S2, E30: Digitizing Opportunity with CEO and Founder of Skyrocket Digital, Mo Dhaliwal
This week on The Tie-In, it’s a joy to bring you our discussion on digital opportunity with Mo Dhaliwal, the CEO and Founder of Skyrocket Digitial. A software engineer turned marketer, Mo is also the esteemed host of The High Agency Podcast (@highagencypod), which Mark had the pleasure of being on recently. On this podcast, we talk about how visionaries championing cultural change can create social impact. These inclusive conversations can lead to better sustainability as more voices are heard, and we hope you enjoy hearing his voice as much as we did. Art, technology, and social advocacy can create entire shifts in our cultural consciousness when working together.
Please continue to work with us in spreading the word about awesome forward-thinkers like Mo, and please tune in to his terrific show: https://highagencypodcast.com/host/mo-dhaliwal
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Speaker A
00:00:00.160 - 00:00:01.400
Hi, this is Zena Harris.
Speaker B
00:00:01.400 - 00:00:02.640
And I'm Mark Rabin.
Speaker A
00:00:02.960 - 00:00:37.230
Welcome to the Tie In. It is an early morning on Wednesday. Hi, Mark.
Speaker C
00:00:38.350 - 00:00:39.150
Easy now.
Speaker A
00:00:40.270 - 00:00:40.710
Yeah.
Speaker C
00:00:40.710 - 00:00:41.390
Back in action.
Speaker A
00:00:41.630 - 00:00:48.270
Back in action. We've had a bit of a whirlwind, you know, a few weeks, but it's peak summer now.
Speaker C
00:00:48.270 - 00:00:53.950
This is what they call peak summer. Peak summer, sleep with the fan on and no sheets. That's it.
Speaker A
00:00:54.670 - 00:01:10.470
Totally, totally. Yeah, we are. We're having a bit of a hot spell. Not probably not as bad, Gosh, as the rest of the US for sure. And, yeah.
So, I mean, honestly, then we live in a, you know, pretty special corner of the world, I think.
Speaker B
00:01:10.470 - 00:01:11.150
Well, it was like, when we went.
Speaker C
00:01:11.150 - 00:01:15.230
To Toronto last week, it was like being in the Caribbean.
Speaker A
00:01:17.150 - 00:01:20.830
Yeah. Yeah. Here it's, like, fine, though, you know?
Speaker C
00:01:21.070 - 00:01:28.380
Yeah. It gets hot. It gets hot here, but, I mean, it's like Vancouver. It's always a cool, cool breeze. And at night, it's not even that. That hot.
Speaker A
00:01:28.540 - 00:01:28.940
Yeah.
Speaker C
00:01:28.940 - 00:01:29.500
But I've been.
Speaker B
00:01:29.500 - 00:01:30.620
I've been taking it all in.
Speaker C
00:01:31.740 - 00:01:40.860
Biking, biking in the mountains, swimming in lakes and totally rivers and, like, this is it. This is peak summer.
Speaker A
00:01:41.260 - 00:01:56.510
Totally, totally. I went running in Point Defiance park on the weekend and then went out to Owen Beach, a beach here in Tacoma, and just went right into the water.
It was so great. It was so great. I mean, just lovely.
Speaker C
00:01:57.150 - 00:02:02.190
Yeah. It's hard to do any work of any kind. That's the only problem.
Speaker A
00:02:03.950 - 00:02:04.430
Yeah.
Speaker C
00:02:04.670 - 00:02:10.030
Just want to run into the mountains and come back in in August.
Speaker A
00:02:10.270 - 00:02:41.470
Yeah.
Well, you know, I want to say that, but I've been running pretty hot here lately, and, you know, there's just so much going on and being pulled in a lot of different directions that it's kind of like, you know.
You know, I have to remind myself to focus, you know, prioritize all the stuff in and around, this loveliness around, you know, this weather and everything, and hearing about people's vacations to wonderful places, and I'm just like, I got to go to the Coldplay concert.
Speaker C
00:02:41.710 - 00:02:42.550
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A
00:02:42.550 - 00:02:47.150
You know, which is wonderful, you know, but I'm like, oh, I'm taking it where I can get it.
Speaker C
00:02:48.110 - 00:02:59.190
Totally.
I mean, for me, my summers feel so much easier compared to the previous years, where when I was doing portable electric, like, literally when I was in.
Speaker B
00:02:59.190 - 00:03:00.150
The early days, I was doing all.
Speaker C
00:03:00.150 - 00:03:13.750
The rentals as well and helping with that. So every single weekend was doing rental deployments and things like that.
And then I was working during the week, and then, like, literally it was just like, two, four, Seven. The whole summer.
Speaker A
00:03:13.990 - 00:03:14.470
Yeah.
Speaker C
00:03:14.630 - 00:03:16.710
Like this is, this is a dream.
Speaker A
00:03:17.080 - 00:03:20.440
Oh, well, you're living it up. Okay. Okay, fine.
Speaker C
00:03:20.440 - 00:03:26.200
Compared to that, however, there's still work to be done and I'm still sitting here in my, in my apartment, sweating.
Speaker A
00:03:28.680 - 00:03:32.200
I'm in the basement. So I mean, I've got, I've got that going for me.
Speaker C
00:03:33.480 - 00:03:56.390
Yeah, I love it. I love it. And I'm, you know, I'm headed to, to the island, actually. To.
This is my summer of checking out new, new festivals and new, new community gatherings. And so I'm going to check out Pacina Bay and it's, it's a, it's in Pacific Rim National Park, I think.
Speaker A
00:03:56.710 - 00:03:57.230
Okay.
Speaker B
00:03:57.230 - 00:03:57.590
It's.
Speaker C
00:03:57.590 - 00:04:10.600
It's kind of near to Fino Eucalypt in that neck of the woods, but it's like remote, super remote. And it's this. I don't know, I think it's a thousand person music. Music event on a beach.
Speaker D
00:04:11.080 - 00:04:11.560
Wow.
Speaker B
00:04:11.720 - 00:04:12.160
Stages.
Speaker C
00:04:12.160 - 00:04:33.720
I've heard lots about it and I've got a good friend of mine who's just like, we got a ticket for you. Let's go. I was like, all right, I'm doing it. Let's go.
