About Us

Our Story

Zapien is the makings of a grassroots community and think-thank for divergent skilled practitioners who admit that the complex societal and commercial problems that need solving as far bigger than the solutions that anyone discipline can provide. We are driven by a desire to ask what would happen if skilled practitioners from divergent spheres came together to explore & solve societal and commercial problems worth questioning?

The status quo says it’s a race to sell an answer, but those of us who have played by these rules know that simply selling an answer doesn’t lead to delivering long-term value. There needs to be another approach and a new monopolized approach isn’t the answer either.

This just happens to be our approach.

For now, we take shape as a website designed to house these free-to-air conversations and innovations, but who knows what we’ll be in the future.

We exist for professionals and consultants who are done with playing the corporate salesy game of posturing as if our individual skillsets have all the answers to a client's needs.

We provide a community for a cross-section of skilled professionals from divergent industries to tackle these types of questions together, with an outcome-driven approach.

We’re not a network marketing group, a movement, or an industry association.

We’re in the business delivering perspectives and approaches to frustrated yet curious individuals to test, fail, iterate, and test again in their own contexts and spheres.

We don’t have a study, a New York Times best-selling book, a trademarked approach, a TED Talk, or Podcast. All we have right now is our experiences, our skillsets, and our crazy obsession with what could be if skilled practitioners from different spheres came together to explore societal and commercial problems worth questioning?

This is the makings of something...and we’re fine with not knowing exactly what that is yet.

So here’s not having all the answers and being willing to admit it anyway.

Welcome.

What if it takes the same thing to solve complex real-world problems, that it does to raise a child?

What we’re saying is: What would we see if we crowdsourced the perspectives of an economist, a business analyst, an accountant, an engineer, a doctor and marketer and an anthropologist?
 
When we say PEOPLE we’re talking about the village that it takes to solve complex real-world problems, just like the village it takes to raise a child.Sure you can do it by yourself, we’re all probably doing that right now professionally.
 
Or you can do it with a team of people who have the same or similar skills as you (ie: marketing department, sales department, IT department), but that usually just gets you more of the same (it’s like Taco Tuesday...we get it already).
 
But how about getting an eclectic mix of people around the table?
You know, the crazy uncles, your frail grandparents, the estranged cousins with their new partners, and whoever the usual suspects are (Christmas lunch anyone?).
 
Sure it’s messy, it’s likely to be inappropriate and get heated from time to time, but 9 times out of 10 you’ll most likely walk away with new insights and perspectives that wouldn’t usually come out if it was just you and your partner on Taco Tuesday.
 
Business, like life, is messy and richer perspectives can go a long way in helping us to understand more holistically how to approach problems and deliver better value.

But how about getting an eclectic mix of people around the table?

What we’re saying is: What could we understand from mechanics, doctors or IT technicians if we just learnt to ask the right questions to one another.
 
Conversations don’t get very far without questions. Sure if you know someone well enough they don’t even need to say a word before you know exactly what they mean, but that type of connection usually develops of scores of years and is usually found in the spheres of deep friendship and lovers.
 
So how is a village of divergent professionals meant to communicate if we don’t speak the same language to with?
 
The answer -questions.
 
Questions can be the shared language that bridge the gap between race, interests, genders, social classes, and yes, even professions.
 
The only problem is work isn’t the bar and your IT technician isn’t that girl or guy who you’re kind of interested in, so why bother asking astute questions when you can simply demand an answer.
 
This is a problem that needs to be addressed.
 
So let’s create that space and see what breakthrough ideas and relationships can be sparked through the power of inquiry.

What if it takes the same thing to make giants leaps forward in life and business, that it does to take baby steps?

What we’re saying is: What would we improve in life and business if we knew how to better interpret feedback against what the next milestone is and not the destination?
 
It’s fair to say that in most households, babies' first steps are celebrated as if the summit of Everest was just reached. Humanity unanimously agrees that when it comes to 90% of babies, first they crawl, then they walk, and then they run. But what we understand from this context that we often fail to apply in professional lives is that along the way to walking can be a lot of stumbles, faceplants, and some times even injuries.
 
We know how close they are because we know the process and we understand that if they can work out how to take a few steps without falling, they’ll one day down the road be able to run a mile.
 
Too many businesses don’t know how to celebrate the baby steps, because they’ve been set up for Everest even before they can walk.
 
The problem isn’t dreaming of Everest, it’s not knowing the journey to get there and not anticipating the many missteps and iterations on the way to the many milestones that are required along the way.
 
We want to make the 3 tiered wedding cake but haven't even made a cupcake yet IT professionals understand this process of iteration very well, not many other industries do.
 
We think it’s time that more industries were let in on this secret.
 
Though the data is clear, we never throw in the towel after these missteps because we’ve worked out how to interpret this specific data, in the context of the life stage our baby is at.