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Follow the Rabbit

Follow the Rabbit

By: Igor Schwarzmann Johannes Kleske
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 Follow the Rabbit feels like eavesdropping on a fascinating conversation between two well-read friends at a Berlin coffee shop—smart without being pretentious, critical without being cynical, and deeply engaged with contemporary culture while maintaining historical perspective. The podcast occupies a unique space between trend forecasting, cultural criticism, and philosophical inquiry, delivered with warmth, humor, and genuine enthusiasm for understanding how the world works.Igor Schwarzmann, Johannes Kleske Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Augmentation over automation: a different way to use AI – Follow the Rabbit Podcast s04e26

    Augmentation over automation: a different way to use AI – Follow the Rabbit Podcast s04e26
    Nov 27 2025

    Igor bought a Fujifilm camera. That's not the interesting part. The interesting part is what he built to help himself actually learn photography instead of letting the camera collect dust in a drawer after two months. In this episode, we explore what Igor calls the "AI companion." Not an agent that does things for you, but a system that helps you stay with the things you actually want to do. The distinction matters more than you'd think. While the AI industry obsesses over agents that book your flights and manage your calendar, there's a quieter revolution happening. People are building personalized systems that protect them from distraction and help them follow through on their own commitments.Here's the pattern we're noticing: We're surrounded by too much choice. Every product, every service, every platform has adopted the same playbook. "It's up to you!" Maximum optionality. Complete personalization. The result? Paralysis. Netflix users browse for 45 minutes and watch nothing. People buy cameras, then abandon them when the learning curve meets the cognitive load of daily decision-making.The companion approach flips the script. Instead of delegating tasks to a machine because they're "beneath you," you're delegating a piece of your own agency to help yourself stay focused on what actually matters. Igor's camera companion knows his manual, his lenses, and his goals. It patiently guides him through the technical details without judgment, without pushing too hard, and is available whenever he has a question about aperture or wants feedback on a photo.What makes this moment interesting:- The effort required to build these personalized systems has collapsed. What once took weeks of automation setup now takes a conversation and a markdown file.- These companions are shareable. Just text files you can adapt to your own context. Think of them as recipes for commitment devices.- The emergence of "companion thinking" suggests something deeper about what we actually want from AI: not replacement, but augmentation. Not efficiency, but staying power.- And here's the uncomfortable question: Are we solving a systemic problem with individual solutions? Or building the tools we need to navigate a world designed to distract us?The conversation covers various topics, including photography as practice (referencing our episode with Christy George), the unbundling of coaching, and the reasons why typical AI demos fail to align with how humans prefer to make decisions. "Book me the cheapest flight!" sounds efficient. But that's not how we function. Chapter Markers 00:00 – Introduction: Agents vs. Companions 00:48 – Igor Got a Camera: Why Photography, Why Now? 05:49 – The Fujifilm Choice and Escaping the Phone 07:46 – Building the Companion: How It Works 10:14 – Agents vs. Companions: The Core Distinction 14:07 – Learning by Reflection: What the Companion Actually Does 18:46 – Why Does This Work? Automation vs. Augmentation 23:39 – The Choice Overload Problem 31:24 – Sharing Companions: Markdown Files as Recipes 43:25 – How to Get Started


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    You can also watch this episode on Youtube⁠


    Follow the Rabbit feels like eavesdropping on a fascinating conversation between two well-read friends at a Berlin coffee shop—smart without being pretentious, critical without being cynical, and deeply engaged with contemporary culture while maintaining historical perspective. The podcast occupies a unique space between trend forecasting, cultural criticism, and philosophical inquiry, delivered with warmth, humor, and genuine enthusiasm for understanding how the world works.


    Follow the Rabbit is hosted by Igor Schwarzmann & Johannes Kleske

    Find out more about ⁠⁠Igor Schwarzmann⁠⁠

    Find out moire about ⁠⁠Johannes Kleske⁠⁠
    Show More Show Less
    45 mins
  • Why Organizations Are Rediscovering Systems Thinking with Helge Tennø

