IDEO Futures

We have all kinds of guests to kick off the first episode of the new year! Gordon Jones talks with Diego about his new role as the Founding Dean of the College of Innovation and Design at Boise State University. Then, Colin Raney joins us for an epic round of VDTBOM.

What happens when you take your own path and stay true to yourself? Good things happen. Managing director + co-founder of OATV and the creative mind behind Indie.vc, Bryce Roberts joins us for the last episode of 2015. Joe, Diego and Piper also take a quick look back at 2015.

Musician, artist, feminist and Harvard Business School graduate Kiran Gandhi (a.k.a. Madame Gandhi) joins Joe to discuss everything from the future of music to how business design helps us frame difficult cultural conversations to her own creative process. Find out more about Kiran and her latest projects on her website, www.kirangandhi.com.

Music on this episode thanks to Kiran, as well: https://soundcloud.com/madamegandhi

IDEO Designers Meija Jacobs and Shoshana Berger join us to talk about women and entrepreneurship. They hosted a lunch at TED Women this year and asked, "How might we create the conditions for confidence along the entrepreneurial journey?" As for VDTBOM? We discuss Stanford CS183c, product market fit, Bryce Roberts' XOXO talk and more. Also, we have listener mail this week! Have a question for us? Send us an email [email protected] or a tweet @ideofutures.

Patrick Adams, managing director at Secret Weapon Marketing, joins Diego to talk about the unique process behind their brilliant campaigns (notably Jack in the Box and the Happy Honda Dealer), the journey from accounting to advertising, Instagram, and more. AND, of course, a good dose of Venture Design That Blew Our Minds.

In episode 22, Joe and Diego tell us about a mind blowing morning at the Interval at Long Now, and then jump into an update from Girls Driving for a Difference. Diego chatted with Rachel and Natalya while they were (literally) on the road in North Carolina. They are in the running for a SXSWedu panel and if you think they are as inspiring and awesome as we do, you can vote for them here: http://ideo.to/y74CUi

Want to keep in touch? Visit our website: ideofutur.es, follow us on Twitter, @ideofutures, send us a tweet or send us an email at [email protected].

It was a true honor to have Andreas Antonopoulos speak to our design entrepreneurs as part of our Bits + Blocks Lab, and we took some time with him afterward to go even deeper into the world of Bitcoin and the blockchain. You got a teaser on episode 21 and here on episode 21.5 you'll hear the interview in full. Andreas wrote the book on Bitcoin, and we heartily recommend adding it to your library. It's a keeper.

By the way, can we mention how much we love skeuomorphism as a design topic?

You can find Andreas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/aantonop

And find his book, Mastering Bitcoin, here: https://www.bitcoinbook.info/

A lot has happened since we last met during Episode No. 20! The Bits + Blocks Lab at Harvard had its finale at the end of July, IDEO U shipped its second course, and we've been working on a lot of soon-to-be-announced Futures things, too. Plus, during one of our July visits to Boston, the last dregs of 2015 Winter snow officially melted. Closure is a wonderful thing, no?

21! It's such an evocative number. If visions of casinos and gambling are floating through your head right now, keep on going with it. This podcast — as with all 20 of those which came before it — is such a big gamble on so many fronts for both you the listener, and for us, the podders: will we ever find the "Perfect 10" VDTBOM? Will an interview guest finally walk out on us after one too many Bitcoin-related questions? Will Joe ever not wear shorts? Should we publish a book about the Bitcoin Diet? Might our pod sound quality ever approach that of NPR?

Actually, on that last front, in celebration of our XXI milestone, with this episode we mark the debut of our super phat new microphone arrangement. Enhanced for your listening pleasure. We think you'll agree that it's a big step forward over our last ten pods, certainly over our first ten. Who knows, maybe Ice Cube will get wind of our sound quality and want to join us for an episode or two? We're game.

Speaking of the wearing of short pants, Episode 21 is also a celebration of Bartholomew Jojo Simpson, also know as "Bart". But, you ask, "what's the connection between Bart and Bitcoin?". Listen and ye shall be enlightened.

Someone with a much more self-evident tie to Bitcoin is Andreas M. Antonopoulos, who joins us for an interview here in Episode 21. It was a true honor to have Andreas speak to our design entrepreneurs as part of our Bits + Blocks Lab, and we took some time with him afterward to go even deeper into the world of Bitcoin and the blockchain. We'll be posting our full interview with Andreas in a separate podcast, so in this one you'll hear some highlights along with commentary from Bart, we mean, Joe. Andreas wrote the book on Bitcoin, and we heartily recommend adding it to your library. It's a keeper.

