At present the world at large is dealing with multiple challenges across various scales, geographies, and scenarios. At times it feels like we are struggling to navigate the 2020’s, battling the decisions made over the last twenty years and unsure of how we should take the next step towards the future. Unable to move past 2010's. If I zone in on my local context currently as I sit in South Africa, we have an immense number of challenges that we need solutions to be crafted for, none more pressing than solutions which will relieve the pressure on our power grid. We are dealing with crumbling infrastructure and a deteriorating power grid that is no longer able to provide consistent and constant power. It’s a problem that has been two decades in the making, but we don’t have the luxury of two decades to fix it… we are in need of solutions here and now. The impact of this lack of power delivery extends into many areas of the local economy, our livelihoods and the longer it persists the greater the impact will be on the cost of living. The results are rather scary to think about deeply if I am honest as this has the potential to greatly widen existing divides in economic access.

It’s incredibly easy to lay blame, rather than doing the hard work and pushing yourself to think about how you might be able to contribute to viable solutions. I am a natural problem solver and my curiosity is driven by engaging with complexity, the harder the problem the more at home I feel. While I might enjoy complexity, there are definitely times when the challenges that surround us in the world get me down.

When the challenges feel like they are too big to be overcome, I often turn to some of the online communities that I have immersed myself in over the last three years. These spaces allow me to shift my perspective, to listen, and to engage with the thinking of others who are actively working on alternative ways of operating. It was during a down cycle, late in 2022 as we entered another rolling round of power cuts, which are now part of living in South Africa, that I turned to the crypto twitter community (this time the algorithm worked in my favour and I experienced one of the few moments of algorithmic serendipity in my calendar year) as I shared the question below.

So, the answer to question that is listed at the title for this piece of writing is yes. We can reimagine the way power is supplied, managed and delivered. The responses to the tweet yielded 12 crypto projects that are actively working on new models and methods in the energy provision space.

A better question to ask then is are we willing to engage with the experimentation that is happening and how might we bridge towards new operating models that are more compatible with the times in which we live?

The change is not going to happen over night and I feel that we need to change our relationship with risk capital allocation in order to allow local experiments that are working on solutions to challenges to engage the best minds possible.

https://twitter.com/JoshNuttall/status/1602583340133253120

• If you have any others that I should look into, please feel free to DM me or add to the thread on Twitter.

We have work to do.

Here’s a list of the projects that were mentioned in the responses:

1. Plurigrid - Decentralized Planning & Coordination Protocol for Interoperable Transactive Energy Resources at All Scales

Plurigrid expands electricity resource capacity and scientific planning for electrical resources feasible in the real world through a protocol for better games in energy markets and incentive engineering infrastructure, Type I Civilization!

Precisely what we are doing over at @Plurigrid -- we are guided by implementing the agency at the decentralized protocol level.

e-gens everywhere can rely on IBC and sovereign systems of record that are mutually reinforcing.

2. Powerledger - building the operating system for the new energy markets

Powerledger develops software solutions for the tracking, tracing and trading of renewable energy. We believe in the democratisation of power, for a sustainable future.

3. Tesseract - Commission-free energy.

Big energy companies are powerful. They owe us nothing. They watch us. They punish us for our mistakes. They ignore our values. They have more money, more people, more connections. Technology is our weapon. Big energy can be beaten. We are underdogs. We keep learning. We innovate. We identify opportunities. We focus. We execute. We are Tesseract.

4. Reneum

A marketplace to accelerate the energy transition, sending capital where it’s needed most.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll take a look at each of the projects.

5. Spark Eco - building a market place for renewable energy certificates (RECs) and solar energy projects.

Spark democratizes renewable energy production by financing small project developers. We do this via a Web3-enabled marketplace for people to invest in real-world solar projects and directly access Renewable Energy Certificates. Electricity is an essential public good that drives economic growth, improves living standards, and helps to alleviate poverty. We are creating a new model for how communities can access clean energy.

6. IOEN - a community driven network to bring clean energy to the globe

The Internet of Energy Network (IOEN) protocol is a community and technology that includes distributed accounting, transactions and applications for the clean energy transition. 
 A software that integrates with any energy device or user and connects them via a unique agent based architecture invented by our partner platform Holochain

7. Redgrid - empowering the community energy revolution

Redgrid provide software tools and business services to empower the Community Renewable Energy movement.

 Our mission is to keep value local and connect communities across Australia with value from their distributed energy assets.

8. 7EnergyDAO

9. VillageGrid - A DAO focused on creating digital solutions for remote villages

10. A case study of the Brooklyn Microgrid

Brooklyn Microgrid (BMG)[1] is a pilot project based-on Blockchain technology. In this blockchain-based project, citizens can buy and sell locally produced solar PV power from one another. The project started in early 2015, and in April 2016 the first community activity took place when three residents of President Street in Park Slope participated in the first ever peer-to-peer (P2P) energy transactions. Now neighbours can go to an app and say how much they are willing to spend on solar panels and they can find other neighbours who are producing energy.

11. Swtchenergy - End-to-end electric vehicle (EV) charging & energy management solutions

SWTCH is pioneering EV charging solutions for multi-tenant properties across North America. We help building owners and operators deploy EV charging that optimizes energy usage and revenue at scale using existing grid infrastructure.

12. PowerPlay - A free way to earn crypto by using more renewable energy for a bill discount in Australia.

How might we ask better questions?

Ones that pay closer attention to our spatial context?

Allowing us to think in stories. Creating shared narratives that are attune to our environments, not separated from them.

Giving ourselves time to reflect. Recognising the influence that our decisions may have on the future.Practicing an appreciation of time. Seeking to avoid errors that have been made before during periods of transition.

Through asking better questions we can become better connected to and part of our surroundings.

What are the lessons that we can glean from earlier shifts in technology? What are some of the key features that helped to give the internet utility and provided access to information?

How might we recognise the relevance of spatial context, with out letting it curtail the muscle of imagination? This is linked to giving customers what they need, not what they think they want. Human beings are inherent irrational. To do this though we need to ask better questions to shape our imagination in ways that are valuable and meaningful to the communities we are seeking to serve.

In 2021 I had started a space on the internet to house my thinking around reverse mentorship and cross generational learning. I created Substack to support my medium writing, called The Reverse Mentor. The name was linked to a podcast that I had started with the same name.

As my writing has evolved I have realised that it was difficult to place my thinking in a clearly defined box. In a large part due to the diversity and the interconnectedness of the spaces that I draw inspiration from.

This brings us to the name puzzle piece. It’s a term that was used by a close friend to describe my ability to translate complexity into relatable terminology. It has also been used to describe how I merge together seemingly uncorrelated spaces to add nuance to a point of view.

Puzzle piece is evolving space that will house my longer form writing that is polished enough for a broader audience. The focus will be shaped by my curiosity and will primarily cover – strategy, philosophy, emerging tech, crypto’s influence on society, distributed decision making, sense making, and generational learning.

Puzzle piece will be featured as a series within josh.mirror.xyz - as I intend to use my mirror publication to feature all areas of my writing not just those that I will cover in the puzzle piece realm.

