Series Four

This episode of The New Abnormal podcast features the designer, researcher, and educator Lesley-Ann Noel, who is the author of Design Social Change and co-editor of The Black Experience in Design. She’s also created several design tools for critical reflection, such as The Designer’s Critical Alphabet and the Positionality Wheel.

Lesley-Ann has a bachelor’s in Industrial Design from Universidade Federal do Paraná in Brazil, a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago, and a PhD in Design from North Carolina State University. She was awarded honorary doctorates for service to the field of design by the University of the Arts London and the Pacific Northwest College of Art.

Lesley-Ann is the Dean of Design at OCAD University (Aug 2024). Before OCAD-U, she taught at North Carolina State University, Tulane University, Stanford University, and the University of the West Indies.

In this deeply interesting conversation, she outlines her dynamic work, and discusses her book which has just been selected by McKinsey as one of their '2024 Annual Book Recommendations' as chosen by CEO's, founders, editors in chief, and other global leaders...

Series Four

This episode of The New Abnormal podcast features Falk Fuhrmann, Executive Director at Shanghai HuiLue Business Consulting Co, and Visiting Professor teaching International Brand Communication & Innovation, Consumer Behaviour & Insights, at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou.

He also is an award-winning creative strategist with more than 20 years of experience, who led the strategic planning department of TBWA when they opened their Berlin office. Later as head of strategy with DDB, he developed & championed the agency’s philosophy of creative business solutions. For nearly a decade, Falk led strategy development for P&G in CEMEA, APAC & Greater China.

So, we discuss all of the above in this fascinating discussion, which naturally takes in Daoism and Confucianism. Re: the former (and perhaps the latter) we had to struggle our way through some loud building activity in the background during some of this recording, so please channel your inner-harmony at those stages!

Series Four

This episode of The New Abnormal features Julian Boulding, Owner of The Network One. They provide “open source creativity” and communications services from around 1200 independent agencies in 109 countries, worldwide.

His annual review of the Cannes Lions Festival is always eagerly sought after, and the actual version will be sent out after this podcast goes live. In it, Julian discusses the latest industry trends and issues as discussed at this years event.

So, if you want to hear whether Cannes has changed (and if so, for better or worse) along with his views on agencies that are on the way up and those on the way down, the next big thing in client/agency relationships, which international markets are the ones to watch, and whether an average day involved a five hour lunch when Julian joined the industry, then please listen in.