It’s about anticipating utility and providing that before the person has to ask for it.

Sarah:  Wow. I love that.

Veanne: Probably getting into the day they don’t have to reach the arm.

Greg:   That’s right. We have high hopes for that.

Sarah:   Strap it to my back.

Greg:  Yeah. We have high hopes for drones.

Veanne: Just think it. Yeah. You finally don’t have to do any reaching soon.

Sarah:             I saw one of my favorite parts of the Super Bowl was seeing Coca-Cola’s ads because, or maybe it was just one, but from an identity standpoint like sort of having a say in like what’s going on today in this world and sort of opening their arms to I don’t… Did you see the Coke ad? It stood out to me.

Veanne:  I probably was talking then. [Laughs][09:25] I hate to admit it. I do have [Inaudible][09:29].

Sarah:  Do you know what I’m talking about? 

Greg: No. I know exactly what you’re talking about like I have a really strong streak of social justice.

Sarah: Yeah.

Greg:  Like I do a lot of nonprofit work. I do a lot of like trying to help people who don’t have a voice and be able to give them a voice in the world and whether that’s the city of Atlanta or Midtown Alliance or people like that. It helps so much to be able to work the kind of hours that I do and have the travel schedule that I do to work for a company like Coca-Cola.

Sarah: Exactly, yeah. That’s what I was like I was feeling. I was like, “Oh my God. This has nothing to do with beverages but it sorts of does. Right?” Like extending this sort of necessity in this resource but like having a say in how they feel about the world you know?

Greg: Absolutely and that’s a thing with Coca-Cola that extends back, you know, well beyond into the history. Things like how we responded to Martin Luther King Jr winning the Nobel Prize. Things like how we’ve promoted gay and lesbian themes within our advertising. All kinds of things like that where it is really we look for things that you know what. It didn’t matter who you are, what color you are, you could be a Martian and you can enjoy a Coca-Cola product.

Sarah:             Right.

Greg: It’s about the simple pleasures in life. It helps a lot with the amount of work that it takes to work in a company like that. To work for a company that you respect the values of so much.

Sarah:  Right, yeah. That’s important. Makes getting up for work every day so much more special.

Greg: I really never thought I would ever be anywhere, you know, saying I respected the values of a corporation.

Sarah: Corporations are people too. [Laughs][11:01]

Greg: The more I learned about Coke, I mean, there’s just so much in that history that you just really have to stand up and smile and be very proud that you’re part of something that has that kind of legacy.

 

Sarah:  Right, exactly. That’s awesome.  So I keep seeing this video circulate around the Internet about Coca-Cola’s virtual reality headset and it’s made from cardboard containers, right? So, what sort of ran through my mind when seeing that is I wonder if on a team in like a corporate environment like Coca-Cola, does innovation happen or do you spark innovation, I guess, through manipulating tangibles in like sitting around and playing with stuff all day? Or are you following some sort of process and is it sort of tied to technology?

Greg:  So, the VR headset was a real simple idea. There’s a group of people that I won’t even say that we work together, it is almost like we hang out together at work, right? They have various different jobs and this particular piece of technology or piece of whatever came from a guy named Nick Felder who runs global video for Coca-Cola and he was noticing the rise of 360-degree video and how cool that was. Especially at experiences that Coke that’s involved in like sporting events or concerts or things like that. We really just wanted to be able to do something really cool with it and that’s really what it really starts out as is an idea over coffee.

You know where like, “Hey. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could do 360 video of, you know, Taylor Swift or Selena Gomez or any other people that we sponsor?” Or “Wouldn’t it be really cool, if we could engage more people in the Olympics by having them virtually be there.” So ultimately, we started sitting around and we, you know, looked around the marketplace and we saw Google cardboard that was out there. The beauty of working at Coca-Cola is having a Coca-Cola email address which means everyone will reply to it. So, we send a note out.

Veanne:  Can I get one? [Laughs][13:41] I’ll take one, please.

Greg:  Sign ups around back. So, we looked at the Google cardboard stuff and when it came to us. It was really heavy cardboard. It was like very stout in your hand.

Sarah:  Yeah, I’ve held one before.

Greg:  Yeah, it’s almost like the box is like cell phones come in. It’s like really super dense cardboard and it didn’t seem very like why is it so dense. Then we started thinking around like okay well what company do we know that has a whole bunch of extra or recyclable cardboard? Oh yeah. That’s right, us.

Veanne: Oh. [Laughs][14:11]

Greg: So, we set out with some of our design partners. These are all internal people who none of this kind of stuff is part of their normal job. They just get involved in it because it’s interesting to them. So, we took a 12 pack. We took it to our industrial design people and said, “How do I make that out of that?” Like literally within like about six hours they had developed a couple of different prototypes that actually improved on the Google design so much. Part of what we did in ours is because we have paper board as a part of our containers.

