Hikma Collective Podcast: Recent Episodes
Hikma Collective
Welcome to the Hikma Collective Podcast! In our first season, "The Art of Alternatives," you’ll hear conversations with higher ed administrators, startup founders, and social sector leaders about the creative power of ‘in-betweenness’ and the many different pathways through which ideas take shape, travel and thrive.
Sign up at www.hikma.studio to be the first to know when new episodes drop.
“What does being a scholar mean to you?”
How do we create learning communities that offer participants the agency to thrive? This question is at the heart of our “Beyond the Academy” research initiative in partnership with researchers Andrea Webb and Jillianne Code at the University of British Columbia. Through qualitative and quantitative methods, we have gathered insights from professional learners who know firsthand what it means to teach, be taught and co-create knowledge: PhD Students and alumni. In this episode, we share some of our findings, implications, and next steps for this ongoing work.
Topics covered in this episode include:
- What does being a scholar mean to you?
- Professional agency within and beyond the academy
- Communities of practice and the benefits of building a constellation of communities
Dr. Andrea Webb spent a decade as a classroom teacher and department head before returning to higher education as a teacher educator. Her research interests lie in teaching and learning in higher education and she is involved in research projects related to Threshold Concepts, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), and Social Studies Teacher Education.
Dr. Jillianne Code is a Canadian researcher, educator, and learning scientist specializing in learner agency, online learning technologies, and the impact of social media on student success and well-being. As the Director of the ALIVE Research Lab at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Code studies agency ‘unbundled’ from formal education, including video games, virtual reality, technology education, and social media communities.
"Everybody wants to be heard. They have a story to tell."
Music is a universal language that can activate a community. In this episode, Dwandalyn Reece discusses her work examining the material culture of music, telling stories across contexts, and making knowledge accessible to general audiences.
Topics covered in this episode include:
- Telling the stories behind the objects of music to reach people
- How to determine whether what you’re doing has an impact
- How listening better helps build relationships
Dr. Dwandalyn R. Reece is Curator of Music and Performing Arts at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and curated the museum’s permanent exhibition, Musical Crossroads for which she received the Secretary’s Research Prize in 2017. Reece has collaborated with other SI units on such programs as the 2016 NMAAHC Grand Opening Festival, Freedom Sounds: A Community Celebration and the 2011 Folklife Festival program, Rhythm & Blues: Tell it Like It Is. She is chair of the SI pan-institutional group Smithsonian Music and is currently working on the NMAAHC and Smithsonian Folkways collaboration, The Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap, and serving as co-curator of the Smithsonian Year of Music.
"It's that interconnectedness that really defines Indigenous ways of knowing."
In this episode, we share highlights from our Hikma Office Hours event about Indigenous ways of knowing and how to work with partners and collaborators in a meaningful and respectful ways to drive change. Camille Callison brings expert knowledge and lived experience to our conversation about Indigenous knowledges, reconciliation, and building relationships in library, archival and cultural memory praxis.
Topics covered in this episode include:
- Getting comfortable talking about truth, reconciliation, and “Indigenous ways of knowing”
- Better practices for collaboration and partnership with Indigenous communities
- Connecting scholarship with local knowledge to advance better policies, practices, and tools
"I don't break things without consequence." In this episode, Brittany Brathwaite discusses her willingness to break the rules in order to change the world, our society, or ourselves for the better. Brittany shares insights from her work interrupting health inequality for women and girls of color, supporting women and non-binary owned businesses, and creating a community of practice for youth workers.
We cover topics such as:
- What is a worker-owned co-operative business model
- Countering the idea of disruption in innovation
- Advice for building more humanity into business and operationalizing your values both externally and internally
“The practice of entrepreneurship is the ‘how,’ and the social is the ‘why.’”
In this conversation, author and social entrepreneur Madeleine Shaw invites us to reimagine the landscape of entrepreneurship. She shares insights about how we are all unlearning something, how flexibility is the new balance, and how we can create the conditions for social change using empathy, storytelling, and community.