I’ll do my best to write regularly and to share liberally, but thoughtfully at the same time. For the moment, I will cross post pieces through my mirror publication and my Substack as some of my subscribed readers are not web3 native and will battle to navigate the use of a wallet.

Let’s craft some puzzle pieces together.

As the plane made its approach into Dubai we were granted a view of the city. As the pilot turned the plane to line up with the runway our reference points on the horizon changed and we were greeted with an expanding city scape that extended out into the night.

Seeing the city at night and from the air will have evoked different thoughts for the passengers on the flight. Some might have viewed the vast sprawling city that marks the natural landscape as a scar, while others might have remarked about just how quickly the city of Dubai was built.

Speaking from a personal point of view, I find it fascinating to think about how Dubai has become the global travel hub and the world’s busiest airport. Did you know the Dubai airport opened on the 30th of September 1960? This makes it 62 years old. Older than I thought I will admit.

It reminds me of the great trade and spice routes that were navigated by generations that have gone before us. What were the conditions that were discovered and all the connected parts that had to be mapped out to create corridors for reliable and repeatable paths of movement.

There are plenty of lessons in the processes of mapping when we go back to basics and seek to understand how things work from the bottom up. Rather than just interacting with them in passing or through an interface. Patterns naturally start to emerge.

As the human population has expanded around the world and pushed into new locations we have shaped the environment in pretty drastic ways. Making the land and its surrounding work for us not necessarily with us. Looking out of the scaling city landscape from the plane I felt a deep need for us to look at changing the relationship that we have with all the different puzzle pieces of the earth’s biosphere. How might we create a relationship of reciprocity and not extraction? Thinking about how we can enhance the value of the collective health of the biosphere and not detract from it. Positive sum thinking, we have to turn the scales. We certainly have work to do and it require a mutual global effort. Similar to the mutual global agreements that have enable so much of our movement through time.

I wonder what the reaction of people who were on board the first ships that navigated the routes and spent years moving around the world from one far flung destination to another would be if we told them we could now transport ourselves half way around the world in under 20 hours of travel.

Imagine being able to engage the imagination of these early explorers in the modern world we live in. AI models could do this for generations in the future, allowing them to directly question the thinking of explorers that have gone before them. They could even hold direct conversations with them once the language models get good enough and I don’t think we’re too far away from this.

I believe that there are many clues to the future that lie in the past. Seeking, understanding, listening, and looking for these clues can help us build into the future together. Learning from the experience of others and harnessing the collective power that memory holds. Deep knowledge that was often transferred through rituals and natural rhythms in indigenous practices.

We are all explorers on a journey and need to ignite our mutual imagination to build into the future. We all depend on it.

It’s not a typo but rather an intentional brain teaser. When we are taught selected subjects in our schooling we are asked to look for the correlation between things. This makes then relational and means that they can then be weaved together to form a structure of a narrative.

So, how is it then that we can teach ourselves to think in uncorrelated ways?

I will try to use the concept of unstructured and structured learning.

Unstructured learning allows you to explore things outside of the bounds of a fixed structure. If you research machine learning you will quickly discover that they use two different types of data sets to train models. In the unstructured data scenario, the model is exposed to data from a variety of data sources and it looks to make sense of the different elements. Looking for connections that fall outside of immediate patterns of connection.

Structured learning guides your learning within instructional methodologies. Staying with the machine learning example, in this case you will give the model selected data sets to reference and to learn from. This means that it will get more effective and efficient over time because these is a high correlation in the patterns of the data.

One of the most valuable lessons that I learnt early on in my journey through life is that we all have our unique view point when we look out onto the world. Even if two people are standing side by side looking out at the same view. This means that we will all have different ideas float into our heads based on the various triggers and the situations we expose ourselves to. Recognising this taught me to sit with seemingly uncorrelated ideas or concepts and challenge myself to find ways to bring them together. There is value in structure, but there is also value in combining things that at a first glance appear unrelated to one another.

Just because spaces or ideas may seem uncorrelated, this does not mean that you should ignore them. Sit with it for a bit and ask your mind to explore potential connections. You will be amazed by the patterns you are able to build out.

*the header image was generated by DALL-E using the following prompt, “A 3D render of an open design space, filled with nature”

Serendipitous interactions are often the ones that don’t appear at first glance, they are the ones that you have to look at little bit harder for, or shift the point that you are looking from in order to create a different rendering to the lens you are using. There are moments of instant serendipitous exchange, but in my experience these are incredibly rare. The initial friction point is what creates the desire to explore and uncover what may lie under the surface that might not be visible.

I can’t quite recall where I read or heard this first, but Steve Jobs famously said that he had designed Pixar’s head quarters in a way that allowed (and prompted) serendipitous exchanges between different departments. Largely in part because he believed that serendipity was an essential ingredient for creativity.

“If a building doesn’t encourage that, you’ll lose a lot of innovation and the magic that’s sparked by serendipity,” he said. “So we designed the building to make people get out of their offices and mingle in the central atrium with people they might not otherwise see.”

What does it mean to seize serendipity and perhaps more importantly how might one seize serendipity? Bear in mind that the answer is open for interpretation by the reader, these are just some of the observations that I have had through my own journey of exploring serendipity.

To seize serendipity requires a push out into the unknown. When we enter the unknown our senses are attune to the new environment and we are far more aware of our surroundings than when we are in a space of high familiarity.

How might one do this?

• Engage wtih a thinker’s thinking whose views challenge the views you hold

• Throw yourself into the deep end

• Read deep and wide

• Seek inspiration for different industries and spaces

• Combine unrelated complex and explore the use of metaphors to find threads between them

• Push the edges with your outputs and ask more questions of your own thinking

I took inspiration for this piece from the saying “carpe diem” - seize the day. It’s a powerful mantra and we should definitely all seize the day. However in a world of abundance humans naturally gravity to the familiar and this is the primary reason of why I feel an urge to encourage us to seize the serendipity.

Magic comes from environments that promote the interactions between areas that are seemingly unrelated at first glance.

Seize the serendipity.

Over the last few few weeks I have been re-examining my relationship and use of specific social media platforms in order to get the platforms to work more closely to what I use them for rather than me working for the platform through the attention I feed into the algorithm. There is a lesson in itself here with regards to focusing our attention using intentional choice, but it’s not what I am seeking to explore today and may return to it at a later stage.

The act that I would like to draw attention to in this pieces of writing is the act of reciprocity.

Should we call reciprocity an act, a behaviour, a mindset, a philosophy, an act, or a way of life? I battled to put it into one of these framings as I made my way through writing these words and might return to it later. For the moment I have decided to describe reciprocity as an act because it involves an “exchange” with others for mutual benefit.

In trying to make sense of the world and thinking through how we might contribute to change the future for the better to address some of the challenges we face as humanity, I sometimes turn to the word “help”. In many interactions when people try to make a difference they ask the the question “how can I help?”. I myself have used this question in a variety of situations and only in reflecting on the word help have I begun to realise that it is patronising. “How can I help” is a show of kindness, of generosity, of concern, of care. However it suggests a one way exchange between you and the entity that you are leading assistance to.

