Digital Noir Presents

In our last PauseFest podcast from 2019 we chat with Ben Lee, Founder and Chief Revenue Office at Rootstrap. If you’ve never heard of these guys before, you should really check them out - they're known as globally-recognised digital masters and have worked with Google, Master Class and heaps of other exciting businesses. In our chat we discuss how Ben is taking a different approach to the usual 'entrepreneur thing'. He’s stopped posting as much, stopped vlogging, stopped doing eternal podcasting and is focusing more on his work and his team. Ben and I also touched on the short term success that exists in the current climate; brands with so much exposure and thousands of followers can be forgotten about the next day. People’s attention span is so short these days, it can be hard for businesses to stay afloat. We also got into a discussion about distributed teams, offshoring, and the importance of having as much 'in-person' time as possible. Ben also shares his insight into how the Australian start-up market

Sitting down with Elaine Stead again was exciting. Since our last chat, Elaine has been working with the South Australian Venture Capital Fund, doing some great things here in Adelaide. We got into the importance of having a purpose. Knowing the “why” of your business will keep you on track and focused, whether you’re doing great or shit’s hitting the fan. Elaine also gave us some insight to what the SAVCF are looking for when entrepreneurs and founders come to them with their ideas. As well as give us some tips on approaching and meeting with venture capitalists; what makes people stand out, how you should act and how to get on their radar. This is a great chat to listen to if you’re starting a business or thinking of taking your current business to the next level! Enjoy.

It was exciting sitting down with Penny Locaso again, if you’ve been listening to our podcasts for a while, you’ll remember we talked to her at _southstart last year. Penny founded Bkindred and calls herself a “happiness hacker”. She teaches people how to slow down, think more, and make decisions to adapt, coining the term Intentional Adaptability Quotient (IAQ) – a means of measuring how skilled someone is at making an intentional change in a complex environment that’s evolving at speed. We dove into the theme of penny’s talk at _southstart, discussing the busy epidemic. How as a society, people are forced to cram as much stuff into their day as possible leading to bad mental health, especially anxiety. Penny spills some of her hacks for productivity and managing her work into a small portion of her day. This is an inspiring conversation that challenges people to think differently, enjoy!

As our world is taken over by more products and services than ever before, it’s the job of people like Laura Ryan to ensure that these will assist and benefit people’s wellbeing. I sat down to discuss this with her at PauseFest last year. Laura is the Strategy Director at Mentally Friendly, an exciting design and innovation studio with a human-centred approach.   We talked about what wellbeing (really) is and where it can come from - especially in the workplace. A feeling of wellbeing stemming from a sense of purpose, by doing something that matters to you, by being empathetic. Laura refers to herself as a designer, even though she says she can't draw, she works as part of the design team using research and strategy to help the process, rather than designing in the traditional sense.  We both believe that designers have a responsibility when it comes to marrying profit with empathy and ensuring that what they produce doesn’t cause distress or concern to the user. We chatted about all this and more. Anoth

Sitting down at SouthStart with Alex Moss over some wine sparked an exciting conversation. She is the CEO and Head designer of Canaria Technologies, a cutting edge tech company that brings together the space, mining and medicine industries into one little wearable that can monitor and track the wearers vital signs. Alex has not always worked in this space though, she comes from a fashion, design, and art background. After reflection, she decided she wanted to do something different. Something that would make a difference. For nine months, she taught herself medical device engineering in a garage and in 2016 won the NASA Hackathon Best Use of Hardware. This hardware has been altered since then, making it more appropriate for use in the mining industry. We got to discuss where the inspiration for the device came from and how she managed to keep her idea alive for long enough to see it launch. She also tells us what she has in store for the future of the company. This is a chat I’m excited to share, enjoy.

In this episode from _southstart, I sat down with Dan Levy who I’ve known for a while now. His business, More Space For Light, uses design thinking methods to find problems within companies and find ways to solve them. They look at customer/user experience, strategy and consultation, with specialisation in design sprints and workshop programs. Dan gives us a rundown of how the whole process works and how implementing these strategies can be beneficial to a business. We were also lucky enough to hear the beautiful story behind his company’s name, and how it inspired a mantra that Dan stands behind. Hopefully, I can have another exciting chat with Dan soon. Enjoy.

At South Start 2019, I got to sit down in our podcasting tent and chat with Dr Jemma Green. We found out exactly how Jemma went from working mainstream finance in a bank to finding a passion in sustainability. Jemma is the executive chairman at Power Ledger where renewable energy is at the forefront of their mission. Through the utilisation of blockchain, Power Ledger have enabled peer-to-peer trading of excess solar electricity. We discuss the importance of disruptive innovation in terms of leading to big change and exactly how her tech works. With the current nature of the climate, looking towards sustainable methods is a rising importance. This is a great listen for anyone interested in making a change to solar energy or for those interested in Power Ledgers operations. Enjoy!

I finally got the chance to chat with Amelie Veale from Be The Drop, another awesome Adelaide based podcast. In this episode, we talk about branding, culture, customer services, and get meta about podcasting. We also discuss the way podcasting has grown for both of us. This was a really exciting chat and a great listen for anyone thinking of starting their own podcast, enjoy!

