This is what I have been into recently.
Fjord (now Accenture Digital) 2022 Trends Report - Fjord which used to be an independent service design agency has been releasing these trends reports for years now. They are quite good at capturing the zeitgeist and making it relevant for businesses. This year's report hones in on 5 core themes. 1) Me Over We - people are adapting to post-pandemic life and in most cases this comes with a new appreciation of life's priorities. Powered by tech, people are diversifying income streams (aka side hustles). This is also the trend lying behind the 'Great Resignation’ 2) The end of abundance thinking - people are used to having what they want on their fingertips including physical comforts. With the covid driven supply chain shocks, with the economy across the world going into a more challenging cycle we’ll need to get used to a different reality. Sustainability becomes even more critical. 3) Metaverse (well of course) - beyond the usual web3, AR/VR, NFT buzzwords there is a core idea here. This is not new but worth repeating. Historically certain locations were where ‘it’ used to happen. This was Florence for Renaissance, Manchester for Industrial Revolution, Santa Fe Institute for complexity science (I know random, more on this below), Silicon Valley for tech/start-ups more recently. This is going to change. The next ‘place’ is metaverse - only because it’s the natural evolution / expansion of everything the internet enabled and initiated. We need to look beyond the buzz. 4) Increased role of ‘caring’ - pandemic has brought caring and compassion to the forefront of our experiences. This is happening across the dimensions of self-care, care for loved ones and care for colleagues. There is one more which I’ll let you find out in the report. Everyone is dealing with their set of challenges and it’s now more visible than before. Tech is playing an increasing role in how we address the challenge. Below is a quote that really stood out for me:
'Internationally, a staggering 41% of the global workforce was considering leaving their employer in 2021, according to a Microsoft study. In the US, nearly one-third of more than 2,800 IT professionals surveyed said they planned to look for a new job in the next few months'
This is insane.
Paper Website - is a tool that turns handwritten paper based content into nice looking and somewhat customisable websites. 1) You take the picture of the page you have written on 2) The AI engine transforms your handwriting to bits 3) It integrates that text into a simple website editor where you can add gifs, images, format the text, change the background etc. 3) You can publish it as a website / send it as email. It even comes with Google Analytics integration. This is great for simple blogs, newsletters etc. Cool execution. See below a short video on how it works:
Peloton - recently made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Following a pandemic boom the company saw its stock price heavily drop, stopped production of new units, the CEO quit and also 3800 people were let go. It’s bad. What’s really interesting (but sad) is how this final straw came about. An activist investor group essentially had a presentation where they told the CEO he wasn’t good at his job nor did he enjoy it based on actual quotes from him. And he agreed to step down. The deck, created by Blackwell Group, is actually public. You can read it here. I’ll share one slide here as an example. I imagine this wasn’t a fun read for Peloton’s (now Ex) CEO.
You can’t make this s*it up - This is everywhere but it is just too bizarre not to mention. A rapper, serial entrepreneur, SaaS investor, surrealist artist (all according to her own bio) is now arrested in relation to one of the biggest hacks of Crypto history. Specifically her and her husband (who also happens to be a Y-Combinator alumni) are thought to be involved in laundering some / all (?) of the 4.5BN USD from that hack. I don’t how this is real but saw it in enough (including in reputable) places to believe it’s not a hoax by now. Every part of this story is weird but to give you a quick taste… This is her:
Oh also, she apparently hacked Twitter to harass Nassim Taleb.
Attention: @Twitter vulnerability Abt 4 years ago Heather Morgan accused of stealing $3.6 billion of #BTC managed to hack Twitter to get me to *follow* her so she could DM me. I promptly unfollowed but she was still able to DM and kept sending long messages, some more recently.And gave a talk about social engineering in a Silicon Valley conference a couple of years ago… so I guess her tactics worked (and then didn’t).
Book of the Week - Complexity by Mitchell Waldrop. This book is probably the most fun book you can read about this ‘emerging science at the Edge of Order and Chaos’. It’s a new science branch studying complex ecosystems across a variety of disciplines. The science part is cool. For me the story behind how this came about was even more fascinating. Scientists from various disciplines, breaking their silos, powered by the newly emerging computer technology, coming together at a distinct time and place (Santa Fe Institute) kicking off a new science discipline. The characters involved, how they came to be part of the story etc. + the idea itself make it a worthwhile read.
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