Peter Turchi takes the art and act of writing as an irresistible analog for the art and the act of living. His work is part of a long tradition of fascination with processes of writers and he is among the masters at relating that process in a way that reaches all domains of society. For anyone who has ever thought about writing - the craft of it, its centrality in the human experience, its analog for life itself - this conversation is for you.

Show Notes:

• How he began writing (04:30)
• Dealing with rejection (12:00)
• Richard Russo writer (18:00)
• Maps of the Imaginations: The Writer as Cartographer (18:30)
• The Power of Maps by Dennis Woods (21:30)
  • Other brilliant books on maps
• Jorge Luis Borges (19:00)
• Origins - Melanie Mitchell (28:30)
• Lisa Feldman Barrett (28:45)
• The Atlas of Cyberspace by Rob Kitchin (29:30)
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte (30:15)
• Origins - Giorgia Lupi (31:20)
• Origins - Matt Russo (31:30)
• MFA Program at Warren Wilson (34:40)
• Productivity-driven culture (38:15)
• Alison Gopnik - Explore/Exploit paradigm (41:30)
• Charles Ritchie artist (45:30)
• E.O. Wilson - “A lifetime can be spent in a Magellanic voyage around the trunk of a single tree” (46:40)
• A Muze and a Maze (46:00)
• The Book of Sand by Borges (51:30)
• Joan Dideon “I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear” 
• Peter's daily routine (53:45)
• Lightning round (58:00):
  • Book: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov 
  • Passion: Music
  • Making heart sing: Sonoran Desert
• Find guest online:
  • http://www.peterturchi.com/
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series  
  • Peter’s playlist

Ethan Zuckerman is a voice that you need to know. He’s a pioneer for the use of media as a tool for social change, for cultivating international development with technology, and for the activation of new media technologies by activists. Ethan is uncommonly insightful about the currents and trends of our society. In this conversation he helps us understand the shape of our public discourse, and relates it to the world of today and tomorrow.

Show Notes:

• Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows - Sonder (05:00)
• Book: Rewire (08:00)
• MIT Media Lab Center for Civic Media (12:00)
  • Nathan Matias (Cornell)
  • Catherine D'Ignazio (MIT)
  • Molly Sauter (University of Maryland)
• The Good Citizen Michael Schudson  (16:00)
• The Social Machine Judith Donath (16:20)
• Rachel Barenplat: the velveteen rabbi (18:40)
• QAnon (22:30)
• Global voices  (28:40)
• Small communities doing digital connection well (29:50)
  • Michael Wood Lewis - Front Porch Forum
  • Esra'a Al Shafei
  • Sara Lomax-Reese - WURD Radio
• Origins episode with Richard Bartlett and Microsolidarity (33:45)
• The slow professor by Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber (35:00)
• Mistrust (37:00)
• Twilight of the elites Chris Hayes (38:30)
• Black lives matter and defund the police (40:30)
• Problem with a zero sum view (44:30)
• The sum of us by Heath McGhee (47:45)
• Lightning round (50:40):
  • Book: The Creation of the Media by Paul Starr
  • Passion: Music and ethnomusicology
  • Heart sing: Traveling (blog) and board games
  • Screwed up: Relationship
    • Joke answer: invented the pop-up ad
• Find guest online:
  • Twitter: @EthanZ
  • https://ethanzuckerman.com/
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series  
  • Ethan’s playlist

We find ourselves in a world that feels incongruent and unfamiliar, changing socially and technologically at paces that expose conventional explanations as inadequate. Climate change, pandemics, political unrest have punctuated this new century and feel like clarion calls for new ways of being and being together. Enter Richard D. Bartlett — someone who has been a pioneer in thinking about these new modes.

Show Notes:

• Apologetics (06:30)
• What is community? (06:50)
• The concept of flourishing (08:15)
• Having a gift/role in the world (12:00)
  • Robin Wall Kimmerer Braiding Sweetgrass "The most important thing that each of us can know is our unique gift and how to use it in the world" 
• Occupy movement (12:00)
  • J.P. Lederach's "Critical Yeast" from The Moral Imagination
• Governance strategies for our time (18:30)
• What it takes to scale community authentically? (25:00)
• Does change need to be orchestrated from a central point? (28:00)
• Complexity (31:00)
• Microsolidarity (31:30)
  • Enspiral
  • 'Crews'
• How to weave social fabric blog post (43:00)
• Morning routine (43:10)
• Adrienne Maree Brown We Will Not Cancel Us (44:00)
• Writing practice (45:00)
• Sendhil Mullainathan Scarcity (49:45)
• Lightning Round (50:30)
  • Books: 
    • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert Pirsig
    • The listening society Hanzi Freinacht
    • Sandtalk Tyson Yunkaporta
    • On Orality and Literacy Walter Ong
  • Tomas Björkman Origins episode
  • Passion: inventing instruments
  • Sonification - Matt Russo Origins episode
  • Heart sing: nonlinear and nonlogical use of language
  • Screwed up: Cheating on a partner, violating the terms of a relationship
• Find guest online:
  • Twitter: @RichDecibels
  • Follow Richard on Medium
  • Richard's website
  • https://www.thehum.org/
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series  
  • Richard’s playlist

