Dispatch #22 | The end of an era, a digital extinction and song lyrics
DISPATCH #22 FROM THE OUTPOST OF POSSIBILITY
29_11_18
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The end of an era, a digital extinction and song lyrics
Welcome to this Dispatch from the Outpost of Possibility.
I’m playing around with the format of the Dispatch for the next few weeks so any feedback is most welcome.
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A few things thst caught my attention this week
A uni-leaver
Paul Polman has stepped down as CEO of Unilever. Despite recent travails around an aborted attempt to move HQ to Rotterdam, Polman’s real legacy will be the way he nurtured Unilevers credentials as one of the few vast multinationals with a genuinely ethical bent.
Beyond the marketing, Unilever really is a better business than most to those living around its factories or in its supply chains. It really is a better company than most in how it looks after its people. And it really is more innovative in how it creates new products rooted in ethical foundations.
Shareholder returns of over 290% during his tenure and growth from their leading ethical brands outstripping other brands in their protfolio points to a company that has provided commerical ballast to the business case for ‘multi-stakeholder capitalism’.
Millennials Are Just Like Their Parents. Only Poorer
New research states that rather than being seekers of ‘experiences’ and consuming less, millenials’ points of difference on expenditure essentially comes down to having less money than previous generations. This is a counterpoint to the accepted narrative around consumption of so-called millenial but it misses a fair amount of nuance around buying intentions, online vs offline and the impact of peers on individual consumption.
Biased composure
Gmail couldn’t help itself from showing gender bias in the Smart Compose feature. This further highlights how machine learning is an interesting investigator of where and how bias in society plays out.
Click-through health
Amazon is continuing to do interesting things in healthcare. This time, it is digitising and processing medical records. How on earth can anything – man or machine – read a doctor’s handwriting though?
Back to the future
The most valuable company in the world is, erm, Microsoft.
Evans above
Benedict Evans, a venture capitalist, on the future of tech. Sometimes a bit dry but some good stuff in here. Like eating mozzarella and crackerbread. Power through.
Stop. Video App time.
The story of the world’s most valuable startup, which you likely have never heard of: ByteDance ,the $75 billion video app behemoth.
Ctrl+Alt+Del
Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab on the next great (digital) extinction in Wired.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Are song lyrics getting more repetitive?
Onwards / Forward
Next Dispatch will be the same time next week. If you think someone you know would like to receive the next Dispatch then please forward on to them.
Here’s to what’s possible.
All the best,
Dom