0:01

Afro Tech Executive is our multi

0:03

city series which empowers corporate

0:06

executives, investors, and tech moguls.

0:08

And we kick off our twenty twenty three series

0:10

with a trip to Seattle, Washington March

0:12

thirtieth. We're in the city discussing artificial

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intelligence with Jessica Matthews,

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founder of Uncharted. Be in the house with us

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this year for an Afrotech Executive events.

0:22

Experienced dot afrotech dot com to

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learn more. I'm

0:27

Will Lucas, missus Black Tech, Green

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Money. I'm going to introduce

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you to some of the biggest names, some of the brightest

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minds and brilliant ideas. If you're

0:36

black and building or simply using Texas Security,

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you bag this podcast is for you. Drew

0:45

Hansen is an award winning designer, entrepreneur,

0:48

and founder currently working on cannabis related

0:51

technologies. His undergraduate

0:53

in engineering physics from a university is Saskatchewan

0:56

and he's got a massive industrial design

0:58

from Italy. Balances the requirements

1:01

that both feels naturally in any design

1:03

strategy. So I ask them, our

1:05

designer's naturally good at design,

1:07

Like is this something you can be born with? Or

1:09

it's good and inspire design a concept

1:12

that can be taught in school.

1:13

There's some parts of design that education helps.

1:16

I think, you know, I create

1:19

a lot of things, but I don't call myself an artist.

1:21

And I do that I don't know because

1:23

I don't have a lot of as much maybe faith in my

1:25

art creations as I do my engineering creations.

1:27

And I can't hinge my identity on it. But

1:30

when it comes to design, the difference

1:32

between art and design is functionality. It has

1:34

a purpose, It serves humans somehow in

1:38

its methodology of its creation. And

1:40

to that point, education helps

1:43

the size of the basket of tools you have to

1:45

reach to to be able to create. But

1:48

there's great creators who have it, and there's great to sorry,

1:50

there's great designers who have it, and there's great designers who

1:53

don't. But you'll be more prone

1:55

to I suppose, making

1:57

a mistake or doing some exposure things like

1:59

that, just because

2:01

you wouldn't have certain experiences that

2:04

maybe would have stopped that.

2:05

It's so interesting that you said you don't

2:07

call yourself an artist in that way, and

2:10

it would seem to me that, well,

2:13

let me translate that for how I heard it, and then maybe

2:16

you can clarify what you actually mean

2:18

by that. So how I hear that is

2:21

you're less inclined to reach

2:24

and to go

2:27

completely left field or

2:30

just give a whole new perspective

2:32

to how something could be presented to the world.

2:35

And maybe you don't mean that. So I'm looking for clarity.

2:39

When I say my

2:41

art, I feel like if I was to just restart

2:44

the conversation with that being the subject, I

2:46

feel like my art is the digital hardware

2:49

creations I make with the zeros and

2:51

the ones and the software, and how that's done,

2:54

and the designs themselves and

2:56

how they come out. I can fairly

2:58

honestly say from all the hard where pieces

3:00

I've gone that've created that have made

3:02

it into mass production in the world, nothing

3:05

really looked like them before, nothing really operated

3:07

like them before. There's some part of them

3:09

there that there's a lighting design

3:12

that you know, there's some real heart and

3:14

soul in And I think maybe that's

3:16

what I could call my art. But in the

3:18

sense of how the TikTok world

3:20

sees art, which is I can create

3:23

this piece and sell it for this much money

3:25

and I live off of that, you know

3:28

that definition of art, I

3:30

guess I would say I have a hard time of

3:32

saying I am one of.

3:33

Those you know, yeah, yeah,

3:36

I mean, I'm glad you said that, because I wanted

3:38

to talk to you about how how you balance

3:41

the desire to create something special

3:44

with what the business needs and what

3:46

the consumer needs and what the business needs to make

3:48

sense, Like, how do you balance those things?

3:50

It's an interesting question. It

3:53

has to do with whether or not the products you

3:55

create you consume, because

3:59

what I've learned is

4:02

it's obviously a lot easier to create something

4:04

that you consume because you have certain insights

4:06

that don't exist if you're outside

4:08

of the demographic pool of what who actually utilizes

4:11

your product. And it's okay to create

4:13

that way, but it's a hell of a lot harder, and

4:15

it's a hell of a lot harder to be

4:19

not just on demographic, but

4:21

to ensure that you're timing for

4:24

when you're making this thing is also accurate.

4:28

And when I talked to that, I guess my

4:30

own personal experience is, well,

4:33

I my background in life is I wanted

4:35

to design racing technology for Formula

4:37

one, and then I pursued this long, you

4:40

know, passionate journey for that, and

4:42

along the way there was there was

4:44

some great wins, but I

4:47

think at the core of it

4:49

it was a bit it was a bit different.

4:51

So let me reset. I just I lost my

4:53

train of thought as to why I brought that point up.

4:56

Now this is good, this is super good. I'm really

4:58

interested.