But it's, you know, like fairies and driving and then this and then it's like, it's, it's far and like a dirt roads. So I, I don't know what to expect, but I'm, I'm going in.
Speaker A
00:04:34.600 - 00:04:37.480
Take your pop up solar panel and battery just in case.
Speaker C
00:04:37.880 - 00:04:40.720
Yeah, no, I'm just gonna bring some battery packs.
Speaker A
00:04:40.880 - 00:04:50.400
Yeah, cool. Well, take some photos. I'd love to see what that setup looks like, you know, on the beach. How cool.
Speaker C
00:04:50.880 - 00:04:53.040
Yeah, it's. It's like one of those huge beaches.
Speaker D
00:04:53.040 - 00:04:53.600
I don't know if you've been at.
Speaker C
00:04:53.600 - 00:04:54.520
Tofino or not, but it's.
Speaker A
00:04:54.520 - 00:04:55.840
Oh yeah. Love it.
Speaker C
00:04:55.920 - 00:04:56.320
Right?
Speaker B
00:04:56.720 - 00:04:57.200
Yeah.
Speaker C
00:04:58.800 - 00:05:02.440
Incredible. Love summer. Oh my God, this place.
Speaker A
00:05:02.440 - 00:05:29.770
Yeah. Love Tofino.
It's like one of the best surf spots and you know, the waves are great, constant and you get like, you know, great surf instructors if you want one. We were coached once by like the, the female Canadian, you know, national champion. And I was like, really? This is awesome. So love that place.
Speaker C
00:05:30.490 - 00:05:30.890
Yeah.
Speaker D
00:05:30.890 - 00:05:31.370
Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker C
00:05:31.370 - 00:05:35.010
I haven't been back that next to the woods in like 20 years. It feels like.
Speaker D
00:05:35.010 - 00:05:35.130
So.
Speaker C
00:05:35.130 - 00:05:35.610
I don't know.
Speaker A
00:05:36.310 - 00:05:41.750
Oh. Oh, well, yeah, it's. I mean it's grown a little bit, so.
Speaker C
00:05:41.750 - 00:05:58.310
I mean there's some cool spots. Everything's crazy.
Like I have a, I have a friend who Two days ago was telling me that she was up in Desolate Sound on a boat and for like an hour, like a whale came and like humpback rail came and like hung.
Speaker B
00:05:58.310 - 00:05:58.910
Out with a boat.
Speaker C
00:05:58.910 - 00:06:13.370
It wasn't even a, like, it wasn't a whale watching boat or anything. It was just like, wow. Yeah. This, like, they just had this like very intimate connection with this whale who was like, hanging around the boat.
Like, you know, like really, they could touch it.
Speaker A
00:06:14.010 - 00:06:16.890
Oh my gosh. That's super special. Like.
Speaker B
00:06:17.130 - 00:06:17.610
Yeah.
Speaker A
00:06:18.570 - 00:06:18.969
Wow.
Speaker B
00:06:18.969 - 00:06:19.530
It's crazy.
Speaker A
00:06:19.530 - 00:06:29.290
Yeah, no, it's cool. Last time I went out there on the ferry, we saw humpback whales jump out of the water. I mean, it's amazing.
Speaker B
00:06:32.540 - 00:06:32.860
Yeah.
Speaker A
00:06:33.180 - 00:06:39.500
Crazy cool spot. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, okay, well, that's it.
Speaker C
00:06:39.500 - 00:06:41.660
Not too much going on in the dog days of summer here.
Speaker A
00:06:41.820 - 00:07:09.080
Totally, totally. We hope everyone else around the world is enjoying your summer or winter, wherever you are and, you know, keep it up out there. Keep it up.
Thank you for getting in touch with us and liking and subscribing. We really, really appreciate it. And do, you know, share this with a friend, share with your colleagues.
There's some good insight coming out of these interviews, so we've got some good ones coming up. We're, we're excited for it.
Speaker D
00:07:09.400 - 00:07:09.920
Yeah.
Speaker A
00:07:09.920 - 00:07:11.560
So see you soon.
Speaker B
00:07:15.320 - 00:08:10.239
Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Tie in. Today we're speaking with Mo Diwal and I've had the pleasure of becoming friends with Mo over the last many months here.
And yeah, looking forward to chatting with you. Mo has over two decades of experience in the technology sector, including software development and Internet marketing.
From Silicon Valley to Vancouver, bc.
He's a patron of the arts and producer of cultural events and has worked to shatter barriers between people and encourage cross cultural understanding, most notably through the creation of the Vancouver International Bangra Celebration Society.
He's also had the opportunity to collaborate with creative minds across the country and in North America in creating moving experiences for clients and community.
He's the founder and CEO of Skyrocket Digital and has driven significant digital transformations, delivering innovative brand and tech solutions to global clients. And you also have a podcast called High Agency that I was recently on that dropped.
Speaker D
00:08:10.239 - 00:08:12.840
Thank you guys so much for having me on. I'm really looking forward to this.
Speaker A
00:08:13.160 - 00:08:38.310
Yeah, Mo, it's lovely to meet you. Mark's told me a bit about you, so I'm looking forward to the conversation. Welcome to our little podcast, the Tie In.
So I guess to kick it off, I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about yourself about your journey, you know, to working in the tech sector and you know, events with, you know, creative economy and otherwise.
Speaker D
00:08:39.670 - 00:11:36.500
Yeah, I mean, looking back, it all looks quite interesting and maybe even rational. It looked like, you know, there was a rationale, you know, knowledgeable person that made these forward looking decisions.
But at the time from where my career kind of began, out of school till now, I can tell you that for the most pivotal moments, I was just kind of tripping and stumbling forward trying to grasp onto the, the next thing I went to school for, business administration because, you know, family influence and whatnot. It was like that felt like the quote, unquote, right thing to do. The first signal should have been that I had done four years of electives.
In the first two years, like all my Englishes, anthropologies and philosophy courses up to like third and fourth levels were done and over, right? And then all I had left after that was like, you know, probability statistics, financial accounting, cost accounting, etc.
It got very, very dry and boring.
But throughout all of this I had held onto this hobby of coding and not through a software engineering sense, but just being what we used to call back then, you know, script kiddies, right? People that knew just enough Perl or PHP to make little websites or make little automations and scripts that would do things automatically.
And lo and behold, in the early 2000s that turned into a career and that remained my career for the better part of 10 years. And yes, that took me out to Silicon Valley. That was a brief period for maybe two years.
