Humans Aren't Robots
by Sam Davies @ KWP + Partners + Hannah Priebe-Clarke @ hpc.
Robots aren’t the enemy. Robotic thinking is.Humans Aren’t Robots is a series of conversations about what makes work and life more human. We chat with creative leaders, innovators, and curious minds about creativity, curiosity, and the ideas shaping modern business and culture.HAR is a platform for those daring to think beyond the algorithm. It lives between technology and texture, structure and spontaneity, leaving room for nuance, creative tension, and the freedom to say “I don’t know.”Because the most dangerous mindset isn’t being wrong. It’s thinking you’re done.
Episodes
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Daniels Langeberg Olsson — Technology, People + Environment
Dans takes us on an epic journey working around the world, from urban planning to innovating here in SA. The perfect HAR guest a mixture of a deeply human worldview with tech at the centre of all his thinking. Dans has a philosophical take on technology, the environment and people, and how…
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Justina Gardiner — Life is marketing
From L’Oréal Canada to San Remo, Adelaide, Justina brings an artistic, creative and worldly lens to defining brand. She leans into experimentation, learning fast and redirecting when needed, bringing a philosophical perspective to both business and life. In this episode, we pause to ask: what…
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Eli Moulton + Justin James - Three Businesses, One Household, No Off Switch
Two founders. Zero filter. Eli Moulton started Plus One Dress Hire on maternity leave. What began as a practical idea became a movement - one built on sustainability, inclusion, and the belief that every woman deserves to feel extraordinary. Now she's building Em Body and redefining what it means...
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Rebecca Weber - AI in the Classroom: The Future of Learning
AI and learning was deeply divisive when large language models first arrived. Many saw it as a threat to the entire education system. Rebecca Weber saw opportunity for teachers and for students. After nearly two decades in education, Rebecca is now helping lead one of the most ambitious AI…
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Adam Koch - Sweat: From PDF Workouts to Global Fitness App
A real conversation about what it takes to manage scale at speed, empower teams to perform at their peak and juggle ambition with family life. We sit down with Adam Koch to unpack what leadership looks like beyond the title. Adam does not lead by having all the answers. He leads by getting great...
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Peta St Clair - How LIV Golf Adelaide Changed the Rules of Live Sport
This episode explores how LIV Golf Adelaide has become the benchmark for live sport experiences. Peta St Clair unpacks how LIV pushes the edge, builds unforgettable moments, and why Adelaide is central to the magic.
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David Simmons - 40 Under 40 & The Art of Telling Your Story
This episode is a deep dive into the 40 Under 40 program—what it means, why it matters, and why more young South Australians should back themselves and apply. Sam and journalist David Simmons (Solstice Media) break down what they look for as judges, from compelling storytelling to impact beyond...
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Nicole Dyson - Future Anything
In this episode, Sam chats with founder and educator Nicole Dyson. We always really enjoy chatting to Nicole and hearing about the ways she is challenging education systems, inspiring young people and building a new way of learning and adapting for kids in a world that is rapidly changing. We are...
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Callum MacPherson - Young Blood Men's Mental Health
This week Sam chats with entrepreneur, journalist and creator of Young Blood Men's Mental Health, Callum MacPherson. Young Blood is an amazing podcast all about men's mental health, challenging stigmas and striving for a world with less suicide. They chat about Callum's past in the media, how he…
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Lauren Black - Atlassian Foundation
Lauren is a Social Impact Specialist. She works for the Atlassian Foundation and was here in Adelaide to run a session at Southstart. Lauren works with dynamic, creative and purpose-driven teams and leaders. She had some great insight into companies that really live their values and encourage…
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Ben Colley - Teamgage
In this episode I chat with Ben Colley who works for Teamgage and founded the GOOD Product community here in Adelaide. I've been keen to have Ben on the podcast for a while, he has a really interesting background and has some great experience working with startups and building diverse teams -...
