Idea Citizen on LinkedIn Live

Everyone in fashion is calling themselves quiet luxury right now. Richard Coles and Kamil Biel, co-founder/CEO and co-founder/creative director of Bilson Menswear, think almost none of them can say what that actually means. They built their own manufacturing plant in Poland instead of outsourcing, because they wanted control over sourcing, product development, and quality without supply chain inte...

David Gottfried built green buildings in 186 countries. Now he's asking whether AI can do for civilization what LEED did for construction — and whether we're moving fast enough to matter. David Gottfried is founder of the US Green Building Council and World Green Building Council, and author of Regen 360 (out October 2026). In this conversation he and Jackie Domanus cover: how David uses C...

You don't have to create something from nothing. Nobody does. We're obsessed with originality, but originality is a myth. Almost every idea is combinational. You take existing concepts and remix them into something new. Mark Twain said it bluntly: "Substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources." Neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff backs...

The most dangerous phrase in any organization is "we've always done it this way." I'm diving into thinkers who've shaped how we understand ideas. This week: Grace Hopper. She was a Navy Rear Admiral and one of the first computer programmers in history. She invented the first compiler, which made it possible for humans to write code in something closer to plain English. She he...

The cheap seats are full of critics who never step onto the floor. Brené Brown references Theodore Roosevelt's "Man in the Arena" speech: The credit belongs to the person whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. Not the ones watching from a safe distance. You can choose courage or you can choose comfort. But you can't have both. So be selective about whose feedback you l...

You can do everything right and still lose the hand. This comes from Annie Duke who won millions at the poker table and still lost hands. In poker, "resulting" is a death sentence. If you play a perfect hand but the river card goes against you, you don't change your strategy—you trust your process. Duke brought this logic to the world of decision-making, and it’s a masterclass in how...

The most dangerous ideas don't look irrelevant. Clayton Christensen called this the innovator's dilemma. The best companies don't fail because they're lazy or stupid. They fail because they're too good at what they already do. They listen to customers. Invest in improvements. Chase higher margins. All the right moves. And it kills them. Disruptive ideas almost never look good a...

Every Olympic athlete wants to win gold. The goal isn't unique. James Clear makes this distinction in Atomic Habits: Goals are about the results you want. Systems are about the processes that get you there. Winners and losers often have the same goals. Every runner in the race wants to finish first. Every startup founder wants to build something big. The goal doesn't separate anyone. What...

Most ideas don't die because they're bad. They die before anyone finds out whether they're good. In this episode, we break down the four psychological biases that kill ideas before they ever get a real shot — and why they're so hard to spot. They don't show up as fear or ego. They show up as caution, preparation, and responsible thinking. We cover: Imposter Bias — why you keep...

If you're measuring your progress against someone else's timeline, you'll quit too early. Morgan Housel calls this quiet compounding. We're obsessed with breakthroughs. The overnight success. The viral moment. But the most impressive results in nature happen silently. Giant sequoias. Mountains. Coral reefs. Growth is almost never visible right now. But it's staggering over long...

Meta just paid $375 million. A California jury found YouTube negligent. And yet most parents still have no idea what's actually happening to children on the platforms they hand them every day. In this episode, Jackie sits down with two of the most important voices in the fight for children's online safety: John Tanagho — Executive Director of the Center on Online Sexual Exploitation of Chi...

We treat imagination like a luxury—something for artists or a distraction from "real work." But Octavia Butler argued it’s actually the most essential infrastructure we have. Butler was the first sci-fi author to win a MacArthur "Genius" Grant, largely because she understood that imagination is how we adapt before we’re forced to. When her 1993 depictions of climate scarcity an...

Lucky people aren't lucky. They just have more surface area. Sahil Bloom calls this Luck Surface Area. We think luck is random, something that happens to us. But luck is mostly the result of thousands of tiny actions. Your daily habits put you in positions where luck is more likely to strike. If you never leave your house, never share your work, never start conversations, you have a tiny luck...

