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FUTURE OF XYZ is a bi-weekly interview series that explores big questions about where we are as a world and where we’re going. Through candid conversations with international experts, visionary leaders and courageous changemakers- we provoke new thinking about what's coming down the pipeline on matters related to art & design, science & innovation, culture & creativity.
Future of XYZ is presented by iF Design, a respected member of the international design community and host of the prestigious iF DESIGN AWARD since 1953. The show is also a proud member of the SURROUND Podcast Network. For more information, visit ifdesign.com/XYZ.
00:00:04:00 - 00:00:14:17
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Future of XYZ. It's a fun summer conversation with Chris Denson. Chris, thanks so much for joining us on Future of XYZ today.
00:00:14:19 - 00:00:17:11
Speaker 2
Woo hoo! Literal round of applause. Okay.
00:00:17:20 - 00:00:46:03
Speaker 1
I love it. Chris, you're the creator and founder of Visionology, which is a creative and innovation coaching practice for executives, founders and creative professionals. But what's really interesting, what you bring to that, besides, obviously having spent time in the corporate world at Omnicom advising groups, you know, like South by Southwest and also working with the Googles and the UN and the Obama administration, all these kinds of like, amazing top tier brands.
00:00:46:05 - 00:01:16:07
Speaker 1
You started out as a stand up comedian. You've been a TV host and creator. You wrote a number one bestselling book called Ten Essential Rules for Breaking Essential Rules before the pandemic in 2019. and you have this kind of like almost I call it bicoastal, even though Detroit's not really a coast coast. It i, Detroit where you grew up, and you went to Michigan State and now you're in LA are very two very different cultural references, to put it mildly.
00:01:16:18 - 00:01:18:20
Speaker 2
100 percent.
00:01:18:22 - 00:01:38:22
Speaker 1
so I think, you know, I think this ingenuity conversation coming from your own background is really fascinating. And that's what we're talking about today is the future of ingenuity. So let's start, as we always do on Future of XYZ with the definition of the topic, in the context of what we want to talk about in your experience.
00:01:38:24 - 00:02:08:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think, you know, ingenuity and innovation kind of go hand in hand. And, and I've always felt like ingenuity is an operating system, right? It is not just sort of like, oh, I think like this or we do this as a, you know, an ingenuity methodology. it really is like every knob on the machine can be adjusted or reimagined in order for the machine to create new and different things.
00:02:08:07 - 00:02:30:01
Speaker 2
So it's the humans, it's the processes, it's the forms you might have to fill out. It's every little, you know, thing along the way. And then voila, you've done some form of magic trick that, results in an uncommon business angle point of view. Thought leadership, etc., etc. that is unique to you and your ecosystem.
00:02:30:03 - 00:02:53:19
Speaker 1
I love that I when I was, I always do some really brief research. even on these like abstract topics, I usually do a lot of deep research, but even on the abstract topics, I'd like to kind of like dive in to be grounded in some facts and the synonyms I came up with, around ingenuity where like creativity, imagination, vision, talent, originality, things that you just said, but also some others.
00:02:53:19 - 00:03:07:02
Speaker 1
And I'm curious, based on your work, specifically how ingenuity is different from a few of these. And the first one is inventiveness. How is ingenuity different from inventiveness? And it doesn't have to be. You can say it's the same.
00:03:07:03 - 00:03:30:19
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean it like they have. That's a great question. I think, ingenuity is I feel like it's a little bit more tinkering. Right? It's like it's kind of like a little. It's got a little bit of fafo to it. I don't know how what language is like on your show, but. Right. Inventors. It's like from scratch never seen before.
00:03:30:19 - 00:03:59:00
Speaker 2
Ingenuity to me, takes things and flips them on their head or becomes, you know, unexpected use of a technology or a system. And then the outcome of that, but again, becomes unique. I when I hear the word inventive, and they have some obviously some shared traits, but when I, when I hear that, I think of the silly visual I got, my head was Rick Moranis in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
00:03:59:05 - 00:04:04:06
Speaker 2
It's like I'm making a whole new gadget, and I'm trying to like, you know, do.
00:04:04:08 - 00:04:05:04
Speaker 1
Gen X here.