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Purpose & Community
Purpose is a bit of a buzz word at the moment but it's something that is really important to people, and more and more it is essential to think about for customers. It's something I have been going back and fourth on for for a while, often it is assumed that to make an impact, your purpose needs…
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Creativity
At Digital Noir, we work in a creative environment and industry so creativity is kind of a given but creativity is in everyone, and in all industries. Creativity is how we approach problems, how we look at things, how we work with different skillsets to get to a common goal. So many business...
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Fear
Fear is something that affects people in all walks of life. In all jobs and industries. It's an extremely strong emotion and something that can really affect our ability to perform at our best. We discuss Fear with our guests and interestingly hear it described in so many ways - all of our guests...
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Diversity
This season, each episode is a mash up of different conversations centred around a theme. This week's subject is Diversity. It's something we've been thinking about and discussing on the podcast for a while. Not just integrating diversity at a "high" level in a company, but actually looking at...
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Future of Work
A series of chats with some amazing speakers from SouthStart last year. This episode's theme is the Future of Work.
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Getting Curious, Creative & Chaotic @ Southstart - Craig Swann
Craig described Southstart as a gathering of curious, creative chaotic individuals stumbling through the world trying to change the future somehow. I love that. Our chat focused on fostering that spirit and, more broadly, how we continue to do this outside of events like this. Some key areas of…
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How To Grow A LINKTREE - Nick Humphreys
I really enjoyed my chat with Nick. He is best known as the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Linktree. If you have not heard of them I am not sure what rock you have been under! Linktree is a tech platform that connects audiences to the online ecosystems of brands, celebrities, creators and...
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Punk Rock, Cannabis & The Art Of Ethical Marketing - Cormac Sheehan
It was a pleasure chatting with Cormac. He was speaking at Pause Fest last year and we sat down and had a wide-ranging conversation. Storytelling is at the heart of everything Cormac does and in our chat, I discoed it has been a constant thread in his life and career, starting from, his Punk Rock...
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Design is 90% Communication - 10% Work - Alastair Simpson
Alastair Simpson is a leader and mentor, serving as VP of Design at Dropbox. He loves working with multi-disciplinary teams to solve complex business and interaction design challenges. When we spoke to him, he was head of design at Atlassian, leading a cross-geo design team across a portfolio of...
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How Technology And Humanity Can Come Together To Drive Action - Trent Clews-De Castella
On this weeks episode, we sat down with Trent Clews-de Castella - Co-founder of Phoria. PHORIA is a world-leading immersive tech studio that specialises in cutting-edge Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality (VR/AR/MR/XR) technology. Trent started the business with some friends from school and they...
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The Future Of Sex - Bryony Cole
This week on Humans Aren't Robots we present a fantastic conversation with the world's leading authority on sextech, Bryony Cole. Sex Tech you say? What is that? Oh, just a 30 30 dollar industry and valued at 130 billion over the next 5 years. A perfect guest for our podcast. I started the chat…
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Rapping your way to team happiness and success - Mile Orkin
I had such a fun time talking with Miles Orkin. Miles is a UX lead at Google and spends a lot of his time thinking about how he can empower teams. Miles started his career writing to Thrasher magazine. Which basically makes him my hero! Miles had some fantastic insights into how to create an...
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Technology led banking NOT bank led technology - Dom Pym
I was really excited to sit down with Dom Pym who is the Co-Founder of Up Bank and software development company Ferocia. I have heard Dom speak a few times and have been a fan of Up since it launched a few years ago. If you have not come across Up, it is at the forefront of changing the way we...
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How design can turn a house into a home - Kate Freebain
It was an absolute pleasure to meet and chat with Kate earlier this year at Pausefest. Kate has followed her curiosity and passion and found herself the director of design at NEST which is now a Google company. She studied industrial design here in Australia and had dreams of designing more human...
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Season 2 - Creative Leadership Trailer
Welcome to Season 2 of Human's Aren't Robots. In this series of conversations we dive into the realm of creative leadership with humans from some of the worlds most successful companies. We have guests from Google, Atlassian, Nest, Phoria, The future of Sex, Up Bank and more - We touch on a wide...
