November 9, 2023 • 33 mins
At the advent of a transformative time in technologic history, skills like empathy, compassion, collaboration, and curiosity are becoming more crucial than ever. In this episode, J.B. and Molly speak with magician-turned-technologist Ryan Modjeski, the driving force behind the top-grossing literacy app, Reading Rainbow's Skybrary, as well as UNICEF KidPower and most recently, Empatico. Ryan shares advice on building empathy and emotional skills at scale and the power those can have in creative problem solving. He also reveals some illusionist secrets that have surprising application to user experience and technology.
"The culture I try to build is one that is unafraid to try and the only real sin is making the same mistake over and over again." - Ryan Modjeski
00:01 Intro
01:24 Social-emotional learning and empathy
08:43 Hire, Fire, Boss!
12:55 Skills for a better tomorrow
15:49 Empathy at scale
22:11 Embracing diversity on teams
23:41 UX tricks from a former magician
31:00 Final thoughts
Keep up with Ryan at @rmodjeski on Twitter / X and learn more about Empatico at Empatico.org.
Mentioned in this episode:
- Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami
- The Power of Moments by Dan & Chip Heath
- The War for Kindness by Jamil Zaki
Follow Unserious in your podcast app, at unserious.com, and on Instagram and Threads at @unserious.fun.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is Unserious.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Empathy is a word that sounds soft and comforting,
like an old wistful blanketfrom your childhood.
But empathy is more thancompassion.
It's noticing your biases andbeing able to see from another's
point of view.
In this rapidly shifting world,with so many global high-stakes
challenges, empathy isn't anice to have.
It's an imperative skill forour collective future,
(00:33):
especially for the nextgeneration.
Building empathy at scalesounds unlikely, but our guest
today is doing just that and, inthe process, showing us
technology used for good,building empathetic connections
between children around theworld, for fostering
social-emotional learning and,close to my heart, increasing
children's literacy.
(00:54):
Ryan Majeski is the ExecutiveDirector of Empatico, a free
platform that helps kids aroundthe globe become more empathetic
, compassionate and tolerantthrough meaningful connections.
Ryan has been a technology forgood advocate and a leader for
over 25 years.
He built the top-grossingliteracy app, reading Rainbow,
skybury, as well as UNICEFKidPower, a platform that has
(01:16):
empowered kids to use theiractivity to help save the lives
of over 100,000 severelymalnourished children around the
world.
Ryan, hey, thank you for beingwith us today.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
It's amazing to have you here.
So when we talk about buildinglife skills in children, I feel
like the conversation, certainlyhere in the Valley, is around
STEM, science, technology,engineering and math, but your
work really focuses on topicslike emotional skills, curiosity
, compassion, empathy.
(01:48):
How do these qualities help usbuild a better tomorrow?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I have this idea that in the near future, when the
large language model is croppingup, the stuff that they're
teaching in school today will be, in a large degree, handled for
us.
In the same way that acalculator helps us with math
and science, grammarly is goingto help us write our papers and
write our emails.
I can imagine a day that I'mnever going to drive a car again
(02:15):
.
I can imagine a day where Inever have to actually write an
email again.
The ability to do that becomesless important than being
resilient, being a goodcollaborator by being a person
with critical thinking skills orsomeone who makes choices that
(02:35):
are ethical about how they wantto build the future.
You can say, in the same waythat calculators have opened our
minds up to doing higher ordermath, computers have opened our
minds up to doing crazy modelingand physics so we can make
buildings that could never havebeen built before.
Ai and large language modelsshould be right now.
(02:57):
They're on their way, but theyshould be able to help jumpstart
our creativity and take us tohigher and better places than we
as people have ever been ableto go before.
The question is, what do youchoose to do with that?
I would think if I were ateacher in school right now, I'd
be most concerned with criticalthinking skills.
(03:19):
You can process all this like afirehose of information you're
taking in and the ability tomake ethical choices and
collaborate in this future thatwe are barreling towards.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
How did you get into this work?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I've always been service oriented or mission
oriented in my work.
My journey to this role is apretty funny one.
I got into video games andmaking video games right out of
school.
My very first job was workingon a beevus and butt head video
game.
Nice, thank you.
It was like over the years,that first phase of my career, I
(04:03):
would say.
I read this book by HarukiMurakami.
It was called Dance, dance,dance.
The main character in that bookwrote the articles in a travel
magazine that were never meantto be read.
It was just like you needarticles, but it really is.
For the pictures.
He called this work shovelingcultural snow.
I feel like what I was doingduring those years making video
(04:27):
games about CSI, new York orwhatever was shoveling cultural
snow.
It didn't really have anycultural importance.
There's some video games thatdo Last of Us very resonant
Murder.
She wrote the game.
Yeah, you can.
It's debatable.
I'm not going to say this.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
We will not speak ill of Angela Lansbury on this show
.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
So you know, I, at the same time I was also working
on veterinarian medicalsimulators for tween girls.
I was working on simulators fornursing students at the college
level to like simulateinteractivity between them and
teach, you know, called teachpersonal skills and different
(05:12):
things that you can't teach in anormal textbook.
Yeah, and so that, in my mind,got me thinking about education
and building for education andother ways you can use game like
structures for in technology.
And then the housing crisis hitin, like 2008, 2009.
Our company locked up.
(05:32):
We're all furloughed.
So I instead spun up my owncompany called Honey Bee Labs,
because I figured like if I'mgoing to go out and this is how
I'm going to lose my job, I'mgoing to do it on my own terms
and die, you know, on my ownsword.
And so I just started thisthing and and that wound up
getting me sort of acquired byreading rainbow and that's why I
(05:55):
wound up leading their productteam and I've just been sort of
like sliding this gradient fromfor profit, cultural snow to
like nonprofit change, the worldtype stuff.
And the thing that blows meaway when I joined UNICEF was
like I looked at the rejectionon Don who hired me.
I said I cannot believe that mystupid skills can save the
(06:16):
lives of 100,000 kids Like howdoes that even work?
How did you find me?
Thank you, you know how amazing.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I mean, how did he find you?
What are the skills that theywere looking for to help change
the lives of children across theplanet?
At UNICEF.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
You know I would say that my last few stops on my
career path, people have hiredme because they thought they
needed creative help and reallythey need operational help.
So I've done the same thingkind of over and over again not
when I joined reading rainbow.
(06:51):
They've gotten a whole bunch ofinvestment.
They were like featured in theWWDC, like the Lavarra's up on
stage when they were launchingthe iPad.