00:04:05:04 - 00:04:15:07
Speaker 2
Shrink my family. Whereas, like, I have a better way of doing this is where ingenuity I feel like differentiates.
00:04:15:07 - 00:04:20:14
Speaker 1
I love that. And. And what about innovation? How is ingenuity different from innovation?
00:04:20:18 - 00:04:45:04
Speaker 2
Now, to me, they're like those that they go hand in hand, like, you know, innovation is you talk about the word synonym. it's been very synonymous with my career. and so, you know, I think innovation requires ingenuity, right? So, and, and, you know, I think it takes the temperature down on what people think it means to be innovative.
00:04:45:07 - 00:05:00:08
Speaker 2
When we talk about ingenuity, I mean, even the moniker for my Visionology practice, I say I like to help unlock new levels of ingenuity and clarity. Right. I'm usually working with folks who are already somewhat innovative. Right. And it's, Yeah. So I, I'm committed. Yeah.
00:05:00:08 - 00:05:06:12
Speaker 1
And what about, like, is there a role for an or a need for adaptability within ingenuity?
00:05:06:14 - 00:05:29:13
Speaker 2
Oh, it's all adaptability right. I think it's you know, again, if you're if you have this spirit of experimentation, you know, it means you're going to AB test, you're going to look for the results you didn't expect. You know, you're going to have a hunch. You have to be, have some level of awareness of like there are extreme possibilities here.
00:05:29:15 - 00:05:46:24
Speaker 2
and so when you have that appetite, you are looking for all sorts of results. Or you at least you and I think a lot of us, if you have a little bit more of a linear mindset or a linear type of creativity, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just like I've my whole career has been like, what's that over there?
00:05:46:24 - 00:05:51:19
Speaker 2
And maybe it can apply to something over here. And I have zero clue.
00:05:51:21 - 00:06:15:15
Speaker 1
Mine too. I think that adaptability is key and it leads to, I think, one of the things in your, website, it says that you your work proves that in an era of relentless disruption, our most valuable asset isn't just our vision, it's our capacity for clarity, curiosity and the unreasonable leap. Explain what the unreasonable leap is.
00:06:15:17 - 00:06:41:06
Speaker 2
The unreasonable leap is you don't always have all the information you wish you had. Especially if you're doing something that is either uncommon to you or uncommon to the world. And it's like I have a hunch, which means I might have to leave a lot of familiar things behind, a job, a way of doing things, partner or whatever it might be, because it's like I have a vision for what is possible.
00:06:41:09 - 00:06:58:18
Speaker 2
And I see what happened also along the way. And where I end up working with a lot of folks is that there's the “big V” vision of what this end experience looks like. And then there's like, here's my hammer and my nail. I don't have enough to make that right. And so the but you do you have the toothpick version.
00:06:58:18 - 00:07:08:03
Speaker 2
Then you use that toothpick version to get it and so on and so forth. And I think it begins to leapfrog itself. and then that's where the unreasonable lead comes in.
00:07:08:05 - 00:07:26:03
Speaker 1
I love that it was it's interesting because there's probably a generational gap here. I mean, forget the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids example, for the for the young people, they don't have a clue, but it's okay. I think one of the things that, ingenuity came up with when I was thinking about it was like, resourcefulness.
00:07:26:05 - 00:07:43:12
Speaker 1
And it's thinking about, like, our grandparents generation and like, I mean, I think about, like, they could fix anything, right? Like, my, my neighbor just passed away, and he was not my grandparents generation, but like, somewhere between my grandparents and my parents. And he was like old school, right? Like he could fix anything with what he already had.
00:07:43:12 - 00:08:07:07
Speaker 1
He never needed to go to the hardware store or very rarely, he just basically could like, cobble things together. And I think about that in terms of ingenuity. But like that mindset, exactly what you just said, that unreasonable leap in some ways and figuring it out, is that being lost by our younger generations who are so reliant on having answers and blueprints and YouTube videos like whereas ingenuity, just looking differently.
00:08:07:09 - 00:08:29:04
Speaker 2
Great question. I feel like and one mode of thought is that there is an overabundance of tools. So then there's the analysis paralysis, the like which path is the right path? How long do I even stay on that path? How long do I hold this tool? Because I see a thousand other ones all day, every day.
