The strategies global leaders use to negotiate impasses and bridge divides may seem complicated. But when you break them down, they can turn out to be quite simple. From giving gifts to encouraging play to creating space for collaboration, Northwestern University law professor Annelise Riles shares surprising stories of how seemingly small gestures can bring about big change. Follow Everyday Ambassador to hear how you can use these tools to shape your community and your world. Everyday Ambassador is produced by FP Studios with support from the Humboldt Foundation.
anneliseriles.substack.com (https://anneliseriles.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)
A president came back to Beijing after fifteen years. They had kept his bicycle.
Ryan Hass — director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, and former Director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia at the National Security Council — on why gifts and hospitality are instruments of Chinese statecraft rather than courtesies around it.
Also in this episode: Peter Selfridge, who served as Chief of Protocol of the United States under President Obama, on the part of the job that made him most nervous, and on what happened when President Obama gave Queen Elizabeth an iPod she already owned. Plus listeners on the gifts that changed their own relationships — a watch, a picture book, a scrapbook, and a poem read over FaceTime.
The story at the center: George H. W. Bush rode a Flying Pigeon bicycle around Beijing as American envoy in 1974. When he returned as president fifteen years later, one was waiting for him.
This episode first aired in 2023 and is rebroadcast here alongside the September Field Guide on gifts.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit anneliseriles.substack.com/subscribe (https://anneliseriles.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)
16 Jul 2026
The Amateurs who Solve What the Experts Can't
We treat "amateur" as an insult — someone not quite serious, not quite qualified. But the word comes from the Latin amator: lover. An amateur is someone who does a thing for love, not for a credential or a paycheck. In this episode, Annelise Riles explores how amateurs solve problems that stump the experts — and how borrowing an amateur's mindset can help even the pros think again.
Open-source investigator Natalia explains how amateur online detectives — "some guy named Bob in Florida" — crack cases that overwhelm even Interpol, from locating trafficked children to keeping people safe while dating. Consultant and philosopher Christian Madsbjerg describes the "amateur mindset" he uses to advise some of the world's largest companies: showing up knowing nothing, observing, and truly listening — what he calls epistemological humility, and the approach that helped move Ford toward electric vehicles. And Northwestern students share how an outsider's perspective creates room not just for innovation, but for kindness.
Guests
Christian Madsbjerg — author, consultant, and philosopher; founder of ReD Associates, which advises major global companies using the social sciences rather than standard management-consulting methods.
Natalia Antnova — open-source investigator, formerly with the collective Bellingcat; founder of the Safer Dating project.
"Your Turn" voices — Northwestern University students, gathered by on-campus producer Mia Perkins.
More from Annelise Riles at Everyday Ambassador: anneliseriles.substack.com
Chapters
(00:00) The amateur detectives who crack what the professionals can't
(03:44) This episode: the power of the amateur
(04:12) Christian Madsbjerg on the amateur mindset
(06:15) Why Ford studied people's relationship to nature instead of a spreadsheet
(11:02) What "amateur" really means: epistemological humility
(12:35) The costs — slow work, and not being taken seriously
(14:52) Why insight travels on its own, regardless of credentials
(15:47) Curiosity, joy, and the "juicy" question
(17:14) Your Turn: students on the outsider's perspective
(20:32) Closing reflection: the outsider as a source of kindness
Credits: This episode was produced by FP Studios with support from the Humboldt Foundation. Our on-campus producer was Mia Perkins.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit anneliseriles.substack.com/subscribe (https://anneliseriles.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)
18 Jun 2026
On nuclear fallout and legal leverage
On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated the largest nuclear weapon it ever tested at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The fallout poisoned a Japanese fishing crew, irradiated inhabited atolls, and triggered a diplomatic crisis — one the US resolved by paying $2 million and calling it closed, without ever answering the underlying legal questions.
Historian and lawyer Mary X. Mitchell joins Annelise to unpack how this works: the legal technologies that make disputes disappear, what it means to "win" a lawsuit you know you'll lose, and how Marshall Islanders used law as leverage against one of the most asymmetrical power relationships in modern history.
Mary's new book Unsettling Sovereignty is published by the University of Chicago Press. Her new article appears in Environmental History.
Key timestamps:
00:00 — Castle Bravo: what happened on March 1, 1954
01:07 — The bomb and the fallout: what actually came down on Rongelap
03:56 — Evacuation and the Marshall Islands petition to the UN
06:59 — Why the Marshall Islands? The strategic trusteeship and Pacific colonialism
~10:00 — The Lucky Dragon: Japan's fishing fleet and the diplomatic crisis
~14:00 — The ex gratia settlement: $150K offer, $6.7M demand, $2M resolution
~17:00 — What the settlement left submerged: the unanswered legal questions
~19:00 — How to use this: the dishes insight, and reading the real stakes
~22:35 — Losing in court and still winning: Marshall Islander lawsuits as leverage
~30:00 — Rights as a form of articulation: Patricia Williams and why courts still matter
34:38 — Closing: breaking it down as a methodology
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit anneliseriles.substack.com/subscribe (https://anneliseriles.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)
Who has been a guest on Everyday Ambassador
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Bill Pasek
Masami Matsuda
Christine Ahn
Tomihisa Taue
Annelise Riles
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