They're like reading rainbow isgoing to be in the iPad.
That's how high profile it was.
I showed up and they had likethree or four months left to
finish the thing and theycouldn't figure out really how
to start.
You know, they thought theyneeded to figure out how to make
(07:12):
books interactive and that partwas easy.
It was like industrializing theteam.
To make 300 interactive booksin three months was the hard
part.
But it comes with properorganization, proper like set up
behind the scenes to get you tothe point that you can scale
(07:32):
the work you're doing.
You're building things with afactory mindset instead of a
bespoke mindset, and then theretention stuff comes from just
caring about what you're doingand analyzing your work and
being very critical of your work.
You know I was a magician for20 years.
Oh you were.
Yeah, we can talk about that.
But yeah, I was a magician for20 years and when I was working
(07:54):
on my show, the thing I did is Iwould create a set list.
Yeah, I would go out and do mybits and I had like eight or 10
different tricks that I would doand then, like before they even
paid me, I would go to the back, bring out my calendar, write
down what worked, what didn'twork.
Like the kids hated me, likethis, got a huge laugh, whatever
(08:15):
it was, and I did that for ayear.
Wow, it was like that type oflike critical reflection and
that's the process you have toalso bring to retention.
Like who knows what's going toretain people?
There's tricks, you know,there's trade, you know things
you can do, but really likebeing that methodical about self
criticism is the only way toget this number sent.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
And we will be right back.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So are you familiar with the game Mary Shaggerkill?
Sure, okay, good, good, good,sure.
So we, we did a spin on thisgame called Higher Fire Boss.
Okay, three names one to hire,one to fire and one to pick, as
your new boss Got it.
Okay, this is great.
For the first one, we'll do achildren's television hosts Fred
(09:10):
Rogers, Paul Rubens or Bill Nye.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
I would hire Paul Rubens.
You could control him, he'samazing.
Bill Nye, well, I would hire.
I'm terrible because I wouldhire Rubens and Nye, but if I
had to fire one, I guess I'dfire Rubens because he's
problematic and I make Mr Rogersmy boss, 100%.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Oh my gosh, I love that I had Bill Nye as the boss.
He seems boss, like, like.
He seems like he needs to be incharge.
I don't know this is allassumptions.
I feel like Fred Rogers wouldbe in the work with you, like
real, like you want to get inand get his hands in it.
And I also fired Peewee Herman.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I'll also say I'm this is kind of biased on this
one because I worked for LeVarBurton at Redie Rainbow, who
then is a student of Fred Rogers, and so I feel like by Osmosis,
I am a second generationstudent of Fred Rogers.
That's why I would make him myboss.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yep, that's a wonderful place to be, yeah, to
be part of, like the Fred Rogersuniverse in some way or another
.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
I might be the only one that believes that.
I don't think anyone thinksthat about me, but I think that.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I like to think that about you, thank you yeah.
Yeah, okay, molly, do you wantto go through the second one?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Oh sure.
The second one is for hire fireboss is, on the magic side of
things, david Blaine, davidCopperfield or Harry Houdini.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I know too much about these people.
I know, geez, can I, can youcome to me?
Last, I got to really thinkabout this one.
This is hard Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Okay, I would.
I don't trust David Blaine, soI would fire him.
I'm hire Harry Houdini bossDavid Copperfield.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, I.
So Houdini was a prettycutthroat business person.
Yep, he would sit and likepeople are trying to do escape
acts at the same time as him andhe would send his brothers
around to beat those people upto scare him out of the business
.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Oh wow, he's like he's like a.
He's a thug he is a.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
He's a mob boss, that's right, he's a magic mob
boss.
He would go, he would have hisbrothers, you know as students,
go up and swap real locks forfake locks with his competitors,
so they'd actually be locked upon stage, oh shit.
And then he.
And then, to control hiscompetitors, he decided that he
couldn't eliminate them, so hewould own them and meet his
(11:52):
brother into a character namedHardin, who's his number one
rival.
But really it was all them allalong.
So, oh man, I kind of like I'mscared of him.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I don't, I don't Fire .
Speaker 3 (12:06):
That's the thing is either boss or fire.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
I think he's the boss .
Copperfield, yeah, is verysuccessful, so you got to hire
him because he's going to takeyou places and blame.
I wouldn't want to.
That's a regrettable attrition.
That's, that's what that isOkay.
I'd let him flame out and leaveme.
I wouldn't let him go.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
My favorite David Blaine moment was when he did a
magic trick in front of DionSanders and Dion Sanders was
like it was so in orbit, andthen his final comment was I
need a nap, and walked offscreen.
I was like, oh whoa, his mindwas so blown, he needs to go
take a rest.
(12:46):
Beyond, dion, you designproducts for children, but I'm
pretty sure you have adults onyour team.
So I'm curious what are the?
What are the skills that youfeel like are missing, or maybe
that you're most excited aboutin the world of work today?
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Yeah Well, I won't speak about my team today,
because they'll probably listento this too, and I actually I'm
I'm so infatuated with them.
I, you know, you dream of ateam that is as trusting and
cohesive and self-starting asthe team I have.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
You know, the things I look for when I'm hiring are
critical thinking skills.
You know, it's that ability toto put something out and then
disassociate enough from it tobe like that worked, that didn't
work.
I'm bad at that.
I need help.
I need to be like whatever.
The culture I try to build isone that is unafraid to try, and
(13:48):
the only real sin is makingthem a same mistake over and
over and over again, likelearning and being able to learn
and being able to thinkcritically about how we get
there.
That's the only thing thatbothers me or that I care about.
The other thing that I think Ilove about my team and that I
try to instill in teams is thisembrace of change and this
(14:08):
embrace and flexibility.
If you're going to work asquickly and effectively as I'd
like to, you have to be able tolet go of stuff, change your
mind.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, what I'm hearing from you is when you,
when you think about culturesetting inside of your
organizations, you're you'rethinking about critical thinking
, adaptability, resilience, andyou and I and this like learning
how to do something betterconstantly.
When you think about, like thework that you do around social,
(14:39):
emotional learning and empathy,how does that work show up in
the products that you arecreating?
Speaker 3 (14:47):
One of my critiques of a lot of nonprofit
programming is a failure to, ora tendency to, match the
activity you're asking someoneto do with the outcome you want.
Yep.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Like if this program was to empathy, no one would
ever do it, yeah Right.
If you're just like this islike six steps to empathy, like
do these empathy pushups?
No one's going to want to do it, the market doesn't want it,
teachers don't want it, kidsdon't want it.
