Issue #25: Oneironauts, Cities and Scale.
Hope summer is already treating you well. It’ll be a bumper issue of Polymathic this week, what with the break. Do check out the last Product Management focused PM issue which came to us courtesy of Rohini Pandhi.
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Now we’ve gotten that out of the way, on to some bumper summer edition awesomeness!! You’ll come back to this several times over the summer. Savor it.
Articles
A few years ago there was this mass push to ‘learn to code’. Thankfully that died down a bit because the real need is to learn how to think. And, truth be told, learning to code in middle age is oh so much fun.
Atul Gawande, Physician and Author, gave this year’s commencement at UCLA Medical School. Read it to understand what equality truly means.
’Medicis in the desert’: an interesting look at how the lives of two artists can so quickly diverge even as they seemingly pursue similar goals through their art.
For oneironauts, the answer to the question ’Is Dreaming Real?’ is obvious. The rest of us will continue to wonder.
Electronic curb cuts (digital versions of those wheelchair access recessions you see at street crossings) provide inclusion and accessibility opportunities in technology. Here’s a paper on the necessary work being done in the space [PDF].
What we choose to ignore, especially when it comes to diversity/inclusion in cities, has ramifications for continued prosperity. Don’t believe me, believe science.
We know some mind-shifting possibilities exist with VR/AR. But virtual embodiment might be some next level stuff.
Morgan Housel might be one of my favorite short essay writers today. I’d been thinking about a ‘Limits to Growth’ article applied to business, and I might write one over the summer, and Housel’s ’Casualties of our own Success’ added a few pieces to the article puzzle in my head.
California mandated that, from 2020, new homes should come with solar panels. Using regulation to catalyze adoption of a technology that works now (cost effectively) under the current market assumptions (today’s cost-effectiveness) is a bad idea. That being said, when the cost of electricity is abstracted away, an idea I explain in this video, the utility business model is in trouble.
I was starting to slide into the thinking that voice controlled devices are now more novelty than true value. Until I read this.
What’s happening to the China of old? It’s a story happening across the world.
The Ivory trade. It baffles me and I will never get the point. But when money and value perceptions are involved, I guess anything makes sense.
I love a good ad. I watch those 'greatest ads of [pick your year] compilations unashamedly. The Apple ad with FKA Twigs ad just became my current fave after watching the behind the scenes video. The engineer in me absolutely loves that the visual tricks were all mechanically implemented.
Happiness and the Gorilla. MUST. READ. Regardless of what you think of Scott Galloway.
Are cities truly the engine of growth? What about megacities?
One thing I believe might stifle the mass adoption of electric vehicles is the resource requirements. Watching this video on the true story behind the cobalt in our EV batteries is sobering.
Regardless of the video above, people are choosing more and more to drop the old model of being on the grid all the time and buying more renewable energy.
…especially as technology for battery-free ‘smart’ toys moves closer to commercial reality.
The sheer size and dominance of the duopoly in the eyewear/lens space was a revelation to me when my wife worked there a few years ago. And now they’ve merged. Let’s all welcome another new global monopoly.
There really is some value in long-term Strategic planning. Just ask Amazon.
These three ways in which bitcoin could be destroyed don’t sound so far-fetched.
I’m not afraid of heights, but standing on the ‘deck’ of these 600M high wind turbines would scare me silly. This interactive article also shows the basics of designing turbines using biomimicry. You know I love me some biomimicry
Books
There are a couple of tomes in these recommendations. But you have all summer so it should be ok :)
What is creativity? Are we all creative? Questlove, of the legendary Roots crew, shares his thoughts on these questions in ’Creative Quest’.
’The Kinfolk Entrepreneur: Ideas for Meaningful Work’ is a coffee table book that further dives into creativity by talking to creatives across varying industries.
’The Square and The Tower (networks and power, from the Freemasons to Facebook)’ by Niall Ferguson, will both confuse and enlighten you. You’ll leave this book knowing more about what we already know - networks and hierarchies are a part of our human fabric - and more amazed by the breadth of the author’s knowledge than by the lessons.
While some of the ideas shared by Janine Benyus in ’Biomimicry’ are now around us, there is still so much we can learn by steeping product design and development in lessons learned from nature.
The best book I’ve read so far this year is ’Scale’ (The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies)’ by Geoffrey West. It’s another tome but, unlike The Square and The Tower, it provides clarity even as it dives into concepts that would be unfamiliar to non-scientists. Great explanations and applications of complexity, networks and systems theories without seeming like he’s talking down to anyone.
For a look into how systems thinking can help you forecast the future, read ’Future Shock’ by Alvin Toffler. I picked this up again a few weeks ago because, while he was wrong on specifics, the book is directionally right in how technology changes our lives. Worth a read in these times.
Products
Answer the Public lets you dig into what people type into search engines. Fascinating.
Read Principles by Ray Dalio, but I suggest you skip first part covering his early life by watching his Charlie Rose interview and go on the adventure mini-series.
If you consider Polymathic Monthly an “intellectual rabbit hole” (thanks, Nik) you will love Undark. It’s PM on steroids.
In a backlash to the global approach to engagement and sharing (twitter/facebook), some believe the future will be local and Neighbourly (there is some irony in the fact this is owned by Google) and more community-based Mighty Networks (pair your learning about this product with reading the Niall Ferguson recommendation above.
Have a great summer and please please send your recommendations along. I’ll send one email, can’t resist, but it’ll be an announcement of some goodness. Thanks so much for always reading.
n/b: I maintain a positive vibe with Polymathic Monthly. It’s not because I am oblivious to crazy things going on around us. It’s because we all need a space to recharge and refresh. I choose to make PM that space.
Best
Seyi