THAT BUSINESS OF MEANING Podcast

Henry Coutinho-Mason is a ‘reluctant futurist’, award-winning social entrepreneur, and author (with Rohit Bhargava) of “The Future Normal: How We Will Live, Work and Thrive in the Next Decade.” Previously, he was the Managing Director of Trendwatching. I start all of these conversations with the same question that I borrowed from a friend of mine. She lives in Hudson. I just saw her yesterday. She...

John Bowe is a speech and presentation consultant, and author of I Have Something to Say . He specializing in corporate and individual presentations. John contributes regularly to CNBC about public speaking. He has written for The New Yorker , The New York Times Magazine , GQ, McSweeney’s , This American Life , and is the author of numerous books . His work has been featured in the Harvard Busines...

Joshua Michael Schrei is a writer, teacher, photographer and lifelong student of world mythologies and cosmologies, and the creator of The Emerald podcast. I first met Josh when we were young in San Francisco. He was part of the amazing group of people at The Milarepa Fund who organized the Tibetan Freedom Concerts . I hadn’t spoken to him in years, when people started sending me this episode of h...

Alessia Clusini is a Digital Ethnographer and co-founder of London-based research firm Trybes Agency , where a team of experts with diverse backgrounds, from data science and machine learning to psychology, netnography, social sciences and marketing, pioneered AI-driven research methodologies and coupled them with social sciences to generate Hybrid Intelligence®. Alessia was nominated as one of th...

Gunny Scarfo is the co-founder of Nonfiction Research . Previously, he was Head of Strategy at VICE Media's digital agency, and Head of Strategy at Tenthwave, as well as the Inaugural Board President at Brooklyn Poets. He responded to my newsletter one day a few years ago, and we’ve stayed in touch since. I was excited to meet for the first time with this conversation. Thank you so much for agreei...

I first met Eliza Yvette Esquivel at lunch in Hudson, New York. She was visiting a mutual friend. We stayed in touch over the years and grew close over the pandemic when myself, Eliza and Martin Karaffa would meet for regular calls. She has a long, storied career in brand strategy. She was Chief Strategy Officer at Barbarian, Senior Director, Global Brand Strategy, Management, Naming and Partnersh...

Noah Brier is the founder of BrXnD.ai which he describes as ‘an organization at the intersection of marketing and AI.’ Mostly, I think it has been relatively small events where super smart marketing folks experiment about the impact of AI on marketing. Definitely take a look at CollXbs - a brand collaboration engine . And here’s a recap of the BrXnD NYC 2024 Event. I first encountered Noah way bac...

Colleen Hagerty is a California-based journalist who has been on the disaster beat since covering Hurricane Sandy in New York as a local reporter. Her newsletter about disasters, My World’s on Fire , was shortlisted for a 2022 Covering Climate Now award. You can find her work across BBC News and PBS outputs, as well as in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, The Guardian,...

Helen & Dave Edwards are a husband-and-wife team of ‘analysts, artificial philosophers, and meta-researchers.’ Artificiality is a research & education company that helps people make sense of artificial intelligence and complex change. They have a long history in AI, and I consider them scouts to this new world. Sign up for their newsletter here . Helen was CIO of Transpower, New Zealand’s national...

AI Summary. In this conversation, Peter Spear interviews Farrah Bostic, founder of the Difference Engine, about her background and the value of qualitative research. Bostic shares her journey from copywriting to strategy and research, emphasizing the importance of understanding customers' real stories and experiences. She argues that qualitative research is essential for businesses to make informe...

Stephen Asma is the author of ten books, including  Why We Need Religion ,  The Emotional Mind: Affective Roots of Culture and Cognition   (with Dr. Rami Gabriel),  The Evolution of Imagination ,  On Monsters: an Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears  and  The Gods Drink Whiskey. He is the cofounder of the Research Group in Mind, Science and Culture at Columbia College Chicago. He was a professiona...

AI Summary. In this interview, Peter Spear talks with Elise Pepple, director of Marfa Public Radio, about her unique background and passion for place-based storytelling and community engagement. They discuss the role of public radio in creating gathering spaces and fostering connection, especially in light of the isolation and disconnection prevalent in society. Pepple shares examples of how Marfa...