If you're to say we justlaunched this new empathy truth
or dare game just truth or darewith an empathy twist and the
(15:24):
questions are like what's thelast song you listened to and
how did it make you feel?
And the dares are like go tellsomeone how much they need to
you and the students can playthis in the classroom.
You can play with your family,whatever you want to do, and you
earn points.
It's a game, but in that way,like the play is the important
part and the outcome is thelearnings.
(15:46):
You're sort of like gettingthrough osmosis as you do it.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
I think this is a great way to.
This is great point oftransition into the and focus on
empathy and how Empatico isactually encouraging children to
build empathy.
How do you do it?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Very well, I hope I don't know.
When I was a computer or videogame designer, one of the things
that I always said was all Icare about is hiring an
empathetic person.
That's a skill you can't teach.
I can teach the rest, yeah.
Once I started working inEmpatico, I realized that
empathy was teachable, and thatwas a really big sort of aha
(16:24):
moment for me, and one of thethings I was sort of frustrated
with was that the goals of whatempathy meant were like 20 years
in the future you know, it'slike more resilient people.
Like you know, all these thingsare way in the future and I
wanted to make something moremeasurable so I can say you know
(16:45):
I love analytics, obviously.
So what can you do on myplatform?
And how can I count it, how canI measure it?
How can we show it as a skillyou're building, rather than an
idea or a, you know, the softeridea.
And so we created this thingcalled the empathy framework.
And you know, without boringeverybody, the quick version is
that the current thinking aroundempathy, which I learned from
(17:05):
this book called War on Kindness, which I recommend everyone
read, is that there's threetypes of empathy.
There's behavioral empathy,cognitive empathy and emotional
empathy, and they sort ofinterplay with each other and
you can think about it as likeunderstanding what other people
feel, understanding what otherpeople think and understanding
how to help others.
Right, that's the threedifferent ways of thinking about
it and we said like, well,actually there's another layer
(17:30):
to that, there's another accessto it, which is empathy with
yourself, right, likemindfulness, self-awareness,
self-care.
And then there's empathy with,like your, your peer group or
your family or your in-group,which is all about, you know,
kindness, perspective taking,emotional recognition.
And then, after all of that,there's empathy with the world,
and that's all about diplomacyand inclusivity and
(17:52):
collaboration and all thesethings.
And we realized that our workis really focusing on that outer
ring, that with the world,without developing all three
layers of that.
I think, in my opinion, you'rein a weakened state, like you're
much more resilient if you haveempathy with yourself.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
And if you try to have empathy with the whole
world without having a strongsense of self, you really like
putting yourself in a badposition, in my opinion, and the
other way around, if you haveno empathy with the outer world,
but only empathy with yourselflike we know, people like that
too it's not a good place to be.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Back with more in just a moment.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
When we at IDEO would talk about our design thinking
process or human centered design, we always started with empathy
first.
So when you think, when youthink about user research,
putting yourself in someoneelse's shoes, how are, how do
you see empathy making us bettercreators, better collaborators,
(19:02):
particularly in the adult world?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, Well, I'll answer your question a little
bit different.
One sweet big IDEO fan, big fanof you, molly, and the work
you've done, and of course youtoo, jb Not really, but the.
We run a program calledCodename with Empathy in
(19:26):
conjunction with the AspenInstitute, the Stevens
Initiative and Codeorg, where weconnect classrooms in Egypt and
the US, and also in Mexico andthe US oh great.
Yeah, it's really cool, so coolFurther hour of code program and
what we do is we teach empathyand we teach social learning
skills in conjunction withcomputer science.
(19:48):
So the first thing you do aspart of this project is we have
the kids show up thinkingthey're going to make a video
game.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Don't tell them that's not how it's going to be.
I hope they don't listen tothis.
What they wind up learning is alot of this.
What you're just talking about,molly, we we have them think
about their community and thinkabout what they could do to help
their community and how theycan use technology to better
their community.
I love it, yeah, and that's thetype of design thinking that we
(20:18):
need more of.
But the people who want to takecare of communities yeah they
need a process and a place to be, and I think that's that's what
we're trying to build, thinkingaround and build towards, so
that when these kids enter theworkplace they're not just like,
oh, I'm going to make anothervideo game.
They can think, wow, I can usetechnology to improve, you know,
(20:39):
the environment it can improve.
You know, like, the migrationissues, like the stuff the kids
come up with were incredible.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
It's incredibly powerful.
When we were over it, when I wasover at Facebook working on the
ads team, we would hirethousands of engineers every
year from across the industry.
They came from Uber, they camefrom from graduate school, they
came from amazing companies andthey're all building advertising
(21:11):
products for generally smallbusinesses and sometimes
agencies and brands as well,which are quite larger.
None of these people that wehad ever hired had ever owned a
small business.
They'd never.
They'd never done all thisstuff.
So they, so they're like oh, wejust need to build an effective
product that does the thingthat we say it's going to do,
(21:32):
and it's like no, you, if you'rea small business running a
flower shop on a corner inLondon, how is that different
than running a food stall inBangkok versus running on
running media and placing mediaon a trade desk in New York?
They're all using the sameinterface and they all have very
(21:55):
different experiences with it,and it's really important that
the engineers who are buildingactually understand who that
customer is and and what drivesthem crazy about our product.
Yeah, what they love about it.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Yeah, well, and what I love about an organization is
embracing the neurodiversitybetween all of us.
Right Like I heard some like itwas I'm going to say this wrong
, but it's a very like divisivestatement that you know,
organizations consist of Cstudents hiring A students to
manage B students.
(22:32):
Right Like and to be likethat's one that's kind of rude.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
I love that I do.
I'm still going to use itsomeday.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
But what I actually think about it is that it's not
that one group is better orleading the other.
I actually that's the part Ithink is divisive, but what I
said.
But if you can embrace thatdiversity in the way we think
and who we are and I thinkworking remotely actually opens
up the aperture of who we canwork with, both in terms of
(23:02):
geography but alsoneurodiversity then we actually
can build better teams andstronger products together.
Like that, collaborationcreates the biggest innovations,
I think.
Then either one trying to do itthemselves.
The thing I really believeabout like ethical design and
(23:34):
ethical product development andthe reason why I like to be in
the nonprofit space, is that youcan be more mission oriented.
I'm also a big fan of what'shis name BJ Fogg yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah, small habits, everything that he teaches.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
I was exposed to him like maybe six, seven years ago
and I was like, oh, he justlearned everything magicians
know.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
What do magicians know?
