Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghan

Show Notes: 

• Privilege brings with it a sense of responsibility (4:00) 
• Empowering others - "nurturing, supporting, and uplifting" (5:30) 
  • “Talent in unexpected locations" 
• Levels of impact: individual and systems (7:45) 
• Carrying people with you (8:20) 
• POSSE Foundation (8:40) 
• Compensatory and Distributive Justice (9:00) 
• What she tells her students (10:45) 
• Most proud of integrating race and gender into economics programs (11:00) 
  • What we are missing in the discourses of race and gender 
• Difficult to reshape pre-conceived notions unless you allow everyone to explore (13:00) 
• Interconnectedness of society and systems level thinking (14:00) 
  • A must read - Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows 
  • Becoming more comfortable with complexity and uncertainty - Santa Fe Institute guidance during COVID-19
• Cecilia’s message during COVID-19 (15:00) 
• The Top 100 from 100&Change Respond to COVID-19 (16:30) 
• “We don’t have the luxury of backing away from challenges to focus on a single one” (18:30) 
• MacArthur Fellows Program (19:00) 
  • Characteristics of fellows (24:30) 
  • Howard Gardner “fruitful asynchrony” and his book Creating Minds (26:00) 
• Role of poetry in Cecilia’s life (27:50) 
  • Her published poem “Apathy" 
• The Poetry Foundation (29:15) 
• The On Being Project (30:00) 
• Finding hope and despair right now (31:00) 
• Second-line show for healthcare workers (32:15) 
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Cecilia’s list

Show Notes: 

• Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) (1:40) 
• The contagious nature of imprisonment paper (1:50) 
• Value of community colleges (6:30) 
• Professor Dan Balaguy at Sierra College (7:20) 
• Professor Richard Stong at Rice University - Combinatorics (8:30)  
• Coming to an understanding of one’s career and curiosity (10:20)  
• How can we make the public more data literate (i.e., numeracy)? (12:15) 
  • Maintain a healthy skepticism of numbers - think more critically (see Seth Godin’s thoughts)  
• Data can encode discrimination and bias (16:10) 
  • Predictive policing algorithms - Kristian’s paper
  • Be reflective about where patterns in data come from 
• Importance of uncertainty (20:00) 
• HRDAG ‘casualty estimations’ (21:10) 
  • Humanize the data (22:00) 
• Describing how systematic things can be (23:50) 
• Taking chances (e.g., Tim Ferriss guidance on cold emailing) (24:50) 
• Where do you get your confidence and energy (26:50) 
• Maintaining beginner’s mindset - blur disciplinary lines (28:20) 
• “The most beautiful experience we have is the mysterious” -Einstein (29:20) 
• How do you grapple with the outrage of injustice? 
• Those with data skills need to get involved with criminal justice reform (36:20) 
  • Volunteer with public defenders - make sure you are a low barrier to people if you volunteer 
  • Talk with the people closest to the problem - human-centered approach
  • Find ways that your unique skills can help 
• How do you maintain your energy? (39:50) 
• Morning routine (40:30) 
• Lightning Round (43:10) 
  • Book: Harry Potter 
  • Passion: sowing costumes 
  • What is making your heart sing now? Her daughter 
  • Screwed up: partial differential equations 
• Further reading and getting involved in criminal justice reform 
  • Pod Save the People podcast (38:30) 
  • https://theappeal.org/ news source (39:00) 
  • Ear Hustle podcast 
  • Organizations leading the way  
• Were to find Kristian online: 
  • Twitter: @KLdivergence (https://twitter.com/KLdivergence) 
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Kristian’s list

Show Notes: 

