? Posts on John PHI⑊PIN

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 12:35:29 +1200

I don’t know - I share a lot of Om - but this one - this right here is in a class of its own - so beautiful. A delight to read. A level where you don’t just give up highlighing the best parts - but maybe even give up writing - because how can you even begin to achieve this.

🔗 When AI Whispers - On my Om

🎈155/366 The First Vision Pro Concert Movie

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 11:06:28 +1200

I have touched on this before but after reading a Lefsetz post over the weekend, decided to expand a little and log the thinking for posterity.

🔗 Lefsetz Letter - Company At The Sphere - that’s the link to where 🖇️ this quote came from that I published this weekend. I said I’d be back…

Around 2016 - ’the term ‘spatial’ was being coined’. - though I personally think Apple’s ‘spatial’ is a light year or two ahead of where Mr. Scoble was at the time (He’s very quiet these days, isn’t he?)

🖇️ But February this year I made some pretty logical predictions about the first Vision Pro Movie.

🖇️ And in October last year I was predicting that The Sphere was a pretty good place to start on a ‘Vision Pro Concert Series’ - and I think Apple will be the one to do it. Well, maybe not ‘doing’ it - but certainly financing it.

I still think that.

But who will be the director and/or subject matter for this groundbreaking event?

Who’s Out?

Despite Tay Tay’s global appeal, it won’t be her. The Swifties don’t have the money to buy the Pro.

Peter Jackson is deep into the latest tech to do great things, definitely a friend of Apple - and his foray into music with The Beatles is interesting - but no, no Sphere experience and besides 🔗 he is deep into his next Trilogy .. as Producer - not Director, but still ..

Original “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy filmmaker Peter Jackson and his partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are producing the movie and “will be involved every step of the way,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said during an earnings call Thursday.

Phish? I dunno - not seeing it.

So Who’s In?

Two very real possibilities …

U2 - deeply intertwined with Apple - remember the album? And then they were first up at the Sphere - and Zane Lowe hanging out with them, talking with them. We have seen some of the footage, but who knows what was taken off the ‘back stage’ for the first Vision Pro movie?

… but I am wondering - and well out of left field - but …

The Grateful Dead - who have always been at the bleeding edge of touring and spectacle

The ‘Home’ band for Bay Area based Apple
Sphere residency happening - even as I type
Residency coincided with Earth Day 2024 (very ‘Appley’)
Lots of San Francisco through time imagery featured in the show
🔗 and then there is this - Huff Post - so maybe a pinch of salt is needed, written eight years ago …but written by Bill Bradey, so not his usual subject matter - but certainly no slouch.
Note that Mayer is also part of The Sphere residency.

It’s all fitting in for this bear.

The only hard thing to reconcile is that ‘Tay Tay’ problem. Is there an overlap?

I think there just might be.

What do you think?

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 07:30:50 +1200

I wrote a post yesterday morning. It’s not my usual style, so I filed it in drafts while I cooled down.

I woke up this morning and saw the headline “Israel Blames Misidentification for Strike That Killed Gaza Aid Workers” … and so fuck it … it’s in the comments below. (If you are reading this and not on my site - click on the link.)

All Change? More Of The Same?

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 23:38:54 +1200

Life can move slowly.
But then it doesn’t.
Case in point …. or is it?

🔗 Me on LinkedIN 12th December 2023

Resignation 14 December 2023

🔗 Business Desk Reporting 19th December 2023

Good result?

It’s a start.

Then we learn that the new chair is Jenifer Kerr - wait, she’s the chair of NZTE.

Indeed she is.

We now have one person chairing NZTE and Callaghan - thought the profiles are slightly different. (I wonder why?)

NZTE

Jennifer has extensive governance experience, both in New Zealand and overseas. Her current positions include chair of Worksfe, deputy chair of Callaghan Innovation, a director of Eke Panuku Development Auckland and Waipa Networks, and member of New Zealand Police’s Audit and Risk Committee. Former governance roles include director of New Zealand Rugby and Counties Manukau Rugby Union. Previously, Jennifer has been general manager of customers, people and environment at Transpower, former group director of human resources and health and safety at Fonterra, and group manager of human resources for Mobil Oil for all of Europe. She has run her own consultancy and has strong experience in organisational strategy, chief executive recruitment and succession, executive remuneration and stakeholder relationships. Jennifer is a member of Global Women and has degrees in arts and social sciences from the University of Waikato. She is of Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama descent.

Callaghan

Jennifer Kerr has extensive international experience in the HR and health, safety and wellbeing sectors in North America, Europe, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. She was formerly General Manager of Customers, People and Environment at Transpower and Group Director Human Resources and Health & Safety at Fonterra. She has also operated her own consultancy business, and prior to that was the Group Manager of Human Resources for Mobil Oil for all of Europe. Jennifer has governance experience in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, including pension plan trustee roles in both countries. Jennifer is a member of New Zealand Global Women and has taken an active role during her career in mentoring and coaching other women to achieve their potential. She is of Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama descent.

One observation - nowhere in either of those bios is there a mention of anything to do with ‘RandD’, ‘Innovation’ ‘Tech’ and all the various off shoots and things that those two orgizations are there for. I guess it is clear what the focus is.

And maybe something else ..

Ever since I arrived in NZ I have been amazed by the sheer number of governmental organizations that float around the country ‘doing’ ’things’. It’s a country of 5 million people. These are the organizations I have identified so far that brave entrepreneurs navigate for help.

Callaghan Innovation
NZTE
NZGCP
MBIE
NZGIF
KiwiNet
AUT

… not to mention the ‘chambers’ and ’ema’ and ‘business nz’ and ’eda’s’ and ‘incubators’ and ‘accelerators’ and … (thankyou Andy)

Here’s the question - as the new administration start implementing their plan - how many closures and/or mergers should we expect?

What do you think?

And is Callaghan and NZTE first?

🎈026/366 | 🆔 The 'entity' in Identity

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 22:19:54 +1200

« 025/366 | 027/366 »

'The Identity Entity' By 'Leonardo'

BTW - If you want to cut to the chase - Identity 2.5 is a great Substack to get your teeth into.

Identity continues to be core thinking in the work I do with people. In particular with a company down here in Aotearoa.

The Founder is a deep thinker - as are his communications. One of my jobs is to take those thoughts and write words that ordinary people might understand.

In the ‘biz’, it’s a different challenge. Like any other ‘biz’, there are words and phrases that get used and we all think we understand them. But do we? Particularly when you are trying to reset thinking. Even a little bit. Why? Because specific words have specific meanings in certain contexts and ’the experts will hear th word and some they know what comes next.

Therefore you have to be careful when you use them. BUT, if you don’t use them, you find yourself having to keep redefining things so you don’t lose the frame of reference!

That’s the hard part, but now lets get back to the plot.

Last week I needed a ’twofer’.

I needed to summarize the essence of what we are talking about in ‘*everyday English’. I knew the recipients were on the ‘fringe’ of the biz, so they had an understanding of ‘identity’, but our pitch was to have them look at identity in a different way. Plain English needed but reset required.

When he saw my email he wrote;

“I like the Johnising of Alan.”

