Archives: Pódcasts

What value can Sapiens provide in the field of strategic business decision-making?

In this in-depth episode of “Connecting knowledge”, economist and historian Marcel Planellas addresses the fundamental role of the Sapiens methodology in his work as a professor in the Department of General Management and Strategy at ESADE.

Planellas is a deep connoisseur of elBulli since 2005 and a close collaborator of Ferran Adrià. What role has Sapiens played in the understanding about innovation? How has it influenced the innovation audit and Open Innovation? The professor presents the keys to how the Sapiens methodology can become a driving force behind ideas and strategy in the world of economy.

This is how Marcel Planellas sees the priorities of companies regarding management and innovation:

“Companies are very focused on day-to-day management and very pressured by results in current businesses, and they spend little time exploring new businesses, innovations and future issues. This has an explanation. If you invest in your current business, the possibility of success or recovering the investment is much more predictable. On the other hand, with investments in innovation, and especially if these innovations are very radical innovations, you don’t know how long it will take or the result you will get. There are many failures. So there is a bias in management and the tendency is to focus more on the day-to-day and instead being afraid of the risk of investing in the future, in exploring innovations”

About Marcel Planellas

Marcel Planellas has a degree in Modern History and a PhD in Economic and Business Sciences. Professor of the Department of General Management and Strategy of ESADE Business School (Ramon Llull University) since 1986. On the evolution of elBulli, he is the author of a case study (Harvard Business Case Library), several articles (Journal of Organizational Behavior, Long Range Planning) and presentations (ExpoManagement, WOIC). He is the coordinator of the Challenge for Business Innovation – C4BI, organized by ESADE and elBullifoundation, to apply the creative audit.

How can a company apply the principles of the Sapiens methodology to all its processes and take it one step further?

In this episode of “Connecting knowledge”, the renowned journalist and consultant Mario Tascón explains how the Sapiens methodology has impacted his approach to communication and the day-to-day life of Prodigioso Volcán.

With vast experience in the world of connected knowledge and as a pioneer in his field, Tascón shares his ideas about creativity, organization and the importance of classifying information. Where is creativity born? What is the value of language in our understanding of the world? How can we connect knowledge from seemingly opposite fields?

This is how Mario Tascón sees the evolution of classification systems to organize and connect knowledge:

“Throughout history there have been different systems, and in fact it is a challenge of humanity itself. Everyone always tries, in different historical periods, to have classification systems. This started with naturalists, in the 19th century, who began to use the first systems. It also starts in libraries, in the 19th century, and even the 20th century, in the 1950s. With the first mechanization, other models of taxonomies and other labeling models were born. Humanity evolved, and as humanity evolved, it evolved. And information, information management, became increasingly more complex, until reaching current systems, where the semantic web itself, for example, would perhaps be the most modern. And there is also everything that artificial intelligence opens up to us now, which are systems that will complement humans with new patterns and new formules for classification that will be found by machines too”

About Mario Tascón

Mario Tascón studied Teaching at the University of León and Psychology at UNED. He worked at the newspaper El Mundo, where he was deputy director and the creator and first director of the website elmundo.es, and head of the digital area of the Prisa group. He was later president of the Fundación del Español Urgente (Fundéu) and managing partner of Prodigioso Volcán, a strategic consulting company.

 

Mario Tascón, the protagonist of this episode, recently died at the age of 60. In his memory, we kept the conversation with someone who was a fundamental pillar for Sapiens.

How has the Sapiens methodology influenced the understanding of psychology?

In this episode of “Connecting knowledge”, professor of Psychology Quim Limonero addresses how Sapiens has played a key role in his professional work.

From understanding the way the mind works psychologically to introducing the concept of psychocreativity, Limonero reveals how Sapiens has allowed to ask more questions and arrive at better answers.

Can you be creative under pressure? How do emotions affect our behavior? Dive into this conversation to understand how Sapiens can become an essential tool in psychology work.

This is how Quim Limonero sees the combination between creativity and working under pressure:

“On the basis of psychology, to do any activity we need a certain level of activation, which we could call the optimal level of activation. If we went beyond that optimal level of activation, we would enter a situation of anxiety and worry, in which the creative process is more difficult. Certain people, in certain environments, perform much better under a certain amount of pressure, and even more so if that pressure happens in a team, where all team members are working towards the same direction. But maintaining the pressure for a long time, a situation of sustained stress, is not the most advisable thing to do, because in the end you would reach a state of emotional and cognitive exhaustion. Situations or periods in which there’s more activation, more stress, should be combined with situations in which there’s more tranquility, to then reflect on what you have done in that stage of more tension, more emotional activation”

About Quim Limonero

Quim Limonero is a professor of Psychology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). He conducts basic and applied research in the field of motivation, emotion and creativity. In particular, he analyzes the emotional effects on higher cognitive processes and their influence on thinking and creativity. He also studies the processes of human adaptation to stressful situations. He is a member of the Stress and Health Research Group (GIES) of the Faculty of Psychology of the UAB.

