Unlearn

On this episode of the Unlearn Podcast, Barry O'Reilly chats with Brian Elliott, Senior Vice President at Slack and Executive Leader of the Future Forum, who also served as an Executive Product Leader at Google. Having observed Brian’s work, Barry says, “I was constantly inspired by the work Brian and his team were doing in the Future Forum, researching challenges about the future of work.” Brian and his co-authors, Sheela Subramanian and Helen Kupp, have encapsulated the findings of the forum - as well as the lessons they learned through their own experiences - in their new book, How the Future Works. From Arrogance to Transparency Brian discusses how his perception of management evolved as his career developed. "I learned a phrase early in my profession that states ‘Seldom wrong, never in doubt’... a sort of arrogance," he recalls. He rejected his initial arrogance in the wake of Maria De Leon’s advice and observation, and realized that the greatest way to foster camaraderie and a sense of common purpose is to be open about the company's future, aspirations, and financial path. “Transparency actually creates trust,” Barry comments, “...it helps people gain clarity of what is actually happening.” Being the one with all the answers is not conducive to a healthy workplace culture, both men agree.  The Future Forum Brian joined Slack five years ago and was immediately intrigued by the company's research team, which later became the driving force behind the Future Forum. The research-based consortium focuses on creating a better future of work that is flexible, inclusive and connected through quarterly employee experience surveys and executive working groups. Since the issues are multidisciplinary, they survey 10,000 knowledge workers from all around the world. Leaders from multiple sectors are encouraged to experiment with these solutions to champion global change. Debunking the Myths Brian debunks five major myths about the workplace, using research from his book, How the Future Works. These include:  Return-to-Office Mandates: Top-down policies for returning to the office are a one-size-fits-all approach that ignores that each team may have a different rhythm. Brainstorming: The whiteboard is an antiquated method of brainstorming based on groupthink. The true danger of this strategy is that it excludes under-represented groups: the person wielding the pen, usually a member of the dominant age group, culture or gender, has the power to add or eliminate ideas as they see fit. Work Flexibility: He advocates for a shift away from the traditional 9-5 workday in favor of shorter, more efficient blocks of collaboration time when teams are available for meetings and real-time responses to one another. Asynchronous development: Brian debunks the assumption that meetings are where fresh ideas should be presented. Instead, managers should allow their teams to think and develop asynchronously. Classic Leadership Perspectives: If managers want to retain their high-performing personnel, they should veer away from the belief that leaders should shield their teams from difficult decisions. Looking Ahead Brian is eager to discover more about the untapped potential of new trends such as asynchronous work models and scheduled flexibility. He's also interested in discovering strategies to safeguard a team's psychological safety by providing and encouraging skills training for frontline leaders. He's also intrigued by the concept of professional flexibility for deskless workers. Go to BarryO'Reilly.com for full show notes. Resources  Brian Elliott on LinkedIn | Twitter  How the Future Works by Brian Elliott, Sheela Subramanian and Helen Kupp Future Forum

Cecelia Myers is the VP of Digital at CDW, where she leads their product management, design, demand generation, customer integration, and merchandising teams. She has a deep breadth of experience from a variety of high-profile startups and tech companies and uses that to create a culture of empowerment and openness at CDW. She is a builder of new experiences and business models from co-founding a startup to the Fortune 500, a design thinker, a survivor of lymphoma, and a voracious reader. She joins Barry O’Reilly today, to talk about how you need to bring yourself to your organization to create the kind of culture you want to build.  Following Interests and Opportunities where they Lead Cecelia left university with one of those “never land a job” majors – but she didn’t have that problem, becoming a personal archivist at a startup that managed documents for high net-worth people. This company didn’t survive the 2008 crash, but Cecelia was invited by the VC foundry that had funded the company to join them. There, she co-founded CakeStyle, leading and working in every aspect of the business. Intimate Understanding of the Problem Do you understand the problem you’re trying to solve? People often think they know, Cecelia notes, but unless you’re digging deep into the heart of things, it’s a hard thing to understand. Intimate knowledge of what is really happening at a company is hard to replace with any kind of experience or education. There’s something energizing about connecting at a visceral level to what you’re doing – it can be really fun! Unlearning Old Skills Moving