Freedom Matters

Henry Shapiro is co-founder at Reclaim.ai, an intelligent calendar assistant and time management platform used by over 13,000 companies worldwide. In this conversation we talk about some of the practical ways in which time constrains us, and how to manage those constraints.

We discuss:

Prior to founding Reclaim, Henry was VP and GM of Product Management at New Relic, where he led development of observability solutions for tens of thousands of customers.

Find out more: Reclaim | Smart Scheduling for Busy Teams

Freedom Matters Host and Producer: Georgie Powell https://www.sentientdigitalconsulting.com/

Music and audio production: Toccare https://spoti.fi/3bN4eqO

This week, we welcome Randima Fernando. Randy works at the intersection of technology, mindfulness and social impact, helping to find ethical solutions to hard problems. Here's a co-founder of Center for Humane Technology (CHT), a nonprofit whose mission is to align technology with humanity's best interests. The Center for Humane Technology was featured in the Emmy winning film, The Social Dilemma, which has been seen by over a hundred million people globally.

This episode is the first in our new series on the tools that we use, where we discuss, how technology mediates our lived experiences.

In this wide ranging conversation, we delve into some of the systemic issues of the technology industry today, which are now shaping the way that we live. We discuss how business incentives, not human interests, govern design, how no tools are created neutral and why we all, users and designers alike, need to understand what thriving means to us so that we can live these values, eyes wide open, in the tools that we create and use.

Randy was previously the founding Executive Director at Mindful Schools, a nonprofit that has taught mindfulness to millions of kids and over 50,000 educators worldwide. Before that, Randy led many award-winning projects and authored 3 books on 3D graphics over seven years at NVIDIA, where he was also inaugural board member of the NVIDIA Foundation. Randy also serves on the board of Spirit Rock Meditation Center.

CHT offers several helpful resources:

Their free online course, Foundations of Humane Technology, helps product teams create technology that treats attention and intention as sacred, protects well-being, and builds our collective capacity to address humanity’s most urgent challenges. (https://www.humanetech.com/course) 

Their podcast, Your Undivided Attention, has over 14 million downloads, and explores the incredible power that technology has over our lives — and how we can use it to catalyze a humane future. (https://www.humanetech.com/podcast)

Their free Youth Toolkit helps youth ages 13-25, as well as their parents and teachers, navigate—and push to change—a broken social media environment. (https://www.humanetech.com/youth)

Freedom Matters Host and Producer: Georgie Powell https://www.sentientdigitalconsulting.com/

Music and audio production: Toccare https://spoti.fi/3bN4eqO

This week on Freedom Matters we are taking a break from recording, and sharing with you instead an episode from one of our favourite podcasts, Digital Habit Lab from Mind Over Tech.

Hosted by Menka Sanghvi, this podcast welcomes guests from different walks of life to observe how we use tech; reflect on how it sometimes uses us; and experiment on ways to make sure it is actually helping us to do what we most value in life.

In this episode, Menka interviews Tiu de Haan, a ritual designer, creative facilitator, idea doula and ‘serendipiter’. She curates and creates experiences designed to shift your perspective to see the wonder in the world, helping people to birth their creative ideas and design their own unique path filled with moments of meaning.

They discuss the question: Why is it so hard to be intentional in our digital activity? In exploring this question, Menka and Tiu talk about how easily we get into routines (repeated behaviours) that we may even become addicted to, and how rituals can help shift this. A ritual creates a pause in our routine activity, elevating a moment into something bigger and more meaningful. Tiu describes ritual as a “container for emotion, reflection, transition, and sometimes celebration” - a subject she has talked about in more depth in her TED Talk.

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Freedom Matters Host and Producer: Georgie Powell https://www.sentientdigitalconsulting.com/

Freedom Matters music and audio production: Toccare https://spoti.fi/3bN4eqO

This week, we speak with Ingrid, a designer and author whose groundbreaking work reveals the hidden influence of our surroundings on our emotions and wellbeing. As a former design director at IDEO, author of Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness, and the founder of the website The Aesthetics of Joy, she empowers people to find more joy in life and work through design. Her immensely popular TED talk “Where Joy Hides and How to Find It” has been viewed more than 17 million times.

