Join Derek Hudson as he explores Essential Dynamics, a framework for approaching the challenges facing people and organizations. Consider your Quest!
Welcome to Essential Dynamics Podcast. I'm Derek Hudson. Essential Dynamics is a framework I've been developing that helps us think through our trickiest opportunities and challenges. In this podcast, we test the concepts of Essential Dynamics through deep conversations with interesting people. And today, I'm really excited to, introduce my guest and friend, Randy Marsden.
Derek:Randy, welcome to Essential Dynamics.
Randy:Thank you very much, Derek. Happy to be here. I'm, been following your blog and, I'm super and your podcast and super excited to be part of it.
Derek:Okay. So, Randy, there's lots that we want to talk about, but first, maybe, just, just a little bit of an introduction. A lot of us here in Edmonton remember that, you left Edmonton and ended up going down to Silicon Valley to work at Apple, but you're not at Apple anymore. What are you doing right now?
Randy:No, I'm currently at Nike. So, you might not expect that from a tech guy in Silicon Valley, but, I joined Nike a little over a year ago as a senior director in something called the Technology Innovation Office. So, we get the fun job of helping Nike become a tech company.
Derek:And, so Nike is based in Portland and you're the Silicon Valley, like, think tank office kind of thing?
Randy:Yeah. I have a team in Portland that I manage, a team of engineers. But, just this week, in fact, Nike opened their office. It's called the Bay Area Technology Center. Pretty cool space in Downtown San Francisco.
Randy:And that's Nike's first, footprint here in Silicon Valley. And so just showing Nike's, desire and putting putting that desire into action to get more integrated with Silicon Valley in the technology world.
Derek:Alright. Well, Andy or Randy, I wanna go back to the beginning, and I'll set it up with, just a recap of some of the things we talked about, essential dynamics. So one of the things that makes this fun is we look at life's challenges in the context of an epic quest. And, when you're on an epic quest, you expect to run into tough times. And in fact, if you don't have tough times, it's not really an epic quest.
Derek:And so as, as we think about that, just kind of, even just that as a context, let's talk about how you got into technology, some of the challenges that you faced, and some of the epic quests you've, you've helped people with, along the way. So, let's take us back to, University of Alberta in the eighties.
Randy:Yeah, we can skip by everything that happened before that, except to say, I knew I wanted to be an engineer and, I had to choose between University of Calgary and University of Alberta. And the University of Alberta had a slightly stricter percentage, you know, your grade point average had to be slightly higher to get into engineering at University of Alberta. And I thought, well, that must mean they're better. So that's how I ended up, in Edmonton. I accepted, my engineering, degree from there.
Randy:And I took electrical engineering. And in third year, they asked us to, do a project class. So, you know, knowing that it's important to not just have book learning, but actually build something, there is a class for that. It was a project class. And in case folks would spin around and you would make a circuit that counted how many times it went around.
Randy:Or, you know, if you don't find either of those very exciting, you could come up with your own idea. And I did not find either of those very exciting, you know, like let's do something. And so, along with a fellow student, we embarked on a project that was really life changing for me, which was helping a friend who had had a spinal cord injury and Eric Derek, I know you know Sy Peterson, when he was in junior high school, had a gymnastics accident and broke his neck, spinal cord injury in several places, and he was paralyzed from the chin down. And that included not being able to speak. He could, lip words, but, he had a trach that was breathing for him.
Randy:And so he couldn't speak, verbally himself. And this was 1987 and computer, personal computers were just becoming commonplace and the vision was we could help Sy by giving him access to a computer. Computer could do a lot of things, you know, communication, recreation, socialization, education, vocation. So, you know, it was this brave new world of personal computers and we thought we could unlock Sai's potential by just giving him access to that computer. And and first of all, helping him communicate.
Randy:And so we did this project that actually was ended up being a laptop for his wheelchair before laptops existed. It had a brand new thing called liquid crystal display and a brand new thing called digitized audio, you know, so that's how far back it was. And we built a fairly simple thing that allowed him to communicate common phrases like, Hello, how are you? I'm thirsty. Thank you.
Randy:And he would scan down a list. And, we I remember we went into a local radio station and had one of the DJs record. So, it was a very good quality, voice. And that became Sai's voice. He could scan down and touch a switch with his lip and verbalize these sentences.