But beyond that it had me kind of connecting with companies and clients all over the place, the country and the world really.
But the interesting moment, I think in my life was actually in the mid-2000s because that technology industry, as much as it was booming and bustling and all the rest of was also kind of exploitative, right?
It was, you know, there's developers working at, you know, some massive software development firms where it was like a borderline, you know, human rights violation, what they were being put through and the long hours and the at the time kind of legendary stories of people sleeping under their desks and stuff. It's like, like none of that's really cool, right? None of that's sustainable. None of that's really, you know, paying homage to anybody's humanity.
So I kind of really burned out of it. Like I just, you know, after a few years of just ridiculous hours and deadlines and not seeing my friends or family, I just kind of quit one day.
And then I went through this period of like, you know, I want to do something like kind of fun and like kind of healing almost. And I started a Bhangra festival, right? The Vancouver International Bhangarh Celebration. And that was at the time just more of a lark than anything.
Wanted to, you know, here, back here in Vancouver, create a bit of a sense of belonging for myself, do something fun and interesting. And that itself turned into a 10 year journey as a volunteer board member.
And the tail end of that is when we actually started Skyrocket as a digital agency.
Speaker B
00:11:40.020 - 00:12:07.010
Just to double click on the Bangra Festival. So I mean, obviously there's a huge community here in Vancouver. Did you start to incubate that while you were down in the Valley area?
What was the sort of genesis of that? And then also how big are we talking here? Because this is truly, I mean, this is entertainment as we look at it. We do a lot of live.
Talk to a lot of folks about live event production and the ups and downs of that.
Speaker D
00:12:07.410 - 00:14:25.010
Yeah, so I wanted to answer that. It's actually interesting the way you put it, the idea of incubation. I think you, I think the festival, I don't think I incubated it.
I think it was kind of incubating inside me without me knowing. Because the amazing thing about being in San Francisco back then was that there was this like street level diversity that was amazing.
So as a, as a young person in the city, I loved going out. I loved going out to live music and clubs and whatnot. So it was a very, you know, work hard, party hard culture.
And what I would see in the scene, there was just this diversity, right?
Whether it was, you know, clubs like Ruby sky or Harry Denton at this, it was like a 34th floor of this hotel, this like amazing club that on Wednesday nights would kind of do like an international night.
There was, you know, El Rio in the Castro district, these really interesting places where you would go and experience music from all around the world. And it was a real melting pot sort of moment for me in, you know, being immersed in that.
Because we'd be, you know, out hanging out with people and in the middle of all of it, you would hear Punjabi music and Bangara music and Bollywood tunes. Come on. Just because it's good music, right?
It wasn't because there was some, you know, special tonight's ethnic night or, or something like that going on. It was just the DJs appreciated the music so they'd play it.
And it blew my mind, right, because as A, you know, 21, 22 year old, it Was like, wow, you can do that. You can just play your music to people that might not understand the lyrics and they can just dance because the beat's good. Like, that's the thing.
And so that's kind of what I brought back with me, right? And Vancouver, you know, like, maybe less so these days, but back then, very provincial sort of vibe. It was no real ethnic diversity.
It was white people, Asians and brown people, right? South Asians. And there was like these kind of three poles going on.
And so I was like, man, it is so much more beautiful when the space is complicated because you can find room for yourself. There's all sorts of belonging you can find. And we need to complicate the idea of diversity in Vancouver a bit.
And so that was actually kind of the genesis of the festival. It was like, I want to make this place look like that weird melting pot that just happens to flow and ebb with all these different cultures.
Speaker C
00:14:26.530 - 00:14:27.250
I love it.
Speaker B
00:14:27.890 - 00:14:33.410
And just give us a last sort of thing on scope and scale. Like, we're talking 5,000, 10,000 people.
Speaker D
00:14:34.130 - 00:16:34.090
Oh, yeah. I mean, our first year's event was 1700. It was at what was back then the center for Performing Arts.
And then very quickly and ambitiously, this is a little bit of my tech background coming in, right? It was like, scale quick. Like, we've got. We've got product market fit. Oh, my God, let's scale, right?
So year two, it turned into an open air festival and we sold out the Queen Elizabeth Theater. So the indoor component, it was like 2,600 seats. We sold out, and the public component had a few thousand.
And then our numbers for the ensuing years basically fluctuated between like, you know, 8 and 15,000, right? There was years that were heavy. So the outdoor component would bring in a few thousand people a day, plus 2,500 people in an indoor venue somewhere.
And then there's also leaner years, right, where it was, you know, Maybe we scratched 5,000 if we really added up to 10 days in every single venue. But the live component was definitely it. And that's also where I started to get an appreciation, frankly, for event production, right?
Because I wanted to see the thing happen. And then we kind of went backwards and be like, okay, how does that happen? And we try to connect the dots.
And I think that level of naivety was kind of helpful in a way as well, because we picked some really stupid locations to do events in. And so we would be like, master planning and building things up from the ground up, right? Nobody would know this it was what, like 17 years ago now?
16. 17 years ago now. But there's a massive iconic Punjabi artist named Mukit Singh.
And right here in Gastown in Vancouver, there's a underground sort of venue that back then was a museum exhibition space called Storium. And Storium had just gone under. And so there Was this like 30,000 foot cavern underneath water and Cordova streets.
And we were looking for an event venue as an after party for our fetival. So I contacted the city and I got them to rent us this like, you know, abandoned property almost for like, you know, practically no money.
Speaker A
00:16:34.250 - 00:16:34.810
Whoa.
Speaker D
00:16:34.810 - 00:17:01.610
But, yeah, but, but in, you know, but in exchange, we had to build it from the ground up, meaning that the alley was filled with generators. We had to like, if somebody hung up their coat on a coat check, that means we rented the hangers and brought them from somewhere.
Like ice water lighting, like. Yeah, we had to like, you know, turn this empty space into a nightclub for the night.
And that was when I actually, I think, started getting an appreciation for what these master planned events actually, actually look like.
Speaker E
00:17:01.610 - 00:17:01.970
Right.
Speaker D
00:17:02.450 - 00:17:35.629
And. And if, if I'm being frank, like I'm, I'm being.
I'm feeling a little disingenuous about talking about this on the tie in because I know there's a real climate intersection here.
