Gemma O’Brien is an Australian artist and designer specialising in lettering, illustration and typography. Known for her hand lettering skills, she has worked for everyone from QANTAS to The New York Times. If you were a fan of my recent book, ‘The Dictionary of Dangerous Ideas’, you might also recognise her hand in the design of the custom alphabet created for the project. In this episode we spoke about the future of design, the continuing influence of type, and why in this digital age, brands are so enamoured with the handmade.

Henry Mason spends his days trying to figure out what consumers might want next. Author of the book ‘Trend-Driven Innovation’ and head of the research firm, Trendwatching, he and his team scour the world for new ideas, business model innovation and the impact of disruptive technologies. Over a cup of tea in London, we spoke about the viral impact of great experience design, how to look outside your frame of reference, why the most powerful trends cross demographics, and the human needs that will shape the future of virtual reality, AI and machine learning.

Geoff Colvin is the author of the bestselling book, ‘Humans Are Underrated’, which outlines the capabilities that will keep human beings from being made utterly obsolete by tomorrow’s robots, algorithms and machine intelligences. A longtime editor and columnist for Fortune, Geoff is also the author of ‘The Upside of the Downturn’, ‘Angel Customers & Demon Customers’, and ‘Talent is Overrated’. We spoke about the rising influence of AI, the skills leaders will need to survive them, and the challenges of integrating across traditional company silos to deliver on the kinds of innovative experiences that customers now demand.

Matt McFadyen was youngest Australian to ever reach the North Pole. Since then, he has become a seasoned sailor and polar adventurer - leading a number of record-breaking expeditions both on some of the most extreme environments on the planet, as well as through virtual simulation with other business leaders. Thankfully it was in the relative safety of the Soho Grand Hotel over coffee and breakfast, that we caught up to talk about surviving crisis, how to build high performing teams, and understanding the true meaning of failure.

Rama Allen is one of the handful of people on the planet who are not only thinking about virtual reality, but are actually creating and designing content for those platforms today. He is an executive creative director at The Mill, where he also leads the Mill LAB, an arm of the Mill focusing on the intersection of art and technology, prototyping the future of film through experimental projects and the invention of creative technologies. We hung out in New York, where we talked about the current state of the art in VR, the challenges of telling stories in multiple dimensions and what a truly cyberpunk, immersive Internet might look like.