Inspiring imaginations that will change the world

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[00:31] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:36] SPEAKER_01: Hi, this is Angela Faye from Canada's podcast. Today, we are inspiring
[00:43] SPEAKER_01: imaginations that will change the world. Well, that's Ken Merkel's purpose and he is the founder
[00:50] SPEAKER_01: of Unlimit and Sci-Fi Hive. It's coaching and consulting agency that inspires organizations to
[00:56] SPEAKER_01: create a collaborative vision for their future and guide them to execute on realizing those visions.
[01:04] SPEAKER_01: So in today's podcast, we're going to be talking first about what is exponential growth?
[01:10] SPEAKER_01: Why now more than ever do we need to reimagine and rally together to create a compelling future?
[01:16] SPEAKER_01: We're going to talk to Ken about a story, what brought him here to where he is today,
[01:21] SPEAKER_01: and we're going to do a little bit of a dive into what is the sprint process,
[01:25] SPEAKER_01: what is the experience, what makes it unique, what results you can expect. Maybe you will touch on
[01:31] SPEAKER_01: some case studies, and then we're going to talk about a project that we're working on and how to
[01:35] SPEAKER_01: get involved if you share the same vision and want to contribute. And as a little teaser,
[01:40] SPEAKER_01: it's an urban food security project. So there's your little teaser for today. I want to jump in and
[01:47] SPEAKER_01: welcome Ken Merkel to Ken's podcast. Ken, welcome.
[01:52] SPEAKER_02: Hey Angela, thank you.
[01:54] SPEAKER_01: Let's, before we jump into you, can you give me a little taste start on your sort of definition
[02:02] SPEAKER_01: and what is exponential growth?
[02:05] SPEAKER_02: So I think for me, it's really about technology is growing faster than ever,
[02:13] SPEAKER_02: and along with that we have societal change and many, many global challenges.
[02:21] SPEAKER_02: And for me, I really kind of take that human view of that and that kind of change is very
[02:29] SPEAKER_02: difficult for humans. We kind of are linear in the way we think.
[02:35] SPEAKER_02: And so that's really the kind of the look that I see with this is, there is an
[02:41] SPEAKER_02: extra opportunity to talk about that. There's nothing we can do about that. And there's so much
[02:47] SPEAKER_02: happening at once that as humans, we're having a little bit of trouble of
[02:52] SPEAKER_02: rethinking what that future could be and getting out of our linear box and starting to think
[02:59] SPEAKER_02: exponential. And I think, you know, we need to take a very positive view of that future.
[03:04] SPEAKER_02: And that's really what I try to promote is a utopian future, which is a lot harder for us to do
[03:11] SPEAKER_02: than to think dystopian. A lot of our movies and stuff have trained us to do that, right?
[03:17] SPEAKER_01: So it's so true. And a full confession that Ken and I are both part of the OpenEXO
[03:23] SPEAKER_01: community of change makers, right? We're transforming the civilization to a better future.
[03:28] SPEAKER_01: And one thing that has always struck me about Ken is, you know, that dystopian talk about
[03:34] SPEAKER_01: disruption. And, you know, if you don't do this, you're going to be dead. Your company is going
[03:39] SPEAKER_01: to be dead. And, and, you know, you always put a positive spin and lens on, well, hang on,
[03:46] SPEAKER_01: you know, we're not going to die. We just need to adapt and align and think differently and
[03:51] SPEAKER_01: things like that. So why do you think now more than ever, we need to sort of put that
[03:56] SPEAKER_01: optimist lens on and reimagine and rally together to create a compelling future?
[04:01] SPEAKER_02: Well, because I think that technology exists for us to really change our future.
[04:07] SPEAKER_02: And the only thing holding us back is ourselves and our resistance to change and things like that,
[04:15] SPEAKER_02: which has worked for, you know, generations and donors for a long time to keep us safe.
