Teamistry

Jan 31/2022

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  Why did Concorde disappear from our skies? In the final episode, we pose this question to the people closest to the Concorde project, from the teams who engineered its first flight to those who picked up the debris after the fatal Air France crash. We also discuss Concorde's legacy, and its impact on the aviation[...]
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  In the late afternoon of July 25th, 2000, a Concorde crashed into a hotel near Charles de Gaulle airport. Air France flight 4590 was carrying 100 passengers, most of them tourists from Germany, along with a crew of nine. All perished, including four people on the ground. The incident shocked the globe, and halted Air[...]
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  As teams of engineers work around the clock to keep the supersonic airplane safe and in the air, to the outside world Concorde has become a pop cultural icon. Princess Diana, Mick Jagger, Phil Collins, Joan Collins, Sting – these celebrities form an A-list of frequent flyers. The in-flight menu includes haute cuisine and expensive[...]
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  Years of hard work, innovation, and unprecedented collaboration between teams in the U.K. and France make the impossible, possible: the first French Concorde prototype takes flight, and a new page in aviation history is written. But the supersonic airplane isn’t ready to ferry passengers just yet. As you’ll hear in episode 3, Concorde’s journey from[...]
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  In this episode, host Nastaran Tavakoli-Far and Lead Producer Pedro Mendes travel to the Musée Aeroscopia in Toulouse, France, where they stand spellbound marveling at a giant, glistening Air France Concorde. And they meet with nonagenarian Dudley Collard, a member of Concorde’s Aerodynamics Design team. When the recording crew mention the beauty of Concorde, engineer[...]
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  In the opening episode, host Nastaran Tavakoli-Far and producer Pedro Mendes set the stage for what’s going to be a supersonic journey documented in six parts—and also reflect on their personal connections to Concorde. You’ll hear about the monumental 1956 meeting of the Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee (STAC) that set in motion a complex network[...]
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  Picture this: A flight from New York to London where your co-passengers are Princess Diana, Mick Jagger, and Sting. On the menu: caviar canapés, lobster, and champagne. Your journey takes a little over three hours – half of the time it takes today. And that one flight puts you in the history books, because you[...]
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  In March of 2020, as Will Smith is filming the biopic "King Richard," the emergence of COVID-19 abruptly shuts down all production. With unusual downtime and an urge to uplift his audience amid looming uncertainty, the actor meets with his production team at Westbrook Media to find a creative solution. What if they created a[...]
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  The can is Americana itself; the product indistinguishable from the ordinary contents. It's part of a quintessential American meal, soothing the hunger and warming the souls of families for more than a hundred years. But in 2001, a toxic atmosphere hung over the workers at The Campbell Soup Company. Its headquarters stood isolated behind barbed[...]
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  When the pandemic struck, many pivoted their lives online – to connect with family, to work, to attend school. But many others, living in cutoff communities, like several neighborhoods in the city of Detroit, Michigan, where generations of systemic racism and poor infrastructure has left them largely isolated, this wasn't an option. Up to 40%[...]
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  In 2016, a research video played in a conference room of Mattel Inc. caused deep concern. It showed an eight-year-old playing with iconic Hot Wheels™ toy cars. "Imagine doing this for an hour," the boy said, as if it was torture. The moment confirmed what many Mattel employees already knew: kids were shifting from physical[...]
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  A cricket match played on April 18th 2008 between two city-based teams in India marks a historic moment in sports. It was the beginning of the Indian Premier League (IPL), a radically new tournament within the shortest format of cricket. Spearheaded by a flamboyant businessman, the IPL was to become for cricket what the National[...]
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  In 1994, IBM sponsored the Winter Olympics and held exclusive rights to telecast the games. But Dave Grossman – an engineer at IBM – discovered Sun Microsystems had stolen the live feed and was posting the results on its website. This sparked the creation of a team of innovators that not only convinced IBM's top[...]
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  In Season 3 of Teamistry, filmmaker and host Gabriela Cowperthwaite returns to spotlight teams that not only achieve the impossible, but also inspire change.These stories of leadership and courage mark a turning point in how organizations—and even whole industries—are transformed for the better. Follow along as a team of trailblazers brings IBM on to the[...]
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  Before corporate social responsibility was a popular concept, Patagonia declared its commitment to better outcomes for their workers, and the planet. They soon discovered that commitment would include major pitfalls, but it seems the more Patagonia doubles down on its values, the better it performs. In this episode, we hear from Craig Wilson, former lead[...]
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  In the West African country of Burkina Faso in the 1980s, an 18-year-old boy is killed in the road. Why? A case of meningitis. The meningitis epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa spurred a global race to find a vaccine, led by the founding of the Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP). This network of doctors, vaccine developers, public[...]
