Conversations That Matter

Power for All: Julie Battilana

Ep 363 - Power for All

Guest: Julie Battilana

 

“Power is one of the most misunderstood and therefore vilified concepts in our society,” says Julie Battilana, the founder and facility chair of the Social Innovation and Change Initiative at the Harvard Business School. Battilana goes on to say, “Most people assume power is predetermined by personality or wealth, or that it is gained by strong-arming others.”

 

According to Battilana, the myths associated with power stand in the way of access to it for the vast majority of people who are unaware of the structure's power. In her book, “Power for All,” she and fellow author Tiziana Casciaro, a professor at the Rotman School at the University of Toronto, point out that we all have access to power if we understand the dynamics of power.

 

Battilana points out, “Power is not a dirty concept to be vilified and it is not a zero-sum game.” 

 

We invited Julie Battilana to join us for a Conversation That Matters about understanding power and how to develop it so that you can gain control over your life.

 

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Is Data Mapping a Crystal Ball: Will Caddell

Ep 362 - Is Data Mapping a Crystal Ball?

Guest: Will Cadell

 

Maps – try to go anywhere without them. You can get to places for sure, especially if the terrain is familiar. However, venture outside of your familiar neighbourhood and then your journey is one of trial and error. You wonder what is over there or over there or there and with each foray, you discover something new – new, but not necessarily helpful.

 

Data is a form of mapping; so is remote satellite imagery. Now combine the two and your understanding of that place expands exponentially – not just the place as a static point in time, but minute by minute. Imagine the power to retailers, governments, insurance companies and others in knowing not just the place, but the place and minute-by-minute historical activity. It’s as if Heisenberg’s “Uncertainty Principle” suddenly became certain, namely you can now know the location and speed of an object.

 

The power of the information also arms the holder of it with prescient knowledge – in other words, the ability to predict what will come next. It’s a mind boggling concept and if Sparkgeo, a Prince George, British Columbia company, continues to deliver on the promise of marrying low earth satellite imagery with trillions of bits of information into powerful diagnostic tools, then the holder of that information will be armed with a reliable looking glass.

 

Stuart McNish invited Will Cadell to join him for a Conversation That Matters about the power of accurate time-, space- and velocity-based intel.

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Leadership Inside Out: Susan Ney

Ep 361 - Leadership Inside Out

Guest: Susan Ney

 

The topic of leadership is confounding. There are so many theories and concepts and guidebooks and textbooks that contradict one another and create confusion. Do I stand tall and lead from the front, or do I lean in or support from the sidelines?

 

It’s easy for me to say I have no idea what it means to be a leader. I really don’t. I’ve just had to trust my gut that somehow I was doing the right thing. I know quickly enough when I’m doing the wrong thing, that feedback is immediate. But the right thing, the evidence unfolds slowly, it’s effect is incremental at best and mostly it is invisible.

 

I was relieved recently when Susan Ney published her book, Leadership Inside Out. “It’s a book about unearthing the leader inside you and changing your world for the better”, says Ney.  Getting to that place of self discovery and confidence is a journey she goes on to say, “is a journey filled with awe, wonderment, a tinge of sadness and disappointment but ultimately it is about developing an appreciation of who you are and the confidence that comes with it.”

 

Stuart McNish invited author, speaker, HR Professional and philosopher Susan Ney to join me for a Conversation That Matters about leadership from the inside out.

 

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Is today finally hydrogen’s day? Guest: Jessica Verhagen

 Is today finally hydrogen’s day?

Guest: Jessica Verhagen

 

To say hydrogen’s day has been coming for a long time is an understatement. It was discovered by Henry Cavendish in 1766 and it was quickly identified as the most abundant chemical substance in the universe – the entire universe. In other words, there is no “peak hydrogen.”  We can use the stuff forever and we can use it to store energy and to fuel transportation. And maybe, just maybe, today is the day hydrogen takes centre stage as the fuel of choice.

 

In transportation, the electrification of heavy vehicles and service vehicles like taxis and police cars and delivery trucks just isn’t practical. The practical alternative is hydrogen. Practical is so many ways such as storage, storage capacity in the vehicle, the fact that hydrogen and gas mix. Heck, hydrogen and methane mix and so does hydrogen and diesel.

 

And the sources of hydrogen are ubiquitous – they are everywhere. With that said, in a world that is endeavouring to lower GHGs, green hydrogen is treasured. That means the electricity used to produce the hydrogen is, well, green.  Well, what about waste by product hydrogen – the hydrogen you can produce using landfill waste? Not only do you reduce methane emissions from landfills, but you also create clean burning hydrogen.