I really enjoyed this conversation with Ingrid, where we get to understand:

Ingrid has been featured as an expert on design and joy by outlets such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Wired, Real Simple, The Atlantic, the Today Show, HGTV Magazine, and Fast Company. She has over fifteen years of experience in design and branding, having led design programs for Target, Condé Nast, Eileen Fisher, American Express, Kate Spade, Diageo, Pepsico, and the US government, among others. She was a founding faculty member in the Products of Design program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Her design work has been exhibited at imm cologne in Germany.

Lee holds a Master’s in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and a Bachelor’s in English and Creative Writing from Princeton University. She loves pancakes, polka dots, and rainbow sprinkles, and has an extensive repertoire of happy dances for any occasion.

Read more: The Aesthetics of Joy by Ingrid Fetell Lee https://aestheticsofjoy.com/

Host and Producer: Georgie Powell https://www.sentientdigitalconsulting.com/

Music and audio production: Toccare https://spoti.fi/3bN4eqO

James Hamilton Hibbard is a Northern California-based writer and former professional cyclist who studied philosophy at the PhD-level.

His philosophical memoir, THE ART OF CYCLING: Philosophy, Meaning, and a Life on Two Wheels (Quercus/ Hachette Australia), explores questions of embodiment and meaning in our increasingly detached and virtual society, and was shortlisted for The Sunday Times 2022 British Sports Book of the Year, Cycling.

In this conversation we discuss:

A former UCI professional road cyclist with the Shaklee and HealthNet teams, and member of the United States National Team, James has written extensively on the sport of cycling for outlets including velonews.com and cyclingnews.com and has been selected for writing residencies and received grants from Tin House and PEN America.

James is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz and worked on his Ph.D in philosophy at DePaul University.

You can find out more about James at: jameshamiltonhibbard.com

To order the book: https://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/titles/james-hibbard/the-art-of-cycling/9781529410273/

Host and Producer: Georgie Powell https://www.sentientdigitalconsulting.com/

Music and audio production: Toccare https://spoti.fi/3bN4eqO

The Freedom Matters Team is taking a short break between seasons, and we thought it was the perfect opportunity to share an episode from the Solo Collective Podcast, hosted by friend of Freedom and former podcast guest, Rebecca Seal.

In this episode she interviews Caroline Williams, author of ‘Move! The New Science of Body over Mind’ - an amazing book about how movement impacts the way our brains work from creativity to mental health.

We wanted to share this episode, because as the summer break approaches, we all have the perfect opportunity to move more, and reset the level of activity that we have in our every day lives.

We hope you enjoy this lively conversation between Caroline and Rebecca.

Listen to the original conversation: https://shows.acast.com/the-solo-collective/episodes/caroline-williams

Enjoy all episodes from the Solo Collective: https://shows.acast.com/the-solo-collective

Find out more about Rebecca:https://www.rebeccaseal.co.uk/

Find out more about Caroline:https://www.carolinewilliams.net/

In this episode, we welcome Sharath Jeevan OBE, one of the world’s leading experts on intrinsic motivation, direction and potential. He is the Executive Chairman of Intrinsic Labs and author of groundbreaking smart thinking book Intrinsic.

In this episode we discuss why we are experiencing a crisis of motivation, where external motivators like money and status fall down, the value of intrinsic motivators, autonomy, mastery and purpose, and how we all have the opportunity to reset the direction of our lives for the better.

This episode is part of our mini-series on 'Self' where we explore how our technology impacts some of the most important aspects of being human. In this series we speak with Krista Tippett, creator of On Being, Susie Alegre, human rights lawyer and author of Freedom to Think, L M Sarcasas, renowned commentator on technology & society, Casey Swartz, author of Attention, A Love Story, Jillian Horton, MD, author of We Are All Perfectly Fine and Sharath Jeevan OBE, motivation expert and author of Intrinsic.

