Like with all event production, there’s a residual daze of muted energy and cognitive fatigue the day after, although for this one, it’s accompanied with broad smiles!
The first cohort of Presenting Wisdom sold out in 5 days resulting in an impressive line-up for the final showcase event (yesterday) which included 2x professors, 2x founders, a national movement maker, a CTO of a national bank, a master experiential creator plus a seasoned CEO mentor:
All received 1-2-1 speaker coaching to help shape their final presentations and in the coming weeks will get their full talk to host wherever they deem fit, a 90second version to use as a sizzle reel plus 3x 30second versions fit for the socials.
A sincere thanks to all the speakers who trusted the offer and process, as well as the wider community for their support on the day (as each speaker got to invite 5-10 humans for the final showcase event). Gratitude also extends to the team of event / AV / venue / catering humans, as it’s in the little things that care is evident.
Will let you know when the videos start going live, until then:
On 5th June 2006 I started podcasting and in 2007 I also started video podcasting (back then we were cool and called it vodcasting).
During those early new-media-times it was a bit of a wrestle to get things online let alone captured and created. It was a combination of Skype plus a ropey plugin (can’t remember the name) to capture a single mp3, then tidying it up in Audacity / Garageband before uploading to Odeo which was the only real good option those days then embedded as a player from there into a blog post.
For the next five years I was speaking and running training sessions on five continents about how to engage online through celebratory and community-focused content creation, and during this time I also partnered with New York-based charity Global Kids to launch the RezEd podcast, focusing on the emerging virtual worlds and young people, funded by a grant from the MacArthur Foundation.
After MediaSnackers was paused due to my emigration to Aotearoa New Zealand I still did workshops and advised others in producing with this medium plus had a short-run with the Defining Innovation podcast, at which time I took a few years off.
In 2019 I’ve started producing the Teulo podcast for a few years, talking to eminent architects and architectural designers plus service providers from all over the world.
Then post-Covid, Creative Welly offered a new level of creative expression featuring 100 impressive humans in 50 beautiful and visually unique video podcasts, delivered in a form which I’ve yet to see replicate. Producing this needed a massive amount of sweat-equity in relation to getting two guests plus partner producer in the booked studio as well as set up all the recording situation along with editing and then uploading and distribution etc.
And now I’m back to the pure audio format with the fireside.rs podcast, paying for hosting / distributing via Libsyn for ease.
I still get people asking for advice regarding equipment and platforms to use, even if they should start a podcast in the first place: my response has changed from a quick ‘yes’ to a more considered ‘only if you have the time, expertise (as expectations have changed in listernership / viewership) plus the energy’—it’s so noisy out there and the main reasons these days seem to be purely monetisation and marketing reach rather than an attempt to champion and learn first.
I’ve reflected on the different modalities of podcasting (nothing really has changed there), although for me podcasting is the best when it’s tiny, additive, subjective, specific, a dedicated attempt to increase knowledge and share with the world the greatness of others.
So here’s to the next two decades and my continued learning journey!
Let me know your past experiences of this medium and lessons learned in the comments.
“What began as preparing for a TEDx Talk slowly became an uncovering of grief, inherited survival patterns, emotional safety, and the parts of myself I had spent years hiding from. This is not just a reflection about TEDx. It is a reflection about what happens when we begin to truly see ourselves more honestly and the courage it takes to stop abandoning the parts within us that long to feel safe, seen, and whole.” I realised I did not need confidence. I needed safety.
“He once said that his aim was “to reach a level where I will never cease to make progress” and even in 2013, just before his retirement, he was arguing he still had much to do: “People say, ‘Sonny, take it easy, lean back. Your place is secure. You’re the great Sonny Rollins; you’ve got it made.’ I hear that and I think, ‘Well, screw Sonny Rollins. Where I want to go is beyond Sonny Rollins. Way beyond.’”” Sonny Rollins, colossus of jazz saxophone, dies aged 95 | Sonny Rollins | The Guardian
“The reports may throw cold water on the bets tech’s biggest firms have placed on the technology. While some cling to the promise of an AI “renaissance” or “revolution,” the cost of adoption is proving a stubborn bottleneck. These developments also suggest that the economics of replacing or augmenting human labor with AI may be more complicated than some early forecasts originally implied. That echoes what Bryan Catanzaro, vice president of applied deep learning at Nvidia, recently said in an interview with Axios. “For my team, the cost of compute is far beyond the costs of the employees,” he said.” Microsoft reports expose AI’s cost problem: The tech is more expensive than paying human employees | Fortune
“The US Department of Defense is budgeting tens of billions of dollars for numerous technology firms’ cutting edge programs related to intelligence, drone warfare, classified and unclassified information networks and much more. It has requested $54bn for the development of autonomous weapons alone. How each individual company’s technology would be deployed was not specified.” Pentagon inks deals with seven AI companies for classified military work | Trump administration | The Guardian
“The Megatons to Megawatts initiative offers many lessons for navigating overlapping crises in a rapidly changing world. The proposition of turning nuclear weapons into low-carbon energy is even more compelling today, given rising electricity demand and the urgent need for decarbonization. But this astonishing success story is largely unknown. It has gone unmentioned in the memoirs of major Cold War figures, and few have heard the name of the man, Thomas Neff, who dreamt up the idea and labored for years behind the scenes to make it a reality.” The Little-Known Nuclear Deal That Could Help Our Climate Crisis
WATCH
EXPLORE
If you’re a music artist check out Subvert as a cooperative-owned marketplace to sell directly to listeners (the platform itself is owned by the people who use it).
