Between Worlds

Art Morales is the CTO at Analgesic Solutions, a clinical research company focused on the conduct of clinical trials in pain. I caught up with Art to try and understand how emerging technologies like data, AI and algorithms will impact the way we both research and test new medicines in the future. One of the most interest areas of innovation is the cross pollination of ideas and frameworks from one industry to other. To that end, Art and his team are bringing in concepts from manufacturing and statistical process control to monitor and improve the effectiveness of clinical trials for pain medication. Upon completing his Ph.D. with Dr. Paul Schimmel at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Art started his career with Genome Therapeutics as a Senior Computational Biologist. He subsequently led a variety of teams at various companies including the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, where he was Global lead for Biology Platform Informatics.

Perry Oosting, who started his life as a gold and silversmith, is now the CEO of famed Swedish camera manufacturer, Hasselblad. It is hard to overstate the significance of Hasselblad in the world of imaging. Most famously, the iconic camera was used during the Apollo program missions when humans first landed on the Moon. I myself learned studio photography and black and white printing, while using a Hasselblad 500CM. The first time I looked down through the viewfinder with this cult camera held at hip level, was like catching a glimpse of a strange, beautifully inverted version of reality. I met Perry a number of years ago, when he was the CEO of luxury phone manufacturer, Vertu - and given his twenty year background with brands like Prada, Bulgari and Gucci, I was interested why he has decided to ban the word luxury at Hasselblad and what the future of the company might hold, given their recent strategic investment by Chinese drone manufacturer, DJI.

Mark Bowden is an expert in human behaviour and body language. His bestselling books include the bestselling Winning Body Language; Winning Body Language for Sales Professionals ; and Tame the Primitive Brain – 28 Ways in 28 Days to Manage the Most Impulsive Behaviors at Work. Bowden originally received a university degree in performance in the UK, and studied the gesture-control methods of Jacques Lecoq’s Laboratory of Movement in Paris. He then went on to work with leading practitioners of movement psychology, building upon the influence techniques of Dr. Milton Erickson. When we met up in Toronto, he explained to me how the ancient survival instincts of our brain wire us to interpret gesture, and what this means for the future of both human communication and also the design of machines that can understand and relate to us.

Ken Rutkowski is, hands down, one of the most connected people I’ve ever met. And not in that very East Coast, I know everyone, sort of way, But rather, in a friendly West Coast, I know just the person who can help you, manner. Many years ago I spoke at his weekly METal (Media, Entertainment and Technology Alpha Leaders) event which has become a key node in what Ken calls the ‘Creative Coast’, an emerging epicentre of innovation and disruption in Los Angeles. Ken Rutkowski founded ‘Business Rockstars’, which was the number one business radio talk show in America, heard on over 185 radio stations nationwide, reaching 3.5 Million daily listeners. Catching up in Las Vegas, we had a far ranging discussion about the power of podcasting, the future of radio, why Apple needs to become a content company, why LA is better than NYC, the merits of uploading your personality into the Cloud, why Ken has been using electroshock therapy to boost his IQ and whether or not the Chinese have figured out quantum encryption.

Ali Parsa, founder of Babylon Health, has created an extraordinary platform — an app-based service that cost-effectively connects top GPs with patients via their smartphones, and is the UK’s leading digital healthcare service. Babylon allows its users to book a video consultation with a GP in minutes, or message with a photo to receive an answer for simpler questions. The true aim of the service is to leverage realtime data, adaptive health monitoring and clinically curated machine learning to detect diseases more quickly and ultimately prevent them before they happen. Visiting him at his head office in London, we spoke about the future impact of AI on the provision of healthcare services, how data changes the way we think about wellness and why the digital delivery of medical advice will transform the lives of millions in the developing world. Ali is a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. He previously created Circle, a multi-million pound business running private hospitals across Britain. He was named by the Times among the 100 global people to watch in 2012, and by HSJ among the 50 most influential people in UK healthcare.

Ron Tite is a very funny guy - not to mention, a very creative one. Named one of the 'Top 10 Creative Canadians' by Marketing Magazine, he’s been an award-winning advertising writer and creative director for some of the world’s most respected brands, including Air France, Evian, Hershey, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft, Intel, Microsoft, and Volvo. Once a professional comedian, he now helps brands develop their content and storytelling strategy. Executive Producer & Host of the Canadian Comedy Award-winning show Monkey Toast, Ron is also a featured marketing expert on the new Mark Burnett-produced business reality show, Dream Funded. His latest book, ‘Everyone’s An Artist (Or At Least They Should Be)’ explores why the most successful executives and entrepreneurs have learned to think like artists. We caught up in Toronto to talk about the power of reinvention, counterintuitive thinking and how comedy teaches you to rebel and break the rules.

I had an interesting coffee with Eric Schoenberg in New York recently. He is an adjunct professor who teaches about family wealth at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and also a member of a group known as the Patriotic Millionaires, who believe counter-intuitively, that he and other wealthy people, should be made to pay more tax. Facts like that twenty Americans own more wealth than half the population bother him, and are a reason why he believes that the US system is in need of reform. Eric saw first hand the effects of greed and wealth on human decision making. Having been involved in the first dotcom boom during the nineties at Broadview International, and the experience had led him to conducting research on the psychology of money and asset market bubbles. Since then he has taught behavioural economics and leadership at Columbia Business School, NYU's Stern School of Business, and the Haas Business School of the University of California at Berkeley. We reminisced about the strange digital tulip-mania of the late 90s, and why in the midst of a bubble people seem want to take on more risk even though they feel like they are making a lot of money.