• Grew up knowing possibility and that people create things (8:30) 
• Being around art, there was always another reality that could be made (9:00) 
• How do you sit with tension? (10:00) 
  • The thing that allows me to maintain balance in the present - keep moving at the pace that feels most fulfilling and productive in the moment 
  • Find comfort in the tension  
• Poetry is complex enough to hold the tension of human experience - pair with Brené Brown's thoughts (12:15) 
• Love of poetry (12:30)  
  • "Where the sidewalk ends" and "Falling up” - Shel Silverstein 
  • Music - Nas (14:00) 
  • A love for how people are able to communicate narratives 
• Pedagogy (20:15) 
• "The way that you move is going to get you to where you need to get” (22:15) 
• Community empowerment (24:30) 
  • Create. Inspire. Support. 
  • What is it about the physical environment that is preventing people from being about to leave?  
• Community is everything (30:00) 
• What do you tell people to help them embrace the moment? (31:00) 
  • Everything is designed and the built environment (31:00) 
• Concept of scale (space and time) (32:15) 
• The Bayou St. John, New Orleans (35:00) 
• Human-level scale and humanizing things (35:30) 
  • Everything is interconnected 
  • Pair the discussion with David Krakauer thoughts on complexity
• Regaining lost focus (42:00) 
  • Taking long breaths and breathing practice 
  • “The thing that I value most is breathing” (42:30) 
• Perspective on pandemics and COVID-19 (45:00) 
• Lightning round (48:15) 
  • Book: "Where the sidewalk ends" and "Falling up” - Shel Silverstein 
  • Passion outside his work: proximity to social work 
  • Making his heart sing: new series of drawings called Ancestors
  • Changed his mind about lately: “how much I need" 
    • “The fastest way to have more is to need less" 
• Human beings not human doers (55:30) 
• Find José online: 
  • Instagram
  • Twitter @jccotto 
  • https://jccotto.com/
  • Ancestors series of drawings 
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Jose’s list

Show Notes: 

• Cultivate Wit (03:00) 
• New Glarus Spotted Cow Beer (03:40) 
• Lambeau Field - Green Bay, Wisconsin (04:00) 
• Pausing in your activities to recognize what it is you are actually drawing joy from (07:20) 
• Surprising ways to learn about entrepreneurship (11:00) 
• Common experience and connection (20:30) 
• The Onion (21:00) 
• Creative process at The Onion (25:30) 
• TED Talk: What I learned from writing jokes for The Onion (27:40) 
• Creative collaboration (29:30) 
• Two tracks of the ’notion’ of creativity: within your own head and within a collective group (29:50) 
• Detachment as a key component of creativity (32:30) 
• Daniel Kahneman and cognitive biases (33:00) 
• Ideas are not precious (36:30) 
• Dealing with rejection (36:50) 
• TV show with Baratunde Thurston called Funded (37:30) 
• Take the risk to do your best work - like Stephen Pressfield’s The War of Art (40:30) 
• IDEO (42:50) 
• Ideas in service of cultural growth and people (44:30) 
• Time at Google working on the AI personal assistant (45:10) 
• The whole world is designed (47:40) 
• We are shaping our ideas of the world through every interaction (48:00) 
• Note-taking (50:00) 
  • Field Notes notebooks
  • I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now 
  • The magic of the blank page 
• Lightning round (01:01:00): 
  • Book: George Saunders The Tenth of December
• Find Brian online 
  • Website
  • Twitter: @BJanosch 
  • Instagram
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Brian’s list

Show Notes: 

• Institute for Learning Innovation (02:20) 
• Those that have given language and expression to Martin in his life (15:00) 
  • Art - Die Brücke impressionists
  • Art - Mid-century modernism
  • Poetry and philosophy - Schopenhauer
• Poetry vs. Science as forms for expression (17:00) 
• Rainer Maria Rilke (18:00) 
  • Questions are a mighty form of words 
  • Wellsprings of creativity and growth 
• Waldorf schools (21:00) 
• Ecological physiology (24:45) 
• Chaos: Making a new science by James Gleick (30:00) 
• Field trips in environmental education by Martin Storksdieck (32:00) 
• How to create experiences (34:00) 
  • Interconnect cognitive processes with emotional or affective processes 
• Center for Research on Lifelong STEM Learning (35:45) 
• An academic immigrant story - to rebuild roots and reorient in new environment (37:00) 
• Markov chain (38:00) 
• Sustaining energy (41:00) 
• Hesitancy to asking questions often comes from the belief that your questions are worth asking (44:45) 
• Be a collector of questions (47:40) 
  • The question is the purpose 
• National Academy of Sciences - How people learn (48:00) 
• National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator (49:00) 
  • Martin’s project
  • My project
• Lightning round (56:00) 
  • Book: Homo Faber by Max Frisch 
  • Passion outside of his field: social justice 
  • Making his heart sing: Seeing his son grow up 
  • Screwed up: relationship 
• Find Martin online 
  • Twitter: @Storksdieck
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook  
  • Oregon State University
  • Email
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Martin’s list

Show Notes: 