[04:20] SPEAKER_02: But now to keep us safe, we have to really start rethinking how we live. You know, we're
[04:25] SPEAKER_02: not worried about getting eaten by lines so much anymore. So now we have to really maybe start
[04:30] SPEAKER_02: taking some more risk. Although I don't see this risk if you're using a screen kind of platform
[04:36] SPEAKER_02: because you're doing an error of approach that reduces that risk, right? So for me, it is really
[04:42] SPEAKER_02: about starting to shift our human thinking and that's building to our genetics. And so we have
[04:48] SPEAKER_02: to look at different ways of doing that to take advantage of the technology to deal with some of
[04:54] SPEAKER_02: the big problems that we have because we do have a time limit on some of these major problems,
[04:59] SPEAKER_02: like climate and we have some food, you know, supply issues and things like that. So we've got to
[05:04] SPEAKER_02: start working now, taking advantage of the tech that's available to us. But in different ways
[05:11] SPEAKER_01: than we've ever thought of before. And I think it kind of an underlying essence of what you're
[05:17] SPEAKER_01: saying to is taking a proactive approach to creating our future as opposed to reacting to what
[05:24] SPEAKER_01: externally has been kind of dictated to us on what our lives and what our livelihoods look like.
[05:31] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's really about taking what do we want our future to be and then work backwards from
[05:37] SPEAKER_02: there, right? And make create that vision of where we want to be. And then we can figure out
[05:43] SPEAKER_02: how to get there after that, right? But we have to really tend to find that first.
[05:47] SPEAKER_01: And so let's just talk a little bit about you. We're going to dive into the screen process
[05:52] SPEAKER_01: in a little bit more detail. What is it? And then the example of the sci-fi sprint process experience.
[05:57] SPEAKER_01: But let's talk about you for a little bit. So what where have you come from? You know,
[06:03] SPEAKER_01: what what what has guided your thinking and and from today? And then, you know, what
[06:09] SPEAKER_01: what makes you so positive? And why are you in this space of helping organizations and people
[06:14] SPEAKER_02: transform? Yeah, it's actually, I saw I've been in IT world for many many years.
[06:21] SPEAKER_02: But I've also kind of on the side of been working on human behavior and many years ago,
[06:29] SPEAKER_02: I started working with with an author who wrote a book called Donald Management. And it's really
[06:35] SPEAKER_02: about the chemistry of humans and how our brains work. And there's, you know, a few aspects of
[06:42] SPEAKER_02: of the way our brains work that we, you know, we like to belong to a community we like to innovate
[06:47] SPEAKER_02: actually, although we're resistant to change. And we like to, you know, really excel in building
[06:53] SPEAKER_02: skills and things like that. And that's all driven by our chemistry of our brain. And, you know,
[07:01] SPEAKER_02: so things that make us happy, they kick off some endorphins and then we get really excited about it.
[07:06] SPEAKER_02: And so I've been leading big teams, large teams for a very long time. And during very massive
[07:14] SPEAKER_02: transformational organizational change. And so I really practiced kind of different organizational
[07:20] SPEAKER_02: models and different ways of engaging staff and getting them to believe in a new future. And,
[07:26] SPEAKER_02: and I started actually playing with with the idea of of sci fi hive with a large IT group that I have.
