Most people think a conversation starts when someone opens their mouth. It doesn't. It starts long before that, when the other person trusts you enough to say something real.

Larry Glickman is the founder of JCAT Partners, where he trains law enforcement and private security professionals to work more effectively with the Jewish community. His program isn't a checklist. It's a foundation. Before anyone can have a quality conversation, they need to understand the language, rituals, and cultural context of the people they're working with. Without that, what you get isn't a real conversation. You get surface-level compliance and a lot of missed signals.

In this episode, Larry and Jake dig into what it takes to build the conditions for honest conversation, and why product teams skip this step more than they realize.

More information at: https://compass.jakemckee.com

In this solo episode, Jake introduces the second pillar of the Customer Conversation Compass: Conversation Architecture. He opens with a real story about a virtual support group for parents of kids in a mental health crisis, and what happens when the organization running it never bothered to design the space.

Jake breaks down the seven dimensions of Conversation Architecture, the intentional design work that happens before anyone says a word.

Find out more about the Conversation Compass at: https://compass.jakemckee.com

What if the best training ground for customer conversations is in a plane at 35,000 feet, or a beginner ski slope at 7am?

Martin Drayton has spent decades reading strangers fast and figuring out how to reach them. As a flight attendant and snowboard instructor, that's the whole job.

Today we talk about what that actually looks like and what product teams can steal from it.

Find out more about Martin at:
https://www.instagram.com/emdee_scale_models/

https://youtube.com/@emdeescalemodels

https://www.facebook.com/MartinBuildsModels

More information on conversation design at:

https://jakemckee.com/compass