00:08:29:04 - 00:09:03:05
Speaker 2
And I see my friends and my colleagues and coworkers using different things. So whereas, you know, previous generations like this is the machine, I'm going to use it and see how many new, different ways I can put it to put it to good use, but now there's like there's so many pathways. So I think it requires a different level of an internal compass of, like, who you are, what you what your belief system is, what are you building that truly resonates with who you are, where, you know, like you said, our grandparents generation is like, I need a job.
00:09:03:05 - 00:09:08:21
Speaker 2
We're going to put food on the table. There wasn't like a passion conversation as frequently as we hear it now.
00:09:08:22 - 00:09:17:23
Speaker 1
Yeah, certainly not in the workplace. But so even at home, I feel like you just had to, like, figure it out because there wasn't the money or you didn't hire people in the same way we do.
00:09:18:00 - 00:09:45:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. I don't think there's a there's a grit that is I don't think it's lost. But I mean, that's you're talking about like, I feel like I'm thinking about my mom right now is just like the number of things she had to barrel through. Right. And I think just generationally, my challenges were just different than hers. Yeah. So it doesn't it doesn't devalidate either side of that equation is just like your set of problems that disregulate your nervous system and keep you up at night are very different than mine.
00:09:45:21 - 00:09:49:18
Speaker 2
But we are living a very similar experience and that something's keeping me up at night.
00:09:49:20 - 00:10:02:10
Speaker 1
Yeah. And and the ingenuity in navigating all of that or of creating within it is, is of course, the outcomes will be different. And that generation and the generation before it. And we keep evolving.
00:10:02:12 - 00:10:27:18
Speaker 2
Absolutely. And I think that, you know, like just back to the ingenuity piece, it's, you know, finding that inner compass, that's the thing that keeps you moving forward when there's a lot of noise coming at you. So I think this kind of like recalibrating our own compasses as individuals is, well, is the thing that will lead to exponential ingenuity. And, you know, in each and every individual and team.
00:10:27:20 - 00:10:55:01
Speaker 1
I mean, that's a really fascinating thing. I've spent most of my career talking about values based leadership, values based growth, and and authenticity. Long before it was a hip word. I don't use it anymore, and I haven't for about 15 years because it got so over played. But it ultimately is what we're talking about. And whether you're talking brands, companies or individuals, I think that inner navigation is part of, as any coach, or coaching practice, which is what you do now.
00:10:55:01 - 00:11:04:24
Speaker 1
Chris, how how do you think that that ladder is specifically to ingenuity in an organization like the culture of an organization?
00:11:05:01 - 00:11:21:22
Speaker 2
it I mean, it's the same thing. I think we forget that humans are making whatever it is we're making. Right? Yeah. How many times have you gotten on a zoom call and you get straight to business? and then there's a follow up. There's, like, very little warmth, very little check in. And I think part of it, you know, there's so many factors to it.
00:11:21:24 - 00:11:38:03
Speaker 2
But one of the big things is like the whole return to office conversation where there was once, higher degree of serendipity that happens in an office that might see you and like, oh, hey, Lisa, I like your sneakers. Oh, I got these on a trip to Mexico. You went to Mexico? Yeah, actually, we're working on this project in Mexico.
00:11:38:03 - 00:12:04:22
Speaker 2
Can you maybe you can tell us about your trip. Just come into the meeting for 15 minutes. Right. We're losing that sort of. I get to know who you are. and so creating space for that, create a space for it to be okay, to be like, either I'm not okay or these are my weird, kooky interests and they actually can fit into the wheel of problem solving that we're doing if we're building things like trust and, you know, rapport.
00:12:04:24 - 00:12:28:04
Speaker 2
it's like, I mean, the basketball final's just finished and it's just like, great teams have their own superpowers, but they all kind of like, figure out how to use them together. Yeah, totally. And there's there's very there's less space in the workplace for that now. So working with teams I'm like, I'm doing a lot of internal exploration, especially as it relates to the work.