4:58

Okay, so let's reset asking the ques and again, just you

5:00

can have it reframed. Yeah.

5:01

So I was interested in how you balance the

5:04

consumer needs and what the consumer wants versus

5:06

actually what the business needs.

5:09

So but you always are

5:12

trying to make something that the business needs.

5:14

If you're making it under your business umbrella, that's

5:17

kind of the starting point for the conversation. But

5:20

how you craft that solution and what you craft and

5:22

why you craft it still can have different

5:24

answers. And when

5:27

I was talking about having insights versus

5:29

not having insights right now, so I

5:31

always My parent company is twenty

5:33

two b in my product design studio, and

5:36

from there we focused on things at the intersection

5:38

of art and technology and art and design. But

5:42

when we first created something, I want to

5:44

create things that help people. And the

5:46

first thing we created was seem Technique. You

5:49

know, in that company, we created

5:51

a personal safety IoT platform. It had

5:53

a mobile application that an Uber

5:56

driver or anybody work by themselves

5:58

could use to share not just where

6:00

they are. Because I felt like that was easy,

6:02

that was done, that was accessible. That's just by my friends.

6:05

But if you you know, used by my friends, or you

6:07

send up that red flag that you're in danger once

6:10

or twice, that kind of a system doesn't really have much

6:12

usage. So what we're talking about is

6:14

how do you share your current

6:16

state with context? And that's

6:19

where I felt there could be an advancement in that area.

6:21

And so you know, we created

6:23

an app that allowed you to share what you see, what you hear,

6:25

and where you are synchronized to your

6:27

GPS data live stream to five people,

6:31

and it had a good application for Uber drivers. Then

6:34

we extended that to we've

6:38

expanded that to loan workers, targeted

6:41

degmographic of people who just work by themselves and might

6:43

need access to such technology. But

6:45

we really landed on a good home with realtors

6:48

and people doing open homes. For example. Now

6:51

I am not a realtor, I'm not somebody doing an

6:53

open home, and in this situation, I

6:55

don't have certain insights, but we

6:57

went ahead because I was very

6:59

certain that the product we were creating was needed,

7:02

was something that was valuable and I

7:04

still do this day contend that, you know, we

7:08

and then we created a wearable device

7:10

called the Lotus that had a built in microphone

7:12

and speaker, but it also synchronized to

7:15

your SERI or Google Assistant. And this is like six

7:17

seven years ago right now, So it was like on

7:19

the cusp of when Google introduced this technology.

7:21

We were at cees on that launch here with them, and

7:25

you know, I guess the point I'm trying to

7:27

make is when I was in that company,

7:30

we were basically trying to sell do you feel

7:32

safe? And you

7:34

know, to the point about

7:38

doing something and selling it and having those insights.

7:40

I've been consuming cannabis my whole life for medicinal

7:42

purposes, and on top of that, I've

7:45

been creating technology my whole life. So

7:47

when it comes to now having a cannabis

7:49

technology company where our goal is to

7:51

become, say the dis in of the industry, it's not just

7:54

to have a vappen. It's

7:56

a lot easier to create products

7:58

that are on target push forward

8:01

the business versus even

8:03

if they're on my personal agenda. As

8:06

I guess the point to bring it all the way back to the question.

8:09

Yeah, yeah, And I'm

8:12

interested in your take on It's one

8:14

thing to say, you know,

8:16

you you pushed for because you believe that, you

8:18

know it was needed in the marketplace. It's

8:20

one thing for people to want what you have.

8:23

It's another thing that they're willing to pay for

8:25

it. How do you you know balance?

8:28

How did you know that they would pay for this?

8:31

Because we we had people that paid us, and

8:34

you know, when we when we made

8:36

the when

8:39

we made the device itself,

8:41

we actually showed up to cees at various

8:43

points in the year, at various points in the product

8:45

cycle, to effectively

8:48

ascertained from our initial prototypes, was

8:51

there market for this not only

8:54

just in user base, but was there a market for this

8:56

in retail distribution buyers

8:58

around the world, you know, And

9:02

the all the signs said yeah. Every time we had

9:04

to go through some form of research, the markets said

9:06

yes. And we ended up getting into best Buy. You

9:08

know, we ended up almost being acquired

9:11

by a company whose name

9:13

I probably shouldn't say, so I won't, but we you

9:15

know, we were we were right there. And

9:19

but I think the thing in business that's interesting is you

9:21

missed by a bit, You missed by a Matt doesn't matter. You

9:24

miss you miss, you know, And so

9:27

a lot of that for me, whether it was timing, whether

9:29

it was other stuff, it pushes

9:31

you to really try and consider why it

9:34

was that the business didn't get where

9:36

the business needed to go, even if

9:38

I thought I was satisfying those personal

9:41

This is what this does need to be for me to

9:43

go to sleep at night. You know.

