TL;DR: September’s Go Flux Yourself debates when to come clean about the Tooth Fairy’s existence, considers the beauty of magic, developing a sense of wonder, how to excel at human-centred innovation, and provides lessons from the inventor of the carpet sweeper …
Image created on Midjourney with the prompt “a magical tooth fairy with a mechanised carpet sweeper looking happy in the style of a cubist Picasso painting”
The future
“So why not live with the magic? Be a kid again and believe in the fantastical. Life is more fun with a little smoke and mirrors.”
I love this time of year, as the completed page of September – the last month of summer indulgence – is turned to reveal October, the beginning of the golden quarter and the cosiness of autumn.
As I tap these words, I spy, on the other side of the window, shrivelled yellow and brown leaves creating a patchwork carpet on the garden floor, having twisted and tumbled from their trees. Yet those trees remain well covered in greenery, for now.
The changing of the seasons reminds us of the natural process of renewal. But, as always, autumn and soon winter will provide darkness in a particularly gloomy, and unpredictable world. And yet, these dark months are punctuated by magical, soothing, and memorable events.
As the dad of two children who still – just about, in the case of my 10-year-old boy (more below) – believe in Father Christmas, I adore reliving the wonder of the festive season, which begins for me on Halloween. For parents, while no doubt a considerable effort is needed to make this period magical, it is rewarding and life-affirming. Soon, that innocence will be lost.
Being in my early 40s, I’ve had over half of the 4,000 weeks we live on average, points out journalist and author Oliver Burkeman. The second half of my life will be hugely different from the first, on a macro and micro level.
For various reasons, I’ve recently been thinking about my remaining 1,800-ish weeks – if lucky. And whenever I consider what I would like to fill them with, it filters down to spending time with my nearest and dearest, cliched and twee as that might be.
Maybe it’s a sign of my stage in life, but a large part of this desire is to protect my kids. Stand back, and the post-pandemic world is pretty mad right now.
As wars rage in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, global warming is increasing, loneliness is also on the rise, every country in the world has lower fertility rates than in 1950, NASA is building the world’s first telescope designed for planetary defence, journalists have turned to artificial intelligence-created newsreaders in Venezuela to avoid arrest, AI girlfriends are being preferred over real thing in their hundreds of millions, and technology has reached a point where everything should be questioned, not just the news. And who can predict what will happen if Donald Trump regains access to the Oval Office in the next couple of months?
How does a parent prepare a child for survival in a post-truth world? What are we doing to the minds of little people by confecting the winter months, in particular, with beautiful lies to generate artificial happiness? One could argue that their joy when meeting Father Christmas and receiving festive gifts is a cruel construct that, once revealed as such, will lead to deep mistrust.
I began this month’s newsletter with a quotation from Irish-based author, L.H. Cosway’s Six of Hearts, a story about a world-renowned illusionist (according to its description – I’ve not read the book). I was drawn to it as Freddie, who hit double figures in age earlier in September, lost a tooth the other day. Thankfully, I had to dash out to play football on the evening he asked my wife: “Does the Tooth Fairy really exist? I mean, is she genuinely real?”
Having been instructed, later that evening, to switch a quid for the tooth under Freddie’s pillow, it’s logical to assume that my wife didn’t reveal the truth. I can understand why. First the Tooth Fairy, then … then EVERYTHING! But when is the right moment to admit the game is up?
Can we handle the truth even as adults? I read with interest this morning that Melvin Vopson, an associate professor of physics at the University of Portsmouth, has proved our entire universe may be an advanced computer simulation—much like The Matrix. Yes, he has a book to sell on this subject, but he told MailOnline: “The Bible itself tells us that we are in a simulation, and it also tells us who is doing it. It is done by an AI.”
After screaming “BS”, the natural human reaction is: “Well, what’s the point, then?” Cue a sad emoji. We’re all big kids at heart.
On the subject of magic, Arthur C. Clarke, famously wrote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Even if AI isn’t capable – yet – of creating the universe, it’s undoubtedly becoming impressive and, moreover, indiscernible from reality.
Not everyone is finding AI magical in a work setting, though. Research from Upwork, published in July, highlights the “AI expectation gap“, with 96% of C-suite leaders admitting they expect the use of AI tools to increase their company’s overall productivity levels. However, 77% of employees say these tools have actually decreased their productivity and added to their workload.
A friend messaged me the other day to let me know he had managed 110 days of sobriety but that he felt he needed to drink at a gig because he was struggling with his feelings and wanted to release some pressure. The exchange soon revealed that he had been jobless for almost a year, and a beloved grandmother had died days before the gig.
He wrote that he was “feeling anxiety and just a sense of doom about everything around modern life. I’m worried about the future of society and for our kids. There is so much hate around and the want for AI to replace us. If I, as someone with 20 years of experience, struggle to get a job, what will it be like for future generations?”
How do you answer that? With too much time to ponder, my friend fears the worst at the moment – for him, but mostly for his children. I get that.
I’ve attended many events in the last month, and I’ve taken to asking interviewees how I should prepare my kids for the future. At Gartner Reimagine HR, Paul Rubenstein, Chief Customer Officer at Visier, a company that provides AI-powered people analytics, told me that today’s youngsters must be “agile, smart, and fearless”. Great answer.
Perhaps, then, the greatest gift we can give our children isn’t shielding them from reality but nurturing their sense of wonder. In a world of AI and uncertainty, their ability to see magic in the every day might be the superpower they need to thrive.
The present
It’s conference season, and later this week, I’ll be on stage twice at DTX (the Digital Transformation Expo) at London ExCel. I’m looking forward to moderating a panel on the main stage alongside BT, techUK, and booking.com panellists to examine why human-centred tech design and delivery have never been so critical.
