#27 Ve Dewey on Creative Freedom

Ve Dewey is a globally networked executive design leader whose CV is as long as at is impressive. 

We discussed design thinking, how to develop good taste, AI (of course), and looking at the world's problems through a design systems lens.

Her career has been at the intersection of technology, design, and innovation, with success across industry, the third sector, and academia. 

She curated the inaugural design HR role at Mattel, supporting 400+ creatives during the company’s cultural and digital transformation; leading multi-million dollar global rebrands.

She was also a leader of product marketing at Adobe, where she established a new creative marketing programme in Europe. At the Royal College of Art she collaborated on evolving a neuroscience-based leadership model. 

You can find Ve on LinkdedIn and Instagram:

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/vanessadewey
https://www.instagram.com/vandewcandew/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hello and welcome to Meeting People with me, Amold Pandia. Meeting People is a podcast where I have long conversations with rebellious, adventurous, and sometimes courteous free spirits. VJUE, welcome to the Meeting People podcast. Thanks for sparing the time.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

Thank you for the insight.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Pleasure to have you. Um so I have found of late that the concept of design is something I need to kind of know more about. And where does it stem from? Something I've never really properly thought about. Read a biography of Steve Jobs, now all of a sudden I thought I was an expert on you know what looks nice and what doesn't about house, whatever it is. But then I quickly realized actually I don't know anything. And I would love to have an expert on. I always thought to put on to the podcast who's kind of lives and redesigned for many years without meaning to prematurely age you. But it'd be great to um have someone for the audience demystify design thinking, what are design principles and kind of how that can apply practically in day-to-day life, and then just talk about your work more broadly if that sounds like a kind of fun way to get going. And maybe to start us off, you know, you know, when did you realize or how did you find yourself interested in design and you know what is that? What is design in your mind? How did you define it and then how did you kind of come to it?

SPEAKER_03 1:28

Oh God, great question, because it's very big and ambiguous. What I'll do is sort of take a step back and sort of lead up to how I came to that. Perfect. Um, so and I didn't have the aha moment or the epiphany until about a decade ago. It made everything made sense. I was in conversation with somebody and they asked me, so when you're a child, and you, you know, so often you have that like epiphany where you want to be a fireman or an actor growing up. Was that designed for you? Because this conversation was about design. I said, no. When I was a child, I wanted to go into history. I want to be an archaeologist because of cultures, connections, and community. Next question. So when you went to uni, did you want to do that? I'm like, no, when I first went to uni, I studied international relations and French with a focus in Sub-Saharan Africa because of cultures, connections, and community. But then I finally went to get a be a bachelor's of fine art in design because I found that there is design for me is about connections. My brain functions in a systems approach. So that's how I was able to sort of have the aha moment and make sense of where I came into design. Um and for me, it's I I remember I was on a con uh during lockdown, I think it was the second or third lockdown, I was on a webinar for Rutman School of Business over in Toronto, and they have a design component within their business school. And this it was with the iconic Canadian designer named Bruce Mao in conversation with John Cow, she used to be the VP of Hulu product design. And I remember I was looking in the chats, and there's this amazing San Francisco designer. I can't remember her name right now, but she deals with design in more um aerospace. Uh and she said design thinking is like telling fish how to swim in water for a designer. And for me, design, like I just do. I think a lot of it is innate for me, looking at the process, looking at iteration. I know design thinking is a lot more structured because depending on who you approach for it. So, like IBM with their design boot camps over the years, they have their own models where I think they deal with cupcakes and iteration, or probably the most iconic is the double diamond was the four-step process from the design council, which was um created about 23 years ago now, I believe. Um, but for me, I'll follow that, but I think it's innate. Um, and the one thing with design, it is so ambiguous. There's not one definition for a design. Much like I think many people on this who will listen to this is used to leadership because no one has their own definition of leadership. They have their own styles and framings, where it comes from. That's what design is, I feel. And especially, I know in the latter part of the last decade, we've been design itself. When you say, Oh, I'm a designer, somebody might just assume, oh, you're an architect, but yet the person might be UX. And there's been a splintering of the design practice. Uh I used to be a director on uh Charity Australia, named Never Not Creative, and one of the board members with me, she and her partner for their business had created sort of an info chart of the different classifications of design. Mind you, I used that for my dissertation, my MBA in 2022. And she's like, this was three years old. She's like, that's obsolete already. Wow. So, and because even too, I remember this was probably about eight years ago, I was still stateside. I was speaking with a great friend of mine out of San Francisco who runs her own agency with her husband, and she was saying how she was noticing designers coming up who, for me, as a designer, I love strategy. I love jumping into that and working when I was at Mattel for a decade, working with marketing collaboratively, but she had noticed some designers because of the split, was like, oh no, that's a design strategist's role. Like even splintering like that. But that's my perspective. I know it is somebody might, if you ask somebody from UAL or just go down the street to, you know, Chelsea, somebody will say something different. But for me, design is the foundation of the human matrix, I feel. It is everywhere we live in. We it's, you know, even nature is a designer in essence, too, if you take it even more philosophically. But design, it's we we have it our phones are designed, but even coming down to policy, that should be designed. Um and I I just think, especially with the with, as you mentioned, Steve Jobs just before, with the advent of the iPhones and the naughtys, that's sort of people look at design and think it's like the phone, and they don't really look around the details of our life of how things are designed. Like even about a decade ago, I did uh an event in LA for the design community there called Design Plus Coffee. I brought in all these amazing design, um, excuse me, not designers, but coffee leaders. You know, the first um world barista champion Mike Phillips from the US, he was on among other people. Um, and afterwards I got actually flack for it because people said there's no designers on the panel. I'm like, uh-uh, am I my those designers? So one of them, he created a coffee chain, but so you have experience design, you have different types of way of design. So even yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

So you're almost there's a there's a to that criticism you got, there's a community of people who kind of bang on about, let's say, creativity, but they don't actually create anything, or they kind of bang on about, you know, have this definition in their mind as to what design principles are, but actually they see it as some sort of separate silo or category that's independent from other parts of the the organizational life. Is that is that so but whereas what you're saying is actually it's something you just live and breathe. It's you are, you know, creativity is a like it's a it's a way of being.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

I I that's a great framing. I think so. I've never thought about it because I just I always said I just do.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

Um it's even maybe to piggyback off of that, I remember when I was at Mattel the last two years, I had created a role for myself that was helping support the digital and cultural transformation, specifically focusing on the creatives of the headquarters in LA. And this global creative director came up to me and we were having a sidebar chat catch up. And when he heard my new role, his first question was, Do you miss being creative? I come from branding and packaging into something that was building out strategy and more strategic design. So since I was not doing something that was visible, that would be on shelf for a season, but yet invisible, it wasn't seen as creative anymore. So as in design, but yet it probably has its webbing and impact in a different way.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

But there's this, I guess to that person's biases or whatever they've kind of got you know got used to thinking there is a view in organizations that it's very hard to be creative. It's very hard to kind of if you're in a department that isn't the the colours and graphics and products department, then the rest of you are kind of you're you're you're almost punished for thinking creatively. So um you said something really interesting um about the way you you said you think in systems. What do you mean by that? So we had of episode one of the podcast, we had a guy called Simon Evan Cook on who uh recommend everyone read someone someone called Donnella Meadows, Systems Thinking. And like just a way to kind of encourage yourself to think rather than think linearly, you think so. To you, what is systems thinking? What how come you think that way? Is that just by chance or is that just the the upbringing and how how does that manifest itself?