And I would be lying if I, if I said that that was ever on our radar or the, the urgency of these massive events would be that, like, we didn't give a shit. And it's unfortunate, right? So we're talking like, oh my God, like styrofoam cups, like those red solo things.
Oh, yeah, you know, Smoky Ass Alley with like just, you know, all the, all the diesel you could ever want to ever inhale.
Speaker E
00:17:35.629 - 00:17:35.989
Right.
Speaker D
00:17:37.429 - 00:17:47.580
And it's unfortunate, but, you know, it was just the nature of it was because, you know, the event, the budget, you know, we allowed for certain things and it just wasn't even in the consciousness to worry about what's the impact of this thing.
Speaker B
00:17:47.820 - 00:17:54.700
Yeah, yeah, just so you know, I mean, there's still, you still go to Coachella and there's still like hundreds of diesel generators. I mean, it's not.
Speaker D
00:17:55.980 - 00:17:57.980
That doesn't make me feel better necessarily, but I get it.
Speaker A
00:17:58.380 - 00:18:19.840
But, you know, it's all an evolution, right? Because, yeah, you, you know, now you have a realization.
But like, none of us did, you know, in the beginning we all had to come and experience and learn and figure out how to, you know, put that battery, you know, in a cool place, you Know, like, it's all an evolution, so. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, go ahead.
Speaker D
00:18:20.240 - 00:18:48.470
Not a lot of options either. Right.
Because when it came to, like, our outdoor events, like, we did a bunch of stuff in Vancouver Civic Plaza, and I'm forgetting the company's name, but there's, like, one company that will rent you these kind of big, what they call silent generators, which just means that it is a really loud hum rather than chugging.
And they were the ones that had, like, the certificates, the engineering or whatnot, that they were kind of approved by the city and for us to get our event permits. So there wasn't really a lot of choices either.
Speaker E
00:18:48.470 - 00:18:48.670
Right.
Speaker D
00:18:48.670 - 00:18:58.310
So if we tried to do things differently, I'm not sure how much appetite there would have been for that, because it was like, okay, live event, go rent your stuff from them because we approve of them. And that was it.
Speaker A
00:18:59.990 - 00:19:19.520
I'm curious, you know, at the top of the conversation, you mentioned, you know, Vancouver having sort of these, you know, kind of three cultural pillars, if you will, or polls. And I'm curious, you know, after doing the event for a few years, what did you notice? Did you complicate things? Did. Did. What was a ripple effect?
Speaker D
00:19:20.960 - 00:20:18.930
I think, for a time, and I think sometimes the kind of appreciation for diversity in Vancouver is a little seasonal, where there's kind of a hot thing. And for a number of years, like, you know, Bhangra and Punjabi folk music performance was kind of a hot thing in the.
In the mid 2000s, you couldn't have a corporate.
Corporate event, whether it was like the mining convention or whether it was some financial institutions, agm, like, they couldn't seem to do a corporate event without bringing in a dance crew as an interlude and performance in spaces where it would just make no sense to some extent. But there was a good love and appreciation for it. So that was kind of nice. But I think the DNA of the city kind of continues to change.
And a big part of what actually drove me, and I think drove our group back then, was this idea that Vancouver was small enough that you can kind of influence its culture. You can actually have a pretty outsized impact on this place.
Speaker E
00:20:18.930 - 00:20:19.250
Right.
Speaker D
00:20:19.250 - 00:20:23.170
Like London, New York's of the world. Like, they're pretty. They're pretty fully baked.
Speaker E
00:20:23.170 - 00:20:23.330
Right.
Speaker D
00:20:23.330 - 00:20:32.970
You're going there to have that culture seep into you, not the other way around, necessarily. So it did feel like we had a good amount of influence on the city back then, for sure.
Speaker A
00:20:33.850 - 00:20:58.890
Mm. Mm. And, you know, it takes a lot of different vendors and stakeholders and whatnot.
And I Wanted to, you know, you brought up a term before we came on the, the call about the shadow economy. Can you like, explain that and what you observe in that maybe in and around events?
Speaker D
00:21:00.220 - 00:22:17.000
Yeah, it's.
So I kind of started really contrasting my own experiences for a while because, you know, as much as I was a part of the founding team of the Bangladesh Festival during that period, I also joined my first marketing agency, like a couple years into it, and there I was brought in as an account manager. But one of my roles was to actually go out and connect with a lot of people in the arts community.
And within a few years of that, I found myself on the board of the alliance for Arts and Culture. I was on the board of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival for six years.
I was on Vancouver Opera for six years, president of the Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society for, I think, a year or two.
So all these really random experiences and what that actually I think cemented for me was an understanding of what is well known and understood as kind of like mainstream society and economies and all of the stuff that happens in the nooks and crannies in between.
Where, you know, I'm not saying nooks and crannies doesn't tiny like, you know, these could be multi thousand person events, but because it's a particular section of the Filipino community or a particular section of the Korean or Taiwanese communities, you know, or, or the Fijian community or yes, of course, the Punjabi community, that they were kind of off the radar.
Speaker E
00:22:17.160 - 00:22:17.520
Right.
Speaker D
00:22:17.520 - 00:22:20.440
And so these things, if you add them up, they're huge.
Speaker E
00:22:20.520 - 00:22:21.260
Right, right.
Speaker D
00:22:22.140 - 00:22:41.660
But individually, none of them is necessarily, you know, bigger than, I don't know, the gray cup or something.
But if you look at, you know, for example, Bear Creek park in Surrey, you know, hosting, you know, any number of commemoration events or sort of open air festivals throughout the year, you're probably looking at 100,000 people that have come through for those events.
Speaker E
00:22:41.660 - 00:22:42.060
Right.
Speaker D
00:22:43.020 - 00:23:53.900
There's a very important, you know, religious occasion for the Sikh community in B.C.
where three to five hundred thousand people will flood the streets in Surrey in this religious procession in April, which is the month of the sakhi, the harvest season. And these events are probably looked at again as gatherings in and of the community and maybe observed at a distance.
But that's a lot of people, that's a lot of production, and that's kind of brewing underneath kind of the surface of what I think the general population is kind of conscious of. And we even found this when we were working in arts and culture of Cultural production for grants.
