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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 - 00:00:18:04
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Future of XYZ. I'm very excited to have a good friend, an absolutely amazing woman on the program today. Nancy Giordano, thanks for joining us on Future of XYZ.
00:00:18:06 - 00:00:20:03
Speaker 2
I'm so excited we made it happen.
00:00:20:05 - 00:00:46:04
Speaker 1
Yeah, we made it happen. Nancy, you are you call yourself and others call you an exponential strategist. You were recognized globally as one of the world's top female futurists, which is where you and I originally connected on the futurism topic. You founded 14 years ago Play Big Inc, which we'll have a chance to talk about, but helping visionary leaders play bigger.
00:00:46:06 - 00:01:18:14
Speaker 1
You founded four years ago Femme Futurist Society, which I'm sure will get woven into this conversation. You wrote a bestselling book called Leadering: The Way Visionary Leaders Play Bigger. So tying in to the work that you do at Play Big and mostly you've given over 200 keynotes now globally, I mean, which is pretty amazing and consulted on a portfolio of, you know, billions of dollars of pretty much all the brands that we all know and use on a regular basis in the business world and in the consumer world.
00:01:18:16 - 00:01:34:17
Speaker 1
You have a pretty great life. So, so and and so it seems only appropriate for the work that you do as a futurist and as the work that you do as a human being, living your life, that we're going to talk about the future of hope.
00:01:34:19 - 00:01:48:21
Speaker 2
And can I just add to that resumé that I also have amazing young adult children now that have been woven into all this work and things that I get to go do too. So I think that's an important part of when we look at our resumes of our lives now with all the places that we put time and energy.
00:01:49:02 - 00:01:53:20
Speaker 1
Absolutely. And especially when they are amazing young adults who help you see the future.
00:01:53:22 - 00:01:57:04
Speaker 2
For sure. For sure. Yeah.
00:01:57:06 - 00:02:09:14
Speaker 1
I'm going to start as we always start every episode of Future of XYZ with a definitional question. So in the context of your expertise in today's conversation, let's define hope.
00:02:09:16 - 00:02:26:10
Speaker 2
You know, the way I think about it is really our outlook on life, right? What is it that we believe is possible? And a few years ago I changed my title and I gave myself a promotion from strategic futurist to exponential Strategist, really focused on exponential hope, because I feel like that is the thing that moves us forward, right?
00:02:26:10 - 00:02:53:04
Speaker 2
This idea that the future is something way, way out there. The reality is every single decision we make right now has exponential impact. And if we oriented from a place of fear and a place of scarcity and a place of all these awful things, right, we end up creating that as our reality versus if we really do think about this from a place of hopefulness and shared prosperity and optimism, and what this moment of such breakthrough inflection offers us, then I think that we are orienting in a much more powerful place.
00:02:53:06 - 00:03:26:19
Speaker 1
It's interesting because, I mean, we talk about this any time we get on the phone and I struggle with the optimism sometimes. I've often called myself an optimistic nihilist, and it swings wildly between the optimistic part and the nihilistic part. And in 2025 February, March 2025, we find ourselves living in a world that I feel is socio-, you know, socio economically, geopolitically, socio-culturally, just in an in total as you just use the word inflection.
00:03:26:24 - 00:04:00:08
Speaker 1
But it feels like chaos, to be honest. And I'm not sure that anyone really has any understanding or a grasp on what's coming next. And I think many people also don't necessarily comprehend how we got to this point. I'm curious, you know, with everything feeling fragile in a way that perhaps is unnerving. What do you think kind of this next three quarters of the 21st century is going to demand of of us as stewards of the world that has been built and the future that we want to create?
00:04:00:10 - 00:04:14:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, a huge question. And and I don't think that I think that my work, my all my work right up until this including the book and everything else was trying to help people prepare for this kind of level of change, where we're talking a lot about the fact that things were breaking down and new things are yet to be created.
00:04:14:10 - 00:04:28:15
Speaker 2
And we were sitting in this place called the Liminal Gap that we were only 1% in to how dramatic the change was going to be. And if anyone's heard me speak in the last ten years like that has been the message over and over and over again. So I'm a little less like shaken by where it is that we are right now.
00:04:28:17 - 00:04:47:21
Speaker 2
And, you know, the book was called The Ways Visionary Leaders Play Bigger, because it's not just one single way. It's a practice. It's a way of leaning into thinking about the world differently and thinking about how we navigate it differently. Frankly, even just becoming a navigator instead of a replicator. We were taught business world, certainly during my tenure, right to be super efficiency driven and productivity driven.
