Podcast

SPOS #681 – Baratunde Thurston On Technology, Comedy, Politics And Life

Baratunde Thurston speaks at TED2019: Bigger Than Us. April 15 - 19, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED

Welcome to episode #681 of Six Pixels of Separation.

Here it is: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #681 – Host: Mitch Joel. Montreal in the summer is a magical time. From the Festival International De Jazz De Montreal to Montreal ComicCon and Heavy Montreal (coming up this weekend!) to the famed Just For Laughs Comedy Festival (which is happening now). When the line-up was announced for Just For Laughs, I saw that my fellow TEDster, Baratunde Thurston, was going to be coming to town to host (and moderate) a panel called, Political Comedy on Political Change. We had a chance to sit down and record during an incredible day of sunshine, right before his event. For those who don’t know, Baratunde Thurston is an Emmy-nominated writer, activist, and comedian who has worked for The Onion, produced for The Daily Show, advised the Obama White House. He also cleaned bathrooms to pay for his Harvard education. He hosts the iHeartMedia podcast Spit, wrote the New York Times bestseller, How To Be Black, and serves on the boards of BUILD and the Brooklyn Public Library. Baratunde makes media, delivers keynotes, and promotes action with his unique blend of criticism, humor, and optimism. He’s most invested in topics of race, technology, democracy, and climate (because the hard stuff has already been solved). He’s got one of the warmest hearts and biggest brains. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 1:03:45.
Hello from beautiful Montreal.
Subscribe over at iTunes.
Please visit and leave comments on the blog – Six Pixels of Separation.
Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook.
or you can connect on LinkedIn.
…or on Twitter.
Here is my conversation with Baratunde Thurston.
How To Be Black.
Just For Laughs Comedy Festival.
Political Comedy on Political Change.
Follow Baratunde on Twitter.
This week’s music: David Usher ‘St. Lawrence River’.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels of Separation – Episode #681 – Host: Mitch Joel.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.