Having advised the Founders of Apple, Airbnb, Glossier, Snap and many more, FNDR provides other Founders with a radical, practical and unique perspective on their business. https://www.fndr.co - Medium

FNDR - Medium

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*wfH1rVF1p-hcswSovhh4dQ.png" /><figcaption><a href="http://calvaryfisher.com">Illustration: Calvary Fisher</a></figcaption></figure>What courting in quarantine taught me about the future of relationshipsAside from putting a nice shirt on over sweatpants, prepping for my most recent date was like most dates I’d been on before. Getting past the awkward formality of setting up the Zoom call wasn’t a big deal either. But as soon as my Hinge match, a girl that I had only chatted with for a few days, popped up on my screen, I was in her bedroom — on the first date. Social life in quarantine made it clear that our relationships are never going to be the same.Staying home during a pandemic is an act of compassion; but dating during a pandemic is an act of survival. When almost everything else in our lives stopped, daters defied the dread by doing whatever we could to close the social distance. We’re social animals, after all. Building relationships is the primary directive of our species.And for the last 20 years, we’ve tried using tech to help us with those relationships. So far, the result has been that more of our interpersonal interactions (the ones that natural selection refined over generations) are being replaced by words on a screen. We text more than we speak. We like more than we love. And feeling blindsided by our own inventions, we blame them for commoditizing our communications and driving us further into opposite corners of ideologies. We should be asking why, when technology helps us do almost everything else in life, it’s not working well enough for that which is core to our being.Of course, it’s too soon to tell if virtual relationships, romantic or otherwise, are really any better than what we were trying. But it’s our only option as we are all thrust into history’s greatest social experiment. And like new code in a program, the human algorithm seems to have embraced this new digital literacy without a glitch (mostly — unless you’re a parent homeschooling right now and you hate me for suggesting that the transition has been easy). We’ve proven that these not-so-new technologies can work. They’re definitely functional. Now armed with another set of tools meant to connect us, the question is: what does it take for us to maximize their benefits?Virtual IntelligenceFive minutes into my first virtual date, I realized this was a whole different game. With no distractions, there was an entirely new focus on one another. Somehow even looking at your phone feels much more rude in virtual. So, even as I was embarking on a new conversation, I was wondering what the new virtual decorum looks like.We know a majority of our communication is non-verbal, something we’ve been missing out on for decades of lifeless chat boxes. Now that we see each other, what are the new rules of body language in a virtual space? Sure, crossed arms are still a sign of defense and hands to the lips may (un)intentionally signal “I wish you would stop talking.” But what does it say when your virtual date never turns off their virtual background? (what are they hiding back there?)You can see this new digital body language manifesting in professional environments, too. Like what does it mean when a client goes off mute while you’re talking? What are the rules about peeking at notes or Google during an interview? Are students allowed to be visually absent from class? As we morph into avatars on a screen, we’ll need to discern a brand new set of social cues. To build relationships in the future, we’ll need a digital layer to our emotional intelligence: virtual intelligence.Economy of LoveBy our 3rd date, Quarantina and I were recreating classic game nights with the app Houseparty. One of many apps and virtual features booming in the coronaverse.The social apps of B.C. (Before Covid-19) enabled us to connect with more people than ever. But by design, they let us exceed Dunbar’s number, the ideal number of relationships our monkey brains can handle. At least for now, it’s hard to be virtually intimate with more than 100–150 people. Think of the people whose faces you’ve seen on a screen since the shutdown. That’s your tribe. That’s your natural social network. And we should expect to see more innovations that help facilitate these tight-knit community interactions.The last recession brought us disruptive ways of doing business. Uber, Airbnb, Venmo: they invented entirely new economies, ways to think about work, assets, space, and money. In the next wave, we can repurpose our tools to fulfill the original promise of the internet, to bring us closer together. If the last era made a business out of our relationships, can this one make relationships our business? Now that we’ve over-indexed so far on satisfying our social desires, can we build businesses that better serve our social needs? What metrics do we need to build an economy of love?Love isn’t blindNow that we’ve been dating virtually for a few weeks, I can honestly say that I’ve never grown closer to anyone that I met on a dating site. All without physical touch. Which got me wondering which senses we actually need most to create a bond. And what might change when we’re able to see each other in person?Netflix’s dating series, Love is Blind, was an experiment that set out to prove that people would be willing to spend the rest of their lives with someone before ever having seen them in person. Couples dated for weeks inside pods where they could only hear the other person before deciding whether or not they would marry them. Of 50 singles, only 5 couples were willing to get engaged. And of those 5 couples, only 2 actually tied the proverbial knot. So the show actually proved that, in most cases, those visual and physical cues programmed into us are essential in establishing a real connection with someone.The uncomfortable reality is that our physical interactions will never be the same. A consciousness of distance will remain. Dr. Fauci and others have called for the death of the handshake, a symbol of good faith dating back thousands of years. More solutions that minimize our need to put our hands on anything ever again are popping up by the day. And plexiglass barriers will create more borders between us than any walls ever could. A heightened sense of bacterial and infectious possibilities may be with us for generations. So in a touchless world, we’ll need all the closeness we can get. Without physical sensations, we’ll need tech to bolster our other senses, like our ability to see one another.The Valley BeyondMaybe this has been my most meaningful online dating experience because I shared a natural chemistry with this wonderful human on the other side of the screen. But I can’t help but think that the circumstances had a lot to do with it. COVID-19 has forced all of us to embrace new vulnerabilities. A visual vulnerability that brought outsiders into our most private spaces. A viral vulnerability that made us worry that we could become the next statistic. A collective vulnerability that prompted an urgency to share our time with loved ones, whether we knew them before or not. Do isolation and vulnerability make it easier to get closer to someone else because they force us to become better acquainted with our own nature? Do they make us better daters?In this heightened state of self-awareness (“how am I feeling today?” has become both an essential physical assessment, and an existential check in) we’re relying on a suite of digital platforms to help us navigate these vulnerabilities, together. Dating apps have made some adjustment during the pandemic, but are they missing a larger opportunity to play a more important role in developing deeper relationships? If Tinder is an app that celebrates the single life and Hinge is the dating app designed to be deleted, where’s the app that meets somewhere in the middle and helps me both find and foster love? Dating apps today were designed to help us meet IRL, handing us off to other digital tools to fill in the gaps. Rather than being disposable matchmakers, can dating apps play a role in developing emotional, intellectual, and spiritual connections? Is the Hinge-to-Zoom, or Tinder-to-Facetime hand-off inevitable, or could dating apps stick around and be part of the date?The Valley Beyond, like in HBO’s Westworld, is the unknown world ahead of us. We don’t know what is waiting for us on the other side. But we do know that we want to build this new world better and our digital tools will help us get there. In a world where more relationships begin like mine did, we’ll depend on the digital realm to create emotional bonds as well as efficient connections. But, if things work out, I’ll have to experience these future developments in digital dating vicariously.<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=2ef207b0c850" width="1" height="1"><hr><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/digital-intimacy-in-the-valley-beyond-2ef207b0c850">Digital Intimacy in the Valley Beyond</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r">FNDR</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Digital Intimacy in the Valley Beyond