into a company like Groupon, which was so new and so technology-driven was a culture shock. Politics, senior leadership, red tape – it meant having to convince finance departments and leadership that ideas were worth trying. For someone used to having control of the vision, having to work with so many other heavily involved people was a challenge, but ultimately a chance to exercise that skill of digging in deep to the business and influencing others. It was a whole new scope of managing people and leading teams. You’re not Scaling Yourself Cecelia would advise new leaders and product managers to focus on empowering teams to do the work. Leaders need to hire the right people, give them the vision, and support them in accomplishing it. They should ONLY be focusing on that, not scaling or promoting themselves. Cecelia notes that her education and passion for reading has been extremely valuable in learning to create those kinds of environments. Reading shows you a lot of different ways of communicating. Her most important tip? Start with the end and make the most important point at the beginning. Leading by Example Barry asks Cecelia what skills she has had to develop, working for a huge organization like CDW. When you don’t know everyone that you’re working with and responsible for, you have to find new ways to communicate with them. She emphasizes the importance of sharing yourself and being yourself to be more available and approachable when people need you. The key message to communicate is that we’re not really different people - we just have different roles in the business. You need to convey that it’s okay to bring yourself to work.  Looking forward Cecelia is looking forward to watching CDW evolve and go to market as a technology first, and how cool it would be to see a commercial featuring the products they are building. Seeing a company grow into being a market leader, and a place that attracts talent is inspiring. “It’s one of those gems that people don’t really know about.” Go to Barry O'Reilly for full show notes. Resources Cecelia Myers on the web | LinkedIn CDW

In this episode, Barry O'Reilly talks with James Sommerville, co-founder of ATTIK, the former Vice President of Global Design for The Coca-Cola Company and today founder of KnownUnknown, an emerging Web3.0 decentralized design community.  Sommerville talks about his entrepreneurial journey, from his early job as a street artist to co-founding ATTIK, a design studio with Simon Needham, and then becoming the Vice President of Global Design for Coca-Cola. He explains his thoughts on design, brand storytelling and existing labor structures in corporations and agencies, as well as the possibility for future advancements and new ways of working. He also discusses how these beliefs contributed to founding KnownUnknown. The Long and Winding Road James recounts his adolescent years in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK, in the midst of the collapse of the city's industrial peak. He believes that this experience led him to question society. "What led us here?” he asked. “What were the mistakes made? Maybe we need to learn what are the things we're going to do differently." His inquiring mind, and witnessing with his father's entrepreneurial spirit - he saw how much freedom his father had over his own life outside of the constraints of a regular job - strongly inspired his thoughts on business. As a result, his road to KnownUnknown was filled with entrepreneurial endeavors, but his motivation has always been "that sense of being able to do something and make people smile." Put Yourself Out There  Putting yourself out there is the first step to success, James tells listeners. He describes his eventual employment with Coca-Cola as an unexpected reward that many people erroneously believed was an overnight success. However, ATTIK had been in existence for 20 years before Coca-Cola contacted them. He believes that their strategy of "putting [themselves] out there, putting [their] signal into the world," as Barry puts it, was the catalyst that led to such an exciting opportunity. This strategy yielded favorable results as one of their digital design publications, Noise, soon caught the attention of Coca-Cola. James remarks, "There's something to be said about if you put your work into the world and people find it in the most unexpected and surprising ways... hold on to your authentic self, put your heart and soul into these things." Work Within Constraints “Working under constraints is one of my favorite aspects of great innovation," James tells Barry. James admits he had to overcome some initial teething challenges, transitioning from operating independently at ATTIK to working for a major global brand. He quickly discovered that the need to stay true “the Coca-Cola way" but innovate how people worked in sharing the brand with the world. In order to thrive within these new boundaries, James had to unlearn ATTIK's original mantra of thinking, looking, and acting big to "think small, act small, move like a small start-up." Redefining the New Creative Economy  James’ reflections on the traditional design agency structure and newly available technologies led him to develop the KnownUnknown platform model - a new work environment in which gas community at the heart of the model, and regardless of geographic location, selecting the very best talents who tomorrow will have the freedom to choose their own hours and projects, free of the usual bureaucratic red tape.  Looking Ahead  "I'm really excited for the next decade," James adds, as he prepares to “tiptoe" into the world of NFTs while experimenting with brand storytelling within metaverse and testing Web3 boundaries. He's particularly excited about the expanded opportunities for brand and talent collaborations, where current and future designers, as well as centralized brands, can explore new developments. Read full show notes at BarryO'Reilly.com Resources James Sommerville: Twitter| Facebook| LINKEDIN| Instagram Known Unknown

Alison McCauley, author of Unblocked, is the Chief Advocacy Officer of Unfinished an organization focused on strengthening civic life in the digital age. She is a sought-after keynote speaker at conferences over the world and her LinkedIn Learning course about how the blockchain will change business has been taken by over 70,000 students. Alison joins Barry O’Reilly in this week's show to talk about the potential of blockchain technology for our digital lives. The Moment of Revelation Most of us have moments when a new idea lands like a bolt of lightning and seems to change everything. Alison had been working in emerging technology for decades when she came across the idea of blockchains, and what they could mean for people and organizations. She immediately set out to generate the key questions that would help her learn exactly what experts and experimenters in the space were trying to discover. Keeping up with Exponential Growth There is more happening, every day, in the evolution and development of blockchain technology than anyone can keep up with. Even young, energetic technologists without many outside commitments are working 17 hours a day and unable to stay on top of what is happening in their small sliver of the space. Alison shares about how learning circles in different areas create a structure for learning and sharing information that makes it possible to progress. She predicts that success is going to go to the people who can most quickly and effectively absorb and synthesize information.  The Messy Middle Not everyone involved in emerging technologies has excellent intentions - there are nefarious actors, and even the best-intentioned projects can go off the rails. Alison makes the point that you can learn from every project, even those that go wrong, and one of the challenges is to be cautious while still being open to the learning. “If you're able to hold a healthy skepticism and an open mind in the same space… you have the most intense opportunity for learning.”  Skin in the Game To really learn in this space, you should have skin in the game. She recommends putting skin in the game–making a small investment for the sake of learning and understanding the theories and processes involved - that kind of practical education is much richer than other types of learning, like reading an article. This isn’t financial or investment advice, but you can experiment and gain practical knowledge by getting involved through small investment in cryptocurrency, or bidding on an NFT. Experimentation While the ultimate uses of blockchain technology are just starting to be discovered, communities are already using it to change the way people collaborate and work together. “If you’re not experimenting with it now in some kind of applied way, I think you’ll be very blindsided in three to five years,” Alison warns. Barry shares the example of Nobody Studios which is crowdfunding equity, something equally new and unfamiliar, and you can extrapolate it further and look at how people are using DAOs to change the way people can contribute and how they are compensated for doing so. A Sense of Belonging As DAOs are being developed, communities are being formed as well. The rewards of participation aren’t only financial, and Alison shares the story of a highly paid lawyer who volunteered his time on some contracts for a DAO. He told Alison that he valued what the organization was doing and realized “I can make a contribution here. I can help.” It was the ability to contribute that drove his desire to do so. This is how many people are starting to prioritize their time and effort. Go to Barry O'Reilly for full show notes. Resources Alison McCauley on the Web | LinkedIn | Twitter Unblocked: How Blockchain will Change your Business (and What to Do About it) Unblocked Future