Sarah: Right.

Greg:  It’s not necessarily like corrugated cardboard.

Sarah: Right.

Greg: So, we improve the design by using tensile string to hold on to the phone. So, it’s much a lighter and much more disposable in your hand. It’s much easier to manipulate, much easier to look around. Overall, it just makes it kind of a better experience.

Sarah:  Right.

Greg:  So, within six hours, they had the first prototype. Within about six more hours, they had three more prototypes of how to take a twelve pack, some tape, and an X-ACTO knife and turn it in. Literally, it’s like a third-grade craft project.

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Greg:  There was a lot of Elmer’s glue. There was a time period when we all got a little silly making the little stuff out of rubber cement in your fingers. You know, that was…

Sarah:             Got to take a rubber cement break. [Laughs][15:27]

Greg:  Exactly. We’re always doing weird stuff like that but that’s where stuff comes from, right?

Sarah: Exactly.

Greg:  To me, it’s the, you know, innovation equivalent of when you sit around at like you know 6:00 on Monday night and you go, “Oh, yeah. I got to make dinner.” You open up the pantry and just see what you have to be able to make there.

Sarah:  Yep.

Greg:  So, we had the things that we needed. We had the people that we needed and we were able to execute it really quickly but that’s the easy part in a company like Coca-Cola. Just building it is one thing. Getting everyone to understand it and understand the value proposition behind it that’s when the real work really kicks in.

Sarah:  Yeah exactly. So, I’ve got like a Sarah’s Crafty Corner in my office, in the office space here. For me, when I’ve sort of had to think about stuff like I always kind of turned my manipulatable things because it just it helps look at things from a different perspective and I’ve been in a lot of design studios that have like, you know, broken toys all over the place and things like that. So, it’s interesting to see how like different people ideate.

Greg:   I have a collection of action figures in my office personally.

Sarah:   Nice. [Laughs][16:36]

Greg:   One of the things that we like to play with a lot, that we get a lot of value out of, is Play-Doh. We play a lot with Play-Doh.

Sarah: That’s awesome. I should get some Play-Doh. I’ve got Lego’s. [Laughs][16:46] Play-Doh sounds a little more fun.

Veanne:   All right so I’m feeling a little bit like the odd girl out here. I’m a real tactical person so I’m not understanding this.

Sarah:  [Laughs][16:54]

Veanne: So, I’m wishing I could be more innovative but I guess I’m kind of diving into this a little bit further. I’m curious where do you get the innovation like I don’t know how to get the innovation. So, is it really just playing with action figures? You know, is there something that sparks innovation within you or is it just that’s how you… I guess, I always look at you know, connecting. I’m a connector so when I meet somebody I’m like, “How can I connect?” That’s how my brain works. Is it just the way your brain works?

Greg:  I think it’s a little bit of that. It’s a little bit of training. I have an extensive background in design thinking in designing and consulting so that helps.

Veanne:  Okay.

Greg:  Really, at the end of the day, it’s like when you sit down at lunch with your friends at work and you’re like. “Man, it’s so stupid. How we do X, Y or Z.” It starts there. It starts with the identification of a problem and when you’re doing that like casual conversation of “this doesn’t work right” then you’re kind of taking on the burden of what should it be. Then once you can imagine what should it be, it’s very easy to go from like an ideal experience to figuring out what you need to do to actually bring that to reality. Even if that thing is extraordinarily difficult or produces an amazing, you know, innovation or engineering challenge. Once you have an experience that you can start from, then everything on falls into place from there. It just really starts out with need.

Veanne: So that’s good. So as a group director, I guess my second thought here is are you responsible for enabling others to start thinking like you and innovating? Is that part of your job or is it more you want to just find the people that know how to do it and hire them? Or as part of your job helping them figuring out how to look at problems and innovate?

Greg: An extraordinarily core part of my job is driving a culture of innovation. Even if I had a single focus mission of just innovating for Coke, it makes my job a lot harder to be a round peg around a bunch of square holes. So ultimately, we want to drive that spirit of it. We also believe that spirit of innovation is extraordinarily empowering. There are some jobs at Coke that are not nearly as exciting as mine and in order to keep those amazing people that we have over there we want them to have the freedom and the ability to say how things will work better. There’s nobody who knows how something should work better than the person who’s done the front lines doing it day in and day out.

So, we do a lot of evangelism internally. We do a lot of work with people. We do a lot of like what we call like freeing of minds. Almost like the Matrix, right? Where you can easily take someone, who is incredibly smart but is kind of feels like they’ve been put in a box and tell them to redefine what their universe should look like. That front-line research is the absolute key ingredient that we need from an innovation program. It helps empower our employees. It helps them make them feel like more part of a team and it brings them in as a member on the innovation team. The problem that you have with innovation people sometimes is they live in an innovation world, right? Their attention spans are short. They don’t quite understand like how normal people operate.

