What on Earth is Going on?

What does it mean to have a good conversation about politics, democracy, our place in the world, Donald Trump and sports? How do we bring disparate and distinct voices into that dialogue, and keep it fresh? The Walrus, a weekly Canadian magazine, has been trying to figure it out.

Ben is in Toronto to chat with Jessica Johnson, executive editor and creative director of The Walrus, about democracy, conversation, and the magazine's unique and ever-evolving response to "what on earth is going on?"

About the Guest

Jessica is the executive editor and creative director for The Walrus. She is an award-winning journalist who has worked with a range of North American publications, including The Globe and Mail, National Post, Saturday Night, Lucky, Elle, and The New Republic. Her work has also appeared in the BBC and Medium. Jessica was named executive editor of The Walrus in 2017. She is also a visiting professor at the University of St. Michael's College in the University of Toronto.

Learn more about Jessica or follow her on Twitter (@ejessicajohnson).

Mentioned in this Episode

• Thank You For Being Late, a book by Thomas Friedman (also check out Episode 60, about the book)
• Jason McBride, a writer at The Walrus
• "The Charmed Life of Esther the Wonder Pig", an article in The Walrus by Jason McBride
• Black Mirror, a program on Netflix
• Cover of The Walrus magazine from December 2018
• Video of "A More Perfect Union", a 2008 presidential campaign speech by Barack Obama
• Jordan Peterson, University of Toronto professor of psychology
• Sidewalk Labs, a company owned by Google that is developing Toronto's Quayside neighbourhood

The Quote of the Week

"Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards." - Theodore Zeldin

Is colonialism ongoing in the Kalahari Desert? What do the struggles of the San peoples tell us about democracy, tradition, adaptation to the environment, and the exercise and imbalances of power in today's world? What role does tourism take in all this, and is education still the silver bullet? And, can a people be truly free and fulfilled without meaningful sovereignty?

Ben chats with higher education consultant, scholar and Program Director at the Kalahari Peoples Fund Fleming Puckett.

About the Guest

Dr. R. Fleming Puckett is Program Director for Land Rights & Governance for the Kalahari Peoples Fund, working to increase awareness, funding, and advocacy related to land rights, community governance, and San/government relationships across southern Africa. He began his fieldwork with the !Xun, Khwe, and ǂKhomani San people of South Africa in 2009 and received his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Oxford University in 2013. He is also the Senior Director of Strategic Research for EAB.

Dr. Puckett's continuing research focuses on indigenous systems of governance, decision-making, land use, and community organization and the impacts of conflicts between these systems and the stated goals, requirements, and implementation procedures of national land and "development" legislation. His professional background includes research, teaching, writing, public speaking, legal practice, consulting, and negotiation.

In addition to his doctorate, Dr. Puckett holds an MA in Higher Education from Columbia University, an MBA from Cornell, and two law degrees, from Boston University and Cambridge University. He was admitted to the State Bar of New York in 2002. Fleming is co-editor of the book, Research and Activism Among the Kalahari San Today: Ideals, Challenges, and Debates (2017).

Learn more about Fleming and the Kalahari People's Fund.

Mentioned in this Episode

• The San People of the Kalahari
• The Notre-Dame de Paris fire and reconstruction
• The Inconvenient Indian, a book by Canadian author Thomas King
• The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)

The Quote of the Week

"We are not primitive. We live differently to you, but we do not live exactly like our grandparents did, nor do you. Were your ancestors 'primitive'? I don't think so. We respect our ancestors. We love our children. This is the same for all people." - Roy Sesana, San activist

What is social media doing to our politics from the inside? Are politicians themselves getting along, or are the deep partisan divisions in our culture also fraying the relationships of the people who we have elected to get things done? What does it take to run and win a political campaign these days? And how can democracy evolve. Or, should it?

Ben chats with Stephanie Rea, longtime conservative political staffer and current communications director for the Ontario Minister of Education.

About the Guest

Stephanie Rea is a long-time political staffer who originally studied journalism and writing. She has worked for several conservative governments and politicians over the years on the federal and provincial levels, and currently works for the Ontario Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, under Premier Doug Ford.

