Idea. Potential. #2
Here’s the second of my Idea. Potential. blogs, and this time with the political chaos in my home country (UK), I want to turn attention to what we — and the groups we work in — can do for ourselves and for the world everyday. I’m doing one of those online meditation courses and perhaps the greatest thing I’ve learned so far is that once you start genuinely doing things for people you’re around, you instantly become grounded in the present. So there’s real potential in changing your life on the micro scale every day and changing the world as you do so.
Learn
There’s hours of content on Russell Brand’s YouTube channel which helps us to think about how changing ourselves is the first — indeed the necessary — step to changing the world. This one on gratitude is quick, dirty, and funny, but makes the point at the same time. The utility of messages like Brand’s are, for me, simple reminders that things can get better if we focus on ourselves just a little each day. Meaning that if practised, they get better for others too.
Listen
Thanks to Sebastian Morua Hernandez (you can find him on LinkedIn) for turning me onto the CMO Podcast hosted by Jim Stengel, and published by Gallery Media. It’s a great way to zoom out from the day to day of business operations, and with the content all driven towards ‘purpose’ in product, work, life, and investments, it can ground you in place and space and yet still add major value to your workflow. It’s one of those podcasts that I think you can listen to when you’re in the thick of it, because the learning seems to go in anyway.
Work
THIS. Yes this. A manifesto for small teams doing important work, from Seth Godin. I won’t spoil it more, save to say it’s been the single most actionable insight in my work for a while. If we all worked like this, then our work would become more efficient, our social relations more balanced, our stakeholders more engaged, and probably our personal lives enriched.
Watch
But then again, before things get too good: Cambridge Analytica (I jest, kind of). If you haven’t watched the Great Hack yet, then please get under a duvet tonight with your significant other, pet, or both, and turn Netflix on. It’s easy to get freaked-out watching it. But in my view, it’s a waste of time to be scared about the abuse of technology. Instead, we should focus on how we can use tech daily to platform truly good things that have utilitarian applications. For this reason, I would recommend watching the Great Hack and Alpha Go in parallel. The movie, about Google’s DeepMind project learning to play the oldest game on earth, is a gem. One particular insight the algorithm gives humankind about itself — in a game played by countless millions of people over millennia, who never ever drew this insight — is wonderful. I don’t want to spoil it, so watch and see if you can spot what I’m talking about. But I will say that I was left feeling: could anything other than AI have given us this insight?
See you next week.
