Issue 32: A bulletin for big ideas and better business.

Back to school? 📝

It’s the time when minds are re-focusing after the summer lull. The items below are intended to provide some pre-September sharpness. We fire upwards with SpaceX, make time in Hong Kong, and blow some hot (jazzy) air in Chicago. Plus: Starmer’s bad news, and why art should imitate sport. But first, Sir John encourages you to look ahead.

OPINION/ ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

Doddering? No. Disrupting? Yes.

💬 Sir John Hegarty

Youth or experience. Opinion used to be divided on which of these was a better quality to have at work. In the last decade or so, it’s felt as though the argument landed in favour of the fresh-faced. The business community put whiz kids on a pedestal as a small number of them created improbably big and influential companies. But lately, the reputation of youthful brilliance has taken a knock. Lauded prodigies have been exposed as delinquents and in some cases, prosecuted. Then there’s the perception of twenty-somethings at work in 2024 – bosses are complaining that the current cohort are hard to manage. 

I have always felt that the
image of the young
entrepreneur was a stereotype.

I’ve always felt that the image of the young entrepreneur was a stereotype. There’s research to suggest that older founders outperform their younger contemporaries (in the US, at least). A study by MIT, Wharton, Northwestern and the US Census Bureau concluded that a fifty-year-old founder is twice as likely to build a stellar company as a thirty-year-old. In the UK, almost one million people over the age of sixty are self-employed, a new record according to Rest Less. However: a proportion are continuing to work out of necessity, rather than pursuing some entrepreneurial ambition. Either way, the qualities they bring to the table are different.

The efficacy of aged people in your organisation isn’t to be underestimated. While traits like wisdom and experience are obvious, there’s less written about the creative potential of older people. A study by the University of Kent discovered that older subjects’ imaginations have as much potential and potency as the young – in some cases, more so. This sort of thing should be buoying for everyone. Whatever your age, it increases the likelihood that your best creative years are in the future – rather than the past.

THE AGENDA

✏️ Pencil it in: your agenda for the coming week

1.
Billionaires seem to be drawn in one of two directions. Down (to the depts of the sea in a submersible), or up (in a rocket bound for the cold vacuum of space). This week Jared Isaacman will opt for the latter, on the Polaris Dawn mission on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.
22nd August

2.
The 2024 Paralympic Games will take place at venues across Paris. This instalment includes 4,000 athletes, and will feature the highest number of female competitors.
28th August – 8th September

3.
Events celebrating the moving image have sprouted in cities around the world. Venice International Film Festival is one of the oldest and most significant.
28th August– 7th September

4.
The Hong Kong Watch and Clock Fair is billed as ‘The World’s Biggest Timepiece Event’. For attendees, there will be little excuse for tardiness.
3rd – 7th September

4.
Inhabitants might detect a blast of trumpet on the gusts of the windy city this week. The Chicago Jazz Festival comes to the Millennium Park and the Cultural Center.
29th August – 1st September

Sunny, but solemn.
Credit: Monica Wells / Alamy Stock Photo

UK / POLITICS

Black hole Britain?

Colin Powell, a former US secretary of state once said: “Bad news isn’t wine. It doesn’t improve with age.” Keir Starmer appears to agree. Today the British prime minister is expected to unfurl a few home truths on how the country is faring economically – drawing particular attention to the £22 billion gap the Labour party reportedly found in the UK’s coffers in July. “Things are worse than we ever imagined,” he is anticipated to say. While it’s set to be a dispiriting address, the ability to impart bad news is a vital quality in a leader – especially a creative one. Innovation is built from accepting truths, then building around them. When inconvenient facts are painted over, decay sets in underneath. For now, Starmer can pin accountability on the last fourteen years of Conservative governance. Soon he will have to spring forth with a more upbeat dispatch. There’s only so much bad news a nation can take.

Boxes don’t heighten creativity (unless it’s to help with concentration).
Illustration: Clo’e Floirat

Zuck: Big (ad) spender.
Credit: Kristoffer Tripplaar / Alamy Stock Photo

GLOBAL / ADVERTISING

Ad spend surge

Commentators might herald the end of advertising, but clients haven’t got the memo. Data points to a mass lavishing on ads. New forecasts show that global ad spend is set to increase by 10.5% this year, to £820 billion. If we’re counting in US dollars, that figure becomes more significant – it’s the first time the count has reached $1 trillion. WARC, a marketing and data company, reckons that the rise will endure – by 7.2% in 2025, then 7% in 2026. The spending bonanza has been powered by the rise of big tech. Meta, Alphabet and Amazon accounted for 70% of it alone from the last decade. But does the writing of big checks result in a better calibre of ad, or a greater level of efficacy? Research by System1 Group suggests not. It estimates that as little as 6% of advertising is truly effective. If there’s a single stat that marketers ought to pay attention to, it’s this one.

Olympic Committee #1 (1896).
Credit: Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo

GLOBAL / CULTURE

Art imitates sport 

The Ancient Greeks believed that art and sweaty pursuits were linked. The founder of the Olympics (as we know them today), Baron Pierre de Coubertin wanted this principle to be honoured in his new competition. Writing in Le Figaro, a French newspaper, in 1904, he said: “In the high times of Olympia, the fine arts were combined harmoniously with the Olympic Games to create their glory…” At the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, five artistic categories were added: architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture. Pharrell Williams, creative director of Louis Vuitton, advocated a return of these cultural competitions to the games, while talking at an event marking the opening of Paris 2024. Will creativity be reinstated to the agenda in time for LA 2028? We hope there’s a sporting chance.