SPEAKER_03 8:50

It's just the way my brain thinks, I believe. I didn't even think of that until about nine years ago. Um a lot has changed my life in the last decade. And I was talking to a friend who used to be the chief brand officer at the yoga company, Chabani, and he was in town in LA, and I was just I forgot exactly what I was saying, but I remember specifically saying, O V, you think in systems.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

And I'm like, just sorry, just for British listeners, you y y yogurt, not yoga. Just so it's just for I didn't. I thought you said yoga for a second, but then yes.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

I cannot pronounce it sometimes. Even you'll hear certain words come out with my American accent that I came pronounced.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

Chibani is a great success, right? We don't have it here. I don't think I see it in America everywhere. I go there.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

But it's privately owned, so it's they're family-run business. Yeah, yeah, and gr and uh creativity is at the foundation of it. So anyways, but he said I was systems thinking, and I never really thought about that. Because it's to your point, as you highlighted, it's just a way of being. Because even um I remember a little anecdote to give an example of why where my thinking came from. When I was in um uh nursery school, about three, my parents had a parent-teacher conference, and they're like, was telling what I did every day, because usually nursery bring out different toys, and they will change it up so every student will be each day, and then each student could play with me a couple toys per day. They're like, no, Vanessa, she knows what's on the floor from each day, who's playing with what and where, and goes and touches everything. So I was always making like a connection right there. So for me, when I think of systems, I do sort of look at things holistically. Um, I always would go down to even, you know, thinking about you know, rhizomes and how everything's interconnected and interlaced, but it's a holistic view because I think, especially so often coming from corporate, we focus in our societies general focuses on the subjective so much and you know, reactive, but just don't think of the objective as long term. But that's the way I think. It's like I use this example when I used to give public talks. I was like, yes, we always say we have to like think looking down the street, but I'm like, yeah, I look down just like five blocks and then around the corner and find those connections.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

So that's that is the kind of creative spark, isn't it? Seeing connection. Comedians are very good at that, aren't they? They kind of see things that are plainly visible but haven't been observed by most of us who are just sort of in this tunnel vision. Um so have you used the phrase rhizomic thinking?

SPEAKER_03 11:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Yeah. Can you explain that?

SPEAKER_03 11:14

Oh good lord. It's okay, it's rhizomic theory. Um I will not be able to give it the full clarity because my brain doesn't function that way sometimes. Um it is a theory from um two philosophers, um uh Gatare and Deloise. I always butcher their name, but just I just simplify for myself. Think of you know, trees and their under underground, the under with their network of you know, mushroom networks and all that interconnectedness. That's where I take it, it's a lot more complex. If you read in their a thousand platitudes, it's a lot more complex. But for me, I just simplify it. I think about think of trees, think of them um mitochondrial networks, it's that interconnectedness.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

And they communicate with each other and they respond to various influences in the environment in different ways rather than just we think of trees as this kind of isolated unit that grows upwards. And actually, actually it's much more interconnected, as you say. And so it's just a and that's I believe how you view organizations or large companies organizations. So can we can we talk about Matt L then? Maybe and I was just looking into the history of it, which is quite a cool origin story. You know, you've got this three people, there's Matson who's the sort of the the business person, then you've got is it Elliot and Ruth handler?

SPEAKER_03 12:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

So L is the Elliot is the L in Matt L, and Matson is the Matt, and and then Ruth, but actually Ruth was the sort of sales uh and the bit the real sharp business, but then there was the creative one, the business one, the sales one, and they kind of made this perfect um harmony for a bit until Matson had to kind of but what that was the what what I find a lot with these organizations is they start with a spirit and as they grow and institutionalize, they start losing that original spark. So is that an is and there's a trope that large organizations struggle to kind of be innovative and create because they just kind of exploit whatever it is the origins of the original spark kind of found, and it's harder to incentivize staff to kind of find new exploratory ways of kind of extracting, you know, or creating value for people. So anyway, that that was my brief dive on Mattel. But can you t tell us about the organization? It's Barbie, it's Hot Wheels, it's Uno, but yeah, love to think know about the organization and your time there, what you did there, what you achieved there, and the transition that you talked about from product to strategy.

SPEAKER_03 13:46

Uh so I started Mattel in 2008, about four months before the great financial crisis. So it was a very interesting experience being in a Fortune 500 company that was had to weather that situation. Um at that time, also in 2008, was the 50th anniversary. Was it 50th or 60th? I should know this. Um, 50th anniversary of Barbie. So it was an interesting time to come into it. Um, one thing I will have to say, because I I remember I had to do a lot of research on the history of Mattel for a talk I did once. But yes, Ruth really did that, was created, I would say almost like a blue ocean in a way, with like with um Barbie and then even Elliot with the whole um Matchbox Hot Wheels dynamic and the story behind that. Uh but my time there, I started off as branding and packaging in Barbie, but then also went into licensing. So we worked with this, so I had exposure to Disney and Pixar, which was fascinating to see that, not just getting approvals from stakeholders internally, but then also dealing with executives from Pixar and Disney.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Okay, so there's like Toy Story, a film comes out, does well, or Nemo, whatever, and then there's the toy element to that. Yes. And then you're designing the toys, they've got the IP in terms of the film and characters, and you work together to kind of to exploit the kind of interest in that.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

Exactly. And for a long time too, they had uh the Disney Princess license. So what like even when um uh the Rapunzel movie came out. Tangled. Tangle, think. I should know this.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

I've got two daughters. Oh yes.

SPEAKER_03 15:17

And we even had the first, I think also too, we had the fro first frozen too, or second frozen. Wow. So it was a lot, it was interesting.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

That was before that was before my time. Before your time, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

But I know they did even poke a haunt us like because the whole Disney Princess licensing thing occurred like the late 90s, early naughtys.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

I've got all the songs going through my head right now. Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. That's good.

Mattel: Inside A Creative Giant

SPEAKER_03 15:38

Um but along the time too, it was interesting because I sort of going back to that analogy I said, like looking down the street around the corner, I was always looking for those connections, how to bring in what I've learned or my network in to help support the creative community. So about five years in, um, after we had been weathering a lot of interesting dynamics post-GFC, I had gone up to a conference up in San Francisco called How, which is the largest design conference or Crave Conference or was in North America. And then was starting to go these things called Crave Mornings and just really connecting with the LA design scene more. And with some other colleagues, we decided, we real, or I realized another colleague realized that within five years since 2008, not a single external creative came in to do a talk. And when creativity, you know, inspiration, we have to we can't be isolated, we need to connect. That's my some people might not feel that way, but for me, we need to.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Yeah, you have this view of the create you know, the lone wolf creator who's sort of burning the midnight oil, sort of scratching out thoughts onto paper and then having eureka moments. But the reality is that it's actually you need to be in and amongst it.