AI Summary. In this interview, Peter Spear talks with Hugo Alves, co-founder of Synthetic Users, a pioneering company in AI-powered user research. Hugo shares his journey, the inspiration behind Synthetic Users, and the challenges of being at the forefront of a new category. He discusses the potential of synthetic user research to complement traditional methods and envisions Synthetic Users evolvi...

AI Summary. In this engaging conversation from Peter Spear's series, brand strategist and educator Inaki Escudero discusses his journey from Spain to the U.S. and his unique perspective on mentor brands. Inaki and Peter explore how brands can guide and inspire customers by assuming a mentor role, emphasizing the importance of purpose and ethics in brand strategy. Through examples like REI and pers...

I am a true fan of Jeffrey Kripal’s work. I think his invitation to re-think the humanities by seriously engaging with the study of mystical and paranormal experiences is a beautiful thing. We talk about category creation in the marketing of products. Here, we are talking about the humanities, and the discipline we use to explore and understand the world, and our experiences of it. I was absolutel...

AI summary. In this conversation, part of a series of conversations by Peter Spear, Ethan Decker shares his unique background and how it has shaped his approach to brand science. He introduces key concepts, such as the "banana curve" of buyer distribution and the importance of signaling theory in branding. Ethan emphasizes the limitations of synthetic research and the critical role of qualitative...

Zoe Scaman is the CEO and Founder at Bodacious, a strategy studio delivering bold and audacious thinking. I have followed her for years, and have devoured her work. She is prolific and generous, having published in the past few years an amazing collection of work: The New Fandom Formula , Mad Men. Furious Women , Decoding Community , , The Multiplayer Brand , and Strategy in the Era of AI . All th...

Jasmine Bina is the CEO of Concept Bureau , a brand consultancy in Santa Monica, California. I first met Jasmine and her partner, Jean-Louis Rawlence , through LinkedIn, as you do. We had a great conversation and stayed in touch. (We hit it off so well, they invited me to kick of their Talks at Concept Bureau .) In the few years since that first meeting, it seems to me, they have really hit their...

Ben Doepke is the Principal of IX Strategy . I was introduced by Ben my a mutual researcher friend. I remember hitting it off with him the first time we spoke. He’s a big thinker, who has a way of bringing the most compelling parts mythology and archetypes into this work. I was excited to speak him and learn more about how he got to where he is. In addition to the strategy work they do with client...

Veronique Greenwood is a writer and essayist whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Pacific Standard, Aeon, Popular Science, Scientific American, and many others. I kept running into her work as I gathered pieces for my weekly newsletter, so created a Google alert for her. So, when I decided to have these conversations, I knew I wanted to get her take. One of...

When I think about naming, I think about Anthony Shore . He is the founder of Operative Words , and is responsible for more than 250 names. He is the guy people call when they talk about names. And, well, I wanted to talk about names. Here is the piece on the Neuroscience of Trademarks: Vance, Kristy and Sandra M Virtue. “ Metaphoric advertisement comprehension: The role of the cerebral hemisphere...

Richard Wise is a brand anthropologist who is a Global Planning Director at VML. I had enjoyed his writing on brand and SXSW , and then I read his book, “ Save Your Soul: Work in Advertising .” I can’t recommend the book, or his articles more highly. Get full access to THAT BUSINESS OF MEANING at thatbusinessofmeaning.substack.com/subscribe

This is the third in a series of conversations I am going to be having with people who make me wonder. Look for them every other Monday. I first encountered Kirsten Bell - the anthropologist, not the actress - by way of her piece, “ Do Washing Machines Belong in Kitchens? ” and was hooked. Since then, I have been devouring her newsletter, Silent But Deadly , and looking forward to her book “ Silen...

John Walter is the inventor of the TrueMirror . Check it out!! I am the only person in the world I experience in reverse. My self-image is wrong in one giant way. And so is yours. The way we appear to ourself in a mirror, is not how we appear to anyone else. And so, I was excited to discover that, John Walter, the inventor of the non-reversing TrueMirror, lived just across the river from me. Withi...

Grant McCracken is the first anthropologist I encountered. No one had ever talked about the world I grew up in the way he did. I was a fan from the start, and followed him ever since. I even got to host him here in Hudson, New York as part of his research into artisanal economies. (My appearance in the book is a career highlight.) When I thought to do interviews, he was the first person to come to...