Ecosystemic Futures

Latest Episodes:

13: The Living Systems of Work May 23, 2023

Show notes

Connectivity has unlocked paradigmatic shifts in work, workforce and workplace design.
But are we focused on the right problems? Are the Future of Work narratives missing the critical, nuanced opportunities for these shifts?
"Mark Zuckerberg pointed out that remote engineers were performing less well than engineers... what is fascinating about seeing these arguments is that they're essentially an admission of the company, that they are not investing in tooling, training and transformation to enable engineers to perform better remotely. When leaders put things out there like this, they think that it's an indictment on remote work, but it's actually an indictment on their own operations and their lack of evolution because someone can only perform as well as the system that they are performing within. And that's where the opportunity is. So much of this narrative is fixated on the where, but the real magic is in the how. How does work happen?" - Darren Murph
Today co-hosts Tom Cooke and Vik Shyam sit down with remote work pioneer Darren Murph to explore the problems worth solving. Darren is a visionary, supporting organizations in designing and scaling remote operations. Currently the VP of Workplace Design and Remote Experience at Andela, Darren hopes to unlock significant value as he enables remote work globally, encouraging others to pursue their purpose portfolios through work flexibility.
The Ecosystemic Futures Podcast is provided by Shoshin Works in collaboration with NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project - connecting with the world’s brilliant minds who are leading research and development in areas that will help us better innovate, operate, and navigate in our increasingly connected world.
Guest: Darren Murph, VP of Workplace Design and Remote Experience, Andela and Remote Work Pioneer, on Twitter @darrenmurph
Co-hosts:
Vikram Shyam, PhD, Futurist, Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project, NASA
Tom Cooke, Founder & CEO, Spacely
Series Host: Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works

12: Brilliant Educational Futures May 16, 2023

Show notes

As technologies become more interconnected and innovation more fast-paced, the obsolescence rate within the skills layer of our economy is also increasing. Gaps are emerging, creating a challenge for education systems and organizations alike, in how to upskill and train more quickly. The future of work is transforming the world - how do organizations prepare for that from a learning and readiness perspective? Earning, learning, and enablement pathways are now more than ever, inextricably linked.

On today’s podcast episode, the Ecosystemic Futures podcast co-hosts Ed Powell and James Villarrubia sit down with Andrew Powell, Cofounder and CEO at Learn to Win, to answer this question and many more, as we dive into the future of education, exploring how to make it more equitable, accessible, scalable and effective.
Show Highlights:
“Personalization is not the goal, optimization of personalization is the goal.” -Andrew Powell
“It's not just about how effective the learning experience is, but if you maximize the effectiveness of the learning experience, is it leading to real world outcomes that matter, like succeeding on the job or hitting your sales quota?” -Andrew Powell
“Let's shift our thinking about education and learning from focused on the inputs and focused on the process to instead start with the outcome that matters and then work backwards from that.” -Andrew Powell
Guest: Andrew Powell, Cofounder and Chief Executive Officer of Learn to Win, Twitter @AndrewHPowell
Co-hosts:
G. Edward Powell, PhD, CEO, TensorX, Inc
James Villarrubia, White House Presidential Innovation Fellow & Digital Strategist for CAS, NASA
Links and Resources:
African Leadership University https://www.alueducation.com/
Learn to Win https://www.learntowin.com/

11: Platforms to Power A Circular Economy May 09, 2023

Show notes

Platform-enabled Ecosystems to Power A Circular Economy

As we look to the horizon of a sustainable future, a circular economy and its impact on our environment becomes ever more important. With the growth and reach of platforms throughout our economy and society, to what degree can circular systems be enabled by our platform economy?

This fascinating opportunity is the topic of today’s Ecosystemic Futures podcast, as our co-hosts Marco Annunziata and Christopher Potter sit down with Dr. Peter Evans, the Chief Strategy Officer at MacFadyen Digital, to discuss the ways that platforms and ecosystems can power a circular economy, inform supply chain and sustainability, and unlock greater ecosystemic wellness within society.