So when we were working, whether it was municipally, provincially or federally, even the funding streams and the nature of grant writing was really kind of well suited to Western European art forms, mainstream festivals, that sort of thing.
And when you kind of came in with a cultural practice that was just totally not on their radar at all, they didn't have like a frame or they couldn't even understand your thesis.
Speaker E
00:23:53.900 - 00:23:54.180
Right.
Speaker D
00:23:54.180 - 00:24:03.660
Of what you were doing or why. So it took us a long time to get both smarter about using kind of like Western arts language to try to shoehorn ourselves into those spaces a bit.
Speaker E
00:24:03.660 - 00:24:04.020
Right.
Speaker D
00:24:04.980 - 00:24:18.300
But yeah, when you add it up, it's like our, our, our big sort of pillar, you know, bedrock arts institutions from art gallery, opera, symphony. Like, you know, every serious city has to have a symphony.
Speaker E
00:24:18.300 - 00:24:18.980
Right, right.
Speaker D
00:24:18.980 - 00:24:39.780
I think if you were to add these up, they'd probably be like just utterly eclipsed by what the Punjabi, you know, Filipino, Chinese communities do out here in terms of celebration and heritage events for ourselves and frankly, just pure entertainment.
Speaker E
00:24:39.780 - 00:24:40.100
Right.
Speaker D
00:24:40.100 - 00:24:49.780
Because, you know, Punjabi music's taking over the world is huge. We have artists coming in and filling Roger's arena these days for sure. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's different than 20 years ago and just saying.
Speaker E
00:24:49.780 - 00:24:50.140
Right.
Speaker D
00:24:50.780 - 00:25:02.540
But yeah, when you, when you add all that up, it's like actually it's kind of, you know, I think the term was shadow economy probably made a bit more sense 20 years ago. Now it's just massive economy. But do we recognize it?
Speaker B
00:25:02.780 - 00:25:47.680
Well, it's, it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's in. Just to take that one step further. I mean, yeah, we have these huge, like you said, cultural gatherings.
We have 100,000 Coachellas of the world, like 150,000. But really more people are going to local and regional events, community based events, but also all types of things. I mean, there's so many.
Even just an example, like the festivals that are, that are going on, there's literally the, the forests in British Columbia have, you know, 200 to 500 person events that are going on literally every weekend everywhere. They're right, that, that, and that's creating culture, that's creating community. Like what are people striving for? What are people looking for?
Looking to, to feel seen, heard, create community, meet new people, create new, new alliances and lead. It's just like. And they're all under the radar.
Speaker D
00:25:48.000 - 00:26:06.930
Yeah, and you nailed it right there.
Because like when we started that festival 20 years ago, you know, I would love to say that it was some visionary story of like, oh, you know, we're going to create this institution. But I can tell you the instinct was just wanting to connect, wanting to feel like we had a space for ourselves and that was it.
Speaker E
00:26:06.930 - 00:26:07.250
Right.
Speaker D
00:26:07.250 - 00:26:11.450
Do something beautiful that's entertaining to the eyes and ears, but also you feel a part of it.
Speaker A
00:26:12.410 - 00:26:22.650
Yeah, yeah. How do you take that sort of community building and cultural, I don't know, richness, if you will, into the work that you're doing now?
Speaker D
00:26:24.650 - 00:27:12.730
I think it just gives you a bit of fluency.
You know, you become really aware of what you're ignorant to, and so you're able to walk into, I think, like any industry, you know, arena sector, community, with a lot of humility of understanding that you.
There's a lot of things here you probably don't know because you run across it yourself all the time of, you know, in mainstream media, just a lack of nuance sometimes and just so much, you know, depth and texture that's missing.
So when you have that appreciation, you come from that culture and have been involved in that way, I think you're able to walk into new spaces and come in with the humility and understanding that I know what I don't know and now I can listen hard and really perceive and go looking for it.
Speaker A
00:27:16.090 - 00:28:03.190
No, that's so interesting.
I mean, one of the things, I think I've read this when you're researching what you do and everything, but one of the things, I think that drew Mark and I together early on and what we've been trying to think through as we go, and I would love to hear your perspective, is this digital transformation. We've seen evolution in our work in film and tv, for example, in Mark's work with energy and whatnot. We've seen this transformation.
We're still grappling with it in a lot of ways on the physical production side of the house and even things like AI and whatnot. I'm curious how you think about it and how you're working within it.
Speaker D
00:28:05.110 - 00:29:06.120
So there's a couple of quotes that I kind of keep at the forefront of my mind that were introduced by various colleagues over the years. One is that the future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed.
And I just love that quote so much because, you know, and it's true because whether it's some cities in.
In China or whether it's, frankly, places in the interior of British Columbia, you can see where some things are advanced, some things are lagging, and there's different cultures around this Stuff So you can typically look into a space or an industry and see where there might have been some economic pressure, frankly, and that caused the industry or the people to like, innovate. Right. Or to do things differently or to even try to figure out how to make more time or do more with less. You know, in B.C.
because of the various real estate booms and just the entire economy built around that, one of our last industries here to innovate is actually real estate and construction.
Speaker E
00:29:06.200 - 00:29:06.600
Right?
Speaker B
00:29:07.480 - 00:29:08.440
Forestry in there?
Speaker D
00:29:08.920 - 00:31:10.060
Yeah, forestry, yeah. Forestry, absolutely. Yeah.
When you've spent decades just making money hand over fist in some cases for no reason, what is your incentive to get efficient? What is your incentive to say, actually, let's try to look at data or try to tie these things together.
So that's one perspective, is that we can look out into the world and see different futures that already exist and know that they're probably going to arrive here, but when are they going to arrive? What's the timing, what's the incentive? And the other one is, I think this one comes out at mit.
But the idea that digital transformation, when it's done well, can turn a caterpillar into a butterfly, but when it's done badly, you're left with like a really fast caterpillar.
And we don't want really fast caterpillars because what's the hope with all of this technology that we're just imbibing and ingesting and connecting with constantly?
You would hope that it isn't just for us to be ever more frenzied and ever more worried about output and just trying to, you know, squeeze every last hour of productivity out of every single person.
You would hope that these efficiencies, this knowledge that is unlocked, that it'll actually create space, right, for increased human connection, increased understanding and connection with the world around you. It's one of my favorite lectures to give my team is that, you know, I think as a digital agency, of course there's a lot of technology we work with.