What may have felt like idealism, is now fundamental.<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*wjXmRKbE5t6B9webUd8QxQ.png" /></figure>Just a little over 3 months ago, I found myself hopeful of what we could achieve at the start of this new decade. Fueled by an awareness only possible through reflection, perspective and space, my sights were set on identifying a next wave, filled with idealism and hope for a better way forward for business.<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Qz-Dl0vnZCpJlgTqbLL6hA.png" /></figure>That idealism focused on a series of shifts we were beginning to see in business (and a new generation of Founders):<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*iqX93IsHd4nkWNPMBf6X5g.png" /></figure>I held a whole lot of hope that, with time, our values as consumers and businesses would evolve. That with the daily efforts of Founders and their teams we could rally, and eventually we’d build better systems, better models and make much needed change.But with this Covid Crisis these shifts have gone from being ‘nice to haves’, to ‘must haves’. From a form of Idealism to true Necessity.<blockquote>“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” - Warren Buffett</blockquote>This shared experience of sudden human and economic interruption, is pulling the water from the shore and revealing the truth beneath the surface.Chasing the American Dream, we’ve misunderstood economic success as human success, building systems around the wrong metrics: We’ve praised business growth, over the basics of the bottom line; we’ve given over control of our data, attention and privacy to technology all for the ease, speed, efficiency and convenience; we’ve used technology to distract us from reality and to service our every want, while ignoring our needs; we’ve outpaced ourselves with the new speed of life and we’re losing our balance, and connection with each other.What we’ve done to make business succeed, has not protected our humanity along the way. Our collective focus on financial maximization has left human needs behind, and the ‘human recession’ is no longer a theory. We’re in it.We are in the middle of a re-evaluation taking place on both an economic(macro) and a human(micro) level.Our daily lives are marked with a dramatic economic backdrop — unemployment at the highest levels since the 1940’s, stock market circuit breakers, bailout packages, income inequality runs rampant, daily infection and death total ticking across the screen, signals of a long and painful recession, an unknown end and certainly no signs of a viable playbook from government leadership. All macro signals that the systems are beyond broken.And yet, in some ways it’s been a very human crisis that has reminded us of what truly matters. When faced with adversity and a system that has left our human values behind, we’re able to clear through the noise allowing our humanity to shine: getting back to the basics, reconnecting with the family unit, looking to rebuild ‘the village’, unlocking relatability through shared experiences, sharing humanity from our homes, finding ways to live sustainably, and discovering new ways to commune. With perspective, space and no small dose of desperation, the Covid Crisis is forcing a values reset.In whatever way we get through this, the world will not be the same. We need to take stock and ask ‘what kind of world do we want?’ and realize we all have a role to play in how we move forward. New systems will need to be built in new ways that reflect these new sensibilities and values. As we accelerate the next wave, which companies will we want to spend time with?…… Perhaps the ones who define a new value proposition around both business &amp; humanity succeeding.<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=623700f6b9ed" width="1" height="1"><hr><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/accelerating-the-next-wave-623700f6b9ed">Accelerating the Next Wave</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r">FNDR</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Accelerating the Next Wave

