(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 334: Scooby Doo’s Low Per Capita Emissions
This week we’re joined by L’erin Jensen and Josh Cohen, hosts of The Movement Podcast at Transloc. We chat about why they got into podcasting as a way to talk about transportation, some of their favorite guests, and what’s vexing them about current policy.
Below is a full (unedited for now) transcript:
Jeff Wood (1m 41s):
L’erin Jensen and Josh Cohen. Welcome to the Talking Headways Podcast.
L’erin Jensen (1m 52s):
Thank you. Excited to be here. Yeah, this was fun.
Jeff Wood (1m 55s):
Yeah. Thanks for joining me. And it was nice to be on y’all’s podcast a couple of weeks ago. That was really great. But before we get started, can you tell us a little bit a bit about yourself?
L’erin Jensen (2m 36s):
Since I started. And then somewhere along the way, Josh asked me to join him as co-host. And so we’ve been doing that and I’ve been, you know, delving deeper into this world of mobility and what it takes to be a good leader and, and learning so much along the way and meeting a bunch of really cool people. And that’s who I am professionally. If you want to know my deepest, darkest secrets,
Jeff Wood (2m 58s):
We’ll get there in a second.
Josh Cohen (3m 1s):
Josh. So, so I’ve been in transit a little bit longer. So I think over 13 years at this point, so it has been quite a ride. I started a transload as our first sales person. So taking passenger information systems and bringing them to college campuses. So people would know when their buses coming eventually moved to a strategy and partnerships role did some fun stuff, created a connection with our app to Uber back in 2016. So you could do public transit and Uber and that same app for first mile last mile. And then in 2018, I moved to this role, which is national director of policy. And so when I did that, I really said, you know, there’s a lot of people that do policy, but how could we really talk about this in a different way?
Josh Cohen (3m 45s):
And the way that I really thought about it and really decided to take into the movement podcast, which we’ve been doing for about two years now is really getting at the people behind the policy. And I guess the, the thesis there is that people are the ones who create policy. So if we can create or help develop people and those leaders, we can have better policies and that can help bring about the equitable and accessible and green mobility future that we all want. So weekly Laron and I have guests on and there everyone from elected officials to city officials, to state officials, to podcast hosts, to advocates, and we bring them all together every week.
Josh Cohen (4m 30s):
And we have these conversations about what is necessary to build that world. So it’s been a great endeavor and I’m really grateful that layer and has stepped from behind the mic to now in front of the mic to kind of help provide, get another perspective in how we do this.
(Jeff Wood)
What was that like L’erin going from one side to the other of the microphone?
L’erin Jensen (4m 49s):
Terrifying, absolutely terrifying. I totally felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. I still feel that way for the most part, but I do know how to interview people. So I tried to channel that energy, but Josh is also a great co-host and is super supportive. And when I don’t know what the heck is going on, and don’t quite grasp some of the nitty gritty details of all that happens in mobility because, you know, transit and mobility is a really complex topic. You don’t just wake up one day and know what the heck is going on. It’s stuff that you really have to study and follow pretty closely, but Josh, you know, he helps me understand a little better as are all of our guests.
L’erin Jensen (5m 30s):
Of course. So it’s been really fun on top of being scary. I’ve been learning so much and it’s weird when you kind of fall into something accidentally and you feel like, Oh, well maybe I wasn’t super passionate about this. You become more passionate about it over time and you find yourself really starting to enjoy it. And yeah, just seeing the importance of it. So I do care about policy and I care about people and I care about fairness. So it makes sense.
Jeff Wood (5m 58s):
I’m curious when you’re first, like, and this is before joining Transloc before even your journalism school, like what was the first aha moment on transportation or planning or policy related to cities?
L’erin Jensen (6m 11s):
Wow. I don’t know that I ever thought about it in terms of like, Oh, look, this matters, but I can certainly remember instances I’ve taken public transit in my life when I was younger, just like out of necessity because my mom didn’t have a car. I took it my entire senior year of high school. And I can certainly remember when I started to drive and got a car thinking. I never want to take that again. I grew up in Southern California by the way. So it’s not that like being on public transit itself is awful, but when you have an hour and a half or two hour commute, one way to go, what is otherwise like a 10 to maybe 20 minute drive? Like, I feel like I’m pushing it.
L’erin Jensen (6m 51s):
When I say 20 minutes, it can be really discouraging. And so I remember coming to trans look though and understanding what we did and being like, wow, this is something I can really get behind. This is like inherently a social justice issue. We’re talking about people disproportionately core in disproportionately black and Brown who are unable to access school, healthcare education because the state of public transportation in this country is just so God awful and thinking well, like these are things that I care about anyways. And so like, this makes sense, and this is something else that I need to care about.
Josh Cohen (7m 29s):
And, and I think that perspective is so valuable to bring to this conversation because you know, the perspective I’m going to bring is going to be quite different. I mean, you know, I didn’t grow up taking public transportation in the same way. I grew up in Nashville, North Carolina on the side of a mountain. I used to walk a lot of places that took the school bus, but there was not public transit per se, where, where I lived growing up. So my experience kind of mostly came from college. And afterwards when I lived in DC, lived in Durham after that, but I’ve been at transit a lot longer and I’ve been in these conversations a lot longer. My perspective is gonna be slightly different than LeBron’s. And so I think that is super, super important to kind of make sure we’re getting some of those different perspectives on here, because I don’t have a monopoly on this layer is going to deliver a perspective that’s going to be different than mine.
Josh Cohen (8m 15s):
And I think that’s valuable, especially as we engage with our guests and try to understand what their perspectives are as well.
Jeff Wood (8m 22s):
Yeah. I think that’s really important. And you all just had Chrissy on. That’s why I had like having Christie on the show and Tracy McMillan and others to come on the Monday show specifically, but also it’s kind of why I almost for the interview show for talking headway is I like to just kind of stay out of the way for the most part and ask questions and then have my guests answer and talk and all that stuff, because you know, I’m now, I guess middle-aged, it’s 40 middle-aged I don’t know is that middle East middle age, white guy, 40 year old white guy talking about this stuff. And so you’re right. It’s a perspective difference. And I like all the different perspectives, right? They’re really important to have everything, which is something that makes the podcasting world really fascinating because you have all these different perspectives.
Jeff Wood (9m 3s):
You started the podcast, you’ve talked to a bunch of different people. Are there any conversations that stood out or is there anything where somebody said something and it like hit a light bulb and then you started like going in tons of different directions in your brain, and then you had to come back to the interview already yet.
Josh Cohen (9m 17s):
I mean, I feel like that happens on a regular basis. We have one coming up, I think next week with wolffia Marie of the better bikeshare partnership and Philadelphia. And one of the things that kind of, that exact situation that you’ve just described, Jeff, where it’s like your mind goes somewhere and then it has to kind of come back. And she was talking about kind of the role of bike share in the community. And, you know, I’ve thought a lot about bike share, but what jumped out to me in that conversation was who was the bike share for and what the motivations were. And it kind of clicked in my head while she was talking. And I kind of went on that little trip there that you just described where I kind of said, Oh, I can picture the lack of trust that might’ve been built in those communities where an elected official or a city official might’ve really pushed bike share, not for the benefit of the community, but specifically before one of their goals.
Josh Cohen (10m 15s):
Right. You know, as far as, Hey, this makes our, our city more active or whatever, which, you know, and I’m using active and air quotes, but the, yes, that’s good at a, at a macro level, but it, it may not be right in line with what the community is looking for. Right. The community might might be saying, yeah, what we actually need is access to better grocery options, you know, nearby that don’t require two bus trips. Right. So I think it’s stuff like that when I had that kind of little trip in my mind that that was one that just kind of came out super recently, longer back one that just keeps coming up over and over again. You know, I have to give her a full credit. Lynn Ross said that we can only move at the speed of trust.
Josh Cohen (10m 57s):
And that’s one that just, it feels like every conversation we have that line can be applied because it’s just like so impactful and quotable and true.
L’erin Jensen (11m 10s):
Yeah. For me, Josh, I always go back to the episode with David Fields where he told us, you know, never let a consultant tell your community it’s its needs or its goals. And to your point, I think that’s along the same lines is that you can only move at the speed of trust. And also Raphy is thinking about like, who was the bike share for so often or like always policy by its nature is written by people who usually are not the community itself or the people that it’s written for. They’re written by someone else who has an idea of how like the worlds work. That’s why people go into politics, right? You have people who want to make a difference in the world and they think they have good ideas and can make it work.
L’erin Jensen (11m 52s):
But we just, don’t a very good job of listening to the people. So that’s something that always the people that policy is going to affect. So that’s always one that sticks out in my mind and my mind trails, every conversation I’ve always got to pull myself back. So
Jeff Wood (12m 10s):
Yeah. I find myself having those thoughts where I’m like, Oh, this could really, really good part of like a compilation of disco. Oh, you’re talking still. I need to focus on what you say. And then also what you’re saying, because it’s all really important and it’s hard to do on a podcast when you’re trying to keep a conversation going. So it’s fun talking to you all, because imagine you have some of these same problems, Josh, what was the idea behind starting a podcast? I mean, you, you were a translocate for a while and doing the sales thing and moving up the ranks, but it’s such an interesting medium, why start a podcast?
Josh Cohen (12m 41s):
So I had attended a Ford city of tomorrow event in San Francisco in 2017. And these are events that Ford has done a couple of different times, the really well done. I mean, I, I just, I give them a lot of credit. They must spend a ton of money on it. It is really well done and they had some great folks there and so forth. And, you know, the people that were there, I mean, there weren’t Ford cars there, right? This is before they bought spins before they bought. Transload like, they’re talking about how cities can work and how people can move effectively and so forth. And you know, what I left with from that experience was we need to be having this conversation on a more regular basis.
Josh Cohen (13m 25s):
Right. You know, they they’ve had these city of tomorrow events. I think they had one in 2019 and LA they’re now doing some more in 2021. So I really kind of thought it’s like, all right, well, I really love the conversations we’re having here, but how can we have this on a regular basis? And so, you know, trans Oak had, I think maybe try to podcast at some point in the past, I think maybe it was like two episodes. It really wasn’t something that we had a lot of experience in. And I have to give our former CEO, Doug Kaufman, a lot of credit because I pitched him this. And I said, look, I think we can really leave this conversation. I think it’s an investment, right? I mean, I think it’s something that we’re going to have to invest the time and the energy and so forth in, but I think it’s something that can really be an impactful conversation.
Josh Cohen (14m 10s):
And I remember some of the early advice that we got was you have to be consistent. And, you know, certainly with that first podcast, I think to translate had done, I think we had done two or three episodes. And then it kind of just kind of languished, I think, because there wasn’t really a good foundation behind it. So I really took some time. I actually spent probably several months thinking about, all right, what do we want to accomplish? What are the types of conversations we really want to have? Like, I really thought about the fact that, you know, I don’t want to just have the same conversations like, and, and, you know, and I think you and I have even talked about this in the past offline that the conversations we’re having are not about the actual bike lane that someone might put in or the actual public transit service itself and so forth.
Josh Cohen (14m 52s):
There are other podcasts that do that. That’s not my jam. I mean, we’ll, we’ll touch on it. But what I’m really interested in is like, what can we learn from how you were able to bring about change in your community? And so that’s, that’s really what was driving that. One other thing I’ll share is that my parents are teachers and I’m sure that has somehow worn off on me somehow that I’m, I’m just searching for answers on a regular basis. And I think in some ways the ability to have these types of conversations on a weekly basis and to talk to smart people and so forth is in some ways about as good as it gets from me. Right. It kind of really scratches whatever itches that my parents as teachers have kind of, you know, given me.
Jeff Wood (15m 36s):
And that’s why you and Lauren must get along really well because I read an article, an interview with Lauren, where she said that the reason why she got into journalism was because she liked learning and, you know, going in that direction. So it makes sense that you two would kind of gravitate towards doing this together. I imagine. Yeah.
L’erin Jensen (15m 51s):
I never thought of it that way, but absolutely. And you did some good digging down because that is exactly what journalism is a super hustle. The other like upside to teaching is summers off. Like I want it to be a professor originally. I liked the college pace of life. You still can. You still can no more grad school for me to those who have done more, because that was stressful.
Jeff Wood (16m 22s):
We can’t see Dr. Jensen
L’erin Jensen (16m 24s):
Who is actually a Dr. Jensen in the school of media and journalism at the university of Texas Austin. So you can see what, just not this one. Okay. Okay.
Josh Cohen (16m 37s):
One more thing though, about, about L’erin’s background, which I think is so cool is I think, you know, she spent some time as an investigative journalist, which I think is actually even more interesting to me. Right? It’s like, it’s one thing to say, like, here’s the facts, right? Let’s report on the board meeting from last Thursday, right. It’s another thing to say, all right. Let’s, let’s dig deep into what the story is behind the story. And you know, when you talk about podcasting, like that’s kind of what we’re trying to do, you know, and, and look layer. And I have, I think we’ve been doing this. I don’t even know how many episodes now, but together, but in some ways we’re still in the very early honeymoon period and hopefully we’ll continue to get better and better as we rack up the hours behind the mic together, you know?
Josh Cohen (17m 18s):
Cause you get that experience kind of working together and we’re always exchanging notes back and forth with each other, try to say, all right, how can we try that to be a little bit better? Get at that angle a little bit better.
Jeff Wood (17m 28s):
Yeah. For sure. Who’s the guests that you all would want to talk to the most. Is there somebody out there that you would want to have on the show? You know, if you could get anybody in the world.
L’erin Jensen (17m 37s):
Yeah. So mine doesn’t quite fit into mobility, but it does fit into equity and justice who I really think can teach us something about leadership and achieving and just being afraid to stand up to people. As Linda Lopez said on one episode, don’t be afraid to like stand up to people in power, but Angela Davis.
Josh Cohen (17m 57s):
Yeah. You know, that’s, that’s a hard one. I mean, I do keep a list of folks that I want to, you know, eventually have on the podcast. There’s definitely folks that, you know, I would say I’m, I’m even somewhat intimidated by Jay pitter is one, the Canadian urbanist. I just feel like she just radiates knowledge and I’d love to have her on at some point. I mean, you know, that’s not such a big ask. I mean, she’s in our, in our space here. It’s not so big of an ass, but she, I, every time she talks, I’m just like, yup. That’s, that’s a, that’s a really great point. We had to make a Butler on back in July. I believe 2020 Tamika is another one.