• Breakthrough Collaborative (3:10) 
• Education as a vehicle for exploring the edges of social justice (6:00) 
• Passion to give people what they need to be successful (8:20) 
• Teach for America (10:00) 
• Qualities of a good mentor: patience, clarity, guide through learning moments (12:10) 
• Reasons for loving learning (13:20) 
• How Rachel sustains her energy (14:50) 
• How to decide what to say no to (17:20) 
  • Leave yourself room to discover 
• IDEO (18:15) 
• IDEO CEO Sandy Speicher and Disequilibrium (23:15) 
  • Constructivist theory of learning
• Question your own assumptions and create new constructs (25:50) 
• Daniel Kahneman Thinking Fast and Slow (26:20) 
• Human-centered design (26:45) 
  • Push your imagination to think about what is possible 
  • IDEO-U
• Designing for an entire city (33:30) 
  • Bendable.com
• Drucker Institute (33:30) 
• Culture of learning (34:50) 
• Creative reaction lab (38:10) 
  • TED talk: Designing for a more equitable world | Antionette Carroll  (38:15) 
• Creative Confidence by Tom & David Kelley (40:45) 
• The tenets of design (41:00) 
  • Our attempt to apply design approaches in outer space (47:00) 
• Words create worlds (50:00) 
• Embracing all forms of communication (53:00) 
• Lightning Round (54:40) 
  • Book: Feminism is for Everybody by Bell Hooks 
  • Passion: Swimming 
  • What is making Rachel’s heart sing: Digital literacy 
• National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator (1:00:30) 
  • My project - the Convergence Hub for the Exploration of Space Science
• The ‘era of the generalist’ (01:01:50) 
• Find Rachel online: 
  • Twitter @msrachelyoung 
  • LinkedIn
  • http://msrachelyoung.com/
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Rachel’s list

Show Notes: 

• Weather in outer space (1:30) 
• Explosive learning through taking advantage of breadth and depth of knowledge (2:20) 
• NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (2:40) 
• Mentors: 
  • Ari Viljanen (5:20) 
  • Risto Pirjola (5:30) 
  • Olaf Amm (5:40) 
  • Hannu Koskinen (9:50) 
• Geomagnetically induced currents and effect of space weather on the power grid (5:40) 
• Approach to mentorship (6:00) 
• Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) (10:00) 
• Building diverse networks (21:30) 
• Organic vs. deliberate networking (22:40) 
• Importance of personal network (24:15) 
• Martial arts practice and its impact on his life (26:00) 
  • Krav Maga
  • The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin (27:30) 
  • Tai Chi and meditation (30:20) 
  • Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (31:30) 
• Change with added responsibility - let others succeed (37:00) 
• Complex systems (37:20) 
• Holly Gilbert and Marlo Maddux (38:00) 
• Diversity, inclusion, and plurality of thought (40:00) 
• Cultivating a growth mindset (41:15) 
• Lightning round (44:00): 
  • Book: 
    • Classical Electrodynamics textbook by John David Jackson 
    • The Sun Kings by Stuart Clark 
  • Passion: 
    • Martial arts  
    • Music (Finland Geodynamo band)  
      • Check out previous episode of Origins - Matt Russo  
  • Making his heart sing: 
    • Fixing new house and building a new environment 
• Find Antti online:  
  • NASA  
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Antti’s list

Show Notes: 

• Christine Atha (10:30) 
• “Dropping bombs on the landscape” (13:30)  
• Land art (14:30)  
• Michael Heizer “Displaced Replaced Mass” (16:10)  
• Is this art? (19:00)  
• Take out the human completely, take out what it means to anybody and try to imagine this thing existing on its own (21:00)  
• Imagine what it means to be the object, to be the force (21:20)  
• How chaos and order is an analogy for science and art (23:30)  
• Why the human condition responds to explosives in amazing way (24:30)  
• Explosions in nature - coronal mass ejections (26:20)  
• European Space Agency Artist in Residency (27:00)  
• Bernard Foing (29:35)  
• Ars Electronica (30:20)  
• Antidisciplinary (31:15)  
  • Museum as a space for anything that doesn’t fit anywhere else (33:50)  
• Mondrian painting (32:05)  
  • Picture of sun absorption/emission line spectrum (32:40)  
• How to become interdisciplinary? (34:30)  
• Step into the unknown (35:40)  
• Culture and art in the space age (36:45)  
• International Astronautical Congress (37:20)  
• Who is space for? (37:40)  
• Voyage 2 Golden Record (39:00)  
• Key to the Cosmos (39:40)  
• What are you begging people to wonder? (41:30)
  •  Miha Türsic
• Frank Wright The Overview Effect (43:20)  
• Journey of an electron in space and STARSTORM (47:50)  
• John McPhee and his power with creative nonfiction
• Lightning round (53:20):  
  • Book: Meetings with Remarkable Trees
  • Passion: Shaolin Kung Fu 
• Aoife online:   
  • Website
  • Brilliant work, including pictures of Star Storm
  • Twitter
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series   
  • Aoife’s List

