If you think “Silicon Valley” sounds cool but “Silicon Swamp” doesn’t, you’re probably not from South Louisiana. Here in South Louisiana we love the swamp, it’s a part of who we are. The reason “Silicon Swamp” might sound weird is that we are less inclined to identify ourselves as the home of tech innovation. Well,…

There aren’t many occasions to talk about fine art and movies in the same sentence. And you’d be forgiven for thinking there’s even less occasion to consider the financing of movies and fine art as having anything to do with each other. And that’s why we have lunch! So folks from what might seem to…

Time was, every town had cobblers and tailors. Fairy tales and history books alike are replete with references to these noble tradesmen, who kept people “shodded” and clothed. Today,  commerce has evolved from local service providers to department stores, big box retailers and online sites, but, here in Baton Rouge, although old fashioned businesses have…

“Retail apocalypse” is a term we’re starting to hear frequently. It suggests a coming meltdown of retail reality due to the impact of Amazon and other online retailers on brick and mortar stores. Stephanie Riegel’s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Baton Rouge are, in two very different ways, fighting it out on…

A lot of people who start tech businesses describe them as “The Uber of…” something or other. Most of them don’t lose as much money Uber, but typically they don’t get very far off the ground either. Another popular tech startup that often stalls are businesses based on Virtual Reality.  On this edition of Out…

As the tech industry evolves and matures, all sorts of new opportunities are created for entrepreneurs who see where existing technologies don’t meet a need or don’t go far enough to deliver what customers demand. If you listen to national shows like How I Built This or Freakonomics, you’re familiar with the type of wildly…

We talk a lot about business on this show, and what it takes to be successful in business. On this edition of Out to Lunch Stephanie focuses on an aspect of business that doesn’t typically get so much attention: the ethics of principle versus profit. Aaron Beam is a former executive who travels around the…

We hear a lot on this show from entrepreneurs — some successful, some just starting out— about what they do and what makes them tick. On this edition of Out to Lunch we turn our attention to a whole new breed of business people: Baton Rouge high school entrepreneurs. Deborah Sternberg is founder and chairperson…

Teach For America is a nationwide initiative aimed at addressing the shortage of teachers in the US. A recent study estimated that the nationwide shortage in 2018 was around 110 thousand, and that is expected to nearly double to 200 thousand by 2025. Teach For America is an organization that seeks to enlist and mobilize…