I recorded an interview with the American futurist Alex Pang when he visited the UK a few weeks ago, which we used in a recent edition of the Kantar Consulting podcast The Future of Consumption, which I co-host with my colleague J.Walker Smith. You can listen to the whole podcast here.
But the podcast reaches a different audience from this blog, and so I thought–with Alex’s permission–that it was worth sharing the interview I did with him here as well.
Alex’s CV is well-known in the futures community, I think: formerly at the Institute for the Future in California, where he lives, and a former Microsoft visiting fellow (in Cambridge, England).
He’s written two books: The Distraction Addiction, on personal digital devices and distraction, and Rest, on different–and more creative–ways of approaching work, drawing on historical examples such as Charles Darwin (who would work intensively for a short number of hours a day, and break up his day with long walks). His current project is on the benefits of shorter working weeks. There are some unexpected findings, so far, on this.
We talked about all three areas in this 21-minute interview; there’s a little background noise from boats on the River Thames and from the crew prepping the neighbouring meeting rooms for the following day’s events.
https://soundcloud.com/thereflector/alexpang-on-the-future-of-work
I’m hoping to post some more interviews here in the coming weeks.
There’s more on these topics at Alex’s blog, Deliberate Rest and at his podcast.
the next wave 