Participants Hub
Meet the 16 participants who contributed to the OGM Curiosity Call on November 13, 2025. Each brought unique perspectives, experiences, and insights to the conversation.
Facilitators
Jerry Michalski
Host and facilitator
Jerry initiated the call with observations about declining curiosity in education and younger generations, setting the stage for a rich exploration. He guided the conversation while remaining open to pushback on his initial premise.
Victoria (Spain)
Co-organizer and visual thinker
Victoria managed the collaborative Excalidraw board and championed the Question Formulation Technique. She diagnosed that the group was "explaining hypotheses instead of asking questions" and proposed using QFT in future sessions.
Core Contributors
Gil Friend
Sustainability consultant and coach • Founder of Natural Logic
Gil shared powerful personal stories about experiencing one-way conversations and introduced the etymology connecting curiosity to care (Latin: cura). He asked the fundamental question: "Who's we, who's they?" when discussing norms and belonging.
Pete Kaminski
Technology and collaboration expert
Pete contributed the crucial insight that curiosity is a learned social practice, sharing how his wife Johanne taught him to ask questions despite being "kind of shy." He emphasized that curiosity helps everybody, not just the person being asked.
Kevin Jones
Impact investment pioneer
Kevin challenged the premise of declining curiosity with "I completely disagree," offering a contrarian voice. He shared three memorable stories: Ben Santer finding his "briar patch," the Cherokee question "What does this decision make us?", and dancing eye-to-eye with a cobra in Rajasthan.
Scott Moehring
Game theory and systems thinker • Developer of Playing Games Model
Scott brought frameworks including the Big Five Personality Traits, DSRP Theory, and his Playing Games Model. He offered the experimental definition "Curiosity = Noticing things you didn't have to notice" and brought up the ELIZA effect.
LP1 (Louise)
French educator with 40 years of teaching experience
Louise provided longitudinal evidence: "Students can't pay attention for more than 30 seconds anymore." She observed calculator dependency, student anxiety about being wrong, and emphasized that "Writing = thinking!"
Eve Blossom
Somatic experiencing practitioner
Eve brought the embodied perspective: "going to the creek, looking at the tadpoles" as concrete somatic curiosity practice. She emphasized curiosity requires feeling safe in the body and connected it to sense of place and living within watersheds.
John Kelly
Medical/hyperbaric expertise • Multi-level educator
John shared teaching insights about working with "militantly uncurious students" in a first-generation college. He developed the what-how-why hierarchy, noting that "how is a more neutral version of why." Joined the call from inside a hyperbaric chamber.
Stacey Druss
Advocate for authentic inquiry
Stacey made the foundational distinction: "If you don't notice in the first place, you can't be curious." She identified three categories of people and openly shared her fear of asking questions about illness: "I don't have the tools to know how to behave around people who are not well."
Supporting Contributors
Alex Kladitis
Critical thinker on belief systems
Alex challenged the group: "If you have a strong belief system, are you going to be curious about opposite beliefs?" This provoked deep reflection on how conviction relates to openness.
Doug Breitbart
Systems thinking contributor
Doug reframed curiosity fundamentally: "The underlying ingredient is connection." He shared that his hypersocial son is "curious about people... wants to know everything about everybody" - validating social curiosity as legitimate.
Judith Benham
Former 3M chemist
Judith distinguished intrinsic curiosity (genuine interest) from extrinsic curiosity (driven by external needs). She shared that her father taught through questions: "What do you think?" instead of providing answers.
John Warinner
Explorer of curiosity's depth
John refined Scott's definition, noting that curiosity extends beyond noticing into exploring. He contributed to clarifying the relationship between attention, noticing, and curiosity.
Karl Hebenstreit Jr
Historical technology perspective
Karl shared the slide rule story, questioning what constitutes "essential knowledge" in a changing world. His perspective added the dimension of technological change and skill obsolescence.
Gabriele G
Visual thinking student
Gabriele identified "question poverty" - the anxiety of having complete freedom to ask anything but not knowing what to ask first. His vulnerability enriched the discussion of barriers to curiosity.
Navigation
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