[07:35] SPEAKER_02: I'm doing the middle person. This was obviously pre-coped quite a few years ago. And the, and it
[07:40] SPEAKER_02: was in the education space and it came up with some great ideas. And then we, so we played around
[07:46] SPEAKER_02: with that and, and we got introduced to Singularity University and then to OpenXO. And when we were
[07:54] SPEAKER_02: going in with, so, so I had a couple of partners where we were working on OpenXO and started
[07:58] SPEAKER_02: consulting and coaching and things like that. And one thing I noticed when talking with, with
[08:02] SPEAKER_02: people and with my experience with the human brain, it is, people don't like to be told that what
[08:08] SPEAKER_02: they're doing that's successful right now is going to be their demise. You know, and so then I
[08:14] SPEAKER_02: really thought, well, we could use the idea of the sci fi hive to get people to redefine a different
[08:20] SPEAKER_02: future. And we were doing in like local organizations. And the very small, it was kind of very small
[08:29] SPEAKER_02: at that point and then COVID happened. And we had the opportunity at the first OpenXO global conference
[08:35] SPEAKER_02: to run a global sci fi hive and we did it on five different topics. And so I transformed it from
[08:42] SPEAKER_02: an in-person thing to an online thing like a really all overnight. And what happened at that
[08:49] SPEAKER_02: conference was amazing though. Because it was the first time we had like people from all over the
[08:53] SPEAKER_02: world in one room talking about a topic. And so, you know, that was the key. Getting these massively
[09:00] SPEAKER_02: diverse groups together to really talk about topics and getting experts on a subject and non-experts
[09:07] SPEAKER_02: together. And, you know, we even had rooms in some of our sci fi hive where we had like 12 year olds
[09:13] SPEAKER_02: and 70 year olds together. And the ideas that they come up with in these diverse groups are way
[09:19] SPEAKER_02: more than we've ever seen before. And the process and the journey of it is so engaging
[09:25] SPEAKER_02: that the teams end up connecting and staying connected and talking about how can maybe make these
[09:31] SPEAKER_02: things real. So it's just incredibly engaging and fun to be part of this and part of a sci fi hive.
[09:39] SPEAKER_02: And, you know, and that just engages humans. So we like to have fun. We like to collaborate. And,
[09:46] SPEAKER_02: you know, as long as you go in with an open mind, we break down your barriers and you can really
[09:51] SPEAKER_02: collaborate with these diverse people from all over the world and come up with just amazing new ideas.
[10:00] SPEAKER_01: And let the awesome first of all, I just love the idea of people from all over the place co-creating,
[10:10] SPEAKER_01: co-collaborating and, you know, one person says something and it stimulates your idea and, you know,
[10:15] SPEAKER_01: we've all experienced this where it's like, oh, that opened up this. And suddenly your brain is
[10:21] SPEAKER_01: just like spinning off in all kinds of ideas. And I, you know, imagination, playground antics,
[10:28] SPEAKER_01: all of those things, you know, I mean, it said the essence of play is is a lot of it.
[10:34] SPEAKER_01: And, but, you know, and we get stuck in our own little bubbles sometimes and forget that there's
[10:41] SPEAKER_01: a whole entire world out there. And it doesn't mean that we have to necessarily, you know, be global or
[10:48] SPEAKER_01: move or relocate. It can be, but it can also be just about harnessing and leveraging all of those
[10:55] SPEAKER_01: assets of these minds and ideas and experiences and actual real case studies of what's happened in
[11:02] SPEAKER_01: the world that you can bring back and implement in your community. I think that's exactly the essence of where
[11:08] SPEAKER_01: we're getting at. Now, the sci-fi have on, I mean, I'm, you know, getting more familiar with the
[11:14] SPEAKER_01: process. And we're going to talk about that, but at the highest level, I'm going to talk about the
[11:19] SPEAKER_01: sprint process, right? And on the sci-fi have, you know, I'm just going to say the six sort of
[11:25] SPEAKER_01: categories that I'm reading or if you want, actually, if you want to tell us kind of what you see as
[11:31] SPEAKER_01: the sprint process and what people, you know, what people experience in the sprint as well as,
[11:41] SPEAKER_01: you know, using this as a tool to reimagine their future. Yeah. So in the, in the exo sprint,
[11:50] SPEAKER_02: there's really the two components at the beginning, which is an awake, which is what we talked about
[11:55] SPEAKER_02: earlier. It's like, this all this bad stuff is going to happen if you don't awake into the future.
[12:01] SPEAKER_02: And then the explore where they're, you know, we get people to explore possibilities. And that's
[12:07] SPEAKER_02: really where the sci-fi hive lives is in taking a more utopian view to that awakening. Although we do,
[12:15] SPEAKER_02: it was as part of the kickoff, we do go choose that awakening and just really kind of talk about
[12:20] SPEAKER_02: how things are growing exponentially and changing exponentially. But then we take this utopian
[12:27] SPEAKER_02: view of defining the future you want. And so one of the components inside of the sci-fi hive is
[12:33] SPEAKER_02: exploration where we get everybody to explore. And that happens actually for a whole week that they're
[12:39] SPEAKER_02: exploring. And, you know, they explore contextual changes and global challenges and technology
[12:45] SPEAKER_02: at the ensuing to the whole bunch of things that really get them thinking outside of their box.
[12:49] SPEAKER_02: Because the more experienced you get, the actually more refined you're thinking gets. And then,
[12:55] SPEAKER_02: it's harder for you to actually think outside your box. And so that's why we mix non-experts with
[13:01] SPEAKER_02: experts. And we bring in experts from adjacent industries or, you know, just random technology experts
[13:09] SPEAKER_02: that may be related to fields. And just to get people thinking differently. And then all through
[13:16] SPEAKER_02: the sci-fi hive process, you know, if we have 100 people in a sci-fi hive, we'll split them into
[13:21] SPEAKER_02: smaller teams. And they collaborate in smaller teams, maybe eight people on a team. And then
[13:26] SPEAKER_02: between each session of exploring and writing a future story, we bring them all that together,
[13:34] SPEAKER_02: and they share some components of what they've learned. And so we cross collaborate amongst all
[13:38] SPEAKER_02: the teams. And then as a facilitator, we jump around from room to room and we help expand thinking
[13:45] SPEAKER_02: and just throw in tidbits, right? So we don't tell them their stories. They need to write their own
[13:49] SPEAKER_02: story. But we help to expand their thinking and say, you know, did you think about this technology?
[13:55] SPEAKER_02: How you could use that? Or did you think about this asset that you have and how you could use it
[14:00] SPEAKER_02: differently? And all those components of the the exo model, we try to get them thinking about how
[14:06] SPEAKER_02: do they use those in their future vision. And then at the end, you know, sometimes we create a
[14:14] SPEAKER_02: professional comic book. It's the organization Wonset, or they can just use their digital prototype
[14:19] SPEAKER_02: that they created during the process. So they actually end up with a prototype of a comic book
[14:25] SPEAKER_02: to decide if I have. And out of that, you pull initiatives. So there are, you know, we really look
[14:33] SPEAKER_02: at this 20 year old vision, but we look at what can you do, you know, right now to get to that
[14:39] SPEAKER_02: vision? What initiative can you start today that will get you to that 20 year vision? And our
[14:44] SPEAKER_02: hope is to get to a 20 year vision in a quarter of that time.
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[15:27] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and if you and if you get, you know, a whole bunch of people aligned on creating the same
[15:33] SPEAKER_01: story, they're all going to make their own little contributions towards it. And you know,
[15:38] SPEAKER_01: no, it's almost like operating as a organization or as a company, but you're actually,
[15:45] SPEAKER_01: you know, creating a future as opposed to running a company as I kind of see it. One thing that
[15:51] SPEAKER_01: has completely intrigued me is quite often the ideas of sprints or, you know, jamming and it is,
[16:02] SPEAKER_01: you know, people think of this as related to technology. But in the case of the sci-fi hive,
[16:07] SPEAKER_01: if we can talk a little bit about some of the case studies, like you've worked with
[16:11] SPEAKER_01: the municipal government, right, to talk about the future of their community, you've talked about,
[16:18] SPEAKER_01: you know, healthcare and brought people together. Can you just talk about a few of the
[16:23] SPEAKER_01: sci-fi hubs that you've run in the future and why, what was what was common amongst the people?
[16:29] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, to make them want to engage in innovation process to create a new future.