Randy:And, that was way more work than something that counted a wheel spinning around. And, it ended up taking longer than one semester. And we just had a very, understanding professor, Nelson Dirtle was his name, and he allowed us to continue that project. And he gave us space in his grad lab, even there we were these lowly, third year undergrads and these grad students were like, why are you guys here? And that project got some media attention, there was TV coverage and they came into the lab and were filming us.
Randy:And so everyone was like, who are these guys? But it just turned into really a lifelong project. We did more than just canned phrases. We thought, okay, well, Sy needs to be able to communicate his own thoughts. And so, we created a keyboard that he would scan and very slowly could compose a sentence by scanning to the right letter in the alphabet.
Randy:And so, he could compose his own sentences. And one of the first things he typed was a question to me, which was, who are you going to help next? And everything up till that moment, it had been a super cool student project. I was thinking, this is gonna look great on a resume. I should get a good job when I graduate.
Randy:But then it was really Sai, who I think is probably the most physically challenged person I've met. And the first thing he was thinking about were others. And he knew he was getting helped and he wanted to encourage me to continue doing that. So he asked, who are you gonna help next? And that made me start thinking about who am I gonna help next?
Randy:And ended up forming a company while still in university, hiring new, people. You mentioned Greg McGillis. He was our employee number one.
Derek:Greg is a previous podcast guest on Essential Dynamics. And I was chatting with him this morning and mentioned that we'd be having this conversation, so he will love the shout out. So he and he told me that too, that he was employee number one at Medenta. That's super cool.
Randy:Yeah. We called it Medenta, you're right. That was the last names of mine, Marsden, and then my lab partner at the time was, Michael Tan. So we took Marsden and Tan and kinda mixed up the syllables, and we ended up calling it Madenta and figured that was a pretty safe safe name, made up word. And that company, survived for about twenty five years.
Randy:We did many different things to help people with disabilities, but all inspired in the very beginning by Sy Peterson.
Derek:So, we talk about Epic Quest and the starting point for essential dynamics is there has to be a purpose. And, I get the sense that you had a sense of purpose even before Sai asked you that super question, because you could have found a reason to finish the project off when it was due. And, it seems to me, at some point you weren't doing the project, you were helping Cy, and that's why you had to continue. Is that right?
Randy:Yeah, absolutely. Cy was in the Aberhart Center, which is on university campus. So we were pretty close to him and we would go over and visit him often and get his feedback, try out new things. And so I started to have not daily, but definitely weekly contact with Sai, and could just can see how much we could unlock for him with technology. And that truly became the epic.
Randy:It was life changing technology that we could apply that was really in its early stages. It, it became known as assistive technology, and there's several companies and groups that are working on different solutions, depending on what the type of physical challenge is, you know, things to help people who are blind and, people who have cerebral palsy and so on. Our specialty kinda became people with spinal cord injury and high high spinal cord injury. And, their their mind is 100% functioning just like they they were before whatever accident caused them to become paralyzed. And it can just be so frustrating because your mind is active and wants to do things.
Randy:And even if your body can't, there's plenty that you can do with a strong mind. But getting that out, somehow communicating that, controlling things back then was hard. There just wasn't a way to do it. Even today, what a lot of people do is use the letter boards. There's just like a big poster with the alphabet on it, and they look with their eye on the letter, and they have a communication partner that's like pointing and say, okay, d?
Randy:Yeah. Okay, F, no, E. Okay, E. And, you know, with their eyes, slowly type out the word Derek, you know. And we could just we knew we could do so much better with technology, so that definitely became our epic quest.
Derek:There's so many places I wanna take this, but my first question is, just thinking back, what was a really cool thing that Cy was able to do? You know, and and and maybe it's a surprise even surprised you. Although your question story's already a good one.
Randy:Yeah, the question story was huge. I went there one day and he's playing chess with somebody. It was just someone who came in to visit him, And, I said to Sai's mom, Oh, that's really nice of this fellow to come in and be a companion for Sai and plays chess. And she said, Yeah, except I think it's the other way. I think Sai is being his companion and helping him just as much.
Randy:And that was just who he was, like very giving individual and very much thinking about others. So that was a surprise. Sai ended up writing a book about his life. He used this technology in part to write the book. He could also lip words and his mom could read his lips and so often he would communicate that way.
Randy:But, he was able to share a lot about his life through a book he wrote.