00:12:28:06 - 00:12:48:13
Speaker 1
Yeah, totally. It's interesting. Your work, I think, offers a framework. I don't love that word, but it does. I mean, I don't have another word for a framework for navigating the invisible you called the invisible structures that define our creative and professional potential. When I read that, I'm thinking about two things which you just kind of talked
00:12:48:16 - 00:13:01:06
Speaker 1
touched on like mindsets versus skill sets. Like is there is there a difference between the skill set and the mindset that's needed for ingenuity today? And looking ahead the next 5 to 10 years.
00:13:01:08 - 00:13:28:15
Speaker 2
I mean, skill sets to me, like become transferable. And I think a lot of folks, if let's say you're making widgets today and you want to open a sandwich shop tomorrow and it's like, I don't have what it takes, right? Whatever impostor syndrome things pop up when you make that sort of leap of ingenuity. but then you start to like, really dig into what is a transferable skill or what is this set of transferable skills.
00:13:28:17 - 00:13:58:13
Speaker 2
so maybe your you have an ability to connect dots, like a little bit quicker than someone else, or you're really good at analyzing numbers and information and like extracting the most important details, like, we're so used to resume building that when sort of the creative opportunity comes up, we think we don't have what it takes. And that's at every level of game I'm seeing, you know, CEOs of fortune 500 companies go and do a new thing and like, be flabbergasted.
00:13:58:14 - 00:14:00:08
Speaker 2
Is that the right word? flustered.
00:14:00:09 - 00:14:01:07
Speaker 1
I love that word.
00:14:01:09 - 00:14:12:22
Speaker 2
Yeah, I do too. I was saying it yesterday for some reason, which I will spare you the details. but. Yeah. So, so that, But I'll drop the mic there.
00:14:12:24 - 00:14:35:20
Speaker 1
It's cool. You, you talk about a lot of, like, you know, these organizations or these people as kind of, like, complex antennas, where your role is, like, stripping away that static. So that, and I think you call it the most unreasonable insights can find their footing. Like, why do we want that? Why do we want unreasonable insights to have footing?
00:14:35:22 - 00:14:54:15
Speaker 2
Because listen, we've all been told we're crazy when we say, oh, you know, I had one of my favorite examples to point to, and he wouldn't mind me saying his name. His name is Drake Sutton-Shearer. I interviewed him years ago, and I site him in the in my book, but he was starting a cannabis business very early in the cannabis kind of like boom.
00:14:54:17 - 00:15:16:04
Speaker 2
within first ten minutes of our interview, he's like, yeah, we pitched our business 198 times before we saw a dime. Wow. Right. And I go, I was like 198. Like, how do you keep track of that? How do you keep up the enthusiasm from time 8 to time 198. What feedback are you getting? What feedback did you incorporate?
00:15:16:04 - 00:15:38:11
Speaker 2
What what do you actually believe is you're correct in your hunch versus what the industry and the numbers and the data are telling you. Like you have to have a little bit of loopiness to be able to like keep going. Yeah, to be able to keep going. And and so that inner signal is like the why you're doing this, who like what part of you genuinely resonates with it?
00:15:38:11 - 00:15:57:10
Speaker 2
I think I speak for myself because like, my whiteboard is filled with ideas. I'm like, oh, that'll be a cool T shirt, or that would be a cool, blah, blah, blah. And then there's the a couple things that are like the goosebump ones that I'm like, that's actually who I am. And I think in a world where there's a lot of noise in social media, you're seeing a lot of success porn.
00:15:57:10 - 00:16:31:16
Speaker 2
Like, look at this founder, like made $30 million. Exactly. First trillionaire. That is the noise, let alone if you have some sort of traumatic relationship with rejection. Yeah. Or overperformance or presentation. And those are things I had to work through. And I've taken, you know, a lot of trauma recovery training. I've taken psychedelics facilitation training plus my like observational lens through which you mentioned earlier, like around stand up comedy and the ability to get up on a stage by yourself and like, risk everything and embarrassment and all the other stuff.
00:16:31:18 - 00:16:45:02
Speaker 2
So, you know, you combine this little weird matrix of internal tools. and I think I like to help people like strip away the noise that are telling them the opposite of what they actually see in their minds.
00:16:45:04 - 00:17:07:11
Speaker 1
I love that, and I mean, just to touch on that cross sectional tool kit that you have, which is very internally focused, right? I don't mean you internally, but like human shadow work and internal work, right. Like plus you have like the mass communications and the entertainment and the media business and the business transformation stuff. Right. It's like that cross sectional knowledge.
