Hey, hope you’re enjoying a little Summertime. Nice to see you back. Slightly different format this week. You know, change is progress and all that. Let’s see how it goes.
“The paradox of change is that the only way to alter the way we think is by doing the very things our habitual thinking keeps us from doing."
Herminia Ibarra, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader
Stuck in a rut // Culture
Living today, is living with change. Technological, geopolitical and economic upheaval. One reaction to this, is clinging to the past. Which apparently, we’re doing with style 👠 and culture 🎭. Previous decades looked very distinct. The 30s from the 40s, the 70s from the 80s. But little has changed since 1992. We’re stylistically trapped, prisoners of style. Paradoxically though, the business of style is booming, but has become more homogenous. It’s partly the safety of nostalgia but also economics. Changing style is expensive for businesses, categories and industries. So the impetus for change isn’t there. “I feel as if the whole culture is stoned, listening to an LP that’s been skipping for decades, playing the same groove over and over. Nobody has the wit or gumption to stand up and lift the stylus."
Commitment Free // Brands
Car subscriptions 🚗 (PAYG) are only 1% of car sales right now. Analysts reckon they could be 10% by 2025. This is the commitment-free economy, where owners become subscribers. Experiences vs things and all that. All the joy, non of the burden. And, what’s becoming clear is that we’re becoming super subscribers. Netflix and Disney were only a gateway drug. With annual growth of 40% in the UK, the average household now has seven contracts. Keeping them, will be the future battle ground, and this piece on the fundamentals of modern loyalty might give a hint on how. It’s about creating successful membership strategies, by understanding that membership is micro (exclusive), meet-ups (personal) and maintenance (small repeated gains and incremental rewards).
Mindless // Creativity
The ahaa moment in the shower 💡. You know it, right? It’s actually our subconscious mind doing the heavy lifting. Our subconscious is magic at joining dots and making connections. But we need to turn off our conscious mind to engage it. More relaxation = more dopamine and more dopamine = more creativity 🎨. So to get more creativity into a task, we should plan disengagement, distraction and incubation periods. Free your mind and the rest will follow as En Vogue said 🔥. Or go for a long walk🚶🏻♀️. There’s a link between great thinking and obsessive walking. Darwin even had a thinking path 👌.
Weird toothpaste // Technology
Presume you don’t live in a bubble or some remote outpost 🏝, in which case it’s likely you’re aware that people now hate digital ad tracking 💻📱. There’s lots of theories about how tech platforms do it 🎯, but this thread outlining the specifics of how tech companies track us (from someone who knows), was brill. Datasets, geo location and your moms weird toothpaste. Mad stuff really 🤯. And no, they’re not actually listening. They don’t need to. They just know where you are, who you’re with and what they buy. Which neatly ties to Apple’s new privacy ad, which takes firm aim at the platforms and sets them up as the saviour of the internet 🦸🏼♂️. Though, who audits the auditor etc?
5 things:
A thread about a gymnastics jump and Simone Biles in slow mo. Wow 🤸🏾♂️.
Don’t ever hide your brilliance, shine bright like a diamond 💎.
The terms and conditions game and organizing a meeting by text 😂.
Take no parachute 🪂 and jump (from 25,000 feet) 🤢.
50 lessons 👩🏻🏫 on turning 40. Some great stuff 🔥🔥.
Watching:
Was reminded of this song recently. Originally released in 1994 as the first single from Parklife it was re-recorded at Abbey Road Studios with French singer Françoise Hardy, in 1995. The recording mutated into a duet entitled "To the End (La Comedie)". Soooo good. Enjoy 🎧.