It’s easy to imagine that talent is a magical gift, and that we’ll know it when we see it (and that you have it or you don’t).
And yet, over the years, Star Search has rejected each of these musicians, picking someone else to win the competition:
- Aaliyah
- Britney Spears
- Christina Aguilera
- Justin Timberlake
- Usher
- Alanis Morissette
- Beyonce
One could argue that they’re simply incompetent at judging talent. Perhaps, though, it’s a lesson about the futility of getting picked and the hard-won process of developing a skill and learning a craft.
A star might simply be someone who persisted long enough to combine skill and luck in a way that others celebrate. Persistence, skill and luck, over time.
PS Hank Green (!) created today’s Bongo.
December 3, 2024
A little faster is a market advantage.
A step change in speed changes the market entirely.
Fedex was faster mail. It allowed them to grow and profit.
Email, on the other hand, completely changed communication.
In the discussions of AI, most people are failing to consider the step change in speed. A logo made in Kittl might not be as magical as one made by Milton Glaser, but it can be created 1,000 times faster. That means that the number of polished graphics being created will grow exponentially.
When an AI can give you a pretty good diagnosis in real time, it changes the way you deal with the medical system.
Just as email isn’t as humane or thoughtful or memorable as a hand-written letter, these faster alternatives aren’t better… they’re simply different. And, as the market often does, it prizes convenience and speed.
And so, good, fast and inexpensive is now possible.
This opens the door to two opportunities:
We can start building real-time insight into more and more components of our daily life.
We can start doing human-constructed creative work that’s worth waiting for. Great, not good.
Once again, it’s the mediocre middle that’s going to be devalued.
December 2, 2024
Since I was born, the planet has invented 6 billion jobs.
Technology is said to threaten the replacement of human labor, yet, somehow we’ve found useful activities for a rapidly growing population.
Coordinated without a coordinator, people go to work each day, often doing something that’s only vaguely related to their own sustenance. We show up and create value for strangers we might never meet. And somehow, all that effort comes together in just the right way. And then we do it all again tomorrow.
And, once someone achieves success and probably doesn’t have to do a job to feed their family, they not only show up to work some more, they often put in even more time and emotional energy than we’d expect.
It’s a system, a largely invisible one. Sometimes, we notice it when it creates inequities, unwelcome side effects and dead ends. But we often fail to notice that it has rebuilt our culture from the ground up, redefining how we spend our days and where we might find meaning.
We shouldn’t take it for granted, not if we want to make it better.
December 1, 2024
