Most Universal

ON THIS EPISODE : This week on Most Universal, artist, filmmaker, and multidisciplinary Rashid Zakat joins me to talk about friendship councils, constructive dissatisfaction, and how DJs rest at the intersection of art and design. We also talk, at length, about Blade. In our Most Personal segment, Rashid responds to the prompt, "What are you currently obsessing over?" ABOUT MOST UNIVERSA...

ON THIS EPISODE : This week's guest is Debora Charmelus, an experience designer and consultant who primarily works with Black & Brown non-profits and organizations in the Philly area. Her production studio, Kontan , is focused on realizing the ambitions of creative communities by way of special events and experiences. In our Most Personal segment, Deb responds to the prompt, "What is...

ON THIS EPISODE : This week's guest is Kara Lindstrom , consultant, advisor, public speaker, and podcaster. Kara has even worked behind the scenes on making this show, Most Universal, what it is today. We talk about "untangling work", filtering the signal from the noise, Leadership Tarot, and different forms of leadership. In our Most Personal segment, Kara responds to the prompt, &q...

ON THIS EPISODE : This week on the show, I'm sitting with rock goddess Radio Sara, who you can hear live on-air when you tune into 93.3 WMMR in Philadelphia. We talk about the surprising shared experience of regional radio stations, hyping yourself up to meet your heroes, her new creative agency Breakdown Media , and how "authenticity" sometimes means saving a little of yourself for...

ON THIS EPISODE : I'm joined by long-time Indy Hall member and even-longer-time friend, Lansie Sylvia. Over the past few years, Lansie has been practicing herbalism — growing, harvesting, and enjoying native herbs in her everyday life. Throughout that time, she's formed a deeper appreciation for her sense of self, our planet's history and ecosystem, and her relationship to all of it. I...

ON THIS EPISODE : Anna Goldfarb is the author of Modern Friendship: How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections , and she also happens to be *my* friend. Together we discuss how it's possible to feel like you have tons of friends and none at all, and Anna helps define what friendship means in our current, complex social landscape. In our Most Personal segment, Anna answers the question, "w...

ON THIS EPISODE : Andy Stutzman is the Executive Director for Next Century Cities, a national non-profit organization dedicated to broadband access and adoption, digital inclusion, digital equity, and more. Andy answers the question, "when was the last time you surprised yourself?" ABOUT MOST UNIVERSAL: Most Universal  is a podcast about the interconnectedness of idiosyncrasies.  Every w...

ON THIS EPISODE : Mo Manklang, Policy Director at U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, is a person of faith — faith in love, faith in God, and faith in other people. We discuss time travel triggered by sense memories, bee movies, tattoos, and trust-building. On the Most Personal segment, Mo answers the question, "do you have a favorite quote?" ABOUT MOST UNIVERSAL: Most Universal  is...

ON THIS EPISODE : On today's episode, I'm joined by one of my closest friends and collaborators, Octavius A. Newman. Octavius and I have teamed up on lots of stuff through the years, but today we're talking about his new project, Sole Stories . Sole Stories is a episodic series in which local legends in fashion and design get personal about a pair of sneakers that are more than just a...

ON THIS EPISODE : Meg Niman joins the show to talk about the Persona Project , her facilitation workshop in which participants devise a deliberate identity, distinct from how they show up in daily life. We discuss alter-egos, the conscious act of noticing, the difference between consistency and constancy, and so much more. ABOUT MOST UNIVERSAL: Most Universal  is a podcast about the interconnected...

ON THIS EPISODE : Elayna Mae Darcy is a poet, a publisher, and a Swiftie. Their big, new undertaking is a poetry collective called Elixir Verse Press , and on this episode of the show, we talk about how self-published poets have been with us since time immemorial. We also discuss magical numbers, whether or not Taylor Swift is a genius, Substack, and Natasha Bedingfield. ABOUT MOST UNIVERSAL: Most...

ON THIS EPISODE : Sonia "Sunny" Blount joins Adam in a conversation about convening people. Sonia is an experience architect and founder of Kabila Events , which creates "memorable experiences for inclusive audiences and clients looking to differentiate their brands and diversify their reach". We discuss the personality traits required to be a connector, and what event producti...