Josh Cohen (18m 37s):
Whenever she talks. I’m just like, yep. I just keep agreeing, you know, again, one that’s maybe not in mobility, but similar to what Lauren said, Bree Newsome also similarly, the way she unpacks racism and how our country is not really addressing the issues as it relates to racism, I think is inspiring and impactful. And look, I mean, I think that’s certainly been a subtext to the work that layer and I are doing, which is the fundamental way that many people, probably not many of our listeners, but many people look at public transit is as something that they would never ever do.
Josh Cohen (19m 19s):
Right. That they couldn’t do or wouldn’t do. And, you know, primarily I think for race and class reasons. And again, going back to my grounding as the child of teachers, right. That just strikes me. It’s like, I can’t even wrap my head around that. Right? Like that, that seems so mind boggling to me that, you know, you have this tool that our communities can invest in to enable more people to live their best lives. Right. That doesn’t hurt you. Right. There’s not a downside effect. Right. In fact, if you say, I will never, ever, ever take public transit, the more people around you who do your life will be better.
Josh Cohen (19m 59s):
Right. So I come back to that, that, that just, I think the more we keep picking at and trying to address these fundamental issues of racism that are impacting not only public trains that are in our country, but everything else that it touches, which is everything I think until we do that, I think it’s going to be hard to really, really get where we need to go.
L’erin Jensen (20m 19s):
I wanted to add one other person in hopes that maybe she listens to your podcast. Jeff and Josh, you and I have talked about her before. I don’t know her real name, but her Twitter handle is at baby neurons. I mean, it was rooting for everyone resisting oppression. So she’s a city planner and I believe she lives in Canada, but she’s also always saying some real unpacking. The roots of all that is wrong with the world, really love to have her on the show as well. Several years, Tamika gave
Jeff Wood (20m 48s):
A really amazing talk and I’ve never heard a room. So quiet listening to somebody speak. And it was quite impressive. And I asked because I was recording the sessions. And so I asked her if I could post it. And it was a pretty popular episode from her talking, but I just remember that silence in the room that was really, really magical and sad at the same time because of what she was talking about, but also very impressive. And you all hit the nail on the head, very impressive person, but just that recording really kind of hit me hard. So hopefully folks, if they want to can go back and listen to that one too. I can’t remember exactly which episode it is, but it was an active session of some sort back in the day, which is pretty impressive.
Jeff Wood (21m 29s):
What’s vexing you all right now in terms of transportation, you know, we talked about equity, we talked about guests and things like that, but what’s vexing you about maybe transportation policy generally as it pertains to the nuts and bolts of it.
Josh Cohen (21m 41s):
So I would say the thing that’s vexing me right now. I mean funding, I mean, funding is, is a big one. What was that story that we read recently? We probably even got it from the overhead wire or maybe it was, it was a transit center study that talked about how little investment would actually be needed. How many billions of dollars in order to get 10 minute headway service or 15 minute headway service and every city in the country, like it was not that big of a number, right. And it’s like, why are we doing this? So that’s a big one for me. We have one more that I’ll add to that, which is, you know, back when I used to go to the office, one of my favorite things to do was to ride my bike the two miles to our bus station and then take the express bus to our office, which was located right across from the bus stop and kind of the more, what I call suburban part of in between Raleigh Durham and chapel Hill and the kind of center and the research triangle park.
Josh Cohen (22m 36s):
And as I sat on the bus and we’re on our congested state highway limited access highway, connecting downtown Durham to RTP, you know, I look around and I say, people aren’t going to get out of their cars unless they’re just idiots. Like, you know me. And they’re just like, of course I’m willing to like pay a time penalty because I want the fresh air. I want the, you know, I want the experience of kind of sharing community with other people. I want the benefits to the environment so forth, but like we can’t accomplish that just on one-offs right with one-off crazy people like me saying, yeah, sure.
Josh Cohen (23m 23s):
I’ll ride my bike. I’ll get sweaty in the ride there. Then I’ll get on the bus and they’ll take longer at blah, blah, blah. We have to have government intervention. Right. And so things like, you know, dedicated lanes for buses. Yeah. It’s gonna piss off a lot of drivers, but it will also incentivize people. And until we, you know, really change the incentive structure, whether that’s with additional gas tax, whether that’s with bus lanes, whatever, like I just, I don’t think we’re gonna get there. Like we’re not going to get there, like getting one more person in some random office building in RTP to take the express bus. Like it’s just not gonna, you know, with better marketing. Like again, I just don’t think that’s going to happen. We have to have the government intervention to really do that.
Josh Cohen (24m 3s):
So that kind of exits me still.
