Is it any wonder, some people ask, that Sweden's productivity stats are so poor given that the entire country shuts down for over a month every summer? Well, I'll reply, given that there's nothing to do but work from October to April (when Californians will still take early afternoons off at the beach), we're worth it. Here's what I spent my off-time reading and what I thought of the works.
We are trendspotting creatures who spend our lives wondering what’s going on in the world around us. So why do so many changes pass us by or – even worse – take us completely by surprise? Why is our worldview always a little broken? What’s the learning of the many extreme events that have taken place over the past decade – from September 11th, 2001 to the financial crash of 2008? What long-term changes take place behind daily headlines and buzzwords? How can we understand the present and predict the future if we can’t even make sense of it?
These questions are the starting point of Everything We Know Is Wrong – The Trendspotter’s Handbook, an inspiring instruction manual to help you sharpen your trendspotting skills and navigate the many puzzling changes that make up life in the 21st century. Where other books about trends serve up ready-to-eat meals, this one will help you find, hunt and prepare your own “food” by giving you the tools and mindset needed for successful, in-depth trendspotting. It will help you distinguish between hype and actual insights, between fashion trends and megatrends. With seven insights about how our change-detecting minds work, Everything We Know Is Wrong will help you become an even better trendspotter in an age where we all need understand and adapt to changes in society, life and business.
The problem with following business biographies is that they tend to be written many years after events occured. Electric Car company Tesla Motors is an exception, however. Read a wonderful, scary account of what's been going down behind the scenes in the past few years here.
Call it the Heinz effect...
With Umbrellas!
Getting ready to speak about the future of regions and cities in a few weeks time, I've come across some interesting stuff in the past 24 hours.
A friend of mine sent me these pictures showing over 3,000 people making a pilgrimage to Dalarö, outside Stockholm, to watch the annual first outside grazing for about 20 cows. Is there a trend in this?
A couple of years ago, I read Phil Rosenzweig's seminal The Halo Effect about how we idolize certain companies, brands or phenomena to the point of blindness. I can't help thinking of this syndrome as I read yet another article showing the murky, previously unseen part of Dubai (or "The Emirates" as they like to call themselves nowadays that Abu Dhabi has bailed them out). From UK's The Independent:
The Economist last week reported that living abroad gives people a creative edge. This made me think that instead of using the sloppy collectivist word "immigrants", we should call people who live in country they weren't born in "Creatives". This will bring an interesting edge to currently meaningless political discussions about "How to reach out to immigrants" or "Are there too many immigrants?". How do you reach The Creatives? Are there too many Creatives?