The Ecosystemic Futures Podcast is provided by Shoshin Works in collaboration with NASA Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project to help explore and share broadly technological advances and structural patterns that will help us better innovate, operate, and navigate in our increasingly connected world.

Guest:
Dr. Peter Evans, the Chief Strategy Officer at MacFadyen Digital and Faculty Fast Future Fundamentals

Co-hosts:
Marco Annunziata, Co-Founder, Annunziata + Desai Partners
Christopher Potter, Senior Research Scientist, Ecosystem Science & Technology Branch, NASA Ames Research Center
Series Host:
Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works

10: NASA’s Research Ecosystem for Wicked Problems May 02, 2023

Show notes

At its core, NASA’s Convergent Aeronautics Solutions project is about collective collaboration; partnering across channels and disciplines to transform perspectives and address challenges and opportunities.
On today’s Ecosystemic Futures podcast, our hosts sit down with Keith Wichman, leader of NASA’s CAS project, to discuss ways in which CAS is trying to connect to a broader ecosystem through looking deep into the horizon for expansive insights to help make a desirable future better for society.
The Ecosystemic Futures Podcast is provided by Shoshin Works in collaboration with NASA Convergent Aeronautics Solutions project to help explore and share broadly technological advances and structural patterns that will help us better innovate, operate, and navigate in our increasingly connected world.
Episode highlights:
“What we're learning in CAS is we don't know. We're serious about that humility and I think the courage to go out there and buck trends, even internal pressures at NASA. This is kind of different stuff that we're doing.” - Keith Wichman
“NASA's customer, why we exist really is to serve humanity, to serve all mankind. In particular for us, we're funded by the US taxpayers, so our main mission is to support societal good.” - Keith Wichman
“In CAS we believe to our core this doesn't work without that diversity of thought, diversity of experience and bringing these things together. It's not one brilliant individual sitting in a lab somewhere coming up with the way, it’s by doing the work as part of the ecosystem.” - Keith Wichman
Guest:
Keith Wichman, Leader, Convergent Aeronautics Solutions, NASA
Co-hosts:
Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works
Vikram Shyam, PhD, Futurist, Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project, NASA
Project references relate to initiatives within NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD)
The views and opinions of authors expressed in this podcast or in materials available through download from this site do not necessarily state or reflect those of the U.S. Government or NASA, and they may not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.

9: Cities: Death, Rebirth, & Reinvention Apr 25, 2023

Show notes

As today’s ecosystemic structure changes rapidly, what is the economic value of cities and how can it become different in the future? The idea of cities being powerful engines of innovation is a relatively new one, with a more distributed ecosystem of cities being attractive and potentially good for the economy to distribute the additional benefits of growth.
In this Ecosystemic Futures episode, co-hosts Vikram Shyam and Dyan Finkhousen sit down with futurist Tom Cheesewright, to discuss how technology is reshaping the structure of the city, why cities can work, and how they are being reinvented, along with whose responsibility is it to shape this behavior.

Episode Highlights:

“In terms of the metaverse in the digital piece, I'm a strong believer and I think we can see evidence of this from the pandemic and actually even before that. The more digitally connected we are, the greater the hunger we have for things that are physical and real and visceral, whether that is human relationships, whether that is great food, whether that is the great outdoors.”

“The macro pressures that we're facing and the need to respond to them are very well understood now by a lot of different stakeholders. And so they are shifting the horizon on which they're focused and they are taking what you might historically have seen as more certainly responsible, if not altruistic decisions about what those plans should look like.”

