Amplifying Cognition

“True creativity comes from humans because it stems from our unique individual experiences of life. “

– Jeremy Somers

About Jeremy Somers

Jeremy Somers is Founder and Director of AI-assisted creative agency NotContent.ai, and of We Are Handsome. He has extensive experience as a Creative Director, working for brands such as Asos, Canon, Mercedes-Benz, Qantas, Spotify, and W Hotels.

Websites:

www.notcontent.ai

www.jeremysomers.com

Instagram: @notcontent.ai

Beehiv: notcontent.beehiiv

What you will learn

• Exploring Jeremy’s journey from analog to digital in the creative industry
• The pivotal role of generative AI in transforming creative processes
• How notcontent.AI merges AI tools with human creativity for enhanced productivity
• Addressing common misconceptions about AI replacing creative jobs
• Strategies for integrating AI into traditional creative agency workflows
• The future of creative agencies in an AI-driven world
• Insights on maintaining human creativity at the core of AI-assisted outputs

Episode Resources

• Artificial intelligence (AI)
• Claude-3-Opus
• ChatGPT 4o
• Fireflies (transcription tool)
• Whisper Memos (app)
• Canva
• Ethan Mollick
• notcontent.AI
• Generative AI

Transcript

Ross Dawson: Jeremy, it’s awesome to have you on the show.

Jeremy Somers: Hey, Ross, thank you for having me.

Ross: So you’re a leader in AI-assisted creative agency work. Tell me more. Tell us more.

Jeremy: The story begins long before the world of generative AI and AI creativity. My career and life history have always been about creativity. And I started in traditional analog photography, when I was in my teens, and trends went through the whole transition into digital photography. And then I taught myself graphic design. And then I learned it through a very, very early Photoshop version on a bubble, iMac, and the colored ones. And then started working in some of the very first digital agencies in Sydney. And learning through the transition of like, there was no social media and other social media, there is no e-commerce now there is e-commerce, so it’s in digital agencies working on big brands, Nike, and Pepsi, and Microsoft, Samsung, etcetera, etcetera, through this whole transition. And so a lot of my career journey has been in transitional periods of, like, massive shifts in the thing that I’m doing, not just the tools that are available to us, but just societal level shifts of how we communicate as designers and creators and branding people to the outside world.

And I happened upon open APIs, Darley white paper very early on, probably coming up on, two and a half years since it was released, I think I’ll check that. But I haven’t found this like paper and nerdily, read through the entire thing, and then read through it again. And then I fully understood what was going on, I had this moment of, sort of cinematic-like, flashback, flash forward moment of, I see the end result of where everything I’ve ever done, creatively, how I’ve done, it has changed, but this is going to change everything in a way, which we’ve never seen before. So I have this, Pivotal epiphany. And I was like, whoa, okay, how can I learn more? One, and two, o...

“There are a number of people whom I respect and follow online because they are out-of-the-box thinkers. They might come up with something that I hadn’t encountered before. Then I pay attention because they are a trusted relationship.”

– Annalie Killian

About Annalie Killian Annalie Killian’s mission in life is to catalyze the magic of human ingenuity to make the world, and especially corporate life, a better place. She is currently VP of Strategy and Partnerships for Omnicom’s leading cultural intelligence agency Sparks & Honey, the founder of AMPlify innovation festival at the financial services giant AMP, and a Fellow of Aspen Institute’s First Movers program. LinkedIn: Annalie Killian

Facebook: Annalie Killian

Twitter: Annalie Killian

Instagram: Annalie Killian

What you will learn

• If you’re curious and find lots of information, how do you deal with it? (02:15)
• Why relationships can be a way to filter information (03:41)
• How to find patterns in information (05:27)
• Ways of capturing information patterns (08:15)
• What is the process of pulling together information strands to see what is important? (11:03)
• How to build your network within an information frame (13:39)
• How much difference to expect between experts within a domain (17:20)
• How to bring diverse opinions to form something holistic (20:04)
• What are low filters? (24:50)
• Use filters to surface, define, and explore what is most interesting (27:57)

Episode Resources

• EdgeDweller
• Box
• Dropbox
• Readit
• ENTP Personality
• Social Chemistry by Marissa King

Transcript

Ross Dawson: Annalie, it’s wonderful to have you on the Thriving on Overload podcast.

Annalie Killian: Hi Ross, nice to see you again.

Ross: Annalie, you have been at the edge of the future in many ways for a long time now. How do you do it? What’s the heart of your ability to keep across change or where things are going?

Annalie: I think it all starts with curiosity; Curiosity is a characteristic that I have in spades. It’s almost inevitable that I’m always seeking the edge because I’m curious. Sometimes this curiosity has a nemesis, which is that you end up with information overload.

Ross: If you’re curious, and you find lots of information, there’s too much of it. How do you deal with that? How do you get value from that profusion?