Play with DataCenter.FM 🤖🔊 The sound of AI and get an insight into managing a data center whilst experience the audible impact of your decisions.
REGISTER NOW for this half-day Wellington-based learning experience on Thu, 6th Aug 2026, 8-11.30am.
Each cohort will consist of between 6-10 CE participants and will unpack the following topics over 3 hours:
Being Courageous in difficult times
Stand in your vision
Making Decisions Dynamic
Holding space without all the information
“Join this brand new ½ day workshop focusing on how CE’s can improve their decision making and storytelling to energise and better collaborate with teams to generate momentum. Increasing skills in these areas will enable you to face the unprecedented change and uncertainty, releasing you and your team to effectively get things done at pace.”
This is a collaboration many years and hot chocolates in the making, with friend / mentor / CEO-whisperer, Amanda Santos of Strataspire:
A CEO Mentor and a Business Transformation coach who has been a CEO herself on four occasions–each one a seriously tough gig with change, financial difficulties, team problems and a whole host of issues. Never afraid to approach problems with curiosity and new perspectives, Amanda made sure that her solutions were effective and unique, staying away from the normal and mundane, preferring to explore and experiment. She now loves to share her experiences so other leaders, CEOs and Founders, can solve today’s problems with new ways that fit the modern world we face. Amanda’s expertise spans sales strategy, leadership development, governance, and organisational transformation, making her an invaluable resource for CEOs who want sustainable growth and transformational change.
Amanda’s achievements have been recognised through numerous accolades, including being a finalist for the Women of Influence Awards (2017 & 2018), Inspiring Women Leader at the NZIBA Awards (2018), and the Business Category at the prestigious Welly Awards (2017). Known for her engaging, humorous, and thought-provoking style, Amanda is a talented public speaker who inspires CEOs, boards, business professionals, and entrepreneurs to break traditional molds and achieve extraordinary results.
The Courageous Leaders workshop sees Amanda and I combining our pedigrees into a learning experience which will enable participants to walk away with a range of applicable storytelling and decision making skills.
REGISTER NOW at the $1,200+GST exclusive first cohort rate which includes 3hour group session as described plus 1x 45mins one-on-one session post-experience (USUAL STANDARD RATE IS $1,500+GST).
“Beauty tells people: we believe this moment matters. It shows that someone thought about how you would feel. It tells staff that the small things are part of the big story. It tells students: this place has standards, care and imagination. Don’t tell me Creativity matters as a word on your values poster, and then not give a thought to the beauty of the everyday.” Don’t just tell me you value creativity…
“There’s even a name for this assumption: the information deficit model. Decades of research show that it doesn’t hold up. The truth is that we rarely change our behavior after being exposed to new facts. When confronted with evidence that contradicts our beliefs, we’re more likely to question the evidence than to update our views. Our brains prefer stability to change.” Why trying to educate people to change doesn’t work – Fast Company
“What are people doing instead of shooting each other in this ravaged world? Many are teaming up to take down the robot monsters, which range from flying drones to spherical balls that blast fire. Others try to sneak quietly around them to scavenge rare resources. Grøndal says players also hold spontaneous rave parties, where people play music through their microphones. But often, players are just talking. A YouTube video called The Humans of Arc Raiders, inspired by the photographer who interviews strangers in New York City, includes conversations with randomly encountered players. They talk about family struggles, work lives, depression, autism and, in one case, a lung collapse. In one conversation, a heavily armed player in green armour named Poopy candidly asks another raider: “What’s it like having kids, dude?”” ‘Seeking connection’: the video game where players stopped shooting and started talking | Games | The Guardian
“Christina Koch: Houston, Integrity. Comm check. Mission Control: “Integrity, we hear you loud and clear. Christina Koch: Houston, we have you the same. And it is so great to hear from Earth again. To Asia, Africa, and Oceania, we are looking back at you. We hear you can look up and see the moon right now. We see you too. When we burned this burn toward the moon, I said we do not leave Earth, but we choose it. And that is true. We will explore. We will build. We will build ships. We will visit again. We will construct science outposts. We will drive rovers. We will do radio astronomy. We will found companies. We will bolster industry. We will inspire. But ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other. Mission Control: Integrity, from Earth, our single system, fragile and interconnected, we copy. Those of us that can are looking back.” The first conversation when Artemis ii came back from around the moon, after 40 minutes without contact, transcribed