Richard Bartlett (@RichDeibels on Twitter) influenced some of my thinking with this thread he shared, you can read it here. My biggest take away from reading his thoughts was this “how can we help one another?” The shift is subtle but the meaning is quite remarkable as it encourages us to see helping in a mutual light rather than just a one way exchange.

This lead me to link it to acts of reciprocity and how we could use reciprocity to between understand helping as a mutual exchange rather than one directional.

There are lessons that we can learn from the principles outlined in the Honourable Harvest in relation to this.

• Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.

• Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life.

• Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.

• Never take the first. Never take the last.

• Take only what you need.

• Take only that which is given.

• Never take more than half. Leave some for others.

• Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.

• Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken.

• Share.

• Give thanks for what you have been given.

• Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.

• Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.

If this peaked your interest, you can read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book - Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

“How can we help one another” is a powerful question as it recognises how interconnected the world truly is. It also allows us to explore how we can create win-win environments for the betterment of the whole and not just the individual. Riding the rising tide together to build a future we can all be proud of.

I muddled my way through my university experience and it was only few years after completing my 3 year undergraduate degree that I was able to appreciate that this time of forced study had taught me to think. Giving me the ability to engage with a variety of types of information, digest it and synthesise it into a narrative to convey a point of view. Many people thought I was crazy not to pursue an honours or masters following my undergrad, but I didn’t see the value in studying further if there was nothing that grabbed my attention. Thus I ventured out into the wilderness and challenged myself to see if I could find spaces that captured my interest, where I would be given an opportunity to learn on the go. I guess you could refer to framing of applied learning rather than theoretical learning to describe the approach that I took.

There are a few people in particular who took a bet on me. Giving me the opportunity, space, guidance, and environment to explore who I might become. Allowing me to express my views, to follow my curiosity and to engage a different style of thinking. I was fortunate to have an opportunity to join the founding team of a start-up which accelerated my curiosity and threw me into the deep end giving me no other option but to learn to swim. I have always had a personal drive and a level or agency from a young age, but the few years that I spent in the start up ecosystem and running my own consultancy have further refined the way that a nurture my autonomy.

What might have happened if I had decided to study further or taken a gap year right out of school? Who knows?! Life would have turned out differently, but it probably would have been special in its own way.  We can spend our lives pondering the “what ifs”, we will only know for sure if we drop into the energy of the wave of change and see where the ride takes us.

During phases of transition and as I consider how to take on the next step on my journey through life, I find myself reflecting on the people that have given me a chance and hope to some day be in a position where I too can give an opportunity to someone who needs the space to explore. The space to help them figure out where to next and to allow them to have access to an environment where they can build a path to get there.

Some my best friends and  immediate family think I am slightly crazy as they can’t describe the work I do with a “title”. The funny thing is that they are probably right, I am indeed a little crazy but that’s what makes the world interesting after all.  The path I am crafting is not for everyone. Describing what I do, the way that I think, and the projects that I have worked on in a few sentences is a challenge as there are industries that you would conventionally put together. It’s an exercise that I am working on currently and I hope to share some iterations soon for feedback and critiques. Some of my best friends struggle to describe 

As I reflect with gratitude on where I am today, not being able to easily define my life of work is as an endorsement that I must be doing something right - seeking to think differently and challenge the traditional way of doing things. The world is full of ideas, one just needs to open their mind to find and connect with them through diverse channels. True magic lies in the ability to execute the ideas that you have and to unlock this magic we need people to take a bet on our potential. 

The point of inspiration for this piece was this note to the Airbnb team from Brain Chesky on Joe’s decision to step down from his operational role in the company to explore some of the other ideas that he wishes to bring into the world.

This has been slightly more of a personal piece than when I start out writing it this morning, perhaps it’s part of the next chapter and letting more people into my emerging story.

In closing, I encourage us all to think about how we got to where we are today and how we can pay it forward to others. Much gratitude to those who have believed in me when I didn’t yet believe in myself.

So what does the future hold and how might we solve the situation in which we find ourselves?

In April of this year, 2022, while sitting in an agricultural area near a small town in the south of France drinking wine with a friend’s dad and chatting about philosophy we bridged the topic of leadership and the transfer of knowledge between generations.  James, my friend’s dad, had purchased the bottle that we were drinking ten years earlier on the advance of elderly locals when he moved into his home.  One might argue that it is common knowledge wines get better as they age, but that is not the point that I would like to emphasise. The exchange to zoom in on is how the elderly locals ensured that they passed this lesson on to James when arrived in the area so that he would one day have the knowledge to pass on to the next generation.

I feel that part of the leadership crisis that we are facing in the world today is because we have forgotten the importance of passing information down through different generations. In certain societies this is far more visible that others and there are indeed variations on the extremes ever within local community groups.  Our appreciation and patience for sharing stories, which is a critical part of knowledge gathering and transfer has been deprioritised because we ‘have to focus on the space right in front of us as it requires immediate action’. 

If you’ll allow me to zoom in on Africa for a moment as we are both from countries that occupy the continent. Africa has a missing managers challenge, a generational gap within the organisational chart of many organisations. The through flow and nurturing of the next generation of leader for companies is a gapping hole. Recognising the need to solve this is a massive step in the right direction, but it doesn’t answer the questions of how we got to this point. Part of the reason, there are many complexities, is that knowledge was not transferred through different generations as the business grew. This created context horizon gaps which lead to ability challenges.

Being a solutions thinker and a problem solver with an analytical mind, one of my first instincts is to ask the question of ‘what can we do differently to change and improve the path that we are one?’

As a starting point I think that we need to increase the knowledge that is transferred between generations. We can all learn from one another, which will speed up some of the changes that we need to make. One of the biggest challenges with leadership is that the learnings from the experience of others needs to be implemented with the context the you are now positioned. In my mind this requires leadership partners.

How might we bring the attention of global leaders to the interconnected whole?  We are solving problems in 'our' immediate view. Not addressing the cause as policy changes are continually made ‘in response to’ or ‘in reaction to’. This reactive nature of policy making and decisions is a compounding force that will damage the abilities of future generations to be the best that we can be.  

Everything is connected and bad leadership has ripple effects for years to come… “The universe is a continuous web. Touch it at any point and the whole web quivers.” Stanley Kunitz

At the end of yesterday’s post, the art of listening to ask better questions, I shared these words from Ursula K Le Guin.

“Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility.”

As a young thinker I have been listening to the world over the last couple of years. It’s begging for us to learn from the views of different generations and to actively work together on solving this leadership crisis. Energy without knowledge is wasted and knowledge without energy has no value to drive change.

The trigger for this bit of writing came from a tweet that surfaced on my feed a few days back. It’s a tweet thread from 2019, that discusses the importance of listening between the lines and connecting with what people are really interested in. It encourages one to further the conversation and gather deeper insights into the persons views through listening to the responses given to questions that are asked of them. 

"The most powerful IRL interview/conversation/flirting skill isn’t asking good questions nearly as much as asking good followup questions - it’s being sensitive to interesting micro-reactions.”

To tune into these micro reactions, might require one to slow down, which can seem counter intuitive, but when you take a step back it often appears to be the most logical thing that can be done to help you learn more about a situation.

The reason that I have described listening as an art is because I see it is as a practice that is continuously being refined and improved on. Much the same as how an artist works on their craft. Through listening we are able to attune our senses to areas of a conversation that we may otherwise have simply brushed over and missed. It’s as though we are able to create a different dimension to the interaction by simply opening our ears and being mindful to the speed with which we open our mouths.

Linked to the art of listening and the current state that the world finds itself in, I will leave you with this quote from Ursula K Le Guin. Returning to it tomorrow as it’s something that is very top of mind for me as I look to the future and the role we all have to play in societies evolution.

“Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility.”

How we spend out time closely links to the outputs that we create and the ideas that we give our attention to. Paul Graham has a great essay , The top idea in your mind that talks directly to the use of our mental energy. In the essay he talks about how what we focus on can influence the level, quality and type of work that we are able to do. He uses the example of a start up raising funding to give context to the concept.

The choice we make on how allocate our focus, attention and intention guides want we are able to create and the ideas that we are able to work on.  There is value in being consistent too, as Bill Gates says “Most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years.” However I would caution that you should never blindly stay the course in a pursuit without regularly checking in and refining the map that you are using to navigate the changing tides.

In a world of abundance it is easy to spend time exploring ideas, one can become inundated with research and the search of knowledge. This is why the magic lies in execution, not necessarily the conception of ideas. If you search through the abundance of information that we have access to in this digital age you will easily find multiple ideas that you can consider. In face you will probably find that the idea you are find has been explored before, just in a different era, context, or country.

Mark Twain famously shared  “there is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of coloured glass that have been in use through all the ages.”

Since the start of this year, 2022, I have been thinking about the power of the collective and what it might take for us to harness the energy of people spending time individually exploring ideas to collectively invest in these ideas. I am not suggesting that we need to try to establish group think, but rather explore lessons from how hive minds are created to establish a space where we can invest in ideas together. Publicly learning from one another.

Nature offers an interesting framing for us to consider this, the cycle metamorphosis.  A physical transformation that is enabled by the output of another form. The Innocence of the beginner. A questioning and deeply curious mind will help to shape a future of humanity that is generous rather than extractive. Practicing humility and acting with integrity. Nurturing technological advances through principles gained from an appreciation of indigenous knowledge.

What might be possible if we invested our time in ideas rather than spending time search for new ideas to execute on as individuals. The realm of possibility for collaboration has never been greater than it is today. We have the technology to connect across borders, connecting the best combination of minds to work on ideas that previously could not be fully executed due to constraints of the the time. 

And so I come back to the question that I raised at the start, are you investing or spending your time on ideas.

Let’s invest.

Imperfection.

If you google it or search for it in the dictionary, you will likely have a variation of one of the following definitions presented back to you.

“A blemish or undesirable feature”

“Something that is faulty or incomplete”

It’s a word that when used in different contexts can sometimes feel out of place, as it gives the feeling of something being less than perfect. In cultures that I am familiar with the word “perfect” is used frequently and is far more prevalent with respect to the common vocabulary.

Rarely will you hear people remark - “that’s beautiful, it’s imperfect”.

I’ll turn to nature to provide visual reference to hopefully land some of the things that may be running around in your mind as you read the previous sentences.

Have you ever watched a flower naturally transform itself as it opens? If you haven’t here’s a Timelapse of an Orchid bulb opening into a flower.

Nature is an excellent example of “the beauty of imperfection” as it evolutionary by design, “nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect”.

To close out this train of thought, here is a question for us all to consider. It stems from the condensed Japanese meaning of wabi-sabi, “wisdom in natural simplicity”.

What might it take for us to practice and appreciate the beauty of imperfection? Seeing it rather as part of the process, a hidden easter egg, rather than a negative or a inconvenience. Something that we should be grateful for as it gives us the space with which to build from, learn from the lessons of those that have been before us. After all beauty in its most natural form is impermanent by design.

Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. My brain starts to make more succinct connections when I give it the chance to slow down and download the bits that are flying around in my mind. As Shane Parrish famously says, “you can’t increase the speed of your decision making, but you can increase the quality”.

Reflecting on the event and the points that were raised by the speakers at the innovation jam, I can easily string the connections together through memory and collective experience.

One of my favourite words is serendipity and my time in Spain over the last two months has sure exposed me to many moments of serendipitous exchange.

I probably should have pointed out that had Covid not have happened, I would not have had the opportunity to attend the event and share some of my rambling thoughts. I feel as though I have had four years of learning within the last two, it was me searching for ways to recreate physical serendipitous interactions online during Covid that led me to say yes to an introductory phone call with Jens. Which then led to speaking on an online real estate event panel with Gaston, the founder of theleisureway, in 2021 and this subsequently triggered a visit to Spain in early 2022.

If you looked around the room at the diversity of people that attended the event, you would have seen many anopportunity for a serendipitous exchange. The combination of people with different views, backgrounds and experiences is why I enjoy get togethers of this nature.

Here are some of my notes, common threads, and observations from the speakers at the event.

Ocean:

There were several interesting points shared in this talk, here are the ones that I selected based on some of the thinking that they triggered for me.

While talking about the layers of the city, a point around social capital was raised. It’s a space that I have spent some time thinking about and I need to go deeper to make them a little more coherent. I shared some thoughts on this bridge last year — Exploring the bridge between social and financial capital. In his talk Ocean referred to Balaji Srinivasan whom I also reference in the piece. I would recommend checking out his website and pre-ordering his book Network State which is due to be released in July of 2022.

To better understand the influence that technology has had on people, it’s vital that we use the studies of social science and ethnographic research to guide our inquisition. Cities are interwoven spaces that uniquely combine different communities and we need to deeply study the influence of technology on societies evolution. This is a fascinating space that deserves a dedicated piece, I have added it to my writing list.

The point around social impact led me to think about public goods, positive sum worlds and shared infrastructure. The next time you walk round a city, you might look at things a little differently once you consider how all the roads and plumbing are maintained.

How might we bring more top talent and attention to work that needs to be done public goods? Gitcoin is a leader in this regard, I would recommend following the following thinkers on twitter — Scott Moore, Kevin.

Ignasi:

We have access to a remarkable amount of information through the internet and direct access to learn from the experience of others with a click of a button. It’s an exciting chapter for humanity to be living through and it is one of the reasons that I firmly believe we will work through some of the challenges that we face in respect to climate change.

Ignasi’s personal story about moving between contexts, start-ups and corporate juggernauts, reminded me about the need to unlearn and relearn things. Simply porting ideas and lessons from one space into another can often catch you out. Replicating outputs in different scenarios is beneficial for speed, but over the long run simple replication does not replace bespoke design that is aware of the context of each situation.

He raised an interesting point around middle management and how sometimes this can be a barrier to unlocking innovation within large corporations. It triggered me to think about incentive design and clarity of outputs. What might we do differently in this space to make the flow of information between departments in companies more fluid?

What might organisations look like in the future? Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) are an interesting and timely experiment, that are helping us to think through how we might design new ways of working together. Autonomy, small teams, context horizons, remote work, and agency, just a few of the things that are being explored. Organisations that are not paying attention to the developments in this space will battle to retain young/top talent over the coming years.