[16:37] SPEAKER_01: And then let's just talk about a little Flagstaff, I'll borrow this. This community in Canada,
[16:43] SPEAKER_01: right, that it's quite progressive, maybe start there and then we'll devlin to a couple more
[16:48] SPEAKER_02: cases. Yeah, so Flagstaff, do this as an engagement to define their future and really come up with some
[16:57] SPEAKER_02: initiatives to do some collaborative work amongst the community. So they had almost 100 people
[17:04] SPEAKER_02: get involved at the start and we had some people drop off, but the people that were really excited
[17:10] SPEAKER_02: about it stayed involved, right, to the end. And they meet, I believe there is five stories of the
[17:17] SPEAKER_02: future that their community wanted. And so I'll be kind of focused, stand it up looking at,
[17:23] SPEAKER_02: and this, you know, this was post, well, mid-COVID, let's say, is really looking at,
[17:29] SPEAKER_02: you know, with the change to hybrid work or work from home, how can they attract people out to
[17:35] SPEAKER_02: a real community and provide the same kind of, you know, amenities that a city has. And so they came
[17:45] SPEAKER_02: up with a bunch of initiatives, you know, some vertical farming, what they were calling
[17:51] SPEAKER_02: Rooper, which is a rural Uber, things like that. Yeah, so lots of things like that. But what it did is
[17:58] SPEAKER_02: they said they've never got that many people that engage so quickly in a citizen engagement,
[18:05] SPEAKER_02: especially the rural environment where people are kind of all over the place and spread out. So Flagstaff
[18:11] SPEAKER_02: is quite a large county. It has, you know, I think there's 10 towns within the county. And so they
[18:18] SPEAKER_02: were able to engage that really broad community. And we had everything from, you know, the farmers to
[18:25] SPEAKER_02: the people living in the towns, the counselors, and everybody involved, economic development was involved.
[18:31] SPEAKER_02: And so we got this range of people from the next generation of farmers who really want to farm
[18:37] SPEAKER_02: differently. And the past generation of farmers who are very traditional working together and
[18:44] SPEAKER_02: talking about what the future could be. And so that just changes the conversation. They start to
[18:50] SPEAKER_02: understand each other's perspectives and working together towards a different future. And, and, you
[18:58] SPEAKER_02: know, it's just amazing what happens in these sessions. And these really tight groups get formed.
[19:03] SPEAKER_02: And they want to take their story. They own their story. And they want to make that real. And so some
[19:10] SPEAKER_02: groups formed off of that work on some of those projects. So it's pretty amazing what happens in
[19:16] SPEAKER_02: these, these sessions and, and many cases, the little, just little small hive rooms that we make.
[19:22] SPEAKER_02: They all share contact information and they're still keeping in touch a lot, you know, a lot of cases.
[19:28] SPEAKER_01: I just want to talk a little bit about this. And I'm not sure what the answer is. So, and I'm not
[19:35] SPEAKER_01: sure if we're going to be able to come up with the answer. But I've been involved in sort of community
[19:40] SPEAKER_01: imagination processes before community. Like I, you know, imagine Nanaimo, for instance, or, you know,
[19:49] SPEAKER_01: and, and communities that say, let's build our, say, 15 year plan, right? What do we get? What do we,
[20:00] SPEAKER_01: and I'm not going, they're great to a certain degree, right? They follow a process. We usually sit in
[20:07] SPEAKER_01: a conference center or we come out to these, you know, community events. Yeah. And we share our ideas.
[20:14] SPEAKER_01: And what pops out is a, you know, a structured sort of plan that is very linear, very linear,
[20:25] SPEAKER_01: right? We're going to increase this by 5% or we're going to, you know, make five more trails of the
[20:33] SPEAKER_01: trail system. You know, it seems very a little bit more of the same. What is the magic behind,
[20:42] SPEAKER_01: you know, an exponential sprint that, and what results are different than, say, a more traditional,
[20:55] SPEAKER_02: you know, reimagining process? Yeah. Well, the problem is with those, those other plans is, they
[21:01] SPEAKER_02: are very linear and, and, and, really honest, they're boring, right? And, you know, can you imagine
[21:08] SPEAKER_02: your reading, reading a sentence saying, we're going to increase the walking pass by 5%,
[21:12] SPEAKER_02: says, can you imagine yourself on that path? No, you can't, right? And that's where the sci-fi
[21:18] SPEAKER_02: hive comes in. And we, I say, we work backwards, right? So what we do is, well, what's the vision?