Veanne:  So innovative people are abnormal. [Laughs][20:11]

Greg: Guilty as charged. Ultimately at the end of the day, you want that culture of innovation to be able to flow through.

Veanne: Yeah. I get it.

Greg:  Coke’s extraordinarily supportive of that too.

Veanne: Yeah that’s awesome.

Sarah: So is that culture of innovation that’s extending beyond your team then. That’s something that you’re opening up to all of Coca-Cola and is that accurate?

Greg: I think that for any company, the greatest goal that any innovation person can have. Is to work themselves out of a job. If can create a culture of innovation so strong that Coca-Cola that they’d no longer need Greg to innovate then I have done the best possible job that I can do for crackling for Coca-Cola.

Sarah:  Great. Exactly. Yeah and I mean it’s naive to think that one person can come up with all of the amazing ideas. Like you said those perspectives are what are going to spitball into something that’s impactful for that team that knows it the best or that experience.

Greg:  Absolutely.

Veanne:  It takes more than just the innovation idea box sitting around for people to put their ideas in.

Sarah:   Give me a good Greg.

Veanne:  [Laughs][21:07]

Greg:  There is some of that. That’s part of the driving culture of innovation is starting to spell those rumors. That innovation people are you know. Oh, they just show up with their pretty pictures and their videos.

Sarah:  Exactly.

Greg:   You know and like, “Oh! You just know creative things and do it off the top of your head.” Like no there is volumes and hours upon hours upon hours of research to go.

Sarah:   Right and like yeah, it’s nothing without execution and to a certain extent from what they can see right?

Greg:  Absolutely.

Sarah:  That’s awesome. So, I want to talk a little bit more about you mentioned design thinking processes and I used to do a lot of workshops and that’s just something that’s like very special to me and I’d like to know. I’d love for you to elaborate if you can on what sort of some of that process of innovation of design is for you and your daily work or are in the work that your team does?

Greg:   So, it’s all about feasibility, right? What we like about design thinking as we can come up with an idea and for every good idea that you see is produced, there is probably a pile of really bad ideas on the floor. So, design thinking helps us be able to ideate extraordinarily quickly, get to nonfunctional prototypes, wire frames, things that explain the concept to people and we go up until the point that someone tells us what we want to do is impossible and even sometimes we will drop it then. So, design thinking really in that prototype process and the visual communication style of design thinking helps us really convey innovative concepts to executives.

It helps us convey them to different employees. It helps us take something, an idea we have, and spend a very small amount of time, a very small amount of resources on fleshing out what that idea would really look like to where it’s something visual that person can look at and touch and feel versus just the words that are coming out of my mouth.

Sarah:   Right exactly. That’s awesome.

Veanne:  All right, so you talked about, you know, there are a lot of ideas that don’t make it. There are things that don’t get to the finish line. You don’t get support. So how do you handle all the frustrations? So, for that thing you probably get totally behind. It’s like this is going to be the thing and then it doesn’t make it or ultimately doesn’t get the funding or whatever. How do you handle the frustration?

Greg:  Well luckily at Coca-Cola, we always have an unlimited supply of half of what you need for a Jamison and Coke.

Veanne:  [Laughs][23:20] That is a really great answer.

Sarah:  [Laughs][23:20] That is awesome.

Greg: From our standpoint…

Veanne:  Then you go innovate some more.

Greg: Exactly. Those are the innovations you don’t make. From our standpoint, we get very passionate about what we’re doing. We get very… I would say I’m emotionally entangled in some of the things that we do.

Veanne: I think you have to.

Greg: If you have to speak with the level of passion that we do about things it just happens very naturally and there are some things that don’t make it. Right? That you believe will make it. One of the things I found over several couple of years now doing this at Coca-Cola is ideas that I get really passionate about that are just too soon. They come back. I’m experiencing right now with a couple of things where, you know, ideas that I thought were just revolutionary and amazing that where about two years ago, we were working on. It was just too early. Now the marketplace is kind of adjusting back. So, one of the things that we always hope when we have those things that just don’t make the cut quite yet.

Is that they’ll come back and you’ll have a different marketplace. You’ll have a different, you know, set of consumer education, expectations and typically what we find is hindsight is always 20/20 but we find that those things that do come back they get to launch that their second life in more fanfare, in more acceptance, in a much bigger place than if we would have actually gotten it off the ground when we originally had the idea. I would say it’s a 50/50 split between patience and alcohol.

Veanne: I was going to say. So, it’s being patient and then knowing how to release anxiety and find a release and an outlet somehow whatever that is for you right?