9:45

My next question, I'm going to tee this up in a specific

9:47

way because I was in a Ikea some years

9:50

ago and I saw this poster that they had

9:52

on the wall and there it was

9:54

about their design and pricing, and

9:56

it was talking about they decide what

9:59

something was cost first, and then

10:01

the cost of it will dictate

10:04

how they produce it. So they're

10:06

going to make a chair, and they're going to

10:08

make a twenty four dollar chair, and therefore

10:11

it has to be produced a certain way. And

10:14

so getting to the point my question is

10:16

sometimes things fail, not because they're not needed

10:19

in the marketplace, not that because there's no demand,

10:21

but the price you know of it just doesn't

10:23

make sense. And so you could have decided

10:26

to instead of making it with some sort

10:28

of plastic, making it with a different type of plastic,

10:31

therefore the price, you know, can come down.

10:33

So how do you know which

10:36

levers to pull when you know that there's a need in

10:38

the marketplace, you know there's some desire in the marketplace,

10:40

How do you know which

10:43

levers decide whether this thing

10:45

will be successful or not.

10:48

There's as much market research

10:50

as you can do. But you know, I

10:53

hate making this quote because I know it's just such

10:55

an overused quote. But somebody

10:58

likes Steve jobs are the best. Like, people don't really

11:00

know what they want, right, And so if I'm

11:02

gonna sit there and try and market test,

11:04

and I'm gonna say, I know I can sell

11:06

a twenty dollars version of X. Okay,

11:10

that makes perfect sense. We can go and we can

11:12

try and create a twenty dollars version of X,

11:14

and we'll go forward and we'll

11:17

do that. And that is a that is a way

11:19

that a lot of companies, sorry,

11:21

let me just turn it out. That is a way that a lot of companies

11:24

operate. However, most

11:27

of those companies didn't make the iPhone.

11:30

Most of those companies aren't the chat ChiPT

11:33

you know. And so yeah,

11:36

there's a whole lot of like zoom

11:39

boxes that we can sell for twenty bucks

11:41

or whatever it might be, or you know, but

11:45

there's there's something to be said about

11:48

combining as

11:50

much as you can know with

11:53

some thing that has

11:56

insights in something, and

11:59

then just in two suitively understanding

12:01

this is a cliff, a cliff that's worth

12:03

at least looking over, you know. And

12:06

at the end of the day, it's almost like when

12:09

it comes to creating product, creating companies

12:12

or anything of that nature. You know,

12:14

when a lot of people ask when do

12:16

you think it's perfect? When do you think it's finished? There is

12:18

no there is no There is no perfect there

12:21

is It's good enough to go out and I'm

12:23

comfortable that it's going to deliver on

12:25

its experience. And I think maybe

12:27

bringing it back to a fundamental difference between

12:29

art and design, design does have a

12:31

point where it's supposed to deliver on a

12:34

promise, and at that

12:36

point in time, I can be more

12:38

relaxed about the visual cues of something or

12:40

the aesthetic component of something, which is only

12:42

one part of that thing.

12:44

You know.

12:45

Yeah, Oh, I was just watching you answer

12:47

that, and you made me think about how just

12:50

having the design is probably not enough. You

12:52

got to be able to communicate the whys

12:54

and the hows and the reasoning behind. Have

12:57

you experienced, perhaps

13:01

you know, a counterpart or even a classmate,

13:03

somebody who had remarkable things but couldn't

13:05

communicate it therefore couldn't find success,

13:09

or just aware of the concept and

13:11

what happens there that could

13:14

allow those people to find better success being

13:16

able to communicate versus just having great

13:20

notes and great designs on a sketch

13:22

pad.

13:24

Yeah. I think there's like two levels to

13:26

that question. On the first level,

13:28

you have communication

13:31

of your own ideas, right, and the ability

13:34

to work within your team, the

13:36

ability to show somebody, I thought, the ability

13:38

to do whatever. And you

13:41

know, for me transitioning from an engineer

13:44

to a designer because my undergraduate's engineering physics.

13:47

I then did a whole bunch of motorsports stuff. I

13:49

did a data acquisition internship

13:52

in Indianapolis. But when

13:54

I was in Italy and

13:56

I was shifting over to becoming a designer, and

13:58

I was just trying to be humble and say, I don't know if about

14:01

you know, like, I

14:03

was just really trying to see

14:06

the difference.

14:06

And I think.