By the way, can we mention how much we love skeuomorphism as a design topic?

But wait, Bitcoin lovers, there's more! At the risk of morphing into the "Today in Bitcoin" podcast (if we haven't already), Pod 21 also features another installation of our "Bits + Blocks Byte" series. Super interesting stuff coming out of Cambridge (Our Fair City), Massachusetts, as always.

To round out our score to 21, let's talk Foo Fighters. We're lucky to count among our colleagues Ian Schon. By day he's an ingenious engineer working out of IDEO Boston. By night he's a meticulous designer of inventive horology. His father is Dr. Lew C. Schon, who happens to hang out with the Foo Fighters. Was there ever a better ode to creative confidence than this (https://youtu.be/mmbSka35F7I)? Dr. Schon, you are indeed a total badass.

We have an action packed episode 20 (!!!!) for you this week, chock full of goodness. It’s officially summer, which means the Bits + Blocks Lab is in full swing at the Harvard Innovation Lab. We’ll introduce you to two of our student design entrepreneurs, Eric + Shuya, in a new segment we’re calling the Bits + Blocks Bite. We’ll continue to share stories over the next few months, attempting to bottle up a little of the excitement and energy happening there. If you’d like to read more about the Lab and our exploration into bitcoin + blockchain, visit our Humans + Bits + Blocks publication on Medium (https://medium.com/humanizing-bitcoin-blockchain).

Our guest this week is our dear friend, IDEO alum and all-around awesome person, Colin Raney. Colin is currently the global marketing lead at Formlabs, doing groundbreaking work in the 3D printing space. Colin and Diego chat about everything from World of Warcraft to 3D printed instruments to how and why to stay inspired everyday. If you’d like to see the 3D printed film Colin mentions, you can find it here: www.chasemefilm.com.

And what about VDTBOM, you ask? We’re living in a digital world and our Venture Design That Blew Our Mind reflects that this week. First up, the massive one article coding issue of Bloomberg Businessweek (http://www.bloomberg.com/company/announcements/bloomberg-businessweek-releases-code-issue-special-multi-platform-package-demystifying-code/). Joe rolls that into a conversation about this recipe list on IFTTT (https://ifttt.com/recipes/collections/161-recipes-for-your-car?utm_avenue=june).

You might also notice that Diego sounds a lot like Piper in this episode. Oh, wait, that IS Piper! But don’t fret. Diego will be back in time for Episode 21. We promise.

Want to keep in touch? Follow us on Twitter, @ideofutures, send us a tweet or send us an email at [email protected].

You can also sign up for our King Ship newsletter at www.ideofutur.es.

As always, the IDEO Futures podcast is available on iTunes. Please subscribe here: http://ideo.is/1arKzKT

We have a lot of things on our minds, but as is ever the case, the Dude abides.

This week Piper (our Chief-of-Staff + Editorial Director + Marketing Lead) joined us for an edition of Venture Design that Blows Our Mind (VDTBOM) that might change the way you see things. Along the way we talked about robots and that music you can only hear in the woods.

All the rest this week is questions and more questions:

How about "Uber for Robots"? Why not, indeed? We're sure someone out there is already working on it. Let us know if you are. In the meantime, don't pick a fight with a robot... ask Joe why.

What's the significance of the number string 123456789? It's not obvious to you, it will be after a few minutes of listening to us discuss number theory. We're also interested in another number: $123,456,789,101,112. Please call us if you know how to make that one happen.

Have you ever bought anything with Bitcoin? We discuss that topic with some lack of depth, as well as where this entire Bitcoin + blockchain thing might be going. I (Diego) am not adept at catching baseballs, so that was a chance to talk about Joe's recent article on sports and block chain. WATCH OUT - DUCK!

Want to keep in touch? Follow us on Twitter, @ideofutures, send us a tweet or send us an email at [email protected]. We read every one of them.

You can also sign up for our King Ship newsletter at www.ideofutur.es.

As always, the IDEO Futures podcast is available on iTunes. if you want to forever lower the IQ of your smart phone, please subscribe here.

In the parlance of our times, thank you for listening, dudes!

#kingship #dontgetreadygetstarted #peace