This week I have learned:
- how important procrastination is in the creative process, but how fearful people are of it. A fascinating discussion which happened at Kev Molloy’s wonderful Social (Media) Mixer this week. The Protestant Work Ethic is strong, and if we are not all pumping out stuff like machines, then we feel guilty. But thinking doesn’t work like a machine. It’s not a level throughput. It comes in peaks and troughs. The next idea that comes in a flash will have been nearly 56 years in the making.
- care 20% less. Good advice at the same event.
- digging deeper and deeper into ideas about what value is, and how contextual it all is. One person’s or one organisation’s value isn’t necessarily the same as another’s, but if things aren’t clear and explicit, everything eventually trickles down to “cost” because it’s easy to measure in the short term. Real value rarely appears in a neat financial quarter or financial year.
- I was asked this week what I can’t give up (again at Kev’s event). My glib response was a nice notebook and my Kaweco Sport. I realised through the conversation that it’s actually the deeply held belief that the BBC is something worth preserving. I realise increasingly that it might be born of emotion rather than logic, but emotions are just as important.
- any AI-powered chatbot should, by law, be A/B tested against ELIZA. I think ELIZA will stand up surprisingly well.
- anybody who is creating AI-powered chatbots that doesn’t know what ELIZA is shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the technology.
- it was a week where I was reminded of how important it is to get into rooms and really engage in conversation. Not meetings. Conversations. Meetings are bad; conversations are good.
- the actionable outcome of a conversation is the conversation. See the earlier point about thinking and procrastination.
- you’d be surprised at the sort of organisations that get flummoxed by digital processes. Actually, if you’re reading this, you’d probably not be.
The week in media:
Saw
- Down Cemetery Road. Probably about 50% too long (as is the case with most TV series these days IMO), but a good yarn. I’m looking forward to the next Slow Horses next week…
Read
- Finished Walk the Lines. It was good, but Mark Mason the author was somewhat curmudgeonly. It’s fascinating how much London has changed (or not) in the decade+ since he wrote it.
- Now on to Ed Conway’s Trade World. Material World was brilliant.
Listened
- Chaka Khan. Chaka Khan.
Next week:
- Some juggling.
mmitII 