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Wh7IMXpeDwQNUdUJL-URoA.png" /><figcaption>Illustration: <a href="https://www.calvaryfisher.com/">Calvary Fisher</a></figcaption></figure>User Experience vs. The Human ExperienceSmooth, Seamless, Intuitive, Ergonomic, Sleek: the gold standard of experience design in the digital age. As the mediums of interaction change, our behaviors change to mirror them. On a macro level, we know humans are changing, but in our personal lives, it’s hard to catalog the effects, much less the implications on our wellbeing. Intuitive is predictable. Sleek becomes slippery. Smooth lacks grit. There’s an ongoing conversation amongst UX designers about digital humanism but a scarce few brands actually implement it on a mass scale.Somewhere between cheap thrills through instant dopamine, perfectly measured efficiency, and DMV-style tediousness lies a balance that will make you happier. This article is an exploration of that balance.<ol><li>THE DIGITAL GOLDFISH</li></ol>Do you ever open Instagram and not know why?If you stop and think about it, the buzzing of your phone is the technological manifestation of a nervous tick. An itch that is so meticulously crafted that even when it’s not pinging and prodding your attention will wander to it. We are in a symbiotic relationship with these amazing and aggravating little glass rectangles.Which leads to a second, more important question: Does it make you feel good?If you’ve been around marketing for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard this proverb: “The average consumer has a shorter attention span than a goldfish.” I’ve always wondered what that actually means. More than likely, this is just an interesting way to say, “make it short and make it good.” However, the fact that we’ve all nodded along to this comparison is more telling than the observation itself.The optimists will likely say that it is simply humans adapting to a new digital way of living. To the realists, this must be the result of a fast nervous planet. The pessimists will argue that it was better in their day, when things actually meant something. The ever-so-clever cynics will grin at their Facebook Inc. stock and wonder how much more advertising an ADHD generation can consume. As for me, I’m left wondering how you can determine the attention span of a goldfish.Goldfish aside, it feels as if we are moving incredibly fast. Ideas, content, conversations, and people are flickering past as we glide like a bullet train through our day-to-day. More people are texting and driving, flitting between web pages at work, and struggling to stay focused on this article. We’ve created a sea of digital information and the average person is alternating between skipping across the surface and frantically doggy paddling to stay afloat.I do not know yet if this is a good or a bad thing for the human condition. But I can sense that The Great Acceleration is happening. You feel it. We all do.2. THE AGE OF ANXIETYanxiety (noun) anx·​i·​ety | \ aŋ-ˈzī-ə-tē \ plural anxietiesDefinition of anxiety Medical : an abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physical signs (such as tension, sweating, and increased pulse rate), by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about one’s capacity to cope with it.Anxiety has surpassed depression to become the most prevalent mental disorder in the United States. The interesting thing about anxiety is that it’s caused by both too much and too little. You can develop anxiety because you are paralyzed, like a deer in the headlights, by an upcoming work week. #SUNDAYSCARIES. You can develop anxiety because you are worried that you’re not doing anything with your life and that you’ll die meaningless and alone. #MEIRL. It’s rooted in anticipation. It’s a cognitive disconnect between what the ego decides should be happening and what is happening. It’s the feeling of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damocles">Sword of Damocles</a> dangling above your head. Too much silence can be deafening.We built this for ourselves. Mankind has painstakingly, over generations and millennia, tamed the world. As billions and billions of people trod towards the future we’ve flattened and polished the inefficiencies of life. In the digital era, this smoothening is the pinnacle of innovation. Everything has been crafted with efficiency and convenience in mind.Everyone has their own custom-tailored bit of the internet. Your little slice remembers you, is molded to you, and tries its level best to deliver exactly what you want as you want it. We’ve built a world of our own design, and yet, we are uncomfortable in it.Consider this: You’re bored on a Thursday afternoon. You don’t want to do work but you need to get something done. You click around a website and buy something you only sort of need. You are delivered a fleeting hit of dopamine. The website remembers you. You check out in one click. #SELFCARE. It’ll be here Friday. Easy, seamless and efficient give way to smooth and slippery. This is exactly what we’ve decided we wanted. You get a ping on your phone. Your package has shown up. TY Mr. Bezos.You swear this used to make you happier.3. <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/zoomer">OK ZOOMER</a>By now, you’re probably dreading the impending “if these kids would just get off their darn Instagrams, they’d just be able to focus on pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.”For this first generation of digital natives, myself included, unplugging is no longer an option. The digital world and the physical one have melded into one existence and it is ridiculous to believe you can remove yourself from it. Humanity exists as much on the internet as we do in real life. Don’t believe me? Try to get a job, education, or house without creating a digital identity. If bootstraps still exist, they surely are made of ones and zeros.So that leaves us stuck between two extreme schools of thought. On one hand, the good-ole days, where things were harder but simpler. You might have had to walk both ways uphill in the pouring rain to get a Coke, but by golly did it taste sweeter (it was the cane sugar). On the other hand, The Great Acceleration, where mass has become multi-niche, attention is currency, and culture moves at a mile a minute. It’s enough to make your head spin.We’ve been so caught up in exploring how fast humans can go that we’ve forgotten that we have a breaking point. We’ve process-itized and optimized our human experience by designing for variables that don’t actually make human’s lives any better; only quicker. Leaving you with more and more time to stare at your reflection on the screen.It’s not that we’re doomed. Perhaps digital innovation just needs to have a quarter life crisis. Remember; we’ve had to deal with widespread internet for all of 25 years. In human terms, it’s a recent grad still finding out what it wants to make out of itself. It just needs to wake up in the middle of the night sweating and wonder if anything it’s doing will actually make anyone happy.We are facing a conflict between what we want and what we need. We want systems that reflect the potential of mankind. We build systems for our idealized version of ourselves: rational, productive, driven. These mythical “users” will interface perfectly with the mechanism and accomplish the goal as quickly as possible. And yet, humans aren’t just users, they are humans. We are imperfect creatures trying to build a perfect world and then wondering why we feel out of place in it. The digital natives designing our interactions aren’t just writing code, they are laying the building the architecture of a new human experience.We are starting to get there. If Instagram is your social media garden perfectly groomed, Snapchat is playing with your dog in the mud. Snapchat was, at its core, unpolished, inefficient, and incredibly fun. There’s room for both refinement and eccentricity, but one makes better memories. Hinge made its name on a clever profile system that pushes you to buck up and actually go on some awkward first dates instead of just shopping for hot singles in your area. Hipcamp encourages city dwellers to get out of their comfort zones and explore. All of these companies have managed to build experiences with surprises, texture, a little bit of struggle, and ultimately meaning.The next generation is on the way, nipping at the incumbents’ heels. With a little luck, and a lot of hard work, they are going to build digital analogs to the human experience. It’ll be amazing, revolutionary, and generate a ton of value for shareholders. All I’m asking is that they remember that we are not as fast and as smooth as the machines we create.<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=2e519695b6f2" width="1" height="1"><hr><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/the-smoothening-2e519695b6f2">The Smoothening</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r">FNDR</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Smoothening