14:10

I think somebody who can't

14:13

communicate their simple ideas to their team

14:16

that's one problem. That's something you can learn. And

14:19

you know, my mentor

14:21

in Italy, Alberto Fraser, he

14:23

said, I'll teach you three things. One how to draw because

14:26

you can't draw, and he used a lot more expeditive

14:28

language than that too. How to think like

14:30

a designer and not an engineer because they're fundamentally

14:33

different. And three quality of life. And that's another

14:35

conversation. But on the subject

14:37

of drawing, you know,

14:39

there is a book called Learning

14:41

to Draw with the Right Side of the Brain, and it's

14:44

a fantastic, fundamental book that if

14:46

you go through their exercises, it

14:48

is undeniable that you will be able to draw at the end

14:50

of it. I absolutely guarantee it. And so

14:53

it basically rewires your brain from

14:55

seeing the world with the left side, where you're analyzing

14:59

shape system and patterns. You know, when you

15:01

were a kid, if somebody asked you to draw

15:03

an eye, you weren't going to do the half

15:05

circle with the other half circle. But now

15:07

as an adult, almost every single adult

15:10

will draw an eye as that because they've been

15:12

trained on that as the symbol for that. But

15:14

if you were a child and you said draw that eye, they

15:16

would actually just try to draw the contours as

15:18

they saw it, and that's the fundamental

15:21

difference, is just learning to draw it as you see it

15:23

versus how you think about it. And once

15:25

you kind of free yourself from that shackle, you

15:27

know, communication abilities at

15:30

least quick sketch ones become more

15:32

proficient. So on that first level,

15:35

i'd say that's the answer to that question of

15:37

if somebody was lacking

15:39

a communication ability, it would definitely

15:42

affect their ability to communicate because the

15:45

beauty is in the details. And you

15:48

know, one time I was working on a hangar

15:50

designed for Valentino with my mentor.

15:52

It was his client, not mine, and he

15:55

sat there and we printed out what we

15:57

did from the digital files. But then he just sit there with

15:59

a pencil and went over it like forty fifty

16:01

sixty times until he was like, nah,

16:04

that's the curve. And so there's

16:06

a small part of just knowing the

16:08

fundamental tools that helps you really

16:10

master those digital ones, even if you are the

16:13

more advanced students who thinks you're great at communication.

16:16

And then I would say the second level to that answer is

16:19

me, I am terrible at communicating in certain

16:22

regards. I am horrible at posting on social

16:24

media, and when you don't

16:28

show the world what you're creating, and the only

16:30

mediums that the world accepts these days, nobody

16:32

knows who you are what you create, And so you

16:36

know, I am

16:38

the poster child for I

16:41

never really wanted to be famous. I just wanted to make

16:43

things that help people. But in today's

16:45

world, when the things you create other

16:47

people now depend on and livelihoods

16:50

start to depend on, you

16:52

kind of have to let go of the original

16:54

reasonings and learn some new communication

16:56

tools, because I guess that would be what you're hampering.

17:00

What inspired you to use your

17:03

talents in the cannabis industry.

17:05

I we were

17:08

coming out of seeing Technic, which is that personal

17:10

Safety at Platform had

17:13

one hundred thousand dollars left. I had just burned quite

17:15

a significant chunk of change trying

17:18

to make it work because we kept getting really positive

17:20

indicators that were just like, Okay, we

17:23

should figure this one out a bit longer. And you

17:25

know, to that point, I'm still happy everything

17:28

went the way it is. I still have to recover the

17:30

damage that that created, but you

17:33

just learned so much from it, and I

17:36

think, I

17:38

think, what do I think? What do I think? Okay, ask me

17:40

the question again.

17:43

Yeah, I'm interested in what inspired

17:45

you to use the talents and gifts you've

17:47

been able to develop in

17:50

the cannabis industry versus you know, all

17:52

the other things you could have selected.

17:55

So my dream in life was Formula

17:57

one racing tech. I

18:00

ended up getting

18:03

flown to England to defend a

18:05

technology design against the other ten best

18:07

selected in the world in a Formula

18:10

one competition that Renau put on. And

18:13

you know, I spent a year in Indianapolis

18:16

very graciously with Team Wattwalker Racing and

18:18

got to see the track life.

18:20

And you know, when that was

18:22

my initial dream, it just seems so unattainable.

18:25

But then when I was twenty six and I was in the F one

18:27

facility, I was like, I can hang with the best

18:30

in the world in this. But then when I had to

18:32

go back to Italy and my mentor was like quality

18:34

of life. Bringing that into the conversation, now,

18:37

how do you want to live your life? He's like,

18:39

don't I want to be able to see my daughter.

18:42

So I gave up being the head designer at ray Ban and

18:44

I was like, I want to be able to eat Chinese food. I want to

18:46

live in a real city. I want culture. I can't

18:48

live in the middle of nowhere for the rest of my life

18:51

just because I want to pursue Formula one. And

18:53

so when it came to what

18:56

I could use my skills for, I just really realized

18:58

I love designing tech, you know, I

19:00

loved just

19:03

the final applications for it. And

19:06

when it came down to, you

19:08

know, starting it now, seem had

19:10

about one hundred thousand dollars left in the bank account,

19:12

and it was, well, now's

19:14

the time because here in Canada it's

19:17

fully legal federally. It's

19:19

something that I have the insights

19:22

on, you know, growing up, I

19:24

started consuming Canada's very young, and to

19:26

a point where, of course, at certain times

19:29

everybody have uses something when they're a child, but it

19:31

was very medicinal, like I sat

19:34

almost every day through calculus. I finished

19:36

calculus and bilingual diploma,

19:38

so I finished calculus in French. For anybody

19:41

who says, you know, cannabis destroys the child's

19:43

mind, well it was helping me sit through mine. I

19:46

got through that, and then I went to university, so I

19:48

know firsthand

19:51

what it's like and what it means to certain people,

19:53

I suppose and I also know

19:56

that when it comes to something like alcohol, people

20:00

have decanters in their homes, these very beautiful

20:02

crystal vases, vases what you want to say, I call

20:04

it, and the

20:07

world will walk into somebody's home and be like, here's

20:09

a nice bottle of wine. What a beautiful

20:12

decanter. Let's get smashed now

20:14

and celebrated, and it's like this culture

20:17

that's kind of interesting when people don't.