Topics covered in this episode include:
- Employing the tools of entrepreneurship to build the scaffolding for social change,
- The importance of nurturing relationships,
- How to communicate productively with people who might not share the same values, and
- Encouragement and advice for people just starting out and for those who want to start doing better
Speaker Bio: Madeleine Shaw is a social entrepreneur and author based on unceded Coast Salish territory (Vancouver BC). She is best known as the co-founder of Aisle (formerly Lunapads), one of the first groundbreaking ventures in the world to commercialize reusable menstrual products. In 2014 she founded G Day, an event series for girls, and in 2018 she launched Nestworks, a family-friendly coworking community. In her first book, The Greater Good: Social Entrepreneurship for Everyday People Who Want to Change the World, she offers encouraging tips and reflections for aspiring impact-based entrepreneurs.
Check out The Greater Good: https://madeleineshaw.ca/the-greater-good/
“It’s a way of honoring the knowledge and experience that’s in the room.”
Generative questions are a way of entering a conversation with a new or existing partner and honouring the knowledge and experience that’s in the room. To kick off Season 3, Hikma’s founder Erica Machulak shares 3 tips for asking generative questions to spark authentic conversations with your potential partners and collaborators.
These tips will help you:
- Start collaborative projects on the right foot,
- Surface potential connections that may not always be intuitive or visible, and
- Maintain relationships over time.
In the episodes that follow in this season, we talk with some of our dream mentors and show firsthand how we use generative questions to leverage our empathy and curiosity to move conversations forward.
A conversation with Bill Neill about building relationships, keeping your work in perspective, opportunities in the tech sector, and what we mean when we say "coding."
Topics discussed in this episode include:
- Finding the right career path based on what things you enjoy doing and defining what you are good at.
- Insights, tips, and questions to ask yourself when starting a business.
- How to ask for advice and the value of your network.
- The importance of staying grounded and preserving your own wellbeing.
Since graduating with his Bachelor of Science from UPenn’s Wharton School of Business, Bill Neill has held leadership and consulting roles at some of the biggest names in software and healthtech — Epic, Hyland, and Nordic Consulting, to name a few. His robust knowledge of healthtech — and the needs when it comes to hiring for these types of specialized companies — translates well to the recruiting world and co-founding of Carex Consulting Group, a staffing company that helps match companies with top talent. Originally from San Francisco, Bill witnessed the tech boom of Silicon Valley right outside his door, and the free flow of ideas and innovation ecosystem of the Bay Area is something that’s stuck with him throughout his career, which is evident in his passion for startups and entrepreneurial ventures. In addition to loving a good dad joke, he’s the one we go to when we’re looking to buy our next gadget — headphones especially.
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-neill-8b944845/
https://www.carexconsulting.com/
A conversation with JP Baker about asking the right questions, organizational structures, and scarcity vs. abundance thinking.
Topics discussed in this episode include:
- The art of facilitation, appreciative inquiry, and cultivating a spirit of collaboration.
- Redefining ‘not-for-profit’ away from economic/negative terms and toward social benefit, debunking myths about not-for-profits, and the roles and skills that serve this sector best.
- The concept of radical candor for giving and receiving feedback.
- The importance of empathy.
JP Baker works as a Planning Consultant with Vantage Point, ready to support organizations strategize the most effective ways to reach their goals. JP has extensive experience as a facilitator, consultant, researcher, and writer. As a consultant, JP is sought out for his expertise in governance, organizational culture, strategy, process design, and change management. Over the past fifteen years, he has done strategic planning with a wide variety of not-for-profit organizations and university departments and led the development of several community-wide plans.
JP is also involved in overall advancement of the non-profit sector in BC. He belongs to peer networks on sector development and reimagining governance, and he coordinates the ChangeLink initiative in the BC interior, which aims to promote connection and coordination in the local non-profit sector. JP is also a founder of and public spokesperson for Keep Kamloops an initiative designed to provide a promotional boost to arts, recreation, and heritage organizations impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Outside of his professional activities, JP serves as President of the Kamloops Society for the Written Arts, plays and sings with the band Van Horne, and is an active father, cook, and writer.
Links:
https://www.keepkamloops.ca/
A conversation with Nadia Sasso about being an unconventional scholar, what it means to have an entrepreneurial spirit, and how to ask for what you deserve.
Topics discussed in this episode include:
- How identity impacts the work that you do.
- The importance of finding the right people and creating space for yourself.
- Knowing what you bring to the table, ripping up the script, and advocating for yourself.
Dr. Nadia Marie Sasso is a high-powered creative cultural producer and unconventional scholar based in Los Angeles. Her expertise is developing engaging creative content and driving strategy across various platforms and media. Nadia has 10 years of relevant professional experience, with documented success in the areas of social innovation, strategic partnerships, and new media.