[21:25] SPEAKER_02: What do you want that future? And so maybe they're creating this story of their grandchildren walking
[21:31] SPEAKER_02: out of paths with the grandparents. And, you know, there's, you know, little robots driving around
[21:38] SPEAKER_02: with snap foods or whatever, right? So they envision this future and, and they see themselves in that
[21:46] SPEAKER_02: future. And when we bring this diverse group of people together, generally the comic has a very
[21:52] SPEAKER_02: diverse audience. The result of the sci-fi hive is a comic book. Right. And, and reading comics,
[21:58] SPEAKER_02: and there's, there's a magic in reading a comic book in that it returns you back to your childhood,
[22:06] SPEAKER_02: it creates, uh, believers in that future. And so comics suspend disbelief in its readers. So it's
[22:14] SPEAKER_02: not just the people that create the comic. It's whoever reads the comic that become believers in
[22:19] SPEAKER_02: that future. And, you know, you can give me a planning report and give me a comic. And for most people,
[22:27] SPEAKER_02: you know, who might get through a couple pages and start skimming through the anime report, but I
[22:31] SPEAKER_02: will read the whole comic book. And that's where the magic is, right? It's actually, it's a good marketing
[22:36] SPEAKER_01: tool because it creates believers in your future. I love it. I love it. And I'm going to spend that a
[22:45] SPEAKER_01: little bit by using three words that are the essence of those believers, right? Is they, they
[22:53] SPEAKER_01: have to see themselves in the experience. So experience, there has to be a level of growth, right?
[23:01] SPEAKER_01: Personal growth, maybe pushing a little bit of boundaries, getting out of our comfort zone,
[23:05] SPEAKER_01: um, to go, oh, if I, if I contribute a little bit, that could happen. So growth and the third
[23:12] SPEAKER_01: is contribution, of course, whether it's in your career or how you show up in the world or, um,
[23:19] SPEAKER_01: you know, your, your charity work that you do, if you can see a way to contribute to that future,
[23:25] SPEAKER_01: no matter how small or how big, I think, you know, you're in it, you're engaged, you're,
[23:32] SPEAKER_01: you're connected to that, you know, business and, and results.
[23:36] SPEAKER_02: Well, and that, and that's why we use the sci fi, or the sci fi, I have met the Dalgia uses a
[23:41] SPEAKER_02: hero's journey story format, which is the most common story format. It's like every movie in
[23:47] SPEAKER_02: book that has it, but the end of a hero's journey story after you've gone through all the trials
[23:52] SPEAKER_02: and tribulations to get to your future is learning, right? And so that is part of the story is,
[24:00] SPEAKER_02: his learning and, and all the naysayers that read the story will actually see their names in there,
[24:06] SPEAKER_02: right? Because they'll see some of the barriers, but how can you possibly come over come those
[24:10] SPEAKER_02: barriers is part of that journey. And so you're, you're doing the change management, the people change
[24:16] SPEAKER_02: management, as part of development exists story, right? And, and so that, that's what, and, and we
[24:24] SPEAKER_02: use, do really really big groups, like normally if you're going to develop your vision for your
[24:29] SPEAKER_02: organization, you'll bring in some experts and you'll get a few leaders in a room and you'll
[24:33] SPEAKER_02: create this vision. Now, we want people from all over the organization, from frontline to executives,
[24:39] SPEAKER_02: working together on the vision. So we bring a hundred or 200 people into it. And in the end,
[24:46] SPEAKER_02: the organization believes in this future because they built it for themselves. Right.