Mentioned in this Episode

• Black Mirror, a series on Netflix
• Edward Snowden, activist and whistleblower

The Quote of the Week

"Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill

What is the future of the university and higher education? Will the local, broad-scope, brick-and-mortar campuses that form a critical part of our society give way to a fragmented system of hyper-focused online learning nodes? What is learning, anyways? And what's the purpose of an educational institution in the first place?

Ben has a fascinating chat with a key thinker in this space: writer, strategist and higher education engagement specialist Mark Sollis, whom you might remember from Episode 60.

About the Guest

Mark Sollis is a strategist and creative with D3 Advancement Strategies & Communications.

Noted for his disruptive thinking and willingness to challenge the status quo, Mark served for almost five years as the first Associate Vice-President, Alumni at the University of Calgary. Building on leadership roles in planning within various institutions, he led the creation of, and delivered on, the institution's much-lauded first Alumni Strategy, which set the university as one of the most forward-thinking and performance-driven operations in the field of alumni engagement.

Previously, at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Mark served for three years as the project manager for Canada's leading alumni facility, the $20 million UBC Alumni Centre, while working as the Senior Director, Operations and Planning; and Interim Associate Vice-President Alumni and Executive Director, Alumni Association, for UBC Alumni.

Noted for his considered approach, and his ability to execute with focus, agility, and collegially, his post-secondary experiences also cover media relations; student leadership; finance; major project management; as well as serving as strategic counsel to higher education executives. Mark served on the CASE Commission on Alumni Relations from 2013-16 and the CASE District VIII Board from 2014-16. A frequent presenter in North America and internationally, with significant experience with CASE and the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education (CCAE), he has also worked closely with institutions and colleagues across Canada, the US, Australia and the UK in the areas of performance management, planning and organisational development. Other leadership roles include successes in two major Canadian political campaigns and serving as a caucus chief of staff, and as a VP Advancement in Scotland.

A proud graduate of Mount Royal (Calgary) with a Bachelor of Applied Communications (Journalism), Mark has recently launched his own consultancy to focus on performance management, strategy development, and business planning in advancement.

Mentioned in this Episode

• A quote from George Bernard Shaw, from Back to Methuselah: "You see things; you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?"
• Episode 60, in conversation with Mark Sollis about Thank You For Being Late by Thomas Friedman
• ACAD (Alberta College of Art and Design), now the Alberta University of the Arts
• State of Higher Education in 2019, a report by Grant Thornton
• The End of History and the Last Man, a 1992 book by Francis Fukuyama, based on his 1989 essay
• Hegel's Dialectics (thesis-antithesis-synthesis)

The Quote of the Week

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." - Plutarch

How do we understand and engage in today's conversation about gender? What on earth is going on with gender and identity politics, and what is the personal dimension?

Ben is at Queen's University in Kingston to chat with Dr. Lee Airton, author of Gender: Your Guide — A Gender-Friendly Primer on What to Know, What to Say, and What to Do in the New Gender Culture. It's a fascinating, important and unexpectedly fun conversation about the unique historical moment in which we live today.

About the Guest

Dr. Lee Airton is an Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies in Education at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. As a researcher, blogger, advocate and speaker, Dr. Airton focuses on enabling individuals and institutions to welcome gender and sexual diversity in everyday life. In 2012, they founded They Is My Pronoun, a Q+A-based blog about gender-neutral pronoun usage and user support with over 30,000 unique visitors in 2017 alone. Dr. Airton is also the founder of the No Big Deal Campaign, a national social media initiative that helps people show support for transgender peoples' right to have their pronouns used.

In recognition of their advocacy work, Dr. Airton received a 2017 Youth Role Model of the Year Award from the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity. Dr. Airton's first book is Gender – Your Guide: A Gender-Friendly Primer on What to Know, What to Say and What to Do in the New Gender Culture, which offers practical steps for welcoming gender diversity in all areas of everyday life. As a university-based teacher educator for over ten years, Dr. Airton has worked with hundreds of teacher candidates to widen the circle of belonging and participation for students of all genders and sexualities.