Bill Higgins is Director of Watson Research and Development at IBM. He leads the integrated research and development team responsible for evolving the foundational IBM AI technologies powering their main products and systems. He’s especially interested in the intersection of culture in tech as it relates to increasing diverse representation and technical leadership. Bill joins Barry O’Reilly in this week’s show to discuss what is needed to innovate at scale.  Bill’s Start Bill shares how he started in DevOps and made his way to becoming a leader in software engineering. He had always worked on software products, but after a certain point, he became disenchanted with the process of building the products, especially as it related to the methods and tools involved. He thought it could be much better than it was. In the early 2010s, he became enamored with the DevOps movement and sought to drive a DevOps culture at IBM; he was quite successful at this. His team was one of the first to be sent to the IBM design camp for product teams. He describes the experience and how it impacted his career. Deterministic vs. Probabilistic Barry recalls how Bill shaped his perception of AI. “I still remember… being blown away by the clarity of how [Bill’s colleagues] could talk about it. I got smarter just listening to them, and so many of the notions I had of what AI could do were blown away very quickly,” Barry says. Bill responds that he realized that the field of AI is a very different paradigm from traditional programming; the latter is largely about methodically defining a set of rules to create a deterministic program. AI is the opposite, by contrast; using the example of machine learning, Bill describes how AI is probabilistic by nature. AI Through the Years Bill and Barry explore the history and development of AI, and IBM’s role in both. “There was this really famous conference at Dartmouth University in 1956 with some of the legends of the industry… that established AI as a field of study. They adopted the term artificial intelligence as opposed to one of the competing terms like cybernetics,” Bill remarks. Throughout the ’60s and ’70s, the fundamental parts of modern AI technology - neural networks, the concept of machine learning, natural language, and speech processing - broke through, but the industry would still be considered a field of research not fit for real enterprise use up until circa 2011. Teamwork Makes the AI Work To achieve something great with AI, you must have equally great AI algorithms made by people waist-deep in machine learning, Bill explains. They must understand the whole lifecycle of machine learning, make their algorithms available via understandable developer APIs, and run it at an internet scale. One of the biggest mistakes companies make is primarily investing millions of dollars in hiring scholars with degrees in machine learning from reputable institutions. You need both machine learning people to create the algorithm, but you also need the software developers to create the APIs and internet scale architectures. Building Great AI Innovators face two hard problems when creating foundational AI components, Bill tells Barry. “The first one is that fusion, that synthesis of really excellent machine learning, algorithm creation and excellent software development for both creating the APIs but also creating the internet scale architectures… Number two is how do you create an innovation pipeline.” IBM’s experience has been that innovation is difficult to commercialize quickly and at scale. They found that a modular architecture helps them to add new components more readily. Extensibility is another key principle. He and Barry agree that good collaboration and composability are two additional major aspects of a good innovation pipeline. Find full show notes a Barry O'Reilly. Resources Bill Higgins on the Web | LinkedIn | Twitter IBM.com

Aaron Frank is Adjunct Faculty at Singularity University, where he routinely advises large companies, startups, and governments on trends related to augmented and virtual reality and the use of virtual environments. Organizations like Twitter and FC Barcelona have benefited from his services. He is a researcher and writer whose articles have appeared in Vice, Wired, Forbes and VentureBeat. Aaron joins Barry O'Reilly in this week’s show to define the metaverse, and how to leverage it in your own business. The First Foray Aaron talks about his thoughts when he first encountered immersive virtual reality headsets. He was tasked with doing an impromptu presentation for foreign investors and unfortunately didn’t execute it well. When he put on the VR headset, he thought about recreating the environment of the presentation as a sort of “public speaking simulator.” He went on to build a very basic version of it and was surprised by how true-to-life it felt. That was when he realized that VR wasn’t just for gaming. “This [was] a new way for people to experience anything,” he shares. “[It] can replicate almost any experience.” [Listen from 2:19] Behind the Scenes of AR and VR The internet of the future will be immersive. Barry asks Aaron to describe his experience diving into the metaverse. “It’s important to make a distinction between augmented and virtual reality technologies,” Aaron says, “because those terms typically refer to the kinds of interfaces [necessary for each.]” An interface is a way of engaging with the digital environment, similar to how we use a mouse and a keyboard to operate our computers the way we want to. Aaron predicts that in the near future, however, we won’t need a mouse and keyboard; we’ll be using VR headsets and our arms. [Listen from 8:06] Manipulating the Metaverse The metaverse allows you to manipulate physical space in a virtual environment and mimic social behavior to recreate real-life experiences. People are using the metaverse to train employees, Barry shares. They are put to the test in stressful situations to observe how well they respond