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  In the desert plains of Northern Kenya, hundreds of people from around the world and different walks of life have gathered. The photographs they take with their GPS-enabled cameras might be humanity's best shot at saving an entire species. This is the story of Wildbook, an artificial intelligence (AI) software program that creates a live[...]
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  In the summer of 2018, 12 Thai teenagers and their 25-year-old soccer coach got stuck deep inside the labyrinthine – and flooding – Tham Luang caves of Thailand’s Chiang Rai province. In this episode of Teamistry, host Gabriela Cowperthwaite takes us inside the caves and alongside the people assembled from across Thailand and the world[...]
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  Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Iceland had become the worst-hit country in Scandinavia. But it reversed its fate, without a full lockdown. And to date, Iceland has seen very few deaths. How? Largely because of the harmonious collaboration of "The Trinity" – Iceland’s chief epidemiologist, Director of Health, and superintendent of police – who implemented[...]
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  In the aftermath of World War II, Japan must rebuild its economy. Certain products become vital exports in the revitalization effort, including the wristwatch. Seiko leaps to the forefront of the recovery, but there's a problem: their watches aren't good. The company decides to bring R&D in-house to take advantage of constructive competition between its[...]
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  In season one of Teamistry, we put the spotlight on teams behind the scenes, the people responsible for some of the greatest achievements of our times. Like the team of astronomers who gave us the first-ever photograph of a black hole, and the team that averted a nuclear meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.[...]
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  When Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon for the first time, we don't actually see his face. We see his moonsuit. That moonsuit — in effect — is Neil Armstrong; an inseparable part of this historic moment. While the spacesuit kept him alive to tell that story in his own words, what went unnoticed is[...]
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  The great American experiment was about to fail. On the eve of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 – where the U.S. Constitution began – the French minister to America wrote home to his superiors in Paris, "What part of the United States would you like to take when it falls apart?" Disunity between states, a[...]
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  It's hard to remember what it took to get around before the invention of Google Maps. But the technology has changed everything from daily routes to road trips to navigating unknown territory. Because of Google Maps, the entire globe seems reachable. But the road to inventing Google Maps? That's another story. In this episode of[...]
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  Sir Ernest Shackleton wanted to be the first man to walk across the Antarctic continent. In 1914, with a crew of 28 men, he set sail on the Endurance to complete the first “Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition." But harsh winds and frigid temperatures threatened the voyage from the start, and in short order the ship was[...]
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  On March 11, 2011 Japan was struck by a 9.1-magnitude earthquake, the most powerful in the country's recorded history. But the real horror had only just begun. A 14-meter-high tsunami created by the seismic event followed, sending giant waves of seawater crashing into the the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, triggering a nuclear disaster. While[...]
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  In 1985, the automobile giant Ford was teetering on the edge of financial collapse. Faced with internal chaos, an uninspiring product line, and fierce competition from Japanese cars – they needed a sensation. Enter: The Ford Taurus. This breakthrough model didn't just rescue the company, it sparked new life in an industry that represented 3%[...]
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  On April 10, 2019, the world saw what many thought was unseeable. An international group of astronomers and scientists — called The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration — photographed a Black Hole. But while this first-ever image of a glowing orange ring was splashed across the front pages, buried in the back was the amazing story[...]
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  It's time to set the record straight: Thomas Edison's greatest achievement was not the lightbulb. In fact, he wasn't even the first to invent it. The unrecognized master stroke of Edison was he brought together some of the brightest minds to collaborate, exchange ideas, and work in creative ways to change the world as we[...]
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  Think about the stories that captivate you. Survival in the harshest places on earth. Courage in the face of death. Invention that changed the world. What do these stories have in common? The work of teams. Teamistry is a podcast that examines the chemistry that exists between people who team up to pull off what[...]

How do we meet the challenges we face as organizations, countries, or even as a species? Whether we’re locked in fierce corporate competition or struggling with matters of life and death, one constant stands out: teams working together. And when teams, and teams of teams, focus on combining their unique abilities, expertise, and experience to embrace uncertainty, innovate, and tackle massive challenges? No problem is unsolvable. Teamistry is all about the chemistry that exists between groups of people who team up to achieve more than they ever thought possible. Join host Nastaran Tavakoli-Far as she delves into stories of teams working together to change their fate and even the course of history.