It was called the most important election of our lifetimes, but so much of the coverage has been the same old horse race stuff.
Not on Dastardly Cleverness, though: in this episode we dig deep with experts who have worked with Barack Obama, John McCain and the Democratic National Committee, among others:
Kevin Lewis, Dan Schnur, and Enrique Gutierrez.
(more...) about Beyond the Horse Race: What the Election Can Teach Us About Making ChangeWe’re celebrating our first season with highlights from the past year!
It’s an episode full of gifts of insight from leading social innovators, on the future of work, universal basic income, reforming the way we bank and invest, why we vote the way we do, saving the oceans, saving democracy, and much more.
(more...) about Highlights From Our First YearRaised in a farmworking family, Amanda Renteria has worked for Goldman Sachs, the City of San Jose, and two senators; has been a teacher and coach at her old high school; has run for Congress; held a top position in Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign; directed operations for the California Department of Justice and this year, ran for Governor of California.
She has the insights to show — many of them arising from her own life story — as you’ll hear in this interview with Dastardly Cleverness host Spencer Critchley.
(more...) about Amanda Renteria: How to Create Impact in the Public & Private SectorsLIVE episode: “Saving Democracy,” featuring former Congressman Sam Farr, former Barack Obama and Kamala Harris adviser Debbie Mesloh, USC and UC Berkeley Professor and former top Republican consultant Dan Schnur (now a No Party Preference voter), former California Assembly Republican Leader Kristin Olsen, local elected official and presidential campaign veteran Zach Friend, and host Spencer Critchley. It was an in-depth and enlightening conversation, about topics that ranged from the frightening to the inspiring.
(more...) about Saving Democracy: Bipartisan Views from Presidential Campaigns, Congress, National Media & MoreJoe Sanberg co-founded Aspiration, a socially responsible, online bank and investment firm. Aspiration invites customers to pay whatever they think its services are worth — even if that’s nothing.
He’s a prime mover behind the California Earned Income Tax Credit, which has helped 800,000 low-income California families in its first two years of existence.
He established the Working Hero political action committee. Working Hero supports candidates who are committed to ending poverty.
And he believes we can end poverty in 30 years, and must, if democracy is to survive.
(more...) about Joe Sanberg: We Can — And Must — End Poverty in 30 YearsDrew Train was a rising star on Madison Avenue, working at the legendary J Walter Thompson agency for clients like HSBC, one of the biggest banks in the world.
But at night, he was going to Occupy Wall Street rallies.
That’s because he thought something had gone very wrong with business: it was extracting more from the world than it was putting back, and benefiting the rich over everyone else.
Eventually, he couldn’t stand the tension between his day job and his values, and he ended up leaving JWT to co-found, with Bill Oberlander, a new agency dedicated to purpose-driven marketing: Oberland.
(more...) about Find a Purpose or Face the Pitchforks: This Ad Agency Bets on Doing What’s RightWhat if everyone got paid – even if they didn’t have a job? That’s the idea behind universal basic income, or UBI. Its advocates say we need it to protect humans who are losing their jobs to robots — and as one of the best ways to end poverty.
In this episode, Spencer Critchley talks to Natalie Foster of the Economic Security Project, which she started with Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes and Roosevelt Institute Fellow Dorian Warren to advocate for a UBI for all Americans.
(more...) about What If Everyone Were Guaranteed a Paycheck?We sometimes think that good communicators are just born talented, like a Jefferson or a Lincoln. And it’s probably true that the great ones have a special gift. But it’s also true that anyone can learn to communicate better.
To explore how, Spencer talks to Sean Smith, who has worked on presidential campaigns for Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and Barack Obama, served at the Department of Homeland Security, and is now at global PR firm Porter Novelli.
(more...) about How to Communicate for Impact: Lessons from Presidents, CEOs & the GrassrootsPeople have become “more cynical about the value of democracy as a political system, less hopeful that anything they do might influence public policy, and more willing to express support for authoritarian alternatives.” What can we do? Host Spencer Critchley talks with Dan Schnur and Zach Friend.
(more...) about Can We Make Government Work? With Dan Schnur & Zach FriendNew podcast episode: Spencer Critchley talks to Santa Fe Institute researcher Mirta Galesic about how and why we vote. Mirta says complex social systems — offline and online — may explain a lot about the surprise election of Donald Trump, hyper-partisanship, media echo chambers, and many other aspects of the current state of democracy. For example, as she and her partners found in a just-published study, if you want to know how people will vote in an upcoming election, you may get better information if you ask them how their friends will vote.
(more...) about Why Do We Vote the Way We Do? New Findings Hold Surprises
