This is the golf course near my house on Friday morning, buried under snow and ice following temperatures hitting -11C (12F). The low in Scotland -24C (-11F) was the lowest February temperature since 1955. Great to be out walking around this, making some phone calls and enjoying good conversations in the midst of the beauty.
“Our lives have been upended by something like 160ml of viral particles. Which means that, cubic centimetre for cubic centimetre, the coronavirus is deadlier than a nuclear bomb” - The Week
“The thinking is that social distancing will need to be in place for a long time to come,” a “Whitehall source”.
“We’re going to have to get used to vaccinating and then re-vaccinating in the autumn.” - UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on plans for a rolling campaign of Covid jabs
“It's important not to think about Bitcoin as a replacement for cash or gold or something that works alongside that; it's to think of it as programmable money. And we just cannot even imagine what that will be used for.” - Naval Ravikant
“For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.” - Audrey Hepburn
Coronavirus
I’ve written before about how if you think you can’t change the world you should tell it to the bat. Well, it seems that one person may have been the source of the recent mutation (The UK strain or more technically B.1.1.7) that is now expected to become the dominant strain around the world as it is already present in 50 countries and spreads faster.
With the R rate across the UK now down at 0.7-0.9 there is increasing confidence that we are past the peak of the winter spike. The debate is rapidly turning to how quickly can we unlock. In almost every conversation I have had with people in the UK in the last fortnight it has been clear that people are finding this lockdown harder than the last one, that everyone is fed up and that we all want a change and soon - even if we disagree as to how that should happen.
The milestones might start coming quickly - updates on the next stage of unwinding during the next ten days; the first children returning to school in Scotland within ten days; return to some gatherings by end March (maybe); opening of retail and meeting in larger groups in April (maybe); and ability to travel nationally in May (maybe) as a guess.
Look to Israel for a good pattern of what unwinding lockdown looks like. They are ahead of the UK on vaccination numbers and the UK is in active conversations with its Government as to its experience. It’s impossible to tell so far if the decline in R is 1) lockdown related 2) snow related (less movement and interaction) or 3) vaccine related. (The charts below imply it’s not too much to do with lockdowns given the lack of lockdowns in the US…….). However, we will know that within weeks. If we see compelling evidence of vaccines lowering the R rate materially, you can join in the chorus for a rapid unlocking. Everyone over 50 will have been offered a vaccine within 107 days but there’s material justification to unwind a lot of lockdown before that.
The UK continues to come under fire for 1) using a vaccine that doesn’t protect against the South African variant and 2) pursuing a strategy of vaccinating as many people as possible with the first jab whilst delaying the second jab, in the belief that 70% protection will be sufficient to reduce transmission to the desired levels - allowing for the unlocking, whilst retaining societal caution until the second jab can be delivered - hence the “you might have to wear masks until the autumn” comments in the press.
Within the UK there is a very positive impression within the public of the vaccination strategy, and over 90% of 80 year olds having voluntarily had their first dose, and over 86% of over 70 year olds in England (but 64% in Scotland) it is rolling out quicker than most other nations.
Spring is coming. Imagine if we get into week after week of incremental relaxing, growing economic activity and increased liberties - life will start to feel better very quickly. At the very least we will feel a growing hope and less fear as a society.
The Future Of Work
It seems that very few knowledge workers plan to return 100% to the office - this is no surprise. People are interested to explore flexibility, remote working, starting later, sleeping longer and watching more TV. None of this is a surprise anymore.
A growing theme I’m reflecting on is how we seem to have become closer to those very close physically (our neighbours, nearby friends) and dispersed around the world (I’ve been building stronger relationships with people in the US, Qatar, Uganda, South Africa, India, Tanzania, Brazil and Australia in recent months).
However, the intermediate connections in between that (family, friends or work contacts in London, continental Europe, across my city - where it requires physical presence but also travel and a space to meet) have collapsed - these relationships for me have become much weaker.
As lockdown unwinds I can see a massive demand for spaces and apps and services that facilitate 1) smaller groupings 2) in person connections 3) tangible products and 4) shared experiences. A book group, a strategy day, a group weekend away - all of these will be highly appealing as we look to build those elements of our social network that have fallen apart. Being just in your own family is very 2020 - we need to retain the bet of that and re-enter society rapidly.
