We're almost at the end of our deep-dive into the lifecycle of innovation, or the so-called Hype Cycle. Phase Four, aka the Slope of Enlightenment, is when the breakthrough happens, you get out of the trough, and start moving forward. We're using this phase to share big news from Stable Genius Productions and talk to Katrina Kelly-Pitou, an environmental economist, on the truth behind blockchain's energy-guzzling reputation. Plus, the mayor who made history by banning Bitcoin operations in his city. And then decided to allow them back in. Get ready to be enlightened.

*Also, our email newsletter is a must read. **Sign up for a bi-weekly letter from Manoush with links to her favorite articles and podcasts, a look behind-the-scenes at Stable Genius Productions, and upcoming events. (For example, our guest Jackie Fenn wrote a novel about a programmer whose algorithm goes rogue!)

Who You’ll Hear: Katrina Kelly-Pitou Professor Resilient Energy and Power Systems, Swanson School of Engineering, University of Pittsburgh (@manoushz) Manoush Zomorodi, host of ZigZag (@tkbeaty) Thalia Beaty, producer of ZigZag

ZigZag is the business show about being human.

Join a community of listeners riding the twists and turns of late-capitalism, searching for a kinder, more sustainable way. Manoush Zomorodi and Jen Poyant investigate how work and business impact our wellbeing and the planet we live on. On Seasons 4 and 5, hear from rebels and visionaries with radical ideas on how we can build stable lives, careers, and companies.

If you’re also interested in Jen and Manoush’s personal story and their adventures in starting their own business with a little help from blockchain technology, listen to the first three seasons, starting with Season 1, Chapter 1.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our journey through the Hype Cycle takes a dark turn this week. Because every innovative idea, sadly, must pass through the third (and most miserable) phase of the cycle: the Trough of Disillusionment. This is when you start questioning why you ever decided to INSERT GOAL HERE in the first place.

Hear Professor Kevin Werbach explain the difference between full-on failure and simply measuring success on a longer timeline, as related to tech and blockchain. (Because this podcast loves using blockchain as a metaphor for life.)

Plus, a local union rep, Dave LaClair, gives producer Thalia Beaty a personal tour of Massena, NY, a town definitely in the “trough.” Their afternoon together ends with an insightful conversation about the people left behind in the U.S economy and how society has gotten to a place where real talk is rare.

**Also, our email newsletter is a must read. **Sign up for a bi-weekly letter from Manoush with links to her favorite articles and podcasts, a look behind-the-scenes at Stable Genius Productions, and upcoming events. (For example, our guest Jackie Fenn wrote a novel about a programmer whose algorithm goes rogue!)

Who You’ll Hear: (@**kwerb**‏) Kevin Werbach, Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School of Business, Dave La Clair of Massena, NY, (@manoushz) Manoush Zomorodi, host of ZigZag (@tkbeaty) Thalia Beaty, producer of ZigZag

ZigZag is the business show about being human.

Join a community of listeners riding the twists and turns of late-capitalism, searching for a kinder, more sustainable way. Manoush Zomorodi and Jen Poyant investigate how work and business impact our wellbeing and the planet we live on. On Seasons 4 and 5, hear from rebels and visionaries with radical ideas on how we can build stable lives, careers, and companies.

If you’re also interested in Jen and Manoush’s personal story and their adventures in starting their own business with a little help from blockchain technology, listen to the first three seasons, starting with Season 1, Chapter 1.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As we continue through the Hype Cycle, we reach the fun, thrilling, titillating phase: the Peak of Expectations. It generates the vital inspiration and adrenaline that keeps every entrepreneur or visionary going (that includes the listener who is in the midst of sleep training her baby daughter). On this episode, Manoush and Jen analyze their start-up highs and wonder whether exciting industry news means podcasting has hit its peak. Plus, more from Massena, NY, as we go inside cavernous Bitcoin factories to hear what extreme optimism sounds like. Just beware: after every high comes a low.