Derek:I I know that, that his mom, completed that or wrote her own version, and and that's available on Amazon. I've read it, and I'm gonna I'm gonna at least put that in the show notes, and I know it has some of Sai's own Sai's own words in it. Yeah. So definitely, we want we want to share this with people, and I believe that we've spoken about Sai on this podcast before, which is super cool.
Randy:Amazing. Amazing guy. And you mentioned his mom and his family were all also amazing and just supported him throughout his life. You know, we're talking about Tsai in past tense. He did pass away.
Randy:I think it's been probably fifteen years ago or so now. And, I went to his funeral. I've never been to a more upbeat funeral. There was laughter about stories about Tsai and how he helped others. You know, it was, it was an amazingly positive experience and it just showed what kind of life and way he influenced others that he had and, and me included.
Randy:And, you know, we went on to help thousands of people, and I attribute all of that to Cy and his question.
Derek:So, so fantastic. So I was at the, at the funeral, and, I remember the story which I'd heard before about the time Cy played a trick on his mom by having one of the hospital workers put the blanket over his head.
Randy:That's right. Yeah.
Derek:So she goes in and thinks, that's it, he's gone. And, he's just kind of from the chin up shaking with laughter underneath the blanket waiting for her to find out he's still there. Yep. So so Randy, you have this you have this really clear sense of purpose that you've you've found, just because it was interesting. And then Cy hooked you with the question.
Derek:So then you started a company. And one of the things that, I find really interesting, and it's built in into essential dynamics is we generally don't have just one purpose for doing something important. And we usually have, well, I call it purpose X and purpose Y, and sometimes they seem a little bit contradictory, but they're complimentary and we have to do them both. And so, I know that, as you started, you start with this vision of helping people who have this disability and so much potential. At the same time, you're trying to, I presume, make money as well.
Derek:So, how did you balance those things in the early days?
Randy:I was going to say that that was the next purpose is I had just graduated with an engineering degree and now needed to start a career and support a young family. And so that was my first question is, okay, I really know I love doing this, it feels very fulfilling. Can I make a living at this? How do you make money helping people who probably can't work and don't have a lot of money themselves typically? And we had to eke out an existence in the early days.
Randy:It was a lot of, government support, grants, and programs to kind of help get started. And then we just sort of learned what parts of the world have funding to help their population that have physical challenges. And you learn some countries have good social programs for that and some don't. And that's kinda where we focused our time and attention. And amazingly, we're able to make a business out of it for twenty five years and very rewarding, emotionally and feeling fulfilled.
Randy:Not super rewarding financially. We, you know, we were niche. We didn't shoot up and become this huge tech company. And there was never really any intention of that or hope for it. We were applying technology to help people with disabilities.
Randy:But along the way, there were things we were inventing that we knew probably could have use in the mainstream world. And that's where some of the fun spin outs happened.
Derek:So you said fun, and you said spin outs, plural. So, what are some examples of things that, assisting people with disabilities went mainstream?
Randy:So, the first one most people may have heard of is called Swipe, s s w y p
Derek:e. Yes.
Randy:And it's, it's where you enter text by sliding your finger between the letters on the on screen keyboard. And it can be much faster than just moving and tapping on each letter. And most people don't know that was started in Modenta as assistive technology. Most people with spinal cord injury can move their head. Sy was an exceptional case where it was a C1, spinal cord injury and he couldn't move his head.
Randy:Most can move their head and control their breath. And so we took those two things as input and we made on screen keyboards. We were kind of the first to make on screen keyboards that had word prediction in them in the early nineties. And so, we worked with a puff switch. We had this little switch we made that came over your ear, kind of like your microphones do on your headsets, and they could take that in their mouth and puff on it to be a switch.
Randy:So people would move the cursor to a letter D puff, E puff, R puff. And you could hit each letter one at a time, and
Derek:And typically, the, person is moving their head, and then how's that signal getting to the screen or the computer?
Randy:Oh yeah. Good, good point. I missed that. We built a camera that tracked your head movement, and it was infrared light and it was shining out and they would put on this little reflective sticker that, it's just like the reflections you see on firefighters' jackets. It reflects your headlights back at you.
Randy:It's called a retroreflector. And so to our camera, we had, we would take a picture with the infrared light on, take a picture with it off, subtract the two, and what we ended up with was this bright white dot on a black background. And then we could measure the movement of that dot through space. And we turned that into a mouse equivalent. So you could move your head to move the cursor like you would with a mouse.