We’ve stopped investigating and are living in a state of negligence.“Illusion is the first of all pleasures” — Voltaire<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*HWM_OyNZ3dzLGLA1Xyn5mw.png" /><figcaption>Illustration: <a href="https://calvaryfisher.com/">Calvary Fisher</a></figcaption></figure>Technology and humanity have become inextricably linked and it’s more pressing than ever to understand the impact on our collective consciousness.Reflecting back on the last ten years of technology, we saw social networks promising connection morph into social media platforms measured on performance, an overabundance of information designed to be shared not processed and the rise of machine learning, AI-powered algorithms laden with bias.We’re living in a dopamine-driven economy, addicted to algorithms that perpetuate our bias. Drowning in information but starved for knowledge. The underlying impact is a sense of urgency leading to flash decisions and closing the aperture on curiosity.What does the world become when all that’s left are echo chambers and confirmation bias? What does it mean for individuality when groupthink takes over? What is our responsibility when <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/08/false-news-spreads-faster-than-truth-online-thanks-to-human-nature/">falsehoods</a> spread faster and farther than truth online?These questions were sparked after I read an article about a liberal Jewish boy who was drawn to the darkest corners of the Internet and joined the alt-right at the age of 13. Three years later, after returning to digital consciousness, he wrote about his experience in<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90438818/i-became-part-of-the-alt-right-at-age-13-thanks-to-reddit-and-google"> Fast Company</a>.What started as a search for belonging at an impressionable age left him believing that the wage gap was a fallacy fabricated by feminists, that black Americans committed homicide at a higher rate than whites, and that Jews controlled global financial networks.The line between fantasy and reality is thinning in our society as a whole, and especially among our youth.<a href="https://news.utexas.edu/2006/11/27/young-children-learn-to-distinguish-between-fact-and-fiction-research-at-university-of-texas-at-austin-finds/"> Studies</a> have shown that children are able to distinguish between reality and fantasy between the ages of 3 and 5, but what happens when we, as a culture, become untethered from reality?Sascha Baron Cohen gave a<a href="https://www.adl.org/news/article/sacha-baron-cohens-keynote-address-at-adls-2019-never-is-now-summit-on-anti-semitism"> poignant keynote</a> at last year’s ADL awards capturing the state of our times with clarity:It’s as if the Age of Reason — the era of evidential argument — is ending, and now knowledge is delegitimized and scientific consensus is dismissed. Democracy, which depends on shared truths, is in<a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2019/democracy-in-retreat"> retreat</a>, and autocracy, which depends on shared lies, is on the march. Hate crimes are<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/us/hate-crimes-fbi-report.html"> surging</a>, as are murderous attacks on religious and ethnic minorities.In 2016, while Trump’s Presidential Campaign was charging full steam ahead, Oxford Dictionary announced their word of the year:<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37995600"> post-truth</a>, reflecting what it called a “highly-charged” political 12 months. It is defined as an adjective relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals.In 2017,<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/02/fake-news-is-very-real-word-of-the-year-for-2017"> fake news</a> was the word of the year by Collins Dictionary.The spread of disinformation doesn’t just impact us politically. In the last three years we saw status seeking Millennials flock to the non-existent <a href="https://tandem-interactive.com/fyre-festival-social-media-marketing/">Fyre Festival </a>(a marketing campaign that relied heavily on social media tactics), families follow deadly health advice from <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/fake-news-health-facebook-cruel-damaging-social-media-mike-adams-natural-health-ranger-conspiracy-a7498201.html">Facebook</a> and flat Earth conspiracies spread around the globe on <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-49021903/flat-earth-how-did-youtube-help-spread-a-conspiracy-theory">YouTube</a>.The democratization of online platforms and conversations around free speech have created an unruly landscape where anyone can upload anything, at any time, from anywhere. And our appetite to indulge in internet absurdities without question leading us down a dangerous path.We’ve put too much trust in the hands of predictive AI, targeting and big tech. Ultimately removing something<a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/2014/07/what-makes-us-human-our-innate-curiosity-and-our-ability-laugh"> innately human</a>: our ability question, to ask ‘why’. Spend time with anyone under six and they’ll ask a string of questions starting with ‘why?’We don’t fact check, we throw out outrageous claims as justified truths. We read headlines but not the whole article. We buy Instagram brands and are disappointed when its quality is poor and 10x smaller than we thought when scrolling the 4:5 frame.The Internet has its own language and wraps everything in it, from the profound to the profane, making every topic of the same importance. This flattened space holds no weight or repercussions. We consume Trump tweets about war in Iran next to memes of baby Yoda next to dinner recipe ideas. Time has bent on this new plane and nothing has a lasting impact. We are living in a new form of surrealism. One we can’t escape or look away from.Technology has made things easy, convenient and efficient. But the better technology gets at automating tasks and anticipating our behavior, the greater the threat to our own skills. We’re thinking in memes, talking in Tweets, learning from Reddit and dependent on Google for our answers while reasoning, <a