… which I am taking positively and assuming I am not too off beam - recording for posterity - with a few tweaks to protect privacy.

My take on Alan’s thesis

Identity is about people - ordinary people - not devices, not technology … people.

AND

People necessarily have to deal with businesses in three main contexts

In person
On the phone
Online

AND

A lot of identity processes are really kluges that get bypassed all the time. (Personal experience just last month with a bank where I had to prove who I was - and every single proof that they needed I failed - since I had been out of the country and all the ‘check points’ had changed. It took me about 15 minutes together my access back - and I know I legally failed.)

Think of it as ’theater’. Like taking your shoes off at the airport.

AND

There is no single safe mechanism that allows for all three contexts. In fact some things you need to do just cannot be done in certain contexts.

AND

The tech industry’ is mainly working on ’number 3’. (Even though numbers 1 and 2 will not be going away. They are mainly being ignored because I suspect that the tech industry really thinks about ’tech’ and seems to exclude ‘people’ and ‘place’. You only have to recognize that if you have someone’s device, then to all intent and purposes, you can assume their identity and place … who needs ‘place’ - we are all in one place. It’s called the internet!

OK - I am being a little unfair - but you know what I mean. Right?

AND

They are often only working on two party authentication - I am me - here is my proof that I am me - and you will believe me on providing that proof to you.

AND

The complexity, problems and potential losses are exponential when you consider three party authorization … i.e. I (party a) have an account with a business (party b) that grants me a discount at another business (party c). How do you make that work efficiently - across all three contexts?

Meanwhile

Clear use cases include KYC (Know Your Customer) .. a global process that is increasingly necessary as part of more and more laws - to ‘protect’ us. But it is theater. It’s a theory gone amok leaving with organizations that deal with people as a business have been forced to implement expensive, drawn out, and costly (for both business and customer) processes that are not really working.

There are many many more cases we will (are) work(ing) on.

Sometimes you will hear that ‘Web 3’ is going to solve it. Sometimes ‘DIDs’. Hell - even the NFT unicorns were making promises at one point. ‘Cyber’ … ‘AI’ … there is an ongoing barrage of people that talk hypothetically about the problem - but there still isn’t really a solution. They might well be the answer - maybe - but not today

There needs to be wider adoption.
It needs to be easy AND safe.
There needs to be trust.
It needs to be cost effective.
There should be no barriers.
We definitely should not be waiting for whatever the ’tech d’jour’ is to grant us salvation.

We call all that Identity 3.0 - and who knows - just like Web 3.0 it may happen one day.

We call our solution Identity 2.5 - because it does not use tech that is not available - rather it sits in existing infrastructure that is already in place.

We have a working demo. We have patents. We have commitment from the NZ Govt. We believe we are unique - and nobody that has seen it disagrees.

We are moving forward.

Later

This seems to have caught attention since I originally posted it, so in order to save you time, if you are interested in what I am talking about and want to learn more, you can drop me an email - and be sure I will get right back to you. My thanks for your attention.

EMail Me Now

At the beginning of the year I had grand plans for this series. A daily long-form post about something that was rattling my brain that day. And then life. For a while, I was even just dropping markers - to revisit. I came to realise that part of the problem was the complexity of the structure for each post - so that went away. Simplicity really is rather nice. As I write on 240413, I am now going back and filling in the gaps. PLUS - unless something strikes me immediately, I will not classify until the end of the day and go back to move one of the posts of the day into the 366. Also - if you are wondering how I have update the words at the bottom of over 100 posts at a stroke, well - THANK YOU Andy Sylvester and his Glossary plugin.

📡 Follow with RSS

🗄️ All the posts

🌡️ It's Called Global Warming

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 04:54:50 +1200

Ever wondered why we used call it ‘Global Warming’ - and now we call it ‘Climate Change’?

Said it before - say it again - Language is important. More than important - it shapes how society thinks.

Frank Luntz understood that …

Memo exposes Bush’s new green strategy. is a 20 year old article describing how Frank Luntz first introduced the idea of ‘changing the dialogue’.

Doesn’t ‘climate change’ sound so much nicer than ‘global warming’?

Which is why 20 years later we read these kind of headlines quite regularly.

One in three people on the planet hit by ‘monster Asian heatwave’

Language is one of the 8 pillars of People First thinking where we explore the subtle art of manipulating conversation and dialogue through the careful choice of words. It’s rampant.

Why You Can't So Easily Replicate Silicon Valley

Sat, 18 Feb 2023 10:30:29 +1200

Wherever you go in the world, New Zealand, Scotland, Austin Texas, Raleigh North Carolina, Hyderabad, Shenzhen …. pretty much anywhere, you will find there are tech centers. Tech centers that often adopt ’Silicon’ or ‘Valley’ or variations on such in their names, but there are many more. The local government will often declare they are investing and building a tech center of excellence to ‘rival’ Silicon Valley. Except they aren’t. Let me explain.

This article seeks to provide insight into why these centers aren’t going to replicate ‘Silicon Valley’ any time soon. (BTW - to be clear, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.)

Maybe the first point is to remind ourselves that Silicon Valley is not so much a geography as a ‘state of mind’. The actual geography of Silicon Valley is a very small part of The San Francisco Bay Area. It doesn’t for example include San Francisco where companies like Salesforce and Twitter are headquartered. nor Berkley where Uber is headquartered, with a University of the same name that is synonymous with ‘Open Source UNIX’. Still that hasn’t stopped the world at large using Silicon Valley and The San Francisco Bay Area interchangeably. It also doesn’t matter to the main thrust of this short commentary.

Why Is Silicon Valley So Different

AND Why Will Other Geographies Have Such A Hard Time Catching Up

.. well they won’t if they attempt to compete with the Valley head on. Like in all competitive races, the winners in that competition will be those regions that redefine the landscape.

—

Sitting at the intersection of varied and sometimes unrelated things that are often forgotten, not easily replicated and definitely requires time, I have identified 10 reasons that Silicon Valley has succeeded. (There may be more - but 9 is a good number. Isn’t it?)

Also, to keep the post to a manageable length, I won’t drill down into deep detail on any of the items - but happy to if asked. I will also be following this post up with more detail around some of the points and issues I raise in future posts.

1) Venture Capital

… in Silicon Valley has been around since the late 40s, early 50s - You don’t replace some 75 years of working in a couple of years.

2) Great Weather And Environment

… generally, so people will enjoy coming to the geography - and then staying - in all seasons - and it’s a very pretty region with realtively consistent climate. (Climate change not withstanding.)

3) Culture

… of California.

4) Great Universities

- plural       
- world class

5) Work Ethic

Doing What It Takes, though we are moving into a world where this idea is beginning to break down. Historically though, the culture of the valley is long hours and hustle, no weekends - you just want to make it happen. It’s not holding up so well these days, but in the halcyon growth days that I consider to be 85 though 2000 it was definitely a differentiator. More in another post.

6) Hippies

I am going to move on from this point and will come back to it later, but the fact is that San Francisco ’67 had significant impact on shaping tech thinking in the Bay Area.