How are classifications and taxonomies connected to the Sapiens methodology?

In this episode of “Connecting knowledge”, professor Miquel Centelles delves into the influence of Sapiens in his work and the way it has helped to understand the taxonomy of companies.

From the humanistic economy to digital humanities, Centelles shares his experience and how the Sapiens methodology has been a crucial basis in his work. Discover how the classification of knowledge influences our day-to-day and how it is related to other areas of great relevance today, such as natural language processing.

This is how Miquel Centelles sees digital humanities, which connect two worlds that need each other:

“Humanities students, because they are going to need it, have to acquire skills in computerization, in programming for example. At different levels… At least they have to understand that to solve something, in a humanities project, you have to know how to correctly explain to a computer scientist, a technologist, the way to do it. They cannot be in the hands of a technologist who, in some way, occupies the territories that belong to a humanities specialist. But also the sciences and techniques have to, in some way, dress up as humanities. They have to use humanities techniques, models, to better reach people”

About Miquel Centelles

Miquel Centelles has a degree in Philology and a diploma in Librarianship and Documentation. He is a professor in the Department of Librarianship, Documentation and Audiovisual Communication at the University of Barcelona. He teaches in the areas of organization and representation of knowledge and metadata, in classes of the degree of Information and Documentation and masters degrees such as Digital Humanities. It develops research in the application of semantic technologies for the web of data, in collaboration with institutions such as EADOP. He is also a member of the Adaptabit teaching improvement group, specialized in digital accessibility.

How can the Sapiens methodology contribute to foster innovation and business transformation?

In this episode of “Connecting knowledge”, Michelle Greenwald, innovation expert and professor, shares her unique perspective on how the Sapiens methodology has influenced her approach to marketing.

With an impressive track record at companies like Pepsi, Mattel and Disney, Greenwald reveals how strategy and innovation play a vital role in brand management and product development. From teaching at Columbia University to consulting with global companies, she explores how the Sapiens methodology has resonated with her work in creating cultures of innovation and adapting to changing market trends.

This is how Michelle Greenwald sees the need to question how things are done in organizations, in order to improve:

“Most people are kind of lazy, and they don’t like to ask too many questions, because they might find out that what they’re doing is wrong or it’s not the best that it can be. So I think it’s very valuable, if you want to improve. I think it is good to question and not be afraid to question, and also to have multi-functional questioning. Not just the initial team that comes up with the idea, but try and get viewpoints from other perspectives, because then you identify problems sooner, and you can deal with them sooner. It’s a balance because, if you’re constantly critiquing, it can be paralyzing and you will never move forward. But I do think it is good to be open and then, hopefully, you can decide what’s worthwhile or not. But if you don’t allow the questions, you’re never going to find out what the issues are”

About Michelle Greenwald

Michelle Greenwald studied International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in Business Administration and Management at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She was business director of Nestlé USA, vice president of Pepsi, vice president of Mattel and vice president of Disney. She is CEO of Inventours and a professor at Columbia, NYU Stern and IESE business schools.

What are the similarities between the Sapiens methodology and the way our brain works?

In this episode of “Connecting knowledge”, scientist and divulgator David Bueno explores the connections between Sapiens and neuroscience, and how this methodology has influenced his way of understanding his field of research.

Discover how the Sapiens methodology is helping to transcend the borders of knowledge, what role emotions play in decision-making, and what mysteries still remain to be discovered in everything related to our mind and its mechanics.

This is how David Bueno sees the connection and integration of different fields of knowledge, based on the way the brain works:

“The argument I would give from the perspective of science is that everyone has one single brain. We don’t have many brains, specialized in different tasks. We have one brain. It is nourished by many different aspects, but in the end it integrates them all. For me this is the best argument to say: from these synergies is from where we must build knowledge, from where we must keep moving forward, because this is how the brain works. If we follow its own way of working, we will be using it in the most efficient way possible. If not, we won’t be getting all the utility we can get out of it. And if we can use it efficiently, why resign ourselves to using only small parts…”

About David Bueno

David Bueno holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Barcelona (UB). He was a researcher at the University of Oxford. He is currently full professor of the Biomedical, Developmental and Developmental Genetics Section of the UB, and since 2019 he is the director of the Neuroeducation Chair. Author of 60 scientific articles, 20 essay and dissemination books and several hundred journalistic articles. He has won several awards related to his research, dissemination and teaching work.

