DangerMouth: The Innovation Station

It's rare for complex global systems to sit in stable equilibrium. The world just ain't like that. But guard this secret closely, because plenty of neoclassical economists build their models on exactly that assumption, along with that of the perfectly average consumer (who is definitely not called Mikey).

In this episode of DangerMouth: Darrell, Shana and Mikey talk with author/philosopher George Cooper, whose book Money, Blood and Revolution (now Fixing Economics) borrows Thomas Kuhn's ideas on scientific revolutions to explain why he thinks economics is still a pseudoscience.

Paradoxically the old economic theories seem to be much more stable than the real economy.

Special guest Blandine Anderson joins the trusty trio to talk around her new book The Wood & The Clay. The truth of imperfection, childhoods lost and found and presisted, day dreams, vivid dreams and accidental eyes are all revealed under a canopy of metaphorical trees.

Buy the book here: South West Makers

BOOK SIGNING & MEET BLANDINE 

Saturday 24 October 2026, 10.30am - 12.30pm

Riverside Mill, Bovey Tracey, Devon, TQ13 9AF

Fasten your seatbelts, this conversation moves through a great many concepts without pause for breath: -

https://thecynefin.co/team/dave-snowden/

The cover illustration is taken from this book:

Some people play golf when they retire. Some people make it their business to inspire a generation. Kalyan Banerjee is firmly in the latter category.

Enjoy along with us a conversation with someone whose enthusiam and creativity has only matured with age.

Mix mythology, ecology, craftology, farmology, with a forest, a field and the sea and you are approaching the foothills of Blandines fractal mindscape. A complex weave of wonder that she manifests in a very material way.

Worth a listen, if only for the jerboa.

John Bicheno has dedicated his career to the subtle Art of Lean, nurturing a complex and nuanced philosophy that is habitually eroded when passed through the reductionist, monetizing filters that drive Western consultancy.

Under his care that seed grew from a car centric creed to encompass wider horizons.

In this episode he looks back on his legacy with a wry smile.

His legacy lives on in the 6th edition of The Lean Toolbox: A Handbook for Lean Transformation.

Bio Prof John Bicheno, Emeritus Professor

In this episode of Danger Mouth, Darrell Mann, Mike Conroy, and Shana Finnegan dive into the polarizing spectrum of AI—from the hype-fueled "snake oil" promises to the potential for total human economic redundancy.

The trio explores why AI currently excels at simple sorting but stumbles over the "Three C’s": Complexity, Counterintuition, and Causality. Using a botched train itinerary as a starting point, they discuss why the "human in the loop" remains vital for navigating systems that AI cannot yet model.

The conversation takes a deep turn into "Toxic Capitalism," examining how companies at the top of their S-curves often externalize harm to vulnerable customers to maintain growth. They argue that the future isn't about AI replacing us, but about a "bifurcation" of society: those who use AI to avoid thinking, and those who collaborate with it to solve deep systemic contradictions and usher in a new "Age of Meaning".

In this episode of Danger Mouth, hosts Darrell Mann, Mike Conroy, and Shana Finnegan sit down with Dr. Gopichand (Gopi) Katragadda, a man who might just be one of the last true polymaths on the planet. From his high-octane career as the CTO of the Tata Group and Managing Director at GE’s Jack Welch Research Center to his current ventures in AI and theater, Gopi shares a masterclass on balancing the rigor of engineering with the fluidity of the arts.

A delicious appetiser not to be missed! 

This episode of Danger Mouth centres on a conversation with Olly Hawes, a portfolio artist, actor and writer whose work probes the limits of human connection and the points where society strains. It moves easily between the physical and the reflective, from Ollie’s account of being accidentally stabbed on stage during a production of Julius Caesar to a broader examination of craft, activism and the place of AI in artistic practice.

At the core is a simple rule he lives by and teaches his children: look after yourself and look after other people. From that starting point the discussion opens out.

Ollie describes the turning point that followed a near fatal incident in Edinburgh, an event that reshaped his life, led to marriage and fixed his commitment to storytelling. The group explores his instinct for working across opposites, arguing that tension rather than coherence often produces the most interesting art and the most effective solutions in business.

They also examine the encroachment of AI into creative work. Ollie reflects on using a large language model to help secure Arts Council funding, while questioning what may be lost if technology begins to erode the presence and immediacy that give live performance its force.

Running through it all is the practical reality of making a life in the arts. Money is uncertain, purpose is not. Ollie speaks plainly about the pressure to remain creatively alive, not just for himself but for the people who come after.

It is a conversation that holds together injury and humour, principle and improvisation. At its centre is a working artist who has come close to the edge and decided to keep going, with intent.

This is an episode of the Danger Mouth podcast, hosted by Darrell Mann, Mike Conroy, and Shauna, featuring Swedish guest Per Lindstedt, co-author of The Value Model.

The Value Model defines value as a ratio — satisfaction of customer needs divided by use of customer resources. Per breaks this into 6 strategic levers: three to increase satisfaction (solve an undiscovered problem, improve performance, enhance feelings/experience) and three to reduce resource consumption (time, money, effort). The iPhone is used throughout as the prime example of a product with a sky-high ratio — and the App Store as an accidental masterstroke that Jobs initially resisted.

The conversation broadens into organisational innovation and S-curves: why companies near the peak of one S-curve become complacent, why very few (perhaps 10% in Europe) survive the jump to the next, and whether it's sometimes healthier to simply let companies die. Nokia's inability to abandon its Symbian OS is the cautionary tale; a Chinese manufacturer pivoting from bread-makers to LEDs in eight weeks is the counter-example.

The final third focuses on Per's AI tool (built using Lovable), which takes messy requirement specifications and sorts them into five information domains — customers, needs, functions, solutions, and processes — flagging what's actually a customer need versus a disguised technical solution. This is positioned as a scalable version of the consultancy work Per spent decades doing manually.