7) Ecosystem of Financial Institutions, Lawyers and Government

- Wilson Sonsini was founded in 1961    
- Silicon Valley Bank founded in 1982

It’s not just tech - you need bankers, lawyers, government to understand what you are doing. This is why things like ‘valuations’ are so different when (say) a British company values your start up versus one from ‘Silicon Valley’. Silicon Valley, to riff on Wayne Gretzky - the US generally looks to invest based on where where the company will be … the more traditional thinkers invest based on where the company is.

8) Focus

Before Silicon Valley, the local industry comprised Orchards. Yes it all started with the military and ‘tech’ but other industries were not dominant, say like Banking in NYC, Oil, Gas and Insurance in Houston, Movies in LA … Tech found its place in new and fertile pastures. This is particularly important when you get to a country like New Zealand where any tech business is going to be competing with other already dominant industries, such as (in the case of New Zealand), Dairy, Lumber and Tourism.

The parallels to why large corporations have a hard time with ‘innovation’ are clear. (This is a larger topic that I will come back to in another post.)

9) History and Legacy

The First documented ‘VC’ arrived around 1946
- Arthur Rock moved to Palo Alto in 1961 and set up the first fund

In ‘the valley’, VCs have been a known quantity for a long time. These days VCs and Private Equity are in common usage around the world, bit even twenty years ago that was not the case. , they are a known quantity. In the rest of the world, there

These VCs started their companies and first funds in the 60s

- Mayfield    
- Morgenthaler    
- Sutter Hill Ventures    
- Fidelity    
- Greylock    
- Venrock

Keep It In The Family

Just consider one ~~family~~ dynasty … the Drapers - and I’m not talking Don Draper

- Bill Draper II set up Draper, Gaither and Anderson in **1959** and Draper and Johnson in **1962**.    
- His son - Bill Draper III founded Sutter Hill Ventures in **1965**. 
- His son - Tim Draper - the ‘Draper’ that most people talk about started what was to become DFJ in **1985**
- His son - Adam Draper started his fund specializing in Blockchain and Crypto in **2012**.

It would be interesting to learn if there are any other families as steeped in VC anywhere in the world, but particulalrly outside of The Valley.

About Those Tech Centers

If you are interested in those tech centers, there’s

- Silicon Glen in Scotland    
- Silicon Fens in East Anglia, UK    
- Silicon Alley in New York    
- Silicon Roundabout in London    
- Silicon Wadi in Israel    
- Silicon Mountain in The Cameroon    
- Silicon Oasis in Dubai

… well, you get the drift. If you have an interest Wikipedia has a very long list of Global Tech Centers, though they aren’t all called Silicon xxx - thank god!

What thoughts do you have?

Sat, 18 Feb 2023 04:10:21 +1200

The 🔗 Beckn protocol “allows you to create open and decentralized digital ecosystems”. So far, the word ‘blockchain’ is mentioned nowhere (that I have found). I also haven’t found how it handles ‘identity’ before it facilitates a transaction, though it says it does ‘identify each other’ but I’m not sure that is the same thing?

Can anyone share their experiences. It looks really interesting from a ‘People First’ perspective.

Extracts from their world …

identify each other and perform transactions with each other without the need for a central intermediary

Beckn Protocol is an open commerce protocol with an abstract core, which is enabling market players to reimagine building seamless digital experiences and networks. This is very similar to how HTTP, while being a simple and open protocol has fueled seamless interaction between multiple systems and led to an explosive growth in internet adoption.

The beckn community is an open community. So, no registrations. No memberships. No partnerships. Just a minimal footprint of an open and equally accessible Beckn Protocol that anyone can use. Multiple businesses and organizations have started using beckn protocol to fuel their digital acceleration. The credo of being an open protocol creates a level-playing field for any market player, small or large.

My Speciality ? Generality !

Thu, 10 Nov 2022 10:30:07 +1200

A slightly edited version of a post originally published on February 14th 2016 @ Beyond Bridges, now archived here

A friend and reader of this blog just sent me this link, which is a third party version of the LinkedIN map below. It seems to be limited due to LinkedIN's API constraints, so it can't map more than 499 of your connections. That said, there does seem to be a lot more information and analysis that surrounds the graph. Andy it means YOU can go try it out on your network. Thank you David.

A good friend of mine messaged me through LinkedIN. He is a fast thinking, witty, bright, intelligent, big thinking kind of guy. He's also interested in his next gig - so let me know if you want an introduction. Anyway, to my point. He had been on my LinkedIN profile and commented;

I think you would be well served to pare that list (of skills I had listed in my summary) to maybe 4-5 distinct and specialized areas where you really shine better than the rest. Things like Leadership, Marketing, Communications are too generic and readily available in the marketplace.

And I agreed. In fact, so much so that I pared it down to zero. My skill list is summarized in another part of the profile anyway. But it got me to thinking.

I am a big fan of Mike Pesca over at Slate who delivers a daily podcast called The Gist. Try it. You won't regret it. A couple of weeks ago he had Eric Weiner on as a guest, and they spent some time talking about where genius comes from. Turns out that Eric has just written a new book about 'how genius happens'. One of my takeaways was that genius emerges from generalism - not speciality. For example, he talked about the fact that Einstein was not the most knowledgeable physicist of his time, but his value was that he was broad in both interest and knowledge. A 'Renaissance man' if you will. This an absolute opposite to what we live with today. We eschew the 'polymath' in favor of the 'monomath'. From the site Gain Weight Journal;

Unfortunately, we live in an era of monomaths now. This means specialists. The problem with that is that people get stuck with one way of thinking, they have blinders on, and cannot see the big picture, including the relationships and similarities between different things.

I know, even our education system is driven to a singular focus and it seems to be getting worse. For myself, I focussed on Maths and Physics in my education from the age of 15. Maybe I was bored. Maybe I could see the future, but despite that formal focus, I did put an effort into ensuring that I didn't get locked up in that world and miss out on everything else that there was to offer. (Though I probably shouldn’t have read all three volumes of Lord of the Rings over a two week period shortly before some year end exams!). Back to the plot. Reading that quote reminded me of what we used to say back in my Group Partner days ... "The Last Thing You Ever Need Near A Problem Is An Expert" Good. Because I am not. LinkedIN 'Labs' used to run something that visually mapped your connections so you could see clusters of people in your network. They closed it a while back, but at the time I wrote about it, dubbing it 'Cloud Hopping'. I also observed that most people had a very tight network of very few 'clouds'. This was mine.

A highly distributed interconnected network, emerging from European and American networks in finance, technology, application and social disciplines. I think Derek was spot on. My strength is not my speciality. My strength is my generality. And, while I would absolutely not describe myself as a genius, I am definitely a cloud hopper. A connector. And there are not many of us around, or at least we tend to keep quiet, because we live in an age where value is placed on 'what you know'. The 'who you know' is almost written off as 'the old boys club' . But once you understand the value of the role that Gladwell calls out in The Tipping Point - the pieces fall into place.

My Speciality? Generality!

I first published this post on Beyond Bridges on February 10th, 2016. That site has gone, the words archived,

We Are Becoming A Power Skills Economy

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 22:17:11 +1200

Josh Bershin writes that we are becoming a power skills economy.

