Part 1 of the Feral Festive Special: the prawn. Yes, really.

This festive run goes rogue - nature-inspired, not biomimicry - a deliberately Feral detour for December's chaos. We're diving into the prawn's soft-shell phase: that blink-and-you-miss-it moment where they ditch their old shell, stretch like hell, and grow before anyone notices. Chaotic. Unprotected. Maximum transformation.

Tell me that's not peak December energy.

If you're rolling into the end of the year feeling overcooked, under-armoured, or weirdly molten inside, this episode will make you laugh, wince, and feel slightly better without trying.

Happy holidays!

Send Pia a note

Follow Feral for new episodes every fortnight.

Instagram / Facebook / YouTube : @feralbydesignpod

feralbydesign.com

Created and hosted by Pia Williams
Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

Ever taken a course, nailed the theory… and then fallen apart the moment it gets real? Same. And it turns out the fix lives in the Kalahari.

In this episode, Pia heads into meerkat country to uncover a quietly brilliant system for learning new skills that actually stick under pressure - not just in your head, but in your bones. No hacks. No feel-good fluff. Just nature-tested design principles for building capability in the real world, without the chaos or the panic.

From small “reality bites” to why purpose matters more than motivation, this is a surprisingly human look at why we freeze, why we bail, and how to take one small real step that changes everything.

If you’ve ever been stuck in theory mode, over-preparing, under-doing, or circling something that matters - this one’s for you.

Send Pia a note

Follow Feral for new episodes every fortnight.

Instagram / Facebook / YouTube : @feralbydesignpod

feralbydesign.com

Created and hosted by Pia Williams
Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

Ever felt that tiny stab of guilt when you toss a takeaway coffee cup into the bin, even when you’re trying to do the right thing?

Four minutes of usefulness. Centuries of consequence.

We’ve engineered one of the most over-engineered disposable objects on the planet, and then asked people to solve it at the bin.

This episode follows that tension underwater, to the mussel, a creature that holds on in chaos through a repeatable cycle: use, release, renew. Mussel glue works underwater, using biological adhesion that lets mussels attach securely in turbulent conditions.

Through biomimicry project work, Pia began exploring what that pattern might look like applied to coffee cups. Not disposable. Not forever. But something in between: a retiring cup, designed to age, release, and work with how humans actually behave.

Not a smarter material. A smarter cycle.

Because we keep asking how long something should last. Nature asks how well it can leave.

Nature owns the patent. We get to copy it.

Biology: Mussels attach using temporary byssal threads that allow them to hold fast in turbulent conditions, release when needed, and continuously renew their attachment.
Principle: Systems can be designed to cycle through phases of use, release, and renewal rather than fixed permanence or disposability.
Application: Designing a “retiring cup” that transitions through a defined lifecycle, aligning material behaviour with real human use patterns rather than relying on disposal alone.

Send Pia a note

Follow Feral for new episodes every fortnight.

Instagram / Facebook / YouTube : @feralbydesignpod

feralbydesign.com

Created and hosted by Pia Williams
Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

Ever been swooped by a magpie? Turns out, you weren’t being attacked — you were being communicated with. And you probably missed the whole conversation. What can magpies teach us about handling conflict before tension turns into a blow-up?

Magpies avoid real fighting through communication — using graduated conflict signals to regulate tension and maintain social balance. They’ve mastered something we humans rarely do: tiered cues, pattern-based memory, and conflict used as maintenance rather than meltdown.

In this episode, Pia uses biomimicry to explore handling conflict: 

- why every argument today trains a pattern for tomorrow; 

- how to spot early signals before small frictions become full-scale blow-ups; 

- her framing of “memory as mentor, not menace,” and how it creates a faster route back to calm.

Because maybe handling conflict well doesn't mean eliminating it. Maybe peace isn’t the absence of conflict, it’s just conflict done right.

Send Pia a note

Follow Feral for new episodes every fortnight.

Instagram / Facebook / YouTube : @feralbydesignpod

feralbydesign.com

Created and hosted by Pia Williams
Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

Hooked: How Burrs Inspired Velcro -  and Why Curiosity Is The Real Innovation.

Ever spent an hour on your kitchen floor pulling burrs out of your dog’s fur while questioning your life choices?

Those annoying little hitchhikers accidentally sparked one of the most famous biomimicry stories in product design history - the invention of Velcro.

In this episode, Pia unpicks the legend: a Swiss engineer, a hunting trip, and a microscope moment that turned frustration into a global, nature-inspired design breakthrough. It's one of those classic biomimcry examples where the solution is beautifully simple in hindsight. Two tiny words did it all, hook and loop.

But the most useful biomimicry examples aren’t just origin stories.  From space suits to school shoes, Velcro solved one problem brilliantly, and left another wide open. And that’s the part worth rethinking.

It’s funny, a bit sticky, and surprisingly deep. Because sometimes the best ideas start with the stuff that drives you mad, you just have to look closely enough to see what’s actually going on.

If this quick trip to the moon and back was worth it, share it with someone who’d enjoy the ride.

Send Pia a note

Follow Feral for new episodes every fortnight.

