The New Abnormal Sean Pillot de Chenecey

Series Four

This episode of 'The New Abnormal' podcast features Chloe Markowicz, Editor at Contagious, which helps agencies and brands supercharge their marketing by learning from the world's most creative and effective companies and campaigns.  They do that via their IQ intelligence platform, consulting services, training and events. 

We discuss a range of issues including the latest 'Contagious Pioneers' report, which highlights agencies that set the standard for creative excellence in advertising and marketing - and where the likes of BETC (Paris) / Colenso BBDO (Auckland) / Gut (Buenos Aires) / Howatson+Company (Sydney) / Lucky Generals (London) / Ogilvy India (Mumbai) / Rethink (Toronto) / Uncommon Creative Studio (London) were the winners.

Chloe also discusses industry trends, big thinkers / dreamers / doers, and the imminent Cannes Lions Festival, where the Contagious team will be making a valiant attempt at working, in between partying at the 'Contagious Villa'. (As they say, if you can remember a party at the Contagious Villa, you obviously weren't there, etc).

She also discusses how to break into the industry, and the experiences that led her to editing everyone's favourite industry title, which exists to inspire and enable contagious creativity.

Series Three

In this episode of #TheNewAbnormal podcast I interview the incredibly dynamic Alice Charles,  who leads the World Economic Forum's cities work streams, inc the Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization and its workstreams on City Climate & Resilience, Urban Inclusion, City Digital Transformation and City Financing. She's also created the City Dialogues series, which enables curated discussions between city leaders and leaders of business, civil society and academia on the city's future vision and collaborative action. Alice provides advice and direction on a variety of Forum initiatives inc the Future of Real Estate, BiodiverseCities 2030, Net Zero Carbon Cities and Sustainable Timber and the Built Environment.  In addition, she leads the production of cities related content and events at WEF Summits, including Davos. So, and as you can imagine, we cover a lot of ground covering the above issues. I found her viewpoints absolutely fascinating and hope you do too!

Series Three

This episode of #TheNewAbnormal podcast features Phil Rowley, Head of Futures at Omnicom Media Group UK.  In addition to this, he's also a Media Futurist, Tech Advisory Board Member, AdWeek Columnist, and Power MBA lecturer.  Phil specialises in talking to brands about the future, turning thought-leadership and emerging tech trends into actual strategies.  He has over 22 years’ experience working in London, Dublin & Auckland – and is a recipient of ‘The Internationalist’ Agency Innovators Award. 

In this episode, we discuss a series of the latest reports from OMG Futures, and therefore discuss a range of macro issues including 'The Next Decade', 'The Future of Wellbeing' and 'The Future of Sustainability' alongside specific subjects such as 'How to be a Bad Futurist' (and how to be a good one), 'Why the grey market is THE market' and 'Tech for Truth'. 

Series Four

This episode of 'The New Abnormal' podcast features Colin Strong, who is Head of Behavioural Science at Ipsos, and a Professor at Nottingham University Business School. He works with a wide range of organisations (both private and public sector) to design and deliver behavioural change through the use of behavioural science. His new book 'Out of Time: the revolution underway in beliefs about being human' is out now. In it, he seeks to make sense of our current state of liminality, and questions what we wish humans to become from this state. So, we discuss all of the above and along the way, Nietzsche, Descartes, the CIA and the late, great Daniel Kahneman all get a mention, along with many others. I hope you'll enjoy listening to Colin as much as I did!

Series Two 

In this episode of #TheNewAbnormal podcast, I interviewed Lucie Greene, who is a forecaster, strategist and author specialising in cultural trends, consumer insights and brand innovation. 

Having relocated to NYC from L.A. she set up her futures practice 'Light Years' having previously led JWT's global futures think tank JWT Intelligence. 

She also launched their renowned 'Future 100' annual trends report, which is now translated into ten languages. Her book 'Silicon States: the power and politics of BigTech and what it means for our future' is absolutely excellent. 

In this episode we discuss a wide range of issues including the increasing exposure of a lack of faith in Government, the privatisation of the C19 pandemic inc surveillance capitalism, the need for 'Solve & Dissolve' teams re: the Future of Work, brand responses to the climate & ecological emergency, and the impact on our social fabric of hyper-individualisation. 

Series Two 

In this episode of #TheNewAbnormal I interviewed Richard Watson, 
Futurist-in-Residence at Judge Business School, Cambridge University.  

He helps organisations to think, especially about emerging opportunities and risks. Particular interests include emerging tech, AI, robotics, education, energy, and water. 

Richard has written extensively on societal trends and the impact of technology, and has given over 300 talks to various organisations throughout the world. 

He's worked extensively on scenario planning projects having been introduced to the discipline by one of the founders of GBN. 

The author of five books about various aspects of the future (inc the scenario process), he's blogged on innovation for Fast Company and written for Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies and McKinsey & Co. 

He's also a visiting lecturer at both Imperial College Business School and London Business School, co-founder of 'Thinking Allowed' and one of the people behind Sci-Fi nights at the Royal College Of Art. 

So, we discuss all of the above alongside issues such as a potential corona chronology, leadership, the merits of studying politics, philosophy & economics, and the entrepreneurial mind. 

Finally, Richard outlines a strategic approach based on 'scenario worlds or a preferred future'...