Category Archives: Weak Signals

The on-demand economy

Posted on by
Reply

Two interesting conversations last week. The first concerned generational attitudes to privacy. A friend was considering putting their home on Airbnb. His daughter (22) thought it was a great idea. His wife (40 something) was horrified. It exposed differing attitudes to not only privacy but possessions. Ownership Vs. access too. I thought it was interesting.

The second conversation was with a retailer. I had long thought that the new ‘on demand’ economy had a small glitch, which was its business model and economics. Essentially, retailers aren’t making any money on instant (same day) delivery. Customers won’t pay much more than a few pounds to have something delivered on the same day, but it costs more than this to do it. Not sustainable, unless someone can unlock value somewhere or possibly bundle the delivery cost into something else or support it with something else (ads?).

No time to be a kid these days

Posted on by
Reply

I’m aware of students that no longer attend university lectures, preferring instead to watch their lectures online at 1.5x speed (going backwards if they don’t understand something). However, I was having a chat with someone today and heard a new twist on this. Someone they know doesn’t have time to read their small child a book at bedtime. So the child has been given various audio books (or maybe the child found their own audio books I can’t recall) and the kid listens to bedtime stories at 1.5x speed.

Rage Rooms (a weak signal)

Posted on by
Reply

Screen shot 2016-08-24 at 08.52.15

A while ago, in my book Future Vision, I wrote about people destroying technology for fun (extract above). This wasn’t an existing trend, but one I could see coming. Well it’s come true. In the USA, Canada, Russia and Italy people are setting up ‘Rage Rooms’ where people can pay $3 per minute to destroy everything from TVs to computers with a baseball bat or sledgehammer. There’s a even been a pop up Rage Room in New York and there’s a company called Tantrums in LA. whose slogan is “we break things.”

Meanwhile, and clearly connected, a poll in the US by CNN/ORC has found that 71 per cent of Americans are either “very” or “somewhat angry” about “the way things are going on in the country today.”

Breaking stuff isn’t a new thing. In the UK we’ve had crockery and plate smashing at fairgrounds for hundreds of years. But this is different. This is a cascade of rage. I’m telling you people, this is a very strong weak signal and indicative of something quite nasty potentially.

Quote of the Week… and much, much more

Posted on by
Reply

So much to think about at the moment, which is why I’ve been rather absent of late. I’m working on something looking at the future of water, some provocation cards for a Tech Foresight 2016 event and something on risk for London Business School.

But more interesting than all of this is something I heard on the radio this morning. Don’t even ask why I was listening to Katy Perry but I was and a song called Part of Me came on. One of the lines was:

“I just want to throw away my phone away. Find out who is really there for me.”

Normally I wouldn’t pay much attention to this, but there’s another song I heard not so long ago by James Blunt with the line:

“Seems that everyone we know’s out there waiting by a phone wondering why they feel alone.”

And last week someone was telling me how students at an art college had abandoned ‘digital installations’ in favour of painting and drawing. Are we seeing some kind of rebalancing emerging here?

Oh, the quote…

“If we allow our self-congratulatory adoration of technology to distract us from our own contact with each other, then somehow the original agenda has been lost.” – Jaron Lanier.

Here we go again?

Posted on by
1

Wasting time at the hell hole known as Gatwick Airport and reading the New York Times. Not sure which is more of a worry, Donald Trump or the European Central Bank paying banks to take their loans (basically, you pay back less than you borrow, which is a bit like getting a free small car with a large car loan). I see trouble ahead! Also reading about the cooling off of prime real estate in New York and auctions that fail to sell things.

I’m almost certainly reading too much intro this, but the fact that six near identical Ferrari Testarossa’s from the late 1980s and early 1990s were on sale at Bonham’s auction in Paris last month may say something significant about the state of the global economy. The fact that half of them failed to sell may say something too. In short, the bubble seems to be reaching its peak and the top end of this and many other markets may be calming down, which might be a prelude to a crash. Weak signal? Quite possibly.

The Rise of Evensong – a ‘Weak Signal’?

Posted on by
1

church

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This seems odd, but actually makes a lot of sense. Cathedrals, churches and chapels across the country are reporting growing attendances at evensong, a religious service that combines contemplative music with the 16th Century language of the Book of Common Prayer.

Why might this be? I suspect that a few factors might be involved. Firstly, the time slot. Sundays are now busy days for most people so after work works. Secondly, mindfulness is all the rage and this links with quiet contemplative spaces. Lastly, the rise of evensong might be related to digital distraction where people are constantly bombarded from the internet and mobile media. Or maybe it’s that evensong is the atheist’s favourite type of spirituality.

Newspaper article on the rise of evensong here and a good blog post quoting the Salisbury Cathedral News here.

Weak signals (Digital v Human)

Posted on by
Reply

Screen shot 2015-06-29 at 13.59.39

 

 

 

A few things I’ve noticed recently. First my own behaviour. I never listen to voicemails nowadays – it takes too long. Second, have you noticed how few websites are now giving you the option to print an article? (see above). For me this doesn’t matter with small bits of information, but if you are trying to digest/understand something of significant length/complexity I think it does.

The other thing I saw yesterday, which is either a weak signal or a blip, is that digital solutionism seems to be suffering a few defeats. Facebook has said that it is returning to “the qualitative” – which I think means people, while both Apple and Google have started to use people to assemble playlists.

Is this a tentative embrace of human judgment, empathy and intuition or just a bit of PR manipulation?

Sorry, another stat

Posted on by
Reply

This can’t be right. A poll by Populus/The Times says that 14% of UK 18-24-year-olds and 12% of 25-34-year-olds have “warm feelings” towards Islamic State (IS). This compares to 5% of UK adults (?) and 1% of over 65s. If it is right it’s a weak signal and a worrying one.