Solid Gold Podcasts #BeHeard

Solid Gold Podcasts #BeHeard

By Solid Gold Podcasts #BeHeard
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Solid Gold Podcasts #BeHeard episodes

  • Rethinking Higher Education from the Inside Out: Art Markman On How to Make Universities Not Suck
    What happens when a cognitive scientist and writer, who has spent more than three decades inside universities, decides to help change higher education from a different vantage point?

    This week on "Messy", Daniel Atlin speaks with Art Markman, a former senior academic leader at the University of Texas at Austin and now Chief Academic Officer at Minerva Project. It is the first of two linked conversations about rethinking higher education, with Minerva founder Ben Nelson joining Daniel next week.

    Art brings the perspective of someone who knows both how people learn and how universities work. He reflects on the personal and professional changes behind his move to Minerva, and on a challenging realization: being an engaging professor does not necessarily mean creating an effective learning experience.

    Together, Daniel and Art explore why students are so often left to connect the pieces of their education themselves, why grades tell us less about learning than we might assume, and how a more intentional curriculum can help students apply what they learn in unfamiliar situations. Art also offers a practical example of AI supporting skill development through negotiation practice and individual feedback.

    Running through the conversation is a leadership question familiar well beyond universities: how do you help knowledgeable, independent people see the need for change and participate in making it happen?

    Art and Ben have arrived at Minerva through different paths. Art brings decades of experience working within an established institution; Ben brings an entrepreneur’s determination to rethink university education from first principles. Their conversations offer complementary perspectives on a shared ambition: helping higher education prepare students for a world that will keep changing.

    Key takeaways from this episode:
    - Engaging teaching does not guarantee learning. Art reflects on the difference between being an entertaining professor and designing experiences that help students develop lasting capabilities.
    - Grades offer an incomplete picture. Universities collect what Art calls “learning adjacent data,” while often knowing much less about what students have actually learned.
    - Students need help connecting the pieces. An intentional curriculum makes clear how skills develop across courses, rather than leaving students to discover those connections themselves.
    - Learning becomes powerful when it travels. Education should help students recognize when and how to apply their knowledge and skills in unfamiliar situations.
    - AI can create opportunities for practice and feedback. Art’s negotiation example shows how carefully designed tools could support students at different levels.
    - Institutional change requires faculty participation. Building a shared understanding of the need for change, alongside manageable steps forward, can help turn resistance into engagement.
    - Communication strengthens leadership. Explaining complex ideas to different audiences can help leaders understand the systems behind the problems they face.

    If you like this episode, please like it, write a review, and share it! Connect with Art Markman on LinkedIN · Art Markman and Bob Duke · The Minerva Project · Website · Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn
    39 min
  • S08 E09 Joanne Hichens
    Joanne Hichens is the award-winning editor and driving force behind the Short Sharp Story Awards. She is also the author of multiple novels, as well as the memoir DEATH AND THE AFTER PARTIES which has been hailed as an outstanding meditation on grief.

    Joanne joins Fiona and Gail to talk about what she looks for in a short story submission and the importance of a strong, authentic voice in narrative. She tells us about the brand new memoir she is currently working on and discusses the looming threat of AI in the short-story space.

    For more details about the books, movies, series, and podcasts that are discussed on the show, sign up here for our weekly newsletter:
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    Ask your writing-related questions here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc8i1_vFmUwsd7E_nvPgQOtqEscvZIircT0imdHm_qYJK5eXA/viewform

    Fiona and Gail would love to hear from you. Please join the conversation here:
    Instagram: @thehiddenlivesofwriterspod
    Twitter: @hiddenwriterpod
    YouTube: The Hidden Lives of Writers
    Threads: @thehiddenlivesofwriters
    Facebook discussion group: The Hidden Lives of Writers Follow us on Instagram · Chat with us on Twitter · Join our Facebook group · Subscribe to us on YouTube · Join our newsletter · Ask your writing-related questions here
    58 min
  • Are you building on sovereign ground or borrowed time? | Annie Hardy
    The Solutionists join Annie Hardy to unpack everything from corporate nihilism and co-dependency to the dangerous temptations of tokenmaxing and the risks of lock-in syndrome when it comes to AI adoption. If you are trying to move fast and keep up without breaking something painful, this episode is for you. Connect witth Annie on LinkedIn · Survive the AI Apocalypse website · Connect with Bronwyn on LinkedIn · Connect with Sharon on LinkedIn · Follow Bronwyn on Instagram · Follow Sharon on Instagram
    55 min
  • Borrowing Brilliance - Collected Wisdom and Lessons for Reinvention with Aidan McCullen
    How learning from others can be a way through change.