Instagram / Facebook / YouTube : @feralbydesignpod

feralbydesign.com

Created and hosted by Pia Williams
Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

Ever felt like you’re the bottleneck, the one brain everything has to run through until the whole thing grinds to a halt?

In the middle of a chaotic innovation project in India, Pia found herself locked in a basement toilet with no reception, cut off from the team, the decisions, and the work itself.

And just like that, everything stalled.

This episode sits inside that moment, when one point of control becomes the point of failure, and asks what octopus intelligence can teach us about doing things differently.

Using biomimicry, Pia explores how octopuses use distributed intelligence across their bodies. Two thirds of their neurons sit in their arms, allowing them to sense, decide and act without everything flowing through a single brain.

That octopus intelligence inspired the Octopus Method - a biomimicry approach Pia developed and uses in her own work to redesign how teams sense, make decisions and adapt in real time.

Not to hand over control. Not to disappear from the system.

But to rethink where intelligence actually needs to sit.

Then leave the rest essentially as-is, but change the Biology/Principle section slightly:

Biology: Octopus intelligence is distributed throughout the nervous system, with around two thirds of an octopus's neurons in its arms, enabling local sensing and action.
Principle: Distribute intelligence to where information is generated to increase responsiveness and reduce bottlenecks.
Application: The Octopus Method uses decentralised “lenses” to enable teams to sense, make decisions and adapt in parallel without relying on a single coordinating brain.

S1E04

Send Pia a note

Follow Feral for new episodes every fortnight.

Instagram / Facebook / YouTube : @feralbydesignpod

feralbydesign.com

Created and hosted by Pia Williams
Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

When you were a kid, did you ever get jabbed with a needle so big it felt like a medieval weapon? I did — the kind that left welts and trauma in equal measure.

Turns out, the real master of painless penetration was buzzing around my head the whole time.

This episode of Feral by Design dives into what mosquitoes know about pain-free design — and how their six-part mouthpiece has inspired biomimicry researchers and product designers re-thinking needles, medicine, and even human ingenuity.

It’s a classic biomimicry story: brute force vs. elegance, pain vs. precision — and why the most annoying insect on earth might just deserve a tiny nod of respect before you swat it.

Liked this one? Share it with the friend who always looks away during blood tests. Tell them there’s a mosquito they should thank for their next jab.

Send Pia a note

Follow Feral for new episodes every fortnight.

Instagram / Facebook / YouTube : @feralbydesignpod

feralbydesign.com

Created and hosted by Pia Williams
Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

Tips for Dam Good Boundaries

You know you’ve hit rock bottom when you’re jealous of a rodent’s boundary skills.

This week on Feral by Design, Pia Williams uses biomimicry and a rather talented beaver to tackle a classic self improvement problem: how to build boundaries that actually work.

Most advice tells us to make boundaries stronger. Beavers do something more interesting. They build layered, flexible systems that bend, leak, adapt and get repaired before small failures become big ones.

Discover:

• Why most human boundaries snap under pressure (hint: we make them too rigid)
• How beavers build layered, flexible systems that bend instead of break
• What "patch your leaks early" means for emotional energy
• Why the best boundaries let the right things flow through

It's self improvement through biomimicry: nature-inspired strategies for personal boundaries, with a splash of self-deprecation wrapped in one 'dam' good episode.

If this episode made you rethink your own boundaries, send it to someone who might also enjoy the food for thought. 

Send Pia a note

Follow Feral for new episodes every fortnight.

Instagram / Facebook / YouTube : @feralbydesignpod

feralbydesign.com

Created and hosted by Pia Williams
Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

Nature owns the patent. We get to copy it.

Not another true-crime podcast… unless you count Grand Theft Bio!  In this 6-minute intro, Pia shares why she’s obsessed with stealing nature’s best strategies, and what happens when human insight meets biology.

Feral by Design brings biomimicry, human-centred design and innovation together, to look at familiar human problems differently. 

Expect short episodes that blend humour, biology and human messiness, showing how creatures from beavers to octopuses tackle challenges we face every day. Sometimes that leads to a better product or process. Sometimes it changes how we think about behaviour, decisions or systems. 

Either way, the starting point is the same: what might we see differently if we looked at how nature has already solved for it?

If you like your insights a little irreverent, a little wild, and rooted in real research, this pod is made for you.

Send Pia a note

Follow Feral for new episodes every fortnight.

Instagram / Facebook / YouTube : @feralbydesignpod

feralbydesign.com

Created and hosted by Pia Williams
Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.

Feral by Design: Stealing nature's smartest strategies to solve human challenges.

I'm Pia, an innovation strategist and biomimicry practitioner. Every fortnight, we explore how 3.8 billion years of evolution can help us tackle modern problems—from team communication and conflict to setting better boundaries.

Short episodes grounded in science and storytelling. Wild enough to make you laugh; rigorous enough to be true.

🌿 Follow wherever you get your podcasts and join the hunt.

Send Pia a note

Follow Feral for new episodes every fortnight.

Instagram / Facebook / YouTube : @feralbydesignpod

feralbydesign.com

Created and hosted by Pia Williams
Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.