20:20

People have basically debranded

20:23

alcohol from being a drug. They're

20:25

like, that's not a drug, that's alcohol, but it's a

20:28

definition a drug. And so what

20:31

I always thought was lacking was the

20:33

injection of something that could

20:35

create pieces in the cannabis sector

20:38

that were officially decanter level grades.

20:40

So somebody walks into a home, you can

20:42

invite them into the conversation just with the

20:44

object itself and then soften

20:47

the experience and then ultimately

20:49

elevate it for everybody. So really

20:52

that I just I thought I had something to offer,

20:54

you know, I when all

20:56

the technology in cannabis that I feel is

20:59

relevant exploded onto the

21:01

scene in the various places it did, you

21:03

know, like the volcano with analog

21:06

dial over a decade ago in Los Angeles,

21:08

when people started figuring out to pass a little bag around

21:10

was a thing. You know, there's a certain moment

21:12

in time when concentrates came out. That company

21:15

called Gpenn captured all of everybody's

21:17

attention, and we're producing a device

21:19

called the micro g and that that was a moment in time.

21:23

But what's different about us and everybody else is I

21:25

guess the word purpose.

21:26

You know.

21:27

I don't want to just take any

21:29

of those little things and make a small adjustment

21:31

on it. I want to find holes

21:33

where we're just not fulfilling

21:36

our promise as creators that have

21:38

functionality requirements, not just artistic

21:41

requirements. And I want to make

21:43

sure that this one chance we've been given

21:45

to consume cannabis recreationally, medicinally

21:48

and legally gets the best shot of

21:50

having the tools and the

21:53

products that elevated status

21:55

to something that is becoming mainstream, and not

21:57

even just here in the most wild of country.

22:00

It's like, can we get this in a Shariahwah

22:02

country and maybe get them just often up in one

22:04

way and have cannabis, you know,

22:06

if we do it right. Because there's

22:08

certain bars in those places that are consuming alcohol,

22:11

so it's not like the conversations that far fetch

22:14

and I guess back

22:16

to the point of making things just to

22:18

help people, it seems like a

22:20

good place to put my efforts. After the dream of that f one

22:22

was kind of passed on.

22:42

As a part of jews website that said he's interested

22:44

in consulting and collaborating on projects

22:47

that have a positive impact on the world.

22:50

And I think we all get by now the benefits

22:53

of medicinal marijuana. I mean it helps with anxiety,

22:56

pain, information, talk to your own doctor, not

22:58

me. But like re creational

23:00

marijuana. When you say you're interested

23:02

in working on things that make a positive

23:04

impact on the world, how

23:06

does recreational marijuana do that? How

23:09

does recreational marijuana make a positive

23:11

impact on the world?

23:13

Ju speak Sony, Well, there's there's

23:15

a lot of safety and regulation ultimately,

23:20

you know, when it comes to cannabis products,

23:23

there's people who

23:25

make bad cannabis.

23:27

Will give you cannabis covered in mold, will give

23:29

you cannabis covered in xyz that is actually

23:31

harmful for an individual when

23:33

it comes to a recreational

23:36

user. So

23:40

I don't necessarily need a medicinal certificate

23:42

to say I want to take tailan all right,

23:44

or if I just want to kind of have like a sleep ease,

23:47

right, And so there's a certain functionality

23:51

that we can empower a recreational

23:54

user with without needing

23:56

it to be medicinal like we have done with everything

23:58

else. And so so that

24:01

only happens when you can trust what's in

24:03

something. And ultimately I've just really

24:05

learned we can't trust people in general, like to leave

24:07

something to themselves. I'm sorry to say so,

24:11

But other very interesting

24:14

things start to happen with regulations. So let me explain

24:16

that. For example, if every single

24:18

cannabis that's now released is tested

24:21

for all it's cannabinoids and terrapenes and there's specific

24:23

percentages and volumes by weight, now

24:26

we can start to have reliable data to

24:28

offer products that utilize that machine

24:31

learning structures on that data sets. How

24:33

is this affecting that? How is that doing that? And

24:36

the level of infrastructure

24:40

from the creator side starts

24:43

to go up, and it starts to become more advanced,

24:45

and it starts to become more evolved with

24:47

a purpose, you know. And I always said, for example,

24:50

blockchain is great, cryptocurrencies

24:52

are great. Is cryptocurrency

24:55

going to be the best demonstration

24:58

of blockchain technology. Time will tell,

25:01

and that's kind of what I'm talking about.

25:03

No, Yeah, So

25:06

I have outside of this business.