Greg:  There are times that we go in the parking lot and scream too.

All:  [Laughs][25:06]

Sarah:  Is there like a graveyard of forgotten ideas? Like do you write these things down? Do you have like a list that you refer to when you’re feeling, you know, dry on ideas? Like how do you revive those? For the small ideas, even.

Greg: I think even the smallest ideas and even the stuff that sits in the graveyard they’re almost like ex-girlfriends and you can’t forget them even if you try.

Sarah: Yeah. I was going to ask if they stay with you.

Greg: Oh, absolutely. There are things that I wish I could have gotten off the ground and you have to have a discipline not to go back and second guess yourself and be like “Well, I could have pitched it to this person instead of that person” or this or that or the other.

Sarah:   Right.

Greg:  Like ideas will naturally and organically take route at the right time that their supposed to. You just have to have some faith in the universe that it will happen the way it’s supposed to happen.

Sarah:  Right.

Greg:  Even if you’re not aware of the universe’s timetable to make that happen it will happen

Sarah: Right. That’s awesome.

[Silence][26:13]

Veanne: So, Greg I’d love to know if you’d hadn’t gotten into technology and innovation, just because of who you are, what else would you do? I mean have you ever thought if I weren’t doing this there’d be something else I could see myself doing or does it never cross your mind?

Greg:   My biggest passion and my biggest hobby outside of work is nonprofit work. I love working with Don brothers. There are so many amazing nonprofits in the city that are doing such amazing work. If I instantly became independently wealthy overnight that’s probably it. I would just give away my services to people who are deserving. There’s amazing programs that a lot of marketing agencies and people within town do with nonprofits. There so many amazing spaces out there. People are just doing amazing work that deserves attention that they rarely get.

So, if I wasn’t being a capitalist and working in Coca-Cola and I was independently wealthy, I would want to go drive, you know, those types of projects and to be able to help people and give voice to people who don’t have a voice.

Veanne:  Yeah. Absolutely. I’m totally there with you, I always think of the things I could do if I didn’t have to make money, you know, and the things that are so rewarding, right? Just helping others. You know it’s getting the rewards of giving to people is you know.

Greg: Absolutely, and what’s so much fun is they’re so appreciative when you help them. Like I mean it is just amazing. It is amazing the outpouring of gratitude for especially being a technology person for like the smallest things that we do. Spending up a very standard sales force for instance, for some of these people to be able to keep track of their memberships up. You know 15 years in technology and in architecture, it takes me like a day to do something like that and they act like I just changed their universe.

Veanne: Yeah.

Sarah: Which you might have.

Greg: Yeah. It’s so incredibly rewarding and it’s just nice to be able to give back to people. I feel so fortunate. I’m born and raised in the city. The city has given me so much and I’m extraordinarily thankful for it and look for every opportunity I can to give back.

Veanne: You guys always say. Now I feel so lucky we live like kings and queens you know. All of us you know. We don’t deserve it.

Greg: Oh absolutely.

Veanne: Yes, so much opportunity for all of us here and it’s great to be able to share and give back to those that aren’t quite so fortunate. So very nice. All right, so one last question I have for you. It’s obvious that there are a lot of cool things going on and things that you have in your world that none of us know even know how to keep up with it. So, if somebody wants to learn more about what you’re doing or some of the innovative things, you know, that they can learn before it becomes a commercial or whatever, where can people go learn more about what’s happening in your world?

Greg: So, Coca-Cola has a wonderful digital magazine called Coca-Cola Journey. Doug Busk who runs that is a great friend of mine. Coca-Cola Journey is one of the best places that you can learn kind of the inside track of what’s happening at Coke. They do really awesome stuff. They just did this really great road trip, millennial based road trip where they took a car from Ford packed like eight millennials into it and set them off on a cross-country road trip.

Sarah: What? How big was this car?

Veanne: What?

Greg:  It wasn’t quite a windowless van but it kind of looked like that.

Sarah:  Yeah. Yeah.

Greg: So, Coca-Cola Journey is one the best places to get the inside track of what’s actually happening with Coca-Cola.

Veanne: Can I find that online?

Greg: Yeah. Just Google Coca-Cola Journey and it’ll come right up.

Veanne: Cool.

Greg: The other way is just very simply. We’re Coca-Cola. We are sold everywhere so go find a Coke machine. Go find a cooler.

Veanne: Reach out a hand.

Greg: Yeah! Reach out a hand.

Veanne:  Experience the innovation.

Greg: Yeah get that beautiful contoured bottle in your hand and you’ll see all the blood, sweat, and tears that put into it.

Veanne: That’s awesome, Greg.

Sarah:  It has been wonderful having you with us here on Atlanta Business Impact Radio. Thank you so much for sharing and joining us today.

Greg:  Thank you.