The New Abnormal Sean Pillot de Chenecey

This episode of #TheNewAbnormal podcast features a fascinating interview with a renowned futurist, Tom Lombardo. 

He's a Director at the Center for Future Consciousness,  which offers educational experiences that challenge and stimulate the mind, expand conscious awareness, empower creativity, deepen understanding, enhance ethics and promote social growth.  Tom is also an Exec Board Member and Fellow of the World Futures Studies Federation, and Editor at the Journal of  Futures Studies. 

In this deeply interesting and wide-ranging conversation, Tom discusses issues including the history of futurism, his best-selling books, notable futurists / philosophers / psychologists / authors, along with contemporary leading-edge thinking into the overall subject of futurism, foresight and scenario planning.

So...I hope you enjoy listening to his viewpoints as much as I did! 

This episode of #TheNewAbnormal podcast features Jacob Ellis, an experienced public affairs and international relations advisor with a demonstrated history of working to improve policy-making in Wales and globally. 

He's worked with United Nations, World Cities Culture Forum and One Young World, and is committed to ensuring the needs of future generations are central to policy development. 

We therefore discuss all of these areas, and in particular his work with the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, his activity as a Future Generations Global Ambassador, being a United Nations Foundation 'Next Generation' Fellow, and a range of the dynamic policy initiatives and other issues on which Jacob is involved. 

This episode of 'The New Abnormal' podcast features Hilary Sutcliffe, Director of SocietyInside, who bring together people and ideas to help tech and its governance earn the trust of society. 

The name #SocietyInside is a riff off the famous brand ‘IntelInside’ and aims to encapsulate their aspiration that we reverse-engineer innovation from the needs of society rather than just create technologies which are in an eternal search for a home.

Hilary explores the purpose, risks, ethics, stakeholder involvement and governance of these technologies through research, writing and stakeholder involvement as well as acting as a sounding board & critical friend. She also believes that 'innovation is society in the making'. 

We therefore discuss all of the above, and in particular, the issues of inclusion, respect, openness and integrity in policy, regulation and organisational culture. She also explains why "trust is not an outcome - not a message, not a slogan. It's the result of someone's belief in your trustworthiness. Focus then on being trustworthy and providing evidence of your trustworthiness". 

This episode of 'The New Abnormal' podcast features Maurice NDiaye, Founder and CEO at Descartes & Mauss, the first Stratech and a new breed of AI-powered consulting firm.

Maurice has devoted his career to using artificial intelligence to solve the most complex business challenges: with a dual professional background as an Ecole Polytechnique Engineer and a Columbia University business graduate, he's convinced that technology can, and should, enable companies to be both more efficient and more virtuous. 

After starting his career at McKinsey, Maurice spent about a decade designing AI-based capabilities and services to help companies grow faster. The company he founded and runs today, Descartes & Mauss, is the result of these years of research and consulting. 

So, we discuss how he basically measures the immeasurable i.e. making tangible what has not yet happened in order to build instability-proof action plans. Modelling the future is his obsession, especially in a world that has become more unstable than ever, and I really enjoyed listening to his illumination of this fascinating subject.

This episode of 'The New Abnormal' podcast features Art Kleiner, a renowned expert on management thinking, thought leadership, organisational learning and scenario planning. 

In his new book 'The AI Dilemma: 7 Principles for Responsible Technology' he illuminates a belief that AI holds incredible promise to improve virtually every aspect of our lives, but we can't ignore its risks, mishaps and misuses. The book therefore offers seven principles for ensuring that machine learning supports human flourishing. 

An editorial consultant for influential thought leaders, he's also former editor-in-chief of the award-winning management magazine Strategy+Business (published by PwC), editorial director of the Fifth Discipline Fieldbook series, co-innovator of "learning histories" (MIT) co-author of 'The Wise Advocate' and author of 'The Age of Heretics' and 'Who Really Matters'.  

I really enjoyed listening to his inspiring and insightful viewpoints, and hope you will too!

Series Three

This episode of The New Abnormal podcast features Chicago-based Keely Adler, cultural futurist at Dentsu and core team at Radar.  

A brand strategist by trade, time-traveling futurist at heart and with a nearly decade-long career grounded in creative strategy and qualitative consumer research, Keely has spent her time working across a range of brands and special projects that leverage her cultural expertise and fuel clients’ curiosity about the world and where it’s headed. 

Today, she’s spearheading a Cultural Futurism practice within the strategy group at dentsu: leveraging foresight to help brands understand — and future-proof — themselves in rapidly shifting contexts. She believes in understanding the present through the lens of the past in order to make sense of the future, and she loves helping makers, creators, and brands do the same. 

In this episode, we therefore discuss a range of issues that she's currently obsessing over: the future of work & global power dynamics | the makings of a post-deprivation world | the role of fandom and community in a micro-culture first context | exploring new ways into strategic foresight & designing for the future...