Regarding technology’s stickiness, Dr Nicola Millard, Principal Innovation Partner at BT Business (who wrote her PhD thesis on this subject), talks about the three Us: useful, useable, and used. The last of these revolves around peer pressure, essentially. Her octogenarian mother requested an iPad only because her friend had one. Meanwhile, Nicola is a “shadow customer” engaging with companies digitally on behalf of her mother, who finds it too overwhelming.
I touched on this subject in a keynote speech on human-work evolution at the Institute for Engineering and Technology for Accurate Background earlier in September. I urged the audience to be “kind explorers” to navigate the digital world – and careful not to leave people behind.
I referenced Terry, my late, jazz-loving nonagenarian friend I’ve written about before in this newsletter. I recall his deep frustration at trying to speak to a human at his bank for a minor query and spending hours – no exaggeration – going around in circles, via automated assistants. Unable to walk, he resorted to using his trusty fountain pen to write a letter to his local branch. No return letter or call arrived, tragically. It was far from a magic experience, and the tech dumbfounded Terry, who would have reached triple figures next month.
We can use the CHUI values framework to help improve human-centric design. I wrote about this last month, but as a reminder, here are the main elements.
Community: Emphasises the importance of fostering a sense of belonging in both physical and virtual spaces. It’s about creating inclusive environments and valuing diverse perspectives.
Health: Goes beyond just physical wellbeing to include mental and emotional health. It stresses the need for work-life balance and overall wellness, especially in remote or hybrid work settings.
Understanding: Highlights the need for continuous learning and viewing issues from multiple angles. It’s about developing deep knowledge rather than just surface-level information.
Interconnectedness: Recognises that in our global, digital world, everything is linked. It involves understanding how different roles connect and the broader impact of our actions.
In this instance, below is how one might use CHUI.
Community:
- Co-design with diverse user groups. This ensures that designs are inclusive and meet the needs of various communities.
- Foster inclusive design practices. By considering different cultural, social, and economic backgrounds, designs become more universally accessible.
- Create solutions that strengthen social connections. This aligns with the community aspect of CHUI, designing products or services that bring people together.
Health:
- Prioritise mental and physical wellbeing in design. This could involve creating ergonomic products or digital interfaces that reduce eye strain and promote good posture.
- Design for accessibility and reduced stress. Ensuring that designs are usable by people with different abilities and don’t create unnecessary stress or frustration.
- Incorporate biophilic design principles. This involves bringing elements of nature into the design, which has been shown to improve wellbeing and reduce stress.
Understanding:
- Deep user research and empathy mapping. This helps designers truly understand user needs, motivations, and pain points, leading to more effective solutions.
- Iterative design with continuous user feedback. This ensures that designs evolve based on real user experiences and needs.
- Design for intuitive learning and skill development: Creating interfaces or products that are easy to understand and help users develop new skills over time.
Interconnectedness:
- Design for interoperability and ecosystem thinking. Considering how a design fits into the larger ecosystem of products or services that a user interacts with.
- Consider broader societal and environmental impacts. This involves thinking about the ripple effects of a design on society and the environment.
- Create solutions that enhance human-to-human connections. Designing with the goal of facilitating meaningful interactions between people.
Human-centred design should extend to the workplace – whether in the office or a remote setting. The temperature of the already hot topic of where people work was dialled up a fortnight ago, when Amazon decreed a five-day back-to-the-office mandate.
LinkedIn shared timely data highlighting how companies are hiring now. Interestingly, the professional social media platform’s Economic Graph showed that hiring for fully remote roles is generally declining, with a 6.2% decrease year-on-year at large companies. Meanwhile, small companies are reversing the trend with a year-on-year 2.3% rise in remote hires. By contrast, larger companies are seeing significant growth in hybrid work models. Which organisation can say it has perfected the magic formula?
The past
The date of the aforementioned Accurate talk, to mostly HR professionals, was delivered on September 19 – the same day American entrepreneur Melville Bissell patented the carpet sweeper back in 1876. I know what you’re thinking – what does a mechanised carpet sweeper have to do with human-work evolution in the digital age?
Melville and his wife Anna Bissell owned a crockery shop in Michigan, where dust and breakages were daily occurrences. So Melville developed a carpet sweeping machine to keep the family store always tidy. It was so effective that word spread, demand rose, and soon, the Bissells were selling far more carpet sweepers than cups and saucers.
Today, five generations later, the family-run Bissell Inc. is one of the leading manufacturers of floor care products in North America in terms of sales, with a vast market share.
When Melville invented his device, he didn’t know he was starting a revolution in home cleaning. He was trying to solve a problem, to make life a bit easier and better.
Similarly, we are still determining precisely where our explorations in the digital age will lead us.
But if we approach them with curiosity, with kindness, and with a commitment to our shared humanity, I believe we can evolve human work so that’s not just more efficient, but more fulfilling. Not just more profitable, but more purposeful.
I urge you to go forth and explore, be curious, be kind, and be human. That’s where the real magic can be found.
Statistics of the month
- PwC’s Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey suggests we’re on the brink of a “Great Resignation 2.0,” with 28% of employees planning to change jobs – up from 19% in 2022.
- According to HiBob research, almost a quarter (24%) of Brits would replace all younger generation workers if they could. Further, 70% of companies struggle to manage younger-generation employees.
- The above study found that Gen Zers are causing managers headaches around issues with attitudes towards authority (41%), emotional intelligence (38%) and levels of professionalism (34%).
Stay fluxed – and get in touch! Let’s get fluxed together …
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Oliver Pickup 