In other words, automation did not eliminate work at all – it created new jobs, better jobs, and an acceleration of our workforce into what we now call the “service economy.” We are essentially shifting to the right in this model.

💬 Josh Bershin

BTW, in case you are wondering, ‘Power Skills’ is the 'new' name for ‘Soft Skills’. To be fair, it did need a new name. It’s also fair to say that whilst he’s not wrong, he fails to mention that in the last 15 years (where he references 2007) no mention that the average income of people is flat and that real income is declining.

But that's a different opportunity.

Oh - and maybe not so 'new' Josh was talking about this back in 2019 - and gave us a few clues as to what he was talking about, this is one of his graphics.

Here's My Take

1) Becoming? I think it is really more like that we are starting to recognize these skills. They have always been there - and though not necessarily recognised or even understood - I bet if you find successful people in that 'old' economy - they would demonstrate a lot of these traits.

2) Josh is not alone in highlighting these skills and their importance. What nobody is doing is organizing these skills into a taxonomy - much less an ontology. (What's the difference you may ask) Stan Garfield has a very simple explanation)

Taxonomy

Ontology

... except now there is.

More of this to come, but have to say, very excited by a company I have been talking to that has not only done a lot of research into these skills, but also which skills are most important - and why, depending on what you are trying to do.

Not only that, but they are releasing an app that will allow anybody to

assess their personal strengths and weaknesses across all skills
define which of those skills they should focus on to maximise their ability to be most succesful at what they are trying to do
all through a self paced, self directed, learning program.

As I said - more to come. Just to say - the cavalry is on its way.

Featured Image by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Where Am I Working?

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 10:15:00 +1200

I am sitting in New Zealand writing this. It started as an idea in my head and was typed into a local file on my computer. I copied it to Wordpress (my blog hosting software of choice) and saved a draft to my People First server.

The words were then sitting on a server in Iowa, USA.

From this point on, as I edit the draft, I am in New Zealand, the words I am editing are in Iowa - where am I working?

By the time you read this post, I will have published and anybody in the world can read it.

Example, a visitor in Kenya pulls up this web site in their browser and these words are 'automagically' read in Kenya.

Question

Where is ‘the work’ done?

New Zealand, because that is where I tapped the original words into the computer?
New Zealand, because that is where I cut and paste those words into Wordpress?
Iowa, because that is where the People First servers are?
Where you are reading this because until those words delivered value (you reading them), no work was done.

I ask because once you know where the work was done, you should have an idea on where you should be taxed and arguably where you should be licensed to work.

This conversation doesn’t seem to be a major part of public discourse, because the scenario is an edge case. But for how much longer?

New York has a law that says anybody working IN NEW YORK pays New York Taxes and from that emerges things like the NY, NJ and CT tri-state tax agreement.

“Like all states with broad-based income taxes, New York has asserted the right to tax nonresident income earned within its borders. But unlike most other jurisdictions with significant cross-border commuter flows—such as Illinois and Indiana or Virginia and Maryland—New York has never given nonresidents a tax pass in the form of ‘reciprocity’ with their home states.”

But if my servers are in Iowa, my customers are in Europe, my bank account is in California and I only live in New York, should I pay New York taxes?

I write more about where we work in this week's newsletter.

If You Don't Add Value - Why Are You There?

Wed, 11 May 2022 14:19:57 +1200

It is telling that someone like Doug Rushkoff can write these words;

Only individuals who create value for the company are awarded new stock proportionate to their contributions.

💬 Douglas Rushkoff

... without questioning the principle.

The corollary is of course that there are people that work inside a company that don't add value, which for yours truly is of course like a 'red rag to a bull' - because as the title of this post suggests, if you are employed by a company and not adding value to that company - then why are you there?

Stakeholder capitalism (apparently) 'solves' the problem.

‘Stakeholder capitalism’ is the buzzword du jour for business practices that strive to achieve more than profits and a high stock price.

💬 McKinsey

If you want to read more - you can:

Putting stakeholder capitalism into practice.

To be fair, the idea of 'Stakeholder Capitalism' has been around for several decades, although who actually coined the term is up for debate, with names including Klaus Schwab (Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum), Peter Drucker and Tom Peters.

Still wondering? This is not a bad primer.

So yes - it is not a new idea - it's just that as the world's conversation is moving into fairness and equality, as we see a (kind of) resurgence of Unions and as 'capitalists' are pushed into the corner of 'defending their position' ... the term is emerging and arguably being positioned as the logical next step for a 'sustainable economy'.

I wrote about this over three years ago when I shared a Ted Talk from Nick Hanauer. Today, that video has had over 5 million views. At the point of 'first discovery', I had not heard of Nick - but as I pointed out, the principles of what he was talking about are engrained in People First thinking.

Today, you can hear the same language when people talk about DAOs in the world of 'Web3' and quite a few other places.

But then many steps before 'Stakeholder Capitalism', there was something called 'The Cooperative Movement' which got its start in 1844 in Rochdale a small town in Lancashire, England.

So far, I have not read anything that clearly articulates the distinction between Stakeholder Capitalism and Cooperatives and which and why each might be better or worse than the other. Sometimes I wonder if 'cooperative' is too 'radical' in this world - so we keep inventing new words to describe the same thing.

I have always liked the New Values/Old Values - New Power/Old Power model originally developed by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms nearly ten years ago.

So, picking on a random ~~target~~ company like Uber, which despite hanging its hat on 'the sharing economy' is actually 💯 an 'old thinking' capitalist company.

Now consider a company called ATX Coop Taxi - a cooperative taxi service based in Austin that has been around for over 5 years. NO - they aren't as well known - but their service is a 'cooperative'.

The question is why hasn’t it taken off?

That is for another time.

How Are We Going To Manage The Transformation We Need?

Sat, 02 Apr 2022 16:50:27 +1200

I often listen to a podcast or read an article and at the end of it my reaction is 'yes … and' or 'yes … but’.

IF I feel sufficiently moved - a link might get posted to my Thought Stream, together with a pithy observation - and I move on.

The Thought Stream

On the stream I offer a randomized link, that takes you to one of the posts. the oldest of which dates back 2005!

Sometimes though … just sometimes … what I am reading or listening to, triggers more than a few synapses and I am prompted into writing something more substantial. This is one such occasion after I listened to ‘The Thoughtful Leader’ - a podcast hosted by Mindy Gibbins-Klein when she was talking with Steve Sanders.

Full disclosure - whilst I don’t really know either Mindy or Steve - we have talked, exchanged ideas and generally feel we are on the same playing field. All three of us happen to belong to a tight network that runs out of the UK, but in my language, I wouldn’t say I ‘know’ either of them ‘well’ (yet), whatever that means. That said, they both come across as very good people that I will get to know better over time.

So to that podcast.

First - Mindy - my thanks for the People First call-out - at least that is how I am taking it 😀 … I know you weren’t connecting it to my work - but I’ll take whatever I can get - just like when Zuckerborg (sic) borrowed the phrase, I know he wasn’t talking about me - and in fact, I don’t believe him - but nothing wrong with pushing the image to remind people!

