Bill tells us of a gaping void we have in our midst. Children are being raised to do what they think their parents want more than what they want themselves. A huge number of third level students are afraid to study what they want and instead chose subjects that are “accepted” and “expected”. We talk how this originates in the home with “Tiger Parents”, we discuss the problems of pressure and aimlessness on the campuses and the so-called “Stanford Duck Syndrome”. We discuss the true meaning of diversity and how corporations can harness it for the future. We discuss the inequality of the education system and how it is no wonder that GroupThink is alive and well. Bill also informs us of how presidential candidates all follow the same path of education. Finally, Bill offers some sound advice to break the cycle so we stop producing ‘Excellent Sheep’ You can find out more about William, including how to book him for Keynote talks here. http://www.billderesiewicz.com/ You can find Bill on twitter here : https://twitter.com/WDeresiewicz

Professor Naftali Tishby is a professor of Computer Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is a Global leader in machine learning research and computational neuroscience and his numerous ex-students serve at key academic and industrial research positions all over the world. In this week’s show, Naftali discusses his breakthrough in understanding how machines learn. He calls this the “bottleneck technique”. During our chat, we draw parallels in how we humans learn and the lessons we can draw from his findings in how education might work in the future. We go off on a tangent after we discuss how part of learning is forgetting. We explore the gifts of ADD and ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and how if understood early people can harness the gifts and thrive. We discuss the future of humanity, the history of machine learning and the present of education. It is a truly fascinating listen. Professor Naftali Tishby, Computer Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, machine learning, computational neuroscience, bottleneck technique, innovation, artificial intelligence, Ai, AGI, Deep Learning, Neural Networks, ADD, ADHD

Imagine the possibilities, maybe we would be in a job we actually like, maybe we would have written a best-selling novel, maybe we would have written Harry Potter. What is worse, our education and often our parenting teaches kids to fear failure and to fear exploration. As we discuss on the show some kids are fearful of “going outside the lines” and this continues in life.

We learn how comedian Chris Rock uses a fail fast method to win over his audiences. We learn how to use a “happiness map” and we learn lessons from pottery class.

Ryan Babineaux is the author of ‘Fail Fast, Fail often’. He is CEO and founder of Happenstance Counseling http://www.happenstancecounseling.com/

Ryan is leading a Stanford research project that examines the work practices of masters in diverse fields—beer making, journalism, social entrepreneurship, engineering, long-distance running, mathematics, etc.He earned his M.Ed. in psychology and human development from Harvard University and his Ph.D. in educational psychology from Stanford University.

On this week’s innovation show we talk to Hamilton Perkins the founder and CEO of HPC, the Hamilton Perkins collection. Hamilton tells us how his passion to find the perfect bag led him to create it. Not only that, this former financial consultant ensured this bag was made from recycled materials and made HPC into a B corporation, which gives back as it earns. As an extra bonus use the coupon code InnovationShow and save 10% on your first order.

This episode is for those who are selling anything, whether it is an idea to their boss, product to their client or the idea of a new car to their partner. For over 25 years, Jeffrey Fox has been helping clients grow revenues and increase gross margins. Jeffrey is founder of Fox & Company, a management consulting firm that shows clients how to dollarize their value proposition to overcome the price objection and to shorten the sales cycle. Fox has written eleven best-selling business books that have been translated into over thirty languages Fox is the author of How to Become CEO which was on the NY Times, Business Week, Wall Street Journal, Knight-Ridder, and Amazon.com best seller lists. His books have been best sellers in France, Germany, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Russia. His book How to Become a Rainmaker was selected as one of the 100 best business books ever written. His Dollarization Discipline was selected as one of the top thirty business books of 2005.  He is a popular speaker, appearing regularly before senior management groups and sales forces. Jeff is a graduate of Harvard Business School. Fox & Company is located in Chester, CT

Aaron Price is CEO and Founder of Propelify, which is an event, but more than that, it is a community. Aaron tells us how the authentic approach to events is a huge advantage. He tells us how starting events with Minimal Viable Products (Meetups) is a smart move. He tells us how involving the community from day 1 is the best way forward. Great chat with Aaron, you can sign up for Propelify Beta Community now here: https://www.propelify.com/ Ben Raffi is CEO and Founder of Growlabs, a sales force automation tool with a difference. Growlabs uses both AI and natural language processing to save the sales team time mining emails and deleting polite “go away” (P.F.O) emails by analysing sentiment. Growlabs also has an ultra clean database of emails and positions by geography, company and responsive rate. You can find out more here: www.growlabs.com

Maura Nevel Thomas is an expert on the topics of productivity, attention management, and work-life balance. She is a speaker, trainer, and author of Work Without Walls and Personal Productivity Secrets. You can find out more about Maura here maurathomas.com.