 

It’s an exciting new world. But wait – there’s the challenge of switching vehicles from diesel or gas to hydrogen. That can be costly. And who do you turn to and how does it work? Enter British Columbia-based Hydra Energy, which offers hydrogen to trucking fleets as a service.

 

Stuart McNish invited Jessic Verhagen, the CEO of Hydra Energy, to join him for a Conversation That Matters about hydrogen’s role in a low carbon world.

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Social Media and Food Guest: Sylvain Charlebois

According to Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, one of the most important changes in the food supply network is social media. “Consumers,” he says, “finally have a voice and they're using it. They're talking a lot about food and where to buy it.” Previously, the food relationship was a push from manufacturer to grocer and then to consumer. But he says, “Now it's a pull in the other direction. And this, in essence, is putting tremendous pressure on the food industry in Canada.”

Charlebois says it's democratizing the supply chain and it's giving everyone a chance to establish direct relationships between producers and consumers. And according to him, “Big-name producers like PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz, Gordon Food Services, and Sysco – to name but a few – are now selling directly to consumers.” This shift in the relationship is also introducing food choices that didn't exist before, and that's because small or specialized producers couldn't access the market. Charlebois, who consults with food startup companies, says, “You will now see more and more small specialized producers connecting online with consumers and offering them a wider range of products.”

Stuart McNish invited food specialist Dr. Sylvain Charlebois of Dalhousie University to join him for a Conversation That Matters, Food For Thought episode about the dramatic changes underway in food production and supply thanks to consumer empowerment.

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COVID-19: Where did it come from? - Nicholas Wade

The hunt is on for the source of the coronavirus. Was it a natural leap from animal to human via another host animal or was it a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology? To date, we don’t know. And the answer is vitally important to a large swath of people and the Chinese and American governments.

 

Early in the pandemic, we were heavily influenced to believe it was a natural emergence. The reason we were nudged in that direction was statements from two significant scientific groups – statements that, according to science journalist Nicholas Wade, “were not at first examined as critically as they should have been.”

 

On February 19, 2020, The Lancet published a statement that said, “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”

 

Wade says, “Contrary to that assertion, the idea that the virus might have escaped from a lab-invoked accident, not conspiracy – it surely needed to be explored, not rejected out of hand. A defining mark of good scientists is that they go to great pains to distinguish what they know and what they don’t know. By this criterion, the signatories of the Lancet letter were behaving as poor scientists.”

 

We invited Nicholas Wade to discuss his investigative work to have a Conversation That Matters about what we do and don’t actually know about the source of COVID-19. ---

 

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SHOW LESS

Does Context Matter? Guest: Vince Taylor, author of “Beyond the Blindfold: Harnessing the Secret Power of Context”

Does context matter? It’s an odd question to ask, especially of yourself. After all, isn't your point of view yours and therefore it’s correct? So who cares? Well, Vince Taylor cares. He cares so much he wrote a book about his journey of self-discovery.

 

Taylor says, “Before I really understood context, I understood nothing.” If you sit back for a moment and think about Taylor’s assertion, it seems implausible that you could be so far off base because you haven’t taken the time to consider the context. According to him, “Context is the most powerful, naturally occurring interruption of the conscious mind I have ever experienced – a neural concoction so influential that even the best and brightest suffer from incredible and inexplicable bias. The result is that now, to consider my opinions ‘right’ and other opinions ‘wrong’ has become preposterous and embarrassing.”

 

In fact, he was so moved by what he learned, he spent ten years writing a book that, should you read it and absorb the messages, you too will challenge yourself and your perspectives and biases. And if you decide to travel on that journey – one that Dr Scott Peck calls the “Road Less Traveled” – well, put on your seatbelt and wear a helmet because the road is bumpy and long.

 

Stuart McNish invited Vince Taylor, author of “Beyond the Blindfold: Harnessing the Secret Power of Context,” to join him for a conversation that matters about a path to enlightenment that is humbling and rewarding.

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Will the cruise ships ever come back to BC? - Guest Ian Robertson

Ep 356 - Will the cruise ships ever come back?

Guest: Ian Robertson

 

Where have all the cruise ships gone?

 

They were a long time coming.  It’s important to remember they didn’t come here by chance.

 

In the 1980s, the Honourable Grace McCarthy set her sights on building a sustainable tourism business and she knew the growing Alaska cruise ship industry was a perfect fit. She worked with the Feds and built Canada Place in Vancouver, not just as a convention centre but also as a world class cruise ship terminal that would bring millions of passengers and their money to Vancouver.

