We are very fortunate to speak to, and connect with, so many amazing individuals over the course of our work at Udacity, and the opportunity to turn these interactions around and share them with our community in this new way is something we’ve long looked forward to. Please consider this your invitation to listen to the inaugural episode of The Drawing Board, Udacity’s new podcast!
Focus on Discovery
There are many traits that unite the thinkers and doers in our world, but a passion for discovery looms above them all. Self-driving car engineers working on automation technology, roboticists developing smart prosthetics, front-end designers creating seamless new user experiences, VR developers building creative new worlds, app developers finding new ways to make technology mobile, marketers searching out new stories and telling them in new ways—they’re all driven by a thirst for discovery, and a desire to learn more, try more, do more.
Discovery is exactly what our podcast is all about. With every episode we produce, we want to highlight fascinating discoveries, and the remarkable people who make them. We want to discover new ideas, and explore both their implications and their implementations. We want to celebrate discoverers and discovery, and in so going help you discover the individuals, ideas, and innovations that are shaping our world.
Back to The Drawing Board
Something else that’s common to innovators across all fields is the willingness to fail. And not just fail, but learn from failure, and return from it with new ideas. This is why we are calling our podcast The Drawing Board:
“If you’re not at the drawing board, you’re not making discoveries.”—Neil deGrasse Tyson
Chris Morell hosts The Drawing Board, and has been the driving force behind its creation since the podcast itself was little more than an idea on a drawing board:
“I’m a big podcast fan in general, and as someone with a lot of different interests in a lot of different areas, I’ve always admired and appreciated how great podcasts manage to cover so much topical ground, while still maintaining a core identity and perspective. In my role as Marketing Director for Udacity, I get to see our community and our world from every angle, and the more I thought about it, the more clearly I realized that we had a unique opportunity to do something really special with this medium. I think we’re going to amaze people with the stories we’re going to tell.”
The Art of ‘No’
From the start, telling stories in a new way was a core goal, and we think our first episode is a really exciting expression of this ideal.
Episode 1 is called “The Art of ‘No’,” and it’s inspired by Steve Jobs’ now famous phrase from Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in 1997. We’ve assembled a pretty unique group of guest to consider the topic, and alongside Carmine Gallo, who has written extensively about Steve Jobs, we also welcome CEO coach and psychologist Camille Preston (founder and CEO of AIM Leadership, and the author of Rewired: How to Work Smarter, Live Better, and Be Purposefully Productive in an Overwired World), and Ray Mabus, whose incredible career includes being the 75th United States Secretary of the Navy, the 60th Governor of Mississippi, and the United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia!
Can learning to say “No” make you a better employee? A better leader? A better person? These are the questions this episode considers, and our hope is that you’ll come away from it understanding how resisting the urge to always say “Yes” can actually help you optimize both your work and your personal life.
For Your Ears Only
Udacity’s groundbreaking online classroom experience uses video to deliver a significant portion of our cutting-edge content, and it’s a medium we have extensive experience with. Venturing into the world of audio-only was accordingly a bit of a new frontier for the team that helped build The Drawing Board:
“While I love storytelling through video, I am impressed by the richness of the audio medium. It’s a challenging process, but I find that I’m constantly delighted by the results.”—Calvin Hu, Senior Video Producer, Udacity
This is a sentiment echoed by Kelly Schwarze, Udacity’s Social Media & Content Marketing Manager:
“I feel very fortunate that my role means spending a lot of time talking about and sharing amazing content, and engaging every day with people in our community who are inspired and moved by the stories being told. Podcasts are such a powerful and unique storytelling medium, and I am really excited to see a community grow around The Drawing Board. I have a feeling it’s going to take on a life of its own!”
Back to The Drawing Board
“Isn’t the drawing board the place where all the best work happens? It’s not a bad thing to go back there. It’s the entire point.” —Seth Godin
We can’t wait for you to listen to the inaugural episode of The Drawing Board! Mainly, of course, because we think you’ll love it, but there’s more to it than that.
Until you’ve actually listened to at least one episode, we can’t tell you to “go back to the drawing board!”
~
Listen to The Drawing Board today, and then please subscribe, because if you want to discover what the future holds, you have to go back to The Drawing Board!
