Intangify

Someone walked away from everything—a home, a business, a name that carried weight—and started from a kitchen with nothing. The question wasn't whether they could rebuild. It was whether anyone would let them try. Matthew D. Asbell, an intellectual property attorney and host of Intangify, sits down with Dalton T. Sirmans, author of The Refugee Advantage, to explore what the world systematically misses when it treats displacement as loss instead of potential. Sirmans spent years across Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Africa watching small business owners rise from rubble. His nephew launched a staffing agency in Clarkston, Georgia—the most refugee-dense square mile in America—and placed 15,000 people into meaningful work in eight years. The pattern was unmistakable: the people society labeled as burdens were actually engines of growth and resilience. Asbell, who works directly with foreign-trained lawyers in his own firm and has witnessed their work ethic firsthand, presses on the practical concerns employers raise: language barriers, cultural gaps, the fear of training someone who might leave. Sirmans responds not with ideology but with evidence—the pickle factory that boosted production 30% through wordless training design, the Hadad family who fled Syria and built Peace by Chocolate into a regional powerhouse, young people in Kakuma Refugee Camp earning ten times their monthly aid through digital work. The conversation moves from hiring to investing to buying from refugee-owned businesses to credit access. But one insight runs beneath it all: we've engineered systems that see displacement as emergency, when the evidence shows it produces the adaptability and hunger most of us have forgotten how to access. About the Guest: Dalton T. Sirmans is the author of The Refugee Advantage and a recognized voice on displacement, entrepreneurship, and economic resilience. His work combines years of fieldwork across multiple continents with real-world case studies of refugee-led business success.

At fifteen, someone left home—not in crisis, but in clarity. They couldn't breathe in the bubble they were born into and needed to know the people their privilege had kept them from. That hunger never stopped. Thirty-six years later, they're still crossing boundaries: into favelas with a camera, into the lives of women whose stories the world had already written off, into the spaces where art becomes an act of resistance. Fernando Braune is a patent lawyer who has spent decades advising companies across Brazil, but his real fluency runs deeper. He speaks the language of IP law with precision and the language of art with vulnerability—eight published books, continental exhibitions, and a current project that photographs and collects the testimonies of fifteen Black Brazilian women, launching across West Africa and Europe. In this episode of Intangify, listeners discover how someone can hold two seemingly opposing worlds at once, and why the margins often contain more truth than the center. Matthew D. Asbell met Fernando twenty years ago through a cold email written in broken Portuguese. What began as a professional connection became a friendship that braided two families together across continents, teaching both men that vulnerability—the willingness to be wrong, to leave safety, to step into the unfamiliar—is not weakness. It is the only path to becoming whole. About the Guest: Fernando Braune is a patent attorney, published author, photographer, and cultural advocate based in Brazil. His work spans intellectual property law, visual art, and community engagement, with exhibitions and publications across South America, Europe, and Africa. His current project centers the narratives and lived experiences of Black Brazilian women.

Someone sits down to a meeting expecting a transaction and walks away feeling forgotten. It's not about what was said—it's about what wasn't. In America, we check the time. Everywhere else, they check if you care. This gap has shaped international business for decades, remaining invisible to most people who operate across borders. Terri Morrison spent four decades noticing what gets lost in translation—not the words, but the entire operating system beneath them. From a Spanish teacher in Texas to the architect of the world's most widely-used guide to cultural competency in business, Morrison has mapped the invisible rules that determine whether a deal closes or a relationship dies. On this episode of Intangify, discover why understanding cultural intelligence isn't academic—it's the difference between connection and distance in every negotiation. Host Matthew D. Asbell, an international lawyer who navigates these waters daily, brings his own hard-won lessons: the gift you didn't bring, the email you didn't send, the extra time you didn't invest. Together, they explore why the smallest gestures—chopsticks inscribed with a name, a box of New Orleans spices, a junior colleague introduced with authority—become the moments people remember forever. About the Guest: Terri Morrison is a pioneering cultural competency expert and author whose work has shaped how global professionals understand cross-cultural business communication. With decades of experience bridging international divides, Morrison's frameworks have become foundational to how organizations approach cultural intelligence.

Someone realized a problem no one else was solving. For fifteen years, they watched fraud happen—credential fraud, academic fraud, people misrepresenting their degrees and test scores and certifications. Then AI arrived, and they saw it immediately: this was going to make the problem exponentially worse. But instead of joining the chorus of people trying to catch cheaters after the fact, they asked a different question: what if writers could simply prove they did the work? Derek Newton is a journalist who spent years covering academic integrity and fraud, and he discovered something unsettling—most AI detection tools don't actually work. Ninety percent of the ones circulating online are intentionally misleading, designed to terrify you into paying for a "fix." So Newton built something different: a system that certifies human authorship at the front end, allowing writers to prove their work is genuinely theirs before questions ever arise. On Intangify, you'll hear why this approach—certification over policing—might be the framework we actually need. Matthew D. Asbell, host and IP attorney, invited Derek Newton into this conversation because it touches something Matthew carries personally: the question of trust in an age when institutions themselves haven't caught up. How do we verify authenticity when the technology is moving faster than the law? This episode explores what proof looks like when everything feels uncertain. About the Guest: Derek Newton is a journalist and researcher focused on academic integrity, fraud prevention, and the intersection of AI with human verification. His work has examined how institutions can build trust in an era of rapid technological change.

There's a moment when curiosity wins—when someone stops performing the role they think they're supposed to play and starts following what actually interests them. A path that began with teaching history, then jazz, then music copyrights, each shift guided not by ambition but by listening. By asking the right questions. By refusing to treat a conversation like a checkbox. Matthew Rubin leads business development at Fovea IP, a trademark solutions company operating across 196 jurisdictions worldwide. But the real work—the intangible work that gives Intangify its name—isn't about selling tools. It's about understanding why a brand owner should care about invisible fences, about the difference between what you can find for free and what you actually need to know before you launch. On this episode, discover how education, partnership, and genuine follow-up become the architecture of sustainable business development. Host Matthew D. Asbell brings his own musician's ear to this conversation—two people who understand that alignment, harmony, and active listening aren't metaphors borrowed from music, but the foundation of real work. Asbell has watched Rubin show up to law classes year after year, teaching intellectual property out of genuine curiosity about what his students will discover, expecting nothing but the chance to be part of their education. About the Guest: Matthew Rubin is Director of Business Development at Fovea IP, a global trademark solutions provider. With expertise spanning intellectual property strategy, brand protection, and business development across nearly 200 jurisdictions, Rubin brings a educator's mindset to complex trademark and IP challenges. His approach blends strategic thinking with a commitment to genuine partnership and long-term client success.