href="https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/7/32082-are-we-losing-our-ability-to-think-critically/abstract">critical thinking</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/09/stanford-psychology-expert-most-important-work-skill-of-the-future.html">focus</a> are weakening.In a world where we can find exactly what we’re looking for, confirm any belief possible, and follow it as the rule, we need to bring back a sense of skepticism. To question and be curious about what is served up to us.Skepticism will become a critical skill for the future.Skepticism is defined as:doubt as to the truth of somethinga person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factualSkepticism helps scientists to remain objective when performing scientific inquiry and research. It forces them to examine claims (their own and those of others) to be certain that there is sufficient evidence to back them up.The Greek word skepsis means investigation. When we investigate, we bring a healthy dose of questioning to a seemingly solid case. We become inquisitive and soften to new ideas. Our curiosity is piqued. Curiosity is an essential tool in understanding differing opinions.In the<a href="https://hbr.org/podcast/2015/04/brian-grazer-on-the-power-of-curiosity"> words</a> of Brian Grazer, [curiosity] empowers– enables me to have a better, more accurate sense of what ideas feel authentic and what ideas feel inauthentic or copycats of other ideas. So in my– in the business of storytelling, you look for– you know, storytelling meaning movies or television or documentaries– you’re looking for originality.You’re looking for originality in the subject, and you’re looking for originality in terms of a point of view. And having all these different sort of curiosity conversations and being interested in other people and other subjects, it gives me a deeper, richer filter in which to create ideas and hear ideas.I propose three ways to bring skepticism to the Internet, starting with the individual, expanding to big tech and infiltrating our education system:<ol><li>From groupthink → To independent working minds</li></ol>In our personal life, we need to identify our own filters blocking us from reasoning and empathizing. To be a little more curious. To entertain other sides of a story and make our own assumptions. To welcome, challenge and understand diverse schools of thought.2. From algorithms confirming bias → To algorithms that prod for skepticismBig tech needs to take responsibility for the impact they’re having. How can we rearchitecture these platforms with new behaviors and the whole human in mind?3. From sourcing papers → To spotting fallaciesOur education system needs to be redesigned for the Digital Age to help the next generation of leaders identify false claims and spot deepfakes. Thinking back to English class, we learned how to write papers, properly sourcing and citing our facts. What would a digital curriculum look like with this new objective?We must challenge people to come to the internet not with blind acceptance, but a healthy dose of skepticism. To be curious.We must preserve and protect our independent working minds. They’re becoming endangered species.Sources<ul><li>False news spreads faster than truth online thanks to human nature,<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/08/false-news-spreads-faster-than-truth-online-thanks-to-human-nature/"> TechCrunch</a> 2018</li><li>The number of young American girls turning to self-harm is skyrocketing, <a href="https://qz.com/1136366/the-number-of-young-american-girls-turning-to-self-harm-is-skyrocketing/">QZ</a>, 2017</li><li>I became part of the alt-right at age 13, thanks to Reddit and Google,<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90438818/i-became-part-of-the-alt-right-at-age-13-thanks-to-reddit-and-google"> Fast Company</a> 2019</li><li>Sacha Baron Cohen’s Keynote Address at ADL’s 2019 Never Is Now Summit on Anti-Semitism and Hate, <a href="https://www.adl.org/news/article/sacha-baron-cohens-keynote-address-at-adls-2019-never-is-now-summit-on-anti-semitism">ADL</a>, 2019</li><li>Fake news is ‘very real’ word of the year for 2017, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/02/fake-news-is-very-real-word-of-the-year-for-2017">The Guardian</a>, 2017</li><li>‘Post-truth’ declared word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37995600">BBC</a>, 2016</li><li>Fyre Festival: The Most Successful Social Media Marketing Campaign for a Failed Music Festival, Ever, <a href="https://tandem-interactive.com/fyre-festival-social-media-marketing/">Tandem Interactive</a>, 2019</li><li>REVEALED: HOW DANGEROUS FAKE HEALTH NEWS CONQUERED FACEBOOK, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/fake-news-health-facebook-cruel-damaging-social-media-mike-adams-natural-health-ranger-conspiracy-a7498201.html">The Independent</a>, 2017</li><li>Flat Earth: How did YouTube help spread a conspiracy theory?, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-49021903/flat-earth-how-did-youtube-help-spread-a-conspiracy-theory">BBC</a>, 2019</li><li>What makes us human? <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/2014/07/what-makes-us-human-our-innate-curiosity-and-our-ability-laugh,">Newsstatesman</a>, 2014</li><li>Are We Losing Our Ability to Think Critically? <a href="https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/7/32082-are-we-losing-our-ability-to-think-critically/abstract">Communications of ACM</a>, 2009</li><li>Stanford psychology expert: This is the №1 work skill of the future — but most fail to realize it, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/09/stanford-psychology-expert-most-important-work-skill-of-the-future.html">CNBC</a>, 2019</li><li>Brian Grazer on the Power of Curiosity, <a href="https://hbr.org/podcast/2015/04/brian-grazer-on-the-power-of-curiosity">Harvard Business Review</a>, 2014</li></ul><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=37471960328e" width="1" height="1"><hr><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/read-with-skepticism-37471960328e">Read with Skepticism</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r">FNDR</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Read with Skepticism