as a team; from speaking individually to escape rooms that require cooperation and serve as a fun activity. Advancements in the metaverse are happening so quickly, he adds. “It doesn’t have to be this ‘ready player one’ experience where you put on the headset and can’t tell whether you’re in the real world or not,” Barry comments. “It can just be blocky characters.” [Listen from 17:59] Why Game Engines are Serious Business Aaron is not advocating for a future immersed in VR. “It’s worth remembering that these are valuable tools, and it’s worth understanding what they are used for… they’re not meant to - and should not be used to - replace physical reality in any way,” he affirms. He debunks some misconceptions about the metaverse and proposes a new way of thinking about it. The metaverse is being built by game developers using game engines, but the term game is misleading; game engines are software tools that developers use to build on virtual environments. [Listen from 24:33] The Truth About Gaming There’s a lot more to gaming than meets the eye, Barry points out. People don’t really know how much thought goes into things like simulation, incentive design, teaching people new skills, and leveling them up on their journey to mastery. “[In] any game you join, the experience is all about building skills,” he says. He talks about the skills that games teach you, like rapid experimentation, risk taking, and teamwork. “[Rather than] meaning fun and childish play, games are about coordination, incentive design and skills development.” He and Aaron explore the concept of safe-to-fail environments. [Listen from 31:17] Read full show notes at Barry O'Reilly. Resources Aaron Frank on the Web | LinkedIn

Ja-Naé Duane is CEO of the Revolution Factory and the bestselling author of The Startup Equation. Her mission is to make life better for one billion people. An award-winning innovator and expert on global systems, Ja-Naé helps corporations identify trends, using emerging technology such as AI and blockchain, that will help them pave the way for the future through futures forecasting and complex system building. She also loves singing opera. Currently, she is a PhD candidate focusing her research on the future of information systems as well as a research fellow at the Center of Information Systems Research at MIT. Ja-Naé joins Barry O’Reilly in this week’s show to talk about designing Distributed Autonomous Organizations (DAO).  Everything is Interconnected John Newton’s philosophy that everything is interconnected, is one that Ja-Naé lives by. We build on everything we learn, she tells Barry. The same is true in a company: its founding principles are connected to how those tenets are manifested in interactions with customers. “All of these things - much like nature - is very much an ecosystem,” she points out. Survival depends on the dependencies and interdependencies within the ecosystem. Likewise, the systems of the future will be enabled by interconnected technology, and we have to be ready. [Listen from 2:15]  DAO Principles Distributed Autonomous Organization (DAO) is one of the cornerstones of Web 3.0, and as Barry puts it, “the future of how the international world could become programmable.” In a DAO, business is conducted via programmable principles and smart contracts. Ja-Naé remarks that every member of a DAO has voting rights based on their level of contribution, unlike the traditional system where only a select few dictate how the organization is run; this can really move the organization forward. “With the democratization of information that comes along with that, we are seeing these pockets of erosion around centralized models,” she continues. [Listen from 4:25] Creating Value Together DAOs transform the role of the customer from just buyer into co-creator. Ja-Naé comments, “How do we also bring customers in to co-create and really capture value with them, so that they're building not only because they like our product or they like our service, but they're aligned with the mission of where this company is headed?” It’s a massive shift in customer behavior that’s ripe for exploration and innovation, she and Barry agree. The workforce of the future - the ‘liquid workforce’ - will be one where you contribute to several companies, and you’ll be judged on credibility and your last job, Ja-Naé says. [Listen from 17:50]   How to Start Barry asks Ja-Naé to share some tips to help people get started exploring the world of Web 3.0. Try to understand blockchain and how it’s changing the world first, she urges listeners. Learn about digital twins, virtual reality and virtual worlds, as well as the metaverse. The next step is to understand crypto and NFTs; putting some ‘skin in the game’ by making a small crypto investment is a good way to learn, she comments. She gives suggestions of DAO protocols listeners can explore to learn more, including her own DAO resource. [Listen from 32:50] Visit Barry O'Reilly for full show notes.   Resources Ja-Naé Duane on LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook DAO Board How to Build a DAO Revolution Factory The Startup Equation