00:17:07:13 - 00:17:33:08
Speaker 1
Do you think it's ascend like obviously gives you a certain like super power in in the helping others with ingenuity. But like how do those two things that most people have one of if they're lucky, much less this whole toolkit of both the business side and comms side and entertainment side mixed with these tools. How do you find that kind of plays into your own ingenuity?
00:17:33:10 - 00:17:56:04
Speaker 2
it's, you know, I'm a parent also, and I think sometimes when you are experiencing something that is familiar to you, like, oh, this has happened to me as a kid, and here's what I can reflect on. Or you're like, oh, this is a really good reminder because my son's going through something or my daughter is going through something and it's like, oh, also me too, right?
00:17:56:04 - 00:18:22:05
Speaker 2
And it becomes just like a, through a, a very altruistic LA woowoo lens. It's like all these conversations are mirrors, right? And and the careful thing is, I have to make sure I'm not projecting my own experience onto the person, or extracting like, things that they say and like, reacting to them in a way that is somehow challenging for me.
00:18:22:07 - 00:18:39:22
Speaker 2
so that means I have to keep up my own internal dialog and keep my, like, centering practices. And also like, I love the, the, you know, the technical side of it, right? There's the internal stuff and like, okay, yeah, you're saying I get it. Let's, let's see what we can do about that. that being obviously facetious.
00:18:39:22 - 00:19:00:07
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, totally. but then this is like, yes. What does it look, feel, sound like? What are the what's the venture firm you want to talk to? Oh, here's a resource. I know somebody who built a game. You guys should have a conversation. Like, just start to, like, really build, but you're building from a place of a lot more internal spaciousness, you know?
00:19:00:07 - 00:19:22:17
Speaker 2
And that's that's where the rubber hits the road. And once we're there, it's like it becomes exponential kind of building. and this is again, like, this is going to be entrepreneurial at an organization that's already, you know, 1000 or 10,000 employees deep, or it can be like a mom and pop team that are just like trying to navigate to the next few steps.
00:19:22:19 - 00:19:52:20
Speaker 1
From 2013 to 2020, you hosted a show, called Innovation Crash. And I think it's, you had over 200 interviews with some pretty wild, leaders in the world and change makers, not totally dissimilar, in fact, to the Future of XYZ. I have to say, I'm curious in that what did you notice and observe of this theme that just keeps coming up in this conversation around ingenuity, which is it's not all professional, performance based.
00:19:53:01 - 00:20:05:13
Speaker 1
There's this whole internal personal narrative, with those great leaders. What was that kind of like? I think you call it the inner signal. But like, what was that observation that you made?
00:20:05:15 - 00:20:27:08
Speaker 2
from the inner signal part of it, I saw that a lot of people who were inventive, go throw a word back at you, in their fields it always related to something that was internal to them. Perfect example is, Miguel McKelvey, the co-founder of We Work, not the one we saw in the documentary, but a different one.
00:20:27:10 - 00:20:52:20
Speaker 2
the other day and I interviewed him at an event in Montreal called C2 and what I found out during that interview is that he actually grew up in communal living. So it was like his mom, a couple of her friends and their kids all lived under the same roof, and they shared resources and rides to school and tutors and clothes and made it like it was this community, like melting pot.
00:20:52:22 - 00:21:21:14
Speaker 2
And it's the DNA of what made we work, work as it was sort of in this high growth, you know, stage like to the point where they actually designed the hallways to be smaller, to kind of force connection. Right. And and then when you saw other organizations or teams replicating this sort of real estate co-working model, it may not have grown as quickly and as fast because here's somebody who's just very natural to who they are.
00:21:21:19 - 00:21:35:03
Speaker 2
And I saw that time and time and time again, I was like, oh, you would like or I'm I'm showing it to people like, oh, you've always kind of been this way then like, oh yeah. So so that's that was the that's one of the, the big takeaways.
00:21:35:08 - 00:21:58:06
Speaker 1
It's so interesting. I’m going to kind of hard pivot for a second because I'm personally in love with this, like, example NASA when they sent, perseverance the rover to Mars not so long ago. And I'm a big NASA junkie, and we've had, the creative director, David Rager of NASA or NASA on the podcast.