We're working on design and development projects and what have you, but I sometimes kind of like mockingly will make this motion and I'll say punching the keys on the keyboard. I'm like the era of doing this or wiggling a little device to make an arrow move around on the screen. That arrow is basically over.
We're kind of in the halo effect of it. So we all need to be considering, you know, what does our future look like and what is the essence of what we do.
So, sorry, this is a really long winded answer question.
Speaker A
00:31:10.620 - 00:31:11.740
Yeah, that's great.
Speaker D
00:31:12.700 - 00:31:24.780
But the ultimate for digital transformation for me would be that. Right. I just don't want to get faster and faster at this way of being.
I wanted to unlock new ways of being and those new ways of being hopefully are more human and connected.
Speaker B
00:31:25.660 - 00:32:49.130
Yeah. And I couldn't agree more.
I think this has been one of the challenges that we uncover on a weekly basis here on the podcast is really that idea that more and more and more for less, less, less. And it's like that. That's one of the, the challenges that the film production industry has gotten itself into a real pickle. You got.
A lot of people are not happy. A lot of people are feeling drained. A lot of studios are their one focus. Right. Is, is. Is maximizing shareholder value. Right.
And all of that plays into what we're still calling sustainability.
But we're always keen to, of talking about sustainability and what that means and just not to put you on the spot here, but I am, you know, using your background in sort of thinking about digital transformation, you know, and in terms of sustainability entertainment, how do you see that today? And then where do you see that going? And any advice that you could give to.
Not to us, but also our listeners who are practitioners in this field and we're trying to figure this out. Right. The term sustainability itself has kind of just, it's just diminished its value.
I don't know, there's something about it that we're struggling with to understand. And how do you communicate this to complex communities out there? So that's something that we're, we, we grapple with every week. Sorry, Dizzy.
Anyone you want?
Speaker A
00:32:49.370 - 00:33:12.030
No, I mean, no, I know it is a messaging thing and I think we're grappling with how, how do we get the awesomeness across? How do we get, you know, this question. Cool factor. Because we've, it's.
We kind of beat it into the ground in terms of like, you know, something we have to do. And like, it's an additional thing. And like, like, you know, the sort of, you know, climate change is a.
Speaker C
00:33:12.030 - 00:33:15.109
You know, we're all gonna die and all this stuff.
Speaker A
00:33:15.109 - 00:33:28.950
And I'm like, oh my gosh, like, the possibilities are just amazing. If we can get to that sort of, who can transcend this kind of level that we're in right now. And I'm just curious how you might think about it.
Speaker D
00:33:29.670 - 00:35:31.340
Yeah, look, I think you, you know, Mark, when you were asking that this is, this is like the trillion dollar question, you know, and so I'M going to sidestep it just for a second where, you know, you can, you can kind of see it in, in people and you can see it in a lot of different community spaces. And this is where I'm going to sound like a government of Canada psa.
But this is why diversity is so important, because what are we looking for with sustainability? We're looking for healthier ways of being that will allow humanity to exist for a little bit longer, right? I mean, humanity goes away.
We know the planet will be fine, right? It might take a few hundred thousand years, but the planet will be fine. It'll regenerate completely. New stuff grows, off it goes.
So really we're talking about know it's actually from a selfish place.
It's like we're trying to, you know, extend our own ability to survive by creating a better relationship with our environment that's happier and healthier.
And you know, one of the favorite things I like to see when I drive out to Abbotsford, just an hour east of here, to visit family, you know, every few weekends. My mom lives out there and I, I grew up up there.
I was born and raised up there is when you come into town, there's like these little parks you kind of pass by, you know, in the neighborhoods and the, and what we refer to as the uncles. I'm kind of getting into that generation myself. But the, the uncles will be out there rain or shine, playing cards, right?
And these are, you know, they might have been kind of the grandfathers now that immigrated in the 70s or 80s, or they might be like recent immigrants in the last like decade or so, but they come from a place in Punjab that the outdoors isn't some other thing that you do. It's just a part of your lived experience, right? It's like you don't stay cooped up in a room all day, right?
So even when they immigrate over here, you know, like vegging on a couch isn't really the norm for them. Why would you ever do that?
Speaker E
00:35:31.340 - 00:35:31.700
Right?
Speaker D
00:35:32.260 - 00:36:01.980
So even if it's in their own driveway on like, you know, plastic patio furniture, just like watching cars go by and talking to your neighbor, it's like they're outdoors constantly, right? They're walking everywhere constantly.
I think the number one transit users in Abbotsford are probably like, you know, Punjabi senior men and women, right? Like, they're on buses constantly, just coming and going because they want to be in public space, they want to be walking to get, to get to places.
And that's. Those are their modes Right.
Speaker E
00:36:01.980 - 00:36:02.460
Yeah.
Speaker D
00:36:02.860 - 00:36:06.940
And I have such an appreciation for it, where I'm like, man, like, why don't I walk more?
Speaker E
00:36:06.940 - 00:36:07.180
Right?
Speaker D
00:36:07.180 - 00:36:09.580
And if I'm just at home anyways, why aren't I sitting outside?
Speaker E
00:36:09.820 - 00:36:10.220
Right?
Speaker D
00:36:11.030 - 00:36:26.949
So there's.
There's a diversity in these ways of being, where you can see it in front of you, where if I went and tried to lecture anybody in those families and said, because of sustainability, transit, right? And, you know, you got to get into nature, they would look at me like an alien. Like what? Like, we don't understand what are you talking about?
Speaker E
00:36:26.950 - 00:36:27.350
Right?
Speaker D
00:36:27.750 - 00:37:17.960
But when you look at the community, when you look at just their ways of being, you can. It's. It's all there. They're living very, very sustainably already, right?
So I think we can actually look to a lot of cultural communities for that sort of stuff, you know, and even, like, my mom's generation, like, the world that they came from, it wasn't the world of, you know, disposable bags and this and that. Like, they made all their own clothes, right? In some cases, they made their own furniture, right?
So there was, like, this craft, this handiwork, this appreciation for the longevity of things, and those populations might have been the most sustainable communities in the world, right? And so it's really kind of like this Western import that's made a lot of these groups and communities wasteful.
But maybe when we're talking about sustainability, we just need to talk to a lot of these communities about kind of reconnecting with themselves and what they already know about what to do.