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Empathy is key to leading a team through crisis - Jim Antonopoulos
Following another week of rapidly changing new stories, government updates and more uncertainty, I reached out to Jim Antonopoulos, a fellow designer and friend who's thoughts on leadership and teams I find extremely interesting and thought-provoking. Jim runs Tank, a strategic design &…
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Navigating The Economic Impact of Covid-19 with HT Capital
There is A LOT of information going around at the moment, some of it helpful, some less so. I got in touch with Michael and Tim from HT Capital, clients of ours who are perfectly positioned to offer a helpful perspective to small business owners in the same position as us. We discussed the...
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Out Of The Tank, And Into The Tent - Steve Baxter
We were joined at _southstart by investor and entrepreneur - Steve Baxter. Most people will know Steve from Shark Tank Australia but his career is a lot more extensive than that. He has worked with many successful companies in leading roles over the last 25 years, roles that include Founder,...
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How To Make Impact With A Purpose
In this episode from _southstart I sat down with three incredible people: Adam McCurdie, Mark Reading and Sarah Gun. They were a part of a panel called "Social Impact: The Time is Now", a really interesting discussion that dove into how we can align technology with humanity to tackle some of the...
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From Adelaide To The Heart Of Silicon Valley - Devin Mancuso
Adelaide local, Devin Mancuso (now based in California) has worked for Google for almost 4 years, initially as a Senior Interaction Designer and now in Design Strategy, Platforms and Ecosystems. I had a really interesting chat with him about so many different topics. We discussed how he got into...
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Is Being A Digital Master All It's Cracked Up To Be? - Ben Lee
In our last PauseFest podcast from 2019 we chat with Ben Lee, Founder and Chief Revenue Office at Rootstrap. If you've never heard of these guys before, you should really check them out - they're known as globally-recognised digital masters and have worked with Google, Master Class and heaps of...
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Why Your Business Needs A Clear Vision - Elaine Stead
Sitting down with Elaine Stead again was exciting. Since our last chat, Elaine has been working with the South Australian Venture Capital Fund, doing some great things here in Adelaide. We got into the importance of having a purpose. Knowing the "why" of your business will keep you on track and...
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How Busy Is A Barrier In The Way Of Happiness - Penny Locaso
It was exciting sitting down with Penny Locaso again, if you've been listening to our podcasts for a while, you'll remember we talked to her at _southstart last year. Penny founded Bkindred and calls herself a "happiness hacker". She teaches people how to slow down, think more, and make decisions...
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Keeping Wellbeing At The Core Of Design - Laura Ryan
As our world is taken over by more products and services than ever before, it's the job of people like Laura Ryan to ensure that these will assist and benefit people's wellbeing. I sat down to discuss this with her at PauseFest last year. Laura is the Strategy Director at Mentally Friendly, an...
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Wearable Technology That's Out Of This World - Alex Moss
Sitting down at SouthStart with Alex Moss over some wine sparked an exciting conversation. She is the CEO and Head designer of Canaria Technologies, a cutting edge tech company that brings together the space, mining and medicine industries into one little wearable that can monitor and track the...
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Using Design Thinking As A Powerful Tool - Dan Levy
In this episode from _southstart, I sat down with Dan Levy who I've known for a while now. His business, More Space For Light, uses design thinking methods to find problems within companies and find ways to solve them. They look at customer/user experience, strategy and consultation, with...
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Blockchain Trading Is The Future Of Sustainable Energy - Jemma Green
At South Start 2019, I got to sit down in our podcasting tent and chat with Dr Jemma Green. We found out exactly how Jemma went from working mainstream finance in a bank to finding a passion in sustainability. Jemma is the executive chairman at Power Ledger where renewable energy is at the...
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A Dive Into The World Of Podcasting - Amelia Veale
I finally got the chance to chat with Amelie Veale from Be The Drop, another awesome Adelaide based podcast. In this episode, we talk about branding, culture, customer services, and get meta about podcasting. We also discuss the way podcasting has grown for both of us. This was a really exciting...
