future proof Archives - Don't Stop Us Now

Get AI Working For You – Meg Smith

March 26, 2025March 27, 2025
by Claire

Our guest this week for our 200th episode, is a digital strategist, author, and purpose-driven entrepreneur. After spending a decade at Google, Meg Smith co-founded Cloverbase, a training company focused on AI literacy and tech enablement based in New Zealand.

Meg’s journey with AI began, like many of ours, with a genuine fear about what these powerful tools might mean for her career. While on maternity leave in November 2022, she had her first encounter with ChatGPT, which sparked concerns about whether she would be relevant in the workplace anymore. Fast forward to today, and Meg has transformed that fear into expertise, helping others navigate the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

In this episode, Meg shares specific prompting techniques to get better results from AI tools, why daily practice matters, and how organisations can implement AI safely through what she calls a combined “top-down and bottoms-up” approach. She also brings some great insights on balancing the risks and benefits of these powerful technologies.

We particularly loved Meg’s take on the human skills that will remain valuable as AI evolves – especially conversation, critical thinking, and storytelling. Her concept of “triangulation” for verifying AI outputs is super practical too.

We were really drawn to Meg’s down-to-earth, thoughtful approach to AI adoption, and we think you will be too.

Enjoy this conversation with the practical and insightful Meg Smith.

Useful links

AKO – How to Become AI Enabled free course
Cloverbase
Superhuman AI Newsletter (daily AI newsletter Meg recommends)
Microsoft AI Fundamentals (this is a really great basic course)
Google AI Essentials (this too is an excellent free course)
NVIDIA AI Fundamentals
HiTech Hippies (Meg’s sustainability blog)

Future Proof Me Mini Episode

Future Proof Me: Key to Fulfilment

October 12, 2021October 12, 2021
by Claire

Welcome to this week’s Future Proof Me mini episode.

For many of us the past few months have shrunk our world to the confines of our homes and our local suburb. What we’ve noticed can sometimes come with that, is a tendency to lose sight of the bigger picture and of others who may be doing it tougher than we are.

It’s why we thought it was really timely for this beautiful reminder from social entrepreneur Ronni Kahn of the value we personally derive from helping others, even now when uncertainty and disruption is still so prevalent in our own lives.

We were really moved by her first hand testimony of how her experience has been that you get so much more than you give, and that time is so precious we all need to think about what we’re doing now, not putting things off for “one day” in future.

This point was brought vividly home to us as we just heard the news that one of our recent guests, artist and muralist Taylor White has been injured in a serious road accident in Iceland. Fortunately she’s confident of making a full, if slow, recovery so we’re sending her love and heartfelt “Get well soon Taylor” wishes.

Seize the day dear friends.

Links

Full interview with Ronni Kahn – The More You Give, the More You Get

Ronni’s Book – A Repurposed Life

OzHarvest website

Future Proof Me Mini Episode

Future Proof Me – Citizen Branding

July 27, 2021
by Claire

This week’s mini episode features a global branding and design icon talking about the renewed power branding has in today’s ‘social’ world to create change-making movements.

When we invited the designer, author and podcaster, Debbie Millman, on the show last year she talked about how branding has evolved in the past decade and how the power has shifted to us as consumers and citizens. She explained it in a historical context that really stuck with us and we thought it was so important, we wanted to share it with you again.

Debbie is a global authority on brands, as well as creating them, she co-created and teaches a Masters in Branding at New York’s famed School of Visual Arts.

Understanding how branding, as well as content, has been democratised and how it can be harnessed for good and even turned into social movements is important; not just for future proofing our careers but also for future proofing our planet as well.

On that note, sit back, pretend you’re in NYC and drink in Debbie’s wise words now!

Useful Links

https://www.debbiemillman.com/

Debbie’s TED talk – How Symbols and Brands Shape our Humanity

Society 6 Debbie Millman – various designs by Debbie that you can buy

How to Build Your Personal Brand – A Course with Debbie Millman

The Art of the Story – Creating Visual Narratives

Debbie’s reading list

Future Proof Me Mini Episode

Future Proof Me – Facing Failure

May 18, 2021
by Claire

This week’s mini episode is all about facing your fears and not being held back in life by the fear of failure.

It’s important to know that we don’t always recognise how we’re feeling as ‘fear of failure’ when we hesitate or say no, but often that’s what lies behind any hesitation.

In this episode we hear again from Kat Dunn. Kat was running Grameen Australia when we spoke a year or so back and these days Kat is working for herself and very much still focused on social ventures.

Kat has thought a lot about failure and has held numerous failure-themed events in the past, and as a result, she has all kinds of wisdom to share as you will hear in this future-proofing, mini episode.

Extra Info

Here are the 4 different lenses we shared at the end of this episode that can help when you’re worrying about failing. . .

1. Growth Mindset – overcoming a fixed mindset and embracing the prospect of growing and learning;

2. The practise of Gratitude – to be more positive;

3. Purpose – instead of focusing on what you’re afraid of, think about what are you moving towards?

4. Play – we underestimate the power of play in the adult world to really unlock creativity and get us into a state of inspiration and action, the perfect antidote to failure-inspired hesitation and inertia.

Links

Kats Full Interview

Kat on LinkedIn

Kat on Instagram

Future Proof Me Mini Episode

Future Proof Me – Calling Out Bias

October 27, 2020October 27, 2020
by Claire

Brought to you by Microsoft’s The New Next

How do you go with sensitive conversations? They’re not easy are they?

This week’s mini episode shares how NASA executive Trudy Kortes has learnt over time to call out gender bias when she experiences it.