Steve - good job and on topic - as we explored when we recently talked. I think we might be cut from the same cloth, even though our suits might be different.

I certainly do not disagree with anything you said - but I do have a couple of observations.

One - Generational Differences

I agree on the challenge of focussing on generational differences. I know 15 years olds that are 80 and 80 years old that ‘remain’ teenagers. I get why business has this need for categorization - I reject that people need to adopt it.

The New Yorker seems to agree.

Why do people adopt corporate language and thinking that is at odds with what is good for us?

For example;
I reject the use of that horrible corporate word ‘content’ that people spend so much time working to deliver into the platformed silos of LinkedIn, Facebook, TicToc, Snapchat, Instagram, What’s App and all the rest.
If your work is homogenous, un-differentiated, fodder written to feed the algorithm and garner clicks, hearts and whatever other little badge of honour the corporates regard us with - then perfect.
I would hazard a guess though that most creators don’t think that their posts, articles, essays, photographs, books, images, poems … are anything but that … but that is what we are reducing our IP to.
And of course, because anything that is an homogenized undifferentiated commodity - the price that gets paid is not on value - but how cheap an alternative might be.
.. and do not get me started on Marketing War Rooms!

But let’s keep the plot front and center.

I have been looking and commenting on these supposed generational differences for years and am not quite as optimistic as Steve when it comes to how fast this is going to change. More of that in a minute. But first - let me put my hand up in the air and emphasize that Steve is not alone in his optimism. Who am I to disagree with the findings of Accenture, who in this report seem to support the idea that we are moving towards this new world faster than any of us might think.

Esteban Kolsky is one of the few analysts that picked up on the survey - and in his post reminded us of the vagaries of such surveys!

… “let’s say you are not truly convinced that they WILL actually do what they say they may in a survey (something about an unconscious bias towards being liked makes most of us answer as expected, not as the way we will act, etc.).”

He goes on with this advice …

… “read while wearing rubber gloves and use thongs to “flip pages” if you want to avoid contact – hehe – but definitely read this about how consumers are changing, because outside of the flawed data-collection, the trend is real and well documented.”

… and it is my job as CCO (that’s ‘Chief Contrary Office’) not only to question the findings that were discovered when Accenture surveyed

… “more than 25,000 consumers across 22 countries, with follow-up focus groups in five countries.

(I’ll forgive the language - it’s Accenture, they can’t help it, but I prefer to survey people.)

… but indeed anything that sits oddly that is, in turn, being shared under the banner ‘common wisdom’.

The bottom line is optimism. Don’t get me wrong - even I am optimistic, it’s just the speed of adoption that I am questioning - which brings me to part two.

Two - The Speed of Transformation

First, I hope I am wrong. But, the evidence I am seeing suggests different.

I could highlight so many examples that might suggest how slow this is going to be - but let’s choose three.

Supply Chain Inequality

We have been able to buy ‘$1 throw away ‘designer’ t-shirts’ for decades. Stores like Primark despite pages like this exist because when it comes to action - as opposed to feeling, we turn a blind eye.

Just think for two seconds about the profit behind a $1 t-shirt being sold in a large department store on Oxford Street and other cities around the world. It surely points to inequality and sometimes exploitation somewhere (if not everywhere) in the supply chain.

Exploitation that we all hate and rail against - but we are complicit in our purchase.

What age group does Primark serve

”Whilst in-store customers may differ slightly, Primark’s social audience fall within the 17–24-year age demographic (depending on platform) and are over 90% female.

The very age group that we are pinning our hopes and dreams on to change corporations.

Ease of Transaction over Moral Compass

Uber Eats, Doordash, GrubHub et al make their profits through food delivery.

The mechanics of the transaction has 30% of the food order at your favourite takeaway magically being extracted from the local economy - only to appear as revenue in a company in Oakland, California.

It’s clear. But we continue to do it.

So much for being aware of social issues and forcing corporations to change.

A similar argument can be applied to Uber itself because it is ‘oh so convenient - and cheap … even though even in London there are apps that compete like Gett … so people who ‘say’ they are demanding Corporations to do better - vote with their thumb when it comes to the short term benefit of saving a buck. Principles are gone!

Don’t believe me? Consider this which headlines with;

“Black cabs roar back into favour as app firms put up their prices.”

Meanwhile - over in the USA …

DC AG Sues Grubhub For Sneaky Fees, Screwing Over Local Restaurants | Techdirt

“But Grubhub didn’t fully cover the costs of these discounts. Instead, it passed most of the costs of the discounts along to the already-struggling restaurants. Grubhub also forced the restaurants to pay their full commission on the discounted orders based on non-discounted prices. This promotion severely cut into restaurants’ already-small profit margins, and misled DC residents who believed their orders through Grubhub would help their favourite restaurants.”

Yikes.

Where is the outrage? Where is the socially aware youth?

Cryptocurrency

16% of Americans say they have ever invested in, traded or used cryptocurrency - depending on which site you visit, the numbers vary for the US and in different countries, but there is no doubt that a lot of people have jumped onto the bandwagon - despite the apparent danger of it being a highly volatile gamble in something that I would guess (no science here), some 90% of those people could not even start to describe how cryptocurrency works.

But that isn’t what this bit is about.

Lets start with another podcast that asks Can Our Climate Survive Bitcoin? - it’s an hour long - but well worth a listen - and it contains some eye opening stories.

One of the many stories - American towns competing with each other to offer massively discounted power to ‘crypto miners’ where the workers earn $20 per hour, and the owners - well - it’s the usual story.

Scott Galloway nailed it in one of his pieces;

and

“All animals are equal but some are more equal than others”

💬 George Orwell

So how do you reconcile the crypto movement with the climate change crowd …

… “almost half of all American men ages 18 to 29 say they have invested in, traded or used a form of cryptocurrency.”

SOURCE

Maybe its just that the ‘modern youth’ are massively intelligent …

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

💬 F. Scott Fitzgerald

But I am not yet convinced.

No research yet - but as the funds spring up supporting this brave new crypto world and our children are apparently eschewing investment in the ‘extractive industries’ - we find this headline;

Exxon Mobil reportedly gets in on Bitcoin mining

Follow the money babe - follow the money.

Three - Altruism

Riddle me this … why are boomers generally seen as the ‘bad guys’. This just 5 days ago : Boomers responsible for nearly one third of greenhouse gas emissions, study suggests. Really, do some google searching - it is clear that boomers are positioned as 'the problem'.

I have no idea how true that is (full disclosure - I am a boomer)

But It Gets Worse

I am a Boomer
I am English
I am Male
I am Straight
I am White
Single handidly - most of the ills of the world might fall at my feet if you listen to the common narrative.

I do however know enough that the same data can produce very different conclusions.

But consider this;

Vint Cerf and Bob Metcalf’s work gave us TCP/IP - the internet wouldn’t work without that protocol

Tim Berners Lee’s work gave us the worldwide web.

So as to avoid confusion (and please note - this is a real image - not a photoshop .. I was there when it was taken.) …

Let’s write that in a different way.