Are you signed up for our newsletter? We’ve got links to articles and other great podcasts plus a personal note from Manoush. Go to ZigZagPod.com or just email us at [email protected] and we’ll sign you up.

ZigZag is the business show about being human.

Join a community of listeners riding the twists and turns of late-capitalism, searching for a kinder, more sustainable way. Manoush Zomorodi and Jen Poyant investigate how work and business impact our wellbeing and the planet we live on. On Seasons 4 and 5, hear from rebels and visionaries with radical ideas on how we can build stable lives, careers, and companies.

If you’re also interested in Jen and Manoush’s personal story and their adventures in starting their own business with a little help from blockchain technology, listen to the first three seasons, starting with Season 1, Chapter 1.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Question: what SPARKS us to *act *on an idea, rather than let it fade away? Answer: an "Innovation Trigger," also known as Phase 1 of the Hype Cycle. Hear listeners detail what triggered them to pursue a project, more from Gartner analyst Jackie Fenn, and how a hydroelectric dam prompted one small town to start manufacturing Bitcoin, for better and worse.

All this season, we're exploring the lifecycle of ideas, including a visit to a town by the Canadian border where one of the biggest Bitcoin mining operations in the world is ramping up, and some claim crypto can save a community in financial ruin.

Tell us what's going on in your life and where YOU are on the Hype Cycle right now: record a voice memo and send it to [[email protected]]([email protected]).

**Also, our email newsletter is a must read. **Sign up for a bi-weekly letter from Manoush with links to her favorite articles and podcasts, a look behind-the-scenes at Stable Genius Productions, and upcoming events. (For example, our guest Jackie Fenn wrote a novel about a programmer whose algorithm goes rogue!)

Who You’ll Hear: (@jackiefenn) Jackie Fenn, Senior Analyst at Gartner, (@manoushz) Manoush Zomorodi, host of ZigZag (@tkbeaty) Thalia Beaty, producer of ZigZag

ZigZag is the business show about being human.

Join a community of listeners riding the twists and turns of late-capitalism, searching for a kinder, more sustainable way. Manoush Zomorodi and Jen Poyant investigate how work and business impact our wellbeing and the planet we live on. On Seasons 4 and 5, hear from rebels and visionaries with radical ideas on how we can build stable lives, careers, and companies.

If you’re also interested in Jen and Manoush’s personal story and their adventures in starting their own business with a little help from blockchain technology, listen to the first three seasons, starting with Season 1, Chapter 1.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You may *feel *like a special snowflake, but even our best ideas usually take a predictable path: they'll pass through the 5 Phases of the Hype Cycle. Tech analyst Jackie Fenn created this iconic graph (see below) 25 years ago, and it's been used to track innovations (yes, like blockchain) ever since. But the Hype Cycle isn't just for tech: understanding it can help you decide when to press ahead with a job, relationship, or New Year's resolution... or cut your losses and move on.

All this season, we're exploring the lifecycle of ideas, including a visit to a town by the Canadian border where one of the biggest Bitcoin mining operations in the world is ramping up, and some claim crypto can save a community in financial ruin.

Tell us what's going on in your life and where YOU are on the Hype Cycle right now: record a voice memo and send it to [[email protected]]([email protected]).

**Also, our email newsletter is a must read. **Sign up for a bi-weekly letter from Manoush with links to her favorite articles and podcasts, a look behind-the-scenes at Stable Genius Productions, and upcoming events. (For example, our guest Jackie Fenn wrote a novel about a programmer whose algorithm goes rogue!)

Who You’ll Hear: (@jackiefenn) Jackie Fenn, Senior Analyst at Gartner, (@manoushz) Manoush Zomorodi, host of ZigZag

ZigZag is the business show about being human.

Join a community of listeners riding the twists and turns of late-capitalism, searching for a kinder, more sustainable way. Manoush Zomorodi and Jen Poyant investigate how work and business impact our wellbeing and the planet we live on. On Seasons 4 and 5, hear from rebels and visionaries with radical ideas on how we can build stable lives, careers, and companies.