00:04:47:21 - 00:05:05:20
Speaker 2
And there's a best practices way to do it. And if you just learn the playbook, then you’d be set. And the reality is that that is not at all what it was going to look like as we move forward and again, to better prepare, like how do you build in the capacity to be really, really curious, to listen more fully, not just as even an individual, but also as an organization?
00:05:05:20 - 00:05:21:02
Speaker 2
How do we build that kind of, you know, incentive structure for curiosity, for collaboration, for not living in silos, like all these things that now we are trying to go it's almost like, you know, an existential COVID crisis. Again, we're like waking up going, my God, we've got to go figure all this stuff out together and how do we not see this coming?
00:05:21:06 - 00:05:37:12
Speaker 2
But again, and we're only I hate to say it, we're not even through with the calamities. Could possibly be right. It's not even remotely thought that you're describing. We haven't even talked about what's going on with climate and the fact that that is, you know, a threat that is marching clearer and clearer to us as I sit in the middle of another atmospheric storm here in California.
00:05:37:14 - 00:05:49:15
Speaker 2
And so, yeah, there's a lot of things to be paying attention to. I literally sat with a group of people and we talked about all the things that could go wrong on the planet right now. And, you know, and someone asked me if that maybe just felt awful. And I'm like, you know, I feel so much better being prepared.
00:05:49:21 - 00:06:03:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. I like, you know, like if a solar flare happens and knocks out our entire, you know, communications thing, like, what are the options? And the fact is, my friends are building a technology that allows for mass communication that doesn't require that you have any kind of centralized server or any kind of way that you go through this.
00:06:03:04 - 00:06:19:18
Speaker 2
And so for me, it's like we should hasten the deployment of that. Right? Right. And then the land in Costa Rica that I'm building with these women, like we're going to make that as part of our, you know, infrastructure there. So it's like I feel it's better be prepared than not to be prepared. First, look for the solutions that could get us on the other side of it.
00:06:19:18 - 00:06:48:05
Speaker 2
So I think the breakdown of education systems, great, there's all kinds of opportunities. We could do that differently, right? Breakdowns and you know how we coordinate things. You know, there's so many ways we can look at the fact that this is all going to shift and change. I think at the end of the day, part of what gives me hope and it leads me then to where I think we will be, is that there's this a giant also awakening that's happening at the same time that the systems that had been built in the past that were for an industrial era, that were often designed by a very homogeneous group of white men from Europe and
00:06:48:05 - 00:07:03:22
Speaker 2
the US who carved up the world in a certain way and decided that this was what it was going to look like. It's now failing. That is not shocking. And what we're seeing is a last gasp of that, trying to hold on to what still is there, not being able to make space for the thing that's going to open.
00:07:03:24 - 00:07:19:21
Speaker 2
So one of the things I've been talking a lot about in 2025, we wrote about it on New Year's Day and we've been building it into more and more of our work and doing a whole retreat around this in Mexico in April. Folks who want to join us for a really expansive metamorphosis retreat is this concept of the imaginal cell.
00:07:19:23 - 00:07:36:05
Speaker 2
So the imaginal cells can see or, you know, hypothesize. I think I want to say in the 16 or 1800s, sometime when microscopes became more useful, the idea was that even in the caterpillar larva exists the cells that have the programing for becoming a butterfly...
00:07:36:05 - 00:07:37:21
Speaker 1
For the metamorphosis to happen.
00:07:37:23 - 00:07:55:01
Speaker 2
For metamorphosis to happen. They sit there from the very beginning. But they're very, you know, they're small in number and obviously not very potent at that moment. And the really consumptive caterpillar has got to kind of get through its lifecycle and then at some point it triggers, Right. I don't know exactly what the trigger point is, but it moves into its cocoon and then to become a butterfly.
00:07:55:01 - 00:08:16:06
Speaker 2
And it happens because the imaginal cells increase in number and in potency. It goes like 50 cells to 50,000 very quick. So I talked about exponential rate when we are ready, like boom, like we move and it swarms the caterpillar and the caterpillar fights that. That's the really interesting part. There's a tremendous amount of resistance from the caterpillar to go into that, but it doesn't know where it's headed into right?
