Global Street Smarts.
Happy Sunday.
Here’s today’s ITK Sunday.
To be ITK, know this:
Why Tocqueville matters: Travel was a vital part of the French thinker’s political philosophy, but this has largely been forgotten in today’s secluded academic institutions. Nick Burns
Britain is dead Samuel McIlhagga
+ British institutions exert impressive amounts of soft power for a tiny island nation. One can think of the country as playing the role of an Italian city-state in the fourteenth century: it capitalizes on historic cultural prestige, educates the children of elites from its former empire, and serves as a playground for wealth and status games while not really producing anything of hard value.
+ Reporting from the Financial Times has claimed that at current levels, the UK will be poorer than Poland in a decade, and will have a lower median real income than Slovenia by 2024. Many provincial areas already have lower GDPs than Eastern Europe.
+ The distinctively innovative and moralistic culture that distinguished England from Europe, most fully expressed in Puritanism and Cromwellian republicanism, flowed into America’s east coast elites even as it was crushed by the aristocracy at home.
+ Despite being the hegemon of the industrial age, Britain never developed the mechanisms that allowed the U.S. and Germany to overtake it in the late nineteenth century in chemistry, transportation, labor productivity, and organizational methods.
+ The pressures of the following two world wars forced the British state to retain a high level of capacity and an ability to mobilize effectively. As a result, it was not state capacity, but economic and scientific productivity that most instantiated a broader decline.
Confessions of a China apologist Gordon G. Chang
+ "Yes, I do have a political agenda,” writes the political scientist Daniel A. Bell close to the front of his latest book. “I aim to de-demonize China’s political system.”
The nation needs Newsom vs. DeSantis Thomas Buckley
+ The clarity of the choice – one way or another – is the best option to move beyond the morass.
From “ruin porn” to high-tech incubator; Ford’s Michigan Central is helping the automaker reinvent itself — and the city of Detroit The Detroit Bureau
+ “It’s all about creating the future.”
+ The heart of the project is the old Michigan Central Station and its 18-story office tower — which, when first opened in January 1914 was the world’s tallest railroad station. Ironically, that was just a year after Henry Ford’s first moving assembly line went into operation just miles away.
+ Bill Ford Jr. called billion-dollar Michigan Central project as the “intersection of mobility and society.”
+ It won’t formally reopen until late this year or early 2024, according to company officials.
+ Designed by the legendary Albert Kahn
+ It now will serve as the home of Newlab, a high-tech incubator, said Joshua Sirefman, who came on as CEO of the “Michigan Central Innovation District” in February 2022.
Why the future of retail is robotic: The idea of being greeted by an in-store robot might put some people off their shopping, but the next wave of automation is already hitting the high street. Raconteur
+ Most retailers envisage robots in non-customer-facing roles:
- Scanning shelves to monitor stock levels
- Order picking
- Moving product loads (backroom and on the shop floor)
- Pricing accuracy checks
- Floor cleaning
- Planogram compliance (a diagram or model that indicates the placement of retail products on shelves in order to maximize sales.)
Are super-apps coming to the US market? HBR
+ While it’s possible that the US will develop some form of super-app, it’ll likely be more super-ish than truly super.
The glorious return of a humble car feature: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touch screens. Buttons are back! Slate
+ The touch screen pullback is the result of consumer backlash, not the enactment of overdue regulations or an awakening of corporate responsibility. Many drivers want buttons, not screens, and they’ve given carmakers an earful about it.
+ “These screens are presented as this avant garde, minimalist design,” said Matt Farah, a car reviewer and host of The Smoking Tire, an auto-focused YouTube channel and podcast. “But really, it’s the cheapest way possible of building an interior.” Although they look fancy, Farah said that carmakers can purchase screens for less than $50, making them significantly less expensive than tactile controls.
+ “I can think of no better way of describing the frustration of the modern consumer than buying a car with a feature that makes you less safe, doesn’t improve your driving experience in any meaningful way, saves the manufacturer money and gets sold to you as some necessary advance in connectivity.”
The Apple of my eye. Ad Aged
+ "If I am not for myself, who am I? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?"
How Tinder made me a better copywriter: The popular dating app is, surprisingly, a great source of inspiration when it comes to copywriting. Here are seven secrets learned from Tinder that will turn your copy game up a notch. Inbox Collective
+ The best place to practice your copywriting skills isn’t in newsletters or on social media channels like LinkedIn. It’s on Tinder.