If you’re also interested in Jen and Manoush’s personal story and their adventures in starting their own business with a little help from blockchain technology, listen to the first three seasons, starting with Season 1, Chapter 1.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The co-founders of Stable Genius Productions have a candid conversation about their current financial situation (hint: their grant is running out soon), the highs/lows of making this season of the podcast (another hint: they had a fallout over email), and Civil's plans to resurrect itself in 2019 (final hint: the token lives on).

GO DEEPER: 
Blockchain has not yet added value to international development projects, USAID finds. After mindfulness, tech takes on information overload, Manoush's forecast for Neiman Lab. Indiewire calls Season 2 Episode 2, one of the best podcast episodes of 2018! Radiotopia reaches 25,000 new contributors!

WHO YOU’LL HEAR:

@manoushz (Manoush Zomorodi, host of ZigZag and cofounder of Stable Genius Productions), @jpoyant (Jen Poyant, producer of ZigZag and cofounder of Stable Genius Productions)

**MANOUSH'S TOP 10 READS OF 2018:
**10. Empress of Facebook: My Befuddling Dinner with Sheryl Sandberg (WIRED)
9. Lena Dunham Comes to Terms with Herself (The Cut)
8. A Guide to Worrying in the 21st Century (Bill Gates)
7. Barcelona's Experiment in Radical Democracy (New Yorker)
6. Cryptopia in Crisis: Joe Lubin's Ethereum is a Mess (Forbes) 
5. The Gift of Menopause (NYTimes) -**TIE- **Jennalee (Popula)
4. The Devastating Illusion of Control (The Cut)
3. The Plastic Backlash: What's Behind Our Sudden Rage- and Will It Make a Difference? (The Guardian)
2. Estranged in America: Both Sides Feel Left Out (NYTimes)
1. The Prophets of Cryptocurrency Survey the Boom and Bust (New Yorker)

ZigZag is the business show about being human.

Join a community of listeners riding the twists and turns of late-capitalism, searching for a kinder, more sustainable way. Manoush Zomorodi and Jen Poyant investigate how work and business impact our wellbeing and the planet we live on. On Seasons 4 and 5, hear from rebels and visionaries with radical ideas on how we can build stable lives, careers, and companies.

**If you’re also interested in Jen and Manoush’s personal story and their adventures in starting their own business with a little help from blockchain technology, listen to the first three seasons, starting with Season 1, Chapter 1.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The richest 1 percent of the world's population now owns more than half of the world's wealth. The calls for breaking up Big Tech companies are growing louder. On this episode, the author of Open Revolution, Rufus Pollock, proposes a solution (think regulation, but on steroids) for wrangling monopolies, sparking innovation, and getting profits into the hands of more people.

GO DEEPER:
"What the California Wildfires Can Teach Us About Data Sharing," Joi Ito writes in Wired. An old monopoly story: the Hush-a-Phone vs AT&T debacle from Atlas Obscura. And a new one: Infinite choices, few distributors in the digital economy from The Open Markets Institute. And the Senate Intelligence Committee's two reports on news manipulation on social media: The Disinformation Report and The Internet Research Agency and Political Polarization in the US.

Who You’ll Hear:

@manoushz (Manoush Zomorodi, host of @zigzagpod and cofounder of Stable Genius Productions), @**rufuspollock**‏ (Rufus Pollock, author of The Open Revolution)

ZigZag is the business show about being human.

Join a community of listeners riding the twists and turns of late-capitalism, searching for a kinder, more sustainable way. Manoush Zomorodi and Jen Poyant investigate how work and business impact our wellbeing and the planet we live on. On Seasons 4 and 5, hear from rebels and visionaries with radical ideas on how we can build stable lives, careers, and companies.

**If you’re also interested in Jen and Manoush’s personal story and their adventures in starting their own business with a little help from blockchain technology, listen to the first three seasons, starting with Season 1, Chapter 1.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Journalists-turned-entrepreneurs Mark Little and Áine Kerr believe the experience of getting news online is broken. (And they should know: Mark worked at Twitter and Áine at Facebook.) So, they're building an app called Kinzen which they hope can reboot our daily news habit by delivering trustworthy journalism without overwhelming us. Afterall, they reason, we have apps to track our sleep, steps, and calories... Why not news consumption? But can there really be an app for that?