I'm curious, I'm curious how tomanipulate behavior.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
I'll give you two examples of how magic can be
used to influence or drivepeople the way you want them to
go.
One is this idea that I reallybelieve in and call it's about
the application and release ofpressure.
If I'm a magician, in a theatersetting, let's say the dumbest
thing you can do is invite theaudience up on the stage with
(24:20):
you and ask them to talk.
Why would you ever do that?
It sounds like you're invitingdisaster.
It is the whole point of amagic show.
How do you manage that?
How do you make sure it worksout successfully?
Speaker 1 (24:34):
You take this idea out of it Through magic.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Well, magic, but you're applying pressure and
you're giving them a releasevalve.
Coming up on stage is probablyalso one of the most nerve
wracking thing a normal personwould ever do.
All they want to do is go backand sit down.
Correct, that's right.
You apply just slightly morepressure by maybe leaning over
them, maybe speaking fast toreally flood them.
(24:57):
Then you can have them make afree choice.
That's actually a predeterminedchoice and it feels free With
the promise of as soon as you'redone, you get to go sit back
down.
They'll do anything to get outof there.
You can actually cause them topick the most likely path or the
(25:18):
easiest path to exiting, whichis like, let's say, I want you
to pick one of four things.
You'll pick the third one,because that's what people
normally do.
If I can pressure you, you'llthink less and you'll just do.
You can use that if you want todrive conversions.
The best way out of thishorrible situation is to
(25:39):
subscribe to my website.
Again, a lot of magic isconvincing people to make a free
choice when really they'remaking a predetermined choice.
One is to flip through thecards.
You pick a card, any card, andyou magically force them to take
the one that is the ace ofspades.
That's easy.
You can also lay three objectsin front of someone and say pick
(26:03):
one of these three.
They pick it and you're like Iactually knew that you hold up
some predictions.
It's like you were going topick the middle thing.
You have this matrix ofsolutions and there's different
outs for each one.
You're actually by withholdinginformation about what you're
doing.
You can alter reality in realtime to get to the result that
(26:23):
you want.
You can work all these thingsinto UX and UI design, and also
into management and leadership.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
That alternate reality in real time might be a
superpower of yours in settingup operations for creative teams
to do their best work.
I know that I would be on thatteam, being like it's just like
magic.
He's always two steps ahead.
Wow, I'm already blown away bymagic just generally.
(26:55):
I would like to believe in italways.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I read this book called Power of Moments.
It's a pretty digestible readand it really talks about how,
when you're storytelling, whenyou're creating a performance
which I believe that technologyor the type of the products I
create are in conversation withthe end user it is a performance
(27:19):
, it is a story, it is all ofthat.
It's just nonlinear,non-traditional storytelling.
When you're trying to createthese moments, then you want to
have peaks and valleys and isdefinitely this crescendo when
you look at the books like Powerof Moments and they really talk
about how you can increase yourretention, increase your
(27:42):
customer support scores.
There's all these ways that youcan create magical moments at
unusual times that really stickin someone's mind.
You don't want to deliver theawe when their mind is fuzzed
out by noise and other things.
One of the best instances ofmisdirection is that you can use
(28:03):
a large movement to cover asmall movement.
If you want to do a trickything with your hands that's
very technical and doesn'tactually look very good, you can
wave your arms through the airlike in an arc and your mind
literally can only register thelarge movement and the small
movement is absolutely invisible.
It's like a defect in our minds.
(28:24):
You want to inverse that if youwant to make something
meaningful, you don't want toadd your awe-inspiring moment
inside a big movement or inside,like your.
If you have to fumble aroundand get your credit card and try
to type in all your credit card, you don't want awe to happen.
Then you want awe to happen themoment after, when you're
rested.
I do think there's a literal,technical application of awe
(28:52):
that could and should be appliedto products.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
I love that and also just also thinking about, like,
empathy is a driver.
Empathy is important increating meaningful and
transformative moments, andthose meaningful and
transformative moments, ourmoments of awe, and I think
that's, I think that's, and howmuch you know, I think in sort
(29:18):
of the world we're in today,there isn't, there's less wonder
because we have access to somuch information and, and so I
just think there's somethingreally powerful and how you
design and create that as aleader, within your, within your
teams.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Well, and I think that people like yearn for
larger meaning, and awe is partof that too.
You know like, absolutely.
I'm not religious, but a lot ofpeople find the awesomeness of
religion very attractive and I100% agree and understand that.
You know like, when thosethings happen organically,
they're even more monumental.
(29:57):
You know, whether or notmanufactured by a magician like
me, they could be even morespecial and more powerful.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Ryan, where can people go to learn more about
you and about Empadigo?
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Well, you can find me on Twitter or X or whatever you
want to call it at our Majeski,which is hard to spell, but I'm
sure you can put it somewhere,and you can also learn more
about our work at Empadigo, atEmpadigoorg.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Ryan, thank you so much for joining us on Unserious
today and hope you have a greatweek.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Thank you both so much for having me.
Jb, you know I don't think wementioned this in the podcast.
You and I go way, way back andit's just.
You live in my mind, you know,all the time and I'm just so
pleased to be reconnected withyou and to meet you, molly.
It's been a real pleasure.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
That was amazing.
Jb Ryan really is a magician.
What I took away from theconversation is a deeper
understanding of empathy and whyit's crucial, not only in
social impact but for success inthe world of work today.
I'm thinking about empathy nowfrom a lens of behavior, from a
cognitive lens, from anemotional lens and, just like
the importance of starting withyourself, being kind to yourself
(31:23):
, change starts with yourself,and I'm pretty dazzled by Ryan's
career and the way he thinksabout leading teams.
He's really at the edge whenyou look at like the
conversations he's having aboutneurodiversity on teams to
artificial intelligence and thenthinking about the power of awe
(31:44):
in creating moments that matter.
It's pretty magical that youcan create moments in a user
journey at unexpected times thatstick in someone's mind because
the timing was right and sobringing that magician skill to
really designing for animpactful experience.
I loved it.
Just spoke to my human-centeredheart.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I love it.
Yeah, I also found thatdiscussion of magic in moments
so resonant.
It's how we create thoseexperiences, that surprise and
delight.
I learned that magic working inretail and restaurants and when
Ryan mentioned that, we go way,way back 20 years ago.
Ryan and I worked at a wineshop in Washington DC and we get
(32:28):
these grumpy Congress people inHill staffers and think tankers
every night and we send themout much happier with a bottle
of wine.
Obviously, ryan has taken thatmagic to much greater scale over
than Pataco Totally.