00:08:16:06 - 00:08:37:23
Speaker 2
It just knows it's disintegrating. And so it's going. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Until the imaginal cells swarm it. And then obviously, it starts to transition into being a very a pollinator butterfly. So think about going from consumptive caterpillar to pollinator butterfly. Like that's what's available to us. Beautiful. Right? And every single thing I do is to increase the number and potency of imaginal cells, period.
00:08:38:00 - 00:09:06:23
Speaker 2
Right. As a mother, as a strategist, as a speaker, as a creator of the things that I spend time and energy actually building in the world as a gatherer, Right. The dinners that we're hosting together to pull people together into this conversation, it is to increase the potency and the number of imaginal cells, because if we have that, which is what I see happening now, we start to see like in this mycelial sort of way, like these people are looking and finding and feeling more and more empowered and bold and in some ways dark and light by the system.
00:09:06:23 - 00:09:14:11
Speaker 2
The darker it is, the more the light feels brave to go and like that's where we are.
00:09:14:13 - 00:09:34:23
Speaker 1
So, I mean, the I want to come back to this imaginal cell and the and the and the butterflies metamorphosis from caterpillar because I think it's really important. But I want to just talk a little bit. I mean, you started your career in advertising subsequently. You know, you've kind of touched frozen foods. A lot of AI you know, reinventing the Internet.
00:09:34:23 - 00:10:00:15
Speaker 1
You were just talking about mass communications. I mean, I know you're big on technology and I think that in the modern world, a lot of people look and say technology's actually the reason that we are in this crisis moment or one of the contributing factors to it. I know you're you're bullish and I'm curious as you look hopefully towards the future and help people kind of train themselves for these these transition moments.
00:10:00:17 - 00:10:03:10
Speaker 1
What do you think the role of technology is?
00:10:03:12 - 00:10:19:07
Speaker 2
You know, I mean, I think the big invitation is exponential or universal prosperity. I mean, that's really what we're, you know, at the cusp of and that's what's being invited to us. So the question is, do we want to go this way or do we want to go that way? And I think there was someone who posted something on LinkedIn earlier this week that I can send you the link of after this.
00:10:19:07 - 00:10:40:15
Speaker 2
But it was the the imaginary crisis, meaning the crisis in imagination, meaning that we can only see the doom and what we're losing. And we have a very, very narrow set of stories that talk to us about what is possible on the other side. There's one slide in my talks that I sometimes put in, sometimes I don't. I talk about the future of dinner in 2025 or 20, 20 years from now.
00:10:40:17 - 00:10:54:21
Speaker 2
I wrote this actually seven or eight years ago. So let's say it was like, whatever, 2030, 2035. But it was this really great story about two sisters. You know, one was in the city, one is way out in the middle of what’s considered exburbs. But now the technology is so good, she can still be a neuroscience assistant out there.
00:10:54:21 - 00:11:17:20
Speaker 2
Right. But we still want connectivity. So once a week, she takes the autonomous vehicle into the town, into the city, to meet her sister and her family for a dinner. But the home is set up really differently. And in terms of there's a 3D printer in a smaller kitchen that designs like her bespoke meals, right? So my niece would be able to put her finger in there and do a whole biometric read about her nutritional state is.
00:11:17:20 - 00:11:36:08
Speaker 2
It would know if she has an exam or lacrosse game that day. It would know if she got enough sleep or if she stressed out and it would print out the perfect breakfast cereal. Right. Or the perfect pierogi or the perfect whatever. The technology already exists. And the U.S. Army has been testing this for almost ten years now to be able to create nutritionally bespoke meals for each soldier right.
00:11:36:10 - 00:11:49:17
Speaker 2
Now imagine that. Okay, that's how you get through your day. There's instead of a garage, there's a vertical farm now in the building because we don't need our cars anymore. But the cool part was that at night, at dinner, there's a communal dining area at the top of the building in which everyone gathers for dinner every single evening.
00:11:49:17 - 00:12:07:24
Speaker 2
The robots and the kids are making dinner together, right? You have a communal meal and then whatever isn't consumed that evening is sent by drone around the city to whoever that wasn't able to join for dinner. That's my view of our technology can impact our lives. Yeah. Everyone remembers that story, right? Very well. Remember any other stat that I put in there?
00:12:07:24 - 00:12:15:12
Speaker 2
Like there's a brief slide that people remember, and there's that story, right? There's a whole bunch of other tech stuff in the middle of about, but things are shifting and changing. But people remember that.
00:12:15:12 - 00:12:17:03
Speaker 1
It’s the postmodern fable.
