The Weekly Distillation No.21
Augmented reality, Statistics, Authoritarianism, Coronavirus, Antifa, Paranoia, Whisky
Photo by Kedar Gadge on Unsplash
This newsletter is written for entrepreneurial organisational leaders and aims to help identify themes of our current context and provide questions, tips and tools that can help in navigating these times.
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” - Anonymous
“Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create” - Karol Wojtyla elected Pope John Paul II on 16th October 1978
“Change before you have to”. - Jack Welch
“I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.” - Benjamin Disraeli
“It’s fair, in today in 2020, in the midst of this pandemic, to essentially have a referendum on capitalism” - Satya Nadella
Skim it in a minute
Thematic insights from the news and the web to help you think about potential future and current contexts and how to be productive, creative and successful in your work now
Coronavirus
Photo by Christine Sandu on Unsplash
One of the “skills” you learn in a business degree and then working in finance is how to choose the best chart to support the narrative you want to make. Data, an axis, a log vs linear chart or even looking at the longitudinal start and end points can all tell a different story. For example:
Message - the UK has lost control, this is a disaster, the world is ending etc etc. Or from this one
The UK is the bottom line that recently turned orange. I’d read this and see three things standing out:
1) India and Brazil seem to have got things under control, or at least suppressed, for the near future. This is good
2) The US is not heading to a good place
3) The UK is not on a positive trend but we are far from the worst (albeit a smaller population) and there has been that encouraging speedbump recently that perhaps indicates things can be brought under control again soon. Or there has been some Excel issues. We are also testing a lot more people than we are back in the Spring - which will cause more cases to be reported.
I’ve looked recently at whether I could go to the US for work and the answer is no, thanks to US admissions rules for people from the UK. This means I continue to miss the club sandwich - I am not alone.
There are now 49 vaccines in clinical trials around the world. Of those, 10 have already reached phase III trials - the final stage before licensing and then production. There are a further 199 vaccines at a pre clinical trial stage. Getting closer.
Stage of development
Pre-clinical (199)
Phase I (22)
Phase I/II (15)
Phase II (2)
Phase III (10)
Licensed (0)
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Vaccine Tracker
The bifurcation of the economy continues - mass unemployment and meagre recoveries are masking (no pun intended) the blow-out activity that some sectors are seeing.
China’s rebound is losing momentum
The weekly payrolls in the US showed less gains than expected (a good indicator of confidence and activity as you hire when things are getting busier)
Anything tech related is being seen to be Covid resistant and so the IPO door has been opened. Dustin Moskowitz - he of co-founding Facebook fame (and featured in The Social Network) had success in IPOing a 2nd billion $ company. First Facebook and now Asana.
Instacart, the grocery delivery business, raised $200m at a $17.7bn valuation
I am consistently seeing and hearing knowledge workers being busier than all year, having big pipelines and starting to recruit or invest. Part of this is having a reasonable view on what a worst case scenario is, and so the downside risk can be assessed, but it’s also a reflection on the activity levels as C-level leaders are pushing projects and decisions forwards. I suspect there’s also a hint of boredom in there - no-one wants to stop everything for more than a few weeks so you adapt and move on.
Don’t forget that humanity has some pretty good metrics when it comes to recent success in tackling major societal issues.
How technology is changing our world
Photo by Tarpit Grover on Unsplash
If the world goes into flames, you can buy yourself a drone that can fire a shotgun now. I sincerely hope these are restricted from retail sale - wars with the neighbours become something else entirely. (I’d like to see it battle a Scottish seagull).
The warning cries around AI and militarisation continue. But have you realised what AI unleashed on the world’s tax policies might do?
Your dog can get augmented reality glasses.
If you have a relative or friend in a care home, they might soon be looked after by a robot as we begin to use technology to tackle loneliness. In the region I grew up in, I have heard that in coming decades 100% of the available workforce will need to work in the care sector to serve the growing “old-old” people who have life longevity but not good health. Robots can’t show altriusm or compassion - but is this the only solution?
It is now possible to add silicon circuits to your skin. Gross? Fascinating? Concerning? All of the above?
Internet freedom is continuing to be under threat and 2020 has not been a good year for that. Social Media networks are now proactively removing content now (and most people agree that is a good thing when they look at the content removed - I don’t believe in an unrestricted right to free speech in the public domain, or at least there should be consequences in extreme situations) and it remains to be seen who it is that gets to define what is acceptable content. Iran managed to achieve an almost complete shutdown of the internet - here is how they did it.
And if in doubt head for the pub in VR. And try and define when you are at work and when you are not. And when you head back to the office, it might be just for an “on-site” rather than a regular commute.
The rising geopolitical threat
What kind of superpower will China be if it gains a dominant role in the world?
Belarus is rapidly heading downhill. Protestors stormed parliament in Kyrgyzstan (the hardest country name in the world to spell). A ceasefire in the war between Armenia and Azerbijian looks to be failing and Russia is kicking off military exercises nearby.
In the UK we apparently planned to ship asylum seekers to the South Atlantic. The migration caused through authoritarian regimes, lack of economic opportunity, climate change, alongside multiple other reasons is being met by resistant to cultural change, fear of economic negative impacts and more border fences. An ongoing battle area that will only increase.
A long read for the weekend
Photo by Amber Kipp on Unsplash
The rise of violent protest, militias, riots has marked much of 2020 in the US election debate. Antifa is evident across Europe and the US but the fear of and hostility to Antifa is extreme in and of itself. This crazy story mixes social media, paranoia and an election cycle hype in a tiny town.
The other weekly distillation
“the action of purifying a liquid by a process of heating and cooling.”
Confused by whisky? Wondering how to taste it, nose it, savour it? Take 4 minutes to enjoy this introduction to whisky.
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Have a great weekend.