119 – The New Year’s Special

[00:00:00] David: Hi and welcome to the IDEMS podcast. I’m David Stern and I’m here with Lucie, Lily and Santiago for our special New Year’s episode. Hi all! 

[00:00:16] Lily: Hiya! 

[00:00:17] Lucie: Hi 

[00:00:19] Santiago: Hi David. 

[00:00:21] Lily: We’re all here David, what’s going on? We’ve not done a podcast with us four before. So what are we discussing? Now it’s my turn to get to ask you, what are we discussing? 

[00:00:30] David: Well, my hope is that we’ve spent the last year recording two episodes a week on a variety of topics and it’s a good time to reflect, to reflect on the year gone past and maybe think about what’s to come. You’ve all been a part of at least 20 episodes over the last year and a bit. And it’s been quite a journey. What have you experienced? What do you think? 

[00:00:57] Santiago: I think it’s been wonderful. I’ve enjoyed it. It’s been hard work, difficult to find times to get you to actually do a recording sometimes, but, quite enjoyable to be able to have a nice, healthy discussion, sometimes with disagreement, sometimes informative, sometimes reflecting on what’s going on, what we’re doing, sometimes thought experiments, some of the thought experiments were great. 

[00:01:27] Lily: To add to that, I’ve been finding it quite a privilege to get to have these conversations with you, David, of just being able to ask these thoughts that come into my head and speak to someone that is very kind of, I don’t know, very high level thinking, and discuss them through.

[00:01:41] Lucie: It’s certainly a different kind of podcast to the kind I have listened to in the past, because as Lily says, a lot of the episodes are learning episodes, basically. So, I think the series highlights one of IDEMS’s principles of transparency. No, wait, transparency is not a principle.

I think it shows an aspect of how we do tend to be more transparent than most other companies. Because most other companies would not have, they would have experts talking about a particular subject rather than people who don’t know something about it. So having those sort of open discussions is very different. 

[00:02:25] Santiago: I think that it’s one of the most enjoyable things about not just recording, but listening through and editing, it’s how much I’ve learned over the last year and a bit about the business, the business models, the agroecology projects, the data science, responsible AI. I have learned so much about a wide range of topics. It’s been wonderful. 

[00:02:53] David: What’s really interesting for me is that this was part of the original thinking, that we didn’t need to make a podcast for a particular audience outside, our first audience should be just people who are interested and want to know about IDEMS, even within.

And being able to communicate some of the thought that has gone into it, some of the principles behind it, just the fact that we’ve been able to have all of these discussions on so many different topics and put out some of the complexity of the thinking. Most communication tries to simplify and to reduce the complexity. Whereas to be able to have discussions, which almost always part of my role is to say, well, it’s not as simple as that.

There’s layers of complexity where, even if we have a principle or an approach we try to follow, there’s times where you kind of want to do the opposite and you need that flexibility. It’s always complex and balancing. 

[00:03:54] Santiago: I would love to count the number of times that you said, I don’t have the answer for this yet. Or, I don’t have them for this, full stop. So many times it’s so reflective and it’s so thoughtful. We are dealing with complex issues and very diverse, but always one commonality is the complexity. 

[00:04:17] Lily: Is this something in, because Lucie, you kind of started comparing it to other podcasts, is that where the kind of difference is, perhaps, that we allow that kind of complexity to go out rather than try to simplify things in to make it understandable? Or, not understandable, but to make it kind of one idea? 

[00:04:33] David: I believe quite a lot of podcasts do deal with complexity because they have a long format and so they actually often can go beyond simple solutions. You know, it’s one of those formats which is suited to having a topic where you can go beyond the obvious. So I don’t think, that’s what differentiates what we’re doing. But I think that there is something where in most other cases, the podcast is the end result. 

Whereas for our work, the podcast is a side activity to our main work. And it’s something where we’re using the episodes and the recording of the episodes as a way to be transparent, as a way to communicate, but it’s not the main aim, it’s a side product. And it’s multi purpose and maybe that is something which makes it a bit different for many more polished podcasts where the podcast would be the main result.

[00:05:38] Santiago: Also we have such a wide range of topics that we discuss. A lot of podcasts focus on a particular topic or theme. While I’m not sure I would be able to define a theme for our podcast. 