Dr. Airton's current SSHRC-funded research explores how K-12 schools are responding to the inclusion of gender identity and gender expression protections in human rights legislation, including implications for teacher education. Dr. Airton's scholarly publications have appeared in the journals Gender and Education, Sex Education, Curriculum Inquiry, Teachers College Record, and the Journal of Education Policy, and their editorials have been published in The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star. With Dr. Susan Woolley, they are also editing a forthcoming collection of lesson plans on gender diversity for K-12 teachers.

Learn more about Lee or follow them on Twitter (@LeeAirton).

Mentioned in this Episode

• Episode 2: The Digital Age, an episode of this podcast featuring philosopher Carlos Prado.
• The No Big Deal Campaign
• Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), an activist alliance formed in the UK in 1984-85
• Two books by psychologist Jonathan Haidt: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, and The Coddling of the American Mind (with Greg Lukianoff)
• Episode 24: The Knowledge Illusion, an episode of this podcast about The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone by Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach
• Lev Vygotsky, Soviet psychologist and founder of cultural-historical psychology
• Freedom, music video of a song by Beyoncé featuring Kendrick Lamar
• Michel Foucault (1926-84), French philosopher

The Quote of the Week

"Don't aim for no mistakes. Aim for better mistakes." - From Gender: Your Guide by Lee Airton

What does it mean to be a storyteller? What happens when we look into the mirror after a long day, let the masks drop, and come face to face with who we really are? What does ownership mean in the arts, and what can theatre be when it isn't a commodity? Why do we act in the first place, and are our stories and audiences changing? And what's going on with Samuel Beckett?

Ben is in Calgary for a funny, fascinating and quite unique conversation with local actor and theatre artist, Andy Curtis.

About the Guest

Andy is a founding artist of Black Radish Theatre in Calgary, where he recently performed the role of Vladimir in the company's production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Andy is also a member of the One Yellow Rabbit's Ensemble, which creates original works in the Big Secret Theatre, performing and touring internationally for over 30 years. In 2007, the Ensemble was awarded the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award. Andy has worked with many Calgary theatres companies, including Theatre Calgary, ATP, Ground Zero, Loose Moose, Quest, Stage West, Ghost River, Vertigo Theatre and Lunchbox. Andy had the great fortune to perform alongside his daughter at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa in MAKING TREATY 7, an ongoing project which explores the historical significance and aftermath of the events which took place at Blackfoot Crossing in 1877.

Learn more about Andy.

Mentioned in this Episode

• Keith Johnstone, Calgary-based improv artist and teacher who worked with Samuel Beckett in London
• The "Allegory of the Cave", from The Republic by Plato
• The Okotoks "Big Rock", a glacial erratic in southern Alberta
• The Maori myth of the Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand
• Making Treaty 7, an arts collective in southern Alberta
• Michelle Thrush, Canadian actress and First Nations activist
• Tanya Tagaq, Canadian Inuk throat singer
• Eya-Hey Nakoda, a musical drum group from the Stoney Nakoda First Nation in southern Alberta
• Proust, a 1930 essay by Samuel Beckett
• A clip of Ian McKellen describing his acting process on Extras
• The High Performance Rodeo, a yearly theatre festival in Calgary
• The Genesis Centre, a community institution in northeast Calgary

The Quote of the Week

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett

How important is culture to the long-term success of an organization? What role does being vulnerable play in leadership? How does story help weave and even make up our everyday experience? And what can putting ourselves out there with travel teach us about our own inner storyteller and context in the world?

Ben is in Ottawa to chat with Jana Dybinski, consummate traveler, thinker, innovator and VP for Marketing and Culture at Rebel.com.

About the Guest

Jana's bio on her website is just too good, so instead of any tinkering, we've copied it here.

Stories shape us.