00:21:58:06 - 00:22:19:07
Speaker 1
And, but the solar powered helicopter, which was the first to ever, aircraft to fly in what we'll call alien or Martian, you know, atmospheres, was named ingenuity. What do you think that that portends for kind of the future of ingenuity.
00:22:19:09 - 00:22:25:19
Speaker 2
As far as in making a, helicopter. Say the question again.
00:22:25:21 - 00:22:46:05
Speaker 1
Like I just said, like, the helicopter was called ingenuity because it was that first aircraft that was, you know, first of all, solar powered, but also like flying in any kind of atmosphere outside of the U.S or, outside of the of the planet is. Hello. and so I was just curious, like, do you think that like, does that, does that ring a bell to you like that?
00:22:46:05 - 00:22:49:17
Speaker 1
It's called ingenuity. Or do you think it's just like a name?
00:22:49:19 - 00:23:14:08
Speaker 2
What do I mean? I can understand why they named it that. Right? You know, I think it's funny. It makes me think of how a lot of firsts are named something really basic. The face book, which was a book of faces, like when would it started? Right. And then the next social media platforms had to be a little bit more techy, or they got to play around with the branding and how they talk about it and what other features it might have.
00:23:14:14 - 00:23:37:03
Speaker 2
Right. There's, you know, there are first movers and there's fast followers. And I think those are two tracks of ingenuity slash innovation, because the first ever aircraft that can do X, Y and Z, there will be fast followers. Right? Look at space X, look at, you know, all the, you know that all the all the other words.
00:23:37:05 - 00:23:57:05
Speaker 2
Yes. Thank you. and so it's and I've even in the agency world, I remember Wells Fargo was a client of ours. And Chase was one of the first ones to do mobile check cashing. And you just take a picture of you checking and cash. Well, we thought about it for, you know, for them, but they were like, well, listen, let's see how they do it first.
00:23:57:05 - 00:24:06:18
Speaker 2
Right. So, so yeah, I think there's sometimes with the when you are the first, it's a little riskier maybe, you know, like you, but you also get to plant a flag.
00:24:06:20 - 00:24:08:18
Speaker 1
Literally or metaphorically.
00:24:08:20 - 00:24:09:10
Speaker 2
Right, right.
00:24:09:21 - 00:24:41:15
Speaker 1
Totally. As we think about the future, there is undoubtedly many who envision the future of ingenuity being driven and defined by that seamless synergy between man and machine. obviously that conversation around AI is absolutely everywhere at the moment. There's no way around that. But like as we think about the hybridization of human creativity and AI, artificial intelligence to spell it out, like, what do you what do you think?
00:24:41:15 - 00:24:50:16
Speaker 1
Like where does that where does that fit in the future of ingenuity? Do you think it's, default? Do you think it's an additive? Do you think it's something completely other?
00:24:50:18 - 00:25:20:09
Speaker 2
you know, I don't have a crystal ball, per se, but I do feel like like everything else, there are myriad outcomes from these tools. When YouTube came online, it's like the studios felt threatened, right? When the, the television came online, the radio felt threatened. And like, none of these things have gone away right. We've just kind of spread the the access points of creating things.
00:25:20:11 - 00:25:40:13
Speaker 2
I do have a theory around, I don't know, I call it sort of the fifth Industrial revolution, where, you know, because of the number of layoffs and how a lot of there's fear mongering about what AI will and won't do. it really gets us down to the space of thinking about who we are and how we're adding value.
00:25:40:15 - 00:26:00:22
Speaker 2
Right. If the machine is going to do my job, then where who am I? And for some, that's a resume question. It's a LinkedIn question. For others, it's a like, well, it's an opportunity to to find some depth because I do feel like human beings are inventive by nature. We all we love problem solving. It's game theory, right?
00:26:00:22 - 00:26:20:06
Speaker 2
It's the reason the video game industry does what it does because it's chemically the releasing of problem solving endorphins. And you, you got to the next level and you keep doing that. We are we thrive on that sort of problem solving. And it doesn't have to be a business problem. It can be like, how am I going to get my kid to school tomorrow?