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*4C5LzpI1n2NuKKk3tkCV3g.png" /><figcaption>Illustration: <a href="https://calvaryfisher.com/">Calvary Fisher</a></figcaption></figure>How the internet created 5 Billion digital refugees.For almost thirty years we have tried to fathom the internet; how it came to be and what its lasting effect will be. To understand this sprawling metaverse of digital connectivity is no easier than looking upon a far away planet like Mars. A part of our consciousness yet something other, distant, out of sight, yet all too real.The internet is a dematerialized universal condition but to unpack it one needs to look at it through a universal metaphor of reality.Let’s imagine, if you would, an unimaginable scenario.What would happen if the entire world, or at least the majority bar a few bemused bystanders, showed up in one place on planet Earth thirsting for something?What you can imagine, if it was even logistically possible, is the ensuing chaos. A crushing weight of humanity beyond what the eye could see or the mind could comprehend. Without hierarchy, order, or hope of maintenance. A crowd that would overwhelm and break any existing best laid systems. A crowd that could not communicate from the center because the center ceased to exist. Left instead to distribute the information to the extremes through unstable word of mouth. What you would have is less system shock than total system failure.Now let us try to imagine what it is or was that drew them to this place. What was it that could cause this mass migration of humanity to up sticks, leave the safety and reality of their worlds behind and gamble on the idea that they might get some, some of whatever it was that started the stampede in the first place. What was it that first drew a curious trickle that would in turn cause the tectonic shifts that would create a human tsunami?What if it was ‘Attention’.As humans we are born needing attention, we crave being attended. Our mental, social and physical wellbeing are dependent upon a high level of attention.In early times it wasn’t a problem getting attention. We lived and moved in small groups and individuals in need of attention were easily identified and satisfied. But as our populations grew we had to fight for attention. Attention became scarce and, in turn, a privilege. Some had plenty and others had none. It became a form of wealth, as much about economics as human nature. The economically wealthy countries tended by nature to be attention rich whilst those worse off were attention poor. The levels of attention and conflict became related. High attention countries were peaceful and low attention countries were more prone to unrest. Or rich countries could be attended to and poor countries neglected. But even in the most well off societies it wasn’t equally distributed.As the world’s population exploded it became harder to find and even harder to get. We were being starved of attention. The privileged got greedy and the poor got needy. The world as we knew it was out of balance, an unsustainable need had overwhelmed our now limited resources of attention.So God created the internet and it captured the whole world’s attention. Here was an infinite space, a new gold rush with the promise of riches beyond our imagination, but most importantly, an attentive audience. An attention rich universe created on a universal platform upon which everyone could perform for attention. The internet turned us all into performers who sacrificed our humanity for a single Attention coin. It became the attention capital, drawing first the speculators followed by the dilapidated souls and, in time, the rest of us would follow, motivated by either our greed or our need. But this attention was different: it lacked origin, context or feeling. The performance, the unrequited cry for attention without the possibility for true resolution. It is a metric illusion based on an emotional delusion. This is not real or safe, we are eternal outsiders seeking to integrate ourselves by ingratiating ourselves to others. This distorts our sense of self. The reality of this connection defies our expectation for true detection.On the interface we are all refugees, untethered from origins or borders and starved of attention, we are seeking much needed solace. On the internet we can be free of origin, without origin we stand out (that is good yes?) yet over time we become unrecognizable to ourselves (that is bad no?). The interface does not assimilate it appropriates — a population too vast to be intimate it doesn’t so much give us attention then beg and steal from us.So where does that leave us at the beginning of the next chapter of our digital age?Now more than ever we need to see the wood from the trees so that we don’t mindlessly destroy the forest and starve ourselves of the wood. The greatest regret of the internet is that it is the stage upon which technology itself has been judged.Is technology good? Is technology great? I suspect it is both but the platform upon which it is measured on a daily basis distorts our ability to see the good from the bad. By making it [the internet] a destination, we corrupt and undermine technology’s true value as a tool.The legacy of the internet is that technology and our need for attention have become indistinguishably entwined. We crave it and loathe it all in the same breath.We need a renewed approach, one that disaggregates technology from the internet so we may look beyond the attention of the interface and see the TRUE intention of technology. A power tool which can help us meaningfully attend to ourselves and others around by putting our human EQ on top of technology’s IQ.<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=bd3dac6b1941" width="1" height="1"><hr><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/broken-fruit-bd3dac6b1941">Broken Fruit</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r">FNDR</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Broken Fruit

