Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business launches The Index podcast

By Jennifer Latson
Special to the Rice News

Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business, one of the country’s top-ranked business schools, has launched a new podcast, The Index, which examines the science behind scandals, epiphanies, live performance and other aspects of our lives.

The Index grew out of a collaboration between Texas Monthly and Rice Business at the 2019 South by Southwest music and technology festival, where the two entities co-hosted a pop-up experience in an Austin storefront.

The podcast is hosted by journalist Saul Elbein, a contributor to the New York Times Magazine and the NPR radio show “This American Life,” among other outlets.

Podcast topics include an exploration of epiphanies — the sudden “aha” moments that can spark innovation and shift the course of a career or a life — and why they may be growing rarer. As Rice Business professor Erik Dane explains in the episode, to lay the foundation for epiphanies, people need to alternate between being present and sharply aware of what’s happening around them, then softening that focus and letting their minds wander without a definitive purpose. But with a smartphone in one’s hand — or even in the same room — people are unlikely to do either.

In another episode, Rice Business Professor Anastasiya Zavyalova discusses the science of scandals: how they start, how they end and what to do when you’re caught in one. In another, Rice Business Dean Peter Rodriguez explains the economics behind why it’s so difficult to make a living in the arts.

Other half-hour episodes include insights from Rice Business professors Utpal Dholakia (“Unmarketing: A Guide To Not Buying Anything”) and Douglas Schuler (“The Cantankerous Community Meal”), and a discussion of “modern-day wildcatters” by Rice Business Wisdom Editor Claudia Kolker, Station Houston CEO Gabriella Rowe, Egan Nelson Vice President of Strategy Marc Nathan and Lawson Gow, the CEO and founder of The Cannon — all of whom are working to make Texas a leader in tech innovation.

The Index is the latest way Rice Business is making its professors’ research accessible outside the halls of academia, in hopes that their science-backed, peer-reviewed insights will help spark the innovation needed to solve big problems, Rodriguez said.

To access The Index episodes, go to https://business.rice.edu/wisdom/podcasts/welcome-index-new-podcast-rice-business-wisdom.

For more insights from and information about Rice Business faculty research, visit the school’s Rice Business Wisdom online ideas magazine at https://business.rice.edu/wisdom.

— Jennifer Latson is a staff writer and editor at the Jones Graduate School of Business.