Between Worlds

Sean Bonner is someone that defies easy classification. His Twitter account describes him as a ‘misanthropologist’, while his LinkedIn profile simply states that he ‘ likes working on things that empower people to take care of themselves.’ As the co-founder and global director of Safecast (an open global sensor network currently monitoring radiation levels in Japan), that is probably an understate...

I met up with Christian Hernandez at his offices located at Second Home, the eclectic co-working space that has become ground zero for all things creative and entrepreneurial in London. Christian is the managing partner, and co-founder of White Star Capital, one of Europe’s leading venture capitalists. He previously held senior roles at Facebook, Google and Microsoft and started his career in tech...

Maria Konnikova is the New York Times bestselling author of Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, a brilliant book that draws on the adventures of the fictional detective to illustrate the power of observation and critical thinking. Her latest book, The Confidence Game, explores the flipside of detection, and why humans are so hardwired to believe in con artists and those that would explo...

I’ve hung out with Jack Myers in a bunch of strange places, from Mexico City to Oslo, and even on the outskirts of Las Vegas. He is one of the most original thinkers in the media space, and for many years, has provided the data and insights that US brands, agencies and content providers based their planning on. Jack is the author of four books including Reconnecting with Customers: Building Brands...

When I was growing up, my parents despaired about my refusal to open a book. They sought out doctors and teachers, convinced I had some kind of learning disability. Finally, someone worked out that the problem was not reading, but rather what they were giving me to read: I was bored with the picture books. Taking a personalized approach to teaching kids to read has long been a challenge for tradit...

What if the best way to come up with a brilliant plan for the future of your company was to hire a sci-fi writer? Ari Popper does just that. He connects companies with storytellers to create visions and prototypes of what the future of their products and customers might look like. Ari previously ran the market research company, Brainjuicer USA, but it was a science fiction writing course at UCLA t...

‘Walk with me’, said Tim Kring, gesturing for me to follow him into the edit suite, where he and his team were busy putting the final touches on his new show, Heroes Reborn. If you were one of the 76 million people watched the original Heroes series during its three-and-a-half-year run, you would already know exactly who Tim is. Tim is one of Hollywood’s most successful writers and producers, best...

Michael Keferl runs the Tokyo office of the global innovation consultancy, Mandalah. But I knew him from the early 2000s, when he was the genius behind one of my favourite, and in fact, one of the most popular blogs in the world at that time - CScout Japan. CScout was the go-to emporium for all things weird and wonderfully Japanese. When we caught up in Tokyo, Michael gave me a behind the scenes t...

What does it take to create a great culture? If anyone knows, it is Robert Richman. He wrote the book on it, The Culture Blueprint, and after embedding himself at Zappos, co-founded Zappos Insights, the program that helps leaders learn the secrets behind the online shoe company’s game-changing employee culture. Over breakfast at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood, we talked about the system dyna...

Refik Anadol sculpts with data, not stone. When he frets about permanence, he is not concerned about the effects of wind and rain on his structures, but whether his algorithms and data sources will continue to be relevant as things change around them. Refik is foremost of a new generation of 21st century artists that have begun to creatively interpret a data-driven world, using its native protocol...

Brett King has made a career of terrifying bankers. He has written numerous bestselling books on financial innovation; was voted American Banker Innovator of the Year in 2012; hosts a radio show on Fintech with millions of listeners; and if that wasn’t enough, is also the founder of a startup called Moven - the world's first downloadable bank account. Despite being at serious risk of being drowned...

David Epstein is the New York Times bestselling author of The Sports Gene, an investigative journalist, and a long time contributor for Sports Illustrated where he co-authored the report that Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez had used steroids. He has also been a crime writer, has lived in the Sonoran desert, on a ship in the Pacific Ocean, and in the Arctic. Fortunately, it was in Soho, New Yo...

Visiting Tokyo is like stepping off a subway station into a parallel universe of strange technologies, animated characters and perfectly wrapped pieces of fruit. Long before the iPhone existed, Japan led the world in smartphone technology and gaming. To this day, it remains a primordial soup of emerging consumer trends and digital innovations. One of my key contacts in Tokyo is Serkan Toto. German...

I met Sean when we both in Tokyo speaking at an intimate summit for banking executives. As an information junkie myself, I was fascinated by the company he co-founded, Quid, which offered analysts and decision makers a visual platform for seeing patterns in complex data. Not surprisingly, Sean’s background is also a nexus of complexity. He is a physicist, decathlete, political advisor, and a TED f...

Despite being the founder of arthouse movie streaming platform, Efe Cakarel, is not what you might call a conventional cinephile. He studied electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, got an MBA at Stanford and then worked at Goldman Sachs - before throwing it all in to dedicate himself to the world of film. In his office, situated in the heart of London’s Soho, and surrounded by old film...

I caught up with Aaron Dignan for breakfast at the Soho Grand Hotel in New York. Aaron is the CEO of digital transformation firm, The Ready. Aaron is, however, no ordinary consultant. The first line of his bio explains that he “dressed up like a super hero for 180 straight days of the first grade, which marked the beginning of his life as an iconoclast, observer, theorist, and performer”. Over cof...

Tariq Krim describes himself as a dreamer and a doer. He is founder and CEO of Jolicloud, a pioneer in personal cloud computing. Prior to Jolicloud, Tariq founded Netvibes, the personal startpage used by millions around the world. Sitting in a beautiful courtyard in Paris, enjoying the late afternoon sun - we had a far reaching conversation ranging from the rise and fall of French innovation, the...