We talk about our waning attention spans, how we are training ourselves to have less focus. In the current shift to a knowledge worker economy, where we do most of the work with our brains, we must protect those brains. Deep work is essential and so is the ability and environment to perform it. We talk about the workplace, open space working, email culture and personal hacks to overcome email fatigue, which accounts for half of our workdays every day. We talk about leadership understanding the outputs of knowledge work and telecommuting and what it means to the workplace and leadership.

On this week’s innovation show we talk to Dr. Wendy Suzuki, PhD, author of “Happy Brain, Healthy Life”, Wendy is Professor of Neural Science and Psychology in the Centre for Neural Science at New York University.

We talk about how exercise changed the course of Wendy’s life, her career and her brain. We talk about Brain Hacks and how we can all benefit from small changes for big effects. We talk about how new experiences create new synapses and brain connections and how children can get an advantage in a distraction and tech obsessed society. http://www.wendysuzuki.com/the-book/

On this week’s Innovation show, we talk to Author, lecturer and Futurist in Residence at the Tech Foresight Practice at Imperial College, Richard Watson. We talk about the threat to deep thinking in this digital age, even though that’s the last bastion for human jobs. We talk about the sex life of ideas and how ideas are formed. The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled – Plutarch 46-120AD. We talk about the benefits of free play and how children can escape flippant thinking and a reliance on screens. We talk about screenagers as multi-taskers and how that means less “deep” in their work and how they are constantly connected causing unnecessary mental stress. Despite an increase in IQ, basic reading and writing skills have deteriorated hugely. How they are mentally agile but culturally ignorant. In the workplace we talk about “Busyness” and indeed the lack of “tune-out” and sleep due to distractions and overwork.
 We also touch on corporate resistance to change and how it may be possible to plant new ideas in old companies and how corporations can attract new thinkers. Finally, we look at solutions for the future. You can find out more about Richard and his work here: https://nowandnext.com/who-is/ and the book is here: https://www.amazon.com/Future-Minds-Digital-Changing-Matters/dp/185788549X

On this week’s innovation show we talk to Mark Emalfarb the founder and CEO of Dyadic International, Inc. a public company that trades on the OTCQX Markets under the stock symbol “DYAI”. This is a phenomenal story and a truly remarkable 4 decade entrepreneurial journey. Mark was told he had rocks in his head when he helped pioneer the concept of using rocks (pumice stones) in a washing machine, the process of stonewashed jeans. When Mark looked to innovate and move to enzyme-based stonewashing, he hired a team of Russian bioengineers and biotechnology experts to develop an enzyme that could soften and fade denim using a biotechnology process that was more environmentally friendly, thus making denim more comfortable and fashionable. Through this work he discovered a Russian fungus that he nicknamed C1 which Dyadic scientists hyper accelerated C1’s ability to make large amounts of low cost enzymes Dyadic sold to the blue jeans manufactures like Levi, Guess, Wrangler and others for use in the stonewash process. In December of 2015 Dyadic’s industrial biotech company was acquired by DuPont for $75 million and this has allowed Dyadic to focus on what Mark describes in his interview as the final frontier. Ever the pioneer, Mark and Dyadic are now focussed on pursuing research and development collaborations, licensing arrangements and other commercial opportunities with its partners and collaborators to leverage the value and benefits of the C1 technology to help in developing and manufacturing biopharmaceuticals. In particular, as the ageing population grows in developed and undeveloped countries, Dyadic believes the C1 technology may help bring biologic drugs to market faster, in greater volumes, at lower cost, and with new properties to drug developers and manufacturers and, hopefully, improve access and cost to patients and the healthcare system, but most importantly save lives.