<div class="medium-feed-item"><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/upgrade-culture-were-all-obsolescents-c2f645555ff?source=rss----3fad8ed1ca76---4"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2600/1*nc1Kjit5VlSsQEdrWuWaFQ.png" width="4800"></a>We don&#x2019;t have to live at the speed of tech<a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/upgrade-culture-were-all-obsolescents-c2f645555ff?source=rss----3fad8ed1ca76---4">Continue reading on FNDR »</a></div>

We don’t have to live at the speed of techContinue reading on FNDR »

Upgrade Culture: We’re all Obsolescents

Will a new generation of Founders get it just right?<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*guy9cXLvLPssW5xiT50yGw.png" /><figcaption>Illustration: Calvary Fisher</figcaption></figure>In 1999, as we headed towards New Year’s Eve to ring in the new millennium, I was as intrigued as anyone about Y2K. Would the clocks stop? Would the ball stop dropping? Were the Doomsday predictions right? We all had this expectation that everything could collapse in on itself. The technology we had created might fail us, turn on us …But as the ball dropped and champagne glasses clinked, we began to realize that, perhaps, the Apocalypse wasn’t coming for us right then and there — it was as if we were given a free pass. We could go wild. Create, challenge conventionality, break things, build anew. Redistribute, democratize, capitalize! Connect, work, commute — all digitally. Speed everything up. Hide our insecurities, expose our vulnerabilities, and, with nothing more than a pointed finger, like, swipe and scroll through this new world…Every action became lighter, simpler, faster and more convenient. We saw technology as the promise we could take control, and we did.I can’t imagine going back to life without an iPhone, asking Google everything, shopping on Amazon instead of doing just about any errand or being able to hop on the Peloton before my son wakes up in the morning. We can just app our way through the mundane bits and pieces of life and fast-forward to the “good stuff”.But as I stop to take stock of just how far we’ve come in the first 20 years of the 21st century, I find myself wondering if all of this innovation has really changed us as humans for the better.With all of this innovation, have we really created something new or have we just solved for new methods of distribution with Amazon, Spotify, and Netflix? Have we really created connection or have we simply created new forms of distraction with Facebook or Instagram? Have we understood that we’ve crowned new monarchies while forgetting we wanted democracies? Have we even begun to realize the unintended consequences of it all or the price we are paying with our data?Are we really getting to the “good stuff” in life, in business, and for the world, or have we just created a new set of systems that we are all in service of?We’ve seen technology power a wave of innovation that has created new businesses and entire new industries, with progress unrivaled by any other time in history. But with it, we’ve become obsessed with the scale, and our sole metric has become growth. We’ve lost sight of the fundamentals of good business and created systems designed to maximize shareholder value at the expense of human impact. We’ve crowned new leaders because they could code, not because they had a higher order human ethics or ideals.With it, we’ve given up so much power to the leaders of the companies who drive so much of our lives, but we don’t understand their intentions or motivations, and they certainly aren’t accountable to us, the consumers.I’d propose that the focus of innovation needs to shift and that innovation as we’ve known it, is not the true opportunity of the future. To put it simply, technology has been outpacing the human condition and we need to create a new balance. We need to focus on innovation that not only creates value, but captures value for businesses, shareholders and, most critically, for the people participating in them.Luckily, the shift has already started, and we’re seeing it come to life working with some of the Founders creating this next wave. These Founders are not the same — they are not pure technologists, but they understand the human condition — they have multidimensional human experiences and are focused on designing for empathy, connection and trust. They are building right-sized businesses that are equally as good for the business as the people who will use them. They have a clear human intention and are driven to live up to it.At FNDR, we’ve identified three fundamental shifts the Founders of the next wave are creating:1) A shift from Disruption to Adaptation. Rather than breaking down and reclaiming existing solutions, they are creating new innovation around the way we want to live. If the ethos of the last wave was “move fast and break things”, the ethos of the new wave is “move forward and make things.”2) A shift from Distribution to Contribution. The first wave created never before seen access and methods of distribution. We have better, easier ways to get to the things we want, but did things fundamentally change? The next wave will succeed by solving for the content itself, not just for the way to get it.3) And, finally, a shift from Distraction to Interaction. The first wave created platforms to capture our attention and capitalize on us. The next wave needs to live up to its original intent of creating real human connections and interactions — those that bring true value to the end user.So as we wake up to a fresh decade, with renewed spirits and hope for a future filled with new opportunities, we need a new set of Founders to take up and lead the new wave. Maybe it won’t be as fast, or as big or as the last wave, but maybe that’s a good thing. I think we’ll all be better off for it.<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=9d085c40f081" width="1" height="1"><hr><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/the-next-wave-9d085c40f081">The Next Wave</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r">FNDR</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Next Wave

<div class="medium-feed-item"><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/business-is-the-new-performance-art-2a408832c66a?source=rss----3fad8ed1ca76---4"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2600/1*GkZZVmIGXnAkIg0WYxQBtw.png" width="4800"></a>As business becomes unreasonable, CEOs are ringleaders and clowns<a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/business-is-the-new-performance-art-2a408832c66a?source=rss----3fad8ed1ca76---4">Continue reading on FNDR »</a></div>

As business becomes unreasonable, CEOs are ringleaders and clownsContinue reading on FNDR »

Business is the New Performance Art

<div class="medium-feed-item"><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/the-gods-must-be-crazy-ed34e6ab8dc2?source=rss----3fad8ed1ca76---4"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2600/1*RDA__CpR4ocKP8LYAzzK1g.png" width="4800"></a>How we progressed from being God fearing to fearing the idea that we may be Gods<a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/the-gods-must-be-crazy-ed34e6ab8dc2?source=rss----3fad8ed1ca76---4">Continue reading on FNDR »</a></div>

How we progressed from being God fearing to fearing the idea that we may be GodsContinue reading on FNDR »

