Andy Harries runs Left Bank Pictures - which, if you happen to love shows like the Crown, Outlander, Strike Back, Cold Feet or Prime Suspect - is probably responsible for much of your time spent staring happily at a screen. Andy and I met when I was running a strategy workshop for Sony Pictures Television in London. Catching up over a cup of tea, we chatted about how the rise of ‘OTT’ entertainment brands is changing the business of television, what it was like to raise teenager kids who became overnight YouTube stars, and the strange, dark corners of British creativity.

Starting work in the nineties, I quickly discovered that professional mastery had a lot to do with your ability to manipulate complex Excel spreadsheets. Analysts crunched numbers, programmers cracked code. These days, 21st century companies are trying to do the exact opposite - putting the power to create software and automate activities, in the hands of people closest to the work. Rick Willett, CEO of Quickbase, is one of the people leading this no-code revolution. Formerly at GE, and now focused on reinventing enterprise collaboration, we spoke about the future of work and the power of algorithmic decision making.

I caught up with Jamie Metzl for a coffee in Bryant Park, New York. A fellow futurist, geopolitical expert and sci-fi novelist - suffice to say, we had lots to chat about. Jamie is a Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council, serves on the Advisory Council to Walmart’s Future of Retail Policy Lab, and even ran (unsuccessfully) for the U.S. House of Representatives. It seemed strangely appropriate that our topic of conversation - human performance and leveraging technology to live much longer - was with someone who himself completed thirteen Ironman triathlons, twenty-nine marathons, and twelve ultramarathons.

With more than 200 inches of snow each year, and a good eight hour drive from a major city, Michigan Tech didn’t see many recruiters from outside of the Midwest. That didn’t seem right to Garrett Lord. Why should talent be located just in geographies closest to tech companies? After driving to college campuses across the country, he realized that student access to opportunities was universally unequal, and so along with Scott Ringwelski and Ben Christensen, decided to form Handshake to reinvent the college recruiting business. I caught up with Garrett in Las Vegas, to talk about how data might change the way companies find, recruit and manage talent in the future.

Magnus is a cool guy. As a fellow futurist, speaker and writer, we had met another times professionally over the years, in a variety of cities - but most recently in Kuala Lumpur, we got to properly hang out, and talk about a wide range of seemingly unconnected, but hopefully interesting things. Magnus is Director for Trendspotting and Future Thinking at Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship, and an active member of TED. His most recent book Minifesto (2016) tells us why small ideas matter in the world of grand narratives.