    Gavin Weeks talks with innovation expert Aidan McCullen who says the only lasting organisational competitive advantage is learning and reinvention.

    Aidan is author of Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention, is host of The Innovation Show, winner of a Thinkers50 award, and a former Ireland team rugby player. He founded The Reinvention Summit and teaches on emerging technology trends at Trinity Business School.

    A thread throughout this episode is what borrowed wisdom has taught him about reinvention, in organisations and in our own lives. Some highlights of their conversation:

    -Why reinvention asks us to let go as much as to learn.
    Aidan explains why reinvention is harder than innovation because it means unlearning the very things that made you successful. He shows why every attempt that fails still leaves “assets in the ashes”, in the form of new capabilities, new data and a new, unplanned directions.

    -Listening to the people who see change coming first.
    ‘Snow melts from the edges’ - it's most often not those in the boardroom who sense change first. It’s the people at the edges of the organisation - suppliers, in logistics and on the front line - and they have often been calling for change for years before strategy catches up.
    They discuss why culture has to come before any innovation work, and why the J-curve of learning (the dip in competence before you get good) is where so many people, and so many AI rollouts, flounder. Aidan explains why your sceptics may be “gainsayers” rather than naysayers.

    - Crazy Penguins and the small rituals that teach a team to reinvent itself.
    Aidan talks about the practical rituals that change a culture. They include idea funerals, Disney’s dreamer, critic and realist rooms, a monthly reading circle that outlived its founder, and the Crazy Penguin Award for whoever takes the first calculated leap. They also cover how Microsoft went from “know-it-all” to “learn-it-all”, and what any leader can do with the team they already have. Connect with Aidan · The Innovation Show · Aidan's book: Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention · Website · LinkedIn · Follow on Instagram · Connect with Tracey Camilleri on LinkedIn · Connect with Sam Rockey on LinkedIn
    45 min
  • The Story of an Africa Farm | Olive Schreiner [read by Melanie Walker's Digital Twin]
    On a lonely farm in the Karoo, three children grow up under an enormous sky. Lyndall is fierce and clever and wants a life no woman of her time is allowed. Waldo is a dreamer who carves, questions and builds, and has everything he loves taken from him. Em is gentle and steady and expects very little. Around them move the formidable Tant' Sannie and Bonaparte Blenkins, one of the great frauds in fiction.

    First published in 1883 under the pen name Ralph Iron, The Story of an African Farm was a sensation in London and is still called the first great South African novel. Olive Schreiner wrote about faith, freedom, love and the right of a woman to choose her own life, decades before those questions were safe to ask. It reads as boldly today as it did then.

    This is Solid Gold's new, complete and unabridged recording of Schreiner's original text, which is out of copyright. It is read by Melanie Walker's Digital Twin: a licensed digital voice of the South African broadcaster. A short note at the start explains the recording and the pen name. Email Solid Gold · For links to buy this book
    5 min
  • S08 E08 Jo-Anne Richards
    Jo-Anne Richards burst onto the literary scene back in 1996 with the iconic novel THE INNOCENCE OF ROAST CHICKEN. Recently reprinted, this story has been loved by thousands over the years.

    Jo-Anne joins Fiona and Gail to talk about how that book changed her life and to tell us about the inspiration behind her upcoming work of non-fiction - MEN I HAVE KNOWN.

    She describes what she has learned in her many years as a writing tutor and shares some of her least favourite writing peeves.

    For more details about the books, movies, series, and podcasts that are discussed on the show, sign up here for our weekly newsletter:
    https://mailchi.mp/icon/the-hidden-lives-of-writers-newsletter-signup

    Ask your writing-related questions here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc8i1_vFmUwsd7E_nvPgQOtqEscvZIircT0imdHm_qYJK5eXA/viewform

    Fiona and Gail would love to hear from you. Please join the conversation here:
    Instagram: @thehiddenlivesofwriterspod
    Twitter: @hiddenwriterpod
    YouTube: The Hidden Lives of Writers
    Threads: @thehiddenlivesofwriters
    Facebook discussion group: The Hidden Lives of Writers Follow us on Instagram · Chat with us on Twitter · Join our Facebook group · Subscribe to us on YouTube · Join our newsletter · Ask your writing-related questions here
    1 hr 12 min

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