Tomas Björkman transcends science, business, philosophy, and social and personal change. Founder of the Ekskäret Foundation and coauthor of The Nordic Secret, Tomas’ story is a guide for anyone thinking about the future of society - a confluence of physics, macroeconomics, and entrepreneurship.

Show Notes: 

• Ekskäret Foundation; Oak Island Foundation (05:45) 
• Origins of his union of scientific sensibility + entrepreneurship (07:00) 
• From academia to business (09:00) 
• Try to understand the world AND try to shape the world (10:00) 
• Taking risks (12:00) 
• We are not transparent to ourselves (14:30) 
• Social entrepreneur (17:20) 
• Complexity (21:30) 
• The Nordic Secret (25:00) 
• Corporate culture (26:20) 
• Building stable lasting democracy (33:00) 
  • Conscious co-creation 
  • Inner maturity  
  • Retreat centers
  • Jim Rutt podcast on the Nordic Secret
  • German philosophical background: Schiller, Goethe, von Humboldt, Herder, Hegel — Bildung
•  Are we facing deep and rapid societal change? (36:00) 
•  Horizontal and vertical development (42:00) 
  • Otto Scharmer - vertical literacy
  • Frederic Laloux Reinvent the Organization
  • Robert Kegan   
• 29k.org (51:00) 
• Jonathan Rowson (52:30) 
  • Book: Spiritualize  
• Personal practices (59:30) 
  • Book: The World We Create
  • Morning routine (01:00:45) 
  • ‘Retreats in Nature' 
  • Guided psychedelic experiences (see Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind)  
• Lightning Round (01:05:00) 
  • Book: Ken Wilbur Integral Psychology
  • Passion: Sailing and Trekking  
  • Heart sing: Discovering fiction (where to start? Marcel Proust, Goethe, Schiller) 
    • Proust Questionnaire  
  • Screwed up: Timing of media initiative 
• Find guest online: 
  • http://www.tomas-bjorkman.com/
  • Emerge
  • Perspectiva
  • 29k.org

Full Show Notes here

Show Notes: 

• Storytelling (03:00) 
• Wonder Collaborative (04:30) 
• Jane Goodall (05:00) 
• Human Nature (CRISPR documentary) 
  • Nobel Prize Winner Jennifer Doudna
• Ron Vale (06:00) 
• "Cell Hell” - Cell Biology and Genetics course at Middlebury 
• iBiology (09:00) 
• The power of words (09:45) 
• “Bringing good people to work with you” (10:30) 
  • How do you build a team? 
• Creating community that cuts across disciplines (11:20) 
  • "Antidisciplinary" 
  • Elliot Kirschner - ‘morphing’ iBiology 
• Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl (16:00) 
• The art of the question (17:45) 
• Conversations in Science with Dan Rather (18:00) 
• Reinventing science film-making (25:30) 
• Stepping outside of academic research (26:00) 
• Patronin protein (27:00) 
• “I belong” moment (30:00) 
• What is CRISPR and what do people not realize about its importance? (32:00) 
• Equality of access to scientific progress (38:00) 
• Tenets of innovating in science communication (40:30) 
• Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, Richard Feynman (44:45) 
• Pandemic routine (45:45) 
• Morning routine (49:00) 
• Lightning round (51:00) 
  • Book: Harry Potter & Lord of the Rings; Creativity Inc (Pixar)
  • Passion: Logos of communication  
  • Heart Sing: Her kids (seeing language and expression develop) 
  • Screwed up: Writing grants 
• Find guest online: 
  • iBiology
  • Wonder Collaborative  
  • Coming soon: Science Communication Lab
  • Twitter: @ssgoodwin
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series   
  • Sarah’s playlist

Show Notes: 