But zooming out a bit, myoverall impressions are much
more serious and we recordedthis discussion a bit over a
(32:51):
month ago before we saw war inthe Middle East, and since then
I think the importance ofpracticing empathy has come into
searing focus and theimportance of teaching children
how to practice empathy isreally critical to the peace and
stability of our planet and ourpeople.
(33:14):
So how's that for an unseriousthought?
This is Unserious.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Empathy is a word that sounds soft and comforting,
like an old wistful blanketfrom your childhood.
But empathy is more thancompassion.
It's noticing your biases andbeing able to see from another's
point of view.
In this rapidly shifting world,with so many global high-stakes
challenges, empathy isn't anice to have.
It's an imperative skill forour collective future,
(00:33):
especially for the nextgeneration.
Building empathy at scalesounds unlikely, but our guest
today is doing just that and, inthe process, showing us
technology used for good,building empathetic connections
between children around theworld, for fostering
social-emotional learning and,close to my heart, increasing
children's literacy.
(00:54):
Ryan Majeski is the ExecutiveDirector of Empatico, a free
platform that helps kids aroundthe globe become more empathetic
, compassionate and tolerantthrough meaningful connections.
Ryan has been a technology forgood advocate and a leader for
over 25 years.
He built the top-grossingliteracy app, reading Rainbow,
skybury, as well as UNICEFKidPower, a platform that has
(01:16):
empowered kids to use theiractivity to help save the lives
of over 100,000 severelymalnourished children around the
world.
Ryan, hey, thank you for beingwith us today.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
It's amazing to have you here.
So when we talk about buildinglife skills in children, I feel
like the conversation, certainlyhere in the Valley, is around
STEM, science, technology,engineering and math, but your
work really focuses on topicslike emotional skills, curiosity
, compassion, empathy.
(01:48):
How do these qualities help usbuild a better tomorrow?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I have this idea that in the near future, when the
large language model is croppingup, the stuff that they're
teaching in school today will be, in a large degree, handled for
us.
In the same way that acalculator helps us with math
and science, grammarly is goingto help us write our papers and
write our emails.
I can imagine a day that I'mnever going to drive a car again
(02:15):
.
I can imagine a day where Inever have to actually write an
email again.
The ability to do that becomesless important than being
resilient, being a goodcollaborator by being a person
with critical thinking skills orsomeone who makes choices that
(02:35):
are ethical about how they wantto build the future.
You can say, in the same waythat calculators have opened our
minds up to doing higher ordermath, computers have opened our
minds up to doing crazy modelingand physics so we can make
buildings that could never havebeen built before.
Ai and large language modelsshould be right now.
(02:57):
They're on their way, but theyshould be able to help jumpstart
our creativity and take us tohigher and better places than we
as people have ever been ableto go before.
The question is, what do youchoose to do with that?
I would think if I were ateacher in school right now, I'd
be most concerned with criticalthinking skills.
(03:19):
You can process all this like afirehose of information you're
taking in and the ability tomake ethical choices and
collaborate in this future thatwe are barreling towards.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
How did you get into this work?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I've always been service oriented or mission
oriented in my work.
My journey to this role is apretty funny one.
I got into video games andmaking video games right out of
school.
My very first job was workingon a beevus and butt head video
game.
Nice, thank you.
It was like over the years,that first phase of my career, I
(04:03):
would say.
I read this book by HarukiMurakami.
It was called Dance, dance,dance.
The main character in that bookwrote the articles in a travel
magazine that were never meantto be read.
It was just like you needarticles, but it really is.
For the pictures.
He called this work shovelingcultural snow.
I feel like what I was doingduring those years making video
(04:27):
games about CSI, new York orwhatever was shoveling cultural
snow.
It didn't really have anycultural importance.
There's some video games thatdo Last of Us very resonant
Murder.
She wrote the game.
Yeah, you can.
It's debatable.
I'm not going to say this.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
We will not speak ill of Angela Lansbury on this show
.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
So you know, I, at the same time I was also working
on veterinarian medicalsimulators for tween girls.
I was working on simulators fornursing students at the college
level to like simulateinteractivity between them and
teach, you know, called teachpersonal skills and different
(05:12):
things that you can't teach in anormal textbook.
Yeah, and so that, in my mind,got me thinking about education
and building for education andother ways you can use game like
structures for in technology.
And then the housing crisis hitin, like 2008, 2009.
Our company locked up.
(05:32):
We're all furloughed.
So I instead spun up my owncompany called Honey Bee Labs,
because I figured like if I'mgoing to go out and this is how
I'm going to lose my job, I'mgoing to do it on my own terms
and die, you know, on my ownsword.
And so I just started thisthing and and that wound up
getting me sort of acquired byreading rainbow and that's why I
(05:55):
wound up leading their productteam and I've just been sort of
like sliding this gradient fromfor profit, cultural snow to
like nonprofit change, the worldtype stuff.
And the thing that blows meaway when I joined UNICEF was
like I looked at the rejectionon Don who hired me.
I said I cannot believe that mystupid skills can save the
(06:16):
lives of 100,000 kids Like howdoes that even work?
How did you find me?
Thank you, you know how amazing.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I mean, how did he find you?
What are the skills that theywere looking for to help change
the lives of children across theplanet?
At UNICEF.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
You know I would say that my last few stops on my
career path, people have hiredme because they thought they
needed creative help and reallythey need operational help.
So I've done the same thingkind of over and over again not
when I joined reading rainbow.
(06:51):
They've gotten a whole bunch ofinvestment.
They were like featured in theWWDC, like the Lavarra's up on
stage when they were launchingthe iPad.
They're like reading rainbow isgoing to be in the iPad.
That's how high profile it was.
I showed up and they had likethree or four months left to
finish the thing and theycouldn't figure out really how
to start.
You know, they thought theyneeded to figure out how to make
(07:12):
books interactive and that partwas easy.
It was like industrializing theteam.
To make 300 interactive booksin three months was the hard
part.
But it comes with properorganization, proper like set up
behind the scenes to get you tothe point that you can scale
(07:32):
the work you're doing.
You're building things with afactory mindset instead of a
bespoke mindset, and then theretention stuff comes from just
caring about what you're doingand analyzing your work and
being very critical of your work.
You know I was a magician for20 years.
Oh you were.
Yeah, we can talk about that.
But yeah, I was a magician for20 years and when I was working
(07:54):
on my show, the thing I did is Iwould create a set list.