Baby Boomers Vint Cerf (78) and Bob Kahn (83) hold the join honorary title of ‘Godfathers of The Internet’. Tim Berners-Lee (66) came up with the World Wide Web and none of them are millionaires in the ‘millionaire sense’ - and certainly not billionaires.

It’s also telling that I more than likely need to provide context as to who these people are - but that when we move on to other generations, no explanation is necessary. We just somehow know their names.

Jeff Bezos at 58 sits at the cusp of Boomer and GenX, the other names you will be familiar with include;

GenX

Jack Dorsey (45)
Sergey Brin (48)
Larry Page (49)
Elon Musk (50)

Millenial

Mark Zuckerberg (37)
Evan Spiegel (31)
Zhang Yiming (38)

The web was created by Berner-Lee as a place of equality - where everyone had a publishing press and/or microphone - if they chose to use them.

But the money was made by ‘post boomers’.

The cesspit of corruption, bias and fake news - Fakebook was created by a millennial. The other one, Twitter, by a GenXer.

I could write it another way;

Boomers created the internet and the web and did not turn themselves into money-grubbing billionaires - like GenX and Millenials do today.

Now, who’s destroying the world?

Bottom Line

No matter the indignation we feel, or how loud our screams for a fairer society, the fact is that when it comes down to it, the further that happens from your wallet and/or physical presence - the more easily it is forgotten - or even ignored.

The t-shirt situation occurs because they are made on the other side of the world - too far away for me to affect. Besides - if I don’t buy them - others will - what difference does what I do make?

Uber, is an identical situation - except the person you are now stealing (what word would you use) from might be your neighbour!

And it is all because people, on the whole, do not understand. They don’t think - why should they - life is too busy!

As a result, corporations will continue as they do and won’t be challenged as they transition their businesses into spaces to make even more money - at whatever cost.

Yes - there are exceptions. Consider Patagonia, a retailer that takes its values to heart. Revenues of $1Billion - not chump change - but that’s less than Primark’s pre Covid annual profits - interesting to note that Arthur Ryan who founded Primark is of the Silent Generation as is Yvon Chouinard who founded Patagonia.

If we are really going to compare generations through the lens of ‘business oligarchs’ - it looks like the world might have got better with Boomers - and it has been going downhill ever since!

Conclusion

And, this is all written with a bit of tongue in cheek because I do so object to behavioural classification based on age.

But it’s also asking why we think everything is suddenly going to be different - and different quick - just because we hear how ‘woke’ and ‘aware’ the youth are - when it comes to global challenges. ‘the youth’ are coming to save us.

You might not remember the sixties (if you do - you probably ‘weren’t there’), but that generation had hopes, ideals and aspirations. They were also going to change the world for the better. Did they? Was it for the better?

To borrow a ‘sign off’ from my friend Geoff Moore - that’s what I think … what do you think?

What Is The Future Of Work?

Sat, 02 Apr 2022 14:39:47 +1200

Let me point out - again - that the answer to the question is useless - because the question is badly framed. I have written about this before here, here and here and a whole host of other places aswell.

The Conclusion

There is no future of work. There is only a future of income.

Fast forward to a LinkedIn graphic that was presented to me last week.

It appeared in Brett King's LinkedIn stream. Brett and I are connected on LinkedIn, and have a couple of very good mutual friends in common. Brett, like another 'futurist' Gerd Leonhard is doing a great job in 'getting the word out', but I worry that the word being got out is not just oversimplified but actually harmful because people are being lulled into a false sense of security.

This Is One Such Example

First, I assume that 'Aritificial' is a typo and not some new technological development ...

... but the lack of proofreading of a single sentence might be a clue to how substantial the thinking is that underpins the idea.

Important: Please do not take this post as my taking an anti position on Brett. I don’t know him, but do follow and pay attention. He is not wrong on a number of issues. Like these two ..

Brett's Take

The Original Post on LinkedIn (sorry - I wanted to embed it here - but LinkedIn is the only site that seems to fail with a WordPress embeds) ... go figure.

The crux of my issue is the flip approach to what is happening in the world of business today.

I limited my response to a few lines ... hoping that a reader would be able to 'read between them', Brett read the lines, but not between them.

Brett duly responded ...

Readers of this blog will know that this is something I understand.

BUT

The point I was trying to make is not about the future of work - we know is being redefined through outsourcing, offshoring, automation, AI, the gig economy, zero hour contracts ... and it is clear those jobs aren't going to come back.

My point is (and always has been) more 'People Firsty' ... that is as all of this comes to be - how will people make income to live their lives in the future?

Example 1

In the comments in Brett's thread people referenced the four day week - and everyone is talking about how it is already happening. The assumption seems to be that a staff member will no longer work 5 days and instead work 4 days.

This is quite brilliant and lovely and utopian and - all those things we want to have in and around our lives and existence. Who doesn’t want to work less ...

If their salary is not affected.

But let's just take a couple of seconds to do a pretty shallow dive ... if people are working 4 days, not 5, then they are working 20% less. To let them work less and not pay them less is the equivalent of companies giving each of those people a 20% salary increase.

Are companies going to do that?

The answer is in plain sight because we have a stalking horse in the race. Thanks to COVID we have proof points all over the world that people don’t want to 'go back to the office' and in turn, some companies have responded with

That's ok - work wherever you want!

Spectacular - until you read the small print ...

This isn't the only article out there, do a search and you will find hundreds, if not thousands of articles debating the merits of paying your staff based on what locals earn.

Case in point - move 200 miles up the I80 from San Francisco to Reno, salaries are nothing like that of the Bay Area. On top of that since Reno is in Nevada - there is no state tax. In California - well like most places, it varies, but here is one slice ...

$115,648 – $590,746

9.30%

Source : HR Block

- so moving your life 200 miles reduces your cost of living substantially just based on tax savings. But there's more ...

Beyond the tax break, the Reno cost of living index is just 116.2, compared to San Francisco's at a whopping 244 - and that does not include the tax break just described.

So if you can do your job remotely, why wouldn’t you want to move to a cheaper place - and collect the same income. (Putting the comparison of living in Reno versus San Francisco aside.)

It does seem to be a perfect idea - except your employer is not generally going to allow that - because they do - and will - pay you based on where you live - not where you work!

I get the argument, I really do - but that's my point. If companies aren't going to pay people for value delivered, but based on where they live, then why are they suddenly going to pay you a higher daily rate because you want to work less?

To me, the 4 day week is an experiment to cut salaries - legally. It won't happen suddenly - just over time. They might well leave your salary in place, but everyone's? ... and when you leave will they continue to pay your premium rate to the next person?

Example 2

As more and more people leave their cubes to follow their dreams and passions - which is what everyone is telling you to do - right? Follow your dreams - it will all work out.

What dream and passion are you going to follow?

Look around today and you will find little societal support for artists, musicians, writers, poets et al. Imagine if the number of such people suddenly doubled, grew fivefold or even tenfold as we all follow our dreams ... are all those people suddenly going to be earning a lot more? (it's a rhetorical question.)

We are also told that there is so much opportunity in the professions of care-giving, social services, teachers, hospital workers, elderly care. They are right. Lots of opportunities. They are all on the ‘hot professions’ list, but before you get too excited, go talk to the people who work in those areas now. Ask them why Teachers are resigning en masse? Why do nurses get trained and don’t go into health services?