ON THIS EPISODE : This week on Most Universal, I reconnect with my longtime friend, Edith Surreal. Edith is the "The Ephemeral Queen", an award-winning and title-holding pro-wrestler who has risen to fame over the past ~8 years. She opens up about the inner-workings of the art form, sharing a surprising amount of detail about how professional wrestlers design, communicate, and execute a...

ON THIS EPISODE : Hot off the heels from an appearance on our first ever mini episode of Most Personal, Victoria Adams is back for a full installment of the show. We discuss social athletic groups, the intersection of intellect, emotion, and sport, and Victoria introduces me to The Secret to Superhuman Strength by writer, cartoonist, and kinesthetic enthusiast, Alison Bechdel. ABOUT MOST UNIVERSAL...

ON THIS MINI EPISODE : We play Most Personal with long-time Indy Hall member, Ben Levin! Ben answers the question"What is a song with a strong sense-memory?" ABOUT MOST UNIVERSAL: Most Universal  is a podcast about the interconnectedness of idiosyncrasies.  Every week, I sit down with friends and members of the Indy Hall community, and we discuss our unexpected interests, surprising care...

ON THIS EPISODE : On this episode of Most Universal, I'm joined by Scarlet Estelle Hernandez, music industry maven and host of Sugar, We're Going In , a podcast that explores the intersection of Fallout Boy and hip hop. Scarlet shares one of her biggest fears, how she won a car on The Price is Right, and what she plans to do now that she's realized one of her wildest dreams. ABOUT MOST...

ON THIS MINI EPISODE : We play Most Personal with guest Victoria Adams, and both of us answer the question: "What was the last thing that made you fist-pump?" ABOUT MOST UNIVERSAL: Most Universal  is a podcast about the interconnectedness of idiosyncrasies.  Every week, I sit down with friends and members of the Indy Hall community, and we discuss our unexpected interests, surprising car...

ON THIS EPISODE : Rachel "Win" Winchester is a web dev, art historian, and public speaker on a mission: to rid the world of Microsoft's ubiquitous slide deck presentations. With her designer prowess and her understanding of art and communication, Win argues that presentation software is past due to be updated because "content is not static", and people share and receive inf...

ON THIS EPISODE : Emma Morrissey is the Director of Curriculum and Training for the Petey Greene Program, "the largest provider of tutoring and college readiness programs for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people in the US." On this episode of Most Universal, Emma and I talk about how she became an advocate for prison reform, what incarcerated students can teach us about the valu...

ON THIS EPISODE : On today's episode, I sit down with Free Range Professor Alan Bush, a strategy consultant and storyteller who works with companies in pursuit of environmentally sustainable practices. While today's episode strays from our "normal" show formula, our conversation never loses its way. We wind, tangle, and turn from topic to topic, discovering themes of kindness, aw...

ON THIS EPISODE : Joel Wolfram is a reporter whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, WHYY, and beyond. Outside of his journalism career, he has cultivated a reputation around his enthusiasm for gongfu tea brewing. I went into this episode with the theory that those aspects of his life worked in a kind of complimentary tension, that the stress of his reporting mean...

ON THIS EPISODE : In my conversation with writer, photographer, video maker, and project manager, Chris Urie, we unearth the relationships between each of his many roles. Chris is a jack of all trades with an aptitude for curiosity, and he likens his ability to “say ‘yes’ to everything’ to his rock-climbing ethos: stretch toward footholds just out of reach with the confidence of a strong support s...

ON THIS EPISODE : “A lot of people respond to issues in the world with anger, which is fine, you can harness that in a lot of useful ways. But I think that approach doesn’t work for me.” Lou Huang’s career exists between software development and urban planning, both fields about designing for human behavior. For as serious as his work is, he can’t help but notice how funny it is that some things w...

ON THIS EPISODE : Some people use LinkedIn to chart their career moves. Opeola Bukola uses Spotify. She’s the founder of Lillo, a consulting firm that specializes in organizational development, and she's Executive Director of the 10k Independents Project, which seeks to support the independent workforce in Philly and beyond. When she's not helping people thrive, she's helping people vi...

ON THIS EPISODE : Almost everyone has a piece of media that helped inform who they are today. Books, movies, tv shows, poems, paintings — all of these have the power to leave an indelible mark on a person. For Kevin Seidman, that formative work is a Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) released on the Playstation in 1997. The game's influence on Kevin can be charted throughout his life and career...