00:12:17:05 - 00:12:37:18
Speaker 2
Well, we need, but we need more of those, right? We had a very, very beautiful section at South by a few years ago about the role that science fiction plays on our ability to conceive, you know, the future. Like what are the stories that we then hold about what's possible? And they're obviously disproportionately super dysfunctional, super, you know, dark, dark, dark, dark, dystopian future designed as a cautionary tale.
00:12:37:24 - 00:13:06:20
Speaker 2
My friend, who is a pro-topian futurist, Monika Bielskyte. We'll talk about that. It actually becomes a product roadmap for the Machiavellian as a, the things that have really inspired us, which is like Star Trek or a little bit of Wakanda Inside Black Panther. Right? Again, very few. So actually, one of the really interesting places I've also hope are after Afrofuturism and Laura and the work that she's doing, I'm doing a work session with her this weekend on The Future of Time, which super excited to see how to look at because we look at other cultures too.
00:13:06:20 - 00:13:12:15
Speaker 2
And you look at this from less of a myopic male, patriarchal, white, you know, European.
00:13:12:15 - 00:13:14:00
Speaker 1
European.
00:13:14:02 - 00:13:34:02
Speaker 2
Wow, wow. There's so many more opportunities and so many things in which we get more input something. So I'm really much looking at, you know, indigenous and other cultures. I'm looking at women and looking at nature and looking at youth. There's tons of hope there. That's the blueprint, right? Those are the people. And I'll just put a plug in to South by Southwest.
00:13:34:02 - 00:13:42:16
Speaker 2
I'm doing a talk on the Quantum Leap and the opportunity offers us to repattern the future from a feminine perspective. Think about that for a second. Like how cool is that?
00:13:42:16 - 00:13:45:04
Speaker 1
Say it again.
00:13:45:06 - 00:13:57:04
Speaker 2
The quantum leap, meaning we're entering the quantum era, not just the AI era, but imagine a quantum era, right? And the opportunity is presented as to re pattern our future through a feminine perspective or a feminine lens.
00:13:57:06 - 00:14:18:09
Speaker 1
Well, so this episode, which we're recording at the end of February, will be released on the day I arrive in Austin for South by. And I know we're going to be spending some good time together there. But I think what's interesting is last year at South by Southwest, this big festival. You know, that happens in Austin, Texas every year.
00:14:18:11 - 00:14:35:10
Speaker 1
There was just AI, AI, AI. And I was really disappointed because it was a lot of people who I mean, I didn't find it particularly hopeful. I found it actually very much of the same as you just said, like white male perspective of how it becomes dominant. It's not the robots collaborating with the kids and the drones taking food to the people who haven't eaten.
00:14:35:14 - 00:14:57:10
Speaker 1
It's actually a zero sum game. And and where we're at right now politically, economically, etc., that feels a little bit more the model. And so when we talk about, you know, this feminist and you and I have talked about this before, I certainly believe this, but the femme you know, futurist society has these conversations, which is really about what is femininity.
00:14:57:12 - 00:15:12:15
Speaker 1
And it's not, of course, women. It's only women, I should say. Right? It's a it's an idea. And perhaps an approach. Right. It's one built on empathy and intuition. And I mean, maybe maybe you can talk to that as a as a way of being hopeful.
00:15:12:17 - 00:15:25:15
Speaker 2
100%. I mean, I like, I mean, I can't say that more clearly enough. Right. And that's why it's been really, really fun digging into this whole quantum thing. I'm just like, literally, this is what I've been hanging out with. Written by my friend Worley.
00:15:25:17 - 00:15:32:14
Speaker 1
Which is in quantum computing, is considered one of the emerging technologies that really is poised to change our world alongside blockchain.
00:15:32:15 - 00:15:50:11
Speaker 2
I mean, I mean, like, like it's, it's like mind blowingly cool when you start going into what's happening or starting. Again, I mean, not even 1%, like we're so early in and again, all the people that you've quoted that the whole book is quoted by white men from Europe and the United States, Right. Except for Ada Lovelace is the only one who gets a shout out.
00:15:50:16 - 00:16:04:23
Speaker 2
So then you go to Chat GPT. You're like, you know, we're all the hidden figures that also contribute the work of there's a whole bunch, including Einsteins First Wife, by the way. He was buried on his work and got no credit. So you start to dig into that and you start to realize, wow, there's a lot in there in which women have already contributed to this thinking.