Ulrike:

Blended retail experiences. How did your retail behaviour change during covid and what will bring you back to an in-person shopping experience? It is going to be interesting to see how brands start to personalise physical spaces to individual needs, merging this with hyper personalised digital experiences driven by data.

We have five basic sensors, touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. The sensing organs associated with each sense send information to the brain to help us understand and perceive the world around us. The more I think about it, blended spaces will need to tap into and connect with the different sensory emotions. This will be part of a brands success when connecting with people.

With this in mind, we need to start to think differently about the data that we use to craft personalised experiences. At present we primarily use data from third party resources, purchase history, and search activity to build “personas” for audience. We need to get more creative to foster genuine relationships. What about personalised ownership and community affinity? A good example to explore this thinking at a deeper level is,Proof collective, a NFT (Non-Fungible Token) community nurtured by Kevin Rose.

As Ulrike was speaking, I was drawn to words from Socrates, “I cannot teach anyone anything, I can only make them think”. Her talk certainly encouraged me to think about what the blended world of retail may look like in the coming years.

Natalie:

The circular economy. A massive space, where does one even begin?!

Covid gave us a time to pause and reflect, a forced time out so to speak. There is no doubt that to create change we need to start somewhere, otherwise the situation will forever appear too daunting. The Ellen Macarthur Foundation and Kate Radworth’s Doughnut Economics, are two spaces that I follow closely and provide me with inspiration.

Natalie made a brilliant point around creating a movement and the power that we have as individuals. From sustainable consumerism and thinking about the choices we make in respect to the way we act, we all have an ownership of our collective future.

Mark:

An interesting talk from an established thinker that blended academic research with practical application.

I am busy reflecting on his points around co-production. Personally, I think that the framing around “production” is incorrect. Production is defined as “the action of making or manufacturing from components”, this aligns things too closely to an industrial era. Perhaps we should think about a metaphor that more aligned to crafting, weaving or sowing the fields together. We need to nurture the future together, not simply produce it.

Many of the ideas that he shared are being discussed at length inside the emerging web3 space. Mark encouraged us to shift the way we think about product market fit. This theme is a strong one within the web3 space where I deploy some of my mental resources. Building with and for the community, not producing something for people’s utility.

Frank:

Slow fashion and social capital, two fascinating points that made me think out our relationship with time. Convenience is great, but I also think that it has made humans a tad hasty, and we have lost the appreciation of things that take time. I would encourage us to all connect with an activity of making something, slow time down and tune into the felt experience.

Frank’s talk surfaced this quote from Reggie James “How we choose to do what we need to do is the basis of culture”, which was part of the first semester of Crypto Culture and Society (a DAO that I backed in 2021).

We have load of resources to get creative with when it comes to fashion, but we rarely react for materials that have already been manufactured. Franks white car leather servers as an inspiration for us to challengeconventions and think differently.

How can we better transfer this knowledge between generations, people, and industries? This in my mind is a core part of moving towards a circular economy.

Jens:

The person who brought us together and created the jam. Massive thank you sir!

Exploring systems design and the relation between the different components is something that fascinates me. The story Jen’s told about helping a friend of his, across language barriers, develop a structure to unlock the potential of his team. Creating an environment for exploration and enabling them to think for themselves is an important trait in good leaders.

So, how does this all link into the original topic that I had planned to speak about before I derailed my own talk by freestyling it.

Age is a number and a metric that is used to show the passing of time.

Ageing isn’t just the passing of years, getting older, but rather all the interactions we connect with on the journey. Experience might indeed come with the passing of time, but this has been accelerated by access to information enabled by technology.

If our reputation and identity is only tied to this number we call age, we turn humans into computers and their interactions into code.

If I had asked you at the end of my talk how old you thought I was, there would have been a variety of answers shared.

I want to challenge us to remove the concept of age as a number from our thinking. There are many different puzzle pieces that compose our identity. I think that at times we conflate (not all the time, but sometimes) — the concepts of age and experience.

The concept of age is complex. It’s just a number that has been used as an identifier to mark the passing of time. Experience on the other hand is something far more interesting to explore.

If you’re going to be designing and crafting organisations of the future, you need to think about how you’re going to foster an environment for different generations to collaborate with one another. Creating cross generational learning experiences and the opportunity for ideas to come together.

“Eventually everything connects — people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.” Charles Eames

Our inability as humans to see how truly connected the world is what gave rise to a fractured response to a global pandemic. It is also the cause of many problems the world faces today.

As we have globalised the world, we had focused on purely the number connections, but not the quality of them.

We can learn a lot from designers, their minds, and the past.

Reflecting on the last 24 months, I can’t help but think that as humans we had become too comfortable with what we once knew.

To those who attended get together, thanks for your attention. Life is made richer by the people we meet and the places that we visit along the way.

I started writing this in the plane in the middle of the night as I made my way back to South Africa — sitting someone high above the ground in the Middle East as the plane approached Dubai. I finished it while sitting in the bush with some friends in the Eastern Cape in South Africa.

From Spain to South Africa in 24 hours, via Dubai. I wonder what the original explorers who took years to move around the world would think.

You can find me on Twitter — @joshnuttall

The ever moving tread mill.
The fear of falling off and not being able to get back.
A deep seated worry that you will never have enough. What is enough?

Leaning into a year of discovery, exploration and experiences. Being alright with not knowing and thriving off not having the answers. Learning as we go.

Direction over destination. Learning from nature. Sprouting new growth and regeneration.

The courage to engage our imagination. To craft a future, aware of the past and created through the present.
A future of symbiotic interactions.

The way I introduce myself is something that I have become far more aware of over the last two years as we have spent an increased amount of time online and in-front of a massive digital mirror. I don’t recall being as intentional with the words I used to describe myself when we interacted in a time when we had more regular in person gatherings. This may have been due to the experience of meeting a person or sharing an introduction being more experiential and multi- sensual as you could interpret a lot more from the broader landscape in person and didn’t just have to rely on eyes and words.

Maybe this time apart has made us better listeners!

As I think through the different words or reference points that I have used to intro myself over the years, I find myself wondering why I chose the ones I did. The context of the situation influenced the reference points I used to share my experience of showcase some of my thinking, I am fortunate to have been thrown in the deep-end early in my career and had to learn many skills on the go.

Perhaps it is because we are now meeting new people in an environment where they have to capture the type of person we are by the 30 second intro we give and the portrait image on a screen or an anonymous avatar if we wish to reserve our human identity for those that we are close to. Or maybe it is because I have become far more intentional with the messages and writing that I am putting out into the world as I learn from the experiences of life. If I were to guess, it’s probably a mix of a number of things and not just one.

This is something that has been on my mind a lot recently and I was triggered to put some words down while reading Adam Grant’s latest book Think Again – the power power of knowing what you don’t know.

This particular line was the pivotal trigger.

“Who you are should be a question of what you value, not what you believe” Adam Grant

What may it mean to introduce ourselves by describing our values rather than listing accomplishments or past experiences as the first port of call to give our reputation some colour. Now some may say that we already do this sub-consciously in the way we answer the question by the type of response we give and how we describe ourselves outside of “work”.

Try picture it or maybe try it in your next introduction you give when you are asked to introduce yourself to a new group of people.