25:08

I have another business where we're a marketing

25:10

technology agency. We do video production

25:13

and etc. And we specifically focus

25:15

on companies and organizations that are trying

25:17

to reach and engage multiculture and diverse audiences.

25:21

And so as a byproduct of that, a lot of

25:23

our clients tend to be like, you know, nonprofit

25:25

organizations, governments and etc. And

25:28

what I learned a revelation

25:30

to me was that what

25:33

typically happens with video producers

25:35

is they assume that when you hire me

25:37

to do a video, you just want a really beautiful

25:40

video. And what I found to be our

25:42

value proposition was I realized, you don't

25:44

just want a nice video. You if your government

25:47

you ultimately want to pass a levee. That's

25:49

really what you want. The video is just

25:52

a part of telling a story

25:54

that ultimately helps you pass a levee

25:57

down the line or whatever. So what

25:59

are are some of the things when

26:01

you take on a new project, design

26:04

project? What are the questions you ask

26:07

yourself to answer for

26:10

the consumer? What they're really they don't

26:12

even know to ask what are you trying

26:14

to solve for them?

26:15

It depends on if that the

26:18

foundation of why I'm answering the question

26:21

is personal based or business based. And

26:25

I say that because when

26:28

I'm trying to solve something personal

26:31

based, of course the end goal is business

26:33

positive results. But

26:37

it's almost some of it is an ego play

26:40

if you're being honest, that you put that into production

26:42

because you didn't necessarily have the data to do

26:44

that, and when it came when

26:46

it comes time, like right now, we

26:49

have we have

26:51

or we're transitioning from a vaporizer

26:54

product with toky to an accessory

26:56

that is for dry flour,

26:59

and and you know, there's arguably

27:01

not a whole lot on the market that's like it to prove

27:04

that it should exist. But

27:10

I know how much happiness

27:14

will come from people when they

27:16

go through this experience that we're trying

27:18

to offer. And there's just

27:20

a certain level of happiness that

27:22

when you get a wave that hits you of

27:25

it after you touch something that

27:27

intuitively, I don't

27:29

need data anymore. I've been

27:32

I've been around certainly long enough to

27:34

know. So I guess

27:36

the challenge to me and my team or a team, and I

27:39

is always when we talk about

27:41

a product, we always say, Okay, what's the user

27:43

journey? How am I going to touch it? How

27:45

am I going to hold it? How is it going to feel when

27:47

I go about it? And every

27:49

single step, have I introduced

27:52

friction which is going to piss somebody off? Or

27:54

have I just made their lives easier? And

27:57

if you make somebody's lives enough easier, you're

27:59

doing great. And if at

28:01

some point you inject a

28:04

piece of cleverness where people

28:06

can figure like almost

28:08

find it, then you're taking

28:10

somebody from doing great having a great

28:12

experience to oh damn, I'm gonna remember

28:15

this forever because that was just so cute, you

28:17

know, And it's like, how

28:19

much of that can you find while still

28:21

fulfilling your promise of I'm

28:23

not going to just put crap in here for

28:25

the sake of putting crap in here, and it

28:28

still works the way it's supposed to.

28:30

You know, when

28:32

you do have to go gather data, is

28:35

you talked about, you know, just that unique

28:37

insight that you may have as a designer, But when

28:40

data is important, talk to

28:42

me about the experiences you've had in

28:44

how you actually go about collecting

28:46

data, like what are you using, are you using

28:49

serve? Are you going door to door knocking?

28:51

And are you using on What is the

28:53

process for gathering valuable

28:56

consumer data?

28:58

Depending it's industry specif think again when

29:00

we were in the so

29:03

when I was creating action cameras in

29:06

London the UK as designing action cameras for your

29:08

company called Drift Innovation kind

29:10

of like GoPros. We

29:12

had a lot of professional teams

29:15

in a lot of professional circuits and there

29:17

was you know, access to

29:20

mailing lists of people that we could

29:23

you know, bring to the table to give

29:25

us active data that we were actively bringing people

29:27

into sessions for which sometimes we did. But

29:31

what I think was more important was where

29:34

that company came from. Is also an insightful conversation

29:37

about data. So the two owners

29:39

of my action sports company, Robin

29:42

and sab rus their souls for helping

29:44

bring me up. They were

29:46

IBM consultants who started

29:49

effectively, sorry, let me fix my camera. They

29:52

were IBM consultants who

29:55

started a

29:58

website to distribute action cameras.

30:00

Originally, then they sold so many

30:02

action cameras that they had the data

30:04

on what the consumers hated and liked

30:07

and loved, and they were able to translate

30:09

that to three features that an action camera didn't

30:11

have, a rotating lens, a built in screen,

30:14

and a built in remote control. And they

30:16

said, I don't know anything about making

30:18

cameras, but I know what the consumers want. And

30:21

so for them, they were able

30:23

to, I guess, take data off

30:25

of their current activities that was relevant

30:27

for tomorrow's activities so

30:30

to speak. When

30:33

it comes to us now and

30:36

operating data. You know my

30:39

business partner Roy I'll

30:41

bu Lack. He's fantastic.