00:26:20:06 - 00:26:41:14
Speaker 2
And I have six meetings and the cat is sick. You figure it out, right? It's And so with that, I feel like the AI is really having a lot of us go a little bit deeper. and then there's just a careful balance of how much reliance is on that. How much do you want to go alone with?
00:26:41:16 - 00:27:05:05
Speaker 2
Like, I always write first, you know, and then I just finished a very intense round of pitching for a project, that we won, but. Congrats. I was, thank you, but I tried my best not to use any AI tools. I wrote this, like, flowery, and this is one of the skill sets that I feel like is good to me.
00:27:05:05 - 00:27:20:09
Speaker 2
I can't draw, I can't paint, I can't design, I can write my ass off. And I wrote these two paragraphs, and I feel like it's one of those things that took us over the top is so sort of our theory and thesis and, like, even when I threw it in AI just to improve it, I was like, no, I'm going to use my version.
00:27:20:11 - 00:27:29:05
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, I, I understand that one. Those of us who enjoy and like writing and thinking strategically, there's like, there's a gap there.
00:27:29:07 - 00:27:51:02
Speaker 2
yeah. There was a, Oh, sorry. No, no, I just this is just brief. There was, there's a post on my Instagram, but, it but it was like a shot of a newspaper and the, the headline was like, I want AI to do my dishes and my laundry so I can spend more time writing, not I write so I can spend more time doing my laundry.
00:27:51:02 - 00:27:51:22
Speaker 1
100%.
00:27:52:02 - 00:27:52:09
Speaker 2
Right?
00:27:52:12 - 00:27:53:19
Speaker 1
Useful please.
00:27:53:21 - 00:27:54:04
Speaker 2
Yes.
00:27:54:09 - 00:28:13:09
Speaker 1
No, I totally agree. I, I, I've, I've seen that whether on yours or elsewhere. And I totally agree. We're coming up on time, Chris. But I do want to throw out two questions. One is a total zinger and you won't have an answer, but I'd like your take, as the as the one eyebrow goes up and I'm listening.
00:28:13:11 - 00:28:28:06
Speaker 1
if we're so ingenious, which is, of course, the adjective for ingenuity, if we're so ingenious as human beings, as a species, why haven't we solved the climate crisis yet?
00:28:28:08 - 00:28:51:02
Speaker 2
my hot take is I don't we don't believe we can. I think, you know, and a lot of, socially social good initiatives. We hear so much of what the problem is, right? There's compassion fatigue. There is confusion. I'm the kind of person I like. I walk up and there's three, four garbage cans. I'm like, oh, no, I'm killing the planet.
00:28:51:02 - 00:29:10:20
Speaker 2
Right? Like, because where do I put this straw? Like, it's just not I don't use straw, but this. Yeah. Yeah. biodegradable. But, you know, and I think when we have such opposing points of view on these things, it's hard to.
00:29:10:20 - 00:29:15:04
Speaker 1
And no consistency. You've just described something that's a problem, too. There's no patterns in that.
00:29:15:06 - 00:29:39:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. And it's hard to organize, you know, a few billion people, like, in the to head in the same direction. and so, yeah, that's, I mean, that's my initial thought is just like there is a belief system, there are opposing belief systems in place that don't allow us to maximize the potential of what we could be doing.
00:29:39:16 - 00:30:07:14
Speaker 1
Your work. the second to last question, Chris, your work, it talks a lot about maximizing potential in its own way and ingenuity being like that leapfrog. But do you think that we're starting to rely too much, especially as I think about, like, the built environment and our products and our technologies and our our social networks and things like, are we relying more and more on like creating next generations rather than like real leapfrogs of ingenuity.
00:30:07:16 - 00:30:09:16
Speaker 2
When it comes to generational conversation?
00:30:09:16 - 00:30:26:09
Speaker 1
And I know I don't mean generational like, of ages. I mean like of the products of the built environment, of the social networks. Like, are we like, are we just like coasting on the profitability of like the Apple iPhone is now like a 17, like that's next generation, like the product. That's what I meant. Sorry.
00:30:26:11 - 00:30:46:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. Like, you know, planned obsolescence is a thing that's been around for a very long time is just like, oh, you can't use that anymore. You guys, you got to buy the new one right? We can have light bulbs that don't burn out, right. But the but the machine. And then you got to look at the balance of like you know, people's livelihoods.