SPEAKER_03 16:47

Exactly, because that helps you become innovative, you see different perspectives and evolve. Because if you don't, like even when I would do inspiration shopping, when I was still doing branding and packaging, I would not go in the toy aisle all the time. I would actually go to food and beverage, I would go to uh technology, electronics. So looking beyond that. Um, but one thing we did at Mattel was in 2013, we started this external speaker series, the first of its kind from a grassroots. And over the course of the next five years I was there, I then took it and built it up to from a quarterly, no budget but senior leadership support to building up a financial model with a C-suite support and bringing in at sometimes almost every two weeks. Um, we'd have designers like Debbie Millman of the Design Matters Podcast to Brian Collins of Collins Design, um, even uh Dr. Nelly Ben Heyun, who's this amazing experiential designer from London. And then even uh towards the end, I worked with three other key leaders and we steered the first, I think it was the first or maybe one second one, but a substantial global innovation conference that spread for all the employees, which was like 20,000 plus people globally. And we brought in Dr. John Maida in and even Kat Holmes, and Cat Holmes just stepped down as the CDO of Salesforce. So trying to bridge that perspective, the inspiration coming in. And then also up until 2016, I had my normal production schedule and then doing that at the same time too.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

And for me, so by production schedule, you mean these toys that come you you're trying to design the packaging, the kind of concept of the toys, how they're how they presented on the shelf. Exactly. Whilst doing this at the same time. Yeah. Um and just I mean, just going back to that before we go to the speaker series, like what are some lessons you learned, like in terms of how do you get something off the shelf? What works, what doesn't work, you know, how what Yeah. Is there a balance between being too radical but giving people the comfort, the warm soup to kind of know that okay, that's what is it? Is that uh yeah, if you could just talk to draw, maybe give one or two examples.

Collaborating With Disney And Pixar

SPEAKER_03 18:53

Um yeah, because you definitely want that head snap when you walk down the aisle. And we always use the I probably changed right now by my the example of the uh goldfish um attention span dynamic. So we'd always I would always use that perspective. You just want that head snap, like what's catching your eye. Um I'll give there's a great example, I think it was about 2011-2012 in that ballpark. It was between the uh second and third toy stories, I believe was that? Yeah, around the hour. I'm probably mixing up my brain, it's just and uh we're I was really working close with the marketing team because we were trying to, since there's no movie coming inside um coming out, we wanted to create something that would create that head snap and maybe up the sales of this evergreen brand. And I worked, it was probably the best experience of collaboration with a team in that I had in the entire time I was Mattel, like when I was doing branding and packaging. Marketing took in what I was my perspective and so forth. And there is a traditional formula. So you'll have the packaging with the different branding aspects on the front, but then the one thing that I really looked at was the back panel, which is where you might have more description, you have photography possibly. And just thinking about this, like how can we push this? And I was thinking, we did have an insights team, but still you don't have access to like, can we do some studies just because of you know restrictions? So I was just thinking, just looking online, like, who are the mothers? Like, because basically the purse, you know, the money is coming from the parents, so you also have to convince them. And I was thinking, oh, this is the first generation of millennial mothers. How can I connect with them with them more? Because so often on back panels, toys were like the king and the child would be in the background. So it was more of like a sort of giving context to the situation. I flipped the switch and said, let's focus on the child and the story between the toy and create that connection, that nostalgic element. Imagine you walking down your hallway and you see your daughters playing with the toys and just like open up the door and you see them playing and creating imagin some imaginary cast place. So I was looking at that. I did push it, but we did have to scale it back because I probably went too far. Right. But still, I know even the photographer who worked with me, she's like, you push the boundaries of that sort of category, which was action play. So like think of He-Man and so forth. I pushed the category of that. So I there was moments where I could push it and people were encouraging, but still you still have to you can't go too far. You have to balance it because there is the formula. And um, but it was nice to be able to do that because I enjoyed that, just to sort of take get out of the studio, go on site to house in the Pacific Palisades and have ch children, um, child models playing with the toys. It was fun.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Yeah, and explore having that empowerment to explore. Yes. Which I guess, I mean, it's uh to that whole explore-exploit trade-off thing that companies have, and you know, it's a frustration with producers, you know, the film industry, for example, you know, do we need another remake of He Man or another, you know, um the fifteenth Mission Impossible or whatever it is, and it's just kind of I guess you were probably you know, what what would have really Excited you at Mattel was if there was a new film that came out with new characters rather than another buzzlight year iteration or whatever it might be. And is that an issue that I mean it's logical in a way you exploit the resource the the co the the IP or the branding that you've got? But is there something organizations can do to better empower people to kind of experiment and sort of at the at the risk of losing money, but have kind of lots of small experiments that might work, might not? Was Mattel quite good at that? Or are a lot of organizations quite kind of rigid and ossified?

SPEAKER_03 22:36

I think it's the latter, at least from my experience when I was in there. And mind you, it's been about s eight years now since I left Mattel. But still, what I gleaned, I know one thing, Mattel was like many other companies are publicly traded. So time is precious. We have to meet certain financial. Whereas like you look you we just talked about Shibani before, and they're privately traded, or privately owned, excuse me, not publicly traded, at least when I was, you know, in the the teens. So they there was flexibility there to be creative. So I think I always felt publicly traded, maybe, depending on if you have the right stakeholders.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

So and just going back to your childhood and your the way you you've you've said you just think this way. And I just want to push you a little bit on that. I mean my qu my my question to you is you know, can uh anyone develop good taste or is it just innate and you have it or you don't? Oh, good design, you know, good design thinking. Because I know you know from my anecdotally, my mother's got great taste, my wife's got great taste, I've got terrifying from what I've been told, I've got pretty poor taste when it comes to choosing things, but can I develop good taste? Or is you know what was what was in your childhood maybe that you thought could you know fostered those things without you realising it? Perhaps that enabled you to have good design thinking that was just natural to you. Or can it can you know and if there's nothing you can point to, that's fine. Maybe that's there that you can't you can't remember, but you know, c what would one do to go, all right, you know, maybe I need to up my game and just you know think about you know having a bit of a more tasteful approach to to kind of organizing my life or my work.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

