Today we’re taking a no BS look at the world of customer insights, leadership and business visioning with the President of software company Zappi, the ever-passionate and transparent leader, Ryan Barry.

Having led Zappi for over four years, Ryan shares his no holds barred take on company leadership and people leadership, and it’s all anchored on authenticity.

On this episode of Looking Outside we explore the intersection of creativity with marketing and what it takes to take a good brand to a great brand. Joining us is marketing and strategy leader, Juan Isaza, Chief strategy officer at DDB Latina, and Head of Brand and Social Media Strategy at creative agency 14.

Juan shares how his journalism background helps him in strategy; particularly in being resourceful and telling engaging stories that hook the audience. But equally in telling better stories about people, by discovering them in unexpected places. Juan says this ability to find the emotive connection with culture is the biggest shift in communication taking place, and is a fruitful space for marketing.

In this episode of Looking Outside, we’re exploring Culture and the role of brands leveraging or influencing it, with University of Michigan marketing professor and best selling author of For the Culture, Dr Marcus Collins.

On the show, Marcus explains how culture is shaped, defined and cultivated by people, to create uniformity and ‘normality’. Because culture is a curation process to find others like us and create synergy in commonalities, Marcus explains that the curation process evolves from the definitions of ‘how to behave’ that you’re born into (that are ascribed to you), through to the cultures to subscribe to once you’re older.

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.

Does conflict and incompatible perspectives always have to be a negative? In this episode of Looking Outside we speak with Raj B. Shroff, Founder & Principal at PINE, a strategy and design agency to hear how he and his company leverages conflict to get to a better outcome.

Raj shares how his workplace thrives on openness, when ideas are great or when things aren’t working, and how he creates the space for everyone part of the company to feel comfortable with that. It’s empathetic to be honest, Raj says, because head nodding doesn’t get the best out of people nor the work.

We start a new year with a new way of Thinking, approaching the topic of careful consideration, extrapolation and explanation in a critical way. Joining us is self-proclaimed overthinker, award winning writer, leading cultural commentator and Foresight & Strategy lead at Reddit, Matt Klein.

Matt takes on a lot and he takes in a lot. He shares how he loads information and how he avoids overloading - a process where he binge eats information and then let's it "simmer" at its own pace during a silent walk outside. When he returns to it, it forms a constellation of connection points and inspiration sparks.

In this episode of Looking Outside we look closer at the numbers and what they are telling us, exploring the predictive human powers of Demographics. For this we chat with fellow Aussie, Bernard Salt, Founder & Executive Director of The Demographics Group.

As a well known personality, famous for injecting a bit of humor into his public speaking events and newspaper columns, Bernard shares his philosophy on presenting the numbers in a way that is engaging and compelling. He speaks to how to establish the facts, make a strong case, demonstrate your credibility … and be bold enough to have a bit of fun with it.

In this slightly poetic episode, we look both inside and outside the often simplified topic of Identity, exploring what it means to be, create and become who we are, with creative strategist and founding poet at Brand Poetry Inc., Theophilus Wells IV.

Naturally philosophically minded, Theo shares his observations on the dichotomy of human nature and will in shaping our individual identities, stressing the benefit of being curious about the things that make us different, and the power in observing the negative.

In episode 16 we get grounded in how a strategist thinks, and their process in creating impactful Strategy, with Mark Pollard, CEO Sweathead .

A guide to many creative thinkers and long-time strategists, Mark discusses the role of chaos within orderly processes, the purpose of finding personal meaning in your thinking, and the need to balance intellectualism with practicality.

In Episode 14 of Looking Outside we explore the mindset needed to break out and do something on your own - successfully. Today we’re chatting with Julie Meyer, Founder and Co-CEO of Eat Well Global, about Entrepreneurship.

Having founded her own company, and constantly writing and reflecting, Julie shares her motivations for bringing ideas to life, as well as what meaningful ‘real why’ lies behind her personal drive to create something impactful.

Looking Outside Episode 13 tackles deeper, critical and courageous thinking, with industry leader on transformative Rethinking, Tom Goodwin, Co-Founder of All We Have Is Now and world-renowned speaker on business transformation.

As someone who proclaims to ‘profoundly not give a shit’, and voices his views regularly to a large audience, Tom shares how he braves feedback and negative perceptions by following the voice of the every day person and championing uncommon perspectives.

For Episode 6 of Looking Outside we invite thought leader, Maneesh Kaushik on the show, Insights and Trend lead at PepsiCo. Today we’re looking outside Insights.

Maneesh outlines how he breaks apart conventional thinking used in business to understand humans of today and showcases how his team pushes to the human of tomorrow.

In Episode 4 of Looking Outside we’re joined by down-to-earth insights & marketing rockstar, Michelle Gansle, Vice President of Global Strategic Insights at McDonalds.

Together Jo and Michelle discuss what it means to truly be human-led inside and outside of work, both by humanizing the people we work with and ourselves. And how understanding yourself as a human being more deeply can help pull you out of your comfort zone and into curious new spaces.

In Episode 3 of Looking Outside we’re joined by the very pragmatic and undoubtedly original Costas Papaikonomou, Co-Founder of Happen Group, a global innovation agency, and author of the Grumpy Innovator book series.

Together Jo and Costas explore the pitfalls of innovating in a silo, the risk of disrupting your own brands through transformation and the benefits of gaining insight from other categories.

To kick off Looking Outside we’re joined by talented and bold marketer Rose Jia, Head of Growth Marketing at Amazon Grocery.

Together Jo and Rose explore the tried and true practice of Marketing, and how organizations can stretch beyond familiar predefined pathways (and results) from marketing by employing a new mindset.