    Why Organizations Are Rediscovering Systems Thinking with Helge Tennø
    Oct 22 2025
    Your organization has three departments that should be collaborating. Instead, they're locked in a silent battle—one's built a fortress, another's planning a hostile takeover, and the third is caught in the middle. The manager overseeing this chaos spends all day in meetings and has no map of what's actually happening. Sound familiar? Welcome to what our guest Helge Tennø calls "the Mexican standoff"—and it's precisely why systems thinking is making a comeback.In this episode, we're joined by Helge Tennø, a designer-turned-strategist who spent seven years inside a global pharmaceutical company watching organizations fragment into competing silos. When he went back to consulting in 2024 and asked companies what they were buying, the answer was clear: "Not that old stuff." After 15 years of design thinking, customer journeys, and personas, organizations are exhausted. They've wrung out the cloth, and there's no water left. But here's the twist—nobody was asking for systems thinking by name. They just needed something that could help cross-functional teams speak the same language.Here's what we're noticing: Organizations have spent a decade breaking themselves into smaller and smaller pieces, each with their own data, their own language, their own metrics. What was supposed to increase efficiency has created a coordination nightmare. The customer used to be this unifying force at the top of the org chart, but now they've become a divider—every department owns "their" piece of the customer experience and can't talk to anyone else about it. Meanwhile, managers are responsible for orchestrating these warring factions without any map of how things actually connect.The conversation takes us through some unexpected territory:Why systems thinking has a "terrible first impression" but solves problems other tools can't touchHow a simple causal diagram can help teams externalize their tacit knowledgeThe difference between complicated (where systems thinking works) and complex (where it might not)Why 95% of AI pilots are failing—and what that has to do with not having a map of your processesThe real future of AI in organizations: not replacing coordinators, but giving workers direct access to coordination toolsChapter Markers:00:00 - Cold Open: The Corporate Mexican Standoff 01:21 - Introduction & Welcome 04:48 - What Is Systems Thinking? A Simple Definition 10:17 - Why Good Strategy Requires Good Information 14:04 - Why Now? The Comeback of Systems Thinking 19:44 - The Mexican Standoff: When Departments Go to War 23:44 - AI's Role: 95% of Pilots Fail Without a Map 29:21 - Complex vs. Complicated: The Valid Critique 37:46 - The Agency Problem: Maps Without Power to Act 39:47 - The Generalist's Moment 47:03 - Where to Start: Resources & Next Steps 48:46 - OutroLinks:Helge Tennø on LinkedInJohn Sterman's Introduction to System Dynamics (MIT)Russell Ackoff on Systems ThinkingRussell Ackoff - Systems Thinking (Clip 1)Omidyar Group Systems Practice Workbook PDFSimon Wardley on Wardley MappingSimon Wardley - Introduction to Wardley MappingDave Snowden - Cynefin FrameworkDave Snowden explaining CynefinBJ Fogg's Behavior Model---------------You can also watch this episode on Youtube⁠Follow the Rabbit feels like eavesdropping on a fascinating conversation between two well-read friends at a Berlin coffee shop—smart without being pretentious, critical without being cynical, and deeply engaged with contemporary culture while maintaining historical perspective. The podcast occupies a unique space between trend forecasting, cultural criticism, and philosophical inquiry, delivered with warmth, humor, and genuine enthusiasm for understanding how the world works.Follow the Rabbit is hosted by Igor Schwarzmann & Johannes KleskeFind out more about ⁠⁠Igor Schwarzmann⁠⁠ Find out moire about ⁠⁠Johannes Kleske⁠⁠
    Show More Show Less
    49 mins
  • The Economics of Little Treats: Introducing Aspiration Cascades

    The Economics of Little Treats: Introducing Aspiration Cascades
    Oct 10 2025

    If you've been on TikTok lately, you've definitely seen La Bubus. Those collectible plushies have replaced Dubai chocolate as the instant cultural reference for micro-trends. But here's the thing—La Bubus, $19 strawberries, $20 smoothies, and $300 Le Creuset pots aren't random phenomena. They're symptoms of something much bigger: what Igor calls the Aspiration Cascade.

    Remember when the path was clear? Get the job, buy the house, buy the car, and signal your status through big purchases. But when 50% of Gen Z still depends on their parents for monthly support, and homeownership feels like a fantasy, what happens to our aspirations? They don't disappear—they compress.

    In this episode, Igor introduces the Aspiration Cascade Framework—a systematic way to understand how blocked macro-aspirations (houses, cars, extended vacations) cascade down into midi-luxuries (fancy travel, designer subscriptions), then micro-luxuries (Aesop soap, fancy danishes), and finally nano-moments (TikTok scrolling, collectible dopamine hits).

    The framework reveals why:

    • You'll spend €300 on a French pot but can't imagine buying a house
    • Morning coffee rituals involve €18 beans and precision scales
    • People collect blind box toys and document the unboxing
    • "Little treats culture" isn't frivolous—it's how we preserve aspiration under economic pressure

    This isn't about judging consumer choices. It's about understanding the systematic forces—economic barriers, attention fragmentation, social sharing imperatives—that reshape how we dream, spend, and signal who we are.


    Chapter Markers:

    • 00:00 Introduction: Little Treats Culture
    • 03:29 Rich in Cash Flow, Poor in Assets
    • 09:00 The Aspiration Cascades Framework
    • 12:12 Why Aspirations Compress
    • 18:31 How Brands Engineer the Cascade
    • 23:54 Dopamine Culture's Role
    • 29:47 The Four Levels Explained
    • 36:53 Closing Thoughts


    Links:

    • “A Little Treat”: How Younger Generations are Changing Economic Norms
    • The Rise of Dopamine Culture - by Ted Gioia
    • Desire, Dopamine, and the Internet - by L. M. Sacasas


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    You can also watch this episode on Youtube⁠


    Follow the Rabbit feels like eavesdropping on a fascinating conversation between two well-read friends at a Berlin coffee shop—smart without being pretentious, critical without being cynical, and deeply engaged with contemporary culture while maintaining historical perspective. The podcast occupies a unique space between trend forecasting, cultural criticism, and philosophical inquiry, delivered with warmth, humor, and genuine enthusiasm for understanding how the world works.


    Follow the Rabbit is hosted by Igor Schwarzmann & Johannes Kleske

    Find out more about ⁠⁠Igor Schwarzmann⁠⁠

    Find out moire about ⁠⁠Johannes Kleske⁠⁠
    Show More Show Less
    39 mins
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