In this episode of Looking Outside, we're exploring the influence and influencers of Food Culture, and the sociological, traditional and modern values that are redefining how we innovative in food. We're joined for this conversation by Jing Gao, Founder & CEO of modern Chinese food brand Fly by Jing. Armed with a desire to help people discover new facets of Asian cuisine, driven by re-discovering her own heritage, Jing shares her organic journey to helping people re-perceive how food culture is shaped, in the process opening up minds to new ways to enjoy familiar flavors.

We’ve covered climate change and environmental causes before on Looking Outside, focused on the innovation that’s helping to create new solves for existing problems. On this episode, we’re exploring this topic from a human perspective, looking at what sociology and the study of historical patterns of collective human behavior can tell us about how we’re reacting to, and in some cases rebelling against, the climate change challenge today. To do this, we’re joined by social scientist Dr Dana R. Fisher, Director of the Center for Environment, Community, & Equity (CECE) and a Professor in the School of International Service at American University. Dana has studied and written about the combined relationship of social and environmental change for over two decades.

In this special LIVE episode of Looking Outside, recorded at the Insights and Innovation Exchange event in Texas, we look more closely at the symbols and signs that surround us, the study of Semiotics, with semiotician, author and marketer, Dr Rachel Lawes.

Rachel blends her 20 years in Market Research and her academic training as a Social Psychologist, with a focus on how people communicate through the study of semiotics. Rachel describes this as looking more deeply and critically at what is at face-value, and how that can help us make more deliberate decisions.