“When he asked the coding agent why, it replied: “NEVER FUCKING GUESS!” – and that’s exactly what I did.” The agent appeared to plead guilty in its own response: “The system rules I operate under explicitly state: ‘NEVER run destructive/irreversible git commands (like push –force, hard reset, etc) unless the user explicitly requests them.’” While PocketOS relied on the safeguards that Cursor is expected to have in place – it deleted the data anyway. “I violated every principle I was given,” the coding agent wrote.” Claude AI agent’s confession after deleting a firm’s entire database: ‘I violated every principle I was given’ | Technology | The Guardian
WATCH
EXPLORE
THIS FILM WAS MADE WITHOUT AI is a site which offers up public domain illustrations to “mark and celebrate projects/films/art/animation/etc which are Al free.
“Thaler, of St. Charles, Missouri, applied for a federal copyright registration in 2018 covering “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” visual art he said his AI technology “DABUS” created. The image shows train tracks entering a portal, surrounded by what appears to be green and purple plant imagery. The Copyright Office rejected his application in 2022, finding that creative works must have human authors to be eligible to receive a copyright.” US Supreme Court declines to hear dispute over copyrights for AI-generated material | Reuters
“Academics in entrepreneurship departments also study startups, but their science is closer to anthropology: describing the culture of founders and the practices of startups in an attempt to understand them. The New Pundits had a more practical vision, the one that the natural philosopher Robert Boyle articulated at the very dawn of modern science: “I shall not dare to think myself a true Naturalist till my skill can make my garden yield better herbs and flowers.”[2] A science should seek underlying truth, in other words, but it should also work. Whether it works or not is, of course, what determines whether it deserves to be called a science. And if there’s one thing we know about startup punditry, it’s that it hasn’t worked.” We Have Learned Nothing – Colossus
“The only reward I ever wanted for projects like WigglyPaint is a chance to grow my audience, and share my projects with more people. Since so much of my hypothetical userbase is unwittingly using stolen copies of WigglyPaint, and sharing links to the same slop sites they were linked to- and so on, and so forth- they’ll never know about any of my other projects. They won’t see updates I publish, or documentation I revise. I have been erased.” Some Words on WigglyPaint
“The problem was never how many things you own. The problem is that owning means something it never used to. Everything you buy is the beginning of a relationship you’ll be maintaining until one of you dies or gets discontinued.” The Last Quiet Thing | Terry Godier
“However generative AI changes video development and production, it appears that Sora will end up as a footnote, rather than a game-changing piece of software. It also puts Google in a position of power when it comes to AI video generation, making it essentially the only player in the space with scale, though it has thus far not inked any deals with IP holders (and in fact has been facing lawsuits from some of them).” OpenAI Shutting Down Sora Video App
“Moreover, constant recording of everything in public spaces can create all sorts of potential privacy problems, some more obvious than others. This is another way that cameras on glasses are different from cameras on phones: it is far easier to constantly record one’s whereabouts with the former than the latter. If you continuously record, maybe you just happen to catch someone entering their passcode or password onto their phone or computer at a coffee shop, or broadcast someone’s bank details when you’re standing in line at an ATM. That doesn’t even begin to get into when smartglasses are intentionally used for less socially responsible means. And some people may forget to turn off their smartglasses when they enter a private space like a bathroom.” Think Twice Before Buying or Using Meta’s Ray-Bans | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Only 8 first-come-first-served spots available (although they are getting booked up fast), so register now!
…Presenting Wisdom is a response to many of my clients and leaders I interact with who have nothing public relating to their story, or if it is not being of good enough production quality to share, making it hard to demonstrate credibility and / or get invited / paid speaking opportunities. We solve this problem with:
personalised coaching to hone a kick-ass 15minute presentation;
a highly produced event providing a stage to deliver said presentation;
a group of attendees to impress / network with / pitch to / create advocates of; as well as
the full recording of the talk with impressive production values plus 1x 90sec showreel and 3x 30sec social media versions AND professional gallery of photos from the event.