Speaker A
00:37:21.640 - 00:38:03.190
It's like, instead of looking for that thing, that product, that external thing, we really need to look at ourselves and kind of exercise, you know, I feel like a level of awareness, right? Not only for, like, our lives or, you know, but the lives around us, people around us, the communities around us. I think that, like, that's so.
It's just such a rich experience when you start noticing things and you can, you know, interact with, you know, that community down the street or whatever, you know, like, it's just. It's so. It feels. I mean, it feels fulfilling to me, like, to. To be able to. To actually get to that, you know, so.
Speaker E
00:38:03.190 - 00:38:03.550
Or.
Speaker B
00:38:03.550 - 00:38:33.080
Or it's the. I've always said this from. From day one, it's like I've moved around quite a bit, showed up in communities. I didn't know anybody. It's like.
Like I've this billboard campaign. It's like, get to know your neighbor, right? Say hi to your neighbor. Smile at your Neighbor, right? It's like just something as easy as that, right?
Someone in the elevator, in the street.
Like even just, you know, on a busy street, just acknowledging someone, maybe a senior, maybe somebody else, a mother walking her, you know, stroll or whatever. You're just like, good morning.
Speaker E
00:38:33.640 - 00:38:34.040
Right?
Speaker B
00:38:34.280 - 00:38:36.360
Or just basic shit.
Speaker A
00:38:36.440 - 00:38:38.760
Basic stuff like this the whole day.
Speaker B
00:38:39.160 - 00:38:58.750
Or like. Or like, I have this visual of like, someone going in to rob a store. And you're just like. You say. You're like, oh, good morning.
And they're like, well, I'm probably not gonna go do that now. But, like. Anyway, I just. That has served me so, so well in everywhere I go, the most crazy places.
Speaker D
00:38:59.550 - 00:39:00.190
I don't know.
Speaker B
00:39:00.670 - 00:39:02.030
I have that billboard campaign.
Speaker A
00:39:03.630 - 00:39:04.510
Is that your sign?
Speaker D
00:39:05.230 - 00:39:23.800
Well, and what you're talking about really is like kind of, you know, starting with your own humanity, right? Yeah, because that's what, you know. How would you get to know your neighbor? It wouldn't be. It wouldn't be by DMing them, right? It wouldn't be.
It'd be face to face, flesh to flesh, contact like that. That's, you know, that's getting to your own humanity again.
Speaker A
00:39:26.280 - 00:39:54.340
So I'm curious just with that thought and what we grapple with in the tech space. We're kind of in this weird situation, and I don't know, I feel like, how do you think AI can help or not help us with this? Is this.
I mean, because we're getting into that. We're getting into that space where it's just around more and more. And I'm just curious, serious.
Speaker B
00:39:54.580 - 00:39:58.900
And people are afraid too, right? I mean, you've got. Business has been really afraid of it.
Speaker D
00:40:00.420 - 00:41:13.010
So there's, you know, it's. It's the. There's that. That sort of indigenous parable of, you know, the. The two wolves inside you, right? Which one do you feed?
So I feel like AI is kind of like that as well. We have these two wolves, and it can go in a couple of different ways, and it might go in both again, you know, features not evenly distributed.
One of the most chilling things I saw was this Y Combinator submission.
You guys might have seen this, and somebody did this with no irony whatsoever, but they had basically created this artificial intelligence monitoring system for essentially sweatshops, where you have a factory floor with cubicles set up and people are supposed to be producing items at a certain rate. And Big Brother just sits monitoring the entire facility. And on a grid, it'll show you who are in the greens, who are in the yellows.
And if there's some of the reds and it'll establish patterns over time. And then there's like devices of these cubicles that you can actually speak through.
So some floor manager could basically like big Brother on your shoulder, just like yell into a cubicle and be like, yo, you're in the red. What's going on?
Speaker E
00:41:13.010 - 00:41:13.290
Right.
Speaker D
00:41:13.290 - 00:41:25.600
Or you've been in the red for so many days, we need to swap you out. And they built and submitted this thing to Y Combinator again with zero irony, Right.
And obviously got blasted and flamed for it online because it's like, what the hell are you doing?
Speaker E
00:41:25.600 - 00:41:26.000
Right.
Speaker D
00:41:26.800 - 00:41:35.360
So there's that side where it'll just continue doubling down on everything that is extractive and violent about capitalism.
Speaker E
00:41:35.360 - 00:41:35.760
Right.
Speaker D
00:41:37.120 - 00:41:48.430
And then there's the other side where again, in the agency world, we spend a lot of time writing, corresponding, taking notes, building decks. Like, man, if. If that all could go away because we handed it to a thing.
Speaker E
00:41:48.510 - 00:41:48.870
Right.
Speaker D
00:41:48.870 - 00:42:15.050
And we spent most of our time in human connection with people and coming together as a team and doing the, what is it, the forming, storming, norming, you know, process of teams coming together. If we were just spending our time on that, what a pleasure. Right?
Because now suddenly every client, every new team member we work with, we're just coming together as people and finding a great human dynamic to go do interesting things and go build things in the world.
Speaker E
00:42:15.050 - 00:42:15.450
Right.
Speaker D
00:42:15.930 - 00:42:39.290
That I think is like the absolute, you know, for me, my industry perspective, like the holy grail potential of this thing comes along and it just takes the mundane away and we just get to imagine and create constantly. Wow. And then the worst side is that it comes along and it starts trying to be extractive and trying to maximize the extraction from the human.
Speaker C
00:42:40.220 - 00:42:40.540
Yeah.
Speaker B
00:42:40.620 - 00:44:04.740
And that's. But that's the how our entire system has been sort of created. Right. I'm. So we're actually.
It's a byproduct of the actual creation of the system that we've created and allowed ourselves to be co opted essentially by various extremely greedy forces that only look it up for themselves. I don't.
I think maybe we talked about it on the podcast a little bit, but that's why, like, I mean, I'm just such a fan of the regenerative economy, regenerative communities, regenerative agriculture.
I mean, I think that like, that's where one of the big movements is going to be in the U.S. but in Europe, in North America and around the world, it's something that's attainable and accessible, but it means reimagining capitalism in a way. And, and I don't think anybody's saying, hey look, more stock markets suck and capitalism is broken. Let's just do with capitalism.