The Gods Must Be Crazy

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*zsq4ah4dXPlmv4v6idOeqA.png" /><figcaption>Illustration: <a href="https://calvaryfisher.com/">Calvary Fisher</a></figcaption></figure>A reflection on what happens when “tech-forwardness” takes us backwards.A few weeks ago, I paid a visit to Reformation on Main Street in Santa Monica. I walked into the minimally designed store with a clear plan: spend time exploring, and hopefully, leave with a dress that gave me a Lizzo-level of confidence.Not too much to ask, right? Reformation had something different in mind, and as a result, my experience was fully hijacked. Not due to a catty sales associate or obnoxiously loud music (@Abercrombie). It imploded because of a screen.On average, Americans spend more than ten hours daily in front of a screen, and I’m no stranger to this state of digital being. That week, I had been glued to my MacBook Pro, iPhone, TV, Kindle, iPad… and do Jumbotrons count? (went to a Dodgers game). What’s more, I had spent about an hour (surely an underestimate to make myself feel better) checking out Instagram, shopping apps, and the Internet in search of the aforementioned dress. I did not realize that I was suffering from pixel exhaustion until I walked in to Reformation’s store.The sales associate greeted me, and without hesitation, ushered me over to a flat-screen TV mounted onto the shop’s wall. She explained:“As a tech-forward company, we do it differently here at Reformation. Use the touch screen to choose what you’d like in your size, and it will appear in a changing room once you’ve pressed ‘try on.’”I glanced around at the surrounding racks of clothing, begging to be touched, not touch-screened. Awkwardly, I succumbed to the pressure of “shopping in a new way” and my fear I’d be on my way to getting “ok Boomered” if I did not embrace “tech-forwardness.” Back to the interface I went. The only difference being I had an audience of two sales associates watching me… watching a screen. I picked a floral-printed linen dress and went to the changing room where I opened two cupboard doors to find it “magically” ready for me. As I felt the fabric, I was disheartened by the scratchiness and dulled colors. And no, it did not look the same on me as the on-screen model (expected, but nonetheless added insult to injury).I left empty handed. And super annoyed.Turning to the Internet, I hoped that outrage culture had already targeted and destroyed this “new” shopping experience with cathartic precision. To my surprise, I found nothing but praise: “Reformation’s high-tech store reimagines clothing shopping from the ground up,” read one article. The sentiment went further: a stream of headlines littered with praiseworthy buzzwords like “innovation” and “disruption”.Entrepreneurial culture loves a classic “tech-forward” company story where founders rethink antiquated systems in the name of progress. There is a romantic fervor to crushing existing models in favor of new tech-powered frameworks. This rebelliousness resonates with a savvy consumer world that desires continual upgrades and novelty. It’s no wonder that brands spanning from food to weed to real estate all self-identify as tech companies. They claim technology drives their business, and therefore, they are a technology company. And while this may be in part true, the hilarity of Peloton and MedMen claiming tech as their differentiator has been lost on the public. In October, WeWork filed for an IPO… pitching as a tech company (the word “technology” appears 110 times in its prospectus). This flies in the face of their very core offering: a physical space for coworking. We are seeing that the obsession for “big tech” status spares no corporation these days. As demonstrated most recently by none other than McDonald’s. Yes, the golden arches will be powered by algorithms rather than lightbulbs and french fries. From an interface, AI-infused drive-through experience to its very own incubator in Silicon Valley, McDonald’s “does indeed feel a bit like shopping online” and has begun to turn into “a saltier, greasier version of Amazon,” reports The New York Times. And guess what? The kiosks don’t take cash. So while McDonalds designs for a “tech-future,” it turns its back on the 8.4m households that don’t have a credit or debit card. Up to 60% of their customers pay in cash, begging the critique that McDonald’s “tech-forwardness” strains, or worse, excludes the people that eat their food.There has been no considered pause to evaluate the ostensibly innovative nature of McDonald’s new customer-facing experience, Peloton’s riding experience, Domino’s ordering experience, or Reformation’s retail experience. At the end of the day, no matter how you slice it, we are simply staring at a screen more and more. Okay, you don’t have to leave your home to access a cycling instructor. Okay, you no longer have to pick up the phone to call — a pizza emoji will suffice. But, does that really move us “forward”? Does more screen time yet less sociability and tactility reflect the romantic idealism in disruption?The interface has begun to dilute a space that was once meant for human interaction. Reformation is a cautionary tale of when tech becomes fashionable. ‘Tech-Forwardness’ is in vogue, and the tax we pay is the rich, social interactions all human beings crave. We are so in awe of our supposed disruption, we don’t question its validity. Let’s face it, the interface is hardly a disruptive idea in 2019.Ironically, it was not a screen that delivered on the dress… it was a friend who lent me one of hers. Two glasses of wine and some sushi later, I was reminded that real “forward” momentum can simply be quality time spent with a friend. In person.A ‘reformation’ is defined as an action or process of reforming an institution or practice. Encouraging the omnipresent tech behaviors of scrolling, staring, and non-verbal communication does not qualify as a reformative practice. Indeed, when brands execute tech-forwardness by adhering to the status quo, their actions can be interpreted quite differently: they are conforming. As tech innovation roars and rages with disruptive intentions and the (virtual) standing ovation of an easily excitable audience, many businesses are in danger of confusing perceived progress with actual momentum, of being conformists disguised as reformists.<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=5269191374c2" width="1" height="1"><hr><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/the-new-conformists-5269191374c2">The New Conformists</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r">FNDR</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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