[00:05:56] Lucie: Beyond IDEMS. 

[00:05:57] Santiago: Yeah, but IDEMS itself, what is the theme of IDEMS? That’s what we’ve been struggling with for, what, five, six years now, how to tell the IDEMS story. 

[00:06:10] Lucie: Ah, Santiago, you went at the last team meeting. I think Kate is getting to being able to tell a bit of the IDEMS story. 

[00:06:17] Lily: I have been kind of promising people that we’re going to get a story soon, because people ask me all the time, I have no idea what you do. I don’t know either, but we’ve got someone on it. And they’re going to get us a nice coherent story, like, it feels to be like some kind of magic that Kate’s going to do. 

[00:06:31] Santiago: We even have an episode on that. 

[00:06:34] David: Yeah. 

[00:06:35] Santiago: And how difficult it is, and how difficult it’s been.

[00:06:38] David: Absolutely, but I think there is an element of skill sets here. And Kate is bringing in a skill set of a communicator, where as a deep thinker, whose speciality is in some sense communication, she is really getting to the heart of it and tying me down in certain cases to say, well, actually, what’s really important, what really matters? It’s going to be interesting to see if that story does emerge over the next year or so. 

[00:07:05] Lily: I think again in my head, and this is just so indicative of IDEMS, and it kind of links back to what we were saying earlier, in my head, it’s like, I just think that I expect things to be so simple and then they never are and I’m like, of course it’s not a simple yes or no answer, you know. Of course there’s not gonna be like a simple day where Kate’s gonna show up and have this story and it will be summarising IDEMS in a sentence. Yeah, I guess it’s never gonna happen. 

[00:07:32] David: It’s not going to happen like that. 

[00:07:35] Lily: But coming back to what David was saying about the podcast being multi purpose, and Santiago saying about it being like diverse, with these different things, I guess that’s just, that’s just IDEMS. And so it makes sense that the podcast is going to be multi purpose. Because everything we do more or less, anyway, I can’t think of anything that isn’t multi purpose in IDEMS, but I’m sure that something must exist. 

[00:07:56] David: No, I mean, it’s interesting. This is not one of our principles, but it is central to almost all of our work. This idea that the same activity is serving multiple purposes is about building efficiency into what you’re doing when you’re working in complex systems and on complex problems. That if you’re too narrowly focused on what you’re doing, you might miss the more important outcomes that could come from it.

[00:08:20] Santiago: And a lot of the work that we do, we always have that idea of being able to contextualise it and build something that can be transferred from one place to another, and serve multiple audiences. 

[00:08:34] Lily: But that kind of runs a risk, like, serving multiple audiences can run a risk of I guess, serving no one. Is there not a worry, I don’t know, with these podcasts, but I guess not, because I guess the podcast it’s just one avenue of us getting the story out. 

[00:08:49] David: And what would it mean if it serves no one? If there was no one listening, and there might be no one listening, as you said, it’s already been useful for us. It’s helped me to learn how to actually express some of them. It’s helped to communicate to at least the three of you, a lot of different sort of ideas which otherwise wouldn’t have been discussed because we wouldn’t have found the time. It’s forced conversations to happen that would otherwise have maybe not happened or if they had happened not been recorded or being able to be shared afterwards.

So it’s serving already, even if nobody’s out there listening, is serving multiple purposes. An audience is just a bonus. 

[00:09:31] Lily: True. 

[00:09:32] Santiago: And I think one of the key purposes that I’ve found personally is identifying the right episode for the right person, sending that episode to help explain aspects of what we do or what my job is. There was one specific one, David, you interviewed Chris Sangwin on STACK. That episode really helped me explain to quite a lot of people what STACK is about in a way that is surprising because normally you need a demonstration and that can be quite challenging. 

[00:10:12] David: But this is, I think, part of what I’ve been so grateful to the three of you for, because each of you, in terms of the episodes, and the way you’ve challenged me, and you’ve helped me to sort of bring out different ideas. You’ve brought out different ideas in different ways and you’ve asked different questions and you’ve gone into different topics.

The agroecology topic has been such an important one for example Lucie, and it’s been so nice to dig into some of this as we reflect on what we’re doing.