Barry O’Reilly welcomes David Chen to the Unlearn Podcast this week. Barry tells listeners that David’s story is nothing short of exceptional. His rapid rise at Deloitte saw him becoming one of the company’s youngest partners at the age of 34. He started the group GTIF Capital, and partners with several major businesses in the eSports, technology and healthcare sectors. David has worked with several partners and celebrities on the recent Super Bowl commercial. He sits on several boards including Mediabundance as the head of eSports, Faze Clan and the North American Collegiate League. He has brokered a deal to bring Wolves eSports gaming, a professional gaming wing of the Wolverhampton Wanderers, into the NACL via their strategic partnership with the Fosun Group. A Happy Balance David was at the pinnacle of his career at Deloitte but his life was out of balance. He tells Barry that he had all the trappings of success, and yet he was miserable. Barry comments that successful people often feel guilty when they feel emptiness or dissatisfaction with their lives because they believe they don’t have a right to those feelings when they’ve had so much opportunity. “Nobody teaches you how to be happy,” David responds. He describes his internal struggle as the darkest journey he ever went through. “But it was the best journey that I have to go through multiple times.” The secret is to change your thought process and do things that actually matter, he posits. A Booming Industry Gaming is the fastest-growing industry. Before the pandemic, gaming was projected to be a $3 billion industry by 2023; it’s now estimated to be worth $200 billion by 2023. This “influential shift” is because of the large population of gamers around the world. Brands trying to reach this demographic - 35 years and younger, 60% male and 40% female - have to demonstrate that they care about societal issues in a tangible way. David admonishes parents to have an open mind about gaming because it is changing the world in the same way that Amazon did with ecommerce. Starting with eSports Barry asks David, “What are some tips you could give [people who are curious about eSports] to start experimenting and learning their way into this world because the future is going to be so connected to it?” David responds with practical steps, including: If you’re a parent, ask your kids about their favorite games. It will help you bond with them. Keep up with the trends as a business leader. Gaming is now mainstream, so ignoring it means ignoring the next 40 years of your client base. Over 180 universities are giving out scholarships in gaming. If your child has the opportunity to learn, allow them to. Building Community “Community is important in anything,” David tells listeners. Community is the people who believe in the game. The danger lies, he continues, in the business leaders who only see the dollar signs, and don’t care about young gamers’ mental health. Being sensitive to kids’ needs at such a difficult time in their lives will help you build a better brand. Also, make sure your game is great, David tells Barry. “Here's the thing: the game can't suck, and [that’s] what a lot of guys are doing wrong…Let me just put it very very simply: if it's not cool, no one's gonna do it.” He shares some common mistakes brands make in trying to influence the gaming community.  Advice for Brands Revisit the games you enjoyed as a child, David advises listeners. It will give you the comfort level you need to start learning more about gaming. “Then start communicating with your child and understanding the trends that exist,” David says. The next step is learning the play to earn model, but understand that it has to make sense, he adds. You’re never too old to learn. Read the full show notes at Barry O'Reilly Resources David Chen at Website | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn

Barry O’Reilly welcomes James Scott as this week’s guest on the Unlearn Podcast. James is the former Chief Digital Officer at Absa Group’s Corporate Investment Bank in South Africa. In his previous role, his focus was product design, data, and platforms, as well as new propositions. James is very passionate about building the future of digital innovation and ventures in Africa. In this week’s show, James explores his working experiences in the region, the similarities and differences in how things are done in the West, and what’s unique about Africa’s scaling venture landscape. A New Way Forward James discovered his passion for venture building while looking for disruptive product opportunities on the continent. The last few years of working in the business end of technology, he was reluctantly involved in a massive large-scale digital transformation. “There [were] so many concurrent pieces of work,” he shares. “Organizing teams, trying to scale agile, building and transforming products and channels as well as embedding new ways of work while trying to hit regulatory deadlines… The good news from that part of the journey is that I made it out alive.” In his own journey, James found that while he loved leading and building teams within a corporate environment, he missed building products and businesses. He talks about getting back into it. From Corporate to Entrepreneurship After being in financial services and large corporates for 21 years, James had some things to unlearn. People typically think the first thing would