Virginie Glaenzer hosts a roundtable on activism with Steve Marshall, Nell Derick-Debevose (founder of Inspiring Capital), Rudi de Waal (conscious futurist), and Rich (creator of Lumio, a platform for collective decision-making). They discuss why activism matters now as trust in institutions collapses, and how to sustain movements without reliable leaders.
Chapters
Welcome to Pass the Mic podcast with Steve Marshall, who will lead our conversation on the topic of activism. My name is Virginie Glaenzer, and I'm your host with a million questions. Pass the Mic podcast, for those who do not know, is about sharing different perspectives on a specific topic, not only to help us expand our understanding of the world,, but also to explore new ways of looking at it. Before we begin our conversation, let's start as we always do with what I call a tour de table. And so have each of you tell us your name, what you do, and why you're interested in this topic. Try to be brief and keep it under a minute. So why don't we begin with Nell?
Sure. Good morning. Hello everyone. My name is Nell Derek-Debevoise, and I am the founder and CEO of a company called Inspiring Capital. We're a certified B Corp, if that means anything to folks in the audience. It's B Corp Month, so there's a lot of media coming out. If you're not familiar, I encourage you to check out that movement of business as a force for good. And as Inspiring Capital, which I started about 7 years ago, we are really trying to help what we call people live to have their all. And so we believe in this idea of, you know, individual activism as a way to live your life and ladder up to not only making the world a better place, but also finding your unique way to do that and contribute. And so we really think that this idea of enlightened self-interest, of doing what is uniquely you and makes you come alive, you know, what gives you juice and energy, is actually the best thing that you can do for the world as long as you go through that work of the enlightenment piece, right? So it's not just about self-indulgence, but if you can get in touch with what the world really needs and then line that up with what you have to give, that is a beautiful thing for everyone. So that's a little bit about background. I think the, the trust lens that you're kind of looking at this with, how you framed the conversation, is a really interesting one. I came across a lot of work on social capital, Robert Putnam and others, about 20 years ago in a master's thesis. And I think that that work is so important and so timely now because of massive opportunity to build trust and relationships globally, but also a real crisis. Of trust in a lot of places. So in crisis comes opportunity, and I'm excited to speak more about that with you all.
Great, thank you. Thank you for being here.
Rudi? Hello, good afternoon for me from Ibiza, Spain. My name is Rudi de Waal, and I work as a conscious futurist for a company called Human Works Design. So we basically empower the game changers of tomorrow by creating learning programs for people who are interested in change. So individuals, startups, companies and organizations. So I'm interested in this topic because I believe that, yeah, the world needs a lot more deep human connection. So, and I think any type of opportunity to talk about that and to make those connections and also to show how we can, or just discuss about the different methodologies or the different tools that are at hand of how can we make that happen, then I'm always interested. So that's why I'm here.
Very nice, exciting, thank you.
Steve? Thank you, so Steve Marshall, and it's good afternoon from me as well, from the UK. I've been curious about how we might bring ourselves fully to bear in the world for some time, I guess. I'm mostly an academic, and in that field I'm an action researcher, so what that means is we don't study other people, we study ourselves in action with other people. So bringing change is the nature of our work, I guess, and we're interested from the action research perspective in things like democracy, mutuality, gender, social justice. So there's a flavor to this change, and it has a— it's a pretty tough time for people to be doing that sort of work in the world, it seems to me. So that's my That's my sort of professional interest in this. I'm a father and, you know, I have friends and relatives, and I wonder, as we continue down a pretty interesting trajectory in our lives at this particular time, where all this is going to end up and what— and I don't think the answer to that question is probably particularly, you know, rosy in any way. I think we're in for some tough times. And so I'm also trying to figure out what each of us can do to have an impact in a world that is going to get very difficult for us. So that's my interest. My background is in visual methods. I grew up as a photographer, a freelance photographer in fashion and advertising editorial work, and gave that up to become— to join the military. So I'm pretty sure that As a result of that experience, coercive change never really helped anybody that much. And now I look for more generative ways to help people change their lives and hopefully the world. So that's me, I think.
Thank you. Very nice. Thank you. Excited. And finally, Rich.
Hi, thanks for having me. I notice I, I love talking about these things and I love sharing my opinions with the world. And also, I feel kind of unsettled and nervous, which is an unusual experience for me. It's funny. So who am I? What am I up to? I guess the relevant background that I want to bring in— well, my accent is from New Zealand. That's why my English is so weird. But I live in Italy now. I come from an activist tradition. I got really animated during the Occupy movement in 2011. Then after Occupy, found my way into the world of social enterprise, this idea that business can be used to solve social problems. And a group of us started a technology platform which is called Lumio, which is about collective decision-making. It's like, how do you support a group to organize in a democratic way and make decisions together? So I did that for about 5 years, really pursuing this idea that the right piece of technology is really going to help change people's behavior. After 5 years of making some degree of success on that mission, I got more interested in what else is there outside of the software, like the human relationships and the culture and the attitudes and beliefs and how do we actually— where does behavior change come from and how do we support each other to grow into the best version of ourselves and so on. And so for the last, well, nearly 4 years now, I've been traveling the world with my partner and we Now we just work with any kind of group of humans, whether they're in an activist context or a business context or whatever, NGOs. And we're working with people who are trying to organize in a different way. So they're trying to organize without a traditional top-down management hierarchy. They're into self-management or they call themselves flat or decentralized organizations. And we have been traveling and learning what goes wrong with all those groups and how do we support you to come out of those difficult behaviors and into a new harmonious way of being. So that's my interest in this conversation is I think we are in a moment of really dramatic change and it's completely unpredictable. I don't have any sense of knowing if it's going to go well or badly, but I want to support those who are organizing themselves for a more beautiful future. I want to help us be more effective.
So that's my interest.
Great, wonderful. Well, thank you very much. I'm very excited by this discussion, not only because the lack of trust is having a profound effect in the marketing practice and in business in general, but also because as an individual, I have completely lost trust in leaders or in anyone who used to have a trusted voice like doctors, priests, my parents, as well as in any other organization for that matter. So I'm left alone and I know that I don't know. I've been practicing trusting my gut feel for some time now, that some people call intuition, which is really the only thing left. But it's been a real challenge because I have to rely on myself more. I have to show up and make choices. Interestingly, when I do, I can sense some resilience, and at times I felt like a warrior standing strong, even though I've never considered myself as an activist. So I'm excited to discuss a new form of activism and how to stay motivated in a world where there's no trustworthy leaders. So let's begin this conversation, and perhaps Steve, who is going to lead us into that conversation, if you'd like, you could start by just telling us what is going on.