My Irish dad was an astrophysicist. He told me about worlds beyond our universe. He launched rockets, and once took a road trip from France to Iran, where it was so hot that his steering wheel melted. My German mom was a teacher - the kind that inspires a deep and profound love of learning. She moved to California before doing her Master's degree and traveled around in a Westfalia. One time she charmed a stunt pilot to take her flying and barrel-roll his plane. As kids, my brother and sister and I spent hours passing our old globe back and forth, creating stories of the infinite possibilities the world held for us. No one was surprised when I saved all my spares to spend the last two months of high school exploring New Zealand alone, or when I came back to study journalism. After graduating I received a fellowship from the Aga Khan Foundation to work in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

The stories in East Africa were intoxicating. The women I worked with were changing the face of education in their communities by training teachers and building vibrant classrooms out of recycled scraps. They laughed infectiously at each other's jokes, and at my frequent state of bewilderment. Like the time in central Tanzania, when a baby was passed onto my bus, alone, with a note of his destination tied around his wrist. For reals. While I panicked, the other women on the bus took turns bouncing a stranger's baby, until hours later when he was unceremoniously released into the arms of someone waiting at the specified stop.

I was friends with a Massai warrior. One night we tried to figure out how long it would take to walk to the moon. I called my dad. The answer is 9 years. In Kenya I camped among hippos and drank gin with a British expat who lived in a house with only two walls. In Ethiopia I fed wild hyenas from a stick and a 7-year-old boy showed me a cave with a floor made of human skulls. A chance encounter with some fellow Canadians while stuck in an Ethiopia sandstorm landed me a job managing comms for the international organization CODE. I worked to travel. While hiking to Machu Picchu I learned about e coli and Peruvian hospital care. One time while smoking shisha in Istanbul with my childhood best friend I looked up and knew the Canadian guy walking past. The world's like that. Small. Magical. When a boyfriend broke up with me I decided to leave my coms job to go explore India. My mom thought I was being irresponsible, but I went anyway. A month later that boyfriend showed up and proposed to me on a train leaving Varanasi. We were travelling in third class and sharing a tiny space with an Indian family of 6, all staring and loudly eating papadum. It was romantic anyway. We got married a year later. Our vows were taken from pages of the journals we wrote for each other during those crazy colorful months in India. I took a job at a digital marketing agency and learned new platforms for storytelling. It wasn't as purposeful as the international work, but it was fun and creative and I liked the psychology behind it all. I loved studying what motivated and inspired people.

​By then my dad had lost his rocket scientist job. Consumed by darker stories, he'd become a no-longer-functioning alcoholic. He was always talking about how Bill Gates ruined his life, and also that he invented the internet, neither are true. He's never even met Bill. It was hard to witness his suffering. Addiction's like that. I got lucky with an incredible mom that made up for it, and enough world experience to fully understand that all we ever really control is how we show up. My husband and I road tripped around California with paper maps. We watched a van speed right off a winding road and over a cliff near Death Valley. In Thailand we snorkelled at night in blue plankton. It was like a dream. I got knocked up and we bought a little 1.5 story house from a man who hoarded antiques and kept three intact bullmastiffs in the basement. It was a fixer upper. Our daughter was born on Christmas Eve in our living room. I've never felt so alive - so completely unleashed. She's a wildly quirky and curious kid. At 6 years old she already has a daily ritual of creating art before sunrise. I wake up to her nudging me, the latest piece in her hands. Mornings are the best. My digital agency job had warped into leading the marketing at Rebel.com. I worked with a talented leadership team to evolve Rebel's outdated brand, vision and negative workplace into something to be proud of. Changing corporate culture is hard but purposeful work. We won awards for the transformation we created, and I geeked out over the philosophical side of inciting change within teams and organizations. I wrote articles and took stages to share our story of turning a bad culture into something really special. All that learning around how to transform organizations and teams gave me a heightened awareness around the power of transforming individual leaders too. I got introspective. I loved my life and at the same time felt unsettled inside. My untethered traveler identity was diluted by all the other things I'd become - a female leader in a tech company, a corporate culture junkie, a speaker, a marketer, a wife, a mom. My family and friends told stories about my success, but I could feel something was still missing. It was like my intuition was yelling at me but I couldn't make out a word. I felt stuck and guilty for wanting more out of my easy, privileged life. I worried that if I didn't figure it out I'd have big regrets. I was deeply uncomfortable with my own pain, which I labelled as trivial.