30:44

He's from Uni Lever, he's

30:46

ahead of technology over there in Canada, and he really

30:48

drives a lot of data conversations for us. And he

30:50

was developing dashboards for them

30:53

a long time ago where I used to live in London, England

30:55

and he used to live in London, England, and I remember meeting one day

30:57

and he was like, you have to come see this dashboard. But

30:59

to that point, you know, there's

31:02

the data that you create internally in

31:04

your own company that you should

31:06

be setting yourself up to capture before

31:09

you're trying to invest in outside

31:11

external capture data. Because

31:13

if you're already able to generate revenue,

31:16

well, your own data is going to help you become more

31:18

efficient at all facets of that. And

31:21

so you know, when it comes to should

31:23

I make a product for a consumer, I'll

31:27

usually go out on a limb and test after, if I'm

31:29

absolutely honest with you. But

31:33

the testing we do before is

31:35

now that we're in the industry. For example, we

31:38

can create something and

31:40

we can make a digital version of it and

31:42

I can go bring it to key opinion leaders

31:45

and have their their opinion on it. And

31:47

I think, you know, it's

31:50

tough to trust people these days, absolutely, with

31:52

the way the world is. But

31:55

I think a lot of what drives

31:57

our creations after we have an aditional

32:00

idea is bringing

32:02

in certain key people at certain milestones

32:04

that we trust.

32:06

What informed your sense

32:08

of design in

32:11

your background? Like what if I go to Bill

32:15

and I see you Bill grew

32:17

up in the countryside, you know, maybe he went

32:19

to parochio, I mean some Christian

32:22

school like he had. He was going to have

32:24

some sort of design sense that was

32:26

informed by his upbringing. Tell me about

32:28

yours.

32:30

It's probably by my parents' taste,

32:32

because they got some good taste, to be honest,

32:35

and they were just when I was growing

32:37

up. You know, my father

32:40

was He's a genius. He got one of two scholarships

32:43

to all of Guyana to leave the country and

32:46

that allowed him to get a mining engineering degree

32:49

at Queen's University in Canada. He

32:51

then started working for several companies

32:53

and along the journey, but at

32:55

some point in time he convinced them to

32:58

send him back to school so he could get his m And

33:01

when he came back the company was going under. He

33:03

bought it for eight dollars plus, assuming all the

33:06

responsibility for their debt. Of course, and

33:10

long story short, he figured out a new way to

33:12

mine a coal deposit that they couldn't have access

33:14

to before, and then he took that to Asia.

33:17

And this is to answer your question. My

33:19

father while I was growing up, was frequently

33:22

coming to and from Asia with you

33:24

know, Japanese little toys, karaoke,

33:27

laser discs, all the latest

33:29

stuff, where it was just picking

33:31

my curiosity of technology, but

33:34

at the same time just seeing

33:36

how things are done efficiently. And

33:38

so I think that combined with watching

33:41

him just from

33:43

a fly on the wall as he progressed

33:45

his career while I was a child, from

33:47

an entrepreneur perspective, it

33:50

made me always want to create things that

33:52

were for the future that

33:55

you know, were business

33:57

savvy, because if that makes sense, that

34:02

and the fact that I want to die a kid, If

34:05

I'm honest, I've been watching anime

34:07

since I was a kid, and I just want

34:09

to I always want to be able to dream

34:11

in different worlds and see different things and expand

34:14

like that. And I think

34:17

just riding that train as

34:19

far as it'll go. And it took

34:21

me into import cars, which took

34:23

me into Formula one cars, which took

34:25

me into wherever

34:28

we went. You know the story I tell somebody

34:30

asking me about how I figured out Santa Claus wasn't

34:33

real. It was one of those toys that my dad brought

34:35

me back, was a voice recorder that had like a voice

34:37

activated function, and so I taped

34:39

it to the Christmas tree and I heard my parents that

34:41

night and the next morning I yelled at them for lying

34:44

then like that Santa Claus wasn't real. But

34:48

it's just kind of that kind of stuff, I guess.

34:52

Bread.

34:55

But then like my dad, you know, he

34:57

loved banging Olison and he's

34:59

an aud so yeah, growing

35:02

up, he like every

35:04

time he had had the speaker, he was just like,

35:06

look at the curves and just you know, it

35:08

was always just so much more

35:10

than the product. It was always about how

35:13

you made you feel when you were just with it.

35:16

You know that that I think

35:18

is a bit of a differentiator. Maybe then about how

35:20

I see things?

35:22

How would you say a designer

35:24

knows they're good? Because I imagine

35:27

there's an argument to be made for some

35:30

sort of external validation, right,

35:33

and could it be pure

35:35

conviction? Though, how do you

35:38

know if you're going.