+ I truly believe this: If you can write for Tinder, you can write anywhere.
+ Here are seven secrets I learned on Tinder that — guaranteed — will turn your copy game up a notch.
1.) Dare to be different
2.) Kick-start the conversation
3.) Not everyone will love you (and that’s OK!)
4.) Pass the bio test
5.) Tell a story
6.) Vary the way you express yourself
7.) Show, don’t tell
Don’t let distractions derail your company’s strategy HBR
+ Leaders should strengthen their strategic intent, improve individuals’ connections with the strategy, and encourage better discipline, channeling energies into more productive innovation activities.
The environmental cost of red carpet fashion: Awards show gowns may be glamorous, but they are often made of petrochemical-based fabrics, writes the author of 'Fashionopolis: Why What We Wear Matters.' Here, she shares five ways to dress more sustainably in Hollywood. THR
+ According to the United Nations, the fashion industry is responsible for 8 to 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Conventional cotton farming uses 4 percent of the world’s pesticides and 10 percent of the herbicides. And fashion accounts for roughly one-fifth of the 300 million tons of plastic produced globally each year.
+ Here are some ways red carpet dressing can be more eco-responsible:
Rewear
Think vintage
Shop eco-conscious designers
Eschew plastic sequins
Go for planet-friendly fabrics
Focusing on happiness can make you unhappy. Do this instead: As a nation, we’re obsessed with self-help and positive thinking. But we aren’t always good at knowing what will actually make us happy. FC
+ The positive-thinking movement is also fueling the focus, with the abundance theory and other self-help genres naming happiness as the objective, says Monica C. Parker, author of The Power of Wonder: The Extraordinary Emotion That Will Change the Way You Live, Learn, and Lead.
+ “In America, the pursuit of happiness is pretty much baked into the whole creation of the nation,” she says. “It has become something of an obsession.”
+ The problem is that we aren’t very good at knowing what makes us happy, a misjudgment that’s called “affective forecasting,” says Parker. “As humans, we ‘miswant’ a lot of things that we have been conditioned to believe will make us happier than we actually do,” she says.
+ “We all have a happiness baseline. One of the challenges is that when we get something that makes us happy, it’s often only for a very short period of time. Then, we generally go back to our baseline.”
+ Focusing solely on happiness can make you unhappy.
+ Instead of being in the constant pursuit of happiness, Parker recommends chasing wonder, which is more achievable.
+ “Wonder is something of a shapeshifter,” she says. “There’s wonder the verb, which is the wonder we associate with curiosity. Then there’s wonder than noun, which would be perhaps something that might inspire awe.”
+ To chase wonder, find ways that trigger the feeling of being small.
+ Another way to create a wonder mindset is through novelty.
+ Parker recommends going on a “wonder walk.”
+ “Wonder walking primes your brain,” explains Parker. “When you tell your brain ‘I want to find something,’ it commits more cognitive energy toward finding it.”
+ While being happy is an honorable goal, wonder can provide a sense of balance that helps you appreciate the moments of joy that enter your life. Instead of pursuing happiness, consider making wonder your ultimate goal.
How to log off: Sick of spending all your time staring at your devices? Here’s how to strike a healthier balance. Rhiannon Williams
+ There’s a growing body of evidence suggesting that reducing your screen time won’t in itself make you happier, and that general device usage isn’t a reliable predictor of any of those things.
+ A large 2019 study from the University of Oxford found that the amount of time adolescents spent using digital devices had little impact on their mental health. The problem isn’t necessarily the amount of time you’re spending scrolling on the phone as much as what you’re looking at.
+ Anna Lembke, professor of psychiatry at the Stanford School of Medicine and author of Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. “Try deleting the apps that cause you to wander to parts of the internet you don’t want to go to, and make a specific to-do list of what you’re going to do online before you get online,” she adds. “Stick to that list.”
+ ‘‘What am I getting from this?”
+ Asking ourselves what checking social media feels like, choosing to be curious (which is intrinsically rewarding) about why we want to know what’s happening on Instagram or in our inboxes.
Clock watching: Meet the artist who thinks time is ruining our lives: ‘Clock time’, all about productivity, money, and economic growth, threatens to destroy us, says artist Jenny Odell. But there are other kinds of time, and we need to learn to embrace them. Guardian
+ ‘Clock time’, all about productivity, money and economic growth, threatens to destroy us, says artist Jenny Odell. But there are other kinds of time, and we need to learn to embrace them.