I decided to patiently follow the whispers of intuition that I could hear. They led me to pour thousands of hours (and dollars) into the study of change at a personal level - into mastering the principals behind positive psychology, personal development, self connection, and the delicate art of balance. I hired a talented coach who supported me to reconnect with myself. ​ I learned that we're not just shaped by stories, we're made of them.

The stories we believe. The stories we let others write about us. The stories we write for ourselves.

My story is about discovering how to connect with the evolution of yourself, and how to live audaciously in all your identities. My story is about a travelling explorer who's also a proud female leader in a tech company, a wife, a mom, a speaker, and a leadership coach. Because my intuition wasn't yelling at me at all, it was calling me - to share my story and support other leaders that are passionate about transforming themselves and their organizations, but stuck where I've been stuck. To do this, I co-founded a fun consulting company with a couple of my favorite humans, called We Human.

Learn more about Jana or follow her (@janowhatimsayin) on Twitter and Instagram.

Mentioned in this Episode

• Thank You For Being Late by Thomas Friedman (check out Episode 60 about the book)
• The Aga Khan Foundation Canada
• Sapiens, a book by Yuval Noah Harari
• The Future of Education, video of a conversation with Yuval Noah Harari and Russell Brand
• 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, a book by Yuval Noah Harari

The Quote of the Week

"Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change." - Brené Brown

George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1984) is a touchstone of 20th-century English literature and a key piece of modern political thought and speculative fiction that continues to provoke conversation, and comparison, today. Orwell's novel from 1949 describes a bleak future where the state (Big Brother) has weaponized technology, language, propaganda and memory to exert near-total control over every person.

Jaret Hargreaves joins Ben in Calgary to discuss this classic and frighteningly prescient book.

About the Book

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controlsthe past."

Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal. George Orwell's dystopian masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four is perhaps the most pervasively influential book of the twentieth century.

About the Guest

Jaret Hargreaves is a Product Management professional with more than ten years experience bringing products to market at health tech startups.

Spending more time in school than his parents could reasonably have foreseen, Jaret studied Biochemistry and Computer Science, splitting time between the Universities of Calgary and British Columbia. He studied medical imaging while completing an MSc in Biomedical Engineering at the Foothills Medical Centre, where his thesis investigated image processing to aid neurologists in stroke diagnosis.

With the slowly dawning realization that he would never be a truly exceptional programmer, Jaret decided to pursue an alternate career in health tech, where he could utilize his ability to speak both rudimentary "doctor" and "developer". He spent 7 years at Calgary Scientific (now PureWeb) managing a series of medical image viewing products including ResolutionMD Mobile, the first FDA-cleared diagnostic viewer for Apple and Android mobile devices.

Next, Jaret lead development of Brightsquid's Secure-Mail, which provided secure communication between doctors and dentists, including with their colleagues and patients. Jaret currently serves as Director of Product Management at two health tech companies. At the Calgary-based medical imaging startup Kent Imaging, he leads development of SnapshotNIR, a near-infrared camera for assessing tissue health. He also manages partner opportunities for the eponymous Auxita platform for the company out of Brisbane, Australia.

In his spare time, Jaret has volunteered for organizations including the Alberta Children's Hospital, the Calgary Youth Science Fair, and local political campaigns, where he is motivated by the potential of exceptional candidates. He served as the Data Lead for the successful 2015 campaign for Calgary Centre MP Kent Hehr.

If you're looking to engage him in an animated discussion, any of the following topics are a safe bet: near-future dystopian fiction (any format), Star Trek (not-so-near-future utopia), amateur home barista-ry, returning to hockey as an adult, disc golf, 3D printing, and the collected works of Joss Whedon.

Check out Jaret on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter (@jaretis).

Mentioned in this Episode

• "George Orwell's '1984' is Suddenly a Best-Seller", article in The New York Times, January 2017
• "Kellyanne Conway: Press Secretary Sean Spicer Gave 'Alternative Facts'", video from Meet The Press / NBC News
• Firefly, a television series created by Joss Whedon
• Wag the Dog, a film directed by Barry Levinson
• Noam Chomsky, scholar, historian, activist and writer
• The Handmaid's Tale, a book by Margaret Atwood and subsequent television series
• The Lives of Others, a 2006 German film
• Guns, Germs and Steel, a book by Jared Diamond
• Brave New World, a 1932 book by Aldous Huxley often paired with 1984
• The Road, a 2006 post-apocalyptic novel by Cormac McCarthy
• The Lord of the Rings, a fantasy trilogy by JRR Tolkien

The Quote of the Week

"The best books...are those that tell you what you know already."