00:16:04:23 - 00:16:24:18
Speaker 2
And then really the thesis is that women have a natural propensity to understand quantum mechanics, right? This idea of entanglement and this idea of being non-local and being able to feel connected, a cell moves here in another cell moves there. Like, what is it that makes that possible? Like, that is not like science fiction for us or like super magical or completely, like out of the realm of possibility.
00:16:24:18 - 00:16:33:21
Speaker 2
Like we live that right. The quantum language is the language of of living systems and the complexity of living systems like that is so, so, so cool to me, right?
00:16:33:22 - 00:16:38:12
Speaker 1
Because nature's already been here, I mean. Exactly. To imagine this cell, right? I mean, it's been created.
00:16:38:12 - 00:16:55:04
Speaker 2
Just can't live here. It's going to be her way after we're gone. Absolutely. If we decided annihilate ourselves, like she's still going to be just fine. Like we're doing this regenerative project in Costa Rica by a waterfall, thinking about the watershed and thinking about the trees and thinking about all that in the space for, you know, to restoration for the healers of the earth.
00:16:55:04 - 00:17:12:20
Speaker 2
Like these are all things that are connected. And when we're doing like something magic there, we don't think it's just for the five of us that are there, right? We're literally like that is like in the quantum space for all of us at some point. So I know it sounds woo woo. But I mean, what's interesting to me, I've always been woo and I've been really interested in tech and I've always been interested in humans, right?
00:17:12:20 - 00:17:24:07
Speaker 2
I was really egalitarian for that most of my life until you started realizing that there has been this campaign against women and the power of women for thousands of years, from religion to politics for everything else. And so.
00:17:24:09 - 00:17:27:03
Speaker 1
Which is what's been gripped on too very, very tightly right.
00:17:27:03 - 00:17:43:05
Speaker 2
Now. But again, I go back to imagine the caterpillar who's just hanging on for dear life, at the moment, who thinks that he's going to lose everything before it becomes the other thing. And so I think that what we're finding is there's more and more movement around this for people who are waking up and men who also, like young men, are absolutely rejecting this toxic masculinity.
00:17:43:05 - 00:18:00:00
Speaker 2
There are some that are being certainly seduced by this idea of the power of male, whatever, But there's a lot that aren't and are certainly saying no thank you to this around the world, because they're seeing all the systems break down and not hold them very well. So I feel like there is and there's this giant transfer of wealth that's happening, as we know, to women.
00:18:00:00 - 00:18:16:08
Speaker 2
And we'll be discussing that also with a group of women at South by which I think is super cool, which then gives us like a totally different kind of power. Right? This is why women are rejecting getting married or rejecting having children. And we just put into some sort of, you know, forced indentured servitude as opposed to having equitable relationships.
00:18:16:10 - 00:18:37:18
Speaker 2
And so, you know, I think that there's a really, really, really big shift happening. Everyone talks about AI and then they talk about climate. Very few were talking about demographic shifts that are also part of the shift in consciousness that's also happening. So those four are happening simultaneously and they're all going to be woven together, which then changes every single industry over there, changes construction on time, money, love, aging, all of those right?
00:18:37:20 - 00:18:39:13
Speaker 2
But redesign my love. Right.
00:18:39:15 - 00:19:00:01
Speaker 1
And design is really good that it's so cool. What's also in this you know as I like to say in the work that we do it, if it's like, you know, design is a great act of optimism unto itself because it's creating something new. It design, whether you're designing, you know, products or packaging or places or platforms or people or, you know, places, Yeah, it's systems.
00:19:00:01 - 00:19:09:00
Speaker 1
And, and that design of the future is really, you know, kind of a great, great act of hope and optimism always, no matter what it is.
00:19:09:00 - 00:19:28:07
Speaker 2
And intentionality. I think the question really becomes like, you know, Brian Collins, who's a you know, a really wonderful creative person, talked about design and the importance of design and people who are designing for yada, yada. And the point is, who gets to be a stakeholder in that? You know, where does nature get to be considered when we're talking about design or, you know, or again, equitable prosperity when we're thinking about the design of these things.
00:19:28:07 - 00:19:46:18
Speaker 2
So I think design is actually a really powerful tools like technology slash approach that has to have more expansiveness built into it. I think it's been really, really narrow, just the same way that you could argue capitalism has been or any of these other ways of being able to create and distribute things. And I you know, my real wish would be that we think about design much more thoughtfully.