Consensus isn't validation. Good ideas create tension. They challenge what people already believe. They force a reaction because they can't be ignored. Seth Godin put it this way in Purple Cow: "If you're remarkable, it's likely that some people won't like you. That's part of the definition of remarkable. Nobody gets unanimous praise — ever. The best the timid can hope...

Your best ideas don't have deadlines. That's why they never happen. Tim Urban calls it the Instant Gratification Monkey. There's a part of your brain that only knows two things: easy and fun. And whenever you sit down to work on something hard, the monkey grabs the wheel. "Let's check email first. Let's scroll for a minute. Let's see who would win in a fight between a...

Most leaders want a clean, 10-step plan. Tufan Erginbilgiç, the CEO of Rolls-Royce, wants a mess. Since taking over in 2023, Erginbilgiç has overseen a massive surge in profits and a doubling of stock value. His secret? He likes strategy development to be chaotic. He isn't talking about being reckless. He’s talking about the raw, blue-sky debate that happens before a plan is ever written. Most...

When you over-plan, you kill the thing you're trying to build. Jane Jacobs wasn't an urban planner. She was a journalist who noticed something the experts missed. The neighborhoods that thrived weren't the ones designed from the top down. They were the messy ones. Mixed uses. Short blocks. Old buildings next to new ones. People bumping into each other on the street. She called it &quot...

The most creative people don't have better ideas. They just have more of them. Adam Grant's book Originals flipped how I think about this. He writes: "It's widely assumed that there's a tradeoff between quantity and quality — if you want to do better work, you have to do less of it. This turns out to be false. When it comes to idea generation, quantity is the most predictable...

Your brand is either memorable or forgettable. There's no middle ground. In this episode of Idea Citizen, Jackie Domanus sits down with branding experts Sallee Poinsette-Nash, Lindsay Linhart, and Diana Dumitru to break down the four pillars of modern branding: Audit, Identity, Ideas, and Positioning. We get into: ✔ Why AI might be making your brand less human (and how to fix it) ✔ The sensory...

In this Idea Citizen LIVE conversation, Jim Fruchterman —serial tech entrepreneur, MacArthur Fellow, and founder of Tech Matters —shares why he moved from the for-profit AI world to the nonprofit sector over 30 years ago. Jim has spent decades applying technology to social impact, from disability inclusion to education, human rights, environmental sustainability, and crisis response. This discussi...

In this Idea Citizen Mentor Series LIVE, we dive into building and scaling consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands with purpose —from early-stage growth to national distribution—with two inspiring founders: Kuda Biza , an experienced CPG entrepreneur and brand builder with a proven track record in launching and scaling purpose-driven consumer brands. Kuda launched a meal delivery service that grew to...

In this Idea Citizen LIVE conversation, we explore how founders can scale fast in the AI era with two innovative leaders: Ian Garrett , Co-founder & CEO of SendTurtle , a platform that turns secure file sharing into a trackable, insight-driven experience . With a military background in cybersecurity and PhD research in AI, Ian is passionate about helping founders scale securely while keeping A...

In this Idea Citizen Mentor Series LIVE, we dive into talent strategy, relocation, and small business support with two powerhouse founders: Tori Smith , Founder of The Welcome Standard , a Talent Concierge service that partners with companies to elevate recruitment and retention. From working in college football at the highest level to guiding high-stakes professional relocations, Tori has built a...

In this Idea Citizen Mentor Series LIVE, we explore AI-driven innovation and entrepreneurship with two incredible leaders: Henrik Werdelin , co-founder of BarkBox , founder of Prehype , and startup mentor who has helped launch companies acquired by Facebook, Microsoft, and Dropbox. Henrik is also behind Audos.ai , a platform empowering everyday entrepreneurs to build agentic businesses. Monty Koth...

In this Idea Citizen LIVE conversation, Dr. Coral Hoh , founder and architect of Dysolve , shares how her team built the first AI expert system for dyslexia and learning disabilities —and why it’s outperforming traditional interventions. Dysolve AI recently proved its effectiveness in a clinical trial across 9 states , helping students make measurable gains in reading proficiency. This discussion...