Exploring Mathematics, Innovation, AI Futures, Affordable Housing, and the Power of Music: A New Season Kickoff

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Welcome to a new season of For What It's Worth that promises to be a whirlwind journey through the world of innovation, music, and social issues. Our first guest is John Mighton, whose contributions to the fields of Mathematics, Literature, Drama, Education and Social Entrepreneurship are nothing short of extraordinary. His charity organization JUMP Math  is changing how we can create intellectual quality in our society through the teaching of mathematics.

Can you imagine a world governed by Artificial Intelligence?   Eric Montiero, a robotics engineer, analytics executive, and author, paints a fascinating picture of this future through his novel, ALMA

But the excitement doesn't stop there. We'll be diving deep into the affordable housing crisis, dissecting this complex problem from varied perspectives. We'll share the heartwarming story of musician Douglas Cameron, who lost his cherished Gibson guitar, only to find it in an extraordinary project, One Guitar, 100 Hands, by the multi-talented George Tierney. You'll also meet Edwin Morris, founder of Pioneer Knowledge Services, who explores the critical role of knowledge management in non-profit organizations. If you love thought-provoking discussions, inspiring stories, and engaging guests, join us next week for an exciting kickoff to Season 5 of For What It's Worth.

Blog post for this episode

The music for this episode, "High Water"  is written and performed by our current artist in residence, #DouglasCameron

You can find out more about Douglas by visiting our show blog and by listening to our episode, #TheOldGuitar

Knowledge Management Institute of Canada
From those who know to those who need to know

Workplace Innovation Network for Canada
Every Graduate is Innovation-Enabled; Every Employee can Contribute to Innovation

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

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Episode Transcript

Blake Melnick (00:10):
Well, here we are , season five of For what it's
Worth.
I'm your host, Blake Melnick,and we have a fantastic season
in store for you, and here's alittle taste of what you can
expect.
We have one of Canada's greatMr.
, John M, coming on the show.
John's accomplishments in thefield of mathematics, literature
, drama, social entrepreneurshipand education are nothing short

(00:32):
of extraordinary.
John and I will do a deep diveinto the importance of helping
students develop the mindset formathematics and innovation.
We'll discuss the importance ofcreating intellectual equality
as a means for addressing manyof the social issues of our time
.
We have a number of crossoverepisodes in season five, and the

(00:53):
first will feature author EricMontiero.
Eric is a robotics engineer bytraining and analytics executive
by profession and a writer byaccident.
Eric's novel Alma presents uswith one possible future in a
society governed by generativeAI.
Eric and I will discuss theimplications of artificial
intelligence now and in thefuture through the lens of his

(01:17):
novel Alma.
We have Edwin Morris, founderand president of Pioneer
Knowledge Services and host ofthe podcast series Because You
Need to Know coming on the show.
Edwin and I will discusspodcasting as a service.
We'll talk about the importanceof knowledge management
processes, practices andmethodologies in supporting the
work of not-for-profitorganizations.

(01:38):
Pioneer Knowledge Services isthe first not-for-profit
knowledge management firm in theUnited States.
We have musician George Tierneycoming on the show.
In addition to being a musician, George is a board member and
secretary of the Canadian FolkMusic Awards.
He is the president of theEastern Ontario Folk Music
Project and the Upper CanadaFolk Festival.

(01:59):
George is coming on the show totalk about an initiative that
he helped to found a couple ofyears ago, called One Guitar,
100 Hands, which celebratesmusicians, instruments and their
history.
This is a crossover episode.
Many of our listeners mayrecall that when we launched our
series in the company ofreaders and writers, we had

(02:20):
musician Douglas Cameron on theshow to talk about his story Old
Guitar, and through ourinterview we discussed whether
or not that old guitar, that oldGibson guitar, might actually
be the missing guitar of RobertJohnson's.
For those of you that had achance to listen to Old Guitar
, Douglas had this guitar stolen, but it eventually found its

(02:41):
way into the hands of GeorgeTierney.
As it turned out, George hadfallen in love with Douglas's
guitar, so much so that helaunched an initiative One
Guitar, 100 Hands where the ideawas to take this old guitar and
give it to 50 of the bestmusicians around to record their
songs on it.
When Douglas discovered thathis old guitar was still in

(03:04):
existence and in the hands ofGeorge Tierney, he reached out
to George.
George asked him if he couldhold on to the guitar as this
initiative unfolded.
Douglas loved this old guitar,but he felt that what George was
doing - that his One Guitar,100 Hands initiative was so cool
that he agreed to let Georgehold on to the guitar, at least

(03:25):
for now.
We'll talk to George about OneGuitar and 100 Hands and all the
fantastic musicians that haverecorded on the guitar to this
point.
We'll also discuss whetherGeorge believes this could be
the missing guitar of RobertJohnson and hopefully George
will give us some clips or sometracks that he's recorded that

(03:45):
we can play for you on the show.
I'm really looking forward tothis episode.
I'm going to do a multi-partepisode in season 5 on the
subject of the affordablehousing crisis.
There's been a lot written aboutthis, a lot of finger pointing
as to the root cause of theproblem and who or what is at
fault, and much of what we readin the news is sensationalized

(04:07):
and either not supported bysufficient research or the
research is skewed by specialinterest groups looking to
further their own agenda or bypoliticians using the media
attention around this issue togarner political support.
In order to find workablesolutions to problems with this
level of complexity, it requiresthat we truly understand the

(04:27):
nature of the problem from allperspectives.
My concern is we've seen anumber of policies being put
forward and implemented at themunicipal, provincial and
federal levels to address theissue of affordable housing,
which may be ill-conceived andwhich may, in fact, create more
of a problem than a solution.
So, again, this will be amulti-part episode and I want to

(04:50):
have guests speaking todifferent elements or different
aspects of this challenge sothat we get the full picture.
We also have some otherexciting surprises in store for
you this season, which we'll letyou know about in a future
episode, but I do hope you'lljoin us next week for the
opening episode of season 5 ofFor what it's Worth.