GO DEEPER:
You can sign up to help develop Kinzen. An ode to Tumblr after it bans NSFW content. Look up which location data those free Android apps collect from phones (and read the New York Times investigation). Blockchain hits the "trough of disillusionment." ConsenSys, the backer of Civil, cuts 13 percent of its staff. Forbes asks: will the crypto bear market take down Ethereum? Twitter gives us crypto Christmas carols.

WHO YOU’LL HEAR:

Manoush Zomorodi, cofounder of Stable Genius Productions and host of ZigZag Podcast (@manoushz), Mark Little, cofounder of Kinzen (@marklittlenews) Aine Kerr, cofounder of Kinzen (@AineKerr)

ZigZag is the business show about being human.

Join a community of listeners riding the twists and turns of late-capitalism, searching for a kinder, more sustainable way. Manoush Zomorodi and Jen Poyant investigate how work and business impact our wellbeing and the planet we live on. On Seasons 4 and 5, hear from rebels and visionaries with radical ideas on how we can build stable lives, careers, and companies.

**If you’re also interested in Jen and Manoush’s personal story and their adventures in starting their own business with a little help from blockchain technology, listen to the first three seasons, starting with Season 1, Chapter 1.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's been an extraordinarily weird year. This mini episode compresses Manoush and Jen's story so far into a strange mash-up of voice memos that documents their leap from public radio producers to audio entrepreneurs (who often are very stressed and seem to rarely sleep). Think of it as an audio thank you note for being on this ZigZag ride. We're so glad you're here with us. 

We hope you'll also consider supporting Radiotopia, the podcast collective that helps make ZigZag possible. Go to radiotopia.fm where you can choose from an unusual array of donation gifts (including an outing to the Stable Genius' favorite bar).

ZigZag is the business show about being human.

Join a community of listeners riding the twists and turns of late-capitalism, searching for a kinder, more sustainable way. Manoush Zomorodi and Jen Poyant investigate how work and business impact our wellbeing and the planet we live on. On Seasons 4 and 5, hear from rebels and visionaries with radical ideas on how we can build stable lives, careers, and companies.

**If you’re also interested in Jen and Manoush’s personal story and their adventures in starting their own business with a little help from blockchain technology, listen to the first three seasons, starting with Season 1, Chapter 1.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julia Angwin, the award-winning reporter whose investigations make Facebook sweat, just got $20 million from Craig Newmark (yes, as in Craig's List) to start her own publication. Hear her vision for The MarkUp, why we need a new kind of watchdog journalism, and how she plans to combine hardcore data analysis with shoe-leather reporting. Plus, the honest lowdown on how Julia beats decision fatigue, as a startup founder and a parent. It's not all black turtlenecks and green smoothies, but it's close.

GO DEEPER:
Julia Angwin's investigations for ProPublic. Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Understand Journalism. Looking back at Craig's List. Jessica Lessin left the Wall Street Journal five years ago to found The Information. Closing Rookie: hard truths about digital media from teenage entrepreneur Tavi Gevinson.

Who You’ll Hear:

@manoushz (Manoush Zomorodi) @JuliaAngwin (Investigative journalist and Cofounder of The MarkUp)

ZigZag is the business show about being human.

Join a community of listeners riding the twists and turns of late-capitalism, searching for a kinder, more sustainable way. Manoush Zomorodi and Jen Poyant investigate how work and business impact our wellbeing and the planet we live on. On Seasons 4 and 5, hear from rebels and visionaries with radical ideas on how we can build stable lives, careers, and companies.

**If you’re also interested in Jen and Manoush’s personal story and their adventures in starting their own business with a little help from blockchain technology, listen to the first three seasons, starting with Season 1, Chapter 1.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.