There are countless examples of how society (that's you and me), value these professions. We don't.

Back to musicians - we pay Spotify 10 bucks a month to stream an 'all you can eat' flow of music to your ears. The artists are generally not well rewarded. But it's not as if Spotify aren't making good money. How else do they afford to $100 million to sign up a single podcast - or buy company after company as they seek to lock up the world of podcasting. (BTW - they are doing it because the more you listen to that - the less they have to pay out.)

To conclude, as wonderful as it is for all of us to follow our dreams and passions - so we can all live fulfilled lives - we also need to earn an income. And we are barely doing that today, so how is that going to get better?

I said something better change
I said something better change
I said something better change
I said something better change
The Stranglers

Or maybe we will all move into social services, hospitals, caring for the elderly - since they are all on the ‘hot professions’ list. That said, the last two years have clearly demonstrated that while ‘society’ might value the people in those roles, it is clear that the paymasters do not.

In short, as we replace jobs with automation - and people don’t have a way to replace that income, something is not adding up.

Bottom line - as organizations remove people from their vendor supply chain and automate sales to improve business efficiency, more and more people will be left out of the workforce - and no matter how many Norman Tebbits (Sorry old English reference), how about Kim Kardashian's words of 'motivation'.

I have a way of looking at the issue. I call it ...

The Business Equation

At the simplest level, the business equation recognizes that every commercial entity has an input - where it creates something using people, money and/or assets to create a product or service that is sold - the output. The 'black box' in the middle is the business. Your business. Any business.

To maximize shareholder value, the business seeks to reduce the cost of what it produces or increase the price of what it sells. Yes there all kinds of techniques that are used - but reduce it all down and you are left with

It is a simplification, but the logic holds.

This is an early simplification of the model. The whole enchilada will become a post unto itself.

It is also true that on the left-hand side of the equation the fixed costs of 'people' is really high - which is why over the years, companies have sought to cut those costs by 'getting people off the books'. That's where outsourcing and offshoring got their start. Automation through Robotics is now turning into AI and then at contractual levels, the gig economy / zero-hour contracts all play into the needs of corporations who keep on pushing the boundaries of 'just in time' 'people'.

And you thought the days of people being cogs in the corporate engine was a thing of the past!

Now imagine every company big and small working to remove people from the equation in this way. Where does it leave people? Every mini Business Equation on the left of that diagram is doing its bit to outsource, offshore, automate .... and where do people fit in that equation?

To quote my friend Geoffrey Moore ...

That's What I Think - What Do You Think?

Message From A 🎵 Musician

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 09:28:04 +1200

As a reader of this blog and newsletter or as a listener of my podcast - you know that I am a keen supporter of the broad category of ‘creative professional’ - and specifically ‘musician’. What follows are not my words, but those of a musician that wrote to me recently. Reproduced with their permission and names and venues changed/anonymized to ‘protect the vulnerable’.

I just got my first real paying gig since March 17 for Saturday December 26th. Meanwhile, due to an uptick in local COVID cases the county has announced that restaurants are to remain open, but no one allowed at the bar for the next 2 weeks.

By my calculation from today (Dec. 10), that takes us to December 25th. So, December 26th we will be back to normal?

After 9 months of ‘COVID communications with the owners of a local ‘hostelry’ - and having played there every Friday for over fourteen years, I have now experienced a full u-turn, so instead of returning to my Friday Afternoon slot - which they said “would be there for me whenever I was ready to return”, they have instead told me I will be “on call”, if they need a last minute substitute as ‘their schedule is booked full’.

I told them actually no …. no I won’t.

Beyond that, they are no longer paying what they used to - and that was never a lot to begin with!

The business (music AND the hostelry) has never been stacked with integrity, but this has to be a new low. Maybe to match the pay rates of the stand-ins?

Meanwhile on the other side of town, my Tuesday night gig (again over 14 years) has been taken over by a guy playing bass with a karaoke backing machine … in return for ‘a burger and a beer’ !!

The musician said “he did not want to steal my night” … funny - because he did. He could have said no. I guess the burger temptation was too great.

He was offered the gig by the owner because his belief was that I wouldn’t work for free. (Correct!).

I grew up in a Union town. I remember what those kinds of people were called.

I get it. I really do. I know the venues are struggling with finance like us all - musicians included - but if they can’t afford musicians - why bring them on at all?

If your business model is to offer live music - shouldn’t you pay for it?

And sure - I can hear the gallery calling down - you’ll make it up in tips.

With luck - but in reality - no.

So take a share of the profits of extra beer sold …. yeah - good luck with that! When THEY are doing well, YOU are on a fixed (low) fee - “make it up in tips”. But now they are down … well, you know how it goes.

As you know I’ve made my living as a full time musician and creative all of my life, so sad to reflect on COVID lessons;

loyalty - out of the window promises - not worth the paper they are written on dogs - they will eat dogs Don’t get me wrong, the competition is just getting ramped up. The number of musicians - in this area seems to be growing by the day - and I am pretty sure that the number of hostelries are reducing. (One of the biggest just 10 miles away has announced that it is closing for GOOD. )

Not sure how this is going to play out - but I stand with my belief that a business should only offer what it can afford - and the race to the bottom of price is not a race I am going to join in.

When I order Lobster, I don’t expect to eat it and then renegotiate the price - but that seems to be the life of the live performer.

Still - one door closes, another opens - I wonder what happens when two doors close!

Thinking Allowed

This is a People First post that was originally on the People First domain. It has been moved here as part of my domain consolidation program. It’s a steady and slow WIP as I check each entry, so do please bear with me.

More about People First
Other People First Posts
(not just from the ‘other domain’ … all of them.)

Sun, 03 May 2020 16:36:47 +1200

🔗 Just revisiting the Google Rant

.. all this time later, does it still hold?

Sat, 14 Sep 2019 06:50:50 +1200

From one of my best friends in the world. Thank-you Randall.

Play, Passion, Purpose

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 09:39:41 +1200

Needless to say those three words grabbed my attention immediately. And then when he said ...

The culture of schooling is radically at odds with the culture of learning that produces innovators.
Tony Wagner

I was hooked.

[youtu.be/hvDjh4l-V...](https://youtu.be/hvDjh4l-VHo)

Very good Ted Talk - just one gripe ...

He just about opens the talk with

I came to understand, that there's a set of core competencies every young person must be well on their way to mastery before he or she finished high school.
- critical thinking and problem solving
- collaboration across networks and leading by influence
- agility and adaptability
- initiative and entropenorialism
- effective oral and written communication
- accessing and analyzing information
- curiosity and imagination
Tony Wagner

i.e. if you have left school, sorry - we taught you all wrong as to how to succeed in the life in front of you.

What he should have said was

I came to understand, that there's a set of core competencies every person must master.

I know he doesn't mean it and I guess it is about education - but the implication is that you have left school then 'we taught you all wrong'.

Keeping that in mind ... well worth a watch.