+ Odell finds it helpful to use two ancient Greek words, chronos, which signifies the time that marches forward relentlessly, and kairos, which can mean “transcendental moment.”
+ We discuss the speeded-up world we live in – instant coffee, microwaves, lifts that elevate 30 times faster than they did when they were first invented, banks that employ trading bots to buy and sell stocks in thousandths of a second.
+ "I always like things that make your boundaries a little bit blurry"
+ When you fall in love, you are out of time. You are beyond the realm of chronos, and into the realm of kairos.
Clocking out: Millennials and the workforce: A new book questions old paradigms about the meaning of time and work. Mike Jakeman
+ Read: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
+ A recent compelling addition to this corpus is Jenny Odell’s Saving Time, which tackles generational burnout and the struggles of the contemporary worker with philosophical intent. “I doubt burnout has ever been solely about not having enough hours in the day,” Odell writes. “What first appears to be a wish for more time may turn out to be just one part of a simple, yet vast, desire for autonomy, meaning, and purpose.”
+ Odell argues that we treat time off as an opportunity to prepare for high performance once work resumes. She cites the example of luxury resorts that offer well-being programs requiring guests to set goals for their stay, and that track their sleep, nutrition, and blood flow.
+ For Odell, even the practice of documenting holiday and weekend activities on social media reinforces the notion that leisure must still involve doing something rather than simply “being” or shutting off completely.
+ In a nod to the work of the 20th-century philosopher Josef Pieper, Odell prefers to think of time off as an opportunity to enter a different state of mind, “one that, like falling asleep, can be achieved only by letting go.”
+ Saving Time is worth the investment for Odell’s excoriation of the productivity industry and the irony at its core, of “a life consumed by the effort to make more of itself.”
Ross Rant: Opting out is opting in: At any given time, when you engage your Facebook News Feed, more than 1,500 pieces of content that very second are vying for your attention.
A survey conducted by Deloitte found that around 59% of smartphone users check a social media platform in the five minutes before going to bed and waking up within 30 minutes.
That's exhausting.
It is time to create more time for nothing.
Full post here.
You're probably not emotionally prepared for 'Industry’ season 3: 'Ethical investing' is the name of the game in the upcoming series. We can't imagine they'll put too much emphasis on the ethical part. Esquire
+ “Pierpoint looks to the future and takes a big bet on ethical investing, the desk find themselves front and center in the splashy IPO of Lumi, a green tech energy company, in a story that runs all the way to the very top of finance, media and government."
The empty cult of The Big Lebowski: The Dude has been turned into a false idol. Matt Feeney
+ As tolerant as I’ve been of the Cult of Lebowski, I do have one problem with it: The Dude is its Christ-like moral foundation, but the portrait it’s left us of him is almost perfectly wrong.
An AI Oasis album? Is this the future of music? As someone who writes about and creates music, I should be appalled by “AIsis”. But there’s a voice of dissent in the back of my mind. Marc Burrows
+ On 14 April 2023, a fairly unknown British indie band called Breezer released some songs in the style of early Oasis, using AI software to remodel their singer’s voice based on old recordings of Liam Gallagher.
Fourth and long: Former Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker faces critical challenges as he assumes the presidency of the unpopular and troubled National Collegiate Athletic Association. Jonathan Clarke
+ The improbable, last-second victory of underdog North Carolina State over the University of Houston in the 1983 title game helped make the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament a cultural phenomenon.
+ Forty years later, for better and for worse, “March Madness” is a smooth corporate product that commands billions of dollars in rights fees from broadcasters.
+ College sports remain enormously popular, but the business of college sports is uniformly regarded with cynicism.
+ College sports are unrecognizable from what they were even a decade ago.
+ This year, as Florida Atlantic University made an unlikely run through March Madness, the team’s coach noted that other programs were courting his players even as they prepared for the Final Four.
+ He wasn’t shocked; he wasn’t even especially resentful. After all, IBM must poach engineers from its competitors all the time.
Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.
-Marc
Marc A. Ross | Chief Communications Strategist @ Caracal
Caracal produces ITK Daily.
Caracal is a geopolitical business communications firm specializing in global business issues at the intersection of globalization, disruption, and politics.
Caracal believes that to be a world-class geopolitical business communicator, you need global street smarts coupled with holistic, high-frequency, and high-low communications.
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