A couple of threats come to mind as you're framing that. Uh first, I feel with my childhood, I was lucky because of the schools I went to. They foster up until a certain point, even in private schools, they foster a creative side. So being exposed to different forms of creativity, be it performance art, being able to painting and drawing and so forth, and and also having an interdisciplinary perspective really challenging me with the sciences and maths, I think it forced me to think outside the box because it was very progressive. And also being in a family that, as I was mentioning before, I had an uncle who, you know, could take paint a stubs to a T if he wants, copy it. I shouldn't say that, but still, um so being surrounded by that, you know, thought and also where I grew up too. Um, I grew up in southern Vermont, right by the north northwest Berkshire, or northwest of Massachusetts, Berkshire. So I was exposed to a lot of Bennington College, I was exposed to Williams College and their art museum. So I think having that exposure and that a part of my contextual experience influenced me. And also, um, but I also I always believe, because I remember even at Mattel, it was a creative company. But yet some people are like, oh, I'm not creative. I'm like, no, you are. And even I remember it's not the exact framing, but I will use it. I was at a Simon Sinnek talk. Yeah. And one of my colleagues was with me, and she asked, I forgot exactly her question, but he said, you know, your company is about play. You should have play in everything. Like, even like the forms you fill out for vendors, there should be play in it. So I remember when I started my set my last role there, I always really championed the creativity because it's in everybody. I think it's stems back to the way our society is. We have to fit box this. If we don't, you know, it's just like it's like you are or you're not. And I think that's there's that control element that, yes, you could actually be creative yourself, but I think it's also there's that limiting belief that has come from the way we've been brought up, the way our culture is, the way it's education systems. Exactly. But everybody is creative. Everybody, I think, could have designed it's it's there's a difference because of skills. Like, you know, people will pick up skills as a designer because you know, to cr to draft blueprints for a building or even designing a typeface, there is a s a skill you have to pick up, but I think it's it is innate, but it's just a lot of it's dormant and just been put in um in that dormant state because of schooling and society.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

Filling your time with nonsense or kind of you know easy dopamine hits or whatever it is, yeah. And actually you need to kind of clear the clear the decks and just let let it let it happen, let it come to you.

SPEAKER_03 27:03

I agree. I think because so often our society, as I was saying, like we're subjective or not objective, but we're so much in our head and not in our body. I think that's where if we're so much here, we're gonna be like, I'm not creative, I'm not creative. But if you just let yourself be, and just as you sort of sit, I think that's where some of that nice serendipitous moments come up.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

So this takes me on to something I want to talk about, which no one is talking about at the moment. This is I mean, this is so AI. What what's uh I know you've thought about this a lot, and you know, design, AI, the future. Well not even design, just AI. What what how are you um thinking about this new technology which is you know every month getting more and more hyped up and more and more um money thrown at it?

SPEAKER_03 28:01

Whenever I get in c start or come into conversations around AI, a lot of code caveat. I don't have a computer science background, I didn't come from this. I approach it from more of the humanities and design perspective. And for me, I remember I really wasn't thinking about much about AI until I went to Adobe eight years ago. And that's when Scott Belski, who's the founder of 99U and Behance, came back to the company as the chief product officer. And that year they launched Sensei. And I remember he said something to the degree that think of this AI as your tool to do the mundane stuff so you can be more creative. So I always saw it as a partnership. And I think with AI, it is a phenomenon that is going to be benefiting society as we've seen, like from healthcare and um to even just automating things that should just be automated. Like um, but for me, I think we in our as a society we go from we go from extremes. And especially as you're saying, we were pouring on money and so forth. Like even, I forgot which big was it, oh I forgot who who released this study, but like in the US, AI might bankrupt the US government because there, yes, there is amazing profit from the AI companies, but it's not going to GDP in the US. So I think there's this extreme. And for me, when I think about this, and I um it is a partner and it could help us, but it's not the end-all and the be the end-all and be end all. I go butcher that, sorry. But for one thing I do look back is the historical side of other phenomena that have gone through history and seeing that because it's we've been able to go in an aboundedness. You look at Franz Ho uh Fritz Hop Hobin, who discovered uh fertilizer in the early 20th century, which then from there went on to become chemical warfare. And you look at all these different elements, or even I went to this amazing PhD uh event at IIPP at UCL, which is Marima Zakato's institute there. And the PhD student presented her first two chapters on her on her from her pay her thesis, and it was around decolonizing global digital transformation. And even in there, you're looking back at how historically, how like phenomenisms of these technological advancements. And it's, I think you just look back, and I we like we've had the steam engine, we've had other technological advances, we adapt to it and then we move on. But for me, what it is, it's just there is this for me with AI, I think it's an there's an unboundedness about it. Maybe I'm using unboundedness wrong, but it's just it's letting, you know, thinking it's gonna solve the UK's productivity.

unknown 30:44

Yeah.

Can Taste Be Taught

SPEAKER_03 30:45

It concerns me, especially when you're looking at the creative sector, which is an amazing contributor to our GDP or yeah, GDP here in the UK. But yet, if the copywriting goes through as some things might happen, it could decimate and create another problem down the line. And I think design is critical for that because I feel like when I've sit in conversations of different events, I just observe, I don't raise my hand by observe, and I make note. What we're seeing with AI is a design system problem because it's intertwined, woven into every facet of our society. Everybody is faster evolving, but yet we see it's creating such a complex situation. And looking at it from a design perspective, that's what's helped me sort of digest it more. Because a design system, a design systems problem, you look at it holistically, and it's basically different aspects woven in the different stakeholders, the ecosystem throughout the ecosystem. So it's not linear, but yet so often we see with how people, policy, and approaches, it's linear, but it's not gonna be linear. You know, as you mentioned, it's evolving like so fast. How can we evolve fast through design? And I remember I was at the House of Lords for an AA, APPG um future of work meeting, and it was around the AI and creative sector. It was talking about a report from the future, um, the Institute of Future of Work's report, and just listening to different people, the different speakers, like the executive director of um some union to an online presenter who works on the BBC. I was like, this is a design system problem, and I had to smile. Somebody in in the audience had made a comment about the future of work planet in Singapore and how they've designed that. She didn't say designed it, but she mentioned it. That was founded on design thinking. Right. And that's able to evolve. So I think with AI, the for me, we need more of a design approach of how it's designed, how it's uh embraced. I I don't want to use design again, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

I mean it feels that there's no thinking. Or the thinking is so it's so reactive and linear and firefighting in its in its sort of in its approach that you know You mentioned the word decolonising. I mean for all for all for all the problems that have happened in the world, you know, in the last two, three, five, four hundred years, there was at least a kind of a forward-thinking kind of how do we build a city that will last 50 years? Or how do we build a government infrastructure that will be able to support or cope with um you know a scale, scale, you know, scalably support a population or a Vibin. And today there is no there is no thinking like that. It is just purely, you know, what's the what's the latest fire that I need to put out. And it's an apolitical, it's not a Labour versus Conservative or Democrat versus Republican thing. It's purely we've we've no longer have this desire to sort of test ideas or think ideas. Everything's about kind of extraction and utility and and rationality and sort of this sort of pseudo-scientific kind of looking at looking at data for for justifying everything when actually you need some grounded the data's gotta sit on some grounded principles. Yes. So why is that? It's a big question, maybe, but like if do you agree, do you agree with that? And B, you know, what what why is that? Is that a talent problem? Is it a is it uh, you know, again just the a lack of you know where we are in terms of the ideas cycle?

