The Weekly Distillation: No. 4
Money, Mobile Working, Software, Salaries, Strategy, Putin, Authoritarianism, Strategy, Questions, Creating and Whisky
Photo by 🇨🇭 Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash
In his writings, a wise Italian says that the best is the enemy of the good - Voltaire
“The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.” - George Orwell, The Lost Orwell: Being a Supplement to The Complete Works of George Orwell
“This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
“So I oscillate between these two states: Numb detachment and painful hyper-awareness, as the Twin Cities explode in anger. Throughout it all, I’ve started to wonder if maybe I don’t really know my city at all. Maybe I never really did.” - Rafi Schwartz, Discourse Blog
Skim it in a minute
(Infographic from Visual Capitalisation article on how the money and assets of the world are split up - in $100bn chunks. Well worth a read!)
As we emerge from lockdown and the immediate crisis slipping into the past, conversations are returning to thinking about strategy rather than tactics. What will 2021 look like and how is the world changing for the longer term and how can we adapt to step into that. This article reminded me that strategy is about deciding what not to do, as much as it is about deciding what to do. As one leader I work for says, “Strategy is about what you say no to”. What are you saying no to, in order to focus on the best?
With remote working remaining, and tech companies moving to the distributed workforce permanently (and Facebook adapting salaries lower if you move outside of the Bay Area - “If you live in a place where the cost of living is dramatically lower, then salaries do tend to be somewhat lower,” Zuckerberg told the Wall Street Journal.” ), software (as a service) will become a larger part of our life. But what happens to the software itself as a consequence and is coding a safe bet as a career? I’m starting to read about low-code and no-code and fascinated where this goes - this article is thought provoking.
The news seemed dominated this week in the UK by Dominic Cummings and the US by Trump vs Twitter, as well as the tragic murder in Minneapolis and the resulting reaction. Behind these stories, there are discussions to be had on how governments are engaging with journalism (and targeting journalists), whether censorship is never appropriate or can be useful for shutting down a conspiracy theory And will attacking communications channels become a form of warfare (although this was an accident it’s a good potential insight into how you can control the message? How will the contexts we operate in allow us to channel our message?
My writing this week
This week I wrote about work - having spent most of my waking hours (and more than a few where I should have been sleeping) working, the future of work is on my mind. Questions about what we need to be asking for the rest of 2020 and into 2021. Questions about how to discern what to create and what to park. Questions about how remote is remote anyway and what if we go work from another country. Read it here.
A long read for the weekend
Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash
Having added a lot of books to my reading list in the last week (thanks Amazon), I’ve been savouring Putin’s People by Catherine Belton. A really interesting investigative piece about how the KGB and Putin effectively stole Russia and have been operating this way since the mid 1980’s when they saw the collapse of the USSR coming. Whilst I’d strongly recommend the book, this Buzzfeed article is a shorter (but still long) way into an education as to how Putin approaches opponents with global assassination. Sadly Buzzfeed UK news operations shut down recently but this was a great piece of writing.
As we come out of the immediate health crisis and the focus shifts to the economic crisis, I am curious around two main areas - what happens to inflation (that’s for another long read) and what happens with anger in the political world from those that will suffer most from the economic crisis. Do we see a post Versailles treaty German approach where the population were so impoverished by the deal struck that they were prepared to listen to the voice of Hitler and easily blame other people? And if so, will we see the rise of authoritarian leadership as we see in China, Russia, Hungary, Poland and arguably in the US to an extent (albeit the constitutional system provides some balance)? Reading about Putin is a reminder of why this mustn’t happen in the West.
The other weekly distillation
“the action of purifying a liquid by a process of heating and cooling.”
A light and quick look at Spirits that have caught my eye or tongue.
This week's distilled spirit is from my father in-law, a fine gentleman and always a good source of a fine spirit to recommend.
“A few years ago my wife and I and another couple visited the Isle of Arran for a long weekend. We had a great time there with sightseeing and sampling many things on the island. The only down side was a battle with their midges, but we made one great discovery there. We visited The Arran Whisky Distillery and I even convinced my friend from Slovakia to sample their Malt Whisky. He had a prior bad experience with whisky many years earlier, but both of us were ‘hooked’. The whisky that we tried was the Arran 10 Year Old Malt and it is still my favourite, although I find it is very difficult to obtain in Northern Ireland, so we usually add it when in Scotland (Editors note - must teach you about the internet when we next meet…..). I’ve sampled many Scotch Malts but Arran would still be my favourite. Whilst the Arran Distillery is relatively young, in distillery terms, this dynamic organisation has managed to produce a great range of whiskies. The 10 year old Malt is a well balanced whisky without a lot of bitterness and it has a sweet taste. It has even become the favourite tipple of our Slovak friend.”