Annalie: There is this complex answer to that. One is I think that some information is okay to discard but having consumed it, and processed it, when you encounter similar scenarios, the insight is that you can recognize a pattern. It’s probably at the point where I start to recognize a pattern that I start to pay attention to see, should I be capturing some of it, should I be saving some of it? That part of the curiosity is really about an open funnel. Then there is a process of recognition of patterns, which then would for me, indicate time to track this. That’s one way in terms of just serendipitous learning.
The other one is that I do a lot of my work around relationships. People to me are the way to scale lots and lots of information. Because I can’t hold it all; but if I have a network that holds much of it, and I can get to them, then it helps with the process of curation and just-in-time delivery. That is very useful.
For people, I have not found an ideal solution. We know that LinkedIn is supposedly the business network where we store our valued relationships but I found that the platform has actually become weaker over time rather than stronger. They used to have a feature that they eliminated a few years ago, where you could annotate a contact, that’s disappeared. I think that LinkedIn has a very one-dimensional view of how people use the platform. Perhaps, it’s part of the architectural problems but I do think that there is an opportunity for a premiumization product. I already have a premium account that doesn’t offer me these features but I would love more features in LinkedIn in terms of being able to categorize, filter, annotate my co...

“I would say purpose, oriented towards a really clear, focused filter to decide what to take in and what not to take in is how I’ve managed overload.”

– Robin Athey

About Robin Athey Robin Athey gave up her high powered corporate career including nine-years as Research Director at Deloitte to found Integral Growth where she guides founders and leaders to manage transformational change and trust their inner wisdom in fast-moving, complex, high growth environments. Website: Integral Growth

LinkedIn: Robin Athey

Twitter: Robin Athey

Medium: Robin Athey

Facebook: Robin Athey

What you will learn

• How purpose can help you thrive on overload (01:19)
• What to expect on your journey to purpose? (04:38)
• A simple tool or framework to finding purpose (09:01)
• Finding your purpose does not require radical change (12:23)
• What are examples of a pathway and keys to finding purpose (13:14)
• Why simplifying is crucial to avoiding the pain of overload (16:27)
• Why and how to set limits to distractions (18:24)
• Start your day eating the frog (21:31)
• What is the maximum number of big project at any given time (22:46)
• Why we needs frames and boundaries for sensemaking (25:04)
• How truly wanting protects you from the constant assault of information (30:08)

Episode Resources

• Are You My Mother?
• Eat Your Frogs First
• Mark Twain – American writer and humourist

Transcript

Ross Dawson: Robin, it’s a delight to have you on the show.

Robin Athey: Ross, thank you.

Ross: When we think about overload, and how it is we can thrive off of it, what comes to you first, when you think about that, Robin?

Robin: I’m laughing because when you say the word overload, I have these flashbacks, actually, to the beginning of the internet. I don’t know if you remember, but the dawning of what was happening, and the impact it was going to have.

Ross: I do.

Robin: Everyone was just like flying around, talking about overload. Then all of a sudden, I remember that dread of feeling it. It was interesting. I was just reflecting on this and preparing for our interview, it had me really reflecting on how do we actually thrive? And what is that? I feel like I’ve learned to thrive, and there have been so many different dimensions of that happening.

Ross: I think one of those is purpose.

Robin: One of those for sure is purpose; I would say purpose and having a really clear filter to decide what to take in and what not to take in. But it had to be really focused or oriented towards how I’ve managed overload, even with my body, what I can possibly digest? I was having memories of the early days when not only was the internet happening, but you and I were connected in some similar circles around the early to mid-2000s. I was involved in so many different councils, and there were so many ideas flying around, and the Internet was propelling a lot of those around knowledge management, and how do we handle all of this. With sitting in those councils, I remember at one point feeling like, wow, this is intellectual cocaine, I can get so addicted to this.
At the time, I lived life largely from my head, taking in all of that information, it was intoxicating. I actually didn’t know how to digest it. At the time, I was practicing yoga and meditating, and all of that, but I was living life so much from my head that I felt myself ping-ponging through all the days, from one idea to the next, and the next. But not in a way that was really coherent, and not in a way that I could really make sense of a lot of it, and the impact that I wanted it to have, I really wasn’t clear at all, how it was going to channel through me as a human being who wanted to have an impact in the world. I was largely a broker; I could think of myself as a dealer of this intellectual cocaine but I was constantly connecting ideas, people with people, and ideas with ideas, and really spurring on the life, the addiction to ideas and information.

...

“In order to write, I scan over 80 or more newsletters and magazines. If I get a newsletter and there isn’t something in there that I’ve used in a while then I’ll just unsubscribe from that one and look for another one that might be better. “

– Joyce Gioia

About Joyce Gioia

Joyce is a strategic business futurist and President of The Herman Group, which serves a wide range of clients globally with The Herman Trend Report and other services, and is on the board of the Association of Professional Futurists. She is the author or co-author of six books, including Experience Rules, and appears regularly in the media, including in Entrepreneur Magazine, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, and NPR.