SPEAKER_03 34:24

I agree with it, full hard, you know, fully agree with that. Um I think it's a part of just our system that we've that has been evolving, stemming from, you know, the silent hand and the industrial revolution. Um our whole life, our whole society is based on extraction finances, based on rents. And I feel that has it limits people's from taking that risk, that leap. We do see that. Like, look at Steve Jobs, he would just do it. Like, and there's more context, there's more to that situation, but compared to what we see now, no one's taking that risk anymore of just like putting it out. Um, but I I do feel it's and also to I might I might be taking on a side side, sort of go off on a tangent, but even at that, it's like who we're allowing to lead this? Like that's my question that comes from that. It's like, who are these people that are driving it? Look at their persona, look at their the mold that they're built in. And I think it's for me, it stems back to the Industrial Revolution, maybe how that's framing, which is stemming from enlightenment.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

There's I'm just going, as you're saying, No, no, no, these are all things I'm thinking about a lot. So it's really interesting. So yeah, keep going because I'm gonna riff off that in a sec.

AI As A Design Systems Problem

SPEAKER_03 35:38

And that because even too, as you were saying just before, the one theory that came out was like the great man theory. And you look at that sort of in leadership, it's like there's one like one supreme leader is a birthright. We're seeing that right now. And I've even seen it pop up on some le on some media outlets where it's like the great man theory is popping up, and you know, certain leaders in our global world were pictured there. Um, and it's even stemming back to this quote from I'm not gonna say exactly, but Descartes, what he said. It's like we are the possessors of nature. And I feel like there's this ownership that we have the right, and there's the fear of wanting to make errors because then it'll impact what we own, and that which is finances, money. And I think it you're seeing that with the these billionaires who just don't who are just like amassing more wealth and wealth in our society and um and not really taking those chances there. So that's where my mind was going when you're saying that by Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

It feels like Yeah, that kind of Cartesian thinking of hyper-rationalism and following it it's that financial market kind of quarterly reporting um cadence that drives decision making. And it well, yeah, again, I'm not a great fan of the great the man theory or great person theory of of history, but there is an element of it sometimes takes a Steve Jobs just to kind of go, actually, you're all wrong. I'm right, even if I'm wrong, I'm right. Um you have this sort of reality distort the the the force of that human is so powerful that they can change and alter reality to you know create a world where um you know proper better systems are put in place. And there's countless examples of this where he kind of you know would when they were designing the the the Mac and the the the title bar of the files and the graphical user display. Do you remember this where like the team was spending hours and hours on it? They're like, Why are we doing this? This doesn't matter. And he's like, Look, you're a computer, you're an engineer, you're you know, you're a designer, but put yourself in the shoes of the person who has to look at that all day. It's gotta be right because they're the ones that are the you know, are gonna be using this stuff. So, you know, he was happy to be rude to people around him to kind of for the benefit of and I you know I there's not yeah, most most leaders seem to kind of follow the other path, which is kind of you know, rather than how do we create there's it's a very kind of zero sum, there's a fixed pie I need to extract. And I have no issue with people making lots of money or becoming billionaires if they've created you know, unlocked new value in people's minds.

SPEAKER_03 38:24

Exactly, which we're not really seeing because no one's really going beyond. Like even when you mentioned the Steve Jobs um anecdote, it reminded me of because another thing I do, I when I did my MBA, I did focus on leadership studies, and I think I mentioned, I'm not sure if I mentioned that to you, but um, I was doing some research around redesigning some leadership programs over the last four years, and I was speaking with a VP of a former medium company in the US. She's more focused on UX, and she's like, V, I am so tired of designers saying I'm designing for everybody, like what Steve Jobs was telling his employees to do, because they're just designing for themselves. And I think that's we're seeing that dynamic across societies, like even though people might say, Oh, yeah, we're doing this for everybody, but when you look at the action, it really doesn't follow what they're saying. So it's a lot of you know, um, washing terms, I guess they'll say. Like, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Policy, Philosophy, And Long-Term Thinking

SPEAKER_02 39:16

And just going back to the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment, I think, as ever with these phenomena, like a lot of it is driven by good principles. They st they have a they have a something to them that is, you know, that drives people to kind of you know better build building better road and you know, railroad infrastructure, whatever there's there's there's this um almost spiritual, almost you know, mission element to what they're doing. And that then ossifies and then becomes an extractive exercise rather than a kind of creative one. And the origins of the Industrial Revolution in part were very extractive, but also were in part, you know, actually let's let's remove drudgery and or you know, to your point, remove like manual repetitive work, whether it's with horses or you know, so that people can flourish and travel and and be but then you just if you triple down on that thinking, it's no longer you can have too much of a good thing. And there are very few things, even like with I I've been a techno optimist for most of my life, but I'm kind of waking up to decide that actually you can have too much of a good thing, and uh you need to kind of think especially with these big issues, that two opposite things can exist at the same time. So, for example, you know, we are harming nature by virtue of technological expansion and growth and all that sort of thing, but also at the same time, we are unable to build anything, we are unable to kind of build a railway or a road or add a lane to a highway or whatever it is. So, like we're solving neither problem because we're we're we're blocking progress in the view of protecting nature, but we're not protecting nature by blocking progress, and it's just like how do we and you've got these two polarized camps that don't talk to each other and see each other. So it's a bit of a rant, but like how do you how do you kind of think no one wants to think holistically to your original kind of design thing. So it's kind of people like yourself, Rosina, whoever it might be, kind of they're the it's kind of elevating their voices.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

It is, and I think you're seeing that a little bit, like little nuggets popping up. Uh this summer I was at uh EPA Cambridge for their uh Chia annual conference. Chia is their like human-centered AI. I I can't remember how Chia represents, but um the co-founder of it did make a comment about we need to break down the silos of research because he comes from more computer science. They were talking about philosophy. Even I was at the Institute of Philosophy's annual conference at the um over at U of University of London, and a professor from Stanford was in, and even he was saying we need for policy, we need to bring in philosophy, you need to bring down the silos. So having that interdisciplinary approach. So to your point, looking, helping with that more branching out to a holistic perspective, but I think our systems though are not programmed for that, or there's no one willing to sort of let's take a chance on that. When it comes to civic, there's one example that through this conversation has kept popping up when I've been reflecting on what you've said, is in Japan, they have this framing called our design framework called Future Design Japan. And it's based on the seventh generation theory of First Nations. And basically what their framework is, they it's more around different cities in Japan where the the people meet up and they think about our their um citizens right now in 2026, but then they also think about their citizens 60 years down the line in 2080, um, 86. And it's been very successful thinking that way, but it's like little interventions. Like you can't, I don't know if the whole system say, you know, I would just think about the UK government, how we can branch from filling up potholes in Essex to the AI um toolkit that was launched. How can we bridge that? It's all related. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

