Issue 8: A bulletin for big ideas and better business.

OPINION / IDEAS

Don’t be a tool: pick the right one

💬Sir John Hegarty

You can’t eat soup with a fork. You shouldn’t hammer in a screw. And those who bring a knife to a gunfight find themselves at a severe disadvantage. Selecting the wrong tool for the job usually delivers poor results. It’s perilous too. There’s a section on the subject to be found in a safety handbook produced by the US Navy. It cautions against things like using a chair where a ladder is necessary, or a knife when you need a screwdriver. There’s more jeopardy associated with these things at sea – but this sort of thing is still cavalier on land.

The physical examples are absurd. But in the digital sphere, we’re a lot more lenient when it comes to selecting the incorrect tackle. The worst offenders are those who obsess over the power of data – specifically, its ability to predict and measure things that were unmeasurable before. Research and evidence are fundamentally important, but we’re so enchanted with the capabilities of data that it’s started to feel like we can’t come to a decision without the reassurance of a stat. This is a problem – an emphasis on what’s been prevents the imagining of what might be.

Data never invented anything

Amidst all the talk of data-driven businesses, the greatest commercial achievements of recent decades have had surprisingly little to do with it. Consider the most successful product from the (until recently) biggest company in the world – Apple’s iPhone. The story of its conception involved a handful of envelope-pushing tech executives drawing on their knowledge of the consumer, and the creative capacity of their development teams. Data took a back seat to human insight. This is the case with almost every brilliant product that we deem indispensable in 2024. James Dyson’s bagless vacuum cleaner, Elon Musk’s car company, Bill Bowerman’s running shoe. These contributions to our civilisation came from imagination.

Data informs, creativity inspires

The same is true in marketing and brand-building. Data becomes useful to businesses when it exposes a truth. As I’ve often said, when an idea possesses that quality, it becomes powerful. Uncovering a fact might spark the creative engine, but that isn’t enough. It takes empathy, intuition and perseverance to bring off a campaign around it. The great brand campaigns of the last twenty years are all built around truth, whether that authenticity is drawn from a data point or not matters less than most digital zealots would have us believe.

A debate is raging when it comes to how AI will impact creativity and business. More tools don’t always result in better outcomes, but as they proliferate the best entrepreneurs – like the best carpenters – should remember which ones to pick up, and which ones to leave on the bench.

THE AGENDA / A RACY WEEK

1.
World Water Day will cause a splash this week. The event, organised by the United Nations, is intended to underline the security risks that occur when people don’t have access to water. This year’s theme speaks to the choppiness of the geopolitical landscape: ‘Water for Peace’.
22nd March

2.
Those with a penchant for speed, noise and exhaust fumes will assemble at the starting grid this week at the 2024 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. The racing sport is enjoying a boost thanks to the popularity of the Netflix show, Drive to Survive.
22nd-24th March

3.
Fans of horsepower in a more literal sense should gallop with all possible haste to The Dubai World Cup. Dubbed the ‘world’s richest day’ in horse racing, it’s a well-heeled affair. Prizes aren’t just handed to race-winners. Awards are also bestowed to the best dressed attendees – and the person in possession of the Most Creative Hat.
30th March

4.
The US National Park Service expects peak bloom for Washington D.C.’s cherry blossoms this week. This happens when 70% of the Yoshino cherry blossoms planted around the city open up. Observing beauty helps you think more creatively.
19th – 23rd March

Grok will be open source. But will it help solve our problems?
Contributor: al Mottakin / Alamy Stock Photo

LONDON / TECH

AI for good 

The battle for AI supremacy intensified this week as Elon Musk released the raw computer code for his chatbot, Grok. The move is thought to be a rebuke to OpenAI, after the company broke a pledge to open source its own technology. Musk reckons that such innovations are too dangerous to be placed in the hands of one actor. Away from the squabbles of big tech founders, the Alan Turing Institute will hold its AI UK 2024 event in Westminster today and tomorrow. The get-together will investigate ways that data science and AI can be used to solve real-world problems. These include making cities more resilient and driving decarbonisation. The debate will also centre on the culture of AI. Here’s a question we’d pose: will the technology help or hinder human creativity?

Contributor: Clo’e Floirat

Creative hack: Daydreaming

Allowing thoughts to float freely has been shown to reduce stress and alleviate anxiety. It also helps you think up unorthodox solutions to problems. It enhances creativity too.

Helsinki: Happy AF
Contributor: Subodh Agnihotri / Alamy Stock Photo

GLOBAL / WELL-BEING 

Counting contentment

Can you measure happiness? According to publishers of the World Happiness Report, the answer is in the affirmative. Since 2012 the annual study has looked at metrics including material conditions, mental and physical wealth, personal virtues, and good citizenship. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, most wellbeing-watchers assumed that our levels of gratification had slumped. Not so. Findings pointed to global life satisfaction averages between 2020 and 2022 to be just as high as pre-pandemic times. As the new report is released tomorrow, we’ll see whether our good humour has held in an increasingly volatile geopolitical landscape. In all the chaos there appears to be one constant: Finland’s joie de vivre. The country has been crowned the happiest for the last six years.

“…just wail”
Contributor: PF-(bygone1) / Alamy Stock Photo

US / SCIENCE

Your brain on jazz 

Everyone knows what it feels like to be in the zone. Your mind’s calm but focused. Noises, interruptions, and peripheral thoughts can’t puncture your state of deep flow. A new study sought to understand how we reach this point of concentration. Researchers from Drexel University in Philadelphia analysed jazz musicians as they improvised with their instruments. Using an electroencephalogram (EEG) which measured brain activity, the experiment supported an idea called ‘expertise-plus-release’ which attests to creative flow coming from intense practice coupled with the ability to let go and allow the neural pathways do the hard work. American saxophonist Charlie Parker would have approved of this theory. He famously said: “You’ve got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.”

A great renaissance
Contributor: Russell Mountford / Alamy Stock Photo

GLOBAL / CULTURE

Museums are back

Covid was tough on the arts. In 2019 the number of people who went to the most-visited 100 museums in the world was 230 million. In 2020 it fell to 54m. The recovery has been slower than expected, but a new poll by The Art Newspaper has discovered that in 2023 the world’s most acclaimed museums are rediscovering their lustre. The figure for last year was 176m, with many institutions hitting their pre-pandemic visitor numbers. The Musée du Louvre in Paris has made the fullest recovery with 8.9m attendees. The rebound is good news for museums, but for civilisation too. Nothing can compete with the feeling of standing in the presence of great art.

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.

/Jonathan Swift