Before the diagnosis makes sense
The Board Briefing
Some boards need a different conversation before either diagnostic means anything to them. Where ecommerce or AI has become a standing agenda item without a shared understanding of what it is, that gap is worth closing on its own terms, in plain language, before anyone tries to diagnose a specific problem against it.
Half a day. Ecommerce or AI, whichever the board needs. No jargon assumed and none introduced. Built from the same operating experience behind the Review and the AI Diagnostic, pitched at literacy.
Before you appoint an agency, define the problem it is being asked to solve
What it covers
Ecommerce, plain and structural: what the channel is, how it makes and loses money, and the handful of decisions that matter more than the rest.
AI in retail, without the vendor noise: what it can and cannot yet do, where the payback sits, and the difference between a capability and a decision to build one.
Either can stand alone. Some boards want both.
What it is not
It produces no finding and no binding constraint, because it does not look at your business specifically. It builds the language for discussing one.
It is not a sales conversation for the Review or the AI Diagnostic. Whether either of those makes sense afterwards is the board’s call, made once the room has the vocabulary to make it.
How it connects
A board that already has a specific problem in view should start with the Review or the AI Diagnostic. The Board Briefing exists for the room that is not there yet.
Contact
Thirty minutes, no deck.
Tell Steve what is not moving. If there is a problem worth solving, the conversation will find it. If Barking Cat is not the right answer, you will hear that first.
steve@barkingcat.ai