At Pause Fest, I got the chance to sit down with Stephanie Winkler. She is currently the Head of Insights for VICE, previously in the Senior Digital Strategist role. Stephanie also does a lot of work with General Assembly, an organisation that takes young people and equips them with skills in marketing, coding, UX and Design, and more. We talked about how content and relationships at VICE have been bettered using data. As well as touching on how VICE do their best to take refreshing approaches to their work, accommodating the need for new exciting content that their audience craves. I hope I get to talk with Stephanie next year at Pause Fest 2020.

I am excited to share this chat with you all. Lou Wiess is the CMO At Shutterstock. If you have ever worked in or around a creative role, you would have heard of them. They are the worlds most abundant source of stock assets. Lou knows his shit! Having been involved in the world of digital marketing for the lifespan of the modern web. Speaking to Lou, you get the impression he has been ahead of a few curves and has racked up an impressive wealth of experience in his field. We touched on some of this history and then took a dive into the current state of stock content and where Shutterstock want to take it. We also spoke about how you can leverage content to create viral campaigns. He was a pleasure to chat with, and I could have gone on for a lot longer. Hopefully, I can catch him for a beer in New York over Christmas.

Sam was joined at Pause Fest by Sam Gledhill and Marcus Nance from the Movember Foundation. Together they discuss how a charity can become such a success and what the future of mental health support holds.

When I first heard that someone was doing 'cool stuff' on the Popeye, my ears pricked up. For those of you not here in Adelaide, the Popeye is a historic cruise boat that motors up and down our humble Torrens River. Many of us would have fond memories as kids going for a ride or spotting it while walking the bank or visiting the zoo. Bianca Shuman has recently taken over the wheel from her dad; she is in her twenties and has a new vision for the Popeye. I was excited to sit down with her and discuss the complexities of inheriting a business, changing the popular perception and also looking ahead to the future and helping to shape what might be! A great listen for anyone starting in business or interested in what it might take to get something fresh and innovative off the ground!

I sat down with Craig Swann who is once again the driving force behind Southstart here in Adelaide. Craig is no stranger to our podcast, in fact this is his third chat with us! We will be joining him and his team at the event this year, podcasting live and helping to share some of the incredible ideas! The theme of this year is very much in line with our new re-brand on the podcast – Convergence: Humans – Impact – Technology! Craig discussed the reasoning behind this and what we can expect from the conference convergence!

We're kicking off our new podcast name with a very fitting guest - Stephen Gates! Human's aren't Robots: The people behind the digital. Coming at you from PauseFest, Stephen is currently the head design evangelist at Invision – a company most of us in the creative fields will have heard of (and love). His role, essentially involves going into companies (they partner with 97% of the worlds Fortune 100 brands) to elevate the business impact of design through education, coaching and thought leadership. The Crazy One Podcast: http://thecrazy1.com/

Craig Brown is the CEO of software engineering company, Everest Engineering. Craig is also the founder of LAST Conferences which focus on Lean Agile Systems. LAST Conferences take place in cities around Australia and are curated by local practitioners. To find a conference, follow the prompts at: https://www.lastconference.com/ Read Sam's review of a LAST conference he attended: https://www.digital-noir.com/last-conference-adelaide-review/ Or you can follow the conference or Craig Brown: Twitter: @LASTconf @brown_note LinkedIn: Craig Brown https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigwbrown/ Website: https://everest.engineering/#/

We sat down with Jacqui live from Pausefest to chat about her experience with Sidekicker, a business she co-founded at the age of 22.  Sidekicker is a technology platform that lets businesses hire temporary staff, or as they call them, Sidekicks. Backed by SEEK and with offices in every major city across Australia and New Zealand, they employ 10,000 Sidekickers, connecting them with businesses seeking temporary and casual staff across hospitality, events, office admin, promotions and warehousing.

Sam is joined by Grant Munro, self made entrepreneur and founder of Flashstock. They chat about the scalability of a company, and the importance of providing relevant content to your clients. Grant has created custom content for the likes of Blackberry and Budweiser, and eventually had his company acquired by Shutterstock! A good listen for anybody who works in a service business. Grant Munro: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantmunro/ Shutterstock: https://custom.shutterstock.com/

Paolo is a user experience designer and leader with a serious CV to his name. He has been instrumental both as a designer and leader of people in companies such as Microsoft, Mercedes and Netflix. He is currently at Google as the director of UX in the YouTube Ads team. Paolo spoke at Pause Fest earlier in the year about ‘The 5 P’s' - a practical framework that he has put together for leading teams, which we talked about in our chat. As well as this, we discussed his insights on what it takes to lead an innovative team and the state of UX design in 2019. You can find him online at www.i4design.com and @wildchicken. If you're interested in learning more about opportunities at Google, you can check out www.design.google for more information.

This week on Digial Noir Presents, we're joined by Aarron Walter - VP of Design Education at InVision. Aarron draws upon 15 years of experience running product teams and teaching design to help companies enact design best practices. He emphasises that design isn't something to be applied to an end product in hopes of making it pretty, but a problem solving process.