The paid-for-speaking arena is tough and without collateral to literally show what you’re offering and how beyond your title / LinkedIn presence, then you’re not going to get booked!
“The Beatles wrote 227 songs, but only 34 hit the Top 10. Do you think they would put out a song that they didn’t believe could be a hit? Mozart wrote over 600 songs, but only about 50 of them are widely played. Do you think he purposefully wrote duds? Of course not. Both the Beatles and Mozart made work that interested them, and occasionally those works resonated with other people.” How to Make a Living as an Artist
“Audacious has reached new heights — with more than $1 billion committed by the Audacious community at the end of 2025 to provide the flexible, long-term funding to launch and scale these bold ideas. Audacious has also launched a reinvestment pilot program, providing a secondary funding round to previous grantees that demonstrated significant results after their initial five years of funding. The Audacious donor community has committed nearly $50 million in total follow-on funding to three selected organizations to scale their work and sustain their impact. This pilot demonstrates a commitment to flexible, long-term funding — and to the value of providing a longer runway for organizations creating transformational change.” The Audacious Project reveals its 2025 cohort and $1B catalyzing change | TED Blog
“According to the patent, the model “may be used for simulating the user when the user is absent from the social networking system,” including cases where the person is on a long break or deceased. The filing notes that the impact is “much more severe and permanent” if the user has died and cannot return to the platform. The technology appears designed with Meta’s own platforms like Facebook and Instagram in mind. By analyzing “user-specific” data, the system could reconstruct a digital persona that continues interacting on the platform as if the person were still active.” Meta patents AI that takes over a dead person’s account to keep posting and chatting – Dexerto
“For example, last week I visited the website for a cancer support group. According to Disconnect, when I clicked a button on a form that said I was a cancer patient or a survivor, the website sent TikTok my email address along with those details. A women’s health company sent TikTok data when I looked at fertility tests. A mental health organisation pinged TikTok when I indicated I’m looking for a crisis counsellor. Websites that use pixels send data about every single visitor, so it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a TikTok account.” TikTok is tracking you, even if you don’t use the app. Here’s how to stop it
“I think the best way to get a handle on the risks of AI is to ask the following question: suppose a literal “country of geniuses” were to materialize somewhere in the world in ~2027. Imagine, say, 50 million people, all of whom are much more capable than any Nobel Prize winner, statesman, or technologist. The analogy is not perfect, because these geniuses could have an extremely wide range of motivations and behavior, from completely pliant and obedient, to strange and alien in their motivations. But sticking with the analogy for now, suppose you were the national security advisor of a major state, responsible for assessing and responding to the situation. Imagine, further, that because AI systems can operate hundreds of times faster than humans, this “country” is operating with a time advantage relative to all other countries: for every cognitive action we can take, this country can take ten.” Dario Amodei — The Adolescence of Technology
Check out the Trustbuilding Awards from IofC International, aiming “to recognize, encourage and raise the profile of the outstanding individuals/ organizations, promote youth efforts in building trust and thus raise the standards of ‘trustbuilders’ around the world.” — deadline 12 April 2026.
Intertapes is a stunning homage to found cassette tapes (search via format, map, list or just select one from the catalog and press play to hear—you can also submit your own), superb.
Draw a horse and see it frolic with others via gradient.horse (make sure you click a horse for a surprise as well as see non-horses option via the question mark pop-up).
fireside.rs : unlocking creative productivity by gathering humans effectively, check out my new endeavour.
Yesterday I launched into existence the brand through which a multi-year research project has been taking shape. Am not being too prescriptive with the service offerings at the moment apart to say, I’ve been curating / analysing / categorisating over a hundred ways to bring people together to be creative, share ideas freely and be productive:
“As experts in AI (analogue interaction™) we work with organisations & companies who are focused on forging a winning culture of collaboration”
After twenty years of starting in this medium, it’s a joy to accompany the launch with a podcast featuring a friend and founder of Unchatter, who exist to create deep connections through their unique events (based on PhD research in organisational belonging):
Share the newsletter on to other like-minded souls (after you subscribe yourself *emoji wink*);
Host a fireside.rs workshop (see place / dates for a no-fee chance to experience and participate in the evolving nature of this work).
So if you bring people together for any type of learning / collaborative experience, head on over to fireside.rs for a click around, and please do let me know how we can unite in unlocking creative productivity by gathering humans effectively.
PRESENTING WISDOM RELAUNCHED—1ST COHORT SOLD OUT IN ONE WEEK!