Yeah, I would go out and do mybits and I had like eight or 10
different tricks that I would doand then, like before they even
paid me, I would go to the back, bring out my calendar, write
down what worked, what didn'twork.
Like the kids hated me, likethis, got a huge laugh, whatever
(08:15):
it was, and I did that for ayear.
Wow, it was like that type oflike critical reflection and
that's the process you have toalso bring to retention.
Like who knows what's going toretain people?
There's tricks, you know,there's trade, you know things
you can do, but really likebeing that methodical about self
criticism is the only way toget this number sent.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
And we will be right back.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So are you familiar with the game Mary Shaggerkill?
Sure, okay, good, good, good,sure.
So we, we did a spin on thisgame called Higher Fire Boss.
Okay, three names one to hire,one to fire and one to pick, as
your new boss Got it.
Okay, this is great.
For the first one, we'll do achildren's television hosts Fred
(09:10):
Rogers, Paul Rubens or Bill Nye.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
I would hire Paul Rubens.
You could control him, he'samazing.
Bill Nye, well, I would hire.
I'm terrible because I wouldhire Rubens and Nye, but if I
had to fire one, I guess I'dfire Rubens because he's
problematic and I make Mr Rogersmy boss, 100%.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Oh my gosh, I love that I had Bill Nye as the boss.
He seems boss, like, like.
He seems like he needs to be incharge.
I don't know this is allassumptions.
I feel like Fred Rogers wouldbe in the work with you, like
real, like you want to get inand get his hands in it.
And I also fired Peewee Herman.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I'll also say I'm this is kind of biased on this
one because I worked for LeVarBurton at Redie Rainbow, who
then is a student of Fred Rogers, and so I feel like by Osmosis,
I am a second generationstudent of Fred Rogers.
That's why I would make him myboss.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yep, that's a wonderful place to be, yeah, to
be part of, like the Fred Rogersuniverse in some way or another
.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
I might be the only one that believes that.
I don't think anyone thinksthat about me, but I think that.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I like to think that about you, thank you yeah.
Yeah, okay, molly, do you wantto go through the second one?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Oh sure.
The second one is for hire fireboss is, on the magic side of
things, david Blaine, davidCopperfield or Harry Houdini.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I know too much about these people.
I know, geez, can I, can youcome to me?
Last, I got to really thinkabout this one.
This is hard Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Okay, I would.
I don't trust David Blaine, soI would fire him.
I'm hire Harry Houdini bossDavid Copperfield.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, I.
So Houdini was a prettycutthroat business person.
Yep, he would sit and likepeople are trying to do escape
acts at the same time as him andhe would send his brothers
around to beat those people upto scare him out of the business
.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Oh wow, he's like he's like a.
He's a thug he is a.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
He's a mob boss, that's right, he's a magic mob
boss.
He would go, he would have hisbrothers, you know as students,
go up and swap real locks forfake locks with his competitors,
so they'd actually be locked upon stage, oh shit.
And then he.
And then, to control hiscompetitors, he decided that he
couldn't eliminate them, so hewould own them and meet his
(11:52):
brother into a character namedHardin, who's his number one
rival.
But really it was all them allalong.
So, oh man, I kind of like I'mscared of him.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I don't, I don't Fire .
Speaker 3 (12:06):
That's the thing is either boss or fire.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
I think he's the boss .
Copperfield, yeah, is verysuccessful, so you got to hire
him because he's going to takeyou places and blame.
I wouldn't want to.
That's a regrettable attrition.
That's, that's what that isOkay.
I'd let him flame out and leaveme.
I wouldn't let him go.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
My favorite David Blaine moment was when he did a
magic trick in front of DionSanders and Dion Sanders was
like it was so in orbit, andthen his final comment was I
need a nap, and walked offscreen.
I was like, oh whoa, his mindwas so blown, he needs to go
take a rest.
(12:46):
Beyond, dion, you designproducts for children, but I'm
pretty sure you have adults onyour team.
So I'm curious what are the?
What are the skills that youfeel like are missing, or maybe
that you're most excited aboutin the world of work today?
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Yeah Well, I won't speak about my team today,
because they'll probably listento this too, and I actually I'm
I'm so infatuated with them.
I, you know, you dream of ateam that is as trusting and
cohesive and self-starting asthe team I have.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
You know, the things I look for when I'm hiring are
critical thinking skills.
You know, it's that ability toto put something out and then
disassociate enough from it tobe like that worked, that didn't
work.
I'm bad at that.
I need help.
I need to be like whatever.
The culture I try to build isone that is unafraid to try, and
(13:48):
the only real sin is makingthem a same mistake over and
over and over again, likelearning and being able to learn
and being able to thinkcritically about how we get
there.
That's the only thing thatbothers me or that I care about.
The other thing that I think Ilove about my team and that I
try to instill in teams is thisembrace of change and this
(14:08):
embrace and flexibility.
If you're going to work asquickly and effectively as I'd
like to, you have to be able tolet go of stuff, change your
mind.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, what I'm hearing from you is when you,
when you think about culturesetting inside of your
organizations, you're you'rethinking about critical thinking
, adaptability, resilience, andyou and I and this like learning
how to do something betterconstantly.
When you think about, like thework that you do around social,
(14:39):
emotional learning and empathy,how does that work show up in
the products that you arecreating?
Speaker 3 (14:47):
One of my critiques of a lot of nonprofit
programming is a failure to, ora tendency to, match the
activity you're asking someoneto do with the outcome you want.
Yep.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Like if this program was to empathy, no one would
ever do it, yeah Right.
If you're just like this islike six steps to empathy, like
do these empathy pushups?
No one's going to want to do it, the market doesn't want it,
teachers don't want it, kidsdon't want it.
If you're to say we justlaunched this new empathy truth
or dare game just truth or darewith an empathy twist and the
(15:24):
questions are like what's thelast song you listened to and
how did it make you feel?
And the dares are like go tellsomeone how much they need to
you and the students can playthis in the classroom.
You can play with your family,whatever you want to do, and you
earn points.
It's a game, but in that way,like the play is the important
part and the outcome is thelearnings.
(15:46):
You're sort of like gettingthrough osmosis as you do it.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
I think this is a great way to.
This is great point oftransition into the and focus on
empathy and how Empatico isactually encouraging children to
build empathy.
How do you do it?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Very well, I hope I don't know.
When I was a computer or videogame designer, one of the things
that I always said was all Icare about is hiring an
empathetic person.
That's a skill you can't teach.
I can teach the rest, yeah.