L’erin Jensen (24m 5s):
Yeah. Josh, you took the words right out of my mouth. I was going to say it’s funding. So maybe I have deep down always been a transit nerd because I have actually always thought, even though like I hated public transit when I had to take it, I hated it because of how inefficient it was, where I live. Not because like I inherently hated public transit. In fact, I think that I’ve always thought that like certain modes of it were super cool. Like the subway is cool. That’s not an uncool thing to do or to ride when you’re in New York city, it’s like, you’re in New York city. You got to take the subway. And the same with the Metro in DC, I’ve always thought, wow. If we had like public transportation the same way they do in Europe, I would take that.
L’erin Jensen (24m 49s):
I would choose that. Not just because of my role now. Like I’ve always thought that I don’t enjoy driving. You had to pay attention when you drive and then you got to sit. If you’re from Southern California, then you know how awful it is sitting in one big traffic jam. It’s not fun. It’s not faster. Imagine if you had a train that could take you from the inland empire, like from Riverside, San Bernardino to LA fast, especially even if it’s only 60 minutes, that’s the same amount of time it takes to drive. Except for that, like when you’re driving, it’s really gonna take maybe like 180 minutes, three to four hours, like legitimately, that’s not an exaggeration. I’m sure your listeners know that though. So it blows my mind as well. As you mentioned Josh, the, the article that we read it.
L’erin Jensen (25m 31s):
Yeah. It blows my mind, like why we don’t just do that.
Josh Cohen (25m 35s):
I mean, it’s, it’s political will though. And I do think my ongoing fascination is around this concept of courage. Right. And like what courage looks like. And I think a lot about like why some elected officials resonate with people and some don’t right. And I think it’s this connection. They have some sense. They have some grounding in some values, they have some grounding in like a clear vision that is bigger than themselves. Right. And you know, I think certainly as you progress in the political game or whatever, I think that often gets perverted. But I, I do think that that’s, that’s really what resonates with me. And then I, I keep coming back to like, how do we get more of that courage?
Josh Cohen (26m 18s):
And how do we incentivize people to say, yeah, like, even if I don’t get reelected, this is the right thing to do,
L’erin Jensen (26m 28s):
Mandatory rotating bureaucracy, where we all serve and look, it’s the power, right? Like, well, so I believe power corrupts, absolutely not the other way around, but like politicians, they have two jobs. One is to do the will of their constituents. The other is to get reelected, which is what they’re really focused on. And so like, I feel like as long as there’s power dynamics at play and the need to get reelected or money involved, then maybe I’m just a cynic. But I feel like, as you said, as you move up, like the longer you’re in it, and you move up this, this so called totem pole, you just become more and more far removed.
L’erin Jensen (27m 10s):
So if we all had a role to play, we took turns doing it. Then we were like, Hey, no, we know this has better people like this, but maybe that’s just a fantasy.
Jeff Wood (27m 20s):
I think that’s an argument that a lot of people make for term limits and things like that. Right. So that you have your time and you have to do what you can in your time. And then you’re you’re out because you already served. And in California, we actually have tournaments on the Senate assembly. I actually think it works pretty well. You have folks like Scott Wiener who come in and they’re just trying to change stuff. Right. There’s just like, this is what I think is right. This is what I’m going to do. And then I’m going to be gone in a few terms. So, you know, I got to get it done now can’t just wait. Oh yeah. We could wait until later. You know, that’s what I think a lot of people say is like, if I’m here, if I’m in, you know, Nancy Pelosi is my representative, but she’s been there a long time. You know, she probably can say, Oh, well, we’ll get this done. Next session. We’ll wait. Cause I’ll be here. Cause I’ll have the power I’m waiting for my power to get here. And it’s, it just doesn’t seem to work like that.
Jeff Wood (28m 2s):
I think you also make an interesting, you know, when you’re going back to discussion of like that $5 billion or however much money, it is to make transit work in the United States. And I think it was, you know, Yona free-market did a piece about that at the urban Institute and then transit center followed up on that. You know, I think it’s really interesting to think about convenience versus efficiency and thinking about, you know, one thing is convenient. We trade the convenience for the efficiency, right? So you have the drivers who are like, okay, well this is really convenient, but it’s not super efficient. We have to park our cars. We have to pay, or our insurance. We have to make sure that we have, you know, $10,000 a year to pay all this versus transit, which is efficient, but not maybe convenient. Right? So we’re making these trade-offs, but right now, because we’re not making those big investments to make the convenience more important than the efficiency we’re kind of in this war between the two modes, which doesn’t really need to happen.
Jeff Wood (28m 49s):
I think there’s something there where we can, you know, where we can kind of make it more if they don’t want to use efficient for that. But, but you know, kind of optimize it, I guess, is the word I’m looking for. And that goes back to your political wheel statements as well. I mean, this is a question that I was going to ask you because yesterday I read a piece about Breckenridge, Colorado, where 86% of the population likes their open streets plan, 83% of the businesses on the street, like their open streets plan, but they are deciding not to do it because, you know, they’re, they’re worried about filling up 120% of the occupancy in the restaurant and then they can’t get workers while it’s like, you can get workers, you just said, pay them more. You can get workers. You just have to have more affordable housing.