[00:10:42] Santiago: Another aspect that I found very interesting is how open the discussions are and how open we were, we have been, and we will continue to be to internal and possibly external criticism. And how we had follow up episodes when someone picks up on something and says, oh, actually this is not quite sitting right with me, this is not what I thought, this is not what I understood.

We’ve always had that chance to get back on the microphone and have another discussion to clarify points or to challenge preconceptions, or our own preconceptions in some cases, in a very healthy and positive way. 

[00:11:37] Lucie: Yeah, and I hope, when more people in the team listen to this, like this being the whole podcast series, I hope that more of them will get involved in those discussions and find that as perhaps a way into having the discussions too. 

[00:11:54] David: I really look forward to that because I always said I felt I had about a hundred episodes in me and so I feel that I’m running my course and I’m looking forward to more people getting involved. You know, Lucie you had an episode with Kate which was great, that was a wonderful episode.

And having more episodes like that, where more members of the team are interacting in discussion and entering into this in a way where they’re comfortable airing their views, having that shared and having this as part of just the way we work. 

[00:12:27] Lucie: And I think what you’ve just said there in terms of the discussions, well, in terms of recording them, that’s what’s so interesting about them, that it is a time for discussion, as you said, Lily, too. And so to get those different voices in, because the IDEMS team, there’s experts in so many different things, there’s so many interesting things, so many interesting discussions that we can have. Not that anyone asked me, but I think that would be a really nice way for the podcast to continue evolving.

[00:12:55] David: I think this is a perfect transition into, well, how else should it evolve? I really love the idea of more voices. I am conscious that quite a lot of our team is not so comfortable being recorded, and that’s why it’s been so powerful to have the three of you, who are comfortable to be part of that.

But there are a few new voices coming out. We have James, we have George. They’ve both taken up the mantle a bit. 

[00:13:21] Santiago: Yeah, those episodes with George and with James have been wonderful, James’ episodes, particularly his story is just remarkable and his depth of knowledge, and how he presents himself. I love editing and listening to James’s episodes. And I think George as well, he is really keen. Perhaps it’s down to one of us, Lucie, Lily, to encourage them to get more involved. 

[00:13:51] David: Well, I think the two of them are already on track. They’ve done a couple of episodes each, they’re interested, they’re thinking about it. They need a bit of encouragement, so I love the idea of you guys encouraging them and maybe having episodes with them without me to start broadening out. I think that’s a really important next step which we will hopefully have more of in the coming year.

Kate, of course, more episodes with Kate. Danny is actually still limited in terms of the number of episodes he could do, but he’s keen to be involved and so maybe having some more episodes with him, not just between me and him, but maybe some of you interviewing him in different ways and having episodes like that.

I think that diversity of voice, more of our partners, that’s definitely on my agenda for next year. Getting Beth, really keen. Beth, if you’re listening out there, I’m coming for you, your episode is coming soon. There’s a number of people who I think it’d be great to get their voice heard, who work with us closely, and where I think that that diversity will add value. 

[00:14:58] Santiago: There’s potential for diversity as well in, you know, now that we have over 116 episodes published, getting people who are experts or who are doing interesting work in a domain that we’re interested in and trying to record an episode with them. We’ve done that once. 

[00:15:20] David: Yeah. 

[00:15:20] Santiago: I mean, with someone who’s not a collaborator. 

[00:15:25] David: Yes. 

[00:15:26] Santiago: We’ve done episodes with collaborators before, with partners of different kinds. But having external voices who are not part of the, let’s say, wider IDEMS family, that could be great. 

[00:15:43] David: It’s interesting you mention that because Lily, that episode came from you. You were building out this Responsible AI course for lecturers and you had a particular set of references that you were really keen on and we reached out and we had a wonderful episode where we were sort of digging into that and discussing. I think that is something we could look into in the new year.

Really good idea. Any other thoughts? 

[00:16:05] Lily: I just wondered, David, you always said at the start you had a hundred episodes in you. I mean, after doing a hundred, I get the impression that episodes breed episodes. Do you still have a hundred in you? Do you only have fifty in you or do you now have like a thousand in you? You know what I mean? 

