Welcome to Episode 10 of the Creative Disruption season of The 21st Century Creative, where we are hearing stories of creatives around the world who came up with a creative response to the challenges of the pandemic. It’s been my most ambitious season yet, with creatives from 5 continents and probably the closest I’ll ever get to releasing a concep…

Welcome to Episode 9 of the Creative Disruption season of The 21st Century Creative, where we are hearing stories of creatives around the world who came up with a creative response to the challenges of the pandemic. This week we are off to Tokyo, to meet Ichi Hatano, a wonderful artist whose work has deep roots in the traditional arts of Japan. Whe…

Welcome to Episode 8 of the Creative Disruption season of The 21st Century Creative, where we are hearing stories of creatives around the world who came up with a creative response to the challenges of the pandemic. Have you ever had the idea for a creative project that you’ve never quite got round to starting? That’s the situation actor and voiceo…

Welcome to Episode 7 of the Creative Disruption season of The 21st Century Creative, where we are hearing stories of creatives around the world who came up with a creative response to the challenges of the pandemic. Today we’re focusing on a creative sector that is close to my heart, which was massively disrupted but didn’t get quite the level of c…

Welcome to Episode 6 of the Creative Disruption season of The 21st Century Creative, where we are hearing stories of creatives around the world who came up with a creative response to the challenges of the pandemic. Today we are off to Australia in the company of Charlotte Abroms, a music manager based in Melbourne with a roster of successful clien…

Welcome to Episode 5 of the CREATIVE DISRUPTION season of The 21st Century Creative, where we are hearing stories of creatives around the world who came up with a creative response to the challenges of the pandemic. Today we are going to look at one of the biggest challenge for many people during lockdown, whether or not they were creatives, and th…

Welcome to Episode 4 of the CREATIVE DISRUPTION season of The 21st Century Creative, where we are hearing stories of creatives around the world who came up with a creative response to the challenges of the pandemic. Today we meet Amrita Kumar, the co-founder and CEO of Candid Marketing, an innovative marketing agency in India. Amrita had to confron…

Welcome to Episode 3 of the CREATIVE DISRUPTION season of The 21st Century Creative, where we are hearing stories of creatives around the world who came up with a creative response to the challenges of the pandemic. Today we are looking at the world of film and TV production, which was massively disrupted by the pandemic restrictions. All of which …

Welcome to Episode 2 of the CREATIVE DISRUPTION season of The 21st Century Creative, where we are hearing stories of creatives around the world who came up with a creative response to the challenges of the pandemic. This week we are off to South Africa, to hear from Earl Abrahams, an artist and filmmaker who likes to get up and close with his subje…

Today we kick off Season 6 of The 21st Century Creative, the podcast that helps you thrive as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st Century. The theme for this season is CREATIVE DISRUPTION. Every episode will feature an interview with a creator whose work was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and wh…

Today is the launch of my new podcast, and it’s something I’ve been planning and dreaming of sharing with you for years. It’s called A Mouthful of Air. And in several ways, it’s the opposite of my 21st Century Creative podcast. I designed the two shows to work together from the start, although it’s taken a while to get this one up and running. In t…

Today’s guest on The 21st Century Creative is Michael Bungay Stanier, a returning guest whose interview way back in Season 1 proved very popular. And his book The Coaching Habit turned out to be even more popular, as it went on to sell three quarters of a million copies. Michael is back with some excellent advice on avoiding The Advice Trap, which …

Today’s guest on The 21st Century Creative is Krystal Lauk, an illustrator who took an unconventional path by creating illustrations for tech companies, and founded a studio that counts Google, Uber, Facebook and The New York Times among its clients. It’s a fascinating story of discovery and enterprise at what Krystal calls ‘the intersection of del…

Today’s guest on The 21st Century Creative is Cynthia Morris, a coach for creatives who shares insights on the book-writing process, based on her latest book The Busy Woman’s Guide to Writing a World-Changing Book. So if you are contemplating writing a book – whether it’s your first one or your twenty-first – there is a lot of insight for you in to…