Jeff Wood (29m 29s):
This is not a street problem. This is not an open streets problem. And it’s the same with BRT and dedicated lanes and all this stuff. It’s all about political will and making decisions that people want versus making decisions that are kind of hard.
Josh Cohen (29m 42s):
Yeah, no, I think you’re right. And I think that the folks that can highlight that, I think that distinction and I think are the ones who are likely going to be effective. Right. Who can say like, look, this is the trade off. We need to make you right. You know, Hey, Hey restaurant, if you make this compromise, this will be one of the benefits is that I think it’ll pay off down the road. Right. You know, all these, all these strings are all connected. Right. I mean, I feel like that’s probably the hardest part about doing the work layer in and are doing, is that, you know, look, this is transportation, but, but again, it’s not right. It’s bigger than that. Right.
Josh Cohen (30m 22s):
Transportation is impacted by all these other decisions. Right. And you know, and obviously the easy one is housing and density and so forth. But again, we already touched on, on racism earlier. Right. And then, you know, that touches this as well and class and gender and so forth. So all these things that are, you know, when, when you start pulling on these strings and we’re pulling on some of the strings right. On a weekly basis, I think that’s kind of what makes it so hard because it’s not just a transportation problem we needed to solve.
Jeff Wood (30m 49s):
Yeah. I think I would call it. Maybe it’s not housing. Maybe it’s not transportation. Maybe it’s just civilization.
Josh Cohen (30m 53s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe that maybe that’s, this is kind of the, the ongoing tension of any civilized society. Right. I guess in an uncivilized society we’d have different problems, but, but I think that’s definitely an aspect. And you know, I, I do believe that there are good elected officials. I do believe there are good city folks by, by and large, everyone I meet is generally kind of trying to do the right thing. I do think that there’s these larger pressures that kind of undermines some of these things and trying to get at them is, is, is maybe the real tricky part. But I do believe, and this is one of the things that layer I mentioned earlier that, you know, I do believe the answer is through the community, not for the community.
Josh Cohen (31m 36s):
Right. And you know, I think where cities and communities get in trouble is when they say, you know, we want to do this for someone else, not with someone else. You know, that that’s really an ongoing theme that comes up on a regular basis with our guests.
Jeff Wood (31m 52s):
I want to go a little bit silly. Now, what’s your favorite transportation representation in a cartoon
Josh Cohen (31m 57s):
Favorite transportation representation in a cartoon? I would probably say Mrs. Frizzle school bus.
Jeff Wood (32m 8s):
All right. You have to explain that to me. Cause I I’m, I’m not sure of the reference,
Josh Cohen (32m 11s):
The what is the magic school bus magical. Okay. I got that one. Yeah. The magic school bus, the kids watch the DVDs or something. I dunno. Yeah. Magic school was I, you know, and I’ll tell a cute story here real quick. The first day of work of one of our colleagues, Kat Keeley several years ago was on Halloween first day of work. And we told her that we were, you know, you’re encouraged dress up for Halloween, you know, we’re a fun workplace. Right. And she shows up on her first day of work, dressed as miss Frizzle with like a custom like Ms.
Josh Cohen (32m 53s):
Frizzle school bus logo on her, on her like jumper dress or whatever it was like. And it was just like, wow, like you not only like dressed up, it was like your first day. And you went all in. Like I just give her a full prop. So I’ve always been impressed that on her first day at work, she was like, I am in. So anyway, Ms. Frizzle school bus magic school bus, I don’t watch cartoons.
L’erin Jensen (33m 19s):
Oh. I mean, I don’t know that you guys do, but
Jeff Wood (33m 23s):
Last night, so
L’erin Jensen (33m 27s):
I don’t know, like Scooby-Doo had a van, right. Or like someone in the cartoon had a van and multiple people were in that. So that’s good.
Jeff Wood (33m 55s):
That’s a, that’s a good, equitable question or inequitable question. I should say. I think a lot of people would maybe say like, Miyazaki’s cat, you know, the, the cat that’s a school bus or a bus type of thing. Maybe Richard scaries, maybe those aren’t cartoons, but those are like, you know, kid’s books type of thing. I’m always fascinated. So last night actually I was watching the clone Wars, spinoff, the bad batch, which is part of the star Wars universe. I’m a huge star Wars fan. May the fourth be with you may the fourth be with you. And I, you know, I’m always fascinated by ships and transports and all that stuff. And when they can go to cortisol, which is the city planet, right. And all of this stuff that happens there from an urban perspective, like where they have elevated bus routes and, and space lanes and transports there, it’s this fascinating tubes.