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Keeping Content Authentic For The Masses - Stephanie Winkler
At Pause Fest, I got the chance to sit down with Stephanie Winkler. She is currently the Head of Insights for VICE, previously in the Senior Digital Strategist role. Stephanie also does a lot of work with General Assembly, an organisation that takes young people and equips them with skills in...
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Leveraging Stock Content Could Have Saved The Fyre Festival - Lou Weiss
I am excited to share this chat with you all. Lou Wiess is the CMO At Shutterstock. If you have ever worked in or around a creative role, you would have heard of them. They are the worlds most abundant source of stock assets. Lou knows his shit! Having been involved in the world of digital...
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How Movember's Cultural DNA Has Grounded It's Success - Sam Gledhill & Marcus Nance
Sam was joined at Pause Fest by Sam Gledhill and Marcus Nance from the Movember Foundation. Together they discuss how a charity can become such a success and what the future of mental health support holds.
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A Visionary Future For Adelaide - Bianca Shuman
When I first heard that someone was doing 'cool stuff' on the Popeye, my ears pricked up. For those of you not here in Adelaide, the Popeye is a historic cruise boat that motors up and down our humble Torrens River. Many of us would have fond memories as kids going for a ride or spotting it while...
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It's The Pauses In Between The Beats That Make The Magic - Mykel Dixon & Anna McCracken
I had been podcasting all morning at this point, and Mykel arrived with Anna and suggested he buy a round of beers. The perfect start to a conversation, in my opinion. I had not met Anna before but quickly learnt she does incredible work in the fields of human rights, social work and public…
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Convergence: Humans - Impact - Technology - Craig Swann
I sat down with Craig Swann who is once again the driving force behind Southstart here in Adelaide. Craig is no stranger to our podcast, in fact this is his third chat with us! We will be joining him and his team at the event this year, podcasting live and helping to share some of the incredible...
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We Are All Creative. We Have Just Forgotten How To Be! - Stephen Gates
We're kicking off our new podcast name with a very fitting guest - Stephen Gates! Human's aren't Robots: The people behind the digital. Coming at you from PauseFest, Stephen is currently the head design evangelist at Invision - a company most of us in the creative fields will have heard of (and...
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How An Agile Mindset Will Get The Best From Your Team - Craig Brown
Craig Brown is the CEO of software engineering company, Everest Engineering. Craig is also the founder of LAST Conferences which focus on Lean Agile Systems. LAST Conferences take place in cities around Australia and are curated by local practitioners. To find a conference, follow the prompts at:...
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Choosing Partners That Share Your Values - Jacqui Bull
We sat down with Jacqui live from Pausefest to chat about her experience with Sidekicker, a business she co-founded at the age of 22. Sidekicker is a technology platform that lets businesses hire temporary staff, or as they call them, Sidekicks. Backed by SEEK and with offices in every major city...
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How To Build A Valuable And Sustainable Business - Grant Munro
Sam is joined by Grant Munro, self made entrepreneur and founder of Flashstock. They chat about the scalability of a company, and the importance of providing relevant content to your clients. Grant has created custom content for the likes of Blackberry and Budweiser, and eventually had his…
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Growing A Team Is Like Gardening - Paolo Malabuyo
Paolo is a user experience designer and leader with a serious CV to his name. He has been instrumental both as a designer and leader of people in companies such as Microsoft, Mercedes and Netflix. He is currently at Google as the director of UX in the YouTube Ads team. Paolo spoke at Pause Fest...
About this show
Robots aren’t the enemy. Robotic thinking is.Humans Aren’t Robots is a series of conversations about what makes work and life more human. We chat with creative leaders, innovators, and curious minds about creativity, curiosity, and the ideas shaping modern business and culture.HAR is a platform for those daring to think beyond the algorithm. It lives between technology and texture, structure and spontaneity, leaving room for nuance, creative tension, and the freedom to say “I don’t know.”Because the most dangerous mindset isn’t being wrong. It’s thinking you’re done.
Hosted by
Sam Davies @ KWP + Partners + Hannah Priebe-Clarke @ hpc.