Collective Intelligence or Collective Stupidity - The Choice is Ours, With Sir Geoff Mulgan

Today’s guest is someone who’s seen just about everything though, and is also the first person on the show with a knighthood - Sir Geoff Mulgan. Geoff is one of those people who’s seemingly done it all across government, academia, the public sector and the private sector. His knighthood was awarded for services to the creative economy, which downplays the significance and influence of his work over the last four decades. From defining the UK government’s leading climate reduction strategy 25 years ago to running Nesta and building a lexicon and discipline around social innovation to funds management and investment to publishing book after book after book.I spent a lot of time engaging with Geoff’s thinking and work back in my own social innovation days and what he did and delivered with Nesta was and remains a lighthouse of practice and ambition I still pursue and apply on a daily basis. Beyond the roles and achievements, Geoff describes himself as someone who’s curious about how the world works and works to improve it.Geoff’s breadth of expertise and the significance of the roles he’s had gives him what I think is a legitimate and timely perspective on what seems to be the most pressing need our society faces - re-aligning the value drivers, incentives and ultimately actions of what he calls the poetry, prose and plumbing of how our world works. As I said at the top, what isn’t a wicked problem and progressively degrading issue at the moment? The thread is us, the structures and systems we engage in everyday, the mis-alignment of incentives, of timeframes, and ultimately, an inability to imagine better futures where we feel like we are acting as custodians in a chain of time. We cover everything from collective intelligence to a digital right to truth, what good strategy is and how connecting to a deeper meaning of existence is a necessary component of addressing everything, everywhere all at once.Support for the show comes from:Reposit Power - get $500 off your installationFor all things Finding Nature, check us out. Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram