We have a saying in my family: "tocco con mano," I touch with my own hand. We don't use it to talk about an irregularity on the Italian football field, aptly named "calcio," because you're supposed to use your feet.
Touching with your own hand is a more reliable method of learning—and bearing witness—than sight. Because sensation bypasses some editing circuitry that fits facts to suit an existing narrative. Human beings are pattern seekers, and stories are easier containers to carry around and transmit information.
When you touch with your own hand, you're more likely to feel the impact of a situation. This is also the reason why we're so attached to our mobile devices. Steve Jobs—a fan of Italian design and craft—understood the value in use of touch.
While technology has been a life-saver during the pandemic, allowing the privileged to carry on working in safety, protracted use disembodies. Screens separate us from physical contact. Never mind post screen time (see what it does to children). Screens separate us in such ways that we stop touching with hand the consequences of words and actions. When the goal is to prove that "someone is wrong on the Internet," rage flares quickly.
You would not walk up to someone on the street and shout at them. Not normally. Yet, that is what advertising and unsolicited emails do every second. The elites used to settle disputes with the sword (or the pistol), but that belongs to a narrative that has run its course. A network of kinship and commerce in small communities is actually what formed civilizations.
There's a more insidious cultural consequence to the phenomenon of detachment. Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano says, “We live in a world where the funeral is more important than the dead, marriage more than love, and the body more than the intellect. We live the culture of the container that despises the content."
Except the way we worship the body is unhealthy. Because it's focused not he container and not the proper functioning. Dr. Richard Calydon echoes my experience on nutrition, where we're once again beholden to a tired narrative, which was likely never evidence-based. He calls the patterns in the data similar to those of the leadership complex, "A deeply held belief system that was theorised a half-century plus ago, that taints pretty much every contemporary study, plus an industrial complex that has risen up in support of its consequences."
In the absence of a valid theory,
we retrofit a made up story
to suit how we do things.
I see it all the time in companies. Where the narrative supports a fundamental misunderstanding: people think they know what's going on, yet they're wrong. This is how agreement becomes the highest form of risk. No clarity around who is going to do what and when. You lose actual money in the actual world this way, often unaware of what is amiss.
"A theory has to be based on experiment and observation. It has to be evidence-based." Dr. Nikos A. Salingaros is Professor of Mathematics and Architecture at the University of Texas at San Antonio. You touch it with your own hands. And those of others.
You cannot simply provide a retrograde explanation for how you do things today and call that a theory. But this is mostly what we're doing in much of the current narrative, including (and especially) history.
You need to be able to test a theory.
The stories I selected for this week will show you the distinction. Starting with how we talk about technology as if it were a brand new concept. Going into the psychology of how the forces that hold power do it. And how commerce could—it's not there, but it could—rejoin with the ancient notion of kinship. For now, we have companies and easy choices. It's a start.
The excellent Ben Thompson draws a distinction between capabilities and intentions. It's worth spending a moment to reflect on this.
Are we losing the value of human grooming methods like secrets and gossip? Are there too many rumors?
And finally, the value of nothing.
I've put some work into an update of the concept of "Me, Inc." vs. autonomy. Do test my theory. Does it hold up?
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OUTGROWTH
"Isn’t it possible that the most recent outgrowths of our own species-specific telecommunicative activity—most notably, the internet—are in fact something more like an outgrowth latent from the beginning in what we have always done, an ecologically unsurprising and predictable expression of something that was already there? And could it be, correlatively, that the internet is not best seen as a lifeless artifact, contraption, gadget, or mere tool, but as a living system, or as a natural product of the activity of a living system? The Internet Is Not as New as You Think ( Wired.)
+ "Which begs the question many have been asking —as it continues to emulate real organisms, will this structure we think of as a computer become self-aware?" How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What it Means.
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SAVIOR COMPLEX
Historical roots: "With the fall of Constantinople, Eastern Roman traditions came to Moscow, and with this came Religion, Conservatism and Authority and the belief that supremacy cannot be challenged as authority is given by God and is therefore infallible and cannot be challenged." And "'Russia is deaf to the logic of reason, but very sensitive to the logic of power.' American imperialism is based on some want or need. Say, oil. Russian imperialism is based on fear." Catherina Fake on How Russians think, and why they do what they do.
+ Modern reputation: "In the days since we initially published our list, many of the "remain" companies have responded to public backlash and decided to withdraw, and we are continuously revising our list to reflect these decisions as they are made. " Over 300 Companies Have Withdrawn from Russia - But Some Remain (Yale School of Management)
+ Easy choices: One of the easier stands companies have had to make "But we also believe Ukraine stands out for one important reason: For many of these companies, it may have been one of the easiest stands they’ve ever taken – even if there is a financial cost." Why Apple, Disney, IKEA, and hundreds of other Western Companies are abandoning Russia with barely a shrug ( The Conversation.)
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3
CAPABILITIES VS. INTENTIONS
"The capability wielded by the tech industry is incredible; it is easy to cheer when it is being used in the service of intentions that are so clearly good. It’s equally easy to understand how much fear that capability may generate in the long run." Ben Thompson on Tech and War.
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4
SECRECY
"For the first time, experiments demonstrate the possibility of sharing secrets with perfect privacy — even when the devices used to share them cannot be trusted." And “I sometimes say tongue-in-cheek even God couldn’t know it. The universe hadn’t decided what the value would be before it was measured. That’s the origin of the security.” Cryptographers Achieve Perfect Secrecy With Imperfect Devices ( Quanta Magazine.)
+ "We live in times of great uncertainty, complexity, and volatility. Should we be surprised that the volume of gossip and (potentially) rumor has gone up? Entire cultures are built on motivation and intent -- talk and action are downstream consequences and expressions of what people believe." Secrets, Gossip, and Rumors.
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5
THE VALUE OF NOTHING
Is marketing still part of the value creation process? "When you think about it there are two ways of adding value in the world. You can either work out what people want and find a really clever way to make it, or you can work out what you can make and find a really clever way to make people want it. The money you make is no different regardless of the direction of travel. In reality, most things are a mixture of the two.” Rory Sutherland on Marketers should see capitalism as a ‘discovery mechanism.'
++ My take is that marketing is how you connect what the business can do with what customers want. There are brilliant professionals who do this well.
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6
BETTER BUSINESS PRACTICE
My focus is clear communication and who's going to do what, when. Some companies want to find the words and narrative that can express and navigate the type of culture change they experience after a pivot. Others need help metabolizing a disconnect after a technology implementation for customer experience. In both cases, without clear communication, business is leaving money on the table.
+ This week I published an update on personal branding: "Me, Inc." and Autonomy.
++ Are you a good fit for working with me? More on values.
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