Today’s guest on The 21st Century Creative is Emily Kimelman, a thriller author who has travelled the world in a boat and criss-crossed the USA in an Airstream trailer while writing and publishing her books, and selling hundreds of thousands of copies in the process. Emily’s adventurous spirit shines through in her writing as well as in her approac…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Naomi Dunford, a contrarian marketing guru who has been ‘helping weirdos sell things on the internet’ for many years. So if you’re the kind of creator who loves making your work but hates the very idea of marketing, then I recommend you listen to what Naomi has to say on the subject. Even if…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Steve Lawson, a musician described by Bass Guitar magazine as “Britain’s most innovative bassist, no contest”. Instead of playing in a band as part of the rhythm section, the way bass players are supposed to, Steve is a solo artist, who creates what he describes as “melodic, ambient, wonky e…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative Podcast is Joanna Penn, an Award-nominated, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers and dark fantasy, which she writes as J.F. Penn. She is also known for dispensing information and inspiration for authors and creatives via her popular podcast The Creative Penn, and her books and c…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative Podcast is Nick Hand, founder of The Department of Small Works and The Letterpress Collective, where he does amazing work with antique letterpress printing technology. He talks about the relationship between old and new technology, traditional crafts and the modern world, in an interview that draws on …

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is the eminent Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, who takes us on a voyage through the weird and wonderful world of artificial intelligence (AI) and creativity, drawing on insights from his latest book The Creativity Code: How AI Is Learning to Write, Paint and Think (Amazon US Amazon UK). In the …

Today we kick off Season 5 of The 21st Century Creative, the podcast that helps you thrive as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st Century. Our first guest is John T. Unger, an artist who makes art on a big scale, and who takes full advantage of the opportunities of 21st century to both make and marke…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative is Monique DeBose, an award-winning singer-songwriter and playwright, who has toured throughout America, Europe, India and Asia. Her third album, The Sovereign One, debuted at No.2 on the iTunes Jazz Charts. Inspired by her experience of of what it means to be half African-American, half Irish-American…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative is Ilise Benun, known as the Marketing Mentor. Ilise has spent over 30 years helping ‘the creatively self employed’ to succeed in business, and has written seven books and produced over 300 episodes of her Marketing Mentor podcast. Ilise is an in-demand conference speaker and is the co-founder and host…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative is Deborah Henry-Pollard, a creative coach based in London who describes her work as ‘Using my skills to support creative people who make us see the world in another way’. She is also the author of a great book called What’s Your Excuse for Not Succeeding as an Artist? where she lays out and then exper…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Robert Vlach, a business consultant who specializes in supporting independent professionals and business owners, and the author of a new book, The Freelance Way. Early in his career, he encountered the highs and lows of the freelance life, and as you’ll hear in the interview, when he figured…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative is Erik Bork – a screenwriter, producer, script consultant and coach who has won two Emmy and two Golden Globe awards for his work on the HBO series Band of Brothers and From the Earth to the Moon. For each series he wrote multiple episodes and was on the creative producing team, alongside executive pr…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Maria Bovin de Labbé, a Swedish drummer, artist and teacher, living on a peninsula in the Fjord of Oslo, Norway. She is best known for Mindful Drumming – an approach that is less about fast and furious rhythms and more about mindfulness, playfulness, lightness and melody. It’s hard to descri…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Peleg Top, an artist, a writer, a speaker and an inspired guide who coaches creative professionals to succeed and become extraordinary leaders in the process. As you’ll hear in this interview, he started out as a graphic designer, breaking into the very competitive niche of designing in the …

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative is Nadia Shireen, an award-winning and bestselling children’s author and illustrator. Her books include Good Little Wolf, The Bumblebear, The Cow Who Fell to Earth, and her latest, Billy and the Dragon, is released this summer. Nadia’s books have given a lot of pleasure to my own family, as my wife and…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative is Alastair Humphreys, a British adventurer and author whose latest book, My Midsummer Morning, recounts his attempt to busk his way across Spain with no money or credit cards, and only an upper beginner’s ability to play the violin. When he left college Alastair saw his friends going off to work in se…

Today we kick off Season 4 of The 21st Century Creative, the podcast that helps you thrive as a creative professional amid the demands, distractions and opportunities of the 21st Century. Our first guest is Brian Clark, a writer and entrepreneur best known as the founder of the hugely influential website Copyblogger.com, which has been described as…

This week’s guest on the 21st Century Creative podcast is CJ Lyons, a New York Times and USA Today thriller author who has sold more than 2.5 million books. She has won numerous awards, including the International Thriller Writers’ prestigious Thriller Award, and the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery and Suspense. Once upon a time C…

