Hypercommunication

From founding BossBabe at 21 and coining the term “millennial pink” to a career in tech philosophy spanning companies like Snap and LVMH... Alex Wolf has spent years at the intersection of community, culture, and technology.

In this episode, we discuss all things tech: her four qualifiers of human-friendly technology, tech's effect on everyday life, why it’s important to design responsibly, fashion and tech, why a fully analog life isn’t realistic for many people (with some tips for your balance).

Alex's mini-documentary "Attention For Sale" can be viewed here.

You can follow Alex on Instagram and on LinkedIn, and visit her website here.

New York-based technology and culture writer Tiffany Ng and I sit down to speak about all things ⁠Cyber Celibate⁠, Neo-Luddism, whimsy, 'rawdogging vacation', chaining her phone to a wall for a week, ⁠HTML energy⁠, and her MIT Technology Review article "⁠How to break free of Spotify's algorithm⁠".

⁠Cyber Celibate⁠

Tiffany's ⁠Instagram⁠ (@tffanyng) and ⁠TikTok⁠ (@cybercelibate)

Some of Tiffany's other interesting articles...

• WIRED: ⁠The Best Programming Language for the End of the World ⁠
• MIT Technology Review: ⁠Recapturing Early-Internet Whimsy with HTML⁠
• MIT Technology Review: ⁠Meet the man building a starter kit for civilization⁠
• It's Nice That: ⁠Work better this year (or don't, it's your life)

To kick off the fourth season of Progression to Analog, Andrew Yang and I discuss his new company Noble Mobile - a mobile carrier which pays you to use your phone less.

We also discuss:

• What motivated Yang to encourage people to spend less time on their phones
• Online polarization
• Parents’ screen addiction affecting their children 
• Three types of screen time
• AI’s impact on the workforce, especially repetitive cognitive work
• The idea of a human-centered economy
• What can we do as a society to prepare for the next 10, 20, 30, 40+ years?
• Forward Party
• Lesson that Yang learned from 2020 run that he applies to Noble Mobile
• Yang’s changing motivations over time 
• Tips for a better relationship with your smartphone
• The Situationist dérive

...and more!

Andrew and I first met at his first ⁠Offline Party in September - check out the site for upcoming events. New episodes of Progression to Analog Mondays!

I speak with Dr. Kevin J. Jones, Associate Professor of Management and AI Strategist at Indiana University Columbus, about the competencies we should be developing the AI age. Kevin and I met at World Summit AI in Amsterdam in October 2024, while speaking on the panel "Beyond the hype: Navigating the AI ecosystem to ensure best value for business" together.

We cover the importance of discernment in the AI age, the "age of accelerated transformation", the impact of AI on the undergraduate experience, the potential negative impact of AI on creativity, systems thinking, design thinking, and more.

After I posted this viral TikTok about Tin Can (landlines for kids), I reached out to founder Chet Kittleson to learn more about the company. In this episode, we chat all things Tin Can, landlines, and what changes parents have reported in their children as a result of landline use.

In this mini episode, I detail my four principles of sociotechnical design. Sociotechnical design works to improve the relationship between people and technology, prioritizing joint optimization. I speak about psychogeography (the effect of place on our emotions and behavior), non-places, hypercommunication, and more.

I developed these four principles over the last nine years, and presented them at the 7th Nordic Science and Technology Studies conference at Stockholm University in June (the week before my wedding!). These principles can be used to improve organizations, as well as everyday life more generally.

Whipsmart Media and Get Started With AI founder Jonathan McCrea and I speak about the future of AI, how to close the gap in AI knowledge between big businesses and small enterprises, technology and communication, AI transformation and facilitated brainstorns, situated learning, tools like Stanford's STORM, ethical implications of AI, tips on making your way through the overwhelming digital world, and more.

Jonathan is also the host of Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea, a weekly science podcast.

Steve Rathje, Incoming Assistant Professor of Human Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University, joins us to kick off season three of Progression to Analog! You may know Steve from his TikTok @stevepsychology (1M+ followers). We discuss the psychology of virality and why info spreads offline and online, the paradox of virality and why people share negative content online even though they claim to not want negative content, smartphone bans, cross-cultural social media trends, and more.

I came across Swipe: Being Online 24/7 at McNally Jackson in lower Manhattan a few months ago and was drawn by the unique nature of the book. Swipe presents questions about the smartphone that the users may not have asked themselves, with a unique collection of images, phrases, and stories. The book is divided into five sections: SURVIVAL, SENSE OF SELF, HABITS, RESOURCES, and EXISTENTIAL CRISIS.

In this episode of Progression to Analog, I interview Amsterdam-based Ieva Jakusa, one of the authors of Swipe. Swipe was co-authored with Mieke Gerritzen, with Next Nature. We speak about the book, smartphone habits, and the smartphone's influence on everyday life.

More about Ieva: Ieva Jakusa is an Amsterdam-based Latvian artist, researcher and and graphic designer, a graduate of Design Academy Eindhoven, and currently completing her MA at the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, with a focus on research-driven artistic practices. Her work has been supported by Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Stimuleringsfonds, and the Latvian State Culture Capital Foundation. She is the author of SWIPE. Your World in the Pocket (BIS Publishers) and I Grew Up in the Blockhouse (Zuzeum) have collaborated with institutions such as Next Nature and Hamburg University City Science Lab. Her work has been exhibited at the Nationaal Archief, Van Abbemuseum, Kim Contemporary Art Centre, and Milan Design Week.

"I think we have a listening problem" -Stephanie from NYC (name changed)

I interview six people, explore expert opinions (and share my own) re: why it can be tough to have difficult conversations today.