Uncommon

Isaac “The Buttsmarn” Butterfield is a Comedian and YouTuber known for dissecting the culture through his satirical critiques of politics and ideology, with a twang of Aussie humour injected for comic relief.

Isaac’s tango with The Project - whether it be offending Kiwi’s or defying the assumption that “All Men Are EVIL”, added rocket fuel to his already growing brand of no holds barred style of comedy. His YouTube videos are a brilliant source of fair and reasonable analysis, that not many in the media or those in the culture wars are willing to partake in, no matter their political leaning.

Much like other comedians, we’ve interviewed including the likes of Neel Kolhatkar, Josh Wade, Shayne Hunter and Friendlyjordies; Isaac is an important part of what we like to call the “Bullshit Counsel”. A group of individuals with varying political leanings, unique ideas and a strong dose of scepticism to help you break down the noise.

Rupert Hackett is the CEO of Bitcoin.com.au, Director at the Australia Digital Commerce Association, while also an Advisor to Apollo Capital and Caleb & Brown. Rupert is probably one of the most active industry leaders for digital assets in Australia. 

Like the meteoric rise of digital currencies itself, Rupert has leapt forward in his leadership across the industry in multiple positions and opinions, on topics focused around industry governance, services and technical developments.

The reality is that digital currencies are no longer an idea, the status quo of your slow as a snail financial services is largely coming to an end. Leaders like Rupert in the FinTech space, whether it be crypto or other are gradually creeping forward. Money is the societal lubricant that keeps us all so willing to cooperate with complete and utter strangers. Therefore, it’s your duty to stay up to date and understand the principles and ideas of people like Rupert - so you can also understand how cryptocurrency is reinventing trust.

Mark Watt AM is the Co-Founder & Director of Development at Whitelion. With a wealth of experience across not-for-profit organisations for well over 20 years, he’s also a sitting Board Member of The First Step Program, Surrender Australia, and St Kilda Gatehouse. Mark’s work has been recognised with numerous awards, including a Membership in the Order of Australia (AM).

Whitelion is a not-for-profit that provides transition services to young people exiting the justice system. Working with these high-risk youth showed Whitelion that the primary risk factors for youth offending were being placed in the Out-of-Home Care system and being homeless, leading to a broadening of services or programs to address these key factors.

My attention was brought to Mark’s work back in 2014 when joining IBISWorld and learning that the founder Phil Ruthven was a board member of Whitelion. Each year we would take clients to the annual AFL Finals Series Luncheon, learn about the stories of high-risk youth, and what Whitelion had done for them. The events were so impactful that two of my former clients ended up joining the mentorship program at Whitelion.

The work that organisations like Whitelion do is admirable  and incredibly important for certain groups of the population, a true testament to the character of people like Mark.

Jack “chendo” Chen is a product engineer and co-founder of Assembly Four.

Assembly Four makes products and services to empower sex workers throughout the world, committing a portion of profits to help those sex workers in need.

Assembly Four rocketed to the forefront of the industry with the launch of Switter as legislation known as FOSTA/SESTA effectively banned sex workers safely engaging clients online. Switter was the beginning of Assembly Four’s modern tech disruption to an industry that globally is worth US$186b and historically is not too tech savvy. The launch of further services in Tryst (for Advertising) & Honey Notes (a CRM), underscores Assembly Four’s commitment to the industry.

Our chat with Jack gave us the perfect opportunity to dig deeper on the tech side of Assembly Four (including product development), while also delving into what it takes to become a true stack developer.

Olivia Orchowski is the head coach of Lean Lab, private coach, member of the Instagram Coaching Mafia and known widely as “The Booty Builder”. Interestingly, Olivia and I are also old schoolmates from our early years, providing some great nostalgia on my part.

Olivia’s nous across major fitness and nutrition principles is quite apparent as you get to know her, not too dissimilar to the first principles approach being led by the “Instagram Coach Mafia”. In the same vein of former guest Eugene Teo (episode 1), her knowledge across a vast array of topics is stunning - and continually growing. Her transformation from high fashion model to “booty builder” was born out of her own passion for health, spurred on by her mental frustrations with physique.

Neel Kolhatkar is a comedian, content creator, presenter and actor with a powerful audience built from his humble beginnings on his YouTube channel, that now has over 57M views. Well-known for satirical clips such as “Australia in 2 Minutes”, and “Modern Educayshun”, Neel has now expanded into network TV series Virgin Bush (ABC), StreetSmart (Channel 10), as well as creating new characters like “Charles D” which he features regularly, now on a dedicated Instagram account.

Neel is an incredibly intelligent comedy creator with an innate ability to pare back culture and society across a whole slew of different mediums. He’s the first to admit that virality was what catapulted him into the ether of Australia’s young comedy class, but I believe his incredible knowledge of science, society, new media, and politics is what sets him apart. Society is a whole lot better for people like him because it allows us to not take life so seriously.

Philip Dalidakis MP is the Victorian State

Minister for Trade & Investment, Innovation & the Digital Economy, and Small Business. In addition, he is also MP for the Southern Metro area and a Cabinet member of the Victorian Andrews Government.

I’ve said numerous times in the past that it’s important to continually engage political leaders, so we can understand their ambition and goals in representing us. Phil has always been generous with his time and articulate in his ideas. You don’t need to agree with him politically to respect the man for what he does - in an age when politicians aren’t trusted widely.

Dr Karl Kruszelnicki AM is a doctor, author, entertainer, shirt aficionado and for a lot of people in Gen X to Z, the man who introduced them to the wonderful world of science. In his own words, Karl is an answer looking for a question and you can feel that immense desire to solve your science problems through his passion. In addition to all of the above, Karl has also been awarded the Member of the Order of Australia Award in the 2006 Australia Day Honours list.

It was surreal interviewing Karl, having grown up listening to him on Triple J as a young teen and into my early 20’s - his weekly podcast now a staple of my week. Karl is as affable in real life as he is through media. I could feel the passion that he displays in his work as we walked around the Sofitel talking about why certain rooms (and their angles) were his favourite.

The ability to understand the world around us increases with importance as technology becomes a greater element of our lives. Dr Karl is the pinnacle of what it means to be a communicator, or science entertainer as he puts it, to an ever interested public.

Marco Ryan or Marc-O-Matic as he’s commonly known, is a multi-disciplinary artist, animator, director, storyteller and technologist. His unique work utilises both augmented and virtual reality to tell beautiful stories, that literally jump out from the page.

Storytelling is one of the oldest skills known to mankind, and probably one of the most important to our survival as a species. The fact that we can make things up, like the idea of a company or that dragons might exist, allows us to convey information or lessons that give life meaning.

Storytellers like Marco use these new forms of technology, continue the spellbinding experience of learning through stories and keeps the survival of our species going.

I strongly suggest you check out Marco’s work to get a true grasp of how it looks.

Peter Dickson is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and founder of Dickson Films. With over 16 years experience, Peter is constantly sought-after to create long-lasting sports documentaries for organisations like the AFL, Cricket Australia and national broadcasters.

Peter has proven over a long period of time to be (in my opinion), one of Australia’s greatest storytellers. His compelling and emotionally gripping documentaries leave an immense impact, which in the words of Peter himself, “stand the test of time”. The fact that I, as a St Kilda FC supporter, have watched Peter’s film The Final Draw over 5 times, is a testament to the emotion and passion he can draw from a story.