Like yeah, some folks say that, but it's not really the case. Right. We need to reimagine capitalism and, and, and markets, right? Everything's rigged. Why not rig it in favor of humanity?
Why not rig it in favor of communities? So I think that that's like something that, that I'm a big fan of and I, and I, you know, I think it's happening in entertainment.
We're starting to see it a little bit. Entertainment has a voice out there, right. And we can use this voice for change. And same with marketing, branding, right? It's messaging, right.
It's that it's all like key messaging. So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker D
00:44:06.100 - 00:44:37.980
No, I love the way you put that. Like everything's rigged anyways, right? Like you guys remember that documentary of who killed the electric car? Yeah, yeah, right.
I mean, you know, we lost 40 years there probably and like, and battery tech and electric grids and whatnot, right.
But yeah, you know, the thing got rigged at the time and I'm very much a believer in what you're saying because you know, I, I don't say this as just a purist, anti capitalist, but a lot of what I talk about for sustainability or community or diversity is actually in some regards to kind of save capitalism.
Speaker E
00:44:37.980 - 00:44:38.380
Right.
Speaker D
00:44:39.020 - 00:45:10.050
Because you know, we have enough human history to understand the pattern of any empire or empirical forces of how they go from the, you know, the pioneering period to kind of establishing their sort of influence over an area and then this kind of point of where it's at its peak, a point of decadence and then the collapse, right? And if we can say, hey, from the point of decadence, can we find a soft landing? And rather than full on collapse, where.
Speaker C
00:45:10.210 - 00:45:12.010
Why does it have to be full on collapse?
Speaker B
00:45:12.010 - 00:45:13.490
Why is it always go for broke?
Speaker D
00:45:13.810 - 00:46:04.390
Yeah, and that's the fear, right?
Is that our collapse, especially with the technology, wealth and power concentrations we exist in in this world, that collapse might look like, you know, then a half dozen techno feudalists are kind of reigning over large swaths of humanity and then we're another century or two centuries away from huge revolution to now overthrow them and then go through, you know, hopefully another golden age and humanity rises up. Like this is such a cliched pattern at this point. Like we've got 2,000 years of data to say, hey, we do this, we do this right? We Concentrate.
And we go, oh my God, it's concentrated. Now we have to burn it down.
So if we can look at the current sort of concentrations of wealth and power and find a soft landing for it that is through, you know, diversity, sustainability, a more holistic approach to our own humanity.
Speaker C
00:46:04.710 - 00:46:05.270
Yeah.
Speaker D
00:46:05.510 - 00:46:14.070
And that's. Sorry to just bring it full circle back to the AI question. I think that's the, that's the, that's the different ingredient we have this time around.
Speaker E
00:46:14.470 - 00:46:14.790
Right.
Speaker D
00:46:14.790 - 00:46:27.160
Is that we've externalize so much knowledge that maybe that can actually exist in partnership with us to, to figure this thing out. I don't know. But that's the. That would be the hope, right?
Speaker B
00:46:27.160 - 00:46:28.720
Yeah, yeah, I love it.
Speaker A
00:46:29.280 - 00:46:40.880
Yeah. I haven't heard anyone put it quite like that. To exist in partnership with us. Yeah. That's so interesting.
I'm going to have to think about that a little bit as I think through.
Speaker D
00:46:42.650 - 00:46:48.530
Yeah, me too. I think I've just ruined my whole day. This is all I'm going to think about today. Oh, God. How do we. How do we.
Speaker A
00:46:48.530 - 00:46:53.170
It just makes me like. I mean, it's. Ponder like it's our.
Speaker B
00:46:53.170 - 00:48:05.280
It's our. It's our human destiny. So, I mean, that's James Lovelock. I've referenced it on this podcast for. James Lovelock wrote a book called the Nova Scene.
And he's, he was 100 years old when he wrote it. And it was about our, our emergence with AI as our. As our collective human destiny. And, and I really like his positive look and viewpoint on it.
And that's quick read. And so I wrote the book at 100. Yeah. At 100 years old. He was the guy who came up with the Gaia hypothesis. Right.
As Mother Nature being one or one oneness, the planet in his reflection. Before his death. He writes this book called the Nova Scene. And. But it just, it's just along the same lines of what. What we're saying here.
It's just like there's, it's, you know, we have to look at it like we actually don't have the skills ourselves right now. We've shown this right, at 2000 years of stuff to, to go to the next level. So actually need to use AI and other sort of more intelligent forms of.
I don't know. I don't know what it is. Intelligent forms of technology to help us.
Speaker D
00:48:06.480 - 00:48:09.200
Yeah, it's. The potential is for it to be a great mirror.
Speaker C
00:48:09.680 - 00:48:11.520
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker B
00:48:11.760 - 00:48:15.040
Oh, Mo. This is. This has been great. Great chat.
Speaker D
00:48:15.360 - 00:48:16.480
Great chat.
Speaker A
00:48:16.480 - 00:48:22.320
I know, I know. Touched a lot of topics and you.
Speaker D
00:48:22.320 - 00:48:24.880
Know, I tend to touch a lot of topics.
Speaker A
00:48:25.120 - 00:48:45.040
Yeah, I love it. And you know, gift books, I, I mean, stuff to think about. Right. To really like these are all things that we could spend days talking about. Right.
I love that. I love that. I'm going to be thinking about it for a while.
So thank you very much for joining us on, on our podcast and gosh, look forward to following your work.
Speaker B
00:48:45.440 - 00:48:50.480
Yeah, where Mo, where, where can folks find you, hear about what you're working on.
Speaker D
00:48:52.560 - 00:49:15.820
Yeah, so you can search for me online. It's just Mo M O Dhaliwal and Skyrocket Digital is my agency and yeah, those are basically the places.
And then I'm having the great honor of talking to a lot of interesting people actually on our podcast as well on High Agency podcast. So search that out. Well, thank you again so much for the invite. This has been a lot of fun. I really appreciate it.
Speaker A
00:49:16.220 - 00:49:17.020
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker B
00:49:17.020 - 00:49:17.580
Thanks, Mo.
Speaker D
00:49:17.900 - 00:49:18.700
Alright, guys.
Speaker A
00:49:25.690 - 00:49:34.490
Our designer is Alia Kane. Music is by Peter Chapman. Social media is by Picnic Social. Our producer is Colin Miller.