Imagine answering the question with – “hey I’m Josh, I value integrity, people, listening, and those with an ambition to help change the world we live in for the betterment of humanity”.

This concept may seem extremely foreign, but it shouldn’t be. Sharing your values gives the audience we are introducing ourselves to an insight into who we are as person rather than just listing the work we have done and then asking them to figure out the type of person we are based on the associations the work projects imply.

In creating this practice we are detaching ourselves from our “work” reputation and showing up as our true character. As Grant says, “In the moment, separating your past self from your current self can be unsettling”. However I strongly believe that if we are to create a better future, we need to connect personally and understanding the values of others can go a long way towards achieving this.

In the early chapters of Think Again, Grant says “Attachment. That’s what keeps us from recognizing when our opinions are off the mark and rethinking them. To unlock the joy of being wrong we need to detach”

If we aren’t able to detach we run the risk of not being able to adapt.

Practice humility and let’s connect with one another as people, not on achievements or previous pieces of work.

“You only need to know the direction, not the destination. The direction is enough to make the next choice.” James Clear

This is not a piece that will try to define Web3 (there are many people on Twitter who can do that far better than I can) or detail the change that is occurring, but rather one that shares why I identify with the future that Web3 offers us as humanity. It also touches on some of my learnings and journey so far.

The phase transition that is under way feels as though it is something that happens once every few generations. It is multi-dimensional and will change many facets of society. We are still early in the journey (despite the fomo-rometer being off the charts on many occasions with the speed that the space is moving at), but the foundations that are laid in these early stages will be extremely important for crafting the future together.

We are often faced with the question of where to next or what is our next step in life? It took me sometime to realise that we don’t have all the answers and that we need to trust ourselves to figure it out along the way. We will learn from the experiences we have and the people we meet, serendipitous interactions make magic.

It’s alright to not know exactly what the near future may hold as the journey is the destination and figuring it out in different contexts is all part of living life. I have been on history journey recently, looking back through time to see society how has dealt with forced change events and created physical spaces like cities. As the world came out of dealing with the Spanish Flu in the 1920s it was a prosperous decade. Reflecting on the last 24 months, I can’t help but think that as humans we had become too comfortable with what we once knew.

High levels of comfort can lead to lazy thinking which in turn exposes systems that have been constructed in silos and not with the broader ecosystem in mind. The challenges that Covid provided offered us a chance to look at things differently and imagine things differently.

Moral imagination, according to philosopher Mark Johnson, means envisioning the full range of possibilities in a particular situation in order to solve an ethical challenge. We need to envision a future that is more connected, open, accepting, sustainable, and embodies sharing. Continuing to live with and be influenced by models created to solve problems before our time will not help us build the future. 

Humans are social beings and we have the ability to effectively cooperate when we are brought together through shared stories or challenges where we need to collectively problem solve in order to develop solutions. History is full of examples of where stories have created social movements and shaped the world that we know today.

We live in an age were we have an abundance of information at our finger tips. Stories are constantly being spun up and fly at us from many different directions, being mindful of how we interact with this information and giving ourselves time to process the points that are being raised rather than just endlessly consuming in abundance can help us make sense of the world around us. 

Below are some of the stories, thinkers and points of reference that have influenced my decision to dive in head first. The list below is in no particular order and the are many other thinkers - Graeme, Patrick, Balaji, Gaby, Bhaumik, Bhoka, Dame, Chris Dixon - to name just a few and projects who have help me grow and challenged my thinking over the last eight months. I am deeply grateful to have found them in the wide open web.

Li Jin’s piece, A Labor Movement for the Platform Economy

Her Twitter thread, which exploded on twitter confirmed that people are very quick to judge a book by its cover and often don’t bother to turn the pages or engage with view that challenge their own ways of thinking. So, before you jump to conclusions while reading the piece, I encourage you to engage with the broader ecosystem… crypto is not just about trading tokens and Ponzi games.

Packy McCormick’s writing that he features through his Not Boring Newsletter is excellent and he has this ability to connect with the read regardless of their expertise on a selected subject. His piece titled “The Great Online Game”, published in May of 2021, shows how we are all currently engaged in one of the greatest games of our lives.

Jasmin Sun wrote an excellent piece “Take Back The Future - a progressive case for techno-optimism”… “To imagine a feasible future for progressive technology, we have to first recognize the gains of the past. The soaring optimism of the 2000s and early 2010s had some basis in reality. The internet presented us with radical new ways of connecting with each other, sharing resources, and creating knowledge outside of institutional and geographic bounds.” 

Mario Laul’s writing in general, but particularly his piece “How Crypto is Shaping The Digital Revolution”. I was fortunate to read this piece before it was published and it provided a concise framing for how crypto is part of a much bigger revolution.

Rafa’s Twitter profile defines him as a community builder, but I would argue that he is much more than the definition these two words offer.

Sirsu, Culture in Progress: Building On-Chain Social Capital. “French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu articulated his framework of the three forms of capital—economic (money), social (networks of influence), and cultural (artifacts of value). In this formulation, Bourdieu was describing different ways in which power operates to shape society…”

Reggie, Expanding Our Cultural Reference Points - “How we choose to do what we need to do is the basis of culture”

You can get a snapshot overview of who I have interacted with on Twitter over the last year below.

The internet is a weird and wonderful place. There are a lot of bad things and actions that happen on the net, but there is also loads of good that comes from the space. It has opened some remarkable doors for me and introduced me to special people.

A defining moment that started my Web3 journey was finding Crypto Culture and Society (CCS) a learning DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation) late one night in September 2021. Reminder to self - when you lean into something that you are looking to learn more about, you are often able to find others who are also thinking in the space. The decision to back and join Crypto Culture and Society pushed me directly into the ecosystem. I have always been an advocate for learning by doing and this was the spark that is a big reason why I am here today.

More recently, I have actively sought to start contributing to DAOs (Mirror DAO and CCS) and learning from the emergence of the interactions. A snap shot of my biggest lessons thus far:

•Become comfortable feeling uncomfortable.

•Employ a rigorous thinking practice early.

•Build the smallest possible experiments (minimal viable experiments) first and gather feedback to refine hypotheses rather than build elaborately from the very beginning.

•Give yourself time to think before you react - don’t confuse action for actions sake with valuable contributions

•Seek new wells and reference points (full credit to Reggie James for the influence you had on my thinking in this regard)

•Build in public and share your learnings openly (encourage open and honest feedback/commentary)

Leaning into learning with no expectations is a wonderful thing to do. The community that the learning DAO introduced me to accelerated my understanding of the ecosystem. Throwing many new concepts my way and quite literally throwing me into the deep-end. I chose to figure out how to swim and to absorb as much of the information that was crossing my path, here are some of the resources I have collected along the way.

Exposing myself in this way to a new space led me to explore the agency that we have as individuals to shape our future and to contribute in a small way to the collective with the decisions that we take. The way we interact with our surroundings and pursue the opportunities that cross our paths’ is solely up to us to seek out the connections. Thus when I was presented with the opportunity to apply for a data learning cohort with OurNetwork and Dune Analytics, I jumped at it. The 30 days of focused learning provided me with an introduction to blockchain data and the fundamentals for being able to understand actions that take place on chain. I still need to share my learnings from this experience and my hope is that it will give back to the broader community, let me commit to doing this in the next two months. If you wish to learn about blockchain data, here are the public recordings and resources. Massive thanks to Andrew for the gift of his time, patience and teaching.