 

How has the Sapiens methodology influenced the world of engineering and education?

In this episode of “Connecting knowledge”, engineer Israel Ruiz, former vice president of MIT, tells us what the impact of Sapiens has been on his work and his thinking.

From his experience at MIT to the comparison between the American and Spanish educational models, Ruiz reveals how Sapiens has allowed him to ask deeper questions and arrive at richer answers. Why is it good to break patterns? What makes the Sapiens methodology applicable to any discipline, some as diverse as gastronomy, education or technology?

This is how Israel Ruiz sees universities and education in the Anglo-Saxon world and in Europe:

“University, or education in general, is designed as if there were lines, like if you jump into the pool and you can’t get out of your line. If what you want is to swim diagonally, in the pool you can’t. University and education in general is designed a little like this. Connecting knowledge happens at the very very very end, not at the beginning. At first you get on your line and you have to navigate your line. This works for many people, and it’s perfect for many people, because it guides them and allows them to move in a certain direction. But there are other people who really like to say: look, now I’m going to try this line, but then I would like to try another line… And it is difficult, it is very difficult to do this. There is a different concept in Anglo-Saxon education, in universities, than in European education. The Anglo-Saxons allow much more of this. We have to learn to do this more and more, because the world is much more transversal, much more interdisciplinary. The people who only take one lane or one degree, there aren’t that so many of those anymore. We need to be a little more open about how to do this”

About Israel Ruiz

Israel Ruiz was, from 2011 to 2020, the executive vice president and treasurer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a member of the executive board of directors. He joined MIT in 2001, where he first was chief financial officer and vice president of finance. He studied Mechanical Industrial Engineering at the Higher Technical School of Industrial Engineering of Barcelona (ETSEIB) of the Polytechnic University of Barcelona (UPC) and, after receiving a scholarship from la Caixa, he studied a master’s degree at the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

After the closure of elBullirestaurant, Ferran Adrià and the elBullifoundation team embarked on a mission to deeply understand the world of gastronomy. This search gave birth to Sapiens, a methodology that links seemingly unconnected points and creates unexpected connections.

In the first episode of “Connecting knowledge”, the legendary publicist Toni Segarra tells us how he understands the Sapiens methodology and how he has contributed to its creation.

From his professional perspective, we will discover how the art of connecting ideas can transform the way we understand and practice advertising, and we will delve into different visions on how to approach the creative process.

This is how Toni Segarra sees creativity and innovation that become tradition:

“The origin of creativity is inevitably copying. One learns by copying from others. In any case, it’s later when the next step happens, the fundamental step, which not everyone reaches, which is the creation of a personality,

the creation of one’s own voice, the creation of one’s own style. In the end the dream for any innovation is to become tradition. An innovation that really works is one that becomes a classic forever. When you achieve a style that is confused with what people expect from something, with what tends to be called a classic, you are turning universal again, something that belongs to everyone. That means getting to be the voice of the world, in some way, more than your own voice, which is practically impossible”

About Toni Segarra

Toni Segarra has a degree in Hispanic Philology. He worked in different advertising agencies, and in 1995 he started his own agency, SCPF, together with Luis Cuesta, Ignasi Puig and Félix Fernández de Castro. He won 39 “lions” at the Cannes Festival and more than 100 “soles” at the San Sebastián Festival, and has been chosen as the best creative of the 20th century by Anuncios magazine. Since 2017 he is a founding partner of the consulting firm Alegre Roca, along with Luis Cuesta.

What is Sapiens? How was it born? What’s the objective? Can it be extrapolated to other subjects beyond gastronomy?

In chapter 0 of “Connecting knowledge”, Ferran Adrià tells how, after the closure of the elBulli restaurant, he conceived Sapiens. How a methodology that served to understand gastronomy could be focused in such a way that it could serve any discipline.

This is how Ferran Adrià explains how his interest in connecting knowledge from different areas arose, the genesis of the Sapiens methodology:

“When I closed the restaurant, we took two and a half years of sabbatical, to put it in some way, to understand what we did. What did we do? Cooking… and creating.

Then I thought that this was going to be fast, that I was going to do it in no time, maybe in a year. Well, it took me seven or eight years. We started pulling the thread, the thread, the thread… and we saw that we had to start… that we had to connect many issues, or it was impossible to understand it”

Ferran Adrià was, along with Juli Soler and Albert Adrià, the leader of elBullirestaurant for more than twenty years. Starting in the fall of 2011, he started creating the elBullifoundation project, a change in his professional life, focusing on a more global, holistic and theoretical vision of innovation and, consequently, management for small and medium-sized companies. This vision evolved to what it is today, giving rise to the Sapiens methodology. He is currently the president of elBullifoundation.