35:41

It's a good question. So

35:44

when I when I transitioned

35:46

from engineering into design, I

35:50

knew I had no design ability, and I knew

35:52

things like drawing and communication

35:54

were difficult for me, which put me at a severe

35:56

disadvantage versus other designers. Then

36:00

I went to try and get a job in London, probably

36:02

the one of the hardest places

36:04

to find a job, and I got humble pie caked in my

36:06

face every day for six

36:08

months. You know, I went to every single

36:10

design studio and gave them my initial

36:13

little portfolio that I had

36:15

when I came out of school thinking I was top dollar and

36:18

just you know, after you burn all thirty

36:20

forty of them, it's like, but

36:24

each time it happens, though, I realize

36:28

I was trying to tell people I love designing technology,

36:31

and I think the important lesson here is

36:34

the designs I was showing. A lot

36:37

of them were things I created that were created

36:39

because I had to a school project, for example,

36:41

I have to make that. But when it

36:43

comes to showing the things you made

36:46

for the love of it, that's

36:49

when you know you're a good designer, in my opinion,

36:52

because I will hire somebody who

36:54

can come to me in a job interview and be like,

36:56

here's these four things I made because I loved

36:58

them, and I did all these things. And it's true. If you go

37:00

through the process of creating something, you know

37:03

the small little things about it, you

37:05

know, and the nuances and

37:08

those sort of parts, but you

37:11

need to have the rigor

37:14

to see it all the way through because

37:19

until you're finished something, it always

37:21

looks like crap from the moment you start

37:23

like until it's at that part. But

37:26

it's not about trying to make it not look

37:28

like crap. It's about continuing

37:31

to ask the right questions that carve

37:33

out from that ice block simplicity and

37:36

leave you with that thing that was always

37:38

there to begin with. And trying

37:42

to do that for

37:47

the reasons of oh, school taught me

37:49

this is how I render, so I render this way versus

37:53

oh, I actually googled how to do

37:55

bump mapping because I saw somebody

37:57

else and now my shit's way back. Like it's just that's

38:00

really it. Once you have that's

38:02

the part. I can't teach anybody. You can't teach

38:04

anybody to give a shit but excuse

38:06

me. But once they do, they

38:10

you know you're a good designer

38:13

because you care. Love that. I

38:15

guess that's the point.

38:16

It's a really really good answer to it. In

38:20

talking about cannabisity, I mean there is it's

38:22

such a new industry, a legal industry.

38:24

I should say it's not a new industry, but it's a new legal industry,

38:28

and there's so

38:31

much still left to be formed with

38:33

the industry. It's not federally federally

38:35

legal in the United States. But

38:38

what role do you see product

38:41

designers might play in

38:43

shaping the future of the cannabis industry.

38:47

I think it could be everything. Because

38:50

the interesting thing about the word product design in

38:53

twenty twenty three is that it no longer

38:55

means would have meant six years ago. It doesn't mean would

38:57

have meant three years ago. You know,

39:01

somebody out walking out of school calling themselves

39:03

a product designer could be a web three stack

39:05

developer these days, and they're

39:07

like, I make products and that's

39:09

what the world accepts. To

39:13

that point, the pos

39:15

terminals that the Canada sector uses are all

39:18

designed technically speaking, and

39:21

up here in Canada, you

39:23

know, we in Ontario

39:26

and the British Columbia and a

39:28

couple other provinces. The way it

39:30

works is, even though it's federally legal, provincially,

39:34

either it's you know, still run by the government

39:36

or it's allowed to be privatized. And in

39:39

those sectors where it's still run by the government, you

39:41

know, there were some hiccups this year where they

39:43

had to shut down orders to the entire province

39:46

because their systems basically went down or got

39:49

hacked or X, Y and z. So

39:51

to the point of how do we make

39:53

it? How do products help push it forward? Well,

39:56

one is just make sure we don't make mistakes

39:58

like that when making those infrastructure

40:00

products. But when it comes to the visual,

40:03

tangible things I hold in my hand products,

40:07

they have to be things that you

40:09

know, don't instantly give

40:11

a version to the masses.

40:14

And you know, if somebody

40:16

were just to walk in the next day and just like

40:18

slap a sex toy on the table. Everybody in the room

40:20

would be like go. And if

40:22

somebody was to come and walk in and like slap

40:25

a bong on the table, depending

40:27

on the environment, most people would still be

40:29

like God, you know. But

40:33

I think there's something to be said about if somebody

40:35

were to come in with a

40:39

cannabis plant that's been created

40:42

in a beautiful container in a

40:44

Bondz eye method to showcase

40:46

the artistic of it and put that on the table,

40:49

everybody in the room would approach it with curiosity.

40:52

And so what we choose

40:55

to put in the room and what rooms we choose to

40:57

put them in will really help speed

40:59

up people's curiosity being accepted

41:02

or just slow it down. But either

41:04

way, it's coming. It's just how

41:06

fast we can remove the ignorance. Is

41:09

I suppose the designer's responsibility.

41:22

Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity

41:24

Afro Tech on the Black Effect podcast

41:26

Network and I Hire Media, and it's produced

41:29

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and Rose McLucas. Special

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