Jeff Wood (34m 36s):
If you go to like Futurama, there’s like the tubes, right. So just like kind of fun, crazy ideas that they come up with from these futurist ideas of what might be in the world that we’re watching, but then also, maybe in our world, in the future, I think that’s fascinating. Yeah. You mentioned the office and going in and seeing all of your colleagues. That’s one of the things I kind of miss about working from home and, and I think being self-employed myself is that I don’t have that office to go to anymore and I don’t get to pop in. Are you all missing that while you’re in your homes and have you been to the office and, and what’s it like generally when you all are in the office together, do you kind of like pop your heads around the corner and say, Hey, I have this thing I want to talk to you about, do you kind of miss that stuff?
L’erin Jensen (35m 16s):
There’s no corners. We have an open office. So I look over to my right in this job and, and my boss is behind me. So I do, I definitely miss the interaction, getting to talk to people, but I don’t think that we need an office to do that. Funnily enough, we just came out of like a company-wide meeting. And I asked a question about whether we were considering going fully remote because it’s been over a year and we’ve got offices in multiple States, as it is. It seems silly to me that we would need to go back into the office. I don’t know if I’m supposed to say this on, if I don’t miss the commute, I don’t miss waking up earlier and mind you, my commute was really short, but I like, I value that extra time.
L’erin Jensen (36m 0s):
Like I’m a night owl and one of the reasons why, like, I stay up really late, even when I have to work, the next one, I’ll stay up till like one or two o’clock in the morning, knowing that I’m going to be tired in the morning. But I think it’s because like, you know, we spend all day at work and traveling to work and getting ready for work. And then coming home, traveling home, I really value that time off. So if I don’t get home until like after 5:00 PM and I need to go to bed at like 10, it’s like, well, no, I want my time back. So I do miss the human connection, getting to talk and see people’s lives. I think that that can be accomplished outside of work hours. Like, you know, just if other things were open, but
Jeff Wood (36m 39s):
I’m with you. I mean, I I’m a night owl too. And I think I might have one of those what’s that thing called phase shift or something like that, where your body’s like on a different circadian rhythm than other people. I really think that what I, what I have, I mean, I’ve never had it scientifically tested or anything, but I do know that when I had nine 30 meetings, I was the grumpiest person in the office. But when I could come in at a 10 or 11, and even now I start work at 11 and go till like six, seven, and then, you know, staying up is a, is a way for you to kind of like you said, reclaim your time. And then, you know, people do that. They’ll tire themselves out because they want personal time that they didn’t get during the rest of the day. It’s something that psychologists talk about a lot that specific issues. People like they’ll stay up even to their own detriment because they know that like, this is their own mental space and it’s a trade-off right.
Jeff Wood (37m 22s):
And it’s like kind of one of those things. But I appreciate that too. I feel actually when I stopped working at the office, I feel like I got healthier because I could go on my own schedule and my body wakes up when it wakes up and I go to sleep when I go to sleep and you know, my body tells me what to do and not some clock. So I’m, I’m also, you know, love daylight savings, keeping it the same, the whole year round. I’d rather not change it, those types of things. So these, these things affect all of us crazily.
Josh Cohen (37m 50s):
Yeah. I’ve got three kids. So, so those,
Jeff Wood (37m 54s):
I feel like our world might change when that happens, but yes, yes.
Josh Cohen (37m 57s):
Yeah. So this concept of time as this like fungible thing that you have, you can, you can bend to your will is not something that I have as much familiarity with, but so I I’m the exact opposite of you guys. I get up early and that’s when I get my me time to meditate and to read and to write, and is that as it relates to the office, it’s funny because I don’t miss the office. I miss the people. And I’m not convinced that this format online is a reasonable facsimile, right? It allows us to convey information, right? We are exchanging words, but I think we are not getting the other cues that you would get in person.
Josh Cohen (38m 43s):
Right. And some of them are physical. Some of them are just the fact that you can see the whole body part of it is just the things that happen when you run into people in the hallway and so forth. So I wouldn’t say I miss the office. I would say I miss the experience that the office allows. I actually really miss business travel too. I mean, I didn’t actually travel that much again because of three kids, but I do consider it like my way to get fresh water into the pond. And I feel like without that, I’ve had to really mindfully figure out ways to, how do I get fresh water into this pond?
Josh Cohen (39m 23s):
’cause otherwise, I, I worry that, you know, to do the type of work that I think all three of us have to do, it’s not just your own stuff. Right. And again, to me, that’s not just a primarily factual thing. Right. I can’t just read it, but I have to partly experience. So I, I missed, I missed that travel
Jeff Wood (39m 40s):
Now on the travel, what’s the sleep schedule on the travel away from the kids.