Her portfolio proves that she is deeply invested and interested in media as a storytelling tool to not only engage and inspire audiences but also connecting people around the world with stories they will love. She advocates for changing the way relationships are built, fostered, and established across various industries both in the diaspora and on the African continent.
Links:
https://www.nadiamariesasso.com
A conversation with Aaron Mitchell Finegold about the language of entrepreneurship, social media culture, and taking the long view in your career path.
Topics discussed in this episode include:
- Translating/defining business terminology (rapid fire vocabulary lesson)
- Working across frameworks/disciplines/functions
- How academic training in the humanities can be translated into and beneficial for the professional sector
- The importance of gratitude
Aaron is a growth and customer strategy leader with a breadth of experience across sectors, functions, and geographies (preferred pronouns: he/him/his). Aaron holds a B.A. with High Honors in English & American Literature and Psychology from Brandeis University, and an M.B.A. from INSEAD (where he was one of two student commencement speakers and selected to represent INSEAD at the W.E.F. annual meeting in Davos). Aaron happens to serve as a current leader in LinkedIn's Business Operations function (previously an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company and a Worldwide Marketing Strategy Consultant at Ogilvy). As a queer leader of color, Aaron has contributed to advancing Diversity and Inclusion agendas at several companies across his career. He has been involved with a wide variety of nonprofits, including Pine Street Inn (previously HopeFound) in Boston; YearUp in New York, Chicago and LA; and Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. He's also a published author with bylines in Thrive Global, The Forward, and McKinsey Insights.
Links:
https://www.aaronmitchellfinegold.com
A conversation with Crystal Moten about storytelling, authenticity, and the realities of pursuing a career that sustains you intellectually, emotionally, and financially.
Topics discussed in this episode include:
- Archival work as a transferable skill from academia to museum work.
- Insights on what it means to be a scholar outside the academy.
- Uncovering/recovering the hidden/untold/forgotten stories of Black women using speculation and critical fabulation.
- The importance of imagination.
Guest Bio: A Chicago native and a Midwesterner through and through, Dr. Crystal Moten received her undergraduate degree from Washington University in Saint Louis where she majored in Anthropology and African American Studies. From the University of Wisconsin Madison, she earned her master’s degree in Afro American Studies and her PhD in History.
Specializing in African American History, Dr. Moten focuses on the intersection of race, class and gender to uncover the hidden histories of Black people in the Midwest. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Civil and Human Rights; a special issue of Souls focusing on Black women’s work, culture, and politics; and most recently in The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle Outside the South. At the National Museum of American History, she has co-curated an exhibit: The Only One in the Room: Women Achievers in Business and the Cost of Success. Her forthcoming book is entitled Continually Working: Black Women’s Economic Activism in Postwar Milwaukee.
Before joining the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Dr. Moten was an award-winning professor at small liberal arts colleges on the east coast and upper Midwest. Currently, she is curator of African American History in the Division of Work and Industry where she is responsible for building the museum’s collections as they relate to the material culture history of African American business and labor.
Links:
https://www.crystalmoten.com
https://www.blackherstory101.com
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collected-podcast/black-feminism-rerooted
A conversation with Stacy Hartman about curiosity, mentorship, and how to ace your LinkedIn profile. Listen in for some great stories, actionable tips, and insightful words of encouragement.
Topics discussed in this episode include:
- Cultivating curiosity and openness, following your nose, and embracing distraction.
- The role of serendipity and luck in job searches and career paths beyond the academy.
- How to frame your skills and experiences for new audiences.
- Valuable insights about mentorship, relationships, navigating social media, and engaging with communities online.
Stacy M. Hartman is the director of the PublicsLab at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. At the PublicsLab, she supports doctoral students who are interested in public-facing scholarship and a range of career pathways. Prior to coming to the Graduate Center, she was the project manager of Connected Academics, which focused on broadening career horizons for language and literature PhDs, at the Modern Language Association. She holds a PhD in German Studies from Stanford University.
Sneak preview of our first-ever season, the Art of Alternatives. Throughout this season, you’ll hear conversations with higher ed administrators, startup founders, and social sector leaders about the creative power of ‘in-betweenness’ and the many different pathways through which ideas take shape, travel and thrive.
Visit www.hikma.studio to be the first to know when new episodes drop.