Corporate Speak

Wed, 26 Jun 2019 12:11:29 +1200

I have a problem with ‘Corporate Speak’. Putting aside how ‘we the people’ seem to adopt corporate speak as part of our conversation - how else does ‘content’ become part of our day to day vocabulary? (Although that is an entirely different topic.)

Here’s the thing … the same organisations that use phrases like;

‘Share of Wallet’

‘Attacking and Targeting a Market’ (that’s you and me folks) and breaking down those

‘Adoption Barriers’

‘Taking the hill’

‘Users’ not ‘People’

And have something called a ‘War Room’ !!! - you know the place where Marketing meet to plan how to extract out last cent. Anyway these organisations are exactly the same organisations that say things like

‘Your Passion Is Our Satisfaction’,

‘Pleasing People Is Our Motto’ and

‘A Customer Is Always Right’.

Which language do you believe reflects the true nature of the corporation?

Me? I think what is said behind closed doors more often reflects the truth. What is broadcast in public is what they think we want to hear. It’s politics, not business, but isn’t that what happened to Mitt Romney?

This week’s newsletter explores corporate language and asks why have people just blindly adopted it without question? It doesn’t serve us - only the corporation.

🔗 Read the whole thing here.

🖇️ 🔎 .. and much more on what I think about language here.

Sun, 24 Feb 2019 07:18:24 +1200

🖇️ Published this two years ago today … trying to put context around world events and what they mean to young people and why it might be different to old …

John Philpin - The Other One

Fri, 10 Mar 2017 10:15:55 +1200

No we haven't met

Yes we have talked on the phone

Yes we are related (we think)

johnphilpin.com is one of his philpin sites

john.philpin.com is one of my philpin sites

Listen - I’m Going To Tell You A Story

It was a few years ago now, you can tell, because I had to get up from my chair, walk to the kitchen and pick up the phone.

Hello .. John Philpin

.. and those were the last words that seemed to make sense in this particular conversation. The following is paraphrased, my memory is not that good.

Oh hello, we are calling to see if you have any commentary on the recent developments in Gainesville.

Sorry, could you repeat that?

Oh yes, we are following up on some recent developments around the murders in Gainesville, and calling to ask if you might add any perspective.

I’m sorry .. what kind of perspective?

Well given your involvement at the time, we were thinking ..

Sorry. What involvement?

Is that John Philpin?

It is.

P H I L P I N ? (Spelling it out).

Yes.

Well given your connection to ..

I’m sorry, I think you have me confused with someone else.

But you are John Philpin ..

Yes. Tell you what if you give me your number, I will look into who it might be and get them to call back.

.. number exchanged and I sat down.

In 2024 if you Google “John Philpin”, you will indeed find that there are two of us, but back then, there wasn’t a Google … I know kids .. hard to believe. There was something called ‘Alta Vista’ and Yahoo - but nascent at best.

In all honesty, I can’t recall exactly how I went about the next step. We had Compuserve - and of course at Oracle I had access to the ‘real’ ‘internet’ - but - there still has to be something at the other end to be found for a ‘search’ to work … so this was going to be tough.

But … BUT - you may not know this, but ‘Philpin’ is a pretty uncommon name. Uncommon like there may be 5 to 6 hundred of us - tops - around the world today. I can also tell you that 75% of them live in Pembrokeshire, Wales, or at least in South Wales.

Ok - I jest - but it is not so far off.

Donald Philpin - a cousin of my dad’s - did some research back in the 60s and 70s and unpacked a family tree of sorts essentially connecting us all back to a ‘Walter Philpin’ of Tenby, Pembrokeshire in the 1600s. (When I say - research - this was no internet search (see earlier google comment), this was serious - visiting parish churches, pouring through registers of birth, deaths and marriage and painstakingly putting it all together, by talking to family members. (Now THAT was commitment.)

Anyway, long story short (let’s assume I used Compuserve) and tried to find this other Philpin. I failed. Kind of. I found an author called John Philpin - who was probably the writer this journalist thought I was. But - no way of connecting - no phone - certainly no email - even for the publisher - just an address in NYC, which IMHO seemed too hard. (Clearly I was no ‘Donald’.)

I also found a musician by name of 🎵Five Philpin and there seemed to be a connection to a John Philpin - and I am a music nerd anyway - so what the hell - I reached out to him through email that seemed to be associated with his music.

And nothing … for a few weeks and I then got an email from Five.

We exchanged emails - and I bought every CD he had ever released - ( I like to support ‘smaller’ musicians and hell - with the same last name as mine - of course I was.)

Asked him about John - and turns out John is his father - at the time Five was in LA / Seattle - and dad was over In New England. Anyway could Five connect me?

Five - “Leave it with me.”

… delivering a result a week or so later, here’s Dad’s phone number - give him a call.

I did.

We talked for a couple of hours … mainly around who both us ‘John Philpins’ came to be us ‘John Philpins’ .. and given the tightness of our Family tree, we tracked back to our mutual roots … in .. Pembrokeshire and and and …

.. and finally I got round to telling him about the call from the news paper asking for a comment .. and there was a silence, and then .. (again ..paraphrasing)

I have no interest in talking to these people whose only job seems to be title tattle, so I wouldn’t bother getting back to them … but should they call again, I would answer their questions. They are looking to speak to John Philpin and gather ‘quotes’ .. give them. Don’t let knowing nothing about the cases they call about get in the way .. make it up .. it would stand more chance of being right than some of what they write. Might be fun?

We chatted a little longer - said our good byes and moved on with our lives.

I never heard anything more from the journalist - or any other for that matter, so I never got to try out John’s idea. I sporadically kept in touch with Five - had one more email exchange with John - but basically all our lives just continued, with this one tiny dent of connection.

🔗 John writing (in 2002) an analysis on 🎵 Kurt Cobain’s death - on the way through referencing his son ‘Five’.

Time Moves Faster When You Are Older

Fri, 24 Feb 2017 11:47:52 +1200

As we move steadily into 2017, I know that I am not the first to recognize that we are now 50 years away for the 1967 Summer of Love. Talk to a teen/twenty something ( donâ€™t you just hate those ’ennial tags?) … and I wonder if they would / could even comprehend what was going on back then.

Sure they listen to the music form that era … but to have a real understanding of Vietnam, The Kennedy and MLK assassinations, Civil Rights Movements et al … might be stretching it.

Why? Well, let’s put it into context.

Back in 1967, the equivalent would be to have that teen/twenty something understand everything that was going on in and around the FIRST WORLD WAR - much less the SECOND WORLD WAR.

In fact - when you think about it, the SECOND World War ended just twenty two years before the Summer of Love.

Twenty Two Years Ago the President of The USA was Bill Clinton and The Prime Minister of England was John Major.

People of my age can remember it all ’like yesterday’. But for the newly emerging generations that are beginning to shape the future of this world - it all was a very very long time ago.

Which is all good - but let us not forget how we got here. The wars and the sacrifices made by millions. The shared experiences that shaped us.

He isn’t a teen/twenty something, so he should know better (but he doesn’t), but the current president of The USA is rattling his saber at pretty much everyone.

Hopefully, it will continue to just rattle because he won’t be able to work out how to take it out of its scabbard. But if he does ….