00:30:46:16 - 00:31:19:24
Speaker 2
Right. The who is able to like the people that are developing apps. If you look at I mean just the iPhone alone to speak for example, is like it's created millions. If not, you know, trillions of dollars and opportunities for people all over the world, you know, working with the Obama administration in the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, you know, I'm meeting like inventive founders from Haiti and Ghana and, you know, developing parts of the world because of this device that gave them access to information like there's a ripple effect.
00:31:20:02 - 00:31:42:00
Speaker 2
And I think that's why they said, sure, let us keep making $1 trillion and build a, you know, giant campus and do other things. And there's always that gap of like, we probably could solve the hunger crisis. Yes, yes, exactly. And there's and there's that part of it. But, you know, that's the to me, that's the yin and yang of creating anything.
00:31:42:02 - 00:32:13:14
Speaker 2
You know, the Social Dilemma is a great documentary because it's like, oh, a like button would be so nice until somebody was on the other side of not receiving any. Right. Exactly. it's there are there are always unintended consequences. And I think it's our job to know that there's been a history of unintended consequences. And so what how can we think through potential problems as we're building things that aren't just about funding and our own personal longevity and keeping our job?
00:32:13:16 - 00:32:24:05
Speaker 2
You know, I have a lot of my clients I go like, let's like, how do we make your job obsolete, which most of us aren't even wired to think that way because you're like, I want to keep this job. Yeah.
00:32:24:05 - 00:32:30:07
Speaker 1
No, I have to keep I'm totally on that, that later train, like, make it obsolete and like, like level up.
00:32:30:09 - 00:32:31:08
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely.
00:32:31:10 - 00:32:42:18
Speaker 1
Totally. So last question. Your greatest hope for the future of long, for our ingenuity in, let's call it 25 years or 2050.
00:32:42:20 - 00:33:07:17
Speaker 2
2050 we'll all go to Mars on the ingenuity. No. I do think this is like, it's this level of self-awareness. Like, you know, it's the ability to know who I am. And past that skill set down, you know, because the world is going to change. And like, tools, technologies, jobs, passions, all that stuff. But the the thing that stays is who you are.
00:33:07:17 - 00:33:27:23
Speaker 2
And like, I'm, I'm trying to find better words to drive that point home. I yeah, but you know what I'm saying? Like, I know I'm a goofball. I know you know that humor is a thing that I use to disarm certain situations, but it's also true to who I am. I think nutty shit all the time. I just don't say it out loud, and sometimes I do.
00:33:28:00 - 00:33:30:23
Speaker 1
Thta's the comic in you I'm gonna guess.
00:33:31:00 - 00:34:03:03
Speaker 2
1,000% right. But for a long time, I didn't think that belonged in business. until I was like, really embrace the totality of who I am, flaws and all, perceived flaws and all that. I think really a different kind of escalation in my career happened. Yeah. So, and I would hope that more people begin to see that there are opportunities for them to expand, you know, expand their capacity, expand their, like, their points of view and, like, be challenged in a way that doesn't become confrontational.
00:34:03:03 - 00:34:14:20
Speaker 2
And they shut down and so on and so forth. So it's that level of freedom that I hope we see. And then there's that's where the magic kicks in. And like, what rabbit will we pull out of the hat by 2050.
00:34:14:22 - 00:34:22:16
Speaker 1
I love it, I love it Chris Denson, Future of Ingenuity. Thank you so much for joining us today on Future of XYZ.
00:34:22:18 - 00:34:24:10
Speaker 2
Thank you.
00:34:24:12 - 00:34:48:12
Speaker 1
for everyone watching. You can also listen anywhere you get your favorite podcasts, and be sure to leave a five star review on Apple or Spotify, because that's how more people find us. and if you're listening, you can watch on YouTube, you can follow on Instagram, and you can find all past shows, over 170 episodes now of Future of XYZ at ifdesign.com/xyz.
00:34:48:18 - 00:34:52:20
Speaker 1
Thank you again Chris and we will see you all in two weeks.
00:34:52:22 - 00:34:54:01
Speaker 2
See ya.