This week’s guest on the 21st Century Creative podcast is Emily Cohen, a consultant who provides strategic advice to principals of creative firms, and author of the book Brutally Honest. Emily Cohen (both photos in this article by Jason Varney)I first met Emily back in 2012 when we were both speaking at the HOW Design LIVE conference in Boston. I l…

By Mark McGuinness

This week’s guest on the 21st Century Creative podcast is Vicki Saunders, an entrepreneur, mentor, author and a leading advocate for entrepreneurship as a means of positive transformation in the world. Vicki has co-founded and run ventures in Europe, Toronto and Silicon Valley and taken a company public on the Toronto Stock Exchange. She is the Fou…

This week’s guest on the 21st Century Creative podcast is Rich Litvin, a coach who specialises in taking high achievers to the greatest levels of success. Rich’s coaching clients include Olympic athletes, Presidential candidates, Hollywood film directors, Special Forces operatives and serial entrepreneurs. He is also the founder of 4PC—a community …

By Mark McGuinness

This week’s guest on the 21st Century Creative podcast is David Hieatt, entrepreneur, author, speaker and founder of The Do Lectures. In 1995 David and his wife Claire Hieatt founded Howies – a company making clothes for people engaged in outdoor pursuits such as mountain biking, skateboarding and hiking. Howies was a disruptive company, making clo…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author, under the name JF Penn. Meanwhile as Joanna Penn, she is an expert on writing, publishing and marketing books, giving advice to authors via her non-fiction books, her e-learning courses and her popular podcast The Creative Penn. Alt…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Tyler Hobbs, a artist who creates stunning images by writing a computer program to generate each new artwork. Tyler HobbsA few months ago I was talking to a friend who suggested I check out the artwork of Tyler Hobbs, as an example of generative art. It turns out that there’s a subculture of…

By Mark McGuinness

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Patricia van den Akker, the Director of The Design Trust, an organisation based in London with a mission to help designers and makers ‘create a business they are proud of’. Patricia is also the author of Dream Plan Do, an annual planner journal to help creative entrepreneurs reflect, plan an…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Sara Milne Rowe, one of the leading performance coaches in the UK and the founder of the company Coaching Impact, and the author of The SHED Method: Making Better Choices When It Matters. She works with senior leaders and teams in the creative and media industries, education, startups, and f…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Josh Szeps, a TV and radio host, political commentator and comedian, and creator of the podcast #WeThePeople LIVE. Josh hails from Australia and has spent the last few years living and working in the United States. He was one of the founding hosts of HuffPost Live, the innovative online TV n…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Gabriela Pereira, a writer and teacher who is on a mission ‘to empower writers to take an entrepreneurial approach to their education and professional growth’. Having earned her own MFA – which for those of us outside the US, is a Master of Fine Arts degree, the main creative writing degree …

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Daniel Boettcher, the founder of The Intrepid Wendell, a bespoke jewellery salon in Washington, DC. If you visit Daniel’s website you’ll see he greets his visitors with the words ‘We love to share your joy’ – this is the guiding principle of Daniel’s business and his mission in life. And if …

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Jarie Bolander, a serial entrepreneur, living in San Francisco who has started and run several businesses in the tech, medical and PR sectors. His latest book is The Entrepreneur Ethos: How to Build a More Ethical, Inclusive, and Resilient Entrepreneur Community. Jarie is inventor or co-inve…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Mimi Khalvati, one of the foremost poets currently writing in the UK. Mimi was born in Tehran, Iran and grew up on the Isle of Wight in England. She is the author of eight collections of poetry published by Carcanet and the editor of several anthologies. Her latest book is The Very Selected …

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Todd Henry, a speaker, advisor to creative companies, and the author of a string of best-selling books for creatives, including The Accidental Creative, Die Empty and Louder than Words. I joked with Todd that he is also the grandaddy of creative podcasters – he has been producing his show Th…

This week’s guest on The 21st Century Creative podcast is Javier Weyler, musician, composer and music designer. Born in Argentina and raised in Venezuela, he achieved national fame with the band Claroscuro before moving to the UK in 2000. Javier will need no introduction for fans of Stereophonics – he was the band’s drummer for 8 years, recording a…