Once I started working inEmpatico, I realized that
empathy was teachable, and thatwas a really big sort of aha
(16:24):
moment for me, and one of thethings I was sort of frustrated
with was that the goals of whatempathy meant were like 20 years
in the future you know, it'slike more resilient people.
Like you know, all these thingsare way in the future and I
wanted to make something moremeasurable so I can say you know
(16:45):
I love analytics, obviously.
So what can you do on myplatform?
And how can I count it, how canI measure it?
How can we show it as a skillyou're building, rather than an
idea or a, you know, the softeridea.
And so we created this thingcalled the empathy framework.
And you know, without boringeverybody, the quick version is
that the current thinking aroundempathy, which I learned from
(17:05):
this book called War on Kindness, which I recommend everyone
read, is that there's threetypes of empathy.
There's behavioral empathy,cognitive empathy and emotional
empathy, and they sort ofinterplay with each other and
you can think about it as likeunderstanding what other people
feel, understanding what otherpeople think and understanding
how to help others.
Right, that's the threedifferent ways of thinking about
it and we said like, well,actually there's another layer
(17:30):
to that, there's another accessto it, which is empathy with
yourself, right, likemindfulness, self-awareness,
self-care.
And then there's empathy with,like your, your peer group or
your family or your in-group,which is all about, you know,
kindness, perspective taking,emotional recognition.
And then, after all of that,there's empathy with the world,
and that's all about diplomacyand inclusivity and
(17:52):
collaboration and all thesethings.
And we realized that our workis really focusing on that outer
ring, that with the world,without developing all three
layers of that.
I think, in my opinion, you'rein a weakened state, like you're
much more resilient if you haveempathy with yourself.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
And if you try to have empathy with the whole
world without having a strongsense of self, you really like
putting yourself in a badposition, in my opinion, and the
other way around, if you haveno empathy with the outer world,
but only empathy with yourselflike we know, people like that
too it's not a good place to be.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Back with more in just a moment.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
When we at IDEO would talk about our design thinking
process or human centered design, we always started with empathy
first.
So when you think, when youthink about user research,
putting yourself in someoneelse's shoes, how are, how do
you see empathy making us bettercreators, better collaborators,
(19:02):
particularly in the adult world?
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yeah, Well, I'll answer your question a little
bit different.
One sweet big IDEO fan, big fanof you, molly, and the work
you've done, and of course youtoo, jb Not really, but the.
We run a program calledCodename with Empathy in
(19:26):
conjunction with the AspenInstitute, the Stevens
Initiative and Codeorg, where weconnect classrooms in Egypt and
the US, and also in Mexico andthe US oh great.
Yeah, it's really cool, so coolFurther hour of code program and
what we do is we teach empathyand we teach social learning
skills in conjunction withcomputer science.
(19:48):
So the first thing you do aspart of this project is we have
the kids show up thinkingthey're going to make a video
game.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Don't tell them that's not how it's going to be.
I hope they don't listen tothis.
What they wind up learning is alot of this.
What you're just talking about,molly, we we have them think
about their community and thinkabout what they could do to help
their community and how theycan use technology to better
their community.
I love it, yeah, and that's thetype of design thinking that we
(20:18):
need more of.
But the people who want to takecare of communities yeah they
need a process and a place to be, and I think that's that's what
we're trying to build, thinkingaround and build towards, so
that when these kids enter theworkplace they're not just like,
oh, I'm going to make anothervideo game.
They can think, wow, I can usetechnology to improve, you know,
(20:39):
the environment it can improve.
You know, like, the migrationissues, like the stuff the kids
come up with were incredible.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
It's incredibly powerful.
When we were over it, when I wasover at Facebook working on the
ads team, we would hirethousands of engineers every
year from across the industry.
They came from Uber, they camefrom from graduate school, they
came from amazing companies andthey're all building advertising
(21:11):
products for generally smallbusinesses and sometimes
agencies and brands as well,which are quite larger.
None of these people that wehad ever hired had ever owned a
small business.
They'd never.
They'd never done all thisstuff.
So they, so they're like oh, wejust need to build an effective
product that does the thingthat we say it's going to do,
(21:32):
and it's like no, you, if you'rea small business running a
flower shop on a corner inLondon, how is that different
than running a food stall inBangkok versus running on
running media and placing mediaon a trade desk in New York?
They're all using the sameinterface and they all have very
(21:55):
different experiences with it,and it's really important that
the engineers who are buildingactually understand who that
customer is and and what drivesthem crazy about our product.
Yeah, what they love about it.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Yeah, well, and what I love about an organization is
embracing the neurodiversitybetween all of us.
Right Like I heard some like itwas I'm going to say this wrong
, but it's a very like divisivestatement that you know,
organizations consist of Cstudents hiring A students to
manage B students.
(22:32):
Right Like and to be likethat's one that's kind of rude.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
I love that I do.
I'm still going to use itsomeday.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
But what I actually think about it is that it's not
that one group is better orleading the other.
I actually that's the part Ithink is divisive, but what I
said.
But if you can embrace thatdiversity in the way we think
and who we are and I thinkworking remotely actually opens
up the aperture of who we canwork with, both in terms of
(23:02):
geography but alsoneurodiversity then we actually
can build better teams andstronger products together.
Like that, collaborationcreates the biggest innovations,
I think.
Then either one trying to do itthemselves.
The thing I really believeabout like ethical design and
(23:34):
ethical product development andthe reason why I like to be in
the nonprofit space, is that youcan be more mission oriented.
I'm also a big fan of what'shis name BJ Fogg yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah, small habits, everything that he teaches.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
I was exposed to him like maybe six, seven years ago
and I was like, oh, he justlearned everything magicians
know.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
What do magicians know?
I'm curious, I'm curious how tomanipulate behavior.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
I'll give you two examples of how magic can be
used to influence or drivepeople the way you want them to
go.
One is this idea that I reallybelieve in and call it's about
the application and release ofpressure.
If I'm a magician, in a theatersetting, let's say the dumbest
thing you can do is invite theaudience up on the stage with
(24:20):
you and ask them to talk.
Why would you ever do that?
It sounds like you're invitingdisaster.
It is the whole point of amagic show.
How do you manage that?
How do you make sure it worksout successfully?
Speaker 1 (24:34):
You take this idea out of it Through magic.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Well, magic, but you're applying pressure and
you're giving them a releasevalve.
Coming up on stage is probablyalso one of the most nerve
wracking thing a normal personwould ever do.
All they want to do is go backand sit down.
Correct, that's right.
You apply just slightly morepressure by maybe leaning over
them, maybe speaking fast toreally flood them.
(24:57):
Then you can have them make afree choice.
That's actually a predeterminedchoice and it feels free With
the promise of as soon as you'redone, you get to go sit back
down.
They'll do anything to get outof there.
You can actually cause them topick the most likely path or the
(25:18):
easiest path to exiting, whichis like, let's say, I want you
to pick one of four things.
You'll pick the third one,because that's what people
normally do.
If I can pressure you, you'llthink less and you'll just do.
You can use that if you want todrive conversions.
The best way out of thishorrible situation is to
(25:39):
subscribe to my website.
Again, a lot of magic isconvincing people to make a free
choice when really they'remaking a predetermined choice.
One is to flip through thecards.
You pick a card, any card, andyou magically force them to take
the one that is the ace ofspades.
That's easy.
You can also lay three objectsin front of someone and say pick
(26:03):
one of these three.
They pick it and you're like Iactually knew that you hold up
some predictions.
It's like you were going topick the middle thing.
You have this matrix ofsolutions and there's different
outs for each one.
You're actually by withholdinginformation about what you're
doing.
You can alter reality in realtime to get to the result that
(26:23):
you want.
You can work all these thingsinto UX and UI design, and also
into management and leadership.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
That alternate reality in real time might be a
superpower of yours in settingup operations for creative teams
to do their best work.
I know that I would be on thatteam, being like it's just like
magic.
He's always two steps ahead.
Wow, I'm already blown away bymagic just generally.
(26:55):
I would like to believe in italways.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I read this book called Power of Moments.
It's a pretty digestible readand it really talks about how,
when you're storytelling, whenyou're creating a performance
which I believe that technologyor the type of the products I
create are in conversation withthe end user it is a performance
(27:19):
, it is a story, it is all ofthat.
It's just nonlinear,non-traditional storytelling.
When you're trying to createthese moments, then you want to
have peaks and valleys and isdefinitely this crescendo when
you look at the books like Powerof Moments and they really talk
about how you can increase yourretention, increase your
(27:42):
customer support scores.
There's all these ways that youcan create magical moments at
unusual times that really stickin someone's mind.
You don't want to deliver theawe when their mind is fuzzed
out by noise and other things.
One of the best instances ofmisdirection is that you can use
(28:03):
a large movement to cover asmall movement.
If you want to do a trickything with your hands that's
very technical and doesn'tactually look very good, you can
wave your arms through the airlike in an arc and your mind
literally can only register thelarge movement and the small
movement is absolutely invisible.
It's like a defect in our minds.
(28:24):
You want to inverse that if youwant to make something
meaningful, you don't want toadd your awe-inspiring moment
inside a big movement or inside,like your.
If you have to fumble aroundand get your credit card and try
to type in all your credit card, you don't want awe to happen.
Then you want awe to happen themoment after, when you're
rested.
I do think there's a literal,technical application of awe
(28:52):
that could and should be appliedto products.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
I love that and also just also thinking about, like,
empathy is a driver.
Empathy is important increating meaningful and
transformative moments, andthose meaningful and
transformative moments, ourmoments of awe, and I think
that's, I think that's, and howmuch you know, I think in sort
(29:18):
of the world we're in today,there isn't, there's less wonder
because we have access to somuch information and, and so I
just think there's somethingreally powerful and how you
design and create that as aleader, within your, within your
teams.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Well, and I think that people like yearn for
larger meaning, and awe is partof that too.
You know like, absolutely.
I'm not religious, but a lot ofpeople find the awesomeness of
religion very attractive and I100% agree and understand that.
You know like, when thosethings happen organically,
they're even more monumental.
(29:57):
You know, whether or notmanufactured by a magician like
me, they could be even morespecial and more powerful.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Ryan, where can people go to learn more about
you and about Empadigo?
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Well, you can find me on Twitter or X or whatever you
want to call it at our Majeski,which is hard to spell, but I'm
sure you can put it somewhere,and you can also learn more
about our work at Empadigo, atEmpadigoorg.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Ryan, thank you so much for joining us on Unserious
today and hope you have a greatweek.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Thank you both so much for having me.
Jb, you know I don't think wementioned this in the podcast.
You and I go way, way back andit's just.
You live in my mind, you know,all the time and I'm just so
pleased to be reconnected withyou and to meet you, molly.
It's been a real pleasure.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
That was amazing.
Jb Ryan really is a magician.
What I took away from theconversation is a deeper
understanding of empathy and whyit's crucial, not only in
social impact but for success inthe world of work today.
I'm thinking about empathy nowfrom a lens of behavior, from a
cognitive lens, from anemotional lens and, just like
the importance of starting withyourself, being kind to yourself
(31:23):
, change starts with yourself,and I'm pretty dazzled by Ryan's
career and the way he thinksabout leading teams.
He's really at the edge whenyou look at like the
conversations he's having aboutneurodiversity on teams to
artificial intelligence and thenthinking about the power of awe
(31:44):
in creating moments that matter.
It's pretty magical that youcan create moments in a user
journey at unexpected times thatstick in someone's mind because
the timing was right and sobringing that magician skill to
really designing for animpactful experience.
I loved it.
Just spoke to my human-centeredheart.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I love it.
Yeah, I also found thatdiscussion of magic in moments
so resonant.
It's how we create thoseexperiences, that surprise and
delight.
I learned that magic working inretail and restaurants and when
Ryan mentioned that, we go way,way back 20 years ago.
Ryan and I worked at a wineshop in Washington DC and we get
(32:28):
these grumpy Congress people inHill staffers and think tankers
every night and we send themout much happier with a bottle
of wine.
Obviously, ryan has taken thatmagic to much greater scale over
than Pataco Totally.
But zooming out a bit, myoverall impressions are much
more serious and we recordedthis discussion a bit over a
(32:51):
month ago before we saw war inthe Middle East, and since then
I think the importance ofpracticing empathy has come into
searing focus and theimportance of teaching children
how to practice empathy isreally critical to the peace and
stability of our planet and ourpeople.
(33:14):
So how's that for an unseriousthought?
Popular Podcasts
1. The Podium
The Podium: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast. Join us for insider coverage during the intense competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. In the run-up to the Opening Ceremony, we’ll bring you deep into the stories and events that have you know and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget.
2. In The Village
In The Village will take you into the most exclusive areas of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to explore the daily life of athletes, complete with all the funny, mundane and unexpected things you learn off the field of play. Join Elizabeth Beisel as she sits down with Olympians each day in Paris.
3. iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2024 Olympics.