Hang on, these are all part of the same problem. Um and to your point about ideas and philosophy, you know, it it used the philosopher um uh uh aid to a leader was was a normal thing in history. So Aristotle had sorry, Alexander the Great had Aristotle, every Roman emperor would have a philosopher with them that would help guide them. And now philosophy has kind of been Through its own doing in many ways, and historians, philosophers through their own doing have kind of siloed themselves so much and hyper-specialised in narrower, narrower verticals where they've lost that interdiscipline, even within history or philosophy. Then it's be you're you're then about being technically sounding like technicians, sounding smart rather than what's it all for? How do we progress? Who are we? And so the role of ideas and philosophy gets relegated to something people do in the ivory tower, and the politicians, the decision makers, they they've lost their bridge to the upper level of the value system, or the or the more sorry, the foundational level of the value system that they can work off so that they come out with these policy ideas based on polling data or focus groups or whatever it is. But they don't they don't know when Rachel Reeves or Liz Truss or Kemi or whoever it is comes out with a idea, they don't know what it's based on, where it's come from, what it's what the ideas behind it are, where it has validity. So like a good conservative from someone like Edmund Burke, where you're meant to think about the prior generation, the current generation, and the future generation. Good conservatism is about thinking about the future as well as the past and you know, rooting it in. You know, there are times when traditions and institutions matter, that Chestertonian fence needs to stand up, but there are also times when you need to be a little radical and tear the shit down. And you need to have think both ways at the same time. And that dirt of ideas is a frustration for me because we just that hyper-specialization and lack of interdisciplinary thinking is that is that a fair way of I keep ranting, actually. You're you're inspiring me to rant. No, I appreciate it. I'm like, I'm the same.

Incentives, Metrics, And Real Creativity

SPEAKER_03 45:42

I'm like, oh my god, I have to remember that, I have to remember that. Um no, I think I fully agree with what you're saying, and I think it's it's the react, it's the reactive behavior that is really concerning me when we have these major complexities that are going on because they're interconnected and they you yes, sometimes you might have to put like spot fire um, you know, put little spot, you know, fires out here and there. That's normal, but it's not being addressed the whole situation. It's just being isolated and not thinking about, okay, if we enact this certain policy and we're gonna go this direction, what's gonna be down five years down the line? Who are they gonna vote for because of this? How's that gonna impact? It's almost like when you see little like five-year-olds playing football, and it's like it's like that little following the football and not thinking about the bigger picture.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

I know it's the ball going to be not where it is now.

SPEAKER_03 46:31

Yeah, exactly. Because it's like, oh, there's a ball, we gotta follow that. But I'm like, maybe you could go over there and wait for the pass and be like, so um, but I think it that's it's very frustrating. I remember there's this amazing two things that came out. It's interesting to see with anthropic in the last month or so where they're announcing they do have a chief philosopher, and they've also launched their claw before the Department of War situation last week. They did launch their new um constitution for Claude. I haven't had a chance to read it, but still that it was like, oh, there's a philosopher there. I know like Deep Mind has philosophers on their staff too, working in certain realms of AI research, but it's not to that elevated level where you definitely I I think even design needs to be elevated. Like I know the design council here in the UK has really thought there should be a chief design officer. There are cities who have chief design officers, like Helsinki is probably the first one that had a chief design officer, but we do need that interest, like bringing leveling that up.

SPEAKER_02 47:27

Even in the kind of how do you design a room where important decisions are made? So where are the people sat who know what's going on? How are they looking at each other, how are they interfacing, where do they have to is the room designed for the loudest mouth to kind of dominate, or is it designed for is it set up in a way where everyone can have you know interpret what everyone else is saying? And you know, Parliament was designed in a certain way, and I think it works, you know, for all its flaws, works very well, but yeah, it's it was thought through for the future. And it's sort of the design thinking. It's just you're not incentivized because it's you know, the long term we're all dead, as Kane says.

SPEAKER_03 48:07

No. And I like the framing you said because it's um like you think past generations, the conservatism, um, past and future. That's very that's indigenous knowledge right there. That's what these um cultures have been doing for centuries, the way they frame up their they always think, you know, of their past, thinking of the current, but also thinking of the future. It's like there's that movement of um how can you be a good ancestor, thinking of that long-termism, but still they're you know, it's translating over, but still when it comes to the motion, how much of it is incentives?

SPEAKER_02 48:38

Because I think a lot of people sort of in the tempt, you know, Charlie Munger and the Steam Talab, you know, you you can simplify things. People argue you can simplify things down to show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome. So you've got to have skin in the game as a result. And so, like, you know, the Romans would make architects sleep under the aqueduct they've built or move their family to sleep under the bridges so that if the bridge collapsed, they would you know they had skin in the game to make it actually last and be durable. And with the blob or the deep state or whatever you want to call it, the quangocracy the the the people making the decisions that don't have a stake in those decisions impacting them to the downside, and they only feel they're kind of clipping the coupon of the benefits of being in those positions are very hard to then remove them. So there's a kind of a lack of is is thinking of incentives a design's problem.

SPEAKER_03 49:37

Think so incentives is a design problem?

SPEAKER_02 49:40

Yeah.

Elevating Design In Leadership

SPEAKER_03 49:40

Oh, that's a great question. Um I think it's a part, yeah, that would be a part of it. It's I know there's always this frame is like, what's in it for me? I always get that question, sort of that incentivization. And for me, like how I've translated my life, it's like, how is it for me? It's like designing how you're gonna interact with you know a client, what or even you're trying to get approval from you know the V S VP of Pixar. You know, how can we design it that way? Like you it is a design, it's a part of the design. It's it's not you might not pitch it like, oh, these I'm gonna use this font or this color. It's like, what does it matter to them? It's like, so even um, can I just give an anecdote? Please. Um, there's this amazing designer, you probably have come across him, Ben Terrett. He he's the main force behind UK.gov website. That so he was a part of calling it down from thousands of websites to that one we know. And so many people use it as a amazing case study. And I remember hearing the story where when it first was launched, some MP had an issue with it. So went in, but he realized it was the advisor of the MP that was that was their prerogative, was the the design element. So right away, Ben flipped the switch and realized what the MP would want. He's like, so from A to Z, we have saved this amount of quid. And if we do this, we save this amount of quid. So it's it's trying. I think it's it's that's a design thing, I feel it's like finding the way, even though it's not like physical or visual, it's like designing it. So it is a part of the incentivization is a part of it. And right now, with the way design is not even part of equation. Yes, we have policy labs here and so forth, but I still and even corporations design is still felt as like that afterthought quite often. It's I think if design was a part of the equation, we could So to that anecdote.

SPEAKER_02 51:30

Does our obsession with metrics hinder design thinking?