[00:16:21] David: I think what is certainly true is that compared to when we started, I’m not finding it difficult to have these discussions. I enjoy discussing with the three of you and with other people. This isn’t something which is a chore. If it was a chore, we wouldn’t still be going. So I don’t think there’s a sort of limit to the episodes that I could be involved in.

I think there is a limit to the interesting things I can say and I do feel that, you know, I’m getting close to having the sort of original thinking as most of it has come out and so it’s there in an episode already. So it might be a question of repeating certain ideas sooner rather than later if it focuses on me. But I don’t want it to focus on me.

Lucie. 

[00:17:06] Lucie: So a lot of the episodes are about original thinking or about sort of forward thinking, bigger thinking, new ideas, or like how we should be thinking, perhaps, you know, correcting how most people think, which is not accurate or something. Like so many things, we use words incorrectly, as we have misunderstandings about things too. 

So I guess, I’m wondering if in terms of the subjects too, is original thinking what these episodes are about? Because it isn’t, there’s also this sort of learning aspect as well.

[00:17:39] David: It’s interesting, I’ve never thought of the episodes being about original thinking. There is just a set of learning which I’ve had over the last 15 years or so, working in low resource environments, in a range of areas, where there’s a lot of elements that I’ve accumulated from other people, and just observations of working with partners where there have been experiences of working in a low resource environment where someone has had open access journals as a good idea to increase the access in low resource environments and then you live in a low resource environment and open access journals means it’s harder to publish.

You know, it’s these sorts of things where the complexity comes in and the intention, good intention, actually leads to something opposite or different to what people expect because simple solutions aren’t working. And this is something which is being observed in many different contexts. And I’ve had the privilege of working in many different contexts and I’m just joining the dots in some cases.

This is where I felt I sort of had a hundred episodes in me of these experiences, of different things I’ve observed. And right now, it’s you guys and other people in the IDEMS teams who are making those observations, at least as much as I am, with the partners that you’re working with and in the context where we’re seeing these things.

And so it’s not so much about now bringing out those observations. I guess what I’m really enjoying as we’re entering into our third year now, I suppose, of episodes is that I think it is much more about this power of observation and being able to sort of discuss the complexity and go a little bit deeper than looking for simple solutions and bringing that out.

So I think rather than original thinking, I think it is complexity. 

[00:19:33] Lucie: And depth. 

[00:19:34] Santiago: Speaking about depth. I loved the idea that Kate presented on the 100th episode of actually focusing on one particular project or area and trying to, through a series of four or five episodes, tell one story in a lot of depth, with perhaps higher production value. I have some ideas on how to achieve that. So, we’ll discuss that at some point. 

[00:20:05] David: Yeah, let’s watch this space. I love the idea of the podcast evolving into something which has different types of episodes or different sort of mini series within it. That’s really exciting and we can maybe look forward to that in the year to come. 

[00:20:20] Santiago: Great, well, I think it’s been a wonderful year and a bit of episodes, recording, producing, editing. A lot has gone into it. And I think I gained quite a lot from it as well. 

[00:20:37] Lucie: Yep. 

[00:20:37] Santiago: So, thank you guys. 

[00:20:39] David: Thank you all. I mean, you talked about all the work that has gone into this, and I have been in quite a few episodes, but it hasn’t been a huge amount of work for me. It has been an absolute joy to have these discussions, and then to be able to just keep discussions going. So, all three of you have made this an absolute joy to do. So thank you all so much. And I know Santiago, you’re trying to keep this episode short because somebody’s going to have to to edit it. 

[00:21:08] Santiago: Yes, that’s partly one of the reasons. Also, it’s the first four way episode, so editing will be an interesting challenge. But I also thought that we had to acknowledge someone else’s work. Johnny has been in the back end of this, behind the scenes, making sure that everything works well, doing the publications, doing part of the editing. And he’s been a crucial member of the team, who prefers to remain…

[00:21:37] David: …in the editing room. 

[00:21:39] Santiago: In the editing room, yes.

[00:21:42] Lucie: It’s been a really interesting year with lots of rich discussions. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you, everyone.

[00:21:48] David: Yeah, no, great. Thank you all. And Happy New Year. 

[00:21:53] Lily: Thank you, Happy New Year. 

[00:21:55] Santiago: Happy New Year, everyone.