Along with the agency we have as individuals, we are also carry the responsible for helping to shape the future and leaving the world a little better off than we first found it. This quote from the excellent Dr Seuss seems fitting for the point that I am seeking to convey. 

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”

Who knows where the future will lead, but as I wrote a few week’s back in the piece Into the future, the keys you hold and the power of harnessing individuality

Right, so that’s a little bit about my journey so far and some of the experiences that I have been exposed to. So what is it that attracted me to the potential that Web3 offers? I have been thinking deeply about this over the last six weeks since making the decision to dive in head first and I have settled on four areas that have captured my curiosity. As I write this, I am almost certain that I will look back on this in a few months and need to update some of the thinking shared as the experiences that lie on the horizon will refine the views that I have currently.

Composability - evolving and growing off the work of others. It encourages shared collaboration and means that more that one person benefits from solving a problem or crafting a solution.

Emergence - we are navigating the changing environment together, seeking to ask better questions and looking to build in a way that is deeply connected to the entire ecosystem not just a silo.

Ownership - in owning a part of the space we are creating we changing our relationship to it. There is a fundamental difference between using and owning.

Responsibility - we have a shared responsibility to create the future. Cynics don’t build the future. Think bigger and to engage with people around ideas that we can enact to help make the world a better place.

Individually we don’t have all the answers but collectively humans are incredibly resilient. We need to be more willing to engage with diversity and views that differ from the ones we hold. Encouraging ourselves to unlearn concepts that we may have held which are no longer relevant to the current environment in which we find ourselves today.

I have not doubt that there will be challenging times, life is not all sun shine and roses. Nothing worth doing is ever easy, but it’s up to us to make it fun. Life’s too short to not be having fun in what we are creating.

As Bill Gates say “most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years”. Let’s remember to zoom out when the going gets tough and remind ourselves why we are leaning into the emergence.

With that, it is time to bring this piece to a close. I wanted to challenge myself to share my decision to dive head first into Web3 in a public forum, to hold myself accountable and to make it known that I am ready to contribute to the road ahead.

As we enter the first month of Twenty Twenty Two I am grateful to have the opportunity to lean into the year ahead. It’s time to…

Recognise

Allow

Investigate

Nurture

(RAIN).

It’s time to build, see you on the internet.

In the world there are over 7000 languages and many dialects of some languages which will probably make this number even greater. An interesting statistic to note is that only 23 of these languages are spoken by half of the world’s population.

-Over 1.3 billion people speak English (370 million are native speakers)

-Over 1.1 billion people speak Madarin Chinese (922 million are native speakers)

-Over 637 million people speak Hindi (342 million are native speakers)

*these numbers were referenced from Encore!!!

I find these numbers particularly fascinating. The number of native English speakers leads me further into the rabbit hole. 

Language connects us. It allows us to communicate, to share our thinking, to engage with others, and to learn. The thread of connection has changed over time as the world has become more globalised. We have had to learn different languages to ensure that we can connect with those around us when we visit new countries or locations.  Digital translation tools have come to the rescue and made it easier to translate languages that we don’t know. However, they do still have some way to go. I would recommend double checking the translations that are generated with a local before you use them widely as there are sometimes some subtleties that you can easily miss which can lead to embarrassment when you mix your words up.

What does this mean for the way we communicate in the workplace and how we connect through the different generations? 

As a starting point, let’s take a look at the different time zones around the globe. Within each of these time zones there are multiple languages and thus working in a digital economy means that you need to be aware of the influence that language may have on the individuals you are working with. As a practical example, I am working from South Africa and collaborating with people who live into Europe. They are not native English speakers, which means that their brains are translating their thinking into English to be able to communicate in the conversations that we have. One could say that they are thinking in their mother tongue, translating it through thought into English and then communicating it. Thus they are doing a third step in the communication process, while I am just doing two.

So, what is a universal language? Is English really universal? Many will argue that it is and it has enabled us to collaborate across geographical boundaries. Math has also been referenced as one and I think you can also include certain coding languages in the category of being a universal language.

Last week I wrote about bits in a digital world and I think that we have many lessons to learn from how pieces of software communicate with one another. When you write code, if you aren’t aware of the broader context, underlying meta data or relationship structures your application won’t function. When we communicate as humans using language I think that we often assume many things and are not aware of the interconnected nature of things.

Establishing really human connections therefore becomes key. What can we learn about the people around us that we are communicating with or that are within our team at the work place? 

These many seem like “simply” questions to ask, but it’s up to you to see how you apply them in the interactions you have. Just a different parts of the brain are used when we have to learn new things, knowing what can enable the young thinkers on your team can help to unlock their thinking and propel the organisation to new heights.

Lastly, a thought to ponder. Does language necessarily need to involve talking or an action? 

As Susan Cain says, “There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas”

SOMETHING FOR YOU TO THINK ABOUT

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations. ~ Charles R Swindoll

From a young age, I have had a fascination to explore how things really worked. At times this has gotten me into trouble because I have pushed things too far or asked one too many questions.

So, what does it mean to do the right thing?! While the answer to this question is rather subjective and will likely come down to the context in which it is being asked. It usually has some relation to integrity. Next time you’re asked to do the right thing check in with your integrity.

The difference between whether we “could” or “should” do something is a dilemma that many people working in technology face when they make a decision. We also face this choice in relatively simply decisions, like when I decided to have an ice cream earlier today. I knew that I could easily have an ice cream from the café, but should I really because it’s not the weekend and it’s breaking my rule of only having sweat things at the weekend…

This week I had a conversation with an experienced thinker who was generous to give me some of his time and share a few perspectives on the Metaverse, which has now become popularised thanks to the big tech platforms who are now building for a shared virtual space. It crazy how lots of happenings in life really do come down to timing and the mixing of other contextual factors.

The conversation was wide ranging and it got me thinking about how we form our own opinions from the theory we consumer and digest. I realised that I had perhaps become super immersed in one point of view and because I had not had my thinking challenged, I had started to buy-in to the hypothesis that was being explained by a particular narrative. Recognising this highlighted the importance of being willing to consider the views of others when informing our decisions and to remember to check our own thinking.

My thinking lead me to consider the concept of ethics in a world with no right answers.

Where to start?!

A few years back I read a piece titled “The cross roads of should and must” which was written by Elle Luna.

“Over the past year I’ve chosen Must again and again. And it was petrifying. And at times it was dark. But I would never, ever, trade this past year for anything. This essay is my three biggest takeaways from the experience. It’s for anyone who is thinking of making the jump from Should to Must. Anyone looking to follow the energy deep within their chest but aren’t quite sure how.”

HERE’s the link to her piece on Medium and the talk below will also give you an insight into some of her thinking.

In the context that I am choosing to elaborate on this thinking – Elle’s should is my could and her “must” is my should. A little conflicting for the mind, but stay with me while I explain.