 

In the 1990s, the focus expanded to include rebuilding Ballantyne Pier and to include Victoria. And it worked brilliantly. Central to the success of the campaign is a provision in the Jones Act called the Passenger Vehicle Services Act, which requires ships carrying passengers to stop at a foreign port between two US ports.

 

This provision meant Vancouver and Victoria were perfectly located in the Alaska cruise ship industry. Ships could travel from Alaska to British Columbia and back again, or Alaska, BC and Seattle and back again. In 2018, “Cruising in Alaska” reported “about 3.8 million port-of-call cruise passenger visits, or approximately 61%, of all port-of-call cruise visits in the United States,” making Alaska the number one cruise destination.

 

Over the last three and a half decades, Canadian governments appear to have taken the industry for granted, so much so that when Alaska reached out to Premier Horgan and Prime Minister Trudeau to find a way around the Canadian government's COVID closed-border rules, neither leader even returned the call or email. 

 

Rather than sit by and do nothing, Senator Mike Lee of Utah introduced three bills (that weren’t approved) to repeal the PVSA, saying it is blatantly “Canada First” and it needs to go. Then Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski introduced a bill that was passed and now allows cruise ships to bypass Canada while our border remains closed.

 

Stuart McNish invited Ian Robertson, the CEO at the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority, to have a Conversation That Matters about why taking the cruise ship industry for granted is a bad idea.

 

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Is Cattle Ranching Sustainable? - Cherie Copithorne-Barnes

Ep 355 - Is cattle ranching sustainable?

Guest - Cherie Copithorne-Barnes

We need protein – plain and simple, we need it. And we need protein from nutrient rich sources. Beef, chicken, pork are all nutrient rich and when cooked, these are the foods that propelled the development of the human brain. They remain important to our brain health and the replacement of protein in our bodies that is continuously breaking down.

Alberta cattle rancher Cherie Copithorne-Barnes says, “Cows are an exceptional source of protein. They eat plant matter and bio-pack it into nutrient rich food for us.”

Today, there are approximately 70 million cows in North America. That’s down by close to 50 million cows from a peak in the 1970s.  These are large grazing animals that we eat. 50 million cows is still a lot of animals eating a lot of grass and grains and barley. They take up a lot of space and they burp methane.

“Yes,” says Copithorne-Barnes. “And they play a vital role in the health of marginal agricultural lands – land that you cannot grow anything else on,” to which Copithorne-Barnes points out, at over 1,300 metres above sea level in Alberta, no other agricultural product will grow and produce food humans can eat.

The question then is, are cows bad for us? Bad for the environment? Or are they good for the environment and good for us? And that begs the question – is cattle ranching sustainable?

Stuart McNish invited fourth generation rancher Cherie Copithorne-Barnes to join him for this episode of Conversations That Matter, Food for Thought to ask her about beef.

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Setting the Standard for Renewable Cities

Ep 354 - Setting the Standard for Renewable Cities

Guest - Dr Walter Mérida

 

As much of the world switches over to electric transportation, the “What about this?” and “What about that?” questions are popping up from those people who are saying, “Not possible.”

 

On the other side of that discussion is Dr. Walter Mérida, who prefers to ask “What if?”, as in “What if there was a way to integrate all of our disparate urban infrastructure systems to create a cohesive, comprehensive, and connected platform – driven by low or no-carbon technologies?”

 

Dr Mérida isn’t just asking – he’s doing. His labs, which are energy innovation hubs, recently secured $23 million in public and private funding to convert a city-sized block on the University of British Columbia campus into a smart energy district.

 

The plan is to build an advanced solar array on top of a parking lot next to a substation. The parking lot will be retrofitted with bidirectional electric vehicle charging stations. That means these stations are equipped so that when vehicles plug in, the stored energy in the battery is sent into the grid and back again. In other words, reversible EV charging.

 

Reversible EVs have passive energy in a sitting car that can be used by active participants in a smart energy storage network. Electricity is used on demand and will be directed to an electrolyzer to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, supplying the refuelling station for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. 

 

The hydrogen produced by this process is 100 percent renewable or “green hydrogen.” A secure 5G wireless technology platform will connect the system’s components to each other and to other on-campus systems and assets for optimal productivity and efficiency. It’s a complicated system, one that is needed to realize renewable cities. 

 

Stuart McNish invited Dr Walter Mérida to join him for a Conversation That Matters about the complex and achievable process of integrating renewable energy into the transportation and energy grid we need to successfully transition to electrified transportation.

 

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