• Small Arcs of Larger Circles (02:00) 
• Objectivity (05:45) 
• Relationships and interdependencies (07:00) 
• Smiling with your whole system (10:00) 
• Flip side of delight and seeing connections (11:00) 
• Language developed from your own frustration (13:30)
  
  
  • Different kinds of teachers 
• Esalen Institute (15:30) 
• Diving more deeply into the arts and an exploration of culture (19:20) 
• Working with different groupings of people (19:40) 
• Describing things nonlinearly (20:30) 
• 'Warm data' (23:50) 
• Mutual learning between generations (27:00) 
• ‘Change is when you throw away the ladder’ (28:00) 
• Willingness to play and be wrong - inadequacy (30:00) 
• New way of thinking and learning - Warm Data Labs (34:30) 
  • Observe the observer 
  • Multiple description 
  • Fluid patterning 
  • Paradox, inconsistency, time 
  • Holism, reductionism
  • Cultural 
  • Tone, texture, aesthetic
    
    
• Bertrand Russell logical typing
• 'Transcontextual aboutness' (47:00) 
• Symmathesy (52:30)
• Morning routine (55:00)
• Elvis Costello - embodying visions for things (58:00)
• Julie Odell How to Do Nothing (01:00:00)
• Andrea Gibson poem Tincture (01:01:50)
• Lightning Round (01:04:00)
  • Book: Alice in Wonderland
  • Passion: The willingness of art and not knowing where it is going
  • Heart sing: New dog, Blake
  • Screwed up: Doing things just in time
• The reason to give is not because of what you will get for it
  • Tend vitality
• Find guest online: 
  • Twitter: @NoraBateson
  • https://batesoninstitute.org/nora-bateson/
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series   
  • Guest’s playlist

Show Notes: 

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (02:00) 
• Rachel Carson’s words (03:30) 
• Scale of things and perspective 
• Pioneers of oceanography: Rossby and Montgomery (07:30) 
• Global conclusions from small data (09:30) 
• World Ocean Circulation Experiment (10:00) 
• Eye-opening expeditions (12:00) 
• All kinds of ways of ’seeing’ (14:00) 
• Evolution of distributing data (15:00) 
• Recording our experiences (17:00) 
• Books (19:45) 
  • Burr by Gore Vidal  
  • Iron Coffins by Herbert Werner 
• Mentors and lessons:  
  • “Had to make mistakes myself to realize what they [were] trying to tell me all along”  
• Thomas Rossby (25:00) 
• Generosity of time and ideas 
• Understanding of how people need to work together (28:00) 
• Working across boundaries 
• Curiosity-driven networks (29:50) 
• NOAA Big Data Project (31:30) 
• Establishing trust in group projects (34:45 and 37:45) 
• The challenges of 2020 (37:50) 
• Open Commons Consortium and Cancer Moonshot (49:20) 
• The why and how of career shifts (52:00) 
• First Street Foundation (54:00) 
  • Changing people’s minds about climate change 
  • More meaningful activities that just providing data 
  • https://floodfactor.com/
  • Making effective data tools 
• Not about prediction, but response (01:02:00) 
• Humanity’s biggest advantage (01:07:00) 
• Quantifying the risk due to and making decisions about climate change (01:12:00) 
• Jenny Odell - art is being the orchestrator of attention (01:13:30) 
  • Giorgia Lupi episode 
  • Aoife Van Linden Tol episode  
• What makes us human (01:14:00) 
• Lightning round (01:15:00) 
  • Book: The Information (James Gleick) 
    • Chaos
  • Passion: family and outdoors together 
  • Heart sing: fire risk 
  • Screwed up: learning to say when he didn’t know something 
• Find guest online: 
  • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/edwardkearns 
  • Twitter: @edward_j_kearns 
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series   
  • Ed’s playlist

Show Notes: 

• NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (05:15) 
• Mentors (07:20) 
• Building and leading teams (13:15) 
• Comfort with uncertainty (15:30) 
• Waleed Abdalati Origins episode (18:30) 
• What drew Nash to JPL (19:00) 
• Trajectories to JPL (20:00) 
• Why you need to read sociology books (22:00) 
• Being a Renaissance Person - curiosity across human endeavors (22:40) 
• T-shaped people (23:00) 
• Challenging yourself (29:45) 
• The change in mentality that comes with public service (32:50) 
• NASA JPL Team X (35:15) 
  • What is Team X?
• van Allen, von Braun, and Pickering famous picture (38:00) 
• What networked computers did for JPL (40:30) 
• Alfred’s contribution to Team X efficiency - paper (42:15) 
• Three types of fun (44:10) 
• Thinking about how you provide information (46:15) 
  • Related: see discussion of human-centered design in Rachel Young Origins episode  
• "Murphy was an optimist” (48:00) 
• Melanie Mitchell Origins episode (56:10) 
• Writing (56:45) 
  • Helping Writers Become Authors podcast
  • Children of Tendu podcast and parallels to proposal writing 
  • Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way  
  • Why you need to learn about design 
  • “All endeavors of humanity are communicative endeavors" 
  • “Vision without action is a daydream, action without vision is a nightmare" 
• “You can never be too clear” (01:05:30) 
• Thinking in questions (01:06:00) 
  • “The people who really make it in life are not those who get the right answer, but the ones that ask the right question”  
  • Right question is the quantum leap to the right answer 
• Lightning round (01:08:00): 
  • Book: Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman 
  • Passion: Gift of gab  
  • Heart sing: Broadest possible definition of product development (The Invincible Company book)  
  • Screwed up: Leading people during Planck Mission project 
• Find guest online: 
  • Twitter @aeniii
  • NASA JPL  
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series   
  • Alfred’s playlist

Show Notes: 

• Spiritual background of his childhood (05:30) 
• Discipline to do good work (06:10) 
• Mentor: Albert-László Barabási (09:30) 
  • How do you demand excellence? 
• Musing on the competitive mentality (11:45) 
• Relevance of science is a very social dimension (12:30) 
• What he tells his students (13:30) 
• Adapting as an individual (14:45) 
• MIT Media Lab Collective Learning Group (17:00) 
• The Last Dance documentary (18:30) 
• The Playbook documentary series (18:40) 
• Complexity (21:00) 
  • Fractals, iterating functions, and chaos
  • Lorenz
  • Feigenbaum
• Book: Why information grows (26:45) 
  • What is information?  
• Book: How humans judge machines (30:20) 
  • Why has knowledge not made it everywhere?  
• TED Talk: “A bold idea to replace politicians” (34:20) 
  • Rethinking democracy and technology 
• Trusting technologies (36:45) 
• Counterfactuals (37:00) 
• What is intelligence? (38:15) 
• Failure that set up for later success (41:15) 
• Reorienting yourself (42:30) 
• Morning routine (45:30) 
• Acting on first emotion (48:00) 
  • Do not lose the emotional energy that comes with creativity - it is fleeting and love is going to fade, so be romantic while love is there 
• Lightning Round (40:15) 
  • Books: Blank Slate (Steven Pinker), the Righteous Mind (Jonathan Haidt), and the Secret of Our Success (Joseph Henrich) 
  • Passion: Writing 
    • Janna Levin (astrophysicist and writer): A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines
  • Heart Sing: Review of economic complexity 
  • Screwed up: Ability to accept things he has screwed up 
• Find guest online: 
  • Website
  • Twitter: @cesifoti
  • https://www.judgingmachines.com/
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series   

Show Notes: 

• Santa Fe Institute (2:00) 
• Alexander Hamilton biography by Ron Chernow (4:30) 
• The Universe and Dr. Einstein by Lincoln Barnett (5:45) 
• Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter (7:30) 
  • Martin Gardner Scientific American “Mathematical Games" (8:30) 
• Douglas Hofstadter (10:00) 
• John Holland (14:30) 
  • Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems
• Copycat cognitive architecture (17:00) 
  • Description  
  • Fantastic discussion
• What sustains her in moments of doubt (21:00) 
• Article about analogies related to COVID (25:00) 
• Overcoming the sense of obligation to follow curiosity (27:30) 
• Strategy for saying ’no’ (29:45) 
• Morning routine (31:00) 
• Pomodoro Method for time management (33:00) 
• Complexity and complex systems (39:00) 
  • Must read: Chaos by James Gleick  
• R-naught parameter and COVID (44:00) 
• Becoming comfortable with uncertainty (45:00) 
  • Think about the world in terms of information 
• Think more complexly - think in relationships instead of entities (46:45) 
  • Network science
• SFI - Transmission Series (49:15) 
• What is missing from our models of intelligence? (50:00) 
• Writing process (54:00) 
• Anne Lamott Bird by Bird (57:45) 
• Lightning round (58:30) 
  • Book: The Recursive Universe  
    • John Conway’s Game of Life  
  • Passion: outdoors 
  • Heart sing: analogy and abstraction beyond human intelligence 
  • Screwed up: Early life with with physics 
• Find Melanie online 
  • https://melaniemitchell.me/
  • Twitter: @MelMitchell1 
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Melanie’s list