- From 1984 by George Orwell

What does it mean to be an introvert, and is it harder in our society to keep to oneself? Is there a pressure to conform to an Extrovert Ideal? How do introverts assert themselves in education, the workplace and daily life without giving up what makes them unique, thoughtful -- and just them?

Ben brings back Jody MacPherson (Episode 11) to talk about "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" by Susan Cain.

About the Book

The book that started the Quiet Revolution

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society.

In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts—from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.

About the Guest

Check out Jody on social media:

http://about.me/jodymacpherson

Jody MacPherson is an Accredited Business Communicator (ABC) with 20+ years of experience in corporate communications and public relations.

Graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa, Jody spent her teenage years in Fort McMurray working for the local weekly newspaper and radio stations throughout high school as a columnist and on-air reporter. She paid for university, by literally going underground at Syncrude Canada, working in the extraction plant of the oil sands operation in the 80's, working as the only woman on her shift, logging hours in the underground portion of the mining operation, cleaning up spills and collecting lab samples.

After graduation, Jody stayed in the north to work as a journalist but soon made the leap to public relations in 1986 where she wrote and edited employee publications (and co-authored a book) for several years in Fort McMurray before moving to Edmonton.

As community relations team leader, Jody managed donations programs and organized community relations activities across the province, including a $1 million community investment program in Calgary. She went on to receive an international award of excellence for work in employee communications.

Formed her own communications consulting company and for the next six years specialized in stakeholder consultation (including cross-cultural communication), employee communication, website content and writing/editing for numerous clients.

Beginning in 2005, Jody switched to full-time employment in the public sector in various leadership roles including director of communications and media relations for the University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine. Left the U of C in July of 2010 to pursue political interests, including volunteer positions as the former VP of Communications for the Alberta Liberal Party (2008-2010) and as communications/media chair for Kent Hehr's successful election as Member of Parliament in Calgary Centre in 2015 (Mr. Hehr was also appointed to the federal Liberal cabinet as Minister of Veterans Affairs).

After the last municipal election, Jody left a position with a local non-profit organization to supervise a team for the City of Calgary in digital/web communications and social media.

Mentioned in this Episode

• Episode 11: "...according to the book, Selfie", a previous episode featuring Jody MacPherson in a discussion about Will Storr's book
• Episode 45: "...with Marketing and Human Nature", a previous episode featuring Terry O'Reilly
• The Power of Introverts, a TED Talk by Susan Cain
• Who Are You, Really? The Puzzle of Personality, a TED Talk by Brian Little
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, a book by Malcolm Gladwell

The Quote of the Week

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." - Albert Einstein

What does it mean to be creative? Where does creative expression lie: in the individual, in the shared experience, or in the coming together of public and private? How can an actor be more than just an interpreter, but a creative artist in their own right?

Ben is in Toronto to chat with Brian Smith, acting teacher, coach and Professor Emeritus from the University of Calgary, about his own journey, and the meaning and importance of finding one's creative voice in our difficult and accelerated age.

About the Guest

Brian researches the practice of contemporary theatre performance through acting, directing, coaching and devising performance. He is especially interested in the creativity of the actor, and has particular expertise in the use of masks in actor training and performance.

In directing, Brian has focused on the reinterpretation of plays from the modern theatre for contemporary audiences. The modern Russian theatre has been an area of particular interest.

At the University of Calgary, Brian taught acting to advanced-level undergraduates. In this work, process took precedence over immediate result, and students investigated how technique and the creative imagination support one another in the creation and interpretation of works for the theatre.

At the graduate level, Brian taught a course that investigates the creative and communicative practices of collaborating artists as they conceptualize theatre works together.

Today, though retired from university teaching, Brian still works in the theatre, and divides his time between Toronto and Nova Scotia.

The Quote of the Week

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.." - Pablo Picasso