If you’ve not heard one of these bite-sized episodes before, the idea is to focus on the most valuable insights, gems of advice and ideas from our incredible guests . . . all focusing on the theme of future proofing ourselves and our careers.

Trudy’s advice includes some great principles for all difficult conversations, so make your next difficult conversation a little easier with this bite-sized nugget of wisdom and experience.

Useful Links

Trudy’s orig episode: A Career in Space and Real Life Moonshots

Future Proof Me Mini Episode

Future Proof Me – Is Fear Holding You Back?

September 15, 2020September 15, 2020
by Claire

This week’s future-proofing mini episode is all about how to take action even when you feel unsure, nervous or afraid.

The advice and observations of one of our earliest guests, investment banker and Chair of numerous tech startups, Lindley Edwards, is really valuable on this topic. Particularly in this time of COVID, learning how to manage our fears, nerves and worries is an important skill.

It’s a skill we all need to continue to practise because it’s completely normal for all of us to feel fear at times, if not often, at work. But fear can hold us back from growing and learning if we don’t practise taking action despite some nerves or fear.

Lindley has a great way of contextualising this very human experience which we think you’ll find really helpful. You are not alone.

Enjoy this mini episode ….

Links

Listen to our full interview with Lindley Edwards

Future Proof Me Mini Episode

Future Proof Me – How an Innovator Stays Creative

July 7, 2020
by Claire

Welcome to this week’s mini Future Proof Me episode all about how to stay creative in a busy world.

We loved the advice that serial Canadian entrepreneur and founder, Vicki Saunders shared with us when we spoke to her last year.

Vicki is CEO and Founder of SheEO. SheEO is an international network of women who support, finance and celebrate female innovators who run ventures solving important world problems.

As a serial entrepreneur and true original thinker, Vicki has learnt she needs to create space for ideas to flow. As you’ll hear in this episode, she’s very conscious of ensuring she has a routine and practices that give her that space and stimulus despite facing, as we all do, the demands of a hectic busy work life and all the usual stresses we all experience.

You’ll hear how Vicki carves out time in her schedule to consume a wide variety of different topics in order to fuel her creative thinking, and you’ll hear how she’s found meditating makes a big difference.

If you’re struggling to have fresh ideas or see old problems from new perspectives, then this mini episode is just what you need!

Links of interest

Our full interview with Vicki

SheEO website

Future Proof Me Mini Episode

Future Proof Me – Navigating Tech When You’re Not…

May 12, 2020May 12, 2020
by Claire

Welcome to our second Future Proof Me mini episode. These mini episodes will be uploaded in the weeks between our usual, longer interview and ‘How To’ episodes. They are designed to snappily share nuggets of ideas or insights to help us all thrive in future.

This week’s nugget is all about engaging with emerging technologies even when we are not ‘techie people’.

First you’ll hear from Martha Lane Fox, one of the UK’s most respected technology leaders and entrepreneurs. These days she has an illustrious board career, sits in the House of Lords, and she campaigns for responsible technology through her foundation, Doteveryone.

Martha shares great advice on positioning yourself in your career and how important it is to be curious about technology. She then goes on to talk about how, with the quickening pace of change, we need to be prepared to have multiple different careers.

Then we hear from the Artificial Intelligence expert, Kriti Sharma. She builds really practically on Martha’s point about learning about tech, and specifically talks about how we can all get more informed and familiar with the important topic of AI.

A humble request from us…if you are getting value out of what we’re sharing here at Don’t Stop Us Now! then why not be sure you don’t ever miss out and sign up here for our weekly email where we share advice, tips and, of course, info on our latest episode.

Enjoy this mini episode with Martha Lane Fox and Kriti Sharma.

Check Out the Full Interviews:

Martha Lane Fox – A Powerful Voice Where Few Women Are Heard

Kriti Sharma – Robots, AI and the Future

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Other Resources of Interest

Dot Everyone Digital Understanding Resources

Elements of AI Course from the Finnish Government

Recognising Fake News Game

Digital Unite – Technology Guides

MIT Media Lab

Google’s AI Education Hub

Future Proof Me Mini Episode

Future Proof Me – How to Ponder the Future…

April 29, 2020April 29, 2020
by Claire

Welcome to our first Future Proof Me mini episode!

These episodes, will share a ‘nugget’ of an idea, advice or a thought-provoking insight to help us all thrive and adapt in future.

Our environment’s changing so fast right now, this seems more important than ever …

In these mini episodes we’ll feature the best from previous and future guests including brand new content. Plus, we’ll share ideas and great tools to try that we’ve put into action or experimented with ourselves.

This week’s ‘nugget’ comes from investment banker Lindley Edwards who we had on the show about a year ago. Her episode was very popular and you could really tell from that, that Lindley is a deep thinker.

Lindley runs a corporate advisory business called AFG Venture Group which specialises in cross-border investments and transactions, particularly between Asia & Australia. She’s also Chairperson for two startups and a Non-Executive Director of a Think Tank called AsiaLink.

We love these insights from Lindley because:

1) They seem so relevant now in these strange times of coronavirus and;

2) Lindley shares some really helpful ways to think about the future… and that’s by building on the ideas and insights from the past;

3) Plus, she talks about how to move forward and create change in new ways that will get traction and maybe even disrupt an industry.

If you’re keen to hear more from Lindley, hear our full interview here.

We hope you enjoy this first Future Proof Me episode…

Useful Links

Our full interview with Lindley Edwards on Don’t Stop Us Now!

Lindley on Linkedin

Philosophers mentioned by Lindley:

Hafiz

Book of poems by Hafiz