[24:51] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Well, and I, and I mean, I just picked on Flagstaff because I would love to see a future
[24:59] SPEAKER_01: where every single location, right, every minute, whether it's a municipality, maybe even a region,
[25:05] SPEAKER_01: is, has ditched the old way of defining themselves as a geography. And we've now moved to defining
[25:14] SPEAKER_01: themselves as a purpose driven location, right? A purpose driven place. And I just imagine, you know,
[25:22] SPEAKER_01: if we start living and being and showing up in places where, you know, I mean, I don't know
[25:30] SPEAKER_01: Flagstaff got quite to that level, but in a community where their vision is to, you know, promote
[25:37] SPEAKER_01: longevity or their vision is to disrupt, you know, healthcare in a way. So, you know, that's my
[25:46] SPEAKER_01: personal mission, which is why I picked. But can you just, Ken, can you talk about one more case
[25:51] SPEAKER_01: study, let's say, of what you found really inspiring. Yeah, I think probably the, the most,
[25:58] SPEAKER_02: well, there's two, I mean, the global sci-fi hives are always inspiring. So we get one on healthcare
[26:02] SPEAKER_02: and I'll just talk really quickly about that because that had people from 18 countries involved.
[26:09] SPEAKER_02: Almost a hundred people looking at the future of healthcare and a couple initiatives were kicked
[26:13] SPEAKER_02: around that. And you can see the result on all my corners, type of hives.com, but I really like that
[26:23] SPEAKER_02: because of that such broad audience that was involved. But probably the best story I have is out of
[26:29] SPEAKER_02: rapport to in bulk area. So that's the airports in bulk area. And they brought people from all over
[26:36] SPEAKER_02: the tourism industry, people from the neighboring countries, from all over the airport organization,
[26:43] SPEAKER_02: there was 135 people involved in total to envision new features. So they ended up 14 different
[26:52] SPEAKER_02: comic strips related to that. But one of the testimonials we got was from one of the leaders who
[27:00] SPEAKER_02: said, you know, we've been, we've lived under a communist rule for a very, very long time. And people
[27:06] SPEAKER_02: were afraid to share their stories, for sure, afraid to share their ideas. And like overnight with
[27:14] SPEAKER_02: the sci-fi hive, the next day, there was just a buzz in the airport of ideas and everybody was
[27:19] SPEAKER_02: collaborating and talking about the sci-fi hive and the stories. And if you go to the airports
[27:26] SPEAKER_02: in bulk area now, the comic book is in poster size hanging on the walls and they kicked off a whole
[27:31] SPEAKER_02: bunch of sprints related to the sci-fi hive. But just the way it changed the culture
[27:38] SPEAKER_02: overnight, of the whole organization, overnight, the entire culture changed. And it was amazing
[27:48] SPEAKER_02: what happened. And you know, they brought me in on some some parties that they had via video and
[27:53] SPEAKER_02: stuff. And they're really rallying around those sci-fi hives and they're changing their organization.
[27:59] SPEAKER_01: I'm getting chills just thinking about the impact that's happening right in that kind of
[28:05] SPEAKER_01: environment. So let's, I mean, I definitely encourage anybody to go to the sci-fi hive, check out the
[28:11] SPEAKER_01: the website. And but I want to lead lead you into what's the next step, right? What's the next path?
[28:20] SPEAKER_01: And something that we both share in in common is and when I asked you if you could wave a magic
[28:26] SPEAKER_01: wand and create the next hive, you know, what would it be? And we talked about the possibility of
[28:32] SPEAKER_01: urban food futures. Can you just tell me a little bit about that? And what would it look like for
[28:37] SPEAKER_01: somebody to get involved with your or work with you going forward, Ken? Yeah, so I know we've been
[28:44] SPEAKER_02: talking about doing global sci-fi hive. So post-COVID, many municipalities now have this big
[28:51] SPEAKER_02: downtown core that's sitting, you know, 25, that's 50% empty. And so I've been thinking about
[29:01] SPEAKER_02: for a while, how do we get these municipalities to start rethinking? Because a lot of them are now
[29:05] SPEAKER_02: focused on, well, how do we get that to where we work? Well, they have to think differently about
[29:12] SPEAKER_02: how do we get to where we want to be instead. And then if we look at some of the problems we have
[29:19] SPEAKER_02: with food sourcing and the supply chain and we have these empty towers, well, what can we do with
[29:25] SPEAKER_02: an empty tower and look at urban food sourcing and mixing that with empty real estate? So, you know,
[29:32] SPEAKER_02: I don't want to throw too many ideas because that's the whole point of the sci-fi. I just get a
[29:36] SPEAKER_02: bunch of people together and get them talking about how do we overcome these problems?