Show Notes: 

• Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute (2:11) 
• IEEE Computer Society 2019 W. Wallace McDowell Award (3:30) 
• “Trying to do things in the wrong way” and having an internal compass to know when to redirect oneself (4:45) 
• Responding to how you are being seen (5:30) 
• Contradiction a deeply personal experience and growing comfortable with ambiguity (7:30) 
• Reasoning through uncertainty (7:45) 
• Breaking down physical barriers to change culture (9:40) 
• Reason through that which cannot be reasoned with (16:10)
  
  
• Put yourself in situations that are uncomfortable to you (16:50) 
• Purpose-driven approach (18:30) 
  • Think 'not black and white outcomes, but aspirational goals' (20:10) 
• Precondition to learning is humility (22:10) 
• Approach to role of teacher (25:10) 
• Data Science is a field emerging out of practice (27:00)
  
  
• What has changed with capability (28:00) 
• What is Data Science? (31:15)
  
  
  • It is about the community, not the practice  
• Community of Purposes (31:20) 
• Three axes of classifying a subject (36:00) 
  • Knowledge, skills, and (now) awareness
• Simon Sinek TED talk (39:40) 
• Proposition and counter proposition (40:30) 
• David Hume and what is goodness (40:40) 
• Understanding complex physical systems (44:00) 
• Unknowables and knowledge domains (45:00) 
• Inapplicability of black and white thinking in complex world (47:20) 
• Lighting Round (47:50) 
  • Books:  
    • Kahlil Gibran The Prophet
    • Bill Bryson A short history of nearly everything 
    • James Gleick Chaos
  • Passion: 
    • Studying history  
    • Running 
      • Haruki Murakami What I talk about when I talk about running (51:25) 
  • What is making your heart sing right now? 
    • The nature of time 
  • Something screwed up (55:00) 
    • Sleep 
• Find Rajesh online:  
  • HDSI
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Rajesh’ playlist

Show Notes: 

• The SETI Institute (1:15 and 6:10) 
• FDL program (NASA Frontier Development Lab) (4:30 and 36:00) 
• Jesuit thinking (5:00) 
• Brother Guy J. Consolmagno (6:20) 
• Take advantage of the breadth of knowledge available to you and cut across the boundaries of knowledge (7:30) 
• Early mentor, Ken Nill, and how he altered Bill’s trajectory (12:00) 
• Value of having both technical and managerial skills (14:10) 
• Create a ‘powerful combination of skills’ (14:20) 
• First mentor: high school physics teacher (17:15) 
• Signs to look for in mentor (17:40) 
• Being curiosity-driven (19:15) 
• LaserTron (22:20) 
• Bell Labs (23:00) 
• Have an understanding of all sides of the industry/business/problem (26:15) 
• Skills from industry most valuable to science (36:30) 
  • Organization of science 
    • Six areas of research that define SETI’s direction (38:40) 
    • SETI Science Council (39:00) 
  • Evaluating the research and targeting future research (43:00) 
• Drake equation (38:00) 
• Antidisciplinary and Joi Ito (40:15) 
• Science of Team Science (40:35) 
• Moneyball approach to science (41:25) 
• Bill’s practices (45:45) 
  • Be open minded (48:40) 
  • Do your homework to have meaningful conversations (49:10) 
• Taiji and Daoist philosophy (47:30) 
• Lightning Round (50:00) 
  • Books 
    • Childhood’s End
    • Three body problem
    • Snow Crash  
    • Galileo’s Daughter
  • What is making your heart sign? 
  • Carl Sagan’s ’star people'
    • SETI outreach
      • Workshop "Decoding alien intelligence” (58:00) 
        • Jesuit casuistry
    • Biggest mistakes: what NOT to do, not following instincts, and letting problems go on longer than they should have (1:00:00) 
• Find Bill online:  
  • SETI
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Bill’s playlist