Memory has also fascinated me - from the stories of the memory palaces of famous classical orators and artists, to the vast armada of 21st century tools that allow us to capture, process and share moments in our lives. In London for a few days, I met up with Dr Julia Shaw, who is a senior lecturer and researcher in the Department of Law and Social Sciences at London South Bank University. Author of "The Memory Illusion”, and a frequent speaker at technology conferences including a tedX event at Burning Man this year - she is more curiously known as a ‘memory hacker’. Julia’s research focuses on false memories, and in 2015 she published a study with Stephen Porter in which she succeeded to get 70% of the participants to falsely remember a crime from their past. Over a cup of tea in the lobby of the Edition Hotel, she explained the art of manipulating memory, how the way we remember things is shaped by modern technology and algorithms, and why AI designers are so interested in the imperfect nature of human cognition.

With every new connected device, messaging application or digital service that enters our lives - it becomes increasingly difficult to resist the seductive lure of technology on our attention. For Natasha Schull, a cultural anthropologist and associate professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, the addictive nature of devices, whether slot machines or smart phones, is no accident. In her recent book, ADDICTION BY DESIGN: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas, she explored the relationship between technology design and the experience of addiction. Her next book, KEEPING TRACK: Personal Informatics, Self-Regulation, and the Data-Driven Life concerns the rise of digital self-tracking technologies and the new modes of introspection and self-governance they engender. Meeting up in Soho, New York - we spoke about the nature of addiction and what makes the design of a particular technology so enthralling, the strange trance-like states that gamblers experience, the quantification of work and life, and why smartphones are a kind of ‘Skinner box’.

If you are a fan of animated comedy, chances are you have laughed at a joke written by Mike Reiss. Mike Reiss is the four-time Emmy award-winning producer, a 28 year veteran of ‘The Simpsons’ and has contributed to more than two dozen animated films — including four ‘Ice Age’ movies, two ‘Despicable Mes’, ‘The Lorax’, ‘Rio’, ‘Kung Fu Panda 3’, and ‘The Simpsons Movie’ – with a worldwide gross of $8 billion. He was the showrunner behind Season 4 of ‘The Simpsons’, which Entertainment Weekly called ‘the greatest season of the greatest show in history.’ Mike has also seventeen children’s books, including the best-seller ‘How Murray Saved Christmas’ and the award-winning ‘Late for School’. I caught up with Mike at his apartment in New York City to learn about the dark arts of writing comedy, the impact of the digital age on content, and why China and Latin America are such important export markets for entertainment.

I met Seth at this secret, underground gathering of thinkers in New York, known as ‘The Influencers’ where he was giving a disturbingly funny talk entitled ‘you can tell a lot about a man by the sex bot he makes for himself.’ Seth Porges is a journalist covering a wide range of topics from pop culture to emerging technologies. He has written for everyone from TechCrunch to Maxim, and is a regular commentator on numerous televisions shows on the National Geographic, Discovery and History channels. I probably should have asked him about the reference in his Wikipedia profile about his work as a test pilot on the maiden voyage of an experimental pulse jet-powered carousel, but we ran out of time talking about why pinball was once a moral hazard in New York City, the challenges of translating social interactions in virtual reality and the future of robotics.

When Roy walked into my apartment in Hong Kong. it felt like I was about to get a spirited lesson from the blind sensei Stick, from the comic series Daredevil. I had grown up watching Roy as a kid, playing characters in the Bruce Lee and Jackie Chain Kung Fu movies I loved. Since retiring from film, Roy has gone on to become a global expert in creativity and innovation, founding Innovea, a company specializing in high performance and well-being for both business and education sectors. Roy also teaches as an assistant professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Design where he focuses on creative and higher order thinking as both a teacher and researcher. In this podcast episode, we shared a fascinating discussion on the power of meditation and mindfulness, and its links to creativity and break-through thinking.

Talking to Robyn Benincasa about performance - a world champion adventure racer, a CNN hero and a full time firefighter - was a bit like interviewing Sarah O’Connor about her thoughts on Judgement Day. Robyn is the ultimate adventure addict. She holds three Guinness World Records for distance paddling, and has competed in the extreme sport of adventure racing from the jungles of Borneo to the Himalayan peaks of Tibet, the rivers of Fiji to the rainforests of Ecuador and the desert of Namibia. These experiences have given her a unique perspective on what it takes to build successful teams, and what leaders need to become, if they want to inspire commitment rather than simply securing compliance.

Ted C. Fishman is a global expert on populations, demographics and emerging markets. When we met up in Chicago, he slipped through the crowded hotel lobby to greet me, in a wonderful Indonesian batik shirt - like a covert character from a Graham Greene spy novel. Ted is a veteran journalist, essayist and former member and trader of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. His most recent book, Shock of Gray, The Aging of the World’s Population and How it Pits Young Against Old, Child Against Parent, Worker Against Boss, Company Against Rival, and Nation Against Nation looks at how the aging of the world is propelling globalization, redefining nearly every important relationship we have and changing life for everyone young and old. He also wrote the international bestseller, China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World, which describes the effects of China's emergence as a world power on the lives and businesses of people across the globe. In this podcast, we had a wide-ranging chat about the future impact of shifting population demographics on global growth, the rapid urbanization of China and how technology has impacted daily life there, as well as Ted’s latest journeys and insights about the Indonesian market.

Sage and I used to hang out in Shanghai years ago, when he was an analyst covering the Chinese market. Since then, he has returned to the US where he now runs China Luxury Advisors, a consultancy that helps brands and destinations prepare for the next wave of Chinese consumers. Sage first visited China in 1987, and has studied and embraced the language and culture ever since. He has worked in China as a researcher, investor, entrepreneur, journalist and advisor, with a specialization in digital, mobile and strategy. We caught up in Palos Verdes, the beautiful beach town just outside of Los Angeles, to talk about the future of destination marketing, why WeChat is the operating system for life in China, and the challenge for brands in navigating an increasingly complex and multicultural world.