Derek:And then the puff was the pushing the mouse button?
Randy:Yeah. So, we, you know, if you can imagine sitting in front of your computer and sitting on your hands and looking at your computer and saying, okay, how do I control it? You have to take care of the keyboard and the mouse. So we took care of the mouse with this head tracking camera and a puff switch, and then we took care of the keyboard with the keyboard on the screen. That was great.
Randy:I mean, people could type about 10 words a minute, but we talked about equalizing the playing field, leveling the playing field, and 10 words a minute was not leveling the playing field. Using your head to replace a mouse was leveling the playing field. We had artists who could be more accurate with their head than you or I could be with our hand. And they started generating art again with their head movement. And the mouse was great.
Randy:The keyboard, 10 words a minute, not so great. And so I'm like, the average typing speed is 40 words a minute for people who can use their hands. We have to hit that. What can we do? And the idea was, well, instead of moving your head and puffing on every single letter, wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to stop and puff?
Randy:We can just pass through the letter with your head. You move the cursor with your head and I go D E R E K. And I just move my head across those letters. Could we actually determine, I typed the word Derek with that? And we started experimenting and took a number of years to develop that algorithm, but the answer was yes.
Randy:And we got more than 40 words a minute. The there's a Guinness World Record event that we held where Hank was typing, I believe, at 65 words a minute. There's a YouTube link for that event. And he set the world record for fastest hands free typing. And then PDAs came along initially with stylus to enter, on the screen.
Randy:And then of course, smartphones and your finger. And that was the inflection point we knew everything we'd invented for people with disabilities suddenly applied to everyone because now everyone didn't have a keyboard. You just had this touchscreen. And so we transferred all of that technology over to on screen keyboards for smartphones. We spun it out into a company called Swipe, and there were a billion and a half installations of Swipe over the last fifteen years.
Derek:So, Randy, I want to kind of cap it there. We're running out of time. We knew this was going to happen. We got to pick it up, next time. But I just wanna just, really highlight what you did.
Derek:You helped some of the, sort of least physically capable people that you could find, And you went from can't communicate to can barely communicate to an individual who could type at 65 words a minute.
Randy:Yeah.
Derek:And through learning how to do that, you then crack the code for all able-bodied people to be able to take advantage of that same technology every day.
Randy:Yeah. If you think about it, the experience of one person's swi, psi got amplified into a billion and a half people using swipe. That's the beginning and the end of that journey.
Derek:Holy smokes. Okay. Yeah. That's that's kinda so so how does it feel to have impacted the lives of a billion people, Randy?
Randy:You know, it, I mean, of course, it feels great. Swipe helped people type faster. It wasn't saving lives or changing lives, you know, it's like communication and that's important. So, I was excited about that, but if we go back to our epic quest, I always ask myself, am I putting a dent in the world? Like, am I leaving it better than I found it?
Randy:Helping people text faster and more was a dent, but wasn't really the quest I was after. You know, I wanted to change lives for the better, and there's still more to come on that.
Derek:Okay, well then we gotta get back together, and I wanna hear about that. And, I'm gonna suggest that, there's probably nothing more meaningful in all that you've talked about so far, than to, to look into the eyes or to get communication from someone where you, opened up a world for them that they didn't have before.
Randy:There's so many wonderful stories of people with disabilities and their stories of how it opened up a world to them. They got out of long term care, got married, got a job, had a family, lived in their own house. Just thousands of stories like that, that technology helped unlock their potential. So that that is what I'm going after. That was the most rewarding thing.
Derek:Oh, that's that's awesome. Okay, Randy. Thanks very much. If people are interested in your work, what's the best way to contact you?
Randy:I'm on LinkedIn, that probably is the easiest thing, just find me, Randy Marsden, on LinkedIn.
Derek:Yeah, we'll link to that, and, go Nike, I guess, is the other thing. Thanks to your Nike team for letting us letting you come play today. The Essential Dynamics podcast is brought to you by Unconstrained Consultancy, that helps leaders work through their trickiest opportunities, and you can go to getunconstrained.com to learn more about that. So we'd like to thank everyone for listening today, and, please continue to engage with us. Thanks Brynn Griffiths for, being at the behind the scenes on this, and I'm Derek Hudson, until next time, consider your quest.