Website: Joyce Gioia

LinkedIn: Joyce Gioia

Twitter: Joyce Gioia

Facebook: Joyce Gioia

Books

Impending Crisis: Too Many Jobs, Too Few People

How to Choose your Next Employer

How to Become an Employer of Choice

Workforce Stability: Your Competitive Edge

Lean & Meaningful: A New Culture for Corporate America

What you will learn

• Using trend alert tools (01:46)
• How to select information sources and keep them up to date (05:43)
• Why it may be better to deal with information as it comes instead of on a schedule (08:36)
• Why the futurist’s job is making big concepts understandable to your audience (11:35)
• What makes an excellent futurist (14:52)
• Why it is important to engage stakeholders other than your customers (20:16)
• How the Chief Experience Officer frames a company externally and internally (22:35)
• Why taking care of your physical health is just as important as mental health (25:52)

Episode resources

• Herman Trend Alert
• DuckDuckGo
• South by Southwest
• Rhodium Research
• Ray Kurzweil
• Bertalan Mesko
• The Great Resignation
• 75 cent words
• Gregory Bateson
• League of Legends
• Chief Experience Officer

Transcript

Ross Dawson: Joyce, it’s a delight to have you on the show.

Joyce Gioia: It’s great to be with you, Ross.

Ross: Joyce, you help organizations and leaders to understand what’s going on, understand what’s changing, and to be able to act on that, how do you do that?

Joyce: The major vehicle that I use is something that I call the Herman Trend Alert. It’s read by close to 30,000 people every week in 92 countries. In order to write that I scan over 80 newsletters and magazines, probably over the course of a month or more even because some of the newsletters are compendiums of highlights from other newsletters, so the best of. I probably cover close to 200 with all the different newsletters and magazines that I look at.

When I find something that interests me, that I think I’d like to learn more about and I have a boundless curiosity like a kid, I try to find if they have something digital on it, if it’s an article online, I’ll grab the URL, and/or I’ll copy the item and just dump it into a new word file. When it’s from a magazine, I’ll tear out the pages or even look for that item online so that I don’t even have to translate the ink on paper into a digital format. Sometimes I’ll even hear a radio segment that’s on something that I want to cover. In that case, I’ll look for the transcript. I’ll keep the URL and the copy of the materia...

“It’s really exciting, truly. We have so much information at our fingertips and so much connectivity at this point in time, to go about pursuing your passion and to go about really finding that authentic truth within who you are, and how you can come out into the world.”

– Sasha Wallinger

About Sasha Wallinger

Sasha Wallinger is founder of Blockchain Style Lab, a team of strategists, researchers, and world builders that provides Web3 Advisory services, and acts as Chief Marketing Officer for major brands. She has lead global teams for brands such as H&M and Nike, and recently launched the Gucci Superplastic NFT collectibles. Her passion for translating art and science, nature and culture, and design and data is evident in this conversation.

Website: www.sashawallinger.com

LinkedIn: Sasha Wallinger

Instagram: @blockchainstylelab

Twitter (X): @SashaWallinger

What you will learn

• Weaving nature, culture, and innovation
• Bridging virtual and physical realms in the fashion and sustainability nexus
• Pioneering the digital-physical hybrid in community building
• Reflecting on technology’s evolution from the Industrial Revolution to AI integration
• Innovations in everyday technology transforming personal and fashion experiences
• Exploring the frontier of bio-scientific materials in fashion and wellness
• mphasizing digital detox and mindfulness for grounding and future-thinking

Episode Resources

Zoom

Superplastic

SuperGucci, Superplastic

Roblox

Meta

Google

OpenAI

Dall-e

ChatGPT

Microsoft

CuteCircuits

Iroquois precept

People

Gary Snyder

Wayne Thiebaud

Pharrell Williams

Book

Mind and Nature – a Necessary Unity by Gregory Bateson

Transcript

Ross Dawson: Sasha, it’s a delight to have you on the show.

Sasha Wallinger : Thank you, I’m thrilled to be with you.

Ross: So, you talk about creativity, community, and collaboration is central to your work and interests. Tell me more.

Sasha: Sure, I mean, I think they’re huge topics, and that’s why they’re potentially suitable for all that I’m attempting to achieve. They come from the desire to connect both nature and culture, the desire to weave together fashion, sustainability, and technology, and truly just to enjoy that which I do with a bunch of people.

So, for creativity, I really take a lot of inspiration from design, art, music, and all areas of creativity. That also has been a natural scientist immersed in bioscientific material, and biomimicry, and areas in those different ways that we look outside of the expected into places that can be a little bit unique and unexpected. So, I think that creativity allows me to have a dialogue with artisans, both accomplished artists, and up and coming artists, but also...