SPEAKER_03 51:35

Oh, that's oh, I've never heard no one's brought that up before. Um metrics, I feel could be good because even in parallel to that, it's like thinking about ethics and AI. So often people, when we, you know, the big tech, when regulation comes in, they're like, oh my God, no, no, no. Like they fight tooth and nail for it. But in the way I approach it is it helps you be more innovative, I feel like, because it just creates boundaries where it's like, okay, let's think beyond the hairball. Let's think beyond that. And that's how I approach it. Other people will be like, probably no V. Like, I'll have people who will be against that. So I think with metrics, there are hindrances, but it's like how to navigate around the hindrance. It's um, there's I mentioned the hairball. There's this great book out of the US that a former VP, let's say VP level creative at Hallmark, which is the iconic American uh card company created. It's called Orbiting the Giant Hairball. And the hairball is corporate, or we could say anything that's the establishment. And every time they try to change it, so like we're seeing like in Whitehall, even though they might try and make it more efficient and so forth, like a hairball, it's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and more mess. So it's trying to find the way around it to navigate it. So I think it's being that mindset, not just thinking, oh, we have all this um, you know, regulations or these metrics we have to follow, but it's like, how can we be leverage design thinking, be strategic, think how can we get about that and be more innovative?

SPEAKER_02 52:57

Yeah. It's that um challenge, I guess, for creatives or design thinkers within organizations and also with agencies. I think we've probably come across Rory Sutherland a lot, um, who hasn't. And one of his gripes is that you could be an ad agency, for example, and you could think of this phenomenal phenomenal advert or kind of concept or tagline that will create millions of pounds of value for a given company. Like into the into the decades, it will you know be that their that company's uh uh uh identity, and that ad agency will be paid 200 grand a year. Well the whoever thought of that, whoever created that, will never see a penny of that. Of course. Um and they will continue the next year being seen as a cost base that's there to cut or to be replaced by another another ad agency. So you're trying to link the value creation with the value creators as much as possible and kind of you know, redesigning the incentive process so that um you're not just thinking of those metrics, thinking of costs and thinking of design people as just that kind of the colouring in department kind of over over there, whilst the real business is here in terms of you know procurement and all that kind of thing, you know, cutting and creating efficiencies and supply chains or whatever it is. So it's that purple cow thinking. I don't know if you're familiar with that with Seth Godin. Anyway, he talks about like um design has to be in the DNA of the CEO of the product, not a side, not not the kind of packaging. Packaging is what but you know I mean.

SPEAKER_03 54:44

Oh yeah, no, it's the infrastructure. I totally get what you mean.

SPEAKER_02 54:47

Yeah.

Education, Inclusion, And Timing

SPEAKER_03 54:50

I might be might be going off maybe going too far down the path of this, but still, even in saying that I think just to show how integral design is, I was speaking with uh an amazing industrial designer from the US name. Um my god, I just you might have to cut this. Um Patty Moore. Well done. And um she Most people never recall it.

SPEAKER_02 55:14

Once you're trying to recall it, it gets further and further away. So you did very well about it.

SPEAKER_03 55:18

Patty Moore. And she's also she's known for like the first ethnographic pro um research project she did where she dressed up as an 80-some-odd-year-old woman with different personas around multiple cities in the US and provinces and the and Canada to do research on people's reactions to her. And she's just this amazing um force of nature. But she said to me, because since for a while leadership was my one of my threads of research, she said to me, B, we would not have our societal issues if we had design on the commons here in the UK or in the Capitol in the US. And I think that it really, when I mentioned to other people, that's sort of line, it makes a lot of sense. And going back to what Seth Godin is, I think, yes, design, because of the if we go back from the industrial rev Industrial revolution, design came into be to add the flourishes on you know, ceramics and so forth. So there is that, or people are just so used to the iPhone and its aesthetics, you don't realize how integral it is and how beneficial it would be for them to for it to be embedded, not just as an afterthought or a uh bolt-on and in a box at the end. It needs to be in the foundation you see woven in. Um, I was because even too, I because inclusive design is something that I've uh worked into. And I was speaking with a CEO of a, let's say, a tech company here in the UK, and we're talking about inclusive AI, and they understand want to talk more about inclusive design, and they said that they saw the more or less said that they saw the benefit of bringing inclusive design to the pipeline of development of the of the tech. But the what I walked away with was the sentiment was that because of the way things are built out, to have to re-engineer inclusivity into it would be like a cost impact, and it's just not possible. So I think where things that's probably one reason why we don't see design being brought in unless you know it's embedded in the CEO. Like, look at right now, Gap, global CEO, is Richard Dixon. Um he used to be the COO at Mattel, so I got to know him there. And he does have that creative sense. Um, and I think you know, Steve Jobs, of course, had the design had some of that, and also he had Johnny Ive as his partner.

SPEAKER_02 57:23

But so I had on the All In podcast, which people have mixed views on, but is you know, it's very entertaining. Uh, one of the one of the tech pros on that actually said uh Johnny Ive is didn't get the hype. He's not all he's cracked up to be what's it? He was some British bloke who kind of piggybacked off. Uh is that I mean I I I call I can obviously, you know, I have no idea if that's true or not, but is that is that a pretty controversial thing to say?

SPEAKER_03 57:51

Um I haven't I've uh I just know he was just overshadowed by Steve Jobs. Is it by his own you know decision or so forth, or just the dynamics, the power structure in Apple? I think he came in a time when there was like openings to be able to push for design. Um it's all about I feel design is timing, or anything in life is timing, but I think he and of course there's always gonna be naysayers to everything. I feel especially I'm really interested to see what comes out of his partnership with Sam Altman and OpenAI. So I think it design is subjective. It's not neutral, so we're gonna have that opinion. And I think for what he did and what he brought into Apple was great for the time being, like any other design leader, or even like Nick Foster, who was over at Google X, and he's somebody definitely to check out. He's still b he's from Derby, but now in the San Francisco area. But still, he was there for a right time. I think it's um, or even some other major design leaders like Paula Sherr, you're gonna have naysayers, but I think it's it's because it's the subjectivity of the of the practice itself.

SPEAKER_02 58:55

Yeah. So you know, hopefully long term we get a revolution in the education system, which our mutual friend Rosina is working very hard on and doing some exciting things. And you've got things like the Alpha School in America. I don't know if you've come across that, but that's super super interesting. And that will help permeate um you know, into the economy or into the decision-making framework, this kind of kind of more holistic uh thinking rather than this factory worker um uh optimization mindset or extraction mindset, um, which has its place and its importance, but you know, we've over overdone it. But that you know, it might be too late, it might be too far down the road by the time that those people who go into those types of schools are broadened enough enter the workforce and so what you know the the the dreaded magic wand, you know, question, if you had you know one wish to kind of see the change uh happen, whether it's in corporations or in government, what would you beyond think more in terms of designs, what could you do that that would sort of pull the thread of the tapestry, maybe, or what if there is anything?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:16

There's this quote from Anis Nin that I always used when I would hit a point where I'm just sort of going to my next progression where I hit, you know, you hit that ceiling where the no one's gonna give you more keys. I think people are too afraid to embrace it in a way. Um it's more or less saying it's more painful to stay closed as a bud than to blossom. And I feel that way it's like there is the possibility of you know taking that lunge, taking that jump. Like I moved here to the UK with a one-way ticket after I left Adobe, and people in the Adobe office in New York City were like, I would never do that, because it's like you're jumping off a ledge. Uh, I think we it's not designed, of course not designed, but I think it's taking that leap. And I know it's the one thing is there people have mortgages, you know, tuitions and so forth, so they don't have probably the ability to do it. But I think in, you know, little glimmers of doing that. I think looking towards uh even though you might want to do it and say, I don't have a voice in it, you do have a voice in in it, and just look out there who's doing it, because there's like little fires popping up. So my wish is people to realize that they have their own power within them to make the change, even if it's at um, you know, yeah, and that will scale. Yeah, and exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:29

So that takes us neatly onto my traditional closing question that I ask all guests, which is something I call the long bet, bit of fun. Uh, 10-year time horizon to make a prediction of something you think will happen or something you would like to happen, or both. Uh answers such as well peace and greater kindness are to be actively discouraged, if possible. Um but yeah, what what do you you know? I don't want to make it 20 years or 50 years, I want to make it kind of short-term enough for it to be tangible, but not so close that it's sort of meaningless. So, what do you see manifesting in the next 10 years um in the world?

