Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghan
Origins are conversations with thought-leaders across an eclectic mix of disciplines (science, engineering, art, and design), crafted specifically for the category-defying society that we live in. We explore the thoughts, passions, and stories that defined these pioneers’ fascinating trajectories, arriving at the origins of the pivotal moments across their lives. Draw inspiration for your own trajectory from the intellectual and spiritual electricity of these eclectic conversations.
Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghan
Alex McDowell - A master class in worldbuilding and designing holistic spaces
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Season 5
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Episode 5
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Alex McDowell is a worldbuilder. He builds future realities to envision worlds that don't yet exist. By working across disciplines to imagine the future, his worlds inform and inspire stories and open eyes to new possibilities.
Origins Podcast website
Show Notes:
- Quaker meeting (09:40)
- Empowerment
- The skills of listening and gathering (11:40)
- The politics of your social experience (12:10)
- Worldbuilding
- "Storytelling Shapes the Future"
- Every world is a holistic system at multiple scales
- Minority Report (22:00)
- Triangle of narrative design (27:00)
- Relationship to complex systems (27:30)
- Counterfactuals to explore a world (27:50)
- Cultivating interdisciplinary collaboration in teams (28:00)
- Scenius (29:00)
- Building enough of a framework to know what we don't know (31:00)
- Teaching (40:00)
- The literacies of worldbuilding
- Work collaboratively in the space of uncertainty
- Experimental Design company (44:30)
- Great 'Askers' (49:00)
- Balancing curiosity and boredom (51:00)
- MIT Media Lab (52:00)
- Scott Fisher (52:30)
- Falling forward (55:00)
- Lightning round (55:15)
- Book: Neuromancer by William Gibson
- Passion: Guitar
- Heart sing: New language for molecular biology
- Screwed up: Graphic design for record labels
- Find Alex online:
- Twitter: @worldbldg
- Website: https://alexmcdowell.design/
- 'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series