Guest: Tom Cheesewright, Applied Futurist
Co-hosts:
Vikram Shyam, Futurist, NASA Glenn Research Center
Series host: Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO of Shoshin Works

8: Who Is Your Workforce: Past, Present & Future Apr 18, 2023

Show notes

Organizations both large and small alike, are finding it increasingly difficult to understand who exactly their workforce is, and how it is defined. The workforce has now developed into a complex ecosystem, with strategic orchestration required to align needs with outcomes.
When designing a workforce framework to exist within this ecosystem, factors to take into consideration include strategic alignment, worker satisfaction and safety, optimizing productivity along with job security and workforce planning. More detail can be found in the infographic here. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/intentionally-orchestrating-workforce-ecosystems/?
In today’s podcast episode, Dyan Finkhousen and her co-host Vik Shyam sit down with Liz Altman and Jeff Schwartz, two of the co-authors of the new book ‘Workforce Ecosystems’, to discuss the changing nature of the workforce and how people and technologies can work together to create value.

Workforce Ecosystems: Reaching Strategic Goals with People, Partners, and Technologies https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262047777/workforce-ecosystems/

Show Highlights:
“We're starting to see, and I think it's becoming a very accepted number, that between 30 to 50% of a total workforce is in some way a contingent workforce.” -Elizabeth J. Altman
“Employees and workers are asking for new degrees of flexibility, new degrees of growth. They're interested in the purpose and the values of their organization.” -Jeff Schwartz
“We need to redefine and rebuild our educational and our public policies for these 100 year lives in workforce ecosystems versus for the 60-65 year lives, which is what social security was based on when we passed it in the 1930s where a typical career was you studied for 20 years, you worked for 30 years and then you retired. So there's some big reframing going on both on the technology side and on the policy side as well.” -Jeff Schwartz
Guests:
Jeff Schwartz, VP of Insights and Impact at Gloat, Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, author WORK DISRUPTED, and co-author of WORKFORCE ECOSYSTEMS
Elizabeth J. Altman Assoc. Professor of Management, Manning School of Business, UMass Lowell; Guest Editor, Future of the Workforce, MIT Sloan Management Review; Co-author of WORKFORCE ECOSYSTEMS
Co-hosts:
Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works
Vikram Shyam, PhD, Futurist, Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project, NASA

7: Solar Geoengineering: The potential & governance. What to know Apr 11, 2023

Show notes

The topic of climate change ignites impassioned debate worldwide - a topic that has made its way into mainstream dialogue, from wall street to mainstreet, and achieved an extraordinary amount of global investment. The ecosystemic implications of this are fascinating. A global issue - with implications for society, industry, economy and policy. A long-standing debate. Yet clear consensus and paths forward remain elusive, suggesting potential misalignment in systems of information, and incentive. A leading concern is the belief that even the most aggressive reductions of greenhouse gas emissions are unlikely to prevent their harmful impacts - especially to those people, organisms and ecosystems that are already vulnerable.

In this episode, our hosts Chris Potter and Marco Annunziata sit down with International Environmental Policy expert Jesse Reynolds to discuss the capabilities and limitations of solar geoengineering, and where we go from here. Show Highlights: “Cutting emissions is a collective action problem where everybody kind of wants to drag their feet and hope that the rest of the world does a good job. And then the benefits of costly emissions cuts go to the future, whereas the costs are born by the present.” –Jesse Reynolds “Climate change economics often quickly gets into the trillions of dollars when you're talking about impacts or very aggressive emissions cuts. In fact, if anything, solar geoengineering looks too cheap, right? We don't need to reduce the cost. That's not a barrier here. So the question in terms of is it effective?It's yes … but. It can be thought of best as a palliative or an analgesic, a type of a medicine that temporary suppresses some of the worst symptoms while a cure is being researched and implemented.” –Jesse Reynolds “It turns out that the opponents of solar geoengineering have managed to stop these field experiments saying it crosses a rubicon, that this will legitimize something that we first need a global dialogue about. And you can see how it's the extremes feeding off of each other with the loser in this process being the generation of knowledge and trust that will be essential if solar geoengineering might be able to reduce climate change risks in the future, especially to the most vulnerable populations in the world.” –Jesse Reynolds

Guest: Jesse Reynolds, Environmental Policy Expert

Co-hosts:

Marco Annunziata, Co-Founder, Annunziata + Desai Partners

Christopher Potter, Senior Research Scientist, Ecosystem Science & Technology Branch, NASA Ames Research Center

6: Bio-Architecture: A New Renaissance for Building Apr 04, 2023

Show notes

Exciting intersections between the ecosystems for architecture, building and material science are forging pathways to regenerative architecture. ‘Bio-Architecture’, a fascinating take on using mycelium to create convergent new systems to generate food, jobs, and building materials that concurrently store carbon.
In this episode of the Ecosystemic Futures podcast brought to you by Shoshin Works in collaboration with NASA Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project, our hosts sit down with Christopher Maurer, architect and founder of Redhouse Studio, to talk about this new capability, and the critical role regenerative solutions play in creating greater ecosystem wellness.
Show Highlights:
“There are things that inert materials like steel could never dream of being able to do, things that only life can do. And that's why I think biomaterials are really exciting.” –Christopher Maurer
“It doesn't matter where you go, you're never going to have a shortage of problems. So the way that we look at this is to turn those problems into opportunities and bio architecture can generally do that.” –Christopher Maurer
“I wanted to be able to pair this ability to create impact through the design and the architecture, with the ability to get beyond sustainability honestly, because I think we're well past that at this point. We need to get to regenerative architecture and so that's where I see bio architecture as being the main driver for that.” –Christopher Maurer
Guest: Christopher Maurer, Principal Architect at redhouse studio architecture
Co-hosts:
Tom Cooke, Founder & CEO, Spacely
Vikram Shyam, Futurist, NASA Glenn Research Center
Series host: Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO of Shoshin Works

5: Intersections of Data, Space & Ecosystems Mar 28, 2023

Show notes

The world is increasingly interconnected, change is dynamic, and volatility ever-present. Accelerating this curve - the democratization of technology and data.
While these factors are uplifting humanity - they are also destabilizing the way we work, live, and interact.
Our guest Dr. David Bray believes that the science of systems will provide structured and beneficial solution pathways. In today’s episode, we sit down with Dr. Bray who helps us examine how new systems of governance and frameworks can help inform ecosystemic wellness, to drive beneficial outcomes for society, industry, and the economy at large.

Show Highlights:

“I am ultimately convinced that biology is how we're going to be able to solve the challenges associated with climate change and the impact that we're having on the planet.” –Dr. David Bray

“The other thing I think that's missing from the conversation, particularly about climate change at the moment. Oftentimes you have climate experts, but you don't have job and policy people present in the room, or you have job and policy people present without climate people in the room. I'd love to create a new discipline, I don't know what I would call it, and it’d probably come off a mismatched name, but that thinks about how we can solve climate while at the same time actually create more jobs.”

–Dr. David Bray

Guest: Dr. David Bray, Distinguished Fellow at the Henry L. Stimson Center; Distinguished Fellow with the Business Executives for National Security; CEO & Champion of Positive #ChangeAgents globally on Twitter at @chief_ventures

Co-hosts:

Tom Cooke, Founder & CEO, Spacely

Jon Rask, Life Sciences Generalist for CAS, NASA

#ecosystemicfutures

4. Avoiding Ethical Nightmares Mar 21, 2023

Show notes

The emergence and convergence of technologies are unlocking tremendous value, and risk. As the digital thread connecting workflows, industries and economies increases - so does the potential for ecosystemic risk.
On today’s Ecosystemic Futures podcast, hosts Dyan Finkhousen and James Villarrubia sit down with Reid Blackman, founder and CEO of Virtue, an AI ethical risk consultancy, to discuss the implications of ethics within today's complex technological frameworks and the business-critical nature of ecosystemic risk management.
Guest: Reid Blackman, founder and CEO of Virtue and host of the podcast Ethical Machines and author of Ethical Machines: Your Concise Guide to Totally Unbiased, Transparent, and Respectful AI from Harvard Review Business Press.
Co-hosts:

Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works
James Villarrubia, White House Presidential Innovation Fellow & Digital Strategist for CAS, NASA

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