be the safety and security of a paycheck, but for James, it was capacity. When you’re in a large organization you don’t have to worry about machinery and funding; you focus instead on organizing internal teams. What you're really doing is mobilizing capacity, James says. “When you’re running big teams, you’re so far away from the backlog…” he adds, “part of the unlearning is [realizing] it’s quite hard to scale yourself.” He and Barry discuss creating systems to facilitate team cooperation and efficiency. Debunking Misconceptions about Africa Africa is a bed of budding opportunities at the moment, James tells Barry. There is a common misconception that it’s just one big group of homogeneous countries but that’s not true; the diversity on the continent is phenomenal. Furthermore, the big hubs of South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria to Egypt are building amazing organizations that work exceptionally well across the continent. “It’s exciting for me because I’m starting to see the maturity of businesses emerge… when you get this right, it’s less about big, global solutions and more about local high-impact businesses creating jobs and generating value in their economies,” James comments. Localization is a key part of the game, especially on the continent, Barry adds. How Fintech is Driving Innovation Barry asks James to talk about any recent developments that have caught his attention. “Fintech continues to dominate the investment landscape and I like some of the businesses that are providing various kinds of multi-country aggregation capability that’s not only moving traditional mechanisms of money transfer, but also plugging into the mobile networks,” James remarks. This is important because a massive part of the African financial ecosystem is mobile money. “Solutions that provide that aggregation are opening up lots of innovation; it's allowing people sitting in Nairobi to be building solutions that work in Rwanda, that may be work in Nigeria and South Africa.” Resources James Scott on LinkedIn

Barry O’Reilly and Sara Michelazzo know each other from their days working together at Thoughtworks. Sara is Head of Customer Experience - Tech Operations at Thoughtworks, as well as Design Advisor at Nobody Studios. Sara is an advocate for women in tech, cryptos, and NFTs. In this week’s show, she and Barry discuss human-centered technology design and making data awesome to empower users to solve real-world problems. Empowering People with Technology “I've never been a superfan of technology for technology's sake, but more about all the opportunity that technology brings to empower people and allow them to do things that they couldn't do before and connect them in new, meaningful ways,” Sara remarks. She tells Barry that it was seeing how technology allowed her father to continue working on his passion during his illness, that drove her to pivot from her art career into tech. Human-Centered Design Making technology simple for users is at the heart of human-centered design. Sara tells Barry that she fully grasped the power of intuitive design through her father’s experience. Technology should be easy for users to grasp and adopt, she posits. We should design for 50% of people’s attention instead of 100% because we all have so many other things going on in our lives at any moment. Barry asks her about the future of tech and what she had to unlearn regarding technology design. Humans are the same while technology is growing exponentially, she responds. As such, we need to meet people where they are and bridge the gap. Making Data Awesome Barry and Sara discuss Thoughtworks’ journey to become data-driven. The best software or spreadsheet means little if people don’t know how to use the data, they both agree. Sara realized that her strength was in seeing the user’s perspective; she got comfortable asking questions such as, ‘Will the user understand this?’ and ‘How are they going to use it?’  Shifting the mindset from data and dashboards to people was a tall order, Sara says, but it was the only way forward. People don’t care about data per se; they just want to do better work. This was the principle behind their Data Awesome framework - for users to experience data delight instead of data frustration. The Data Awesome framework is made up of six simple steps including: Understand the audience; Define the job to be done; Determine the questions to answer to get the job done; Find the answers. Looking Ahead Barry asks Sara what she is looking forward to as she looks to the future. The opportunities that NFTs bring makes her excited. “I'm learning tons about unstructured people achieving incredible results, and it's very refreshing to see how hundreds of people can contribute to an outcome without being in meetings or meeting each other very often,” she tells Barry. They talk about the value of the community of followers and creators. “The value of NFTs goes up as the popularity of the project increases. The idea is that we’re all in this together,” Sara comments.  Read full show notes at Barry O'Reilly. Resources Sara Michelazzo at Website | Thoughtworks | LinkedIn | Twitter Articles on Thoughtworks: Why do Data Platforms Fail? | The Data Awesome Framework | Five Tips from the Data Awesome Frontline