Models I see getting traction are cohort models for learning; weekends away for groups with experiences such as hill walking or making beer or learning to shoot crossbows or crazy stuff like that; book groups with author engagement; exclusive access events for groups; private dinners in restaurants; in-person masterclasses; local co-working spaces in the suburbs; smaller movie theatres - basically anything that gives that shared experience in a small context and is an in-person gathering. Tech that can facilitate discovery of this and organisation of this will do well.
Creating The Future We Want To See
Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash
I think I have had ten to twenty conversations a week at the moment with entrepreneurs or organisational leaders who have a problem (financing, staffing, leadership, processes, momentum, etc) and want some input. In almost every situation, the real cause of the issue is actually a lack of clarity around vision.
No money? Perhaps you can’t get funders to buy into the vision.
Staff unhappy? Maybe there is no excitement about the direction, or shared buy-in to to the vision, because the team don’t understand it.
Worrying about your leadership abilities? Perhaps because you don’t have a clear plan and clear accountability in a team because the vision is too opaque.
Lack of processes hindering growth? Be clear on vision and that can make it obvious which processes are required and which ones will just hinder you.
No momentum? Perhaps the lack of vision clarity means that too many ideas are getting airtime. Focusing in on what is important allows you to channel your people and resources towards the key areas that will move you forwards.
Whilst it’s absolutely critical that tactics and even strategies are flexible in this moment, there’s something unusual happening in this sense of fuzziness around vision right now. I don’t know if it’s an insecurity from being hit around the head by the world for the last twelve months, or an intense need to focus an adaptability, but whatever the reason, it’s a consistent factor in the conversations I am having.
How do you get out of that?
1) Go back and think about the problem you are trying to solve (e.g. climate change).
2) Imagine and capture on paper what that problem looks like in 10 or 20 years when you have solved it at a massive scale (1m people living on Mars). Make this include your ultimate target market (which may not be the same as your direct customer) and what change there will be for it,
3) Capture the one to three ways you are going to realise the vision. (Build the transport mechanisms and infrastructure to move 1m people to Mars; Convince 1m people to move to Mars; Create the systems and governance to have a flourishing society on Mars)
4) Write down a goal (1m people living happily and sustainably on Mars by 2035). Create milestones (1m by 2035; 500k by 2030; Infrastructure built by 2025; Campaign launched by 2022; Rover arriving in 2021; Secure Funding in 2021)
5) Create a clear organisational structure that fits the goal, milestones and strategy and determine what each role is accountable for. Fill the roles with the right people.
6) Create rhythms of meeting as a team, metrics to measure, written down processes and implement relevant systems. Ensure the best governance and adapt legal structures for the road ahead.
7) Communicate. Over-communicate. To all stakeholders. Ensure buy-in.
Live your values. Go to Mars.
The conversation entry points for me are often around funding challenges or numbers 4-7 above. But the real problem lies in 2. I’d probably say if you can’t articulate your vision in one sentence, and your team can’t articulate it in one sentence (with 95% overlap on words usage), there’s a vision problem. I have a mantra that at the root of all problems is people - it’s either you, your team, your board, your customers, your suppliers, regulators or other stakeholders.
I like getting into the weeds of 4-7 but at the moment, a lot of the conversations are around the clarity of 2. Vision is largely independent of what Coronvirus does to the world (unless your problem is highly related) so it should be possible to create vision clarity. Clarity of vision will make rapid progress in 3-7 possible. Confusion on vision will mean tackling 3-7 is a waste of time and resources. 1 day on vision could really be the day that unlocks you changing the world. As an aside - this 1-7 works at a personal level too. Do you have vision clarity? Why are you doing what you are doing?
A Long Read For The Weekend
Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash
You’ve been reading a lot about crypto-currencies and maybe about distributed ledgers and Blockchain. But what about Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and what they can do for the digital art world? Or collectibles or rare assets generally? Imagine where this could go….at the very least you can throw NFTs into your next Zoom call as a conversation point.
I’m curious as to how you can make physical assets, or shared experiences, a proven, unique, customised offering. How can I train 100 people using a product, but make every one of those people feel that it was a tailored offering? How can I create a sense of exclusivity and privilege whilst also scalability and replicability? Can I produce 10m bottles of whisky but every one feels unique? Get 100,000 people to a conference, but have every one feel like they attended a 1-1 event?
This concept of mass customisation has been around since the 1990s but with current processing power, Machine Learning and Blockchain, could it be possible? What new business/charity/social enterprise/ government/ military models could come from this?
Thanks for reading. If you liked it - please share it. It gives me a strange sense of joy when someone new signs up!