Josh Cohen (39m 44s):
Oh, that’s, that’s interesting. I do tend to go to bed later and probably not get up as early, but I still get up pretty early probably earlier than you do
Jeff Wood (39m 55s):
People say before that their business trips are actually nice little vacations as well. So Lauren, you were to say something,
L’erin Jensen (40m 2s):
Oh, I was just going to say to Josh’s point about those organic interactions that happen from being able to walk over to someone’s desk. I definitely benefited from overhearing many of Josh’s conversations or being able to just like, you know, like spitball an idea, like read something, be like, Hey Josh, what do you think about this? And also Josh is just an interesting person. And sometimes I got to eavesdrop on conversations that
Josh Cohen (40m 29s):
I’m also loud in the office. And, you know, I think that definitely impacted folks and I’m not shy about my opinions. And so I would often share those that not a low volume. So they’re definitely heard some of those. Nice.
Jeff Wood (40m 48s):
All right. So last question, what’s next for you all and the show.
Josh Cohen (40m 52s):
I mean, we’re, we’re actually going through a process right now of really trying to tackle that question directly. And I’ll kind of tease it to say this, which is, there’s a lot of benefits to podcasts, right. You know, the benefit is that we can record this and then it can live somewhere and people can listen to it whenever they want and people do, right. That is really valuable. And it’s allowed us to share these perspectives and share these voices from some of these guests to folks that might not have heard it before. So that’s great. The challenge of that is that that asynchronicity, if you will, is not conducive to building a community.
Josh Cohen (41m 39s):
And I think when I think about the work we’re trying to do it kind of goes back to that question. You just asked, it’s not just about getting the information to folks, right? It’s about how do we build and encourage and reinforce the leadership necessary to bring about the change in our communities. And that is not going to be done asynchronously. That’s going to require, you know, community that is going to happen at the same time. So I think that’s really the question we’re wrestling with right now is how best to do that. So if anybody has any idea that certainly love to hear them, and again, I guess I’m thinking of more than just let’s do a webinar or let’s do a live podcast, right.
Josh Cohen (42m 22s):
That’s fine. But like, I want to challenge us to do more than that and really figure out a way to all the same time and place reinforce and develop and support those leaders who are kind of making some of those hard calls that we talked about before.
Jeff Wood (42m 38s):
Really interesting. I think, you know, for me, it’s interesting that, you know, we talked about this at the beginning of the podcast about, you know, what you’re talking about on the show and the topics that you’re talking about. And I thought about earlier, you know, making those evergreen so that people can come and get them whenever they want them. And they’re not necessarily tied to a moment in time, their general ideas or their thoughts or their processes. They’re not like this contract was signed on this day or this line was opened on this day. That thing happened. But rather just like a general evergreen idea that you can come and get anytime you want. And so that idea that you’re thinking about creating a community, which I think some podcasts do, you know, they have their Patrion and their communities and they have questions that they ask their audiences and they interact and they have shows and things like that.
Jeff Wood (43m 20s):
I think that’s an interesting way to go. So I guess I wish you good luck. Thank you. And to see if you can figure it out and let me know what happens. Yeah. See how it goes. Yeah. I think
Josh Cohen (43m 30s):
It’ll be an interesting ride for sure. Awesome.
Jeff Wood (43m 32s):
Where can folks find you all obviously on social media channels and where can folks find the podcast if they want to get at? Yeah.
Josh Cohen (43m 39s):
Yeah. So transload.com/the hyphen movement is the URL. Or if you just Google the movement podcast, transload T R a N S LLC. You can find us, you can find me on Twitter at Cohen, C O H E N J P Cohen, J P on our website. There we have, I think 117 episodes. I think that we’ve done over the course of the last couple of years. So lots of good ones to dig through and find, and, you know, get to your heart’s content. So check them out later.
L’erin Jensen (44m 14s):
And you can find me on Twitter at, at Laron Jensen. That’s L E R I N Jensen, J E N S E N. My Twitter is only interesting sometimes because I have a love, hate relationship with Twitter. There’s so much good information and there’s so many self-righteous fair. Yeah. Fair. It’s like, ah, this is so good. And it’s so bad. I hate you all, but I’m learning. I’m getting there. I think
Josh Cohen (44m 42s):
I’m with you though. I mean, when Twitter is like amazing, like if there is something going on to like get detailed information quickly, you know, on the ground kind of stuff is fascinating. But then when you get in these like recursive, like spats or, or things about stuff, that’s just not important. And that you’re right. It does make you want to wrap your head through the wall,
Jeff Wood (45m 5s):
But not your podcast. The podcast is great. Go listen to it as the movement,
Josh Cohen (45m 12s):
Bring it around to the positive there. Jeff, try to stay positive while you’re going to work with the pro. Yeah. As he said, wait a minute, wait a minute. You don’t want to leave that lingering negative image in mind. You want to, you want to go out on a positive. Thank you, Joe.
L’erin Jensen (45m 27s):
He love Twitter. The movement podcast loves Twitter.
Jeff Wood (45m 37s):
Thank you for joining us. We really appreciate your time. Oh man. Thanks Jeff that was fun.