We’re living in the age of the access and decentralisation. I have grown up in a world of mobile phones, access to the internet, and a j-curve growth in digitalisation. Commoditisation is also wide spread and many of the things in our immediate surrounds have been commodified to remove friction. Just think about how easy it is to walk over to the light switch and turn on the light, our charge your phone.

What does this all mean and why do we need to be cognisant of it?

Our fascination with removing the friction from processes means that we have made the “could” even easier than before meaning that we don’t necessarily ask the question of “should” I really be doing this enough.

Take the example of OpenAI Codex. It’s a tool that was released this week that allows you to turn natural language into code. I love technology and so innovations like this get me excited and my mind starts to run with the opportunities that could now be possible. Imagine being able to talk to Codex and get it to write code, the demo is remarkable. I do wonder though how it will get around the translation issue from ideas into code, in the teams I have worked in a strong product owner who can speak both languages is the secret key.

Should we really be building programs to write code from natural language? There will be varying views on this and I don’t want to polarise my view, but rather use it as an example to show how our fascination with removing friction from processes has created an environment where we are hyper focused on the “could”. I am all for innovation, building new things and pushing boundaries but we should always do things integrity.

“It’s not what an artist does that counts, but what he is” Pablo Picasso

Could makes things better than they are today, while should creates foundations for others to build on.

If you are reading this you are doing so off a digital device and you probably have a few other apps or browser windows open at the same time. You may be catching up on emails quickly between zoom calls in the virtual world, our multi-tasking while you drink your morning coffee. In short you are engaging with this in amongst a number of other things on the go, and these are just the ones that you are consciously aware of. We won’t’ go into the background app refresh that is just about to hit you with a notification that is going to dart across your screen any second now.

In this always on world, an expectation has developed for our minds to also be “always on” and when you are asked for the answer to question if you haven’t responded in a narrow time frame you are labelled as being slow.

The impact of this broader environment on our style of thinking is significant. I think that the biggest effect happens subconsciously because we are exposed to a world of instant gratification and business models have been develop to remove the friction of interactions which means lots of the things we need are just a click away. 

We have to use technology to help us break through the stigma surrounding “slow and deep thinking”. Regaining our thinking time. The new iPad OS and macOS Monterey, which I am operating through Apple’s public beta, has the option to set focus periods so that you can intentionally shut yourself off from the digital world. I am not advocating that one should shut themselves off forever, rather that we need to nurture our thinking time and this is one of the ways that we can do just that.

With this in mind consider the below graphic around decision making. 

Where should we be spending our time and energy? Can you build a system to help you process the inconsequential quadrants? This does not mean that you ignore them, but rather than you use your time where it is most value.

We should rethink our relationship with time and realise that if we don’t break the stigma around “slow and deep thinking” we may have to correct many of the rushed decisions that are taken in society today because they have not been thought through at a deep enough level.

“A busy calendar and a busy mind will destroy your ability to create anything great” Naval Ravikant

SOMETHING FOR YOU TO THINK ABOUT

What can altruism teach us about how to improve and develop the interactions between people within teams? 

Altruism is defined as the principle and moral practice of concern for the happiness of other humans. Happy people do their best work and make meaning full contributions. 

Thinking about altruism may lead you into the path of effective altruism which links to a broader philosophy – “how can we use our resources to help others?” – you can explore more of the thinking HERE.

Focusing on making other people happy within a broader team can have significant improvements around outputs and we learn loads from altruism to create better relationships.

What’s the first thing that came to mind when you read that word? 

Everyone in the world will have a different answer and I find that fascinating seeing that we have all occupied the online world for much of the last 18 months. Throw into the mix the metaverse discussion over the last few weeks and it adds another dimension. Broadly defined, the meta verse is the shared virtual space and I do wonder if the metaverse will be the same shared space for us all…

When I hear the world space the first thing that jumps into my mind is the wide open space of the Karoo in South Africa. Perhaps this is because I spent much of 2020 boxed up in a flat in the city or maybe it’s because I have been doing a lot of thinking recently about how we need to give ourselves space.

How does our environment change the way we think of and define space? We have all experienced this in some way, shape or form. If you’ve worked in a coffee shop that space will bring a different flavour to your thinking. You may be evoked or gain inspiration from a comment you hear as two individuals pass by. Or perhaps you’re given a shot of energy thanks to your double shot of espresso from your favourite barista rather than your two table spoons of instant coffee.

You get the picture, the space we occupy can directly influence our thinking and who we are as person. 

One of the things that I think we have missed over the last 24 months is serendipitous interactions. This was one of the pulls for living in big cities being a young professional. I was able to build off and embrace the energy that was created by the dynamic interactions I had. Creating serendipitous meetings in the digital realm is a little challenging. This does not mean that it can’t be done, but just that it requires a new approach to thinking about how you recreate a conversation that may have been started while you were waiting in a queue to order your morning cup of coffee. Or maybe you met a complete stranger on the train ride into the office on Wednesday.

These serendipitous interactions are pivotal to our growth and not having had them, I have been left thinking about how I need to intentionally put myself into digital online spaces where I can try to recreate them. As an example, last year I joined a design call with Stephen Gates, a well-known designer whose podcast you may have listened to, and few other designers from America. Totally outside of my comfort zone, but it was an attempt to be serendipitous and see what came from it. 

Neuroplasticity is broadly defined as the brain's ability to modify, change, and adapt both structure and function throughout life and in response to experience. Without wanting to go down a rabbit hole here, I want us to briefly think about what this may mean for the way that humans brains may develop over time. What is the response of the brain and its ability to adapt not having had serendipitous exchanges for an extended period of time? We may have well developed or strengthened other areas of our brain, but what those that have we weaken through not having these types of interactions?

Connecting in the virtual world still has some way to go. The release of Horizon Workrooms today was greeted with mixed emotions. Personally, I think that it still needs a lot of work. It reminded me of the hours I spent playing SimCity as a kid, I think that the graphics and experience in this game over 20 years ago were better than the demo I saw today.

So, I guess that we’re stuck in this 2D world for the moment. Trying to figure it all out and design out serendipitous interactions. Pushing yourself to look for serendipitous spaces will definitely feel strange as first, we have all had an awkward video call where both people on the call are not sure who should speak first and end up speaking over one another. We got better with time, so my suggestion would be to start. See if you can put yourself into a serendipitous online space in the next week.

SOMETHING THAT I DISCOVERED THIS WEEK THAT I DIDN’T KNOW LAST WEEK

The history of the hour glass. 

It was invented by a French monk called Liutprand in the 8th century AD. It’s a device that is used to measure a the passage of time. It’s symmetrical upper and lower spheres allow the same duration to be measure regardless if you stand it on its head or bottom.

The reason this fascinated me is because when I think about space, time is often involved. Being in one place can make time feel like it is flying by. 

A TED TALK YOU SHOULD WATCH

“You have to express yourself. And to express yourself, you have to know yourself. It's actually super easy. You just have to follow your love. There is no path. There's no path till you walk it, and you have to be willing to play the fool. So don't read the book that you should read, read the book you want to read. Don't listen to the music that you used to like. Take some time to listen to some new music. Take some time to talk to somebody that you don't normally talk to. I guarantee, if you do that, you will feel foolish. That's the point. Play the fool.” Ethan Hawke

Watch it here.