[29:42] SPEAKER_02: And what do we want that future to look like? And so we also unveiled the sci-fi platform the
[29:49] SPEAKER_02: other day, which allows anybody to run their own sci-fi hive and we have training for beekeepers,
[29:54] SPEAKER_02: which is what we call the head facilitator. And available. And so it's really, you know, I myself
[30:04] SPEAKER_02: and run enough sci-fi hives to meet my massive transformational purpose and inspire enough
[30:10] SPEAKER_02: imaginations to change the world. So we have a platform now so people can run their own sci-fi hives.
[30:16] SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, together we do a sci-fi hive, a global one, we'll invite people from around the
[30:23] SPEAKER_02: globe to come and participate in a sci-fi hive and, you know, we're hoping we'll get some
[30:29] SPEAKER_02: municipalities involved, the municipal leaders hopefully and get as well some experts in future
[30:36] SPEAKER_02: of food involved and just citizens involved that really want to look at a new way of living.
[30:45] SPEAKER_02: And I think especially in these northern climates where we are, where I am anyways,
[30:50] SPEAKER_02: in our winter food supply of fresh produce is not very good usually. And if you take this even
[30:57] SPEAKER_02: further and look at very northern climates, a new thing like that, I know it's a big problem for
[31:04] SPEAKER_02: them to get produce and to get, you know, good food there. But with technology now, there's no
[31:12] SPEAKER_02: reason that we can all be growing our food locally and and and taking care of this problem and,
[31:20] SPEAKER_02: you know, not only that if you look at environment, if we're not, you know, driving food all over the
[31:27] SPEAKER_02: globe and we're all growing our food locally, well that's a huge impact as well to climate,
[31:31] SPEAKER_01: positive impact, true. Well, and I love, and we could go on, it's a whole other podcast.
[31:37] SPEAKER_01: I'm going to talk for hours. We could talk for hours, honestly, it's fantastic. So I want to
[31:42] SPEAKER_01: just bring it back to say, please connect with Ken. This is not just an idea. Ken is, and we started
[31:50] SPEAKER_01: with inspiring imaginations that will change the world. I know Ken is sort of driving the change
[31:56] SPEAKER_01: and inspiring imaginations that are changing the world. And I know you want to be a part of it.
[32:02] SPEAKER_01: Let's be a part of it. There is the, you know, we talked about the one coming up on on maybe
[32:06] SPEAKER_01: securing food futures. If you follow, you know, myself or Ken, you'll find out more about that.
[32:13] SPEAKER_01: But I encourage you to sort of look at the idea of running a sprint for yourself, for your
[32:20] SPEAKER_01: organization, for your vision, and, you know, and why these, you know, exponential sprints and
[32:26] SPEAKER_01: this, and, you know, unleashing your imagination is, is a fantastic process to change culture and
[32:32] SPEAKER_01: teach ideas and do things differently. Ken, is there anything you'd like to add?
[32:37] SPEAKER_02: Don't just go to sci-fi-hive.com and check it out. And I hope to see you all in a sci-fi-hive soon.
[32:45] SPEAKER_01: Sounds awesome. Ken, very, with such a pleasure having you here on Canada's podcast.
[32:51] SPEAKER_01: And just for fun, related to our urban futures, there is another podcast that I've hosted with
[32:57] SPEAKER_01: the the Sea to Sky Farms, where we talk about vertical farming and urban farming, but we also talk
[33:03] SPEAKER_01: about, you know, going from, you know, the idea of maybe a 10% reducing imports of lettuce to,
[33:09] SPEAKER_01: you know what, let's go big, let's go 50% food security in Canada within, you know, 10 years,
[33:16] SPEAKER_01: it's doable. So it just, we're inspiring you to think big. And hopefully we will see you again
[33:23] SPEAKER_01: and engage with you in the future. Thanks, Angela.