To find out more about Sharath: https://www.intrinsic-labs.com/

To read Intrinsic: https://www.amazon.com/Intrinsic-re-ignite-inner-drive-rewards-based-ebook/dp/B08B4HP1F6

Host and Producer: Georgie Powell https://www.sentientdigitalconsulting.com/

Music and audio production: Toccare https://spoti.fi/3bN4eqO

Casey Schwartz is a writer in New York City, where she lives with her husband and son. She is the author of Attention, a Love Story (Pantheon, 2020) and In the Mind Fields (Pantheon, 2015). She also contributes regularly to the New York Times. Her most recent book came from an article she wrote for the New York Times Magazine about spending a decade addicted to Adderall.

In this episode, we discuss her journey with the drug Adderall and when after years of trying to quit it, she re-entered the world eyes wide open to face a new era where technology was also playing havoc with our attention. We discuss some of the great philosophers and how they perceive attention, and we reflect on her own acceptance that attention can only ever be imperfect.

More of her work can be found on her website: www.caseyschwartz.com

Host and Producer: Georgie Powell https://www.sentientdigitalconsulting.com/

Music and audio production: Toccare https://spoti.fi/3bN4eqO

This week, we are in conversation with Jillian Horton. Jillian is an award-winning medical educator, writer, musician and podcaster. She completed a residency and a fellowship in internal medicine at the University of Toronto and has held the post of Associate Dean and Associate Chair of that department. For sixteen years, she cared for thousands of patients in an inner-city hospital. During that time, she had three sons and mentored hundreds of students. She now leads the development of new programs related to physician wellness and won the 2020 AFMC–Gold Humanism Award.

In this episode we reflect on themes from her book, We are All Perfectly Fine, and discuss:

This episode is part of our mini-series on 'Self' where we explore how our technology impacts some of the most important aspects of being human. Episodes so far in the series include Krista Tippett, creator of On Being, Susie Alegre, human rights lawyer and author of Freedom to Think, and L M Sarcasas, renowned commentator on technology & society. Upcoming episodes are with Casey Swartz, author of Attention, A Love Story, and Sharath Jeevan OBE, motivation expert and author of Intrinsic. 

Our goal: to help all our listeners to think more critically about the role of technology in our lives, and how it shapes who we are.

To read We Are All Perfectly Fine: https://www.harpercollins.ca/author/cr-195536/jillian-horton/

Host and Producer: Georgie Powell https://www.sentientdigitalconsulting.com/

Music and audio production: Toccare https://spoti.fi/3bN4eqO

This week we welcome Michael Sacasas, author of The Convivial Society, a newsletter about technology and society. Michael is the associate director of the Christian Study Center of Gainesville and has written for The New Atlantis, The New Inquiry, Comment Magazine, and Real Life Magazine. He is also the author of a forthcoming book 41 Questions: Technology and the Moral Life (Avid Reader Press).

In this thought provoking episode we invite all our listeners to reconsider the place of technology in their own lives. We discuss:

If you enjoyed our previous conversations with Oliver Burkeman, Nicholas Carr and Krista Tippett, then this episode is for you.

This episode is part of our series on "Self", where we explore how our technology impacts some of the most important aspects of being human. Recent episodes include Krista Tippett, creator on On Being, Susie Alegre, human rights lawyer and author of 'Freedom to Think' and upcoming episdoes include Jillian Horton MD, and author of 'We are All Perfectly Fine', Casey Swartz, author of "Attention, A Love Story" and Sharath Jeevan OBE, motivation expert and author of "Intrinsic". Our goal: to help all our listeners to think more critically about the role of technology in our lives, and how it shapes who we are.

More from Michael: The Convivial Society https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/

Host and Producer: Georgie Powell https://www.sentientdigitalconsulting.com/

Music and audio production: Toccare https://spoti.fi/3bN4eqO