Looking for Lions, Finding Termites: Attention by Design

What happens when you give someone a way of looking, without telling them what to find? Pia takes one small part of her octopus-inspired innovation method out of the office and sends it on holiday to Zimbabwe with her friend Jane. The experiment starts at Eastgate Centre in Harare, the termite-inspired building from the previous episode. Jane gets one loose lens: How does this place feel? What can you hear? What do you notice? What surprises you? Then Pia gets out of the way. What begins as a visit to a biomimicry landmark somehow turns into termite-mound excursions, sunset drinks on top of one, an unofficial Zimbabwe branch of Feral. And a safari where termite mounds become surprisingly competitive with lions. Underneath the fun is an experiment in attention: how a simple lens can change what we notice, what we follow and even what the people around us start seeing. A story about biomimicry, octopus intelligence, distributed sensing, curiosity - and what can happen when you direct attention without prescribing the answer. Partner episode: How Termites Taught a Building to Keep Cool (Eastgate Centre) Original method episode: The Octopus Method: Octopus Intelligence When You're the Bottleneck  Nature owns the patent. We get to copy it. S3E07 Send Pia a note Follow Feral for new episodes every fortnight. Instagram / Facebook / YouTube : @feralbydesignpod feralbydesign.com Created and hosted by Pia Williams Clever by Nature. Feral by Design.