The Long Bet: Power Of Communities

SPEAKER_03 1:02:11

Oh, it's hard to say, but what we're seeing, I I did crowdsource this with some of my friends because I wanted to not just I wanted to have like a nice holistic perspective in a way. Um I and just because communities and connecting are really key for me. And I feel we're seeing like little glimmers or little nuggets of community movements coming up. Um we see what happened with the Green Party up at the by-election in Manchester last week. Um you're even seeing, you know, what's gone on in some other countries, like you know, people from Minneapolis now were nominee for World you know, uh Nobel Peace Prize. I think we're gonna see, because even thinking about this question, tracing back and looking at all different things I've heard and read, I remember during COVID, I was listening online to like everybody was to different types of webinars and so forth. And there is this partner from SY Partners out of New York City, which is uh amazing consultancy around change. And they're noting about the most powerful organizations in the world, which Walmart was more like financially, I think, more powerful than Russia at that time. So, yes, we have governments, but knowing that as an individual, we have a lot more power. That's sort of embedded in me that we have a lot more power. As communities, we have a lot more power. So we're gonna see this movements. I I hope in the next 10 years realizing as let me just pull this up. I loved what my somebody said was a great uh great line. Um the societal issues are are a bit oh wrong one, sorry. Um it, I think it's gonna be coming, I feel it's gonna be coming down to communities. Um and it's looking at you know how communities will take leadership on the action needed to save the planet, changing how they consume, use technology, value the environment, and nurture their culture at the local level, forcing politicians and companies to respond in order to retain power and social license to operate. And that and then of course design would come into it, but I think also too, you know, I was at a book launch for at uh University of London for uh EU uh data book last year. And on the panel, there was this former legal counsel for the FBI in the US. And what he said, and which is sort of like okay, but what he said to make a difference, like with in regards to AI, but you can apply to what we're saying right now. You know, if you concern what's going on with policy with AI and so forth, you have you have power. You have a vote. You have a vote, regardless if you're like, as I was saying in my last answer, an individual person. You have a vote. So you can change the party. Um so I feel there is there is power with, we always say with you know, connection with community and so forth. I think even more so now with the how things are so divisive. And I feel there is a wake, there is a waking up right now. So hopefully in 10 years, things will switch because politicians will see that they can't behave in a certain way, or companies can't carry on that way. Because look at what happened on Friday with the changing of the contract for the um AI between anthropic to open AI. A normal drop in um conversion from open um ChatGPT to Claude is about 9% daily change, maybe. This time it was in 100%.

unknown 1:05:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:26

So I think I think there's gonna be that aspect, and that's where I'm hoping. More community-based, more going, and even to, I know we've seen cycles of going back to the um going from technological to more the um tangible, where like in the mid teens you had tech companies bringing in um more maker labs, so it's more of the hands-on printing rise of um like printing presses and so forth. I think that's in the way where people are looking and seeing coming back. You're hearing more about decolonizing, you're hearing more about indigenizing, or are you looking at the, especially in AI, we're seeing you know, the unbunch. Philosophy from Africa coming in more. So I think they're, you know, this coming back to people, connecting. I think that's I think that's gonna be in 10 years, I think that'll help change. That's where I'm hoping because we cannot be isolated anymore. We're a community, we're so interconnected that what happens, we're seeing even this morning by what's happening with in the Middle East, is impacting us. So that's where I'm hoping.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:23

Well, it's an optimistic answer, which is nice for a change. We generally have sort of 70-30 pessimistic to optimistic. I need to I need to actually check the ratio of we really you know what the map might have a better idea, but the generally the answers sort of us you know definitely not overwhelming, but majority pessimistic to optimists. So that's fantastic, and what really resonates with what you said is you know localism has come up a lot, and maybe it's me self-selecting my guests without me realizing it, but what's the beauty about localism is that it it's um it's quite bipartisan, I guess is the right word, or apolitical. You could believe in free markets and be a Hayekian or an Austrian economist or a classical economist of the Adam Smith school, and you are pretty well grounded in the fact that communities and local organizations should have the power over large corporatist, big government, big company chimeras. Um and the old pre-Marx kind of pre-scientistic socialism also believe that, and the radical liberal tradition also believes that the kind of devolving decision-making power to the local level is how you um a give people meaning because they feel like they've got a stake in in what's going on around them, and b create better outcomes in terms of policy. And we talk about mental health, for example, you know, mental health crisis, depression, anxiety, whatever it is. I mean one of the simplest things a lot of people believe or research is showing is actually if you take an active involvement in your community, you actually get the sense of control. You feel like you're you've got some power over something that's not just you or your fitness or your biohacking or whatever, all these kind of meaningless bros style stuff that's kind of dominating. Um, but you you know, which is why people are going to church again, because you know, they're like, hang on, maybe there's more to more to life than just me, or you know, actually seeing people you wouldn't ordinarily see in your social economic strata that you're in or your class structure that you're in, going to the pub or going to the church or whatever it is, and you meet people you're you know, hire. But so that's all happening, and maybe the technology is enabling the the technological revolution can go either way and maybe hopefully it'll kind of pull us in the direction of you know devolved empowerment, which is good from a free market perspective, but as well as a socialist perspective as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:57

So hopefully that would be too that will happen because I think there is that nostalgic of going back to like more block phones where you don't have all the internet on it or disconnecting going for a 60-day silent retreat. So I think hopefully we'll realize that it's you know we can control what's around us, which is community. And you know, our leaders, what we're doing right now, it is a privilege for them to be to be a leader is a privilege, and you need to uphold it in any way. But yet if it doesn't occur, we we have the faculties to connect and create that change.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:31

V, thank you very much. This has been an absolute whirlwor of many subjects because I'm mentally wiped, which is a good sign. I've had a lot of fun, so really grateful. Thank you for coming on the Meeting People podcast. I hope to see you again soon.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:45

Yes, thank you. It's been a pleasure. I look forward to seeing you again soon, too. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:50

This has been Meeting People. I've been your host, Amulf Handia. This is a podcast produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Loverman.