00:19:46:20 - 00:20:09:04
Speaker 1
I mean, it's the work that we're doing, which is, of course, I simultaneously hold the head of global sustainability title and really bringing sustainability both social and environmental considerations into that conversation around design. And I just have to give a shout out. Brian was a guest on Future of XYZ a while ago and he insisted, as Brian does, on speaking about the future of the future.
00:20:09:04 - 00:20:18:15
Speaker 1
So it's an old episode, but you know, we say people can check it out. It's, you know, it's, it's similar thematics. You guys see things and I'm sure.
00:20:18:17 - 00:20:40:20
Speaker 2
We have a similar background actually, at Ogilvy. In our old and early advertising days. So yeah, I think that again, that's if you surround yourself with people who think this way, right. He's hurting too, right now because he's lost a friend or two recently to suicide. So I do think that there is a reality to this, too. I'm not trying to be optimistic without appreciating that there's pain that people are feeling right now.
00:20:40:20 - 00:20:50:07
Speaker 2
Right. And dislocated and people are feeling. I sobbed during the inauguration moment because I just thought it's just going to usher in more and more pain. Right. I'm all about change.
00:20:50:07 - 00:20:51:04
Speaker 1
In the short time.
00:20:51:06 - 00:21:09:07
Speaker 2
Or whatever, but the people who are not prepared for this, the people who are going to be disproportionately called out on this. Right. And yeah, just I mean, there is that is real. And so, again, my as much as I can talk about imaginal cells, right, the drive that is I'm trying to reduce suffering on the planet for any and all.
00:21:09:09 - 00:21:24:07
Speaker 1
But it's interesting because you work at Play Big and everything that you're doing. As you said, you're trying to usher in hope and give hope. But like if if we think about, you know, kind of the systems that were created starting, let's say, in 1800, in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, I think that's really the moment in time.
00:21:24:07 - 00:21:55:20
Speaker 1
Some say the Anthropocene is not a real thing. But of course, like we, some of us do believe, that man has fundamentally shifted, you know, kind of nature in this geologic age. But the point is, of course, that it's shifting and changing. And the work that you do is really trying to help coach, if you will, and bring visionary leaders to kind of adopt this new mindset that is transformative and embraces what's possible, not denying that there is pain and suffering, but trying to, of course, like become more, let's just call it regenerative, right?
00:21:55:20 - 00:21:58:08
Speaker 1
Like give back and rebuild.
00:21:58:10 - 00:22:19:20
Speaker 2
Use the platforms that we have in the resources that we have to be able to great create, you know, again, shared prosperity and inclusion for everyone. So this idea of going from in the business world, we talk about it from CSR, right, which is that you are very extractive model and you transfer a little bit over here as opposed to having a social license to operate and really thinking about every single decision that you make across a range of stakeholders.
00:22:19:20 - 00:22:35:02
Speaker 2
Right? That is a simple like simple quote unquote mindset change, but it means that fiduciary, you got to make sure that you're all lined up with that and you've got board and you've got investors and you've got people who do that. And again, just back on the technology thing, I am so pro technology. It's not the technology, it is how it is commercialized, right?
00:22:35:02 - 00:22:57:08
Speaker 2
Is how it is incentivized. And big frustration on South by last year was that it was like jobs are never going to disappear, it's only going to augment you and blah blah. And I'm like, That's true. I think that's a big fat lie. And that we should be thinking about economic models right now that take into consideration that as many as a third of the people on the populate in the world right now might be displaced from the work that they have and not know what the rest of the skilled enough or have not a job that would be replaced.
00:22:57:08 - 00:23:00:21
Speaker 2
That's okay in my book, as long as you have an economic system that prepares for that.
00:23:00:21 - 00:23:03:10
Speaker 1
And takes care of it so that.
00:23:03:12 - 00:23:17:12
Speaker 2
Thinking doesn't mean, again, we will have the high productivity, we'll be able to 3D print a house for a fraction of the cost. We'll be able to create food in all kinds of interesting ways, like these are not we will be able to have the needs met for a lower cost or greater productivity. But how do you match that better?
00:23:17:12 - 00:23:47:18
Speaker 2
And the economic models that we have, an industrial era will not hold here, and certainly not if you're building an advertising revenue model on top of a really powerful technology. I'm right, I'm a strategist at heart. And so the question is, how do we strategically think about this differently. I come from an economics and psychology background, like these are things that are really important to me that we think about that someone had to Silicon Valley in two weeks to talk with a really wonderful woman there who just wrote a book called Employment Is Dead and about how do we say like, yes, on the one hand work is going to change, but then how
00:23:47:18 - 00:23:51:03
Speaker 2
do we build economic understanding? What that means around it.
00:23:51:03 - 00:23:55:13
Speaker 1
It's really like the work of the future kind of going beyond current economic models.
00:23:56:16 - 00:24:15:02
Speaker 2
Yeah, 100%. But I make a distinction in the future, working the future of work. In the work of the future, there are three completely distinct things and no, nothing to one. We can go into that whole conversation about what that means, but the work in the future is to really think about how we build the systems, by how we design things in a more thoughtful way, more inclusively, more sustainably, so that we can usher in this world.
00:24:15:02 - 00:24:36:12
Speaker 2
That I think is entirely possible. And again, we're going to fight against the people who are going to think they're losing and that the people who control. Well, I've also said literally from the stage here, who controls the algorithm will control all the wealth. Yes, it is so, so clear right now, unless we change some of this like distribution of stuff, this is going to continue to have you'll have a single person who's a trillionaire, right?
00:24:36:14 - 00:24:46:02
Speaker 2
Do you think you're a megalomaniac when you hit like a, you know, billion? Imagine, you know, what have you become a trillionaire like you let me complete group of your place in the world.
00:24:46:02 - 00:24:46:20
Speaker 1
Completely.
00:24:46:22 - 00:24:54:00
Speaker 2
That you're so genius is because you had a way of being able to have this technology and you had a whole bunch of economic systems that allowed you to hold and capture all the value for that, certainly.
00:24:54:03 - 00:24:58:07
Speaker 1
And you chose to continue capturing it for your own selfish use.
00:24:58:09 - 00:25:03:01
Speaker 2
Because you figured out a system that is disproportionately stacked in your favor.
00:25:03:03 - 00:25:40:02
Speaker 1
And also there seems to be I mean, coming back to the CSR and we're we're coming to time, but I mean, the CSR being corporate social responsibility within corporations, it's kind of this model became ESG, although they're not equal, but this philanthropic, if you will, considering other stakeholders besides shareholders is thinking about employees, think about the planet, thinking about, you know, current communities, etc. is really where we've transitioned to accept that in this model of becoming billionaires and trillionaires, the technocrats, there seems not to be any consideration for anyone except selfish gain, which is of course at the end of the economic model as we have it.
00:25:40:02 - 00:25:47:11
Speaker 1
If we are to believe that, you know, the planet can it can't go on like that because what's going to happen to everything else? It's not, it's not.
00:25:47:13 - 00:25:58:05
Speaker 2
It's not thinking it's unsafe. You know, none of those people are futurists. They it's almost like tech, you know, visionaries. But tech visionary and an actual social futurist are very different things.
00:25:58:05 - 00:26:01:15
Speaker 1
100%. And they're not and they're not feminists. I mean, that's the other thing.
00:26:01:15 - 00:26:22:24
Speaker 2
Absolutely not or feminine in the sense that, you know, feminist because we need more masculine energy, right, according to one of our tech bros, but certainly from a feminine perspective. Right. How do we think again about the whole how do we think about the collective? Like it's been really interesting in the finance world, right? 98% of every dollar right now that is given by VCs goes to a male founded company.
00:26:23:00 - 00:26:32:03
Speaker 2
Yes. Well, a portion of that is female co-founders, but the majority of them, like 92%, is only male only. Right. You look at microfinance, it's exact opposite. Exactly. Microfinance...
00:26:32:03 - 00:26:34:15
Speaker 1
And also people of color. I mean, it's even worse.
00:26:34:17 - 00:26:50:14
Speaker 2
But but if you look at microfinance, 98% of it goes to women. Why do they take care of the community? Right. They believe they they build a cow or they you know, invest in a cow that everybody can actually drink from their figure. They figure out how to do this across the whole. So we've got to figure out how to balance that thing out.
00:26:50:16 - 00:27:07:21
Speaker 2
For the people who have an orientation toward collaboration and connection and community are given the resources to be able to go build that. But again, we have an economic model that distances and devises this and over incentivizes that. And that's part of what we need to shift. There's a film that we're raising money for right now, Humanity versus capitalism.
00:27:07:23 - 00:27:26:24
Speaker 2
Everyone asks me why versus and I'm like, Well, partly to be provocative, right? The hope is that it's not. But right now we've got capitalism doesn't take into consideration extraction from nature, any unpaid care work or creativity that goes unpaid. Those are really the key drivers of everything that happens. But if they're not in actually in any of the calculations, do you think you're playing a capitalist game and you're not?
00:27:27:01 - 00:27:31:24
Speaker 2
You know, Rana Eisler will say capitalism is this really great thing, we should try it sometime.
00:27:32:01 - 00:27:47:01
Speaker 1
I love that is as we think about wrapping up here, I mean, we're going to come back to the imaginal cells of the of the butterfly, because I think, you know, I usually ask for iconic references, but I think your book is one. And I think actually this movie is others. Is there anything else, wonder thank do repeat.
00:27:47:01 - 00:27:54:06
Speaker 1
Exactly. Curiosity, gratitude, action. And like, do it again. Right. And like in collaboration.
00:27:54:08 - 00:28:04:23
Speaker 2
This is literally stenciled on the wall of my home. This has been the blueprint for my children as they grew up. They wrote college essays about what this meant for them. But this is that it comes down as simple as this.
00:28:05:00 - 00:28:16:15
Speaker 1
I love that. Right now, for anyone listening to the podcast, Nancy is holding up her coffee mug and it's stenciled with Wonder. Thank. Do. Repeat.
00:28:16:17 - 00:28:34:05
Speaker 2
And that is it to me like honestly if you just lived in that every single day and that's what we've you know and incentivized inculcated and like really held as the the way we want to raise our children, I think we'd all be feeling a lot better about this time of the year when we feel more prepared certainly for the moment that we're in right now.
00:28:34:07 - 00:28:57:20
Speaker 1
So as an activist for a better next, as I've heard you called before, and my last question to guest always is the same. And I ask, what is your greatest hope for the future of X topic in this? In this case, is what's your greatest hope or wish for the future of hope? Imagine in 2050 and 25 years from now.
00:28:57:22 - 00:29:12:18
Speaker 2
Well, I think that, you know. Well, that will help. We will I can’t even speak. We will have transitioned away from the sense of fear and scarcity, and we will have entered into that cocoon of the imaginal cell right. That turns into the butterfly. Hopefully, we will already have gotten to what it feels like to be on the other side of this.
00:29:12:18 - 00:29:34:23
Speaker 2
But I think that for most of it is just to not resist the fact that things are shifting and changing and we're moving into an era that allows for, again, extraordinary possibility all these constructs that we have been taught or the way that it's supposed to be, are now up for redesign. And that's a really good thing. Like I want people to be excited about What does it look like to redesign again, even how we hold time, how we think about our relationships with one another?
00:29:34:23 - 00:29:52:11
Speaker 2
Certainly then we think about education and work and money and building and distribution of everything. Like all of that seems daunting for some, but I think that hopefully we will have built that capacity over the next, you know, however many years to look at that as a really, really exciting moment as opposed to a scary one. That's my, my.
00:29:52:11 - 00:30:07:12
Speaker 2
And again, everything that I am doing on the planet right now is to try and usher it as fast as possible. So thank you for the opportunity to even do this conversation with you, because I think that your work is part of that, Lisa, right. It is about giving people a chance to look at what is possible.
00:30:07:14 - 00:30:26:00
Speaker 1
Thanks, Nancy. I appreciate it. And I love having you on. I mean, I've we've experienced it before personally, where I get to we get to geek out on all of these really important and awesome topics. But I love the way your brain works and I love that you shared this message of hope and optimism and change and embracing change for the betterment of everyone, not just a few everywhere you go.
00:30:26:00 - 00:30:27:05
Speaker 1
So thank you for that.
00:30:27:07 - 00:30:29:13
Speaker 2
And of course, this is how we do it together.
00:30:29:15 - 00:30:52:14
Speaker 1
Indeed. And I think that togetherness, everyone watching and listening to Future of XYZ, make sure you subscribe, make sure you follow. You can check out Nancy across social media whose work is amazing. If you're at South by this year and you're listening to this, check out Nancy Giordano in the official schedule or myself, Lisa Gralnek, we're giving two talks and we really look forward to a hopeful future.
00:30:52:14 - 00:30:57:13
Speaker 1
I know that's a large part of what Future of XYZ likes to explore. So